The Mystical Tradition of the Eastern Church: Studies in Patristics, Liturgy, and Practice 9781463240615

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The Mystical Tradition of the Eastern Church

Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies

56 Series Editors George Anton Kiraz István Perczel Lorenzo Perrone Samuel Rubenson

Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies brings to the scholarly world the underrepresented field of Eastern Christianity. This series consists of monographs, edited collections, texts and translations of the documents of Eastern Christianity, as well as studies of topics relevant to the world of historic Orthodoxy and early Christianity.

The Mystical Tradition of the Eastern Church

Studies in Patristics, Liturgy, and Practice

Edited by

Sergey Trostyanskiy Jess Gilbert

gp 2019

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2019 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. ‫ܙ‬

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2019

ISBN 978-1-4632-4060-8

ISSN 1539-1507

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication Record is available from the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface and Acknowledgements ......................................................... vii Abbreviations .................................................................................................. ix Introduction: Mysticism and its Historical Manifestations ................ 1 Sergey Trostyanskiy and Jess Gilbert I. MYSTICAL THEOLOGY AND CHURCH MOTHERS AND FATHERS .................................................................................. 9 I.1. The Relation Between the Incomprehensibility of God and the Naming of God in the Theology of Pseudo-Dionysius.............................................................................. 11 Theodore Damian I.2. Toward an Understanding of Maximus the Confessor’s Mystical Theology of Deification: The Spiritual Sabbath / Eighth Day Sequence in Two Hundred Chapters on Theology ................................................... 27 Jess Gilbert I.3. Mystical Theology in the Writings of Gregory of Nyssa and Dionysius Areopagite ............................................... 51 Eirini Artemi and Christos Terezis I.4. Analogy in the Mystical Theology of Gregory of Nyssa: Transcending Negation and Affirmation ............... 69 Robert F. Fortuin I.5. Recapitulative Reversal and the Restoration of Humanity in St. Irenaeus ............................................................... 85 Don Springer I.6. Kindling Divine Fire: The Mystical Sayings of St. Syncletica ............................................................................................... 99 V.K. McCarty v

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II. LITURGY, SACRAMENTS, AND ICONS ...................................... 115 II.1. The Kingdom of the Holy Trinity and the Movement of a Community in the Sacrificial Spirit of Christ: The importance of Father Dumitru Stăniloae’s Mystical and Ascetic Vision of the Holy Liturgy .................................................................................................. 117 Ciprian Streza II.2. The Sacraments of the Church: Basis of Spirituality, Building Blocks of the Kingdom ...................................... 145 Philip Zymaris II.3. The Mystery of Representation: Theodore the Studite on Seeing the Invisible ................................................ 169 Sergey Trostyanskiy III. CONTEMPORARY PRACTICE AND APPLICATIONS ................. 191 III.1 Understanding My Avatar: Cyberbeing, BioDigital Personhood, and Fictional Transcendences from an Orthodox Perspective ................................ 193 Inti Yanes-Fernandez III.2. A Theory of Practice: A Meditation on Practice Itself ....................................................................................................... 217 Mark W. Flory III.3. The Prayer of the Heart as Method of Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapy......................................................... 237 Cameron McCabe III.4. Orthopraxis and Theosis: The Role of Ritual in the Training of the Mind ..................................................................... 249 Anthony Perkins Indices ............................................................................................................ 263 Subject Index .................................................................................... 263 Index of Names ................................................................................ 265

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This volume offers revised versions of papers originally presented at the December 2016 conference on “The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church,” organized by the Sophia Institute of Eastern Orthodox Studies (succeeded by the Institute for Studies of Eastern Christianity, or ISEC) and held on the premises of Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. In this volume we aim to introduce various contemporary Orthodox theological, philosophical, exegetical, and liturgical views on mysticism. The book reflects the modern Orthodox quest for a deep spiritual engagement with both the academy and the general public. The contributors represent a diverse group of Christian Orthodox thinkers and public intellectuals concerned with handing down tradition while also offering a proper response to the challenges of modernity according to Orthodox ethos and canons. The chapters are organized in a way to reflect their emphasis on patristics, liturgy, and practice. We believe that this work will be engaging and call for a dialogue among the Orthodox and non-Orthodox communities. We hope that it will further facilitate scholarly exchange on the mystical tradition of the Eastern Church. Judith Scott and Pia Chaudhari played essential roles in the success of the 2016 conference, and we gladly acknowledge their contributions. We also thank Vanessa Nichol-Peters, Director of Marist Italy, for providing an extraordinary scholarly environment in Florence through the visiting summer faculty program, which facilitated the senior editor’s work on this volume. And for his crucial assistance in bringing this book to fruition, we are beholden to Brice Jones, our editor at Gorgias Press. vii

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Finally, we want to express our heart-felt appreciation to the founder and director of the Sophia Institute, the Very Rev’d. Dr. John A. McGuckin—priest, teacher, mentor, and friend. Sergey Trostyanskiy and Jess Gilbert

ABBREVIATIONS Anal. Boll. ANF BAMS Behav. Brain Sci. BICS Bull. Am. Math. Soc. CCSG CTR DSAM FJIRS GRBS JAMA Psych. J. Abnorm. Psychol. JECS JTS JR KTR Mansi Mit. Olt. NPNF NRT PA PG PL

Analecta Bollandiana Ante-Nicene Fathers Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society Behavioral and Brain Sciences Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca Criswell Theological Review Dictionnaire de Spiritualité Ascétique et Mystique, Doctrine et Histoire Fu Jen International Religious Studies Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies Archives of General Psychiatry / JAMA Psychiatry Journal of Abnormal Psychology Journal of Early Christian Studies Journal of Theological Studies The Journal of Religion King’s Theological Review G.D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio Mitropolia Olteniei Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Nouvelle Revue Théologique Philosophia Antiqua Patrologia Graeca Patrologia Latina ix

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PO RSR RSPT RTK SC SEP Study Enc. SP ST SVTQ Syll. Class. Theol. Stud. Vetera Christ. Vigiliae Christ. Vox Bened. Ad Plat. AH Antirrh. CH De An. Dem. DN De Myst. EC Eps. Ep. 36 (ad Nauc) MT VS

Patrologia Orientalis Recherches de Science Religieuse Revue de Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques Revue Théologique de Kaslik Sources Chrétiennes The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Study Encounter Studia Patristica Studii Teologice St. Vladamir’s Theological Quarterly Syllecta Classica Theological Studies Vetera Christianorum Vigiliae Christianae Vox Benedictina: A Journal of Translations from Monastic Sources Letter to Plato Against Heresies Antirrheticus On the Celestial Hierarchy De Anima Demonstration On Divine Names De Mysteriis On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy Letters Letter to Naucratius Mystical Theology Vita Syncletica

INTRODUCTION: MYSTICISM AND ITS HISTORICAL MANIFESTATIONS SERGEY TROSTYANSKIY AND JESS GILBERT In his classic work, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Vladimir Lossky begins by asserting the indivisibility of theology and mysticism.1 Orthodox theologian Andrew Louth makes the same point in opening The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition.2 Moreover, both authors contrast this Orthodox stance with the divide in the Western church between theology and spirituality, evident in the Middle Ages but especially notable since the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. The present volume elaborates upon this bedrock stance of the Eastern Church by illustrating how contemporary Orthodox thinkers continue to integrate the theological and the mystical. Our topics range across a wide variety of areas, including patristics, liturgy, iconography, and spiritual practice. The following chapters present new, exciting, and provocative perspectives on Eastern Orthodox spirituality. And as we shall see, the authors, following Lossky and Louth, refuse to separate theology from mysticism. What do we mean by mysticism? While no approach will satisfy everyone, our working definition concerns the search 1 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (originally published in French in 1944; Cambridge: Clarke, 1957), 7ff. 2 Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), xi ff.

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for, and experience of, union with God. The Christian mystic claims direct or immediate acquaintance with God—unity with God, or a consciousness or perception of Presence, a profound encounter with the Triune God. It amounts to a revelation of hidden truths and results in inner or spiritual rebirth. Mysticism, then, can be the experiential apprehension of theology.3 All of these characterizations are as widespread as they are debatable, given the ineffable nature of mystical pursuits. More important, perhaps, than an air-tight definition is the fact that many religious people throughout history and around the world exhibit such a profound longing for communion and unitive encounter with the divine. With no pretense to being comprehensive, we can point to a few historical features associated with mysticism. The ancient Greek word µυστήριον (i.e., mystery) originally designated sacred rites of the pre-Christian mystery cults. These cults offered rituals of worship and reverence in order to establish a relationship with the divine. Gods were called upon to help mortal, ignorant human beings and, in particular, to protect from malignant spiritual powers. In order to annihilate sources of affliction and to attain the state of well-being, humans gave sacrificial offerings to gods, praying for favor and assistance, hoping thereby to deepen some sort of acquaintance with the divine. Such a relationship was a transformative experience, always perceived as carrying a quality of rebirth and redemption.4 Both the language and conceptual content of mysticism are fully present in Christian Scripture. We have multiple occurrences of the word mystical and its cognates in the Gospels and the Epistles. Thus, Jesus tells his disciples that the knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you. Ὅτι ὑµῖν δέδοται γνῶναι τὰ µυστήρια τῆς βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν (Matt. 13:11). But “those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God; for nobody understands them, since they are speaking mysteries in the Spirit. ὁ γὰρ λαλῶν γλώσσῃ οὐκ ἀνθρώποις λαλεῖ ἀλλὰ θεῷ, οὐδεὶς 3 William Harmless, Mystics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 228–33, 258–63; Louth, Origins, xi–xv. 4 Ibid., 260–61.



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γὰρ ἀκούει, πνεύµατι δὲ λαλεῖ µυστήρια” (1 Cor. 14:2). At times, the “mystery” can be revealed to people in order to make them change their mind (µετάνοια) and pursue the right faith. Hence Paul tells us that that the power of utterance was given him to proclaim the mystery of the gospel (γνωρίσαι τὸ µυστήριον τοῦ εὐαγγελίου) (Eph. 6:19). In general, we may say that anything associated with the sacred carries in itself a certain degree of mystery. By the third and fourth centuries, Christian theology as well as mysticism had become heavily influenced by Neoplatonic philosophy. Plotinus, Proclus, and others developed a sophisticated philosophical discourse on the soul’s search and ascent to the divine (the “One”). Much of the vocabulary and conceptual tools of Neoplatonism were taken over by the leading Christian thinkers—but not uncritically. Irreconcilable differences soon emerged, for instance, creatio ex nihilo and the essential doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity. These and other departures from Greek philosophy were true of even the most “Neoplatonic” of Christian theologians, Augustine in the West and Pseudo-Dionysius in the East; the latter it was who first wrote of “union with God” and who coined the term “mystical theology.” Like all Christians, both Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius affirmed God’s philanthropic outreach and His own pursuit of humanity, most notably in the descent of His Son: the mystery of the Incarnate Christ. The experience of the love of Christ is what allows human beings to respond in love, in all our creatureliness. A crucial part of this response is through the liturgical rites and symbols of the Church, the mystical body of Christ.5 Christianity contains various instances of symbolic understanding of sacred rites as well as holy texts. While encountering the symbols, the initiated was meant to make an ascent from mundane and profane to the sacred and the mystical. The mystical reading of scripture was consistently professed by Origen of Alexandria, who delineated various layers of meaning in the holy texts, aiming to demonstrate that it is to the highest (i.e., secret, mystical) sense that we should direct our

5 Louth, Origins, 192–200.

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gaze. Hence, texts and rites—indeed, one’s entire life—become multi-dimensional, carrying in themselves types and symbols, things that are both objects of their own kind and also something beyond that, revealing mystical truths. For instance, during the Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the clergy make a procession during the Major Entrance presenting the Chalice, while the choir sings the following verse: “We who mystically represent the cherubim sing the trice-holy hymn to the live-giving Trinity (Οἱ τὰ Χερουβεὶµ µυστικῶς εἰκονίζοντες, καὶ τῇ ζωοποιῷ Τριάδι τὸν Τρισάγιον ὕµνον προσᾴδοντες).” This verse embodies a transformative experience: the profane becomes sacred, and material acts carry deep spiritual meaning. This “symbolism” (and “typology”) of sacred rites does not to deny the reality of the Body of Christ. Rather, it tells us about the nature of the transformed bread which appears to be a mere bread to the uninitiated who are incapable of seeing beyond the tangible and mundane. It also tells us something about the initiated whose mode of subsistence transforms into a “super-human” angelic existence, capable of mirroring or imitating the cherubim. It is the initiated who knows the true nature of the consecrated material object. It is assumed that during the rite some secret is revealed by God to the initiated—a kind of truth concealed from the world. Hence, the mystic (τὸ µυστικὸν) event or occurrence must be kept in silence and secret. Any contact with the sacred also entailed that the recipient must be prepared to become partaker of it. Thus, only the initiated who properly cleansed themselves, or otherwise underwent a special preparation (e.g., ritual purification and fasting), could participate in the sacred occurrence. What kind of secret or concealed truth is revealed? It can be the knowledge of celestial or terrestrial matters, those that pertain to the nature of God, the schema of beings, the origins and destiny of the world. It can also concern some future occurrences in the light of the final consummation of all things. In general, it was a common contention among the initiated that sacred rites cannot be disclosed to strangers. In the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Eastern Orthodox still profess before the Eucharist: “I will not speak of your mysteries to your enemies.”



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In many cases, what is revealed goes just above and beyond our discursive faculty. Although we see things and participate in actions, we may not be able to create a coherent description of what has happened. Thus, the truth revealed may be ineffable in that we may not have a verbal form expressive of it. It is either grasped in its immediacy by some sort of imageless seeing (i.e., a non-discursive noetic faculty), or otherwise attained through an action that leads to union with God. Thus, we must keep quiet and pass it in silence, keeping it to ourselves—although this truth may at times be revealed in the holy writings. However, having been revealed, it still requires an exegetical key to be understood. God is merciful, and even if we cannot fully grasp the subject so as to be able to run it through the logoi and to explain it in rational terms, we are not completely deprived of the possibility of communicating sacred matters to the initiated. That which cannot be explained can be known otherwise by analogy. Hence, we may say that the object of our knowledge is such as to be unknown. However, we may also assume it to be isomorphic to some other object of which we have knowledge. Then we may argue analogically so as to ascribe a predicate to the otherwise unknown subject, thus communicating certain truth about it. This technique was heavily utilized by Christian and late antique philosophers. Cyril of Alexandria gave us some of the subtlest examples of such an argument when he speaks of the Incarnation, of the incarnate presence of God the Word and compared it to the heat being present in the iron, analogically implying that this is precisely how we should understand the ineffable presence. The mystical subject can subsist as something situated beyond being in the schema of existents. Sometimes it is spoken of as non-being, as, for instance, by Pseudo-Dionysius. Mystical subjects can be known by various faculties, i.e., mystical union, noetic vision, and, in a lesser degree, by discursive reasoning and imagination, etc. A more general sense of mystical knowledge can be embraced by the word faith. It is thus given to us through various faculties. In its ultimate manifestation it is a language that makes statements and offers a coherent set of propositions about that which is ineffable. This is indeed paradoxical since that which cannot be described

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must be kept in silence. Language cannot provide proper means in expressing its non-existence. However, it can make a detour and give us some grasp of the subject although it will indeed be imprecise and nonsensical. Often it is better to keep silent. However, in other cases, it makes sense to speak of that which is hidden to the strangers but revealed to those initiated in sacred rites. Or to show the way to open up the eye of the soul. There is always limit to our power of utterance as far as the sacred is concerned. At a certain point in order to keep pursuing a meaningful discourse about the ineffable subject (which is a deeply aporetic notion), the mystic must ascend from affirmations to negations, thus changing the mode of expression from kataphasis to apophasis. By doing this, he or she aims to clearly distinguish the ineffable, ingenerate and transcendent God from anything that is created. This is not to create a chasm between the two but to empathetically accentuate their radical ontological distinctness. God is beyond being. God is beyond affirmation or negation. The mystic can pursue discourse by offering various instances of compresence of opposite characteristics predicated of God. Hence, God is both Good (in the sense of essential Goodness) and not Good (in the sense of being above and beyond any perceptible or intelligible traits, Goodness being one of them). A thought carried out by the mystic is such as to be characterized by the compresence of opposites indicating that the normal conventions of reason, e.g. the Law of Non-Contradiction, do not apply to the ineffable subject. Ultimately, there comes a cessation of all intellectual activities and the Intellect finds rest and tranquility so as to give way to mystical union which bypasses reason in order to become one with the ineffable subject. This is indeed passed in silence. What is it that manifests God’s ineffable presence? We may immediately point to the Sacraments. In the Christian East the sacredness of the material world was always acknowledged due to its capacity to hold up the divine. Hence, the transcendent was thought of as revealed immanently in the material form. No unbridgeable gap was introduced and we up to this day perceive the material as being filled with the presence. This is indeed not to wipe out the distinction by



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turning one into another. However, the presence, not in essence, but in the form of activities (energeia) is postulated. The seven sacraments are good examples of that which contains the presence. In Christian circles, the primary sacraments were at times supplemented with secondary ones. Thus the sacramentality of icons and of the word of God (i.e., holy texts). The Orthodox Church has an ancient and immensely rich spiritual tradition that exalts mystical theology. At the same time, it fully embodies more public paths of a world-engaged and committed manner of living in society, the mysticism of liturgie après la liturgie. After the Neoplatonic Christian theology of Pseudo-Dionysius and others, this tradition was further enhanced during the fourteenth-century controversy over hesychasm. Gregory Panamas lifted up the tradition of silent prayer and mystical contemplation of and assimilation to uncreated divine energies. And in the mid-twentieth century this tradition was revitalized largely because of Lossky’s ingenious effort in The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. His inaugural theme of mysticism as the cornerstone of the entire Eastern Christian tradition was found both fascinating and puzzling, perhaps filled with multiple contradiction.6 However, ever since, it has been viewed as carrying a deep spiritual truth of the mystically oriented Eastern thought. This volume aims to set out different elements of mysticism and to elucidate different aspects of their manifestation. We hope that this volume will find its sympathetic reader willing—indeed, eager—to explore the deep and profound Eastern Christian approach to spiritual matters. It contains a wide range of themes revolving around mysticism: those from early Church accounts, from the patristic period (including the seemingly ever-popular subject of deification), and from more recent endeavors to find mystical sense in the most up-to-date developments, including cyber-technologies and post-humanism. Whether focused on the first century or the twenty-first, we believe that Eastern Orthodox connections between the mystical and the theological will continue to instruct and inspire. 6 See J. A. McGuckin, “On the Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church,” SVTQ 58.4 (2014): 373–99.

I.1. THE RELATION BETWEEN THE INCOMPREHENSIBILITY OF GOD AND THE NAMING OF GOD IN THE THEOLOGY OF PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS THEODORE DAMIAN PREAMBLE Pseudo-Dionysius is a controversial personality with respect to both his biography and his thought. He lived during the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the sixth. L. Montet wrote about Pseudo-Dionysius in the following terms: he was un de ces chrétiens platonisants, un élève, peut-être un ami de Proclus, aussi fervent dans sa croyance religieuse que fidèle dans ses doctrines philosophiques, excité par le désir de pacifier son âme en mettant en accord sa foi et sa raison.1

And according to Eric Perl, Dionysius both brings to a conclusion the Neoplatonic thinking that preceded him, and gives it a new development as his negative and mystical theology becomes an aspect of rational metaphysics2 that so much characterized his writings. It was the medieval humanist Lorenzo Valla who first raised the problem of the authenticity of Dionysius’ name. 1 Leon Montet, “Pseudo-Denys.” DSAM 3, col. 246. 2 Eric D. Perl, Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite (New York: State University of New York Press, 2007), 5.

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Valla was followed in his affirmations by Erasmus of Rotterdam and other scholars, especially from the Protestant Tradition. An important point that leads to the denial of his identity is the fact that Dionysius and his works were not mentioned by the Early Church Fathers, theologians or historians. There were many attempts to identify Dionysius with several authors of the first Christian centuries. Perhaps, the most recent one is that of Gheorghe Dragulin and Augustin Gh. Dragulin who, on the basis of an extensive comparative theological and historical study, think that Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagites was, in fact, Dionysius Exiguus.3 As the above quotation of L. Montet indicates, Pseudo-Dionysius was a Neoplatonic thinker, but he was also influenced by the Early Church Fathers, and at this point, Dom Denys Rutledge mentions especially St. Gregory of Nyssa.4 As for those who succeeded him, the Areopagite had the chance to be believed in his assumed identity and to enjoy a great credit and authority in the Church. An important, rather decisive contribution of his accreditation as a theological authority was that of Maximus the Confessor who, as Olivier Clément says, “a su l’équilibrer par une tradition plus ancienne, proprement existentielle et par un sens aigu de la liberté personnelle et de sa tragedie.”5 In order to highlight the great influence Dionysius had on the theology of the Church, I cite here Jaroslav Pelikan’s claim that St. Thomas Aquinas, alone, quoted Pseudo-Dionysius 1700 times!6

3 Gheorghe Dragulin and Augustin Gh. Dragulin, “Research on the Works of Dionysius Exiguus and Especially on Those Unknown until Now.” (in Romanian) Mit. Olt. 5 (1988): 24–68. 4 Dom Denys Rutledge, Cosmic Theology: The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy of Pseudo-Denys: An Introduction (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964), 13. 5 Olivier Clément, “Situation de la Parole théologique selon la Tradition Orthodoxe.” In Christos Yannaras, De l’absence et de l’inconnaissance de Dieu (Paris: Ed. du Cerf, 1971), 20. 6 Jaroslav Pelikan, “Introduction.” In Colm Luibheid, ed. PseudoDionysius: The Complete Works. Foreword, notes and translation collaboration by Paul Rorem (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), 21.



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Following the order of ideas indicated by the title, in this work I will first present Pseudo-Dionysius’ doctrine on the incomprehensibility of God, and then, that of the naming of God, after which I will examine the relation between these two doctrines. The conclusion will consist of a few general considerations on the subject as a whole.

THE INCOMPREHENSIBILITY OF GOD One of the most well-known characteristics of Dionysius’ theology is its apophaticism. This does not mean, however, that he is not at times cataphatic in his way of doing theology. Nevertheless, the via negativa remains the feature that imposed Dionysius as an authority in the history of Christian theology and mysticism. For Dionysius, no word or concept can reach, capture, or express the inexpressible Good, the One, the unapproachable Light, the Cause and Source of all unity, the superexistent Being, the Mind beyond mind.7 He stresses everywhere in his works the idea of the word’s inadequacy to present the reality of God. That is why the highest level of knowledge is the denial of any knowledge. In order to give a Scriptural foundation to his apophatic theology and to express it more precisely, the Areopagite, like St. Gregory of Nyssa before him, takes recourse in the example of Moses on Mount Sinai: But then he [Moses] breaks free of them, away from what sees and is seen, and he plunges into the truly mysterious darkness of unknowing. Here, renouncing all that the mind may conceive, wrapped entirely in the intangible and the invisible, he belongs completely to him who is beyond everything. Here, being neither oneself nor someone else, one is supremely united by a completely unknowing inactivity of all knowledge, and knows beyond the mind by knowing nothing.8

One can see better how and what Pseudo-Dionysius understands by his apophatic knowledge of God if one looks more 7 Pseudo-Dionysius, DN (in Colm Luibheid, ed.), 50. 8 Pseudo-Dionysius, MT (in Colm Luibheid, ed.), 137.

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closely at Dionysius’ doctrine of God. For him, God is hypertheos, God beyond God or God more than God; as Clément writes, “un cercle de silence est tracé autour de l’abîme divin, le Dieu logique est refusé.”9 The constant use of the word hyper (beyond, above) in relation to God, is one of Dionysius’ ways of stressing the divine transcendence.10 Thus, as Gregory Palamas explains Pseudo-Dionysius’ apophaticism, God is beyond antithesis between affirmation and negation, beyond unknowability, hyperagnostos,11 “superunknowable,”12 God is hidden in the superabundance of his light and that is where he reveals himself13 because God is “à la fois participable et inaccessible, d’autant plus inaccessible que participé, d’autant plus caché qu’Il est proche.”14 Here we already have the concept of coincidentia oppositorum in Dionysius’ teaching on God, the cohabitation of both Transcendence and Immanence in God at the same time, because “He is all things in all things and he is no thing among things.”15 In other words, “all that we know is knowledge of God, all that we have and are is the being of God. Yet God remains infinitely beyond the creature.”16 No one can reach the divine darkness, the unapproachable light17 where God is; even Moses saw, as Maurice de Gandillac says, only “le lieu où est Dieu,”18 or in the words of Piero Scazzoso, “si puó vedere

9 Clément, “Situation,” 23. 10 Piero Scazzoso, Ricerche sulla struttura del languaggio dello Pseudo-Dionigi Areopagita (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1967), 112. 11 Gregory Palamas, The Triads. Ed. John Meyendorff, trans. Nicholas Gendle (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1983), 121, note 9. 12 Pseudo-Dionysius, DN, 53. 13 Clément, “Situation,” 27. 14 Ibid., 28. 15 Pseudo-Dionysius, DN, 109. 16 Rutledge, “Cosmic,” 11. 17 Pseudo-Dionysius, Ep. V (in Colm Luibheid, ed.), 265. 18 Maurice de Gandillac, ed. Oeuvres Complètes du Pseudo-Denys L’Aréopagite (Paris: Montaigne, 1943), 36.



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solo il luogo dove Egli sta; il topos (place) è l’anima in preghiera, la Chiesa.”19 This “luminous darkness,”20 is the cloud of unknowing, a place where we arrive by knowledge beyond knowledge or beyond symbols and analogies. Dionysius writes: “I pray we could come to this darkness so far above light.”21 If he prays, he thinks that this is not impossible to realize, but “if we plunge ourselves into that darkness which is beyond intellect … we shall find ourselves speechless and unknowing.”22 This unknowing, for Dionysius, as Christos Yannaras wrote, defines the negation of God as being because God is nonbeing beyond any essence. Yet the negation of God as being does not mean that the essence of the nonbeing is God.23 With such a teaching about God, such a theology, it is clear and almost natural to understand that the theory of knowledge of God is a negative and paradoxical one. In Dionysius’ theological system, God is Cause of everything and beyond all things; consequently, any noetic knowledge is possible but insufficient. The metanoetic knowledge is more complete than the first one but it is not total because it does not exhaust the divine essence; nevertheless, it is the highest kind of knowledge that we have and ultimately, the most appropriate, in relation to God. As John Meyendorff writes, because God is none of what is created, the knowledge of God can be conceived in the Dionysian system, only by method of exclusion.24 This leads again to the idea of the “docte ignorance,”25 of the 19 Scazzoso, “Richerche,” 168. 20 Rutledge, “Cosmic,” 168. 21 Pseudo-Dionysius, MT, 138. 22 Ibid., 139. 23 Christos Yannaras, De l’absence et de l’inconnaissance de Dieu, d’après les écrits aréopagitiques et Martin Heidegger. Traduit du grec par Jacques Touraille. Préface d’Olivier Clément. Théologie sans frontières (Paris: Ed. du Cerf, 1971), 95. 24 John Meyendorff, Introduction. In The Triads, 13. 25 Edouard-Henri Weber, Dialogue et Dissensions entre Saint Bonaventure et Saint Thomas d’Aquin à Paris, 1252–1273 (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1974), 113.

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incomprehensibility, incognoscibility of God, agnosia. This means that one can know only the incognoscibility of God by means of the abstractive negation;26 we know God through unknowing,27 which is, as Pseudo-Dionysius teaches, to renounce to all knowledge and to enter into the darkness of unknowing, for the final unity with God, enosis, through radical ecstasis.28 Although this apophatic knowledge is so paradoxical, yet it is, for Dionysius, as Yannaras puts it, “le résultat de la communion personelle de l’homme et de Dieu, de la participation de l’homme à la divinité totale.”29 This personal participation in the divine life, however, is possible through the divine energies which, thus, become a foundation for the apophatic knowledge.30 Through these energies, God manifests the love for his creation, or his yearning; this yearning brings God into ecstasis31 “so that the lover belongs not to self but to the beloved.”32 Here Yannaras remarks: “Il est clair que ce que nous avons appelé connaissance apophatique s’identifie finalement à la déification de la personne humaine.”33 It is worthwhile to specify here, with Vladimir Lossky, that for Pseudo-Dionysius, unknowability does not mean agnosticism or refusal to know God;34 rather it means the knowledge of one’s own limits before the impenetrable, infinite and inexhaustible essence of God. Also, the fact that the transcendence of God is so much stressed by Dionysius, as for instance, when he speaks of the

26 Jan Vanneste, Le Mystère de Dieu (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1959), 205. 27 Ibid., 200. 28 John D. Jones, trans. Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names and Mystical Theology (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette Univ. Press, 1980), 93. 29 Yannaras, De l’absence, 105. 30 Ibid., 103. 31 Ibid., 119. 32 Pseudo-Dionysius, DN, 82. 33 Yannaras, De l’absence, 120. 34 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: James Clarke, 1957), 43.



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“inebriation” or the “drunkenness” of God,35 or of God as the “beyond beingly be-ing,” ón hyperousios, Dionysius does not mean either an empty God36 or an empty darkness37 nor a God whose person disappeared in an impersonal abyss;38 rather, he speaks of a superabundance of the divine essence, of a divine “superfullness,” hyperplérés.39 It is also worth mentioning here that, because of this personal inter-communion between God and man, in Pseudo-Dionysius’ understanding, knowledge of oneself leads to the knowledge of God,40 as does prayer and piety. Even more, prayer and piety are already knowledge of God.41 For this reason, Dionysius exhorts us to approach God with “a wise silence,” and only then “we do honor to the Inexpressible.”42

THE NAMING OF GOD For ancient people, as Anoushka von Heuer wrote, one’s name was not a simple designation of a person or a thing. The name was seen as a link between cause and effect and revealed the essence of things: “le nom est une limite, le nom encercle la personne ou la chose, la contient, dit ce qu'elle est. Seul Dieu n'a pas de nom puisqu’Il transcende tout.”43 From the first lines of the DN, Pseudo-Dionysius already stresses the idea of divine transcendence.44 He does that in order to show the framework in which the doctrine of the naming of God is going to be developed. It is also a clear indication 35 Pseudo-Dionysius, Ep. IX (in Colm Luibheid, ed.), 287. 36 Pseudo-Dionysius, DN, 54. 37 Palamas, The Triads, 14. 38 Yannaras, De l’absence, 103. 39 Pseudo-Dionysius, DN, 54. 40 René Roques, L’Univers Dionysien (Aubier: Montaigne, 1954),

242. 41 Ibid. 42 Pseudo-Dionysius, DN, 50. 43 Anoushka von Heuer, Le huitième jour ou La dette d’Adam (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1980), 8. 44 Vanneste, Le Mystère, 36.

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about the permanent tension which this doctrine implies, that tension between that which the name designates and the cause which generates that which is designated by the name.45 However, the fact that God is unknowable is the main assertion of the [as above] DN,46 although this may seem to be a work of positive theology. DN represents for Pseudo-Dionysius, as J. Vanneste mentions, a real theologia,47 which means, stricto sensu, the science about God. In Pseudo-Dionysius’ DN, God is spoken of under a multitude of names; he is Good, Cause, Source, Being, Beauty, Life, Light, Love, Unified, One, Differentiated, Ecstasy, Wisdom, Zeal, Mind, Word, Truth, Faith, Power, Righteousness, Salvation, Redemption, Inequality, Greatness, Smallness, Similarity, Dissimilarity, Rest, Motion, Equality, Omnipotent, Ancient of Days, Peace, Holy of Holies, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, God of Gods, Perfect, etc. The first name, “le plus vénérable,” is Good, Agathon, then Being, in relation to the Cause and others.48 For Dionysius, one can notice that each name implies the tension between Immanence and Transcendence because each name has something to say about God, but each name does not say enough and indicates a great silence beyond itself with respect to what it designates. Every name does not indicate only something that God has, but also something that God is; for instance, God is Good, wise, omnipotent but he is, at the same time, Goodness, wisdom, omnipotence par excellence.49 Or, in the words of the Areopagite, for instance, “in the super-essential being of God, the transcendent Goodness is transcendentally there.”50 This is another concrete example of how the theology of naming God in Dionysian thought reflects the coincidence of 45 Pseudo Dionysius, The Divine Names, 49–50. 46 Vanneste, Le Mystère, 23. 47 Ibid., 21. 48 Ibid., 24. 49 Jean Durantel, Saint Thomas et le Pseudo-Denis (Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan, 1919), 136. 50 Pseudo-Dionysius, DN, 54.



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opposites: already saying that God is Good, is a positive assertion; but the negative is implied here because this Good transcends everything, “its nature, unconfined by form, is the creator of all form; in it nonbeing is really an excess of being.”51 The Good, Dionysius writes, is the only true existence that gives being to everything.52 The Good, thus, is here even the Cause of being and, in this case, God is nonbeing, or beyond being. Up to a certain point, the Areopagite uses these names interchangeably. For example, as he says that the Good is Cause and the Cause is the Source of all things, ta panta,53 he also says that the Cause is the Life of the living, the being of beings, Source of all things54 or that Beauty is the Source of all things, “the great creating Cause,”55 and that all things are derived from the Beautiful and the Good.56 Because these names refer all to the super-essential transcendent divinity, in this point or aspect, they are the same in God. When they refer to the energies of God and God’s specific work in creation and especially in relation to the hypostatic Trinity, they designate different realities. The fact that he speaks separately in different chapters of different names does not indicate a multiplicity in God’s nature; rather, it indicates, as he specifies himself, the economy of the book he was writing. Speaking about the divine names and the divine deeds in creation, Georges Florovsky wrote that for Dionysius, “the multitudinousness of the Divine names signifies the multitudinousness of his deeds, without violating the essential simplicity and the supra-multitudinousness of his Existence.”57

51 Ibid., 73. 52 Ibid., 98. 53 Ibid., 56, 100. 54 Ibid., 51. 55 Ibid., 77. 56 Ibid., 79. 57 Georges Florovsky, The Byzantine Ascetic and Spiritual Fathers. The Collected Works, X (Vaduz: Büchervertriebsanstalt, 1987), 219.

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All of the attributes of God—Good, Cause, Being, Love Measure, One, etc.—in Dionysius’ thought are related to creation. It is in relation to cosmogony that he develops his cataphatic theology of naming God. He does that by staying faithful to the Scriptural revelation and this is evident from the abundant use of biblical references.

THE RELATION BETWEEN APOPHATIC AND CATAPHATIC THEOLOGY There may seem to be contradictions or ambiguities in the thought of Pseudo-Dionysius as, for instance, when he says that God is Being and then, that God is not being but the source of being. Through this kind of apparently confusing distinctions, in fact, Pseudo-Dionysius makes the distinction between the divine essence and the divine energies, between God’s attributes and what God really is in His hidden essence. This is the dynamics of his theology and the dialectics of his apophatic and cataphatic way of speaking about God. As Lossky wrote, like the divine energies, in Pseudo-Dionysius’ thought, the divine names are innumerable; the nature that they reveal remains unknowable, “a darkness hidden by the abundance of light.”58 However, as I mentioned before, Dionysius “makes a distinction between general divine names which he applies to the entire Holy Trinity, and hypostatic names.” Yet in doing that, he is careful to emphasize that the Trinity he speaks about, as well as the Oneness of God, are not to be understood numerically; they are super-numerical because God is beyond any number and measure.59 However, the Trinity, we find specified in the DN, besides One, is “the most sublime” name for God.60 Therefore, all names have in view a tri-personal God in One essence, as René Roques puts it;61 that

58 Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 80. 59 Florovsky, The Byzantine, 220. 60 Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 31. 61 Roques, L’Univers, 125.



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is, they reflect a certain knowledge of God, but one which ends in apophasis. Modern theologians saw an identity between God’s attributes and God’s energies.62 Lossky calls these energies powers, dynamis, or rays of the divine darkness.63 The energies, being in relation to creation, creation becomes a source of revelation about the things of God,64 and together with the divine energies, a foundation for the cataphatic knowledge of God.65 But again, this does not violate the apophaticism about God because, although all these names are taken from the providence of God towards his creation, they are only metaphorically fitting to him.66 Here the creative tension between the two ways of knowledge of God again becomes evident. From both theologies of the incomprehensibility of God and of the naming of God, there are basically, in Dionysius’ thought, two kinds of knowledge: the empirical, natural, noetic, cataphatic knowledge of God which refers to creation as divine theophany, and the paradoxical, mystical kind of knowledge of God which is in continuity with the first one and the crown or accomplishment of it. What is specific to PseudoDionysius, at this point, is the fact that although the cataphatic knowledge is a good and helpful kind of knowledge, when the soul wants to attain union with God, it must renounce that which helped it in its progress upwards. Cataphatic knowledge is one of the greatest goods,67 but it has to be left behind. This is part of katarsis, the purification of the soul;

62 Jean Philippe Houdret, “Palamas et les Cappadocians.” Istina 19 (1974): 266, note 14. 63 Vladimir Lossky, The Vision of God (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1983), 158. 64 Ronald F. Hathaway, Hierarchy and the Definition of Order in the “Letters” of Pseudo-Dionysius (The Hague: Ed. Martinus Nijhoff, 1969), 110. 65 Lossky, The Vision, 72, 80. 66 Florovsky, The Byzantine, 219. 67 Roques, L’Univers, 240.

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thus, union happens after the soul has been purified from what is impure.68 Creation for Pseudo-Dionysius is not negative. Its theophanic character,69 through the divine energies there implied, represents a basis for the ascent of the soul and its participation in God. Thus, knowledge of God becomes participation, and participation is the work of divine energies.70 Participation, a strong concept in Dionysius’ theology, as an act of knowing, unites the knower and the object known71 and effects the transformation of the one who knows.72 And as Charles Stang writes, this union with the unknown God is a sort of spiritual exercise that will render the human soul unknown as well.73 It has to be specified here, in relation to God’s incomprehensibility and to the naming of God, that there is a kind of hierarchy of all affirmations and negations with respect to God. This is because, as Paul Rorem remarks, “not all affirmations are equally inappropriate and not all negations are equally appropriate.”74 There is, in Dionysius’ synthesis, an insufficiency both of positive and negative knowledge of God, although the last is superior to the first. This shows the “interplay that exists between epistemology and metaphysics” in the theology of the Areopagite.75 This interplay is also evident in that the fact that Dionysius “carefully preserved the simultaneity of procession and return.”76 And thus, of affirmation 68 Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 27. 69 Weber, Dialogue, 493. 70 Yannaras, De l’absence, 105. 71 Pseudo-Dionysius, DN, 109. 72 Clément, “Situation,” 12. 73 Charles M. Stang, Apophasis and Pseudonymity in Dionysius the Areopagite (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 158. 74 Paul Rorem, Biblical and Liturgical Symbols within the Pseudo-Dionysian Synthesis (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1984), 88. 75 Pseudo-Dionysius, DN, 53, note 17. 76 Rorem, Biblical, 90.



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and negation, because affirmation is related to the idea of descent or procession and negation to that of ascent or return. In other words, theophany in creation is cataphatic, and deification belongs to the apophatic theology77 but they both are in a relation of simultaneity with each other, although without being equal. Thus, the doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God, the apophatic theology of Dionysius, is nothing other than a due corrective to the doctrine of the naming of God, the cataphatic theology.78 Yet, this double way is necessary for the eschatological goal of the soul, for the ways are correlative to each other: the cataphatic way makes assertions and asserts also that which is beyond assertions, and the apophatic way denies everything that can be denied and goes beyond denial into the total darkness of unknowing.79

CONCLUSIONS What is very important for the actualization in the spiritual life of Pseudo-Dionysius’ mystical theology is that both cataphatic and apophatic ways of knowledge of God lead towards the participation of the soul in the divine life. This participation is total, not partial: “the entire wholeness is participated by each of those who participate in it; none participates in only a part.”80 Participation, in its turn, leads to deification. Deification, also understood as union with God and a gift from God, as Bernard McGinn writes,81 is also based on both cataphatic and apophatic knowledge because it starts in the concrete material life in the Church and goes upwards progressively

77 Scazzoso, “Richerche,” 111. 78 Ibid., 112. 79 Pseudo-Dionysius, MT, 139. 80 Pseudo-Dionysius, DN, 62. 81 Bernard McGinn, The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. Volume 1, The Foundations of Mysticism (New York: Crossroad, 1994), 178.

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through the work of Jesus Christ, of the sacraments and of hierarchies, until the highest degree of possible union with God,82 “as far as each one is capable.”83 The mystical union with God of the man who is “indeed divine,”84 realized through noetic knowledge85 and “learned ignorance” does not suppose a depersonalization of the human being, an annihilation of the soul in God, but only its transformation.86 However, the union, as St. Gregory Palamas explains Dionysius’ theology, remains indescribable and inconceivable even to those who are subject to such an experience.87 Pseudo-Dionysius himself writes: “Union, we do not know how it will be; somehow, in a way we cannot know, we shall be united with him.”88 What we know is that it is a work of God’s love89 and grace as well as of our awareness and effort to make from the positive knowledge and negative knowledge of God a ladder of ascent and reintegration of our souls in the initial and final divine communion. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite is a theologian of demythologization. He wants to awaken the human consciousness to the fact that in this world of ours and of God’s, everything is of help for salvation. However, one should not confuse the means with the goal but see this supreme goal beyond anything in creation. He is the theologian of the “beyond” or hyper; in this, he demythologizes all the concepts of Christian theology (names, symbols, analogies) drawing attention to the fact that no matter how abstract, well-built, high or sophisticated a concept of God may be, God, in his essence, is beyond the concept. Otherwise, there would be idolatry. Any concept of 82 Pseudo-Dionysius, EH (in Colm Luibheid, ed.), 198. 83 Pseudo-Dionysius, DN, 67. 84 Pseudo-Dionysius, EH, 216. 85 Weber, Dialogue, 129. 86 Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism: A Study in Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1930), 171. 87 Gregory Palamas, The Triads, 64. 88 Pseudo-Dionysius, DN, 52. 89 Pseudo-Dionysius, CH, 168.



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God cannot explicate but only indicate the mystery. What is thought of and spoken is good and constructive but remains little and inadequate. What is unspoken constitutes the real dimension of Reality, of God’s essence, and it corresponds to the mystical consciousness of man. As Evelyn Underhill wrote, “the importance of Dionysius lies in the fact that he was the first and, for a long time, the only Christian writer who attempted to describe frankly and accurately the workings of the mystical consciousness [of man] and the nature of its ecstatic attainment of God.”90

90 Underhill, Mysticism, 457.

I.2.

TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR’S MYSTICAL THEOLOGY OF DEIFICATION: THE SPIRITUAL SABBATH / EIGHTH DAY SEQUENCE IN TWO HUNDRED CHAPTERS ON THEOLOGY

JESS GILBERT INTRODUCTION The theology of Maximus the Confessor (580–662) is notoriously complex and difficult. Despite its multifaceted nature, the overriding theme of his work concerns the goal of the Christian life: theosis or deification, the doctrine that humans can become gods by divine grace. This bold claim stands at the core of his faith, as it does of Eastern Orthodoxy generally. One of Maximus’s works that presents his theory and practice of deification is Two Hundred Chapters on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God. In his classic study of the Confessor, Hans Urs von Balthasar calls this short book the “most starkly challenging work of the theologian-mystic Maximus.”1 Nonetheless, certain passages in 200 Chapters provide a succinct and relatively clear account of the spiritual life that culminates in deification.

1 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy: The Universe According to Maximus the Confessor, 2nd edn. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), 344.

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In order to understand Maximus’s theology and spirituality of theosis, this paper focuses on a handful of texts from 200 Chapters in which he uses the imagery of the Sabbath and the Eighth Day. This symbolism occupies most of the middle part of the first one hundred chapters (1.36–39 and 1.47–60). By exploring these two or three pages of text, I hope to elucidate some of Maximus’s key concepts and teachings—in an introductory way, to be sure. In working through the details of this textual sequence, I seek to grasp his vision of deification and how we can approach it, both conceptually and spiritually. Given the limited nature of my effort—examining only one specific set of short texts—this paper may be considered as a beginner’s guide to Maximus’s view of theosis. A few preliminary comments will be helpful. First, it should be emphasized that humans cannot make themselves into gods, for deification is a gift of God. In the passages analyzed below, although Maximus doesn’t always repeat the point, he assumes it. Further, Maximus approaches theosis by way of the Incarnation. To summarize severely: In the Incarnation, Christ deified human nature, enabling humans to become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). The incarnate Son of God united divinity and humanity in His single person, forever establishing an intimate relationship, a communion, between the two (which, however, retain their essential differences). As the epigram by Athanasius of Alexandria (d. 373) goes: “He [the Word of God] was incarnate that we might be made god.”2 Christ descends so we can ascend. Theosis involves an on-going, “secondary” incarnation of Christ’s divine love within the believer, as Lars Thunberg puts it.3 This “wondrous exchange” (Maximus’s phrase) reflects a related patristic concept, perichoresis, which means mutual co-penetration, 2 St. Athanasius the Great of Alexandria, On the Incarnation, ed. and trans. John Behr (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), 167. 3 Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor, 2nd edn. (Chicago: Open Court, 1995), 23–36.



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referring to the collaborative reciprocity between God and humanity. Deification, then, signifies the transformative process whereby a person, created in God’s image, becomes godlike. Although the term perichoresis does not occur explicitly in the Sabbath / Eighth Day sequence, it pervades Maximus’s thinking on deification and will be used below.4 As a life-long monk, Maximus integrated his theology with his spirituality. In a most creative fashion, he synthesized much of patristic thought, particularly the work of Origen of Alexandria (d. 254), Gregory of Nazianzus (d. 390), Origen’s fourth-century disciple Evagrius of Pontus (d. 399), and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (early sixth century?). Like Evagrius, whose theology he radically revised, Maximus employed “chapters” to instruct novice monks into ascetic discipline and spiritual realities. This genre comprises short paragraphs, sometimes only a sentence or two, usually grouped into sets of one hundred called “centuries.” Written in the early 630s, Maximus’s 200 Chapters goes by several other

4 In addition to the above source, this paragraph draws on the following: Lars Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos: The Vision of St Maximus the Confessor (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), 63–65; Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 287, 293–99; Norman Russell, Fellow Workers with God: Orthodox Thinking on Theosis (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009), 21–27; Paul M. Blowers, Maximus the Confessor: Jesus Christ and the Transfiguration of the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 241, 257; Jean-Claude Larchet, “The Mode of Deification,” in The Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor, ed. Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 341–59; Andrew Louth, “The Place of Theosis in Orthodox Theology,” in Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Tradition, ed. Michael J. Christensen and Jeffry A. Wittung (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 32–44; Elena Vishnevskaya, “Divinization as Perichoretic Embrace in Maximus the Confessor,” in Partakers of the Divine Nature, 137.

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names, with the older literature preferring the Gnostic Centuries (gnosis being the Greek term for spiritual knowledge). Of the three complete English translations, I employ the version in The Philokalia, the classic anthology of Eastern Orthodox spirituality. Maximus’s title therein includes the phrase “Incarnate Dispensation,” which refers to God’s plan of salvation, how He manifests and interacts with creation, eventuating in the Incarnation and thus deification. This concept, often called “economy,” contrasts with “theology,” meaning here the ineffable knowledge of God in Himself, the Trinity. I supplement the philokalic translation with those of George C. Berthold, who calls his version Chapters on Knowledge, and Luis Joshua Salés, who entitles his Two Hundred Chapters on Theology, as well as other selected renderings embedded in secondary sources.5

THE OPENING QUARTET, CHAPTERS 1.36 – 1.39: THE SOUL’S ASCENT THROUGH SPIRITUAL SABBATHS The spiritual Sabbath sequence is the first, longest, and most obvious block of texts on deification in 200 Chapters. It opens with Chapters 1.36 – 1.39, which constitute a linked quartet that introduces the theme: Chap. 1.36: In the Law and the prophets, reference is made to the sabbath (cf. Isa. 66:23), sabbaths (cf. Exod. 31:13), and sabbaths of sabbaths (cf. Lev. 16:31 LXX)… The texts about the sabbath surely refer to the full attainment of practical, natural, and theological philosophy…6 5 “Two Hundred Texts on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God,” in The Philokalia: The Complete Text, trans. and ed. G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware (New York: Faber and Faber, 1982), Vol. 2, 114–63. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from 200 Chapters are from this source. See also George C. Berthold (ed.), Maximus the Confessor: Selected Writings (New York: Paulist, 1985), 127–80, and Luis Joshua Salés, Saint Maximus the Confessor: Two Hundred Chapters on Theology (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2015). 6 The rest of Chap. 1.36, omitted here, deals with the spiritual images of harvest and circumcision.



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This chapter exemplifies a characteristic feature of Maximus’s work that we shall constantly encounter: theologizing through scriptural exegesis. He typically goes beyond the literal or historical meaning of the Bible to reach a “spiritual sense” that facilitates an individual’s ascent to God. Origen of Alexandria established this allegorical approach, which was elaborated by all the Church Fathers who influenced Maximus. Moreover, at the end of Chapter 1.36, Maximus labels the quest for God philosophia, love of wisdom—again following earlier theologians by Christianizing higher Greek thought. Here he reprises Gregory of Nazianzus specifically, the first to use the phrase “Our Philosophy” to indicate the Christian ascetical life and theology more broadly.7 In Chap. 1.36 and throughout his work, Maximus employs a three-stage process of gaining spiritual knowledge that he also inherited from the Eastern Christian tradition. First is praxis or practice (“practical philosophy”), the ascetic struggle to defeat evil passions and win virtues. Second comes theoria or contemplation of the inner essence, or true significance, of created things (“natural philosophy”). Finally, is theologia proper (“theological philosophy”), the direct but ineffable knowledge of God. While the first two steps are essential, only the last involves deification, which transcends human doing and knowing. It is important to remember, however, that these three stages are not strictly sequential, but rather suggest an on-going process of engagement and progress by the aspirant. Praxis and theoria, especially, are synergistic and interrelated.8 Note, too, that in Chap. 1.36, the disciple has fully

7 John A. McGuckin, “The Eros of Divine Beauty in St. Maximus the Confessor,” Collected Studies, Vol. 2: Seeing the Glory: Studies in Patristic Theology (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2017), 378; Blowers, Maximus, 74–77. 8 Thunberg, Microcosm, 332–42; Blowers, Maximus, 75; Paul M. Blowers and Robert Louis Wilken, “Introduction,” On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ: Selected Writings from St Maximus the Confessor (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003), 16–17.

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attained each respective element of spiritual growth, which implies considerable exertion as well as profound advance. In the next three short chapters, Maximus elaborates each aspect.9 Chap. 1.37: The sabbath signifies the dispassion (apatheia) of the deiform soul that through practice of the virtues (praxis) has utterly cast off the marks of sin.

“Sin” in the Eastern Christian tradition is understood as a certain waywardness or going astray; it ultimately marks the “failure to achieve the purpose for which one is created,” as the English editor-translators of The Philokalia have it. Sin is caused by distorted appetites, impulses, and illusions, or better, by delusions and compulsions. They are often called “evil passions” and personified as demons. A leading Maximian scholar employs social-psychological terms: Our own “antihuman egoism” enslaves and imprisons us. Maximus himself speaks of self-love as the “mother of all passions.” Ascetical praxis combats such passionate attachments and defeats them, liberating us from that demonic, unhealthy egoism. Such “practice of the virtues” yields apatheia, or dispassion, which in patristic usage is far from apathy or indifference. Rather, it indicates a detachment from the passions that allows us to see things without illusion, as they really are, not as our attachments dictate. In translating apatheia into Latin, the monk John Cassian (d. 435) chose the phrase “purity of heart,” doubtless in light of the Beatitude: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt. 5:8).10 When the disciple achieves dispassion, she uses the passions as they were originally intended, without sin (distortion, compulsion) in deed or thought. Apatheia thus restores the God-formed soul, reintegrates the person. It consists, as the 9 Thunberg translates Chaps. 1.37–39 in Man and Cosmos, 128–

29. 10 Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor (New York: Routledge, 1996), 39–46; Melchisedec Törönen, Union and Distinction in the Thought of St Maximus the Confessor (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 188; Palmer et al., Philokalia, 386–87; Thunberg, Man and Cosmos, 67.



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Philokalia editors note, “not in ceasing to feel the attacks of the demons, but in no longer yielding to them.” And overcoming sin or vicious passions bears spiritual fruit. At the beginning of a previous book, Four Hundred Chapters on Love, Maximus writes that “apatheia engenders agape,” or love of neighbor, the greatest of virtues (1 Cor. 13). Agape manifests an egalitarian love, given equally to all, as shown early in 200 Chapters: “No deiform soul in its essence is of greater value than any other” (Chap. 1.11). Maximus sees apatheia as well as charity (a related translation of agape) as divine gifts, both to be fully accomplished by moral effort or ascesis. In antiquity ascesis meant the training that an athlete endured in preparing (“getting into shape”) for a sporting contest. Ascetic struggle, then, involves the virtuous physical and mental “exercises” of a seeker in order to attain the goal of dispassion and thus agape. Ascesis entails spiritual warfare to resist temptation and cultivate virtue. It is the way of praxis, the focal point of Chap. 1.37.11 Next Maximus addresses the second ascentive step: Chap. 1.38: Sabbaths signify the freedom of the deiform soul that through the spiritual contemplation (theoria) of created nature has quelled even the natural activity of sense-perception.

Having achieved dispassion via praxis, the disciple now wins spiritual liberation through theoria, a purified, undistorted vision that imparts divine knowledge (gnosis). Freedom from the passions enables us to love our neighbor, to know and engage her non-possessively. Theoria or contemplation also provides discernment into the underlying essences of the sensible world, not to denigrate it but rather to see it in cosmic perspective, as God does. Such clarifying insight yields the proper 11 Thunberg, Man and Cosmos, 100; Thunberg, Microcosm, 299– 314, 426–35; Palmer et al., Philokalia, 53, 381; Louth, Maximus, 35; Russell, Fellow Workers, 26. Paul Blowers prefers to translate apatheia as “engaged dispassion,” noting that it always aligns with agape (Maximus, 278–80, 307).

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apprehension of materiality, as the senses no longer deceive us. By means of theoria, the possessor of spiritual knowledge (the gnostic) grasps the true meaning and significance of natural things, their reason for being that reveals their divine origin rooted in God’s creative power. She is then able to subdue and harness, or spiritualize, the lower form of material life. She emerges profoundly transformed by this simplifying contemplative vision.12 The Confessor then presents the third and highest aspect of the Sabbath motif: Chap. 1.39: Sabbaths of sabbaths signify the spiritual calm of the deiform soul that has withdrawn the intellect (nous) even from contemplation of all the divine principles in created beings, that through an ecstasy of love (eros) has clothed it entirely in God alone, and that through mystical theology (theologia) has brought it altogether to rest in God.

Without mentioning it explicitly, Maximus is pointing toward deification. The nous, spiritual subject or spiritual intelligence, is the highest faculty of humankind, the direct and experiential means of divine perception. In this chapter, the soul achieves quietude by contracting its noetic consciousness away from consideration of natural things, even from their underlying God-given essences. An intense passion then embraces the soul and delivers it, via an attainment of incommunicable union, wholly to the Sabbath stasis—perfect repose in God. The nous’s detachment from earthly cares, its gnostic reorientation, and the “ecstasy of love” all imply a departure from the bound, work-a-day self into the ineffable sphere of divinity. Maximus synthesizes these heady ideas from Pseudo-Dionysius and other Neoplatonic Christian theologians, making them his own. Ecstasy refers to the rapturous experience of being drawn outside of oneself into God—of answering His 12 Torstein Theodor Tollefsen, The Christocentric Cosmology of St Maximus the Confessor (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 187; Thunberg, Microcosm, 351–52; Törönen, Union and Distinction, 188–90; Louth, Maximus, 36–43, 57–59; Blowers, Maximus, 275–76; Russell, Fellow Workers, 121.



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call, of being grabbed, even overwhelmed, by divine grace. Thunberg translates the above “ecstasy of love (eros)” as “ecstasy of desire” while Salés renders it “erotic ecstasy.” Eros here denotes a passionate love, the driving energy and spiritual fervor that impels intense yearning; it engenders ecstatic longing for communion with the divine. To achieve wholeness and stability in our chaotic, fragmented lives, Maximus insists that we can freely follow this natural desire (eros) for God. Only in passionate love do we transcend ourselves and move toward divinity—as well as toward our neighbor in agape. Thunberg concludes that we “desire to go beyond ourselves in order to find in God the rest that is the absolute culmination of human life.” In the unmediated realization of mystical theologia, we go out of ourselves (and out of the created world) to experience the all-peaceful stasis of the Sabbath of Sabbaths.13 These first four chapters in the Sabbath sequence have introduced the gnostic’s stages of divine ascent. Before going further, let’s review how she has progressed. In Chap. 1.37 she achieved apatheia by “casting off” sin through ascetic struggle and practice of the virtues (praxis), and in Chap. 1.38 contemplative vision (theoria) liberated her by “quelling” sensory perception. In Chap. 1.39 she “withdrew” entirely from considering created beings in order to attain, via God’s loving em-

13 Adam G. Cooper, The Body in St Maximus the Confessor: Holy Flesh, Wholly Deified (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 89; David T. Bradford, The Spiritual Tradition in Eastern Christianity: Ascetic Psychology, Mystical Experience, and Physical Practices (Bristol, CN: Peeters, 2016), 349–51; Louth, Maximus, 36–43; Thunberg, Microcosm, 310–22, 422–27; Thunberg, Man and Cosmos, 146–47; Russell, Fellow Workers, 24–26, 156–67, 172; Blowers, Maximus, 258– 65; Larchet, “Mode of Deification,” 347; Tollefsen, Christocentric Cosmology, 116; Palmer et al., Philokalia, 382–85. I also draw from the translation of Chap. 1.39 by John A. McGuckin (ed.), The Book of Mystical Chapters: Meditations on the Soul’s Ascent, from the Desert Fathers and Other Early Christian Contemplatives (Boston: Shambhala, 2002), 98.

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brace in mystical theologia, the divine Sabbath rest. These advances, spiritual as well as verbal, are all-important. But how do they come about?

THE ILLUMINATING DUET, CHAPTERS 1.47 AND 1.49: COOPERATIVE HUMANS PARTICIPATING IN THE DIVINE ENERGY The only Sabbath reference in the next seven chapters comes in Chap. 1.44: There is “another more hidden sabbath, which God celebrates when He rests from his own labours.”14 In Chap. 1.47, Maximus takes up this deeper Sabbath, continuing the stasis motif from Chap. 1.39. Chap. 1.47: The sabbath rest of God signifies the complete reversion of created beings to God. It is then that God suspends in created beings the operation of their natural energy (energeia) by inexpressibly activating in them His divine energy. It is by virtue of this natural energy that each created being naturally acts; and God suspends its operation in each created being to the degree to which that being participates in His divine energy and so establishes its own natural energy within God Himself.

This short but dense chapter requires some unpacking. Maximus holds first that humans can revert (or “return,” as Berthold renders it) to their Creator. He thereby claims not only that we may go back to, but also that we originally came from God. That is to say, nature itself, including human nature, is divinely graced from the beginning.15 It is this turn, or return, toward God that activates our possible participation in His energy. But what does Maximus mean by participation and energy? 14 Two other symbols occupy Chaps. 1.40–46, harvest and circumcision. 15 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Cambridge, UK: Clark, 1957), 101, 126; Blowers, Maximus, 129, 263–65, 271–73; Thunberg, Microcosm, 432–34; Tollefsen, Christocentric Cosmology, 136, 221–23, 172–73; Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 255–62.



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Both concepts derive from Neoplatonic philosophy as reinterpreted by patristic theologians, especially Pseudo-Dionysius. Energeia can be translated in several ways other than as its English cognate “energy.” The following variants give a better understanding of Maximus’s meaning: activity, operation, capacity, attribute, presence, expression, manifestation. God’s grace is also His energeia. Moreover, aspects of God’s activity include love, virtue, mercy, wisdom, goodness, true life, and being itself—some of the divine properties in which humans may share. And it is precisely by “participating in His divine energeia” that we come to know God through experiential theologia.16 Secondly, then, Maximus employs the philosophicaltheological concept of participation, meaning a sharing of another’s attributes—in this case, between unequals, God and humans. “Communication” and “communion” are related synonyms of participation, which necessarily requires a relationship. We cannot participate in anything without someone else’s involvement. For instance, we exist in relation to (specifically, because of) God. So, Chap. 1.47 asserts that we can share in the divine energy by our willing participation. However, it must be emphasized that God in His essence is infinitely above and beyond any list of concepts or attributes. Thus, we may partake only of His activity or energeia, not of His nature or essence.17 16 Some of these “works” are listed in Chaps. 1.48 and 1.50. On energeia, see Tollefsen, Christocentric Cosmology, 160–70, 221–23; Larchet, “Mode of Deification,” 343, as well as citations in the following footnote. 17 The first ten of the 200 Chapters summarize Maximus’s apophatic stance. On participation and energy, see Marius Portaru, “Classical Philosophical Sources: Aristotle and Platonism,” in Oxford Handbook of Maximus, 136–37, 141–42; Thunberg, Microcosm, 425– 35; Thunberg, Man and Cosmos, 64, 72, 100, 143; Russell, Fellow Workers, 26–27, 127, 132–34; Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 318– 19; Larchet, “Mode of Deification,” 343, 355. Tollefsen, Christocentric Cosmology, has an entire chapter on Maximus’s view of participation and its Neoplatonic and patristic roots.

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With these rich concepts in mind, let us return to Chap. 1.47. Once a person reverts to God the source, He suspends her natural activity and activates His own energeia within her soul. This process occurs to the extent that she participates in His activity, conforming hers to His. At the end of the chapter, Maximus highlights the personal, individualized nature of this participation, as he switches to the singular form: “in each created being to the degree to which that being participates…” Through an active communion with God, a person receives His attributes. If, for example, she practices the virtue of selfless love (agape) toward friend and foe, she acts in a godly manner and thereby becomes divine—not in essence but derivatively, by participation. God, then, is present in human actions that embody love. By choosing to turn toward the divine, the disciple freely deactivates, or redirects, her own natural activity. At that point, only one energy operates in her soul, God’s.18 What this means, according to Tollefsen, is that our natural faculties no longer operate only human-naturally but instead take on “a greater measure of the divine activity.” God’s grace becomes enhanced, strengthened, and intensified within us—“present in more advanced ways,” producing a deeper level of human participation. An over-abundance of divine energeia pours into the soul in supernatural fashion, or better, Tollefsen says, “transnaturally.” Thunberg also uses the term supernatural but prefers to dub this divine action “super-logical” and “above reason” while Vishnevskaya calls it “supra-logical.” These modern-day scholarly circumlocutions 18 Chap 2.88 reinforces the point: “The voluntary imitation of divine wisdom and goodness brings as its reward the intellect’s longing for and glorious attainment of likeness to God, in so far as this is possible for man.” See Thunberg, Man and Cosmos, 53, 64, 72, 88–89, 146; Thunberg, Microcosm, 25–35, 329–30, 404–06, 416–17, 426–27, 431–32; Larchet, “Mode of Deification,” 355; Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 269, 274–82, 288; Blowers, Maximus, 257–83; Tollefsen, Christocentric Cosmology, 157–60; Törönen, Union and Distinction, 130; Vishnevskaya, “Divinization,” 141; Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy, 353.



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are trying to get at what Maximus refers to in Chap. 1.47 as God’s “inexpressibly activating in [created beings] His divine energeia.”19 As a result of such activation, we are able to do things and perceive realities that are not, strictly speaking, humanly possible. God grants us the capacity to receive His energy, a gift of grace. He suspends our human-natural activity by instituting the divine activity within us. Exactly how this happens transcends our comprehension, according to Maximus’s general apophaticism, illustrated in Chap. 1.47 (“inexpressibly activating”). However, one favorite trope of Maximus’s points to his vision. Without using the term explicitly, Maximus draws on the concept of perichoresis, mentioned in my introduction: a mutual cooperation between God and a human. This profound inter-linking does not diminish but rather enhances the gnostic. She remains fully human, and in fact reaches her most human, realizing what our nature was created to be—in active relationship and joint collaboration with divinity. Maximus concludes the chapter by reinforcing the theological thrust of perichoresis: We participate in God’s energeia, and He establishes our “own natural activity within Himself.” This human sharing in divine Presence constitutes deification in all but name.20 Chapters 1.48 and 1.50, which frame the more relevant chapter in-between them, are relatively long theological speculations that do not concern the Sabbath theme, and so will not be addressed here in any detail.21 Both chapters distin-

19 Tollefsen, Christocentric Cosmology, 117–19, 172, 210–12, 221, 224; Thunberg, Microcosm, 405–06, 412; Vishnevskaya, “Divinization,” 135. 20 Tollefsen, Christocentric Cosmology, 117–19, 189, 210–14, 221; Thunberg, Microcosm, 404–18, 426; Larchet, “Mode of Deification,” 351; Vishnevskaya, “Divinization”; Törönen, Union and Distinction, 130; Russell, Fellow Workers, 132–46. 21 Both Tollefsen (Christocentric Cosmology, 160–76) and Portura (“Classical Philosophical Sources,” 136–42) use Chaps. 1.48–50 as evidence of Maximus’s distinction between God’s essence and His energeia.

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guish between two types of “works of God”: the uncreated divine energeia (“participable” or “participated”) and created beings (“participant” or “participating”). The former includes all life, goodness, virtue, holiness, and being itself, whereas humans exemplify the latter. Chap. 1.48 maintains that we “participate by grace” in virtue and other divine activities. Chap. 1.50 holds that God “transcends the being of all intelligible and describable beings.” Chap. 1.49 develops these ideas concerning participation in divinity. Chap. 1.49: God is infinitely above all beings, whether participant or participable. For whatever belongs to the category of being is a work of God even though participant beings [e.g., humans] had a temporal origin whereas participable beings [e.g., virtue] were implanted by grace among things that came into existence in time. In this way participable beings are a kind of innate power clearly proclaiming God’s presence in all things.

Maximus re-emphasizes the absolute transcendence of God, for all beings are His creation. Any possible human participation in God is not in His nature or essence, but rather through His energy or activity. Yet He “implanted by grace” certain of His qualities, such as love and goodness, into human beings. In the final sentence, Maximus ventures that this divine activity is “a kind of innate power” of creatures. Other translations of this phrase are “an infused power” (Berthold) and “as if a kind of implanted potentiality” (Salés). These usages of “kind of” is an important qualification. Maximus does not want to imply that we can naturally participate in God’s energies; otherwise it would not be by grace. Finally, such infused, implanted power in creatures “loudly proclaims that God is in all things” (Salés)—reinforcing the point that the natural world itself is already intrinsically graced.22

22 Portura renders the phrase as “an infused natural power” (“Classical Philosophical Sources,” 138). On already-graced nature, see footnote 15.



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THE CLIMACTIC QUINTET, CHAPTERS 1.51 – 1.55: THE EIGHTH DAY AS DEIFICATION At the precise midpoint of the first century of chapters, Maximus begins again at a more elevated pitch by proclaiming a new age, that of the Eighth Day. He pursues the theme throughout the “decade” of the next ten chapters, which thus function as the centerpiece of the whole century. As a structural matter, the first four chapters below (1.51 – 1.54) replicate and intensify the opening quartet (Chaps. 1.36 – 1.39). Both sets begin with an overview, then devote the next three chapters to elaborating the tri-fold process of ascent. The current quartet, though, strikes a higher spiritual register. In Chapters 1.52 – 1.54, the three Sabbaths are progressively enhanced, the last signifying the deifying experience. And unlike the earlier set of four, the present quartet culminates in a fifth chapter (1.55), which uniquely speaks to the final end-goal of humanity, the state of deification. In this way Chap. 1.55 stands at the apex of the entire Sabbath / Eighth Day sequence. Maximus’s very structural design highlights its utmost importance. Let’s now examine this climactic quintet. Chap. 1.51: The sixth day of creation, according to Scripture, represents the completion of the beings that are subject to nature. The seventh day marks the limit of the flow of temporal existence. The eighth day betokens the quality of that state which is beyond nature and time.23

The work of the sixth day accomplishes natural creation, the seventh reaches the edge of time, and the next day transcends both. In our linear natural life, of course, there is no eighth day. Or perhaps the last becomes the first; it returns to the beginning, a re-creation. In Christianity the Eighth Day represents the day of the Lord—the time, or timelessness, of resurrection. It symbolizes a new creation, a prefiguration of the kingdom

23 Thunberg (Microcosm, 304–05) comments on Chaps. 1.51–

53.

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of heaven. According to Vladimir Lossky, it marks “the beginning of eternity,” being outside of time and space. The eschatological Eighth Day inaugurates a new aeon, the eternal age of the transformative Spirit. It also stands for the attainment of spiritual perfection by the Christian, who thus lives, as Maximus puts it here, “beyond nature and time.”24 In discussing Chap. 1.47 above, I referenced free will and human choice. Chap. 1.51 puts this issue front and center, spotlighting its key role in spiritual advancement. Compare two other translations of the last sentence of Chap. 51: “The eighth [day] indicates the manner of existence above nature and time” (Berthold); “the eighth hints at the manner of the condition beyond nature and time” (Salés). The term rendered as manner in both versions (and as quality in our main text from The Philokalia) is the Greek word tropos, usually translated “mode.”25 It occupies a highly significant place in Maximus’s thought. Throughout his writings, he relies on a dyad first used in Christian theology by the Cappadocian Fathers: “principle (logos) of nature” and “mode (tropos) of existence.” The latter concretizes or actualizes the former. The difference is not between levels of abstraction, but rather is a logical, theoretical distinction between two aspects of a single thing. In this context, logos is general and universal, structurally common to all, whereas tropos is specific and particular to a person. Our mode or way of life includes actions, habits, opinions, character, and disposition. Additionally, modes of existence can change or be transformed (“innovated,” to use Maximus’s term)—in contrast to the stable, underlying principle (logos) of human essence. Deification alters our mode of being, not our 24 Vigen Guroian, The Melody of Faith: Theology in an Orthodox Key (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 20–21, 35; Andreas Andreopoulos, “Eschatology in Maximus the Confessor,” in Oxford Handbook of Maximus, 337; Lossky, Mystical Theology, 106; Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 292–95. 25 Larchet, “Mode of Deification,” 350–53, discusses tropos as quality, state, and institution in addition to mode.



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nature, for we still remain essentially human; we do not become divine. Tropos, then, refers to those aspects of life over which the person has some freedom of choice, especially concerning moral and spiritual decisions. The logos of human nature, that is to say, does not determine our manner or quality of life, which, to a large extent, is up to us. Melchisedec Törönen claims that free will is “what the tropos is really all about.” Our tropos thus exhibits considerable leeway as to how human nature is actually manifested in and by us. For example, we choose to lead a spiritual life or not.26 Chap. 1.51 asserts that on the Eighth Day, a person’s mode of existing transcends “nature and time.” What might this mean? Some inklings of an answer have already been mentioned. The disciple’s “ecstasy of desirous love” (Chap. 1.39) and her participation in the divine energeia (Chap. 1.47) suggest an out-of-this-world experience that transforms the person. At the latter chapter, Tollefsen described it as “transnatural” and Thunberg as “super-logical.” Now we can elaborate by employing the concept of tropos. A gnostic’s way of life may be elevated by God’s transformative grace such that she takes on a “divine mode of activity” (Tollefsen), a “divine mode of human existence” (Thunberg)—while simultaneously maintaining her fully and strictly human essence (logos). In drawing closer to God, she goes beyond created nature, however mysteriously. For instance, according to several Maximian scholars, Christ’s commandment to “Love your enemies . . . so that you may become sons of your Father” (Mt. 5:44–45) amounts to a non-natural summons. Törönen says that it seems “humanly speaking impossible.” The true disciple, though, transcends human nature when she practices

26 Polycarp Sherwood, The Earlier Ambigua of Saint Maximus the Confessor and His Refutation of Origenism (Rome: Herder, 1955), 155–65; Cooper, Body, 133; Tollefsen, Christocentric Cosmology, 131–37, 172–74; Törönen, Union and Distinction, 25–28; Louth, Maximus, 51–59; Vishnevskaya, “Divinization,” 142–43; Larchet, “Mode of Deification”; Thunberg, Microcosm, 416–17.

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agape, the highest form of love, which takes her outside herself (i.e., in ecstasy). Called to imitate Christ’s love, we stand free to do so or not. If we choose to follow His example, we are liberated from “anti-human egoism,” Thunberg says; God replaces the ego.27 When that happens, the self-transcending ecstatic lover is transported above her own natural power into the eternal divine. On the Eighth Day, then, her godly mode (tropos) of being indeed goes “beyond nature and time,” as Chap. 1.51 insists. Maximus then follows with a series of chapters on the spiritual Sabbath that culminate explicitly in theosis. Chap. 1.51 began with the sixth day “according to Scripture.” The next two chapters offer spiritual exegeses of the Old Testament story of the Hebrews’ exodus, wandering in the desert, and winning the Promised Land. Chap. 1.52: He who observes the sixth day only according to the Law, fleeing the active, soul-afflicting domination of the passions, passes fearlessly through the sea to the desert (cf. Exod. 16:1): his sabbath consists simply of rest from the passions. But when he has crossed the Jordan (cf. Josh. 3:17), and has left behind this state of simply resting from the passions, he enters into possession of the virtues.

This chapter concerns the aspirant who keeps it “only according to the Law,” that is, at the initial stage of spiritual growth. Instead of running away from the Egyptians, as in the historical scriptural narrative, she overcomes the spiritually dangerous tyrants of passion, passing courageously through her Red Sea. Her seventh day or sabbath rest is merely a negative stoppage in the desert, “inactivity of the passions” (Berthold). But then she crosses the River Jordan and reaches a new level, inheriting the promised land… of virtue. The achievement corresponds to that of praxis, the foundational way of spiritual advancement. 27 Tollefsen, Christocentric Cosmology, 117–19; Thunberg, Microcosm, 92–93, 112–13, 404–06, 417–18, 423–27, 431–32; Thunberg, Man and Cosmos, 53–55, 67–72, 88–89, 102, 143; Törönen, Union and Distinction, 173–74, 188–90; Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 278–94; Vishnevskaya, “Divinization,” 142–43.



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After such successful ascetic struggle, the following chapter takes the next step. Chap. 1.53: He who observes the sixth day according to the Gospels, having already put to death the first impulses of sin through cultivating the virtues attains a state of dispassion (apatheia) which, like a desert, is bare of all evil: his sabbath is a rest of his intellect (nous) even from the merest images suggested by the passions. But when he has crossed the Jordan, he passes over into the land of spiritual knowledge, where the intellect, the temple mystically built by peace, becomes in spirit the dwelling-place of God.28

Like Christians generally, Maximus believes that the Gospel supersedes the Law, which occupied the previous chapter. In Chap. 1.53, the disciple “according to the Gospels” reaches a detachment that, desert-like, appears empty of all wayward passions. Compared to the beginner’s simple “rest from the passions” (Chap. 1.52), her Sabbath now features the spiritual subject’s repose devoid of all distractions and illusions. (This claim recalls the emphasis of the similarly second-stage “Sabbaths” in Chap. 1.38, wherein “spiritual contemplation of created nature has quelled even the natural activity of sense-perception”). When she next crosses a spiritually deeper River Jordan and possesses the promised “land of gnosis,” God resides within her nous, her spiritual consciousness, now permeated with a peace that passes comprehension.29 The next two chapters climax the entire Sabbath sequence, as Maximus finally arrives at the high point or, better, the still-point of deification and the Eighth Day. Chap. 1.54: He who after the example of God has completed the sixth day with fitting actions and thoughts, and 28 Back in Chap. 1.35, Maximus contrasts the Sabbath of “the Law” with the Sabbath of “the Gospel,” thus presaging Chaps. 1.52– 53. All three chapters reflect a common patristic hierarchy of the natural Law and the spiritual Gospel. 29 The “dwelling place of God in the Spirit,” from Eph. 2:22, is also quoted in Chap. 1.12, as pointed out by Salés, Two Hundred Chapters, 34n; and Berthold, Maximus, 173n.

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Maximus opens by referring to the preliminary, “fitting” phases of praxis (“actions”) and theoria (“thoughts”), which the disciple has accomplished. She has progressed, via divine grace, through the natural and temporal limits of creation, leaving behind attention to all earthly things. This contemplative movement, quite beyond the seventh days of the previous two chapters, constitutes her nous’s own ineffable Sabbath. But “if also found worthy,” she rises, like Christ, above “the dead” (i.e., all the non-life of the world), which remains far below, far less than divine. This heralds the mystical Eighth Day of resurrection. The gnostic then experiences true existence in God and, through a radically reciprocal yet mysterious exchange, “becomes a god by theosis.” That summit of humandivine interpenetration properly called mystical theologia— participatory, transformative, incommunicable—has been attained. But who is “found worthy”? Those who take part in the divine sharing and properly prepare themselves to receive the gift. Such preparation comes mainly through practice of the virtues, the moral striving of ascetical praxis, which strengthens the Presence in the recipient. (According to Maximus, God is present in the virtues.) But more than being prepared, the disciple must also freely choose to receive loving grace. True, deification is a divine gift, but it must still be accepted. Theosis requires our positive assent, “an inclination toward God,” 30 Thunberg (Man and Cosmos, 63) also translates this chapter.



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Maximus says. These human-effort aspects of the mutual cooperation seem to be the criteria for being found worthy of the Eighth Day.31 Theosis denotes an elevation of the gnostic above time and nature, including human nature. It marks a deep transformation of the person’s quality of living, of her tropos of existence. The new being replaces the old; the life of the spirit transcends the material world. She goes outside of her limited, natural self in order to find her true self in divine love for all. The deified person has reached the purpose for which she was created: union with God. Deification amounts to a synergistic co-penetration (perichoresis) of human and divine. Essential boundaries remain, yet intimate communion occurs. All this is bold language indeed, but Maximus sees theosis as nothing less than our birthright, the final fulfillment of creation. The Eighth Day signifies the ultimate goal of human life.32 The next chapter, which constitutes the other major reflection on theosis in the Sabbath sequence, serves as a perfect summary of the whole. Chap. 1.55: The sixth day is the complete fulfillment, on the part of those practicing the ascetic life, of the natural activities which lead to virtue. The seventh day is the conclusion and cessation, in those leading the contemplative life, of all natural thoughts about inexpressible spiritual

31 Thunberg, Man and Cosmos, 171–73; Tollefsen, Christocentric Cosmology, 185–87, 217–18; Sherwood, Maximus, 41; Russell, Doctrine of Deification, 269, 286, 294; Vishnevskaya, “Divinization,” 139–40 (Maximus quote). On God in the virtues, Maximus writes in Chap. 2.58: “For the man living the life of ascetic practice the Lord is present through the virtues.” Cf. Chap. 2.71; see also Blowers, Maximus, 141, 257, 272; Thunberg, Man and Cosmos, 63–65, 110; Thunberg, Microcosm, 27, 92, 131, 323–30, 426, 431. 32 Thunberg, Microcosm, 430–33; Thunberg, Man and Cosmos, 64.

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In addressing the three aspects of spiritual ascent, Maximus retraces where he has taken us. On the sixth day, representing praxis or “natural activities,” the disciple gains the virtues through ascetic struggle. On the seventh day, she reaches the end and limit of contemplation or theoria, her “natural thoughts” on ineffable gnosis. The Eighth Day brings her to a higher level still, to a radical reversal, a drastic reordering of reality. She receives deifying grace and becomes godlike. In undergoing the mysterious metamorphosis of theosis, she has transcended—or rather transfigured—nature, including human nature. Both her practical activity and her contemplative knowledge have been profoundly transformed, elevated to an altogether higher, or deeper, spiritual plane. The Eighth Day, then, announces our willing reception of the grace of deification. This enhanced, intensified gift of God takes us outside our normal selves, for theosis transcends human nature, granting us a new way of life, a divine tropos of existence. Deification, nonetheless, remains inexpressible and incomprehensible; it goes mysteriously beyond time and nature, as Maximus has repeatedly told us. Further, the “state of deification” in Chap. 1.55 implies a more stable or permanent condition than the deifying “experience” of the previous chapter.34 The mystical Eighth Day has finally arrived, embracing the life of the gnostic. She, too, has “arrived,” having found her destiny, a divine resting-place, home in God. All spiritual—indeed, human—development culminates in theosis.

CONCLUSION: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? Like the spiritual aspirant in the Sabbath sequence, we have traversed much territory in this short paper. But unlike her, we have only scratched the surface of a truly cosmic subject. 33 I omit the rest of the chapter since it does not address our theme. 34 See Larchet, “Mode of Deification,” 351–52, on the stable “state” (tropos) of deification.



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We have encountered crucial concepts and teachings along the way, including the three-fold path of praxis, theoria, and theologia; ascesis, apatheia, and agape; eros and ecstasy; participation in the divine energeia; and the tropos of theosis itself. It turns out that all of these approaches to God represent different ways that Maximus talks about deification. In 200 Chapters, however, we do not find an explicit statement of theosis until Chap. 1.54. We have seen how the practice of the virtues through ascetic struggle and the contemplation of created things may lead the disciple to the luminous but inexpressible heights of mystical theology. By participating in God’s activity (but not His essence), she acquires and manifests charity, love of friend and foe alike. Thus, by grace, she takes on a “divine mode of human existence,” as Thunberg phrases it, and becomes deified.35 This paper has addressed various dimensions of deification. It is the process by which a gnostic becomes god. It is the state or condition attained at the end of that process. It is the transformative experience of doing so as well as the accompanying doctrine. It is the culminating relationship between a person and God. Finally, it is the ultimate telos, the goal of human-spiritual life. Despite all these aspects, I have not mentioned other important features of Maximus’s view of deification (e.g., the sacramental and the cosmological) because they do not figure directly in the Sabbath sequence. My narrow focus here reflects only one of several limitations of this paper. Through an introductory reading of a single block of short texts, my intent has been to elucidate key concepts and themes in Maximus’s theology and spirituality of theosis. In brief compass, the Sabbath / Eighth Day sequence offers an entry-point into his vision of the highest reaches of human possibility, the synergistic communion with God that culminates in deification. I hope to have captured some of Maximus’s theologizing about that lofty summit of spiritual aspiration and perfection. And, to come down from the mountaintop here at the end, I suggest a practical lesson: It all starts with praxis, ascetic struggle that, with God’s help, engenders the detachment (apatheia) necessary for equal love of all. 35 Thunberg, Microcosm, 417–18, 426–27.



I.3.

MYSTICAL THEOLOGY IN THE WRITINGS OF GREGORY OF NYSSA AND DIONYSIUS AREOPAGITE EIRINI ARTEMI AND CHRISTOS TEREZIS INTRODUCTION In early Christianity the term mystikos referred to three dimensions, namely biblical, liturgical and spiritual or contemplative. At times these dimensions intertwined. The biblical aspect refers to “hidden meanings” of Scriptures, those that had to be interpreted allegorically. The liturgical dimension refers to the mystery of the Eucharist, the presence of Christ at the consecrated bread. The third aspect is the contemplative or experiential knowledge of God. The link between mystical theology and the vision of the Divine was introduced by the early Church Fathers, who used the term as an adjective, as in “mystical theology” and “mystical contemplation.” Early Christian thought inherited this tradition from the classical culture, especially from Plato and Plotinus. Hence, the term “Mystical Theology,” in its most general application designates a direct and immediate experience of the sacred, or the knowledge derived from such an experience. In Christianity this experience usually takes the form of a vision of, or sense of union with, God. Mystical Theology is usually accompanied by meditation, prayer, and ascetic discipline. It uncovers an understanding of the inner integrity of mystical consciousness and highlights the difference between knowledge through direct experience and theological expression. All theology is 51

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mystical, inasmuch as it shows forth the divine mystery.1 Mystical theology seeks to describe an experienced, direct, nonabstract, unmediated, loving, knowing of God, a knowing or seeing so direct as to be called union with God. It aims to lead the faithful to theosis. Theosis, a term often interchangeably used with divinization, is a multi-faceted concept initially formed during the early centuries of Christianity.2 Christian mystical theology attests to a spiritual, mystical form of knowing God through “touching,” “hearing,” “tasting,” “smelling” and “seeing” God.3 Christian theology begins from the fact of God’s revelation to humankind.4 All the fathers of the Church, in their answers to the different heretical statements or to the questions raised by Greek philosophers, provided a limited language about God when they had to speak about the incomprehensibility of God.5 It

1 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1994), 7. 2 “Theosis is our restoration as persons to integrity and wholeness by participation in Christ through the Holy Spirit, in a process which is initiated in this world through our life of ecclesial communion and moral striving and finds ultimate fulfillment in our union with the Father- all within the broad context of the divine economy.” Norman Russell, Fellow Workers with God: Orthodox Thinking on Theosis (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2009), 12. 3 Harvey D. Egan, Christian Mysticism: The Future of a Tradition (Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1984), 11. 4 Vladimir Lossky, Orthodox Theology: An Introduction (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1978), 17. 5 “The distinction between οικονοµία and θεολογία … remains common to most of the Greek Fathers and to all of the Byzantine tradition. Θεολογία … means, in the fourth century, everything which can be said of God considered in Himself, outside of His creative and redemptive economy. To reach this ‘theology’ properly so-called, one therefore must go beyond … God as Creator of the universe, in order to be able to extricate the notion of the Trinity from the cosmological implications proper to the economy”, Vladimir Lossky, In



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should be noted in this context that the term mystical theology had appeared for the first time in Dionysius Areopagite and mainly in his work Mystica Theologia. However, the contents of mystical theology had been developed long before Dionysius, owing its origins to classical philosophers as well as Church Fathers who wrote about mystical contemplation that permitted a human being to comprehend God’s existence as the “Divine Darkness,” as the “gnofos” by way of unknowing.6 The divine darkness leads the believer to enlightenment. It shows the encounter with God not as an act of comprehension but as a union beyond understanding. By this meaning, we can find the content of Mystical Theology, although not the specific term, mainly in the writings of Gregory of Nyssa. God is infinite and incomprehensible; everything that is comprehensible about God is His infinity and incomprehensibility. But all that we can affirm concerning God does not show forth God’s nature, but only the qualities of His nature. Hence, the essence of God is beyond knowledge. Even so, God reveals Godself to us in His uncreated divine energies. The human soul longs for God. This longing can only be satisfied through mystical union with God. This recognition of God is reached through inner cleansing, enlightenment and unification. The union with God is the highest form of bliss, according to the Church Fathers. The way to God can be described with the terms of darkness (becoming nothing) and light (bliss). First a person must get rid of self-determination and attachments to material things, then he or she must go through the darkness of dissolving the ego and then wakes up in God’s light.

the Image and Likeness of God (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), 15. Eirini Artemi, Isidore’s Pelousiote Triadological Teaching and its Relation to Cyril’s of Alexandria Teaching about the Triune God (Athens, 2012), 327–33. Alexei V. Nesteruk, Light from the East: Theology, Science, and the Eastern Orthodox Tradition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 56. 6 Harvey D. Egan, An Anthology of Christian Mysticism (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991), XXI.

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THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD IN THE WRITINGS OF GREGORY OF NYSSA Gregory of Nyssa is regarded as one of the first and greatest exponents of negative theology and of the mystical tradition in Christianity. The supreme antinomy of the Triune God, unknowable and knowable, incommunicable and communicable, transcendent and immanent, is the primary locus of his apophaticism. Moreover, the negative theology of the Gregory of Nyssa is balanced by his acute sense of the revelation of God ad extra, equally predicated of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.7 Father, Son, and Spirit are not divine names per se, but revealed titles that indicate the relations between the three divine persons. Gregory of Nyssa underlines that a real knowledge of God is not to be found in the created world. Even so, he was careful enough not to undermine the importance of revealed knowledge of God, however partial.8 Gregory speaks about the unknowable and incommunicable nature of God with many and different ways in his writings. He, however, demonstrates the presence of God in the world through His uncreated energy. Gregory carefully explains how our soul should ascend to the knowledge of God, so that by way of purification it may receive divine truth. In Moses’ Life and in Contra Eunomium, the holy father explains that human beings cannot understand the “invisible,” “timeless,” “ineffable” God: they make images of Him which reveal

7 Marcus Plested, The Macarian Legacy: The Place of MacariusSymeon in the Eastern Christian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 57. 8 Jonah Winters, “Saying Nothing about No‑Thing: Apophatic Theology in the Classical World” [Baha’i Library Online, 1994]. http://bahailibrary.com/personal/jw/my.papers/apophatic.html. Cf. Anita Strezova, “Knowledge and Vision of God in Cappadocian Fathers.” www.theandros.com/cappavision.html. Accessed 3/27/ 2016.



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Him.9 In opposition to Eunomius’ teaching that the nature of God was absolutely comprehensible, Gregory places an emphasis on the incomprehensibility and infinity of God and thereby gives human beings a capacity to an everlasting assimilation to God through the continuous practice of virtue: “the perfection of human nature consists… in its very growth in goodness.”10 Gregory affirms that God is unknowable or— at least that the “ousia” (being) of God is unknowable. Gregory finds theological justification for this in the concept of God's infinity. God is eternal and beyond time. This eternity entails God’s infinity.11 “But if the divine and unalterable nature is incapable of degeneracy, as even our foes allow, we must regard it as absolutely unlimited in its goodness: and the unlimited is the same as the infinite.”12 It is possible through His sanctifying grace to know His glory, holiness and magnificence. The 9 “When God was yet unknown to the human race because of the idolatrous error which then prevailed, those saints made him manifest and known to men, both by the miracles which are revealed in the works done by him, and from the titles by which the various aspects of divine power are perceived. Thus, they are guides towards the understanding of the divine nature by making known to mankind merely the grandeur of their thoughts about God; the account of his being they left undiscussed and unexamined, as impossible to approach and unrewarding to those who investigate it.” Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium. In W. Jaeger, ed. Gregorii Nysseni operα (Leiden: Brill, 1960), 2.1, 102.1–10. English translation in NPNF II. 5. 10 Gregory of Nyssa, De vita Mosis. In J. Danielou, ed. Gregoire de Nysse. La vie de Moise. SC (Paris: Cerf, 1968), 1.2, 311–16. 11 Brian E. Daley, “Bright Darkness and Christian Transformation: Gregory of Nyssa on the Dynamics of Mystical Union,” in M. J. Hines and St. J. Pope, eds. Finding God in All Things: Essays in Honor of Michael J. Buckley, S. J., (New York: Crossroad, 1996), 219. Cf. D. Carabine, “Gregory of Nyssa on the Incomprehensibility of God,” in Th. Finan and V. Twomey, The Relationship between Neoplatonism and Christianity (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1992), 87. 12 Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium, 1.1, 1695–98.

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knowledge of God is beyond man’s power. God promised that only those who are pure of heart can see God.13 This is one of the basic conditions for the gradual assimilation of man to the divine being. God is by nature beyond our noetic perception, but He is visible in His activities (energeiai), being perceived in the characteristics (idiomata) that surround Him. So, it is better for a man to speak of the deeds of God, than to speak about His essence; then a man should remain silent. God qua God is not an “object” of knowledge, but of admiration. According to the poet’s words: “how majestic is your name in all the earth!”14 Gregory’s aim is to show that the beings of all the hypostases of the Godhead are infinite in goodness and power and life without distinction. The “ousia” of God does not allow for variation in degree. God in His nature is singular, simple, without contrarity. It cannot deteriorate over time and cannot change or lose its perfection, as even Eunomius argues. In light of this, how can someone compare an infinite goodness of the Son to another infinite goodness of the Father and say that one is lesser and the other greater? Can one infinite good be lesser than another infinite good? Of course not. In this way Gregory challenges the teaching of Eunomius that the Father and the Son are both perfect in goodness and yet the Father is superior to the Son.15 God’s essence cannot be approached by man. As God’s infinite nature cannot be fully conceived by the human soul, so God does not seek to reveal Himself completely to those who seek Him. Rather, he reveals just enough to enlarge the desire of the soul for more, so that the soul might ever press in closer and closer on its infinite path upwards. In Gregory's own words:

13 Matt. 5:8; See also Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 81. 14 Psalm 8:9. 15 Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium, 1.1.190.1–18. See also A. Bottiglia, “Gregory of Nyssa’s Infinite Progress: A Challenge for an Integrated Theology.” http://westernthm.files.wordpress.com /2010/05/nyssa_on_infinity.pdf. Accessed 2/25/2016.



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We cannot conceive then of any limitation in an infinite nature; and that which is limitless, cannot by its nature be understood. And so, every desire for the Beautiful which draws us on in this ascent is intensified by the soul’s very progress towards it. And this is the real meaning of seeing God: never to have this desire satisfied.16

Man’s desire for the knowledge and the vision of God is constantly satisfied and yet never satisfied. “Moses sought to see God and this is the instruction he receives on how he is to see Him: seeing God means following Him wherever He might lead.”17 The knowledge of God sometimes has the same meaning as the ignorance of God and the vision of God in the writings of Gregory of Nyssa. The divine darkness leads to enlightenment. It shows the encounter with God not as an act of comprehension but as a union beyond understanding.18 He speaks of the vision of God expressed in terms of darkness rather than the prevailing light imagery.19 Gregory emphasizes the contrarity of dark and light, knowledge and ignorance of God. Thus, the holy father Moses’ vision began with light and then God spoke to him in a cloud. But when Moses rose higher and became more perfect, he saw God in the darkness. Gregory explains the ignorance of God by saying that “divine is there where the understanding does not reach.”20 That knowledge is intellectual is perhaps the first assumption to abandon, if one is to properly understand St. Gregory of Nyssa’s concept

16 Gregory of Nyssa, Apologeticus on Hexaemeron. PG 44, 72C. 17 Gregory of Nyssa, De vita Mosis, 2, 231–3, 8–9. 18 Gregory of Nyssa, In Canticum Canticorum. In H. Langerbeck, ed. Gregorii Nysseni opera (Leiden: Brill, 1960), vol. 6, 202. 19 Martin Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith: Union, Knowledge, and Divine Presence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 111. 20 Gregory of Nyssa, In Canticum Canticorum, 181.

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of the divine darkness.21 Yet this is an assumption basic to modern scientific thought; it is taken entirely as a base fact in the general arena of learning. Yet it is this very idea which Gregory addresses: the entire way of knowing with which we approach God is beyond intellect and beyond its natural limits, classified by its inherent inability to comprehend the transcendent.22 It is a knowing that plunges into the negative, into the darkness of that place “where our intellectual effort does not reach,” and there finds the height of true knowledge. Gregory’s concept of mystical knowing is best expressed in his image of the divine darkness: a symbol that is perhaps one of his greatest gifts to the realm of Christian thought.23 It is presented most clearly in the Life of Moses, and it is primarily from that text that this brief examination shall be made.24

21 “This is the true Knowledge of what is sought: this is the seeing that consists in not seeing, because that which is sought transcends all knowledge, being separated on all sides by incomprehensibility as by kind of darkness”, Gregory of Nyssa, De vita Mosis, 1, 95. Daniélou insists that Gregory gives new meaning to the term “darkness”: “In Gregory of Nyssa, and especially in his later works, as the Life of Moses, and the Commentary on Canticle of Canticles, the term “darkness” takes on a new meaning and an essentially mystical connotation. It expresses the fact that the divine essence remains inaccessible even to the mind that has been enlightened by grace, and that the awareness of this inaccessibility constitutes the highest form of contemplation. Gregory’s originality consists in the fact that he was the first to express this characteristic of the highest stages of mystical experience”, J. Daniélou, “Introduction.” In Herbert Musurillo, ed. From Glory to Glory: Texts from Gregory of Nyssa’s Mystical Writings (New York: Scribner, 1961; repr. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001), 27. 22 Gregory of Nyssa, De vita Mosis, 1, 46. 23 Aristotle Papanikolaou, Being With God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine–Human Communion (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), 18. 24 Gregory of Nyssa, De vita Mosis, 2, 157.



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Thus, according to Gregory of Nyssa, the knowledge of God is based on human intellection and cannot be the correct guide for the “vision” of God. The ignorance of the divine nature is characteristic of the human soul. A human being searches for God and through her/his ignorance; through the darkness of mind concerning God, she/he can discover the divine truth.25 Human self-knowledge regarding the extent of cognitive capabilities is a crucial prerequisite for understanding the infinity of the God. Only then can the finite human being see the infinite God. The indwelling of the Trinity is within the human person. And, of course, the term Trinity means the divine attributes of God, expressive of His energies, and not His own being (ousia). As the godhead dwells within the soul, so is the soul’s mode of knowing changes. The soul acts as a mirror, which projects into one’s knowledge the very revelation of God. The contemplation of God is not affected by sight and hearing, nor is it comprehended through common notions: “For no eye has seen, and no ear has heard, nor does it belong to those things which usually enter into the heart of man.”26 Our knowledge of God has its seat in the heart, in the intimate presence of God perceived by the heart. At this stage, our knowledge is still faint and blurry, as one would expect within a cloud. The soul must still be purified so that it may become more accustomed to this new way of knowing. The soul must, indeed, quench its longing for intellectual knowledge so that it may embrace the seeming groundlessness of an “ineffable knowledge.” The person thus: must wash from his understanding every opinion derived from some preconception and withdraw himself from his customary intercourse with his own companion, that is, with his sense perceptions, which are, as it were, wedded to our nature as its companion. When he is so purified, then he assaults the mountain.27

25 Gregory of Nyssa, De vita Mosis, 2, 176–78. 26 Ibid., 2, 157. Cf. 1 Cor. 2:9, Is. 64:4 27 Ibid., 2. 157.

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Generally, the ignorance of God is equivalent to the darkness. God is the light. The separation of man from God brought darkness to the mind and the heart of the human being. As Vladimir Lossky rightly noted, if God is known as light, the loss of this knowledge is darkness; and, since eternal life consists in knowing the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, the absence of knowledge of God ends in the darkness of Hell. Light is the result of accompanying the union with God, whereas the dark reality can overrun human consciousness only when human consciousness dwells on the borders of eternal death and final separation from God.28 Thus the obvious sense of darkness seems to be, above all, pejorative.29 If a human being accepts her/his ignorance of the eternal God, in the “eyes” of God this acceptance is a real step towards knowledge. The human soul will capture God in vision only with its purification. Gregory says that only the man whose heart is purified can see God [cf. Mat. 5:8]. Gregory teaches that only when the darkness and the ignorance of God on the Mount Sinai is changed into the light of true knowledge of Mount Tabor, will man be able to have the vision of God, the glorious face of God incarnate and the eternal uncreated light of the Triune God.30 Finally Gregory says that the soul that truly loves God desires to be united with Him. Man tries to find this union through the vision and knowledge of God. He argues that our true knowledge of God consists in not knowing, because that which we seek is beyond our cognition. By its very nature the Divinity is beyond the reach of our intellectual comprehension.

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD IN THE WRITINGS OF DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE Dionysius’ works might be described as the exposition of what man can know about God and how, knowing God, she/he can 28 Ibid., 2. 163. 29 Ibid., 2. 164. 30 Lossky, In the Image, 31.



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name God. He is interested in proceeding, not as much according to the words of human wisdom, but in terms of Scripture.31 The knowledge of God is then gained through interpretation of the symbolic hierarchies. As Dionysius argued: We must lift up the immaterial and steady our eyes of our minds to that outpouring of Light, which is so primal indeed much more so, and which comes from that source of divinity, I mean the Father. This is the Light, which, by way of representative symbols, makes known to us the most blessed hierarchies among the angels. But we need to rise from this outpouring of illumination so as to come to the simple ray of Light itself.32

The knowledge of God should be understood as the knowledge of God’s attributes and His modes of being, the direction being from “heaven” to “earth,” and not the opposite one: [i]t came down from the highest to the lowest categories, embraced an ever-widening number of conceptions which increased at each stage of the descent, but in the present treatise it mounts upwards from below towards the category of transcendence, and in proportion to its ascent it contracts its terminology, and when the whole ascent is passed it will be totally dumb, being at last wholly united with Him Whom words cannot describe.33

The sole ground of man’s knowledge of God is thus God’s selfrevelation; it is premised on the idea of divine incomprehensibility. The term revelation signifies two things; that the knowledge of God itself by itself is impossible. However, God can be known (economically) through revelation, and a human being is capable of receiving this knowledge according to her/his capacity. Dionysius is interested in the revealed language of Scripture.34 However, he also appeals to the efforts of philosophers. 31 Pseudo-Dionysius, DN. 1, PG 3, 585–87. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid., MT. 3, PG 3, 1033BC. 34 Ibid., DN. 1. PG 3, 596A-D.

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The most striking point about Dionysius’ discourse is its insistence that the object of his concern is wholly beyond the ability of man to comprehend. The language of Scripture indeed cannot express with any degree of precision what God is. A fortiori any attempts of human beings to speak of God are doomed to fail. God is ineffable, i.e., beyond all human understanding. Even so, God is omnipresent. God’s presence to us can only be expressed symbolically according to divine names which are found in the Scriptures. One can approach the truth of God through contemplation of divine symbols. Symbolic theology thus attempts to capture a variety of ways God is present to us in His salvific actions. The conception of God, found in symbolic theology, is akin to the platonic One, or the Good.35 Thus, through the symbols, Dionysius attempts to understand God as the One and as the Good. Dionysius argues the Godhead is beyond the lifeless as well as beyond the living. For this reason, Dionysius insists that any affirmations about the Godhead are not opposed to our negations, but that both must be transcended: even the negations must be negated. God is not one Being among others, but in His ultimate nature dwells on a plane where there is nothing whatever beside Himself.36 God is thus absolutely superior to the whole created world.37

35 Ibid., DN. 1, PG 3, 597B. 36 “Indeed, the inscrutable One is out of the reach of every rational process. Nor can any words come up to the inexpressible Good, this One, this Source of all unity, this supra-existent Being. Mind beyond mind, word beyond speech, it is gathered up by no discourse, by no intuition, by no name. It is and it is as no other being is. Cause of all existence, and therefore itself transcending existence, it alone could give an authoritative account of what it really is.” Dionysius the Areopagite, DN. 1, PG 3, 596B. English translation in C.E. Rolt, Dionysius the Areopagite: On the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology. Christian Classics Ethereal Library (London: SPCK, 1920), 5. 37 Ibid., DN. 1, PG 3, 593CD.



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For Dionysius mystical theology is “like that ladder set up on the earth whose top reached to Heaven on which the angels of God were ascending and descending, and above which stood Almighty God.”38 He asserts that God, the One who is the principle of simplicity, is the source of all beings. Generally, Dionysius speaks about God in a similar manner as Plotinus39 and Proclus. However, Dionysius’ teaching on the God in Trinity and His energies is a radical ad hoc readjustment of the Neoplatonist philosophers’ ideas concerning the One and the intelligible universe and generally the world.40 These three illustrious thinkers lived in the same historical period and had employed expressions that grow out of their shared cultural horizons. However, even though when Dionysius uses various Neoplatonist expressions, he manages to offer a Christian reading of them. Generally, in his “Mystical Theology” the Areopagite underlines the union with the divine being in terms of an upward journey into the silence of the divine darkness that transcends all knowledge.41 Sergio La Porta argues that: [b]y abandoning all sense perception, mental activity, and psychological identity, the traveler becomes completely united with that which is unknown. Like Gregory of Nyssa

38 Ibid., Preface to MT. PG 3, 997AB. 39 Plotinus taught about the One as the source of Being (τὸ ὄν), Life, and Mind. Cf. Plotinus, Enneades 1.8.2. See also Christian Schäfer, The Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite. An Introduction to the Structure and the Content of the Treatise On the Divine Names (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2006), 86–87. Cf. Dmitry Birjukov, “Hierarchies of Beings in the Patristic Thought. Gregory of Nyssa and Dionysius the Areopagite,” in M. Knežević, ed. The Ways of Byzantine Philosophy. Contemporary Christian Thought Series 32 (Alhambra, California: Sebastian Press, 2015), (71–88), 83. 40 Pseudo-Dionysius, DN. 2.4, PG 3, 640D. See also Vladimir Lossky, “La théologie négative dans la doctrine de Denys l’ Aréopagite.” RSPT 28 (1939) 204–221. Cf. Lossky, The Image, 13–29, 31–43. 41 Ibid., MT. 3, PG, 3, 1033C; PG 3, 1045D–1048B.

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EIRINI ARTEMI AND CHRISTOS TEREZIS before him, Dionysius presents Moses’ ascent up Mount Sinai as the biblical prototype for this mystical ascent.42

It should be noted in this context that the symbol of “darkness” used by Dionysius was also an expression of divine mystery heavily utilized by Gregory of Nyssa, especially with its emphasis on Exodus 20:21. In the Exodus story the people didn’t come near to the mountain, but remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God dwelled. God, in this context, is not called “darkness,” but appears to dwell in darkness, the latter term aiming to express our inability to grasp His essence or nature. In other words, the darkness constitutes our epistemological limitations rather than the mode of subsistence of God. People cannot behold God’s essence. God chose to manifest Himself in types and symbols that the human mind can gaze at him. Indeed, this again points to the limits of human nature, characterized by its weak epistemic capacities that always require an object to be given to our faculties of sense perception and imagination, and rarely making leaps to the intellectual or spiritual level. This also concerns the ineffable God who should thus be made manifest through familiar symbols so that we may at least partially grasp him. How can we perceive the divine nature itself by itself since it is simple, incomposite, and devoid of shape? It is indeed impossible. So God has to help us comprehend Him. God extends His presence to us through His divine energies, those that draw us back into God. The souls that become fertile with love of God, manage to be “clear and spotless mirrors reflecting the glow of primordial light and indeed of God himself,”43 and to be unified with God (theosis). In this way, the human souls are filled with the primordial light of God. This light provides the souls the ability of comprehending ecstatically divine being.44

42 S. L. Porta, “Two Visions of Mysticism: The Corpus Dionysiacum and the Book of Lamentation.” RTK 3–4 (2009–2010): 243– 257, 252. 43 Pseudo-Dionysius, EC. 3, PG 3, 165A. 44 Ibid., 8, PG 3, 212BC.



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God is thus not known itself by itself. Even so, the knowledge of God is given to us through the faculties of perception, intellection, and also through ignorance, perhaps the highest form of knowledge as far as God is concerned. There is indeed spiritual comprehension, understanding, knowledge, contact, sense perception, opinion, concept, naming, etc. that pertain to God. Nevertheless, he is neither comprehended, nor explained, nor named. He is none-existing, but he is also seen in everything existing. He is “all in all”45 and yet He is nowhere. He is seen in all by all and yet He is seen in nothing by anyone. However, He is praised by all of which He is the cause, which includes everything that exists.46 Dionysius explains that when the mind is stripped away from its idea of God, it enters upon the “darkness of unknowing” wherein it “renounces all the apprehensions of the understanding and is wrapped in that which is wholly intangible and invisible…united…to Him that is wholly unknowable.”47 To sum up the knowledge of God according to Dionysius the Areopagite, we shall employ the passage of Lossky: The God of Dionysius, incomprehensible by nature, the God of the Psalms: “who made darkness his secret place,” is not the primordial God-Unity of the Neoplatonists. If He is incomprehensible it is not because of a simplicity which cannot come to terms with the multiplicity with which all knowledge relating to creatures is tainted. It is, so to say, an incomprehensibility which is more radical, more absolute. Indeed, God would no longer be incomprehensible by nature if this incomprehensibility were, as in Plotinus, rooted in the simplicity of the One.48

45 1 Cor. 15:24. 46 Pseudo-Dionysius, EC 2, P3, 136–164. 47 Ibid. 48 Lossky, The Mystical, 33.

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CONCLUSION Gregory of Nyssa and Dionysius the Areopagite agree that the only real knowledge of God is not to be found in the created world. Even so, they were: [c]areful not to make the cognitive knowledge, even if necessarily limited, seem unimportant. They insist on the absolute transcendence and unknowability of the Trinity, while emphasizing the reasonable accuracy of words as verbal signifiers.49

According to both Church Fathers, mystical theology indicates how we may know God through His works,50 and how we may contemplate the light of his glory, although He remains completely transcendent and unapproachable in His essence. This is how mystical theology leads us to the Supernatural one. Mystical theology is grounded in the truth of faith, handed to us in the form of divine revelation. This truth finds its sustaining pillars not in human intellect, but in the authority of God Himself. Moreover, both Gregory and Dionysius clearly pointed out that human language does not have the capacity to express the antinomy of God’s transcendent immanence. It cannot describe how that which is absolutely beyond and above can at the same tine be in or within, how that which is transcendent can reveal itself, how that which is absolutely simple can produce multiplicity of things, how this transcendent God can be creator and redeemer of the world.51 The Church Fathers’ 49 Emmanuel Clapsis, Orthodoxy in Conversation: Orthodox Ecumenical Engagements (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2000), 42. Cf. Jonah Winters, “Saying Nothing about No-Thing: Apophatic Theology in the Classical World”, Baha'i Library Online 1994, http://bahai-library.com/personal/jw/my.papers/apophatic.html. 50 John A. McGuckin, Standing in God’s Holy Fire: The Byzantine Tradition (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2001), 129. 51 A. Louth, Denys the Areopagite (London: Geoffrey Chapman Press, 1989), 90.



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main conjecture in this respect was that the knowledge of God does not entail intellectual discernment, knowing “what” God is; rather, it signifies a super-intellectual union with God. But how is that possible, considering that God is infinite, while human beings are evidently finite? But even if we are to have some knowledge of God, what would that be? The Fathers noted that such a knowledge would entail a transition from a cataphatic to an apophatic mode of expression. In other words, this knowledge would no longer consist of affirmations, inferences, etc. Rather, it would entail seeing without seeing and knowing without knowing of God, who is beyond any sight or knowledge.52 Gregory of Nyssa used the analogy of gnofos, of unapproachable light which reveals God thus disclosing God’s indwelling place.53 All the Fathers also agreed that God reveals God-self in the person of his Son through incarnation.

52 Gregory of Nyssa, De vita Mosis, 2, 231–33, 8–9. Dionysius, De Myst. 2, PG 3, 1025AB. 53 Pseudo-Dionysius, DN. 1, PG 3, 585–87; 2, PG 3, 636–80; Ibid., De Myst. 1, PG 3, 997–1025. Ibid., Eps. 5.1.1, PG 3, 1073–77. Gregory of Nyssa, Ad Theophilum adversus Apollinaristas. PG 45, 1273BC; In inscriptiones Psalmorum. PG 44, 532A-D. Gregory of Nyssa, De vita Mosis, 2, 311–16; In Canticum Canticorum, 6, 181, 202.



I.4. ANALOGY IN THE MYSTICAL THEOLOGY OF GREGORY OF NYSSA: TRANSCENDING NEGATION AND AFFIRMATION ROBERT F. FORTUIN

Silence is a mystery of the age to come, but words are instruments of this world. – Isaac the Syrian (Ascetical Homilies, 65) …the Holy Spirit, in delivering to us the Divine mysteries, conveys its instruction on those matters which transcend language by means of what is within our capacity – Gregory of Nyssa (Contra Eunomium, V, 208)

All theology, not merely mystical theology, faces what appears to be an insurmountable problem: how are mere words, the “instruments of this world” as Isaac the Syrian calls them, able to express a reality which transcends this world? Our words must account for the interval of dissimilarity between God and creation, but how is this accomplished, if it is at all possible? In this essay I would like to draw attention to an important aspect of theology which is often overlooked in theological pursuits: namely, the problematic task of language to convey meaningful concepts about theology proper. It is simply assumed that concepts and words about God, our “theo-logoi,” equally apply to God as do words that apply to everything else. Take for instance “existence.” God exists and the cosmos exists; therefore, by way of affirmation “to exist” is thought to apply univocally to both God and creation. The extreme opposite is often assumed to be true as well: words and concepts entirely lose their meaning when applied to theology proper. 69

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The absolute equivocity of words, it is claimed, is warranted due to the radical dissimilarity of God. God is good, but we must negate the meaning of what “good” means as applied to God, for how God is good is shrouded in the impenetrable darkness of absolute apophaticism. The ability of language to convey meaning related to theology proper breaks down. It is here that Gregory of Nyssa’s arguments in Contra Eunomium demonstrate ordinary use of language, that is to say, univocal and equivocal usage of language, is unable to properly convey meaning about theology proper.1 As a way out of this conundrum, the fourth century bishop lays out an alternative philosophy of language which he contends, pace Eunomius, can indeed reflect the mystery of the one God eternally existing in three Persons. Gregory affirms that ordinary words, with certain important provisos, indeed can be used to apply to the God Who infinitely transcends the created order. Given specific grammatical rules to govern our theo-logoi, discourse about matters theological is possible. In order to appreciate the genius of Gregory’s proposal, an area of study concerning the rules for discourse about God, the grammar of “theo-logic” will have to be briefly examined. This grammar concerns the rules which govern predication of God; this discipline aims to inquire how theological language functions differently from that which concerns ordinary, nondivine subjects. To come back to the example of “existence”: the inquiry specifically asks in what sense can existence be said of God (i.e., “God exists”). How does divine existence differ, if it differs at all, from non-divine existence? More specifically, how can divine difference (and conversely, likeness) be accounted for in our theological grammar whilst avoiding on the one hand onto-theology of univocity, and on the other hand the complete loss of meaning in the equivocity of the apophatic? Specifically, what bearing does divine difference have on the signification of words? A surmise that the need to pay attention to theological language is of particular concern to Eastern Orthodoxy and to 1 Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1880), VIII NPNF V, 208. All references to works of Gregory in this essay are from NPNF (Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers), Volume V.



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any Christian tradition for which God’s radical otherness, the absolute divine dissimilarity, constitutes the sin qua non of the mystical dimension of theology. Because words, “the instruments of this world,” are the only tools available to the theologian, attention to the demands which theology exerts on language then is more than an idle pre-occupation. The theologian stands or falls by the words she chooses and the grammatical rules she utilizes. The importance of the rules of theological language is demonstrated in that it concerns itself not merely with epistemology but operates in a space where dogmatics, metaphysics, and linguistics intersect. Setting aside for a moment the question as to the ground for theological knowledge (epistemology shall be noted later), we return to the opening question: how can we adequately formulate a “theo-logos,” words or discourse about God, given the mysterious and transcendent nature of the theological subject? God as subject: this should make the alarm bells go off, and red flags should be raised. The fathers and mothers of the undivided church overwhelmingly warn that God is not an ordinary subject: God is not to be reckoned as a being within the continuum of beings. God is, in a real sense, not a proper subject at all. In the words of Pseudo-Dionysius, “if in seeing God one can know what one sees, then one has not seen God in himself but something intelligible, something which is inferior to him.”2 Dionysius warns us that if in naming God we think we thereby have come to a comprehension of the nature of God, i.e., what God is, we will have deluded ourselves in describing an idol. John of Damascus is no less direct: “God does not belong to the class of existing things: not that he has no existence but that he is above all existing things, nay even above existence itself.”3 2 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works. Trans. C. Luibheid, (London: SPCK, 1987), 263. 3 John of Damascus. Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 1.4. John here is expressing the difference in how it can be said that God exists and creatures exists. We see here a negation of existence (“God does not belong to the class

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The difficulty these Christian theologians of Late Antiquity point to is that in offering a description of a transcendent object its very transcendence has been betrayed. The words we choose, the meaning we ascribe to them, and how we utilize them—when we speak of theology proper—must therefore be very carefully considered. For these theologians there is a sense in which our words should not exhaustively signify God. This is so, they warn, for words cannot describe God. Gregory of Nyssa sums up this limitation of words used to describe divinity: “the infinity of God exceeds all the significance and comprehension that names can furnish.”4 Words, descriptions, and concepts, then, are unable to exhaust divine transcendence; God ever exceeds what words can signify. The Cappadocian father exposes a complication for God-talk: how can discourse about God who “is above existence itself” proceed when our language can only signify concepts of inferior things? The task demanded of language is to bear the ineffable mystery of the transcendent God—but this does not seem to be possible. How can words signify the adiastematic “ever-exceeding-beyond” when the only reference available to language is the comprehension of our diastematic “here and now”? Gregory of Nyssa overcomes this problem by means of a theory of theological language grounded in the reflection of God’s likeness beheld in creation. This likeness avoids equivocation, while by incorporating analogical predication, Gregory is able to account for absolute divine dissimilarity. By way of the Nyssen’s theology of language I will demonstrate: 1.) special grammatical rules should govern theological discourse to account for God’s transcendence, the interval of God’s infinite dissimilarity; 2.) apophaticism as a mode of discourse is inadequate for the theological task; and 3.) analogous predication is the language of mystery, the only means whereby theology proper, the mystical theology of God’s transcendence, can be conveyed.

of existing things”), a denial of negation (“not that he has no existence”), and a double affirmation of existence (“he is [i.e. exists] above all existing things, nay even [exists] above existence itself”). 4 Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium, 147.



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The need for attention to theological grammar is nowhere more evident than in Gregory of Nyssa’s Contra Eunomium. Gregory charges his Neo-Arian interlocutor, Bishop Eunomius of Cyzicus, with the error of using words in their normal, univocal sense to signify the divine mode of existence. Eunomius, says Gregory, is breaking the cardinal rules of theological grammar. Arguing against Eunomius’ claim that “there was a time when Christ was not,” Gregory points out that the Son’s generation from the Father is unlike creaturely generation which denotes non-existence and succession in time.5 According to Gregory, Eunomius’ error lies in the univocal use of the term “generation”: he uses the creaturely mode of begetting to signify the divine mode of generation.6 For the Cappadocian bishop, the requirement for a distinctive theological grammar is due to God’s radical otherness from creation. Consequently, a literal or univocal use of “generation” is not to be predicated of God. Divine dissimilarity, according to Nyssa, is the reason for the inadequacy of the ordinary sense and univocal signification of language in discourse about God. Failure to account for divine difference in theological grammar leads to, or is a result of, erroneous anthropophatic conceptions of divinity. Words must be utilized in such a way to move beyond their ordinary signification: for Gregory theological grammar must go beyond mere apophatic negation (i.e., the negation ‘the Son is not generated’ is equally erroneous and inadequate) in order to establish in what sense the Son can be said to be generated. Based on an atemporal filial generation which precludes non-existence, Gregory refutes the Anomoeians’ claim that the Son is essentially unlike the Father. Gregory’s use of terms acknowledges the difference between the divine and creaturely mode of existence. 5 Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium, 206. Gregory denies the validity of univocal predication, or “community and identity of meaning” as he calls it. Generation is only one example of the inadequacy of univocal language, many other instances can be found in Contra Eunomium. 6 This error is compounded by Eunomius’ identification of God’s nature with being “unbegotten,” arguing that because only the Father is unbegotten, therefore the Son is not divine.

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Dissimilarity from creation is thus of utmost importance to Gregory’s theology and theological language: divine unlikeness must somehow—and always—be reflected in our discourse of theology proper. However, dissimilarity never amounts to simple negation or absolute equivocity. It should come as no surprise then to find that Nyssa’s defense of Nicene orthodoxy is built on a detailed articulation of God’s radical difference from creation. Undoubtedly, divine difference has important implications for how theological language is constructed. Gregory’s ontological Anschauung consists of an absolute division between the uncreated and created order of existence—an interval which he refers to as the “ultimate division of being” or ἀνωτάτω διαίρεσις. This abyss is a “disproportion of dissimilarity” marked by the infinite, absolute existence of God7 in contradistinction to the finite, contingent being of the created order. God’s infinite mode of existence is utterly unlike the mode of existence of the cosmos which is constrained by limitation, composition, distention, and change. According to Gregory, God’s adiastematic existence does not come into being8 but always simply “is”; there is no “before,” “during” and “after” in God’s mode of being.9 Furthermore, unlike creation, God’s existence is marked neither by a “here” nor a “there” as if composed of parts which extend into space. God’s illimitable mode of being thus knows neither time, place, extension, nor composition.10 According to Gregory, God is “the cause of his own existence” which denotes that the ἀνωτάτω διαίρεσις constitutes an ontological disproportion

7 Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium, 98. 8 Ibid., 94. 9 See Ibid., 67, 69, 94. 10 Interestingly, timelessness does not denote incompatibility with time for Gregory, as time issues forth from infinity. Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium, 67ff. God we may say transcends time; this seems to denote for Gregory that eternity is in some way compatible to, or can “contain,” time.



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between God and his handiwork.11 He self-exists and is therefore unlike derivative existence, for God does not depend on anything or anyone “outside” Himself for His existence. God’s aseity is the possibility for creation as only He that self-exists can freely give being to being without prior constraint, suffering no diminishment nor necessity. Furthermore, God is perfect, without unrealized potential; for according to Gregory, “nothing can be added to God.”12 This is a very quick sketch of how the Nyssen construes the infinite interval of difference which distinguishes God from creation. The pertinent point here is that the ultimate division of being, as Gregory develops it, poses a difficulty for theological discourse, a problem of which Gregory was quite cognizant. As Gregory explains it, “the created nature and the Divine essence being thus divided, and admitting no intermixture in respect of their distinguishing properties, we must by no means conceive both by means of similar terms.”13 The distinction between God and creation precludes the use of similar designations. Words are emptied of signification by reason of their inability to bridge the infinite interval of difference. Because each nature has its own distinct mode of existence it is not possible to “express by the same terms the created and the uncreated essence, seeing that those attributes which are predicated of the latter essence are not discoverable in the former.”14 The interval between God and creation thus forecloses all possibility of theologizing—for according to Gregory the division does not allow for “intermixture”; therefore “similar terms” cannot be used. But are words not emptied of their meaning? Equivocation, the complete breakdown of signification, seems to rule the day, for absolute unlikeness presents a complete disjunction forestalling all God-talk. However, and this is a very important “however,” Gregory shows how he overcomes this difficulty in his response to Eunomius: 11 Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium: “owning the same cause of His being.” 12 Ibid., 90. 13 Ibid., Book VIII, Chapter 5. 14 Ibid., 194.

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ROBERT F. FORTUIN we are taught by the divine Scriptures many names of the Only-begotten—a stone, an axe, a rock, a foundation, bread, a vine, a door, a way, a shepherd, a fountain, a tree, resurrection, a teacher, light, and many such names. But we may not piously use any of these names of the Lord, understanding it according to its immediate sense. For surely it would be a most absurd thing to think that what is incorporeal and immaterial, simple, and without figure, should be fashioned according to the apparent senses of these names… but we transfer the sense of these names to what better becomes the Divine nature, and form some other conception, and if we do designate Him thus, it is not as being any of these things, according to the definition of His nature, but as being called these things while He is conceived by means of the names employed as something else than the things themselves.15

Nyssa affirms the use of normal words, but not with the usual or what he calls the “immediate” and “apparent” sense of their significations. Gregory cautiously approves that discourse about theology proper is possible, provided we remain aware of and utilize the signification of words befitting God’s adiastematic mode of existence. Thus, it is proper according to Nyssa, to predicate of Christ that “he is a rock,” provided we “form some other conception” and say that Christ is not a rock in the ordinary, apparent sense of a rock. Note that here (in the case of a term which does not describe a divine attribute) apophaticism is appropriate. A simple apophatic denial of the affirmation is adequate: “God is not a rock, an axe, a door, and so forth” because God “is not as being any of these things.” In the case of metaphors then, apophaticism is appropriate; however, the inadequacy of apophaticism shall be noted below, for not all predication of God is by way of metaphor. At any rate, Gregory maintains that theological discourse must account for God’s utter dissimilarity from creation. Consequently, God-talk must “transfer the sense” of ordinary words to “what better becomes” the uncreated nature.

15 Ibid., 208.



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The disjunction between the divine and created mode of existence raises the further question as to the nature of this “transfer of sense” and the question as to the possibility of such a shift in knowledge and meaning. Gregory elsewhere in Contra Eunomium explains how he formulates a transfer of sense in theological discourse: [t]he Holy Spirit, in delivering to us the Divine mysteries, conveys its instruction on those matters which transcend language by means of what is within our capacity…it portrays the Divinity in bodily terms…none of which things is apprehended to belong in its primary sense to the Divine Nature…it describes by terms well worn in human use, facts that are beyond every name, while by each of the terms employed concerning God we are led analogically to some more exalted conception. [The Holy Spirit] taking just so much from each [human concept] as may be reverently admitted into our conceptions concerning God…indicates by those conceptions concerning God which correspond to them, not admitting the corporeal senses of the words…yet does not speak in that sense which our customary knowledge enables us to understand.16

In this important pericope, the Nyssen points to two distinct but related aspects. He establishes the epistemological ground for theological discourse and how such epistemology determines the mode whereby this discourse is to be conducted. As to the latter, the mode of discourse, the Cappadocian father notes that by means of ordinary language, “well worn in human use,” conceptions proper to theologia can be obtained by way of analogy, transferring from human concepts just that which is befitting the Divine nature. Analogy or “ἀναλογία” used by Gregory in this passage denotes “a relation by measure of proportionality”—an analogical likeness proportionate to the degree that creaturely existence reflects or participates in the existence and perfections of God. Although a true likeness is affirmed, similarity is always incomplete. Consequently, in 16 Ibid., 204–205.

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describing God, our words always fall short (true in degree only), ever reaching but never capturing its archetype.17 The flipside of the analogy is that insofar the created mode of existence is unlike divinity, dissimilarity precludes the use of terms in their univocal or ordinary sense. It is worth pointing out that Gregory’s analogical theology embeds similarity within an ever-greater dissimilarity in order to account for the disjunction which divine transcendence presents. Recall how this functions in Gregory’s argument against Eunomius: the likeness of human generation to divine filial generation is affirmed, for Nyssa maintains that the Son is begotten, and He is Son of the Father; whilst yet generation is surpassed by infinite dissimilarity. Hence Gregory insists that generation, applied to theology proper, is atemporal and does not denote beginning, becoming, and non-existence. Theological discourse by mode of analogy thus ever acknowledges the need for further explication to formulate the in-what-sense of its predication of God, cognizant of its state of incompletion in light of the infinite otherness of God. The grammar of analogy is thus quite slippery. My contention is that precisely this quality of analogical language makes it the only proper “theologic” for mystical theology, a theology of divine transcendence. This way of predication is aware that its object, theology proper, is ever out of reach, never fully captured by word and concept. At the same time, analogy affirms that words can truthfully reflect divine mystery, and so constitute a true means to encounter and participate in divine otherness. Concerning the epistemological ground for theological discourse referenced earlier, Gregory indicates the existence of a correspondence or proportional (analogical) likeness between created and uncreated being. His epistemology is based on the ontological correspondence of divine likeness present 17 The parallels between the theology of word and the theology of icon should be noted here in that the image, as far as it is said to be a true reflection, is never identified with its archetype, ever pointing beyond itself. Both similarity and dissimilarity are affirmed. It is for this reason that the word, like the icon, is often compared in patristics to a mirror. Needless to say, this is beyond the scope of this present essay.



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in the created order, a correspondence which in turn constitutes the possibility for meaningful discourse about God. Even so, theological grammar must account for the likeness while always noting unlikeness. In Gregory’s words, “that which is ‘made in the image of the Deity necessarily possesses a likeness to its prototype,” and “the reflections of those ineffable qualities of Deity shine forth within the narrow limits of our nature.” Even so, whilst recognizing similarity, Gregory is keen to note dissimilarity for, “it would be no longer an ‘image,’ if it were altogether identical with that other.”18 By means of analogy Gregory of Nyssa frames a theological language which is grounded in God’s likeness in creation and which, at the same time, accounts for divine dissimilarity. It is thus that he construes his grammatical rules to guide theological discourse in order to “transfer the sense” of names to “what better becomes the Divine nature.” Analogical predication exposes the inadequacy of unqualified apophaticism as the ground for theological discourse. As noted earlier, analogical discourse of God accounts for the interval of dissimilarity whilst being grounded in an epistemology of correspondence. Apophaticism as a theology of denial, however, foregrounds dissimilarity such that it undermines the possibility of theological discourse. This shortcoming of the via negativa as a mode of discourse is evident when applied to divine attributes or perfections (i.e., goodness, being, wisdom, truth, and so forth) when predicated of God. In the case of terms not signifying a divine attribute, denial is proper: so, we can state that “God is not a rock” and leave it at that, for God is not really a rock. But this is not the case for divine perfections—take for instance “goodness.” We can affirm that “God is good” without qualification (keeping in mind of course that our manner of signifying perfections always falls short, but “God is good” nonetheless can be properly said of God). The statement “God is not good,” however, cannot be properly predicated of God. The denial must be qualified to signify how, in what sense, divine goodness is dissimilar to goodness as encountered in creatures. Here the analogy of proportionality, 18 Gregory of Nyssa, The Soul and The Resurrection (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1880), 437.

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Nyssa’s Grundregel for theological grammar, has to be applied: God is not good in the sense that goodness is predicated of creatures. Creatures participate in goodness by measure of acquisition and becoming (i.e., in various degrees), but God does not participate in goodness for He is the good and He is goodness (recall the difference in mode of existence according to Gregory's ultimate division of being). By this analogical rule, then, discourse of God acknowledges the likeness and the dislikeness of goodness. The good can be found in creatures, but in the sense in them only according to their proportion (that is, by analogy). As such, creaturely goodness is both similar and infinitely dissimilar to divine goodness. By ἀναλογία then Nyssa is able to account for dissimilarity (“God is the good and goodness”) and similarity (a “man is good” based on a measure or proportion of correspondence) in theological discourse. In contrast, the apophatic method can only signify a mere denial (“God is not good” or “we don’t know what good means when applied to God”) and is therefore inadequate to construct a theological grammar which is able to reflect the mystery of Exodus 3:14 of the “I Am Who I Am,” who is beyond the dialectic of negation and affirmation. The priority given to dissimilarity by strict apophaticism must give way to divine analogical correspondence, lest meaning is entirely vacated from theological discourse. Alas, some have overlooked or departed from Nyssa’s epistemology of “analogical correspondence” and instead foreground apophaticism to regulate theological discourse. Perhaps such a departure is already detectable in the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius, fond as he is of the way of negation. This may have been picked up later by John of Damascus. Extreme expressions of negative theology may be seen in the writings of Meister Eckhart, for whom God is “non-God, a non-spirit, a non-person, a non-image.”19 It seems plausible that Eckhart’s 19 Meister Eckhart, Sermon 83, Renovamini Spiritu, 208. To be fair, negation is not Eckhart’s sole approach to theology proper, but strict apophaticism does tend to play a dominant role.



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approach to apophatic theology influenced a theologian closer to our time—Vladimir Lossky. Lossky’s apophaticism allowed him to state without qualification that, “God is not being, He is not the good.”20 Aristotle Papanikolaou has effectively demonstrated the problematic that such a construal of apophatic theology poses for epistemology. Lossky’s prioritization of apophaticism precludes knowledge of theologia (God in Himself, the immanent Trinity) and permits knowledge of God only in the realm of oikonomia. For Lossky theologia remains shrouded in absolutely hiddenness for “not even God’s economy can reveal anything positive” about God ad intra.21 Apophaticism construed and utilized in such a way dangerously forestalls theological discourse by emptying words of their ability to carry meaning, having lost their ontological grounding in divine correspondence. Papanikolaou aptly points to the dire consequences Lossky’s apophatic break between theologia and oikonomia has for theological discourse: “the God who is experienced in the economy is not the God who is free to be in communion with the non-divine order… Lossky’s apophaticism results in a break such that there is no experience of God’s immanent life.”22 If there is no revelation of God’s immanent life whatsoever, the meaning of the economic revelation is called into question. It is thus possible to come to conclude with Lossky that “God is not the good.” I surmise that the consequences for theology are far from trivial. Theological language without epistemological grounding in analogical correspondence of God in creation is emptied of its ability to convey meaningful and trustworthy information. Pure equivocation constitutes a nihilism of theological grammar which makes it is impossible to establish a meaningful distinction between “God is good” and “God is not good.” All 20 Vladimir Lossky. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir Press, 2002), 40. In later writings Lossky seems to have been aware of the problematic inherent in his theological method. 21 Aristotle Papanikolaou, Being with God (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 2008), 99. 22 Ibid, 123–124.

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theological predication is vacated. Such radical apophatic theology may be labelled as mystical theology, but it raises the question in what sense such mysticism has a justifiable claim to be called biblical or patristic. At any rate, such use of acute apophaticism appears to be in sharp contrast with Gregory of Nyssa’s analogical discourse of God, for whom theology can express meaningful affirmations qualified by the awareness of the ontological abyss of dissimilarity between God and creation in the “ultimate division of being.” I will conclude with a brief thought about the implications which Gregory’s theory of discourse of God may have for contemporary Eastern Orthodox theologies of the essence / energy distinction. I suggest there is a very close parallel between Lossky’s prioritization of apophaticism and popularized construals of the essence/energy distinction favored by many Orthodox. I surmise that the distinction functions in a similar way to Lossky’s apophatic break between the Theologia-Oikonomia. The epistemological break between the essence and energy of God is modelled after Lossky’s bifurcation of the revelation of the oikonomia and the unknowable inner triune existence of God. The Orthodox essence / energy distinction risks devolving into, appropriating a phrase from Papanikolaou, a “non-ontology of non-being.” The Trinitarian life is wholly obscured by complete equivocation (i.e., nothing may be predicated of God’s uncreated essence or nature), whereas univocal, ordinary predication is applicable to God as he is revealed (i.e., his uncreated energies). Gregory of Nyssa, however, makes no distinction between the divine essence and energies in this regard, for both are God’s mode of existence—which is to say that for Gregory the infinite interval of dissimilarity and the analogical similarity apply equally to the divine essence as they do to the divine energies. The implication is that univocal predication of God’s energies is no less unfitting as is equivocal predication of God’s essence. Analogous discourse is as befitting God’s essence as it is of God’s energies. For Gregory the only distinction that exists is that between uncreated and created existence. Similarity and dissimilarity apply equally to God’s essence as to his energies. Similarity makes possible the discourse of the immanent Trinity and the divine economy. Divine dissimilarity—of



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essence and energy—makes it necessary to conduct discourse of God by way of analogical grammar. It appears thus that a rethinking of the utility and formulation of the essence/energy distinction is critical for contemporary Eastern Orthodox theology. The two areas of immediate concern are the placement of an epistemological division within God by way of the essence/energy distinction, and the priority given to apophaticism without an ontological grounding in creation. Such positions threaten the possibility for meaningful theological predication in regards to theology proper. Gregory of Nyssa’s construal of theological discourse in an ontology of analogical correspondence—which posits no distinction between God’s uncreated essence and uncreated energies—seems to be particularly promising and warrants further exploration to address the problematic encountered in contemporary Eastern Orthodox theology. If predication of God is to avoid idolization, theological grammar cannot proceed by univocation: words describing creatures cannot be utilized in the same sense of God. If predication is to avoid agnosticism, it cannot proceed by equivocation and apophaticism. Words need to retain meaning so as to prevent failure to communicate information. To reflect the mystery of the revelation of the ineffable and inscrutable Creator, in constructing our grammar of theological discourse, we would do well to follow Gregory of Nyssa in recognizing God’s utter dissimilar mode of existence whilst affirming its epistemological grounding in an ontology of proportional correspondence. Only a theological discourse which proceeds by way of a language of analogy is able—albeit always tentatively and in part—to reflect the mystery of presence and remove, of similarity in dissimilarity. Analogous predication is a discourse of mystery, a language which befits the transcendent God who is ever beyond negation and affirmation.



I.5. RECAPITULATIVE REVERSAL AND THE RESTORATION OF HUMANITY IN ST. IRENAEUS DON SPRINGER INTRODUCTION The theology of Irenaeus of Lyons features several fascinating elements.1 Among the most important, and most discussed, is his doctrine of recapitulation.2 An interesting feature of this

1 Among the most comprehensive examinations of his life and theology include Eric Osborn, Irenaeus of Lyons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Jacques Fantino, La Théologie D’Irénée: Lecture Des Ecritures En Réponse À L’exégèse Gnostique: Une Approche Trinitaire (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1994). 2 Irenaeus’ teachings survive in two treatises. His major work, commonly referred to as Against Heresies, and the much smaller Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching. For critical editions of Against Heresies, see A. Rousseau et al., eds., Irénée de Lyon: Contre Les Hérésies. 10 vols. SC (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1965–1982). A critical edition of Demonstration has not been produced in the past century, but Rousseau published a critical edition in Latin and French translation. Adelin Rousseau, ed., Irénée de Lyon: La Démonstration de la Prédication Apostolique. SC 406 (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1995). Unless otherwise noted, English translation from the Ancient Christian Writers series is used for Books 1–3, the ANF for Books 4 and 5, and John Behr for Demonstration. D. J. Unger, J. J. Dillon, and M. C.

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doctrine is the typological reference to Christ as the second Adam, an idea found earlier in the New Testament and in Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho.3 Following Justin, Irenaeus coupled the Adam-Christ parallel with a typological pairing of Eve and Mary. This second parallel is a feature of Irenaean theology that has recently garnered considerable interest from scholars. A key catalyst in the discussion was Steenberg’s article on Mary as the ‘co-recapitulator.’4 At the heart of the essay was analysis examining Irenaeus’ rationale for including Jesus’ mother in his doctrine of recapitulation. This avenue of research prompted others to follow, examining Mary’s role from a variety of perspectives. Two notable examples include Dunning, who approached the question from a largely feminist perspective, and Miola, whose contribution emerged out of her insights into Irenaeus’ famous “tied and untied” knots imagery.5 The purpose of this paper is to examine the larger context of the typological parallels employed by Irenaeus. In addition to the virgins, he also drew attention to trees, angels, the soil, Steenberg, eds., St Irenaeus of Lyons: Against the Heresies, 3 vols., Ancient Christian Writers (New York: Paulist, 1992); Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, eds., Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987); John Behr, ed., Irenaeus of Lyons: On the Apostolic Preaching (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997). 3 Rom. 5:12–21; 1 Cor. 15:22, 44–46; Justin, Dialogue with Trypho, 100. 4 M. C. Steenberg, “The Role of Mary as Co-Recapitulator in St Irenaeus of Lyons,” Vigiliae Christ. 58.2 (2004): 117–37. 5 Benjamin H. Dunning, “Virgin Earth, Virgin Birth: Creation, Sexual Difference, and Recapitulation in Irenaeus of Lyons,” JR 89.1 (2009): 57–88; Maria del Fiat Miola, “Mary as Un-Tier and Tier of Knots: Irenaeus Reinterpreted,” JECS 24.3 (2016): 337–61; See also Bernard Sesboüé, Tout Récapituler dans le Christ: Christologie et Sotériologie d’Irénée de Lyon, Jésus et Jésus-Christ 80 (Paris: Desclée, 2011); Domingo Ramos-Lisson, “Le Rôle de La Femme Dans La Théologie de Saint Irénée,” SP 21 (1989): 163–74; Manlio Simonetti, “Per Typica Ad Vera,” Vetera Christ. 18 (1981): 357–82; A. D’alès, “La Doctrine de Récapitulation En S. Irénée,” RSR 6.1 (1916): 185.



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the dove, and the serpent. To be sure, Adam and Christ, Eve and Mary are the most important, and by far the most referenced. This study, however, looks at all of the pairs as a whole, and in view of that whole, only then do I consider the Marian issues addressed by the aforementioned scholars. Their key concern was to ask what role Mary played in Irenaeus’ understanding of recapitulation. My concern is to broaden the analysis to include the other typological parallels. I argue that Irenaeus’ motivations can be attributed to two central points. First, that his presuppositions concerning the order, harmony, and equilibrium of God’s perfectly structured creation required him to balance out every element involved in humanity’s fall into sin. Second, this aesthetic insistence on balance was accompanied by a zealous concern to emphasize the total and comprehensive restoration of every phase and every detail of humanity’s existence. His famous statement that Christ “became what we are that we might become what He is,” echoes the theme that is at the heart of his entire theological project. I suggest, then, that the recapitulative pairs need to be carefully considered in view of these two themes: order and restoration.

RECAPITULATION DEFINED The concept of recapitulation is relatively straight forward, though Irenaeus’ use of the term is multivalent. Literally expressing a summarization of aforementioned details, Robert Grant pointed out that while Irenaeus did use the term in its typical grammatical and rhetorical context, he more often than not “theologized the concept for his own purposes.”6 Osborn counted no less than eleven variables of meaning to the concept but identified four foundational keys. Recapitulation was understood to be a salvific summing up that “corrects and perfects humankind; it inaugurates and consummates a new

6 Robert M. Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons (London: Routledge, 1997), 46–52.

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humanity.”7 Chapter 16 of Book 3 of Against Heresies begins what is a lengthy section on this theme and its introduction offers a succinct summary of the concept: [The] Only begotten Word, who is always present with the human race, was united and closely grafted to His handiwork…Jesus comes through every economy and recapitulates in Himself all things…[that] He might draw all things to Himself at the proper time.8

To condense Osborn’s four points down to a single emphasis, I suggest the primary concern here is with the restoration of humanity. It is interesting to note, that the Adam-second Adam parallel does not emerge through the first five chapters of discussion on recapitulation. To put that into perspective, one needs to wade through over 130 pages of Rousseau’s critical edition before any typological parallels appear. In those first five chapters, there are only three passing references to Adam, only one of which is related to the idea of Christ restoring his predecessor’s fall.9 The point is more of an aside, but it alerts the reader to the fact that these parallels are not Irenaeus’ immediate concern and need to be carefully examined in view of the larger context.

7 Osborn, Irenaeus, 97; See also James G. Bushur, Irenaeus of Lyons and the Mosaic of Christ: Preaching Scripture in the Era of Martyrdom (New York: Routledge, 2017), 51–80; Paul M. Blowers, Drama of the Divine Economy: Creator and Creation in Early Christian Theology and Piety (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 67–100; Jacques Fantino, “Le Passage Du Premier Adam Au Second Adam Comme Expression Du Salut Chez Irénée de Lyon,” Vigiliae Christ. 52.4 (1998): 418–29. 8 Irenaeus of Lyons, AH, 3.16.6. 9 “…when He became incarnate, and was made man, He recapitulated in Himself the long unfolding of humankind, granting salvation by way of compendium, that in Christ Jesus we might receive what we had lost in Adam, namely, to be according to the image and likeness of God.” Ibid., 3.18.1.



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The Two Adams Adam emerges as a central figure in the 21st chapter of Book 3. Here, recapitulation is not simply a theoretical construct but is an expression of the divine plan enacted in time and space. The arrival of the Word of God is, for Irenaeus, the chief historical moment. Jesus is identified as the second Adam not only for solidarity purposes but also to locate in his person the truth and fulfillment of the original intention for humanity. As Adam was created by God, sharing in his image and likeness, with the intention of walking and growing in communion with Him, so in this sense is Jesus “second.” But it is there that the continuity ends, for in almost every other respect, the second Adam is required to reverse the actions of, the events surrounding, and most importantly, the consequences that came because of the first man. Thus, “He has recapitulated in Himself the ancient first-fashioned man. Just as sin came through one man’s disobedience, and sin thus reigned, so by one man’s obedience, justice was brought and the fruit of life brought forth…”10 Second Eve In the same way that Christ accounts for and reverses the sin of Adam, so too does Irenaeus present Mary in parallel to Eve. Among the more important passages is Heresies 3.22.4. It reads: The Virgin Mary was found obedient [saying to the angel:] ‘Behold…let it be done to me according to Your word;’ but Eve was disobedient, for she did not obey when she was yet a virgin…She was disobedient, and became the cause of death for herself and for the entire human race. In the same way, Mary, though she had a man destined for her beforehand, yet nevertheless a virgin, was obedient and was made the cause of salvation for herself and the entire human race…pointing out thereby the return-circuit from 10 Ibid., 3.21.10. Later in the paragraph, he refers to Christ directly as the second Adam.

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DON SPRINGER Mary to Eve. For in no other way is that which is tied together loosed, except that the cords of the tying are untied in the reverse order, so that the first cords are loosed by [loosing] the second; in other words, the second cords release the first.”11

There can be little doubt of the significance of this passage. In varying ways, Steenberg, Dunning, and Miola each offered unique interpretations of the meaning and significance of the Marian inclusion.12 Each of them, however, isolated two key texts as being of first importance. First, that through obedience “the virgin became the cause of salvation, both to herself and the whole human race.”13 Second, that, “as the human race fell into bondage to death by means of a virgin, so is it rescued by a virgin.”14 These are important statements and there can be no doubt that throughout his writings Irenaeus exhibited a sacred view of Mary.15 Moreover, it is undoubtedly unfair to simply brush these texts aside, as scholars have, on occasion, done in the past.16 The interest in these Marian passages centers on the sense of salvific causality that is suggested. Reference to “rescue by the virgin” and that she was the “cause of 11 Ibid., 3.22.4. 12 To summarize in somewhat over-simplistic terms, Steenberg argued that Mary typifies the social, participatory response to Christ’s work; Dunning suggested the second virgin was needed to address the sexual difference and imbalance between Eve and all the women who followed, and Miola saw Mary as the one who was truly a partner in the recapitulative work of Christ. For a helpful summary of Steenberg’s position and other relevant scholarship, see Miola, “Mary as Un-Tier,” 339–42. 13 Irenaeus, AH, 3.22.4. 14 Ibid., 5.19.1. 15 For an overview, see Luigi Gambero, Mary and the Fathers of the Church: The Blessed Virgin Mary in Patristic Thought, trans. Thomas Buffer (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999), 51–58. 16 For one example, see the comments in F. R. M. Hitchcock, Irenaeus of Lugdunum: A Study of His Teaching (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1914), 37–39.



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salvation,” are certainly issues in need of study. However, such study must pay careful attention to the larger context of Irenaeus’ thought.

THE LARGER CONTEXT To that end, there are three often overlooked elements to Irenaeus’ doctrine of recapitulation that ought to inform this issue. Secondary Typologies The first element that should inform the analysis of the EveMary issue is recognition of the other typological parallels. In addition to Adam and Jesus, Eve and Mary, Irenaeus also argued that the Lord’s obedience on the tree recapitulated the disobedience of the first tree.17 Also, not only were the two women betrothed virgins, but the point was also made that just as Jesus emerged from a virgin mother, so too was Adam created from virgin soil, a point which Dunning explored in considerable detail.18 There are also three sets of parallels for the serpent. First, the angel who brought good news of truth to Mary was contrasted with the seduction of the “angel” to Eve.19 Second, the scheming serpent of Eden was balanced out by the innocent and truthful dove at Jesus’ baptism.20 Third, there was a parallel made between Christ and the snake; the former as the “one whose sole was bitten but who has the power to tread on the head of his enemy,” the latter as “the one who bit and killed,” but who is destined to be trampled.21 To summarize, the typological pairings consist of Adam and Christ, Eve and Mary, on disobedience versus obedience, two virginities, two trees, as well as the threefold serpent to 17 Irenaeus, AH, 5.19.1. 18 Ibid., 3.21.10, Dem. 32. Dunning, “Virgin Earth, Virgin Birth,” 68–72. 19 Ibid., 5.19.1. 20 Ibid., 5.19.1. 21 Ibid., 3.23.7.

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Christ/dove/angel parallels.22 Despite these fascinating typological maneuvers, these secondary parallels have not received a great deal of attention from scholars. Such neglect is not entirely surprising, as neither the angel, nor the dove, and certainly the tree could not be understood as a “co-recapitulator,” as Steenberg identified Mary. Indeed, with these elements, the tendency has been to view them only as examples of Irenaeus’ love for order and aesthetic.23 As Osborn put it, these secondary elements help tie the argument together.24 The full implications of these typologies will be explored below, but the first point of importance is to acknowledge the need to explore all of the pairings within this larger typological framework proposed by Irenaeus. The importance of doing so is reflected in the second of the neglected elements: Irenaeus’ treatment of obedience in the recapitulation. Obedience At the heart of Mary’s role in the recapitulation is her faithfulness. It is her obedience which Irenaeus described as being that which untied the knot of Eve’s disobedience.25 As a result, the interpretation has been offered that Mary is thus participating in Christ’s recapitulating work. Indeed, Miola suggested that “she herself also recapitulates all things in Christ… 22 Osborn also sees a connection between the tree of Eden, paradise, and the cross. These are important “images” in the doctrine of recapitulation, but unlike the others, they are not clearly presented in a typological pairing. Osborn, Irenaeus of Lyons, 98. 23 For the definitive treatment on the subject, see Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics. Volume II, Studies in Theological Style: Clerical Styles (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1984), 17–59. 24 Osborn, Irenaeus, 98 n. 5. 25 For two interpretations of Irenaeus’ meaning behind the knots, see Miola, “Mary as Un-Tier,” 356–61; Dominic J. Unger and Matthew C. Steenberg, St. Irenaeus of Lyons: Against the Heresies, Book 3, Ancient Christian Writers 64 (New York: Paulist, 2012), 201 n. 22.



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Mary is intimately associated with her Son and cooperates in all his work.”26 God was “binding the wounds of humanity with the gentle fingers of a Virgin Mother.”27 The problem with Miola’s claim emerges from the fact that Mary’s faithfulness is not the only recapitulative obedience referenced by Irenaeus. In Demonstration 33/34 it states: the transgression which occurred through the tree was undone by the obedience of the tree—which [when] the Son of Man, obeying God, was nailed to the tree, destroying the knowledge of evil and introducing and providing the knowledge of good…28 So, by means of the obedience by which He obeyed unto death, hanging upon the tree, He undid the old disobedience occasioned by the tree.29

Clearly, the suggestion of the text is not that the timber of the cross volitionally contributed to humanity’s salvation. For though it is stated that the obedience of and by the tree undid the prior disobedience, Irenaeus makes clear his meaning. It was Christ’s obedience on the cross that was the true cause of salvation. This does not deny, however, that he understood the tree as occupying an important place in his recapitulative schema. The role played by the tree of life in Eden required a balancing opposite. As Osborn put it, “one tree was set right on another tree, the cross. This only worked because the obedience of Jesus was directed to the same father as was the disobedience of Adam. In the second Adam we are reconciled to God because in him we are made obedient to death.”30 The question, then, is whether Mary’s role is at all analogous to that of the tree, despite the undeniable fact that she—and she alone—made a legitimate, volitional contribution to the historical events of the recapitulation. This leads to the third neglected element.

26 Ibid., 341. 27 Ibid., 361. 28 Irenaeus, Dem., 33. 29 Ibid., 34. Cf. AH, 5.17.4. 30 Osborn, Irenaeus, 100.

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Christocentric Salvation Heresies 3.21.10 reads: He has recapitulated in himself even the first-fashioned man…Adam got his substance from untilled and as yet virgin soil…and was formed by God’s hand, that is, the Word of God…In like manner, since He is the Word of God recapitulating Adam in Himself, He rightly took from Mary, who was yet a virgin, His birth that would be a recapitulation of Adam.31

Later in the paragraph, Irenaeus then asked the hypothetical, yet crucial question of why God used the woman and did not simply take up earth a second time to create the second Adam (For would that not be a true balancing out of the first?). His answer: It was “in order that no different handiwork might be made, and that it might not be a different handiwork that would be saved; but that the same might be recapitulated, the likeness having been preserved.”32 In other words, Jesus came from a human being in order that they who required salvation would share in his likeness; or, as Steenberg put it, that there would be “solidarity” between the Word and the human race.33 In this section, which comes just four paragraphs prior to the statement about the virgin causing salvation, I suggest there are here two points that illustrate the thoroughly Christocentric character of the recapitulation. First, Irenaeus intentionally predicated the virgin birth on the authority and mission of the Word. As the one at the center of the salvific process, Christ—who was the hand that formed Adam—also “took” from Mary his birth. It seems a deliberate fixation of emphasis on Christ, with all else subsumed within. Second, when answering the question as to why God made use of the virgin, he did not indicate any necessary reliance upon her specifically, but that it was for the sake of solidarity with those for whom 31 Irenaeus, AH, 3.21.10. 32 Ibid. 33 Unger and Steenberg, St. Irenaeus Book 3, 199 n. 44.



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he came. Elsewhere, he continually emphasized the Christocentric priority. A text from Heresies 3.23.1 is, I suggest, faithfully representative. It was the Lord, Irenaeus affirmed, that while seeking out those “injured by the serpent,” he bound that strong man and abolished death… [and thus] the captives were “loosed from the bonds of punishment.”34 Ultimately, it was the Lord himself who “untied” the knots of death and judgment.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS Two questions remain unanswered. First, it seems relevant to pick up again that inquiry mentioned from the beginning. Namely, the question of why Irenaeus concerned himself with any of these issues related to typology, parallels of balancing and reversal, why the second Adam, Eve, tree, and angel? If all is truly recapitulated and healed through the salvific life and death of Christ why did Irenaeus employ the additional recapitulative elements? I propose that the answer resides in the aforementioned definition and meaning of Irenaean recapitulation. Of first importance is to acknowledge his overriding concern for explaining the divine plan for humanity’s restoration. It is a concern that goes beyond a perfunctory theologizing. Throughout the bishop’s writings, there is a continual emphasis not just on salvation or knowledge, but also on the total restoration of the human being. The totality of that restoration is expressed in unique terms; there are repeated examples where the seemingly unnecessary details of the story are brought forward with striking emphasis. This has been observed already in the recapitulation parallels. Irenaeus seemed to have been compelled to balance out and reverse every element of the original sin event. Thus, Rousseau used the word contrebalancée to describe Mary’s counter-balancing relationship to Eve.35 Complete restoration required complete healing. This same Irenaean principle, this attention to 34 Irenaeus, AH, 3.23.1. 35 Rousseau et al., Irénée de Lyon, SC 153, 251.

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detail and restoration is observed in a variety of other, not specifically recapitulation texts. For example: as many days as it took to create the world, in so many thousand years will it conclude;36 Adam’s death through disobedience came on the sixth day, so thus did Jesus die on the sixth, in turn, the new creation for humanity corresponds to the original day of creation.37 Further, Adam gave in to the temptation of food, Christ rejected temptation after 40 days without food.38 Perhaps the most bizarre example is the famous passage on the lifespan of Jesus. He believed Christ “sanctified every age by a likeness to Himself. He came to save all… through Himself… infants, children, youth, young adults, elderly. Therefore, he passed through every age.”39 Since every age required sanctification, Christ was thus required to live through each one. Most baffling is the assertion that “the Lord truly did advance into his senior years: he was closer to fifty than he was forty.40 My argument is that these examples of Irenaeus’ use of typological parallels along with some bizarre forays into analogy and numerology reveal his underlying theological motive. His primary interest is to express how Christ fully and completely restores God’s creation: every detail and every phase finds healing and fulfillment in Him. The second unresolved question comes back to Mary. If the Christocentric texts suggest that her role should not necessarily be identified as co-recapitulator, how should she be understood? Despite the fact that Steenberg used the term corecapitulator in his essay’s title, I nevertheless agree that his overall thesis seems quite reasonable. He argued that the virgin mother, like Eve, was a helper and that her role typified the social element of salvation. “Mary is in the unique position of being herself recapitulatory, not in the same sense as Christ 36 Irenaeus, AH, 5.28.3. 37 Ibid., 5.23.2. 38 Ibid., 5.21.2. 39 Ibid., 2.22.4. 40 Ibid., 2.22.5–6. For commentary, see Unger and Dillon, St. Irenaeus Book 2, 145–46 n. 30.



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whose recapitulation is of human nature, but as one whose role in the recapitulative economy is to restore the proper character of human interrelatedness that this nature requires. Irenaeus can see this as a role distinct from that of Christ inasmuch as the healing of social relationships requires a relationship…”41 Moreover, though “salvation [is] wrought by Christ… [it is] worked out in concert with the society of humankind, typified first in Eve and later in Mary.”42 I, therefore, agree with Sesboüé that Irenaeus deliberately avoided referencing Mary’s actions as recapitulative, choosing instead to speak of a recirculation.43 This is a point recently conceded, I believe, by Steenberg in the notes to his translation of Book 3. He points out that recirculation suggests a meaning similar to recapitulation, but Irenaeus coined the newer term to “express the role of Mary in the work of recapitulation [a term] which is reserved to Christ.”44 To summarize, Mary, like all the other positive elements of the typological parallels, was absolutely necessary in order for the economy of salvation to be secured. Each broken element related to the fall required a reversal through a balancing counterpart. Mary’s role was distinguished by the fact that she alone actively contributed to the work of reversal, typifying the response necessary in salvation.

CONCLUSION In conclusion, Irenaeus held to a rigid order and balanced structure to the world and to the economy of salvation. He stressed repeatedly the fact that all of creation is well-ordered, and fashioned in harmony, beauty, with wisdom and care. Because of God’s artistry, nothing could possibly be out of order; indeed, if people will only listen to the melody of the

41 Steenberg, “Role of Mary,” 136. 42 Ibid., 137. 43 Sesboüé, Tout Récapituler, 144. 44 Unger and Steenberg, St. Irenaeus Book 3, 201.

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artist they would hear and praise Him.45 These convictions are aesthetic, but for Irenaeus, the issue was more than just a concern for symmetry and beauty; for him, the very integrity of God was at stake. Also, at stake was the destiny of all humanity. Irenaeus’ concern was for God’s people to “become like him;”46 to experience complete and comprehensive healing. So why the Eden to incarnation parallels? Because Irenaeus’ theology demanded all sin be balanced in the opposite, and because a reversal was necessary to ensure the potential for total restoration of humankind.

45 Irenaeus, AH, 2.2.4; 2.15.2; 2.25.1; 3.16.6/7; 4.4.2. 46 Ibid., 5.20.2.



I.6. KINDLING DIVINE FIRE: THE MYSTICAL SAYINGS OF ST. SYNCLETICA V.K. MCCARTY Even among the writings of Early Christian spiritual elders who discerned the image of God as divine fire,1 the sayings of St. Syncletica2 make a remarkable contribution. The significance of this fourth-century desert mother is established by

1 Other spiritual elders employing the metaphor of divine fire for the experience of encountering God include: Makarios the Great, Abbas Isaiah, Abba Poemon, Evagrios Ponticus, and Diodochus, Bishop of Photike. 2 For the sayings of St. Syncletica included in the Patrologia Graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne, see Apophthegmata Patrum, PG 65, 421–28 (Paris: 1864); these are traditionally supplemented by Jean-Claude Guy, “Recherches sur la Tradition Grecque des Apophthegmata Patrum,” RSR 48 (1955): 252–59. For an English translation, see The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection, trans. Benedicta Ward (Trappist, Ky.: Cistercian Publications, 1975), 230–235; Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers, trans. John Wortley (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2014), 302–08. References to the sayings of Syncletica in the Vita Syncleticae appear as VS, along with the paragraph number. See also, Pseudo-Athanasius, Vita Syncleticae, PG 28, 1487–1558 (Paris: 1857). For an English translation, see “Pseudo-Athanasius: The Life

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the good fortune of multiple surviving texts for her teachings, which provide solid evidence establishing the historical importance of her textual memory. Two collections of her sayings are contained within the Patrologia Graeca; twenty-seven of the teachings were chosen for the Apophthegmata Patrum in PG 65, among these, nine sayings are traditionally supplemented by J.-C. Guy from another manuscript. All but one of those likely originate from among eighty-one of her sayings preserved in the Vita Syncletica in PG 28.3 Syncletica’s spiritual writing offers an authentic glimpse into the ancient desert tradition,4 viewed through the lens of Evagrian mystical prayer technique, which aims to quiet the soul and raise the purified spirit to a sense of the intimate presence of God. The Orthodox Church venerates St. Syncletica on January 5. Standing beside St. Antony the Great, who is hailed as the “father of monks,” Syncletica can be “rightly named as the

and Activity of the Holy and Blessed Teacher Syncletica,” trans. Elizabeth A. Castelli in Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook, ed. Vincent L. Wimbush (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1990), 265–311; The Life & Regimen of the Blessed & Holy Syncletica by Pseudo-Athanasius; Part One: English Translation, trans. Elizabeth Bryson Bongie (Toronto: Peregrina Pub. Co., 2003). The references to the Apophthegmata Patrum appear as AP with saying number among those of Syncletica. 3 The one saying of Syncletica in the Apophthegmata Patrum with no basis in the Vita Syncletica is AP 11, which comes instead from the “Adhortation ad Monachos” of Hyperechios, PG 79, 1480, 73–74. The saying includes this pearl of wisdom: “Choose the meekness of Moses and you will find the stony places in your heart transformed into springs of water.” 4 In fact, since additionally over twenty sayings are also present in the Verba Seniorum (PL 73, 855–1002), not to mention the thirtyfour sayings included in Abba Isaiah’s Russian Matericon collection, it is possible that the textual significance of the Sayings of Syncletica tends to be minimized and under-valued in the standard literature about the Desert tradition.



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‘mother of female ascetics’.”5 Indeed, she is called Amma Syncletica in Patristic literature. Since scholars have suggested that her Vita, originally attributed to Athanasios the Great (295–373 C.E.), was likely written even before Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Macrina,6 it can be identified as “the first recorded Christian woman’s biography.” Further, as the first recorded leader of an organized women’s ascetical community, she is known to be the first female founder in the history of monasticism.7 And a good thing it is, because her personal identity remains a mystery. Although Syncletica has come to be used as a given feminine Greek name, in earlier times the word meant literally “called together, summoned,” or even “the heavenly assembly.” It also signified association with Byzantine nobility, probably identifying the saint’s father.8 Thus, the term Syncletica is a social rank descriptor, and not likely the ascetical elder’s personal name. The strongest historical foundation for her is therefore her textual evidence; the fact of its survival is remarkable, considering it quotes a woman. Like the recorded sayings of other desert elders, and indeed of Jesus—practical and piercing in essential wisdom— many of the sayings of Syncletica undoubtedly harken back to 5 John Anthony McGuckin, The Westminster Handbook of Patristic Theology (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 322. Also note that Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos in his Ecclesiasticae Historicae praises St. Syncletica as the Mother of Ancient Monasticism alongside St. Antony as the Father. PG 146, Bk. VIII 40, 155–58. 6 Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Macrina was probably composed between 380–383 C.E. 7 McGuckin, Handbook, 322. 8 See VS 4. Greek-English Lexicon, Revised edition, eds. Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925), 1665b. Unless otherwise stated, all text from the Vita Syncletica given in English is from: Elizabeth Bryson Bongie, trans. The Life & Regimen of The Blessed & Holy Syncletica by Pseudo-Athanasius, Part One: The Translation (Toronto: Peregrina Publishing Co., 2003).

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an individual disciple’s memory. Originating from a hallmark experience receiving a very personal answer from a spiritual guide, a word—an apophthegm—was remembered writ large on the heart of the follower receiving it, and may have been handed down by word-of-mouth to generations of spiritual seekers. Later, a saying or logos came to be written down, and perhaps then nuanced in redaction by another elder, when an earlier fluid and partially oral tradition still obtained. Finally, it may have been editorially enlarged as part of a teaching discourse. This speculation about the manner of development for the apophthegmata, from the earliest primitive answer offered to an individual spiritual visitor by an elder, through to the more polished rhetoric of a wisdom story, follows the plausible concept introduced by Jean-Claude Guy.9 Note that Evagrios’ Praktikos 91–99 serves as an early exemplar for sayings from the desert tradition gathered into a collection and deployed as a teaching strategy by at least 399 C.E.10 In the theological literature of the early centuries of Christianity, hardly noted for treble voices, the two collections of Syncletica’s sayings preserved in the Patrologia Graeca considered together raise fascinating questions about their editorial intent and chronology. Certainly, any opportunity to observe one collection of sayings contextualizing another can be highly useful. In all likeliness, the theory that the larger collection of Syncletica’s teachings gathered in the Vita Syncletica informed the sayings present in the Apophthegmata Patrum holds true. Nevertheless, close study of her wisdom texts from both collections in conversation with each other may shed light on the desert mother herself, as well as the nuanced development of the apophthegmatum genre in the literature of mystical theology.

9 Jean-Claude Guy, “Remarques sur le Texte des Apophthegmata Patrum,” RSR 48 (1955): 252–59. 10 See Evagrios Ponticus, “Sayings of the Holy Monks,” in The Praktikos & Chapters on Prayer, ed. John Eudes Bamberger (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1981), 39–41.



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The Vita Syncletica provides a biographical portrait of Syncletica coming from prominent parentage in Alexandria, and experiencing a religious call which drew her, even at an early age, to pursue a theological life of prayerful virginity, “training her soul in the love of God” (φιλοθεῖᾳ µὲν τὸ πρῶτον τὴν ψυχὴν ἠσκεῖτο).11 It describes the Apostle Paul as the “leader of the bride” (νυµφαγωγός)12 for both she and the early Christian martyr, Thekla, since his teaching led each of them to personally commit herself as the most chaste spouse of Jesus Christ. Later, as Syncletica progressed in her participation in the divine life, she can be seen fulfilling the same role for her disciples, leading them to Christ in her teaching and the model of her mystical prayer. As can be seen, the ascetic and monastic life “succeeded martyrdom as the arena in which a woman could prove herself to be a ‘female man of God.’”13 In the same way that Palladios praised Melania the Elder as “ἄνθρωπος θεοῦ,”14 using the noun in the masculine, so too, Syncletica’s hagiographer hails her “manly deeds” (ἀνδραγαθηµάτων) in VS 15.15 After enduring the tragedy of the others in her family dying, Syncletica had the opportunity to transition into an even more austere form of spiritual asceticism by moving herself and her religiously “like-minded sister” (ἀδελφή ὁµόφρων) (VS 5), who suffered from blindness, out of the worldly comfort of her father’s estate and into the family crypt situated up in the desert hills 11 See VS 6. After all, as Augustine pointed out, every female is born a virgin in body, but it requires dedication to make a virgin soul. De Sancta Virginitate 10, CSEL 41:243. 12 A Patristic Greek Lexicon, G.W.H. Lampe, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), 927. 13 David Brakke, Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 184. 14 Here, Palladios reports Melania the Elder visiting Abba Or. Palladios, The Lausiac History 9 (New York: Paulist Press, 1964), 43. 15 As Brakke observes, “Like the pearl whose unexceptional form belies its true value, Syncletica’s exterior femininity, her body, conceals a virility that she has gained through steadfast resistance to the external assaults of the devil.” Brakke, Demons, 191.

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outside Alexandria. Here, in the midst of her rigorous spiritual askesis, she faithfully cared for her to the end of her sister’s life. The Vita Syncletica provides a useful glimpse of some of the details of Syncletica’s religious life, which can serve to address the question of what specifically constituted early Christian ascetical practice in fourth-century Egypt. Syncletica is cited by her hagiographer “making progress in virtue” (προέκοπτε ταῖς ἀρεταῖς) by distributing her wealth to the poor and other good works, as described in VS 12. She is also described seeking stillness and humility, and continually contemplating the Old and New Testaments, which is outlined in VS 21. She prays unceasingly (ἀδιαλείπτως προσεύχεσθαι), as cited in VS 19, with tears and penitential austerities, as mentioned in VS 17. She remains eager for the powerfully “salvific remedy” (σωτηρίου φαρµάκου) of fasting, as described in VS 10, and the restricted sleep of prayer vigils and “ever-wakeful zeal,” cited in VS 21. After the death of her sister, Syncletica moved into a completely solitary spiritual life, in pursuit of contemplative union with God. Yet, it was during the exercise of her most severe austerities and deepest withdrawal (ἀναχώρησις), even beyond the family tomb, that followers began to seek her out for spiritual guidance and the secrets of her mystical prayer. She is remembered answering the requests of her visitors, traditionally expressed as “Give me a word, that I may live!”16 From her deceptively simple teachings—each a remembered “pearl”17 of wisdom from the desert mother—her reputation grew as a spiritual teacher, and an increasing number of disciples gathered around her. “Just as the stronger poisons drive out venomous creatures,” she taught, “so prayer with fasting (εὐχὴ µετὰ νηστείας) 16 The traditional request to a spiritual elder is based upon Psalm 119:116, text which has been associated with the monastic clothing service of a novice to the present day. 17 See VS 1, where Syncletica’s teaching is described as like rare pearls (µαργαρίτη) veiled in iridescent layers of mystical meaning.



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chases out foul patterns of thought” (VS 80). Again, she is remembered warning, “There are many who live in the mountains and behave as if they were in the town, and they are wasting their time. It is possible to be a solitary in one’s mind while living in a crowd, and it is possible for one who is a solitary to live uselessly in a crowd of his own thoughts” (VS 97). It is interesting to note that another biographical tradition exists for Syncletica in a sixth-century manuscript.18 Here, in a dramatic family story, a Constantinopolitan nobleman’s daughter resists her impending betrothal by insisting on fulfilling a vow to visit the Holy Land while still a virgin. There, she flees into an ascetical life, until found by another monk in the desert twenty-eight years later. Although this Palestinian hermit tale likely describes a different ascetical teacher, in the economy of spiritual memory these stories do share some of the same details and ascetical wisdom, especially about the askesis of humility.19 By the sixth century, it is likely that the name Syncletica had begun to function to the contemporary ear as a personal name, rather than merely a modifier. If so, the memory of these two ascetical characters, while generations apart, may have been considered together, and the former may have influenced the naming of the later. It is possible that both of these biographies have at times claimed the warrant of the sayings. In any case, as with many early Church figures, there is no known archeological evidence to support either hagiographic tradition.

18 Bernard Flusin and Joseph Paramelle, “De Syncletica in Deserto Jordanis,” Anal. Boll. 100 (1982): 291–317; for an English translation, see Tim Vivian, “Syncletica of Palestine: A Sixth-Century Female Anchorite,” Vox Bened. 10.1 (1993): 9–37. 19 Note, for example, this saying: “The humility of Christ is a treasure difficult to acquire, yet necessary to be saved. It is the one virtue the Devil cannot mimic. So, even as it strips down, it clothes in salvation.” VS 56, Schaffer, trans., Life & Regimen: Part Two: Study of the Life, 70.

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Syncletica’s teachings sound an exhortation to those striving for mystical union with God’s love and archetypal beauty, calling them to pursue deep contemplation and spiritual enlightenment (θεωρίας καὶ γνώσεως) by means of askesis and practical study (ἀσκητικῆς καὶ πρακτικῆς).20 Saying by saying, they reveal remarkably intimate disclosure of the strife of personal temptation with vividly illustrated Niptic advice designed to guard the purity of the heart against the threat of sinful thoughts (logismoi), by daily application of searching personal examination and unceasing prayer (ἀδιαλείπτως προσεύχεσθαι). In her vibrant description of the trials and temptations experienced during her prayer practice, the saint can be seen navigating the desert of the soul. Some of Syncletica’s cautionary advice borders on the grisly: Even for women living as religious solitaries, the Tempter can still conjure up handsome faces and the pleasurable habits of old relationships, directed to the destruction of the soul. A strategy for confronting an alluring image is to “mentally gouge out its eyes” and to imagine the alluring temptation as “a stinking corpse,” in order to frighten off the Devil (VS 29). Although this guidance can make for uncomfortably graphic reading, Syncletica’s ascetical teaching may have survived because of its effectiveness in helping her disciples gain mastery over daily temptation,21 increase competence in prayer,22 and approach the ineffable joy of Christ’s presence.23

20 See VS 43. 21 Here is an example of a saying of Syncletica to guard against temptation: “Stay wake! (Γρηγορεῖτε) For the Enemy continues to lurk in the crannies of your mind, inciting a battle of the Spirit.” VS 26. 22 An example of a saying to guard the purity of prayer: “If you say, or even hear, foul-smelling slut words (τὴν δυσώδη τῶν λόγων ἐκαθαρίαν), you will stain your prayer.” VS 66. 23 A saying on approaching Christ’s presence: “How great the askesis and skill needed to contemplate Him who merits indescribable glory! (τῆς ἀνεκφράστου δόξης).” VS 86.



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It is fascinating to ponder whether, with the extensive education available to an Alexandrian élite, Syncletica knew of her more celebrated forebears in the ascetical life, ones whom she and her hagiographer appear to emulate. Like St. Antony, for example, did she seek the tutelage of a spiritual mentor experienced in prayer and ascetical practices? The Vita does indicate that Syncletica sacramentally cut off her hair in the presence of a priest as she entered the ascetical life.24 Was there a spiritual elder who was formational in the young ascetic’s life? We simply cannot know, except to acknowledge the deep and specific influence of Evagrios of Pontios (345– 399 C.E.) upon Syncletica’s mystical teaching, especially with regard to the categorization of sinful thoughts (logismoi) and the acquisition of spiritual virtue. Evagrios arrived in Egypt around 383, gradually becoming the leader of the desert community thirty miles up the Nile from Alexandria in Nitria, and remaining there for the rest of his life.25 Syncletica may acknowledge her formation in mystical theology according to the teaching of Evagrios by citing him in VS 88, “I know a servant of God living according to virtue” (κατ’ ἀρετὴω βιοῦντα), a saying which paraphrases Evagrios’ Praktikos 50, attesting to his brilliance and his close analysis of the hierarchy of evil presented by the enemy, sin.26 “Thus, he came to know accurately the grace of God (τοῦ θεοῦ χάριν) and his own strength and power; and eventually, to be sure, he came to know also the overthrow of the Enemy” (VS 88). VS 89 appears as well to commend novice formation according to the principles of Evagrian teaching. “We must, therefore, keep these rules which have been received” (VS 89). Here, the use of intentional observation of distracting, evil thoughts originating from the Enemy is an ascetical practice

24 See VS 11. 25 John Eudes Bamberger, introduction to The Praktikos: Chapters on Prayer, by Evagrius Ponticus (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1981), xxv–xix. 26 Evagrius, Praktikos: Chapters on Prayer, Praktikos 50, 29–30.

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deployed in order to overthrow them, and as a strategy for attaining pure knowledge of the grace of God; lest by one mistake, the “bloodsucking Devil” destroy all spiritual progress. Evagrian influence may account as well for the sophistication of Syncletica’s writing. In some ways, her dogmatically persuasive and rhetorically nuanced teaching runs against the grain of the idealized desert father as an uneducated peasant distaining higher philosophy. The very fact of Evagrian influence upon the Vita Syncletica, however, thereby discounts it as written by Athanasios the Great, who reposed in 373. This fact may push the terminus ad quem for Syncletica herself over into the fifth century. Furthermore, since the teaching of Evagrios was condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council of 553, it may help explain why Syncletica, for whom his teaching is foundational, is so seldom mentioned in spiritual manuals and histories of early monasticism. In fact, the shadow of his censorship may be the key to solve the mystery surrounding “the silence about the amma” in the desert literature.27 Although it is likely that the Syncletica sayings in the Apophthegmata Patrum were nearly entirely copied and redacted from the larger collection of sayings present in the Vita Syncletica, it is also possible that both were partially drawn editorially from another source, a tradition independent of either collection, one now lost, which contained earlier versions of the sayings thought to be more authentic. In particular, an oral tradition may have existed for the most popular of her sayings which antedated both the written collections, but persisted in memory and in spiritual use alongside them. The evidence of the editing discernable in several of the sayings, compared and contrasted between the two collections, supports this suggestion. “There is struggling and great toil at first for all those advancing toward God.”28 So begins one of Amma Syncletica’s most powerful and popular sayings focused on the Divine Fire 27 Schaffer, Life & Regimen: Part Two: Study of the Life, 10. 28 The translation of the Divine Fire saying of Syncletica used here is synthesized from the Greek words duplicated in VS 60 and AP 1, in the author’s translation.



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of God’s presence. Woven into its rich yet austere fabric is an illuminating description of the mystical experience rewarding seekers of union with God after pursuing the often-painful trial-and-error labors of ascetical prayer practice. “But afterward, inexpressible joy” (χαρὰ ἀνεκλάλητος). The mystical joy of nearness to God’s presence is often hardwon, as Syncletica knows only too well from her own spiritual experience. She offers this analogy to her followers of “those desiring to light a fire,” observing that novices can become bitterly “engulfed in smoke and teary-eyed (δακρύουσι).” Use of the compelling participle “desiring” (βουλόµενοι) emphasizes this metaphor, one which illuminates more than the desire to light a simple camp fire, but the divine flame of mystical ascent. Thus, through persistent ascetical discipline “they obtain what they seek to experience” (ζητουµένου τυγχάνουσι). Burnishing her teaching with scriptural warrant, Syncletica adds: “As it is said, ‘Our God is a consuming fire.’” This quote from Heb. 12:29 makes use of the magisterial image of Our Lord’s glory as “a consuming fire” (ἡµῶν πῦρ καταναλίσκον), transforming the Old Testament metaphor, originating in Deuteronomy, into an eschatological context.29 Finally, the ultimate exhortation of her saying is simply stated: “So, we ought to kindle the divine fire in ourselves with tears and toil” (µετά δακρύων καὶ κόπου). The exhortation to rouse the fire of God’s love in ourselves (τὸ θεῖον ἐξάµαι πῦρ ἑαυτοὺς ἐξὰψαι) may express the essence of Syncletica’s core message throughout all her mystical teaching, from the most practical to the most theoretical. While in the Vita, Syncletica’s Divine Fire saying is presented as arising from the persistent questioning of her followers after several teachings concerning the soul’s acquisition of virtue through humility, in the Apophthegmata Patrum the saying has been chosen for special consideration and positioned in first place in the group, where 29 Gerhard Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1964–1976), Vol. 6, 945.

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it functions as a mantra for the rest of her sayings,30 invoking the concept of “divine fire” to characterize Syncletica’s mystical teaching as a whole.31 Possible footprints of the editorial process between the two collections are evident in other of the sayings as well. In the Vita, for example, several of Syncletica’s sayings make use of feminine plural participial verb constructions in the Greek,32 but those teachings have not generally been chosen for the Apophthegmata Patrum, with its principally male audience. Additionally, there are distinctly discernible instances in which a saying in the Apophthegmata Patrum appears to edit down and synthesize a particularly memorable teaching logos from a longer narrative saying in the Vita Syncletica. These include Syncletica’s pithy observations about athletic competition, rude laughter unseemly among monastics, and the use of sailing and ship-building as an analogy for spiritual progress.33

30 Schaffer suggests that, by deploying VS 60 as a mantra, the collection as a whole is meant to function as “kindling to make the hearts of her listeners burn again with the fervour of the Gospel.” Life & Regimen: Part Two: Study of the Life, 29. 31 Other references to “divine fire” featured in the sayings of Syncletica include: Godly love (Θεῖος ἔρως) which is enkindled in us (ἐζωπὐρει ἠµῶν) (VS 1); fire as spiritual testing in ascetical practice (VS 98/AP 7, VS 106); spiritual virtues described as fire (VS 54) and as lamps lit (VS 92); even a bit of good is characterized as a spark of divine fire (VS 37). 32 Sayings of Syncletica which deploy feminine plural participial verbs include: VS 37, 43, 44, 49, 66, 68, 78, 92, 100, and 101. 33 “Just as athletes make progress, so they must contend with stronger opponents.” Here, AP 14 is edited down from the 25–line VS 26. As a sharp cautionary message to immodest monastics, Syncletica observes, “Their gaze is unseemly and they laugh improperly.” This is AP 2 redacted from the lengthier VS 24. Among several sayings employing the lore of the sea: “Just as a ship is impossible to assemble without nails, a soul is impossible to save without a humble spirit.” AP 26 is synthesized from the much longer VS 56.



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These instances of editorial synthesis run counter to the more usual function of later redaction which tends to create expanded and more organizationally complex material—and they raise the question why. Examples can be seen where different fragments of text from the Vita Syncletica have been drawn together by theme and arranged in a different order for the Apophthegmata Patrum collection,34 and this is also consistent with the idea that both redactors may have borrowed to some extent from an earlier source, one which was not arranged thematically, featured more primitive examples of the sayings, and less narrative teaching material. Examples of sayings of Syncletica which have been compared and contrasted here between the Vita Syncletica and the Apophthegmata Patrum versions demonstrate evidence of the possible editorial intention of both collections. Ironically, although probably derived from a later stage in the transmission of her texts, the editorial choice of Syncletica’s teachings for the Apophthegmata Patrum may actually intentionally attempt to reflect an earlier stage in her spiritual teaching life, one closer to the original oral phenomenon of spiritual elder and disciple interacting. As such, many of Syncletica’s sayings in the Apophthegmata Patrum offer a glimpse of the dynamic character of the primitive anchorite responding to an individual ascetic seeking spiritual advice, rather than addressing in a longer didactic narrative the issues of the organized community which developed over the years of her long life. This kind of spiritual intimacy between elder and disciple is especially noticeable in several of the sayings from the Apophthegmata Patrum Syncletica group supplemented by JeanClaude Guy. These include in particular the shorter logoi such as AP 19, evaluating individual authentic asceticism; AP 21, about the danger of virtue extolled; AP 22 observing mystical

34 For example, VS 102 and VS 37, both about the sea, were brought together to create adjacent sayings AP 9–10. In the same manner, VS 38 and VS 78, which were brought together to create adjacent AP 21–22, by virtue of their rhetorical similarity; both use the construction “just as—therefore” (Ἅστερ γὰρ—οὔτως) to describe the heavenly progress—or the disintegration—of the soul.

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ascent quashed by earthly glory; and AP 26, claiming that humility is necessary for salvation. One can well imagine these abrupt shorter sayings inspiring the individual ascetic disciple to meditation, by abiding on the day’s logos provided by the elder. While Syncletica’s mystical sayings in the Vita Syncletica are less known today, the Vita circulated widely enough to be translated into Latin in the centuries following Syncletica’s death, and references to it appeared in scholia upon The Ladder of Divine Ascent by John of Klimakas.35 In addition, the Vita and its apophthegmata are quoted in a twelfth-century Russian anthology of Abba Isaiah’s Matericon36 and in the early thirteenth-century English manuscript, The Ancrene Riwle.37 Although several of the sayings of Syncletica coalesce effectively into teaching discourses on a single theme,38 the voice and content of most of the teachings in the Vita nevertheless demonstrate that was it was probably never intended to be received or read straight through as a whole. Rather it was meant to function as a compendium of remembered teachings from a beloved teacher to aid in the progress of mystical ascent. The compiler is offering a vademecum, a helpful palmsize handbook of Syncletica’s spiritual wisdom.

35 Schaffer, Life & Regimen: Part Two: Study of the Life, 31. 36 Matericon: Instructions of Abba Isaiah to the Honorable Nun Theodora (Safford, Az.: St. Paisius Serbian Orthodox Monastery, 2001), for an English translation. 37 From the Author’s Introduction to the Rule: “Were not Paul, the first hermit, Antony and Arsenius, Macarios and others, religious of the Order of St. James? And SS. Sarah and Syncletica and many other similar people, both men and women, with their coarse sleeping mats, and their harsh hair shirts, were not they of a good order?” The Ancrene Riwle; from the corpus MS: Ancrene Wisse, M.B. Salu, ed. (London: Burns & Oates, 1955), 5. 38 These include her Niptic teaching (VS 40–48), Chastity (VS 22–29), Humility versus Pride (VS 49–60), and two sections addressing Poverty (VS 30–39, VS 71–79).



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The unique and remarkable woman revealed in these texts offers original and discerning counsel illuminating her “great askesis,”39 and her persistent striving toward God.40 Indeed, her disciples found her teaching to be “chalices of wisdom” (σοφίας κρατήρων) (SV 30), guiding their ascetic pursuit of spiritual perfection. Syncletica stands as an exemplar of the fourth-century Egyptian ascetical movement—an amma among the desert abbas—women who were, as Wallis Budge observed, “as well able to live the stern life of the solitary as any man.”41 Her ascetic and mystical journey to the heights,42 revealed in her collected sayings, stands on the cusp of the transformation from solitary hermit to monastic community.

39 Syncletica declares that the Great Askesis is “to remain faithful, even in great illness, ever chanting hymns of gratitude to the Almighty.” VS 99/AP 8. 40 Thomas Merton has characterized the spiritual path of the fourth-century desert solitary as one striving to surrender completely to “the inner, hidden reality of a self that is transcendent, mysterious, half-known, and lost in Christ.” Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century (Bardstown, Ky.: The Abbey of Gethsemane, Inc., 1960), 7. 41 E.A. Wallis Budge, trans., Paradise of the Fathers (London: Chatto & Windus, 1970), I, lxv. 42 See VS 13.



II.1.

THE KINGDOM OF THE HOLY TRINITY AND THE MOVEMENT OF A COMMUNITY IN THE SACRIFICIAL SPIRIT OF CHRIST: THE IMPORTANCE OF FATHER DUMITRU STĂNILOAE’S MYSTICAL AND ASCETIC VISION OF THE HOLY LITURGY CIPRIAN STREZA PREAMBLE Many pages have been written on Father Dumitru Stăniloae, yet not one can truly state that they have exhausted all the defining aspects of the personality and work of this amazing Romanian theologian. The uniqueness and originality of his broad and complex theological enterprise1 lies in that he knew how to break the rigid underlying structures of scholastic schemes and then promote a reinvigorating return to the Patristic theological discourse, by advancing a spiritual and ascetically mystical approach to Orthodox dogmas. In this context, he has focused primarily on the theological and spiritual rediscovery and revalorization of hesychasm, which was the starting point for the profound Philokalic and Neopatristic renascence that he wanted to assert in the Romanian theology, 1 On the defining aspects of Father Dumitru Stăniloae’s work, see Ioan I. Ică jr., Why “Person and Communion?” — Cautioning word to a belated “Festschrift” [in Romanian], in Fr. Prof. Mircea Păcurariu, PhD and Deac. Assist. Ioan I. Ică jr. (ed.), Person and Communion [in Romanian], (Sibiu: Arhiepiscopia Ortodoxă Press, 1993), XXIVXXVII.

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as a counterpoint to the negative influences borne by the Scholasticism and Pietism of his age. What ensued, was an enormous and steady flow of labour from his part, which brought into the Romanian spirituality the twelve volumes of the Philokalia, as well as commented translations of almost all the fundamental works of Greek Patrology. His theological maturity would come to fruition in his theological trilogy, a synthesis between Dogmatics, Spirituality and Liturgy, which was initiated by his Course in Orthodox Asceticism and Mysticism (1946–1947), an attempt at a “theological mysticism”, meant to “fill the void between Dogmatic and Moral Theology” and have them culminate in their praxis.2 The second part in Father Stăniloae’s theological trilogy is represented by the three volumes of his Dogmatic Theology,3 wherein he departed from all scholastic methods of dogmatizing and embarked on a quest “to discover the spiritual significance of dogmatic teachings, and to highlight their truth in relation to the needs of a soul in search of salvation.”4 The book Spirituality and Communion in the Orthodox Liturgy (1986) was the final part in his theological triptych5, which—as the man himself stated—merged doctrine, spirituality and the liturgical experience into one unique and personal theological discourse.6 2 Dumitru Stăniloae, Orthodox Spirituality. Orthodox Asceticism and Mysticism [in Romanian], (Bucharest: IBMBOR Press, 1992), 5– 7. This book is a reprint of the 1946–47 Course in Orthodox Asceticism and Mysticism, which had previously been republished in 1981, under the generic title Orthodox Spirituality, as the third volume of the course in Orthodox Moral Theology. 3 Dumitru Stăniloae, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology [in Romanian], 3 Vols. (Bucharest: IBMBOR Press, 1978). 4 Ibid., Vol. 1, 5. 5 Jürgen Henkel, Godmanhood and the Ethics of Love in the Work of Father Dumitru Stăniloae [in Romanian], (Sibiu: Deisis Press, 2006), 336. 6 Karl Christian Felmy, Die orthodoxe Theologie der Gegenwart. Eine Einführung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft



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His complex and integral vision on the Holy Liturgy constitutes the object of this study, which intends to re-interpret and systematize the main themes related to the importance of the Eucharistic Synax in the life of the Church, such as it is depicted in Father Dumitru Stăniloae's works. His view of the Liturgy is fascinating and complete in its depth: the Eucharistic celebration is, in his opinion, only the visible dimension of the eternal Liturgy of love within the Holy Trinity, Whose Altar, Oblation and High Priest is Jesus Christ, the slain Lamb, Who always remains in a state of permanent sacrifice, Who was incarnate, Who died and arose again, and sent His Holy Spirit in the Church, so as to radiate among those who open up to Him in faith. Through this dynamism of expiatory love, He wants to gather all in Himself and with His sacrificial love to bring all before the Father. The dynamism of His altruistic love, available through the Holy Mysteries, reaches its efficiency only in the extension and application of the said sacrificial love among people, through a life of askesis and self-restraint, which is a generator of acts of kindness and alms-giving. The Eucharistic Synax is defined as “the Kingdom of the Holy Trinity, the intimate godly home that comprises all,”7 “the movement of a community in the sacrificial spirit of Christ, and its advancement into the love realm shared by the Holy Trinity,”8 wherein the Holy Trinity is present “as the consummate structure and source of love that stands at the basis of the Son's incarnation, sacrifice and resurrection, which

Press 1990), 6. See the Romanian trans. by Fr. Prof. Ioan Ică, Karl Chr. Felmy, Dogmatica experienţei eclesiale. Înnoirea teologiei ortodoxe contemporane [Dogmatic ecclesiastical experience. The renewal of contemporary Orthodox Theology], (Sibiu: Deisis Press, 1999). 7 Dumitru Stăniloae, Spirituality and Communion in the Orthodox Liturgy [in Romanian], (Craiova: Mitropolia Olteniei Press, 1986), 375. 8 Ibid., 5.

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brought about our salvation, our adoption and eventually, our own resurrection.”9

THE HOLY TRINITY, THE STRUCTURE OF THE SUPREME LOVE, AND THE LITURGY OF CONSUMMATE LOVE The Early Christians used the term “Liturgy” to give a blanket name to the sum of all those rituals that men of faith employed so as to express either their gratitude towards God, or God’s sanctifying work for the people.10 In time, this notion came to signify exclusively the consecration of the Eucharistic sacrifice.11 Father Stăniloae had a broader and deeper understanding of the Liturgy, which he viewed as the communion of eternal love between the Persons of the Holy Trinity, a communion that had been granted to the first people in Heaven and then made available to all Christians through the Saviour’s Crucifixion and Resurrection, and through the Holy Spirit's descent and activity inside the Church.12 To Father Dumitru Stăniloae, the sacrificial, selfless, generous, and disinterested love of the Holy Trinity is the principle, the foundation, and the purpose of the entire economy of salvation. His greatest merit is that of having highlighted the fact that only a Trinity of divine Persons can experience complete communion of love, as the Holy Trinity is “the culmination of the humility and sacrifice of love,” for “It repre-

9 Ibid., 257. 10 Dom Gregory Dix, The Shape of Liturgy, (London: Dacre Press, 1945), IX; His Eminence, Metropolitan Daniel Ciobotea, PhD, Eucharistic Liturgy and Christian Philanthropy – the Need for their Unity [in Romanian]. In Candela Moldovei, year XII (2003), no. 10, 4. 11 Robert Taft (ed.), “Liturgy.” In The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 1240–41. 12 Stăniloae, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, 221. See also René Bornert, Les commentaires byzantins de la divine Liturgie du VIIe au XVe siècle (Paris: Archives de l’Orient chrétien 9, 1966), 36.



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sents the continual mortification of each ‘I’, for it is the self-assertion of these ‘I’s’ that would make the absolute unity of love impossible, and thus give birth to individualism.”13 The love of the Holy Trinity is one that excludes any form of egocentric affirmation, for only the existence of a Third in God explains the creation of a world of many ‘I’s’ and the fact that these ‘I’s’ have been elevated to the level of partners with God.14 It is only through the Holy Spirit, that the generous divine love radiates to other creatures, as well. In this respect, father Dumitru Stăniloae states that: The Holy Spirit represents the possibility of extending the love between Father and Son to other subjects, and at the same time He represents the right which a third has to a part in the loving dialogue of the two, a right with which the Spirit invests created subjects.15

Having been created in the image of God and meant to attain perfection as a son of His by grace, man has been given the mission to gather the whole cosmos around himself and return it to its Creator. 16 However, the fall into sin deviated man from this synthesizing mission, and he is now bereft of the Heavenly Liturgy and of the communion with the Holy Trinity. Only a sacrifice could restore man to the communion of love within the Holy Trinity; that is why the Son of God became the Son of man. And by dying on the Cross, He emerged as the eternal High Priest, the perpetual Oblation, and the utmost Altar. Father Dumitru Stăniloae’s entire work is built on a central leitmotif: the self-sacrificing love of the Holy Trinity, which was made accessible to men via the state of perpetual sacrifice that our Saviour Jesus Christ is in. This state of continual sacrifice is 13 Ibid. 14 Dumitru Stăniloae, “The Holy Trinity, Structure of consummate Love.” In ST 5–6 [in Romanian], (1970): 346. 15 Stăniloae, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, Vol. 1, 309. 16 St. Maximus the Confessor, “Answers to Thalassios 1, 20, 22, 42, 49.” In Philokalia Vol. III [in Romanian], (Bucharest: IBMBOR Press, 1980), 16–20; 59–62; 69–76; 146–149; 179–195.

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considered by Father Dumitru Stăniloae as the heavenly foundation of the Holy Liturgy that is performed through sensible means within the Church, for: the entire Liturgy that is celebrated in the Church is Christ’s sacrifice intermingled with our own oblation, enlivened by the power of His Sacrifice. Our offer culminates in the Eucharist, representing Christ’s giving of Himself to the Father and to us, which is not done without our prayers that also nourish on the Saviour’s heavenly Sacrifice.17

The fundamental premise on which he bases his attempt to understand and experience the depths of the Holy Liturgy is that “we cannot bring ourselves as sacrifices to the Father outside Christ…neither does Christ give Himself as a sacrifice in separation from us, for He has placed Himself in a state of sacrifice solely for our sake.”18

ENTERING THE COMMUNION OF LOVE WITHIN THE HOLY TRINITY THROUGH THE SACRIFICE OF THE SAVIOR: THE SUBSTANCE OF THE OFFERING The depths of the theological concept of “state of pure sacrifice,” which is so often employed by Father Stăniloae, requires a detailed analysis of the themes enclosed in this concept: the necessity of the sacrifice in order to reconcile men with God, the object of the sacrifice, the very act of sacrifice, the person being sacrificed, the dynamism of the sacrificial state pointed both toward God and toward human nature, the sampling of the state of sacrifice that Christ’s human nature experiences in the Eucharistic Synax, and man’s appropriation and synchronous sacrifice with Christ in “the Liturgy after the Liturgy,” through a life of askesis and observance of the holy commandments. 17 Dumitru Stăniloae, “Christ’s Sacrifice and our Spiritualisation through Partaking of It at the Holy Liturgy.” In Ortodoxia 1 (1983): 108. 18 Dumitru Stăniloae, “Eucharist and Christian Love.” In ST 1–2 [in Romanian] (1965): 3.



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The idea of sacrifice is an essential element of any religion. It is the effort men make to enter into communion with God, their act of self-giving in response to the Creator's gift to them, the path towards a freely granted communion with God, the expiation and removal of sin, and men's reconciliation with God. 19 In the Old Testament, the believers used to offer God animals, and fruits of the earth and of their own labour, which were not mere expiatory substitutes of those who would bring them, but a visible sign of the persons’ self-giving and self-sacrificing.20 The consummate sacrifice brought by Christ is full of life, unique and of maximum efficiency, for He entered the Holy of Holies from above, and not with a sacrifice that is detached from Him, shedding not the blood of bulls or calves, but His Own precious blood, an offering far more worthy than any other sacrifice ever brought by a man. It was not the blood itself that washed men᾽s sins away, but what Christ experienced while shedding it, and that stirred Father's boundless mercy… This should lead us to understand the great value the Father assigned to the Son, Who suffered death on the Cross so that we might be granted mercy. If even the common man experiences the pain of sacrifice in his own blood, when he sheds it for another, even more so does Christ feel this pain in a perpetual manner.21

God could welcome only a pure and unfaltering sacrifice like Christ's, but the act of bringing it also had to be complete and most pure.

CHRIST’S ACT OF SACRIFICE AND THE ENTRANCE OF HIS 19 Constantin Galeriu, Sacrifice and Redemption [in Romanian], (Bucharest, 1973), 11. 20 Stăniloae, Eucharist and Christian Love, 4. 21 Saint Cyril of Alexandria, “Adoration in Spirit and in Truth,” in Church Fathers and Writers no. 38 [in Romanian], (Bucharest, 1991), note 338, 309.

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HUMANITY INTO THE STATE OF SACRIFICE The bringing of any sacrifice involves the ideas of death and sanctification.22 Symbolically, in the Old Testament, each sacrifice meant the death and destruction of the offering followed by its consecration and sanctification, which pointed to man’s desire to transition from a material existence to a new and sanctifying life of communion with God. In His desire to grant men the possibility to bring a pristine sacrifice and thus put themselves before the Father, the Saviour Jesus Christ became incarnate and assumed into His Hypostasis the whole human nature, which He implanted with complete availability towards God. His consummate self-renunciation and surrender as a man before God, which He had constantly exercised throughout His whole earthly life, culminated with His death on the cross. His act of sacrifice is eternal and has redemptive efficiency. By dying on the Cross, the Saviour gives Himself consummately as a Man to the Father, and through this, He implants His human nature with the intensity of the offering of the self to God. This state of perpetual sacrifice that the humanity of Christ is in is no longer connected to death in His forever living Person. Rather, it is a state of resurrection and holiness of the new deified life, the spring and source “for all the degrees of the state of sacrifice the faithful are in, degrees that would include both the death to egoism, and the holiness of a new life, a life of resurrection.”23

THE PERSON WHO BRINGS THE OFFERING – CHRIST, HIGH PRIEST, PERPETUAL SACRIFICE AND THE ALTAR ABOUT THE HEAVENS Father Dumitru Stăniloae insists that the uniqueness of Christ’s priesthood is given by the fact that His sacrifice is personal, profound and mystical, abundant in sacrificial love and delicate sensitivity. The Saviour did not want to bring some lifeless, senseless object to the Father, but He brought Himself, with His human sensitivity intact and untempered by transgressions, whereby He was able to experience human sin as 22 Stăniloae, Eucharist and Christian Love, 4. 23 Ibid., 11.



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His own and then open-heartedly receive death for it, in a way nobody else could. By this, a wave of love has sprung from Him, a love that unites all to Christ Who tramples death by dying. For in loving us so, He received death for us and destroyed it inside of Him and then in all those who were attached to Him… Through such a love as His, stronger than death, He overcame the care for Self, as there was no shadow of sinful egoism in Him… He conquered death not because it had invaded Him without His permission, but He welcomed it, for His death was an act of perfect love for humankind.24

He has been and still is experiencing Himself completely as offering and offerer, and as the highest place wherein the sacrifice is brought. He is the enduring sacrifice that needs not be repeated, the eternal Altar before the Father, the place that is most spiritually charged, closest to God and to His holiness. Only Christ was worthy of bringing such a sacrifice, for as He was completely surrendered as a man to the Father, His sensitivity ran so deep, that His perceptive faculties became equal to the absolute godly sensitivity and purity. Thus, He was able to make that very paternal sensitivity vibrate to the sacrificial love of the human nature, now saved from the unfeeling thickness of sinful egoism.

THE DYNAMISM OF CHRIST’S STATE OF SACRIFICE AND ITS MOVEMENT TOWARDS GOD THE FATHER, HUMAN NATURE AND ALL MEN To Father Dumitru Stăniloae, the heavenly foundation to any sacramental act of the Church is the Saviour’s state of conscious and perpetual sacrifice. “He remains in this state of sacrifice permanently united with the Father and always ready to unite Himself with a constantly refreshing string of 24 Saint Cyril of Alexandria, “Adoration in Spirit and in Truth,” in Church Fathers and Writers no. 38 [in Romanian], (Bucharest, 1991), note 125, 106.

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people through commiseration and by extending His sacrificial state towards them, so as to draw them to the Father.”25

The Savior’s Sacerdotal Office – a State Directed to the Father before All Else Christ’s death on the Cross is not a mere satisfaction made to atone for the debt incurred by men through sin and owed to God's honor, but it is primarily an act of restoration of human nature through sacrifice, which was first carried out in Christ and then extended in all of those who believe in Him. Father Dumitru Stăniloae formulates an Orthodox viewpoint on the satisfaction theory of atonement: through the Saviour’s sacrifice, God takes the initiative and reconciles man with Himself, thus restoring and deifying the human nature that He assumed in His divine-human Person, for: God could not love man’s state of sin, which is his state of enmity toward God. Christ as man gains God’s love for human nature by rectifying through sacrifice its state of enmity toward God. Or vice-versa: by manifesting through sacrifice the will to be totally dedicated to God, human nature is thus restored from its state of sickness. These are the two undivided aspects of the sacrifice.26

Therefore, the Saviour’s sacrifice is understood by the Patristic tradition as “a ransom” paid for men to God the Father by Christ, which mediated human nature’s liberation from the tyranny of passions, and thus allowed the sacrificial love of the Holy Trinity to permeate it and endow it with all of its gifts and graces. By dying to the worldly life, Christ is, as Saint Cyril of Alexandria writes, “our first and all-transcending offering…And in the measure that we bear His likeness, we too are consecrated sacrifices, for we are those who have

25 Stăniloae, “Christ’s Sacrifice and our Spiritualisation,” 113. 26 Stăniloae, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, 131.



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died to sin, insofar as sin has been put to death within us, and we live to God the life of holiness.”27 Christ is the most precious gift that could ever be brought to the Father—by offering Himself as ransom for all, He secures the love of the Father for all His brothers in humanity. “His sacrifice is both gift and ransom. It is a ransom presented as a gift, and a gift is the sign of love. He is the complete gift or perfect sacrifice, Who brings Himself to the Father for us and with us, and not as an object, but as a Subject.”28 Christ's sacrifice is dynamic and completely spontaneous, and its vertical dynamism is able to attract and unite all in its advancement towards the Father.

The Savior’s Sacrifice Restores Human Nature and Fashions the Communion between People. To Father Dumitru Stăniloae, the mystery of salvation is the Mystery of Person and communion. There is no communion in the absence of persons, and the person is genuinely asserted only through sacrifice and self-giving.29 In his opinion, everything in the relationship between man and God is personal and full of sensibility and delicacy. The Creator of all took the initiative to sensitize human nature and raise it to the capacity to 27 St. Cyril of Alexandria, Adoration in Spirit and in Truth. PG 68, 708BC: Αὐτὸς δὲ ἡµῶν καρποφορία πρώτη καὶ ἐξαίρετος· προσκεκόµικε γὰρ ἑαυτὸν εἰς θυσίαν τῷ Πατρὶ, καὶ οὐχ ὑπέρ γε µᾶλλον ἑαυτοῦ, κατὰ τὸν ἀµωµήτως ἔχοντα λόγον, ἀλλ’ ὑπὲρ ἡµῶν τῶν ὑπὸ ζυγὸν καὶ γραφὴν ἁµαρτίας. Καθ’ ὁµοιότητα δὲ τὴν πρὸς αὐτὸν, ἱερὰ θύµατα καὶ ἡµεῖς, κόσµῳ µὲν ἀποθνήσκοντες, ὡς νενεκρωµένης τῆς ἁµαρτίας ἐν ἡµῖν, ζῶντες δὲ τῷ Θεῷ, τὴν ἐν ἁγιασµῷ καὶ ὁσιότητι ζωήν; Romanian trans. quoted, 362. 28 Ibid., note 415, 361. 29 “I have emphasized the idea of person, yet only in connection with communion”… “Person and communion. That is not only the communion, but also the person,” Father Dumitru Stăniloae declared in the dialogues conducted by Sorin Dumitrescu in 1992, and published in: Sorin Dumitrescu, Seven Mornings with Father Stăniloae [in Romanian], (Bucharest: Anastasia Press, 1992), 22 and 151.

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sense His most pure love, and gave it the chance to partake of the life of communion that is in the bosom of the Holy Trinity. Only Christ could accomplish that through His consummate sacrifice, for He infused the human nature He had assumed with a piercing sensitivity and with the sentiment of total selfgiving, by which He allowed it to experience its meeting with God and with its fellow people in a plenary way. By dying on the Cross, the Saviour sanctified the human nature He had assumed, He deified it and filled it with all of His gifts and with His undivided sacrificial love.

THE HOLY LITURGY, MYSTERY OF PERSON AND COMMUNION Father Dumitru Stăniloae’s commentary on the Holy Liturgy has often been understood as an expression of the absolute unity between “doctrine, theology and liturgical experience.”30 “The consistently Trinitarian and Christological explanation of the entire liturgical event” enframes his thorough theology of the person, of love and communion.31 Beyond his wish to reconcile the two schools of interpretation of the Holy Liturgy—i.e., the School of Alexandria, which sees the Church, the Mysteries and the Holy Liturgy as projections of certain celestial realities, and the School of Antioch that places a greater emphasis on the relationship between the Holy Mysteries and Liturgy, and the events in Christ’s earthly life—Father Dumitru Stăniloae invariably pursues his complete and cosmic view of the Holy Liturgy, which he sees as the act that grants redemptive efficiency to the state of perpetual sacrifice that Christ, our eternal High Priest is in. What is really striking in his explanation and interpretation of liturgical acts is the fact that everything is perceived as having been touched by the uninterrupted abidance of the Saviour in this state of sacrifice. His eternal and perpetually dynamic sacrifice gives a purpose to the human being and shapes the communion with God and with other human beings. The sequent paragraphs analyse the central moments of the Holy Liturgy, just as they are pre-

30 Felmy, Die orthodoxe Theologie, 6. 31 Henkel, Godmanhood and the Ethics of Love, 338.



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sented in the volume Spirituality and Communion in the Orthodox Liturgy, which comprises the most important themes that Father Stăniloae developed.

PROTHESIS, OR THE SERVICE OF PRE-BRINGING OF THE GIFTS FOR CHRIST’S HOLY SACRIFICE In his description of this service, Father Dumitru Stăniloae approaches the pre-bringing of the gifts from a hermeneutic Antiochene standpoint—as an iconization of the Saviour’s life, wherein all the acts the priest performs bring to the forefront the themes of the Infant and of the slain Lamb. In addition, he also deploys an Alexandrian point of view—as an eschatological realism that is present and manifest in rituals through the power of symbols. Father Dumitru Stăniloae tried to capture all the angles that the Holy Liturgy could be interpreted from, and he genuinely managed to imprint the consistency of the eschatological Alexandrian realism onto the Antiochene typological symbolism. Father Dumitru Stăniloae sees the preparation of the Holy Gifts as the mystical reality that is iconized through the liturgical symbol, wherein Christ first appears as “pro-present” (a term that belongs exclusively to Father Dumitru Stăniloae), only to make His presence more and more evident and intense, until He arrives at His consummate parousia, which is materialized in the bread and wine that become His Body and Blood. Therefore, Prothesis is more than a preparation of the gifts that are to become Christ’s sacrifice, for it also represents a certain pro-bringing or pro-presence of the sacrificed Christ.”32 Beyond the typological symbolism of each act in the Prothesis, Father Dumitru Stăniloae also sees their eschatological efficiency. Throughout everything the priest does, Christ is present in His entirety, so much so, that present and future become condensed in Him, and in the faithful, who thus: are enabled to experience all the events in the life of Christ as present and future acts. They can worship the once crucified Christ as if He were crucified at the present moment, 32 Stăniloae, Spirituality and Communion, 110.

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CIPRIAN STREZA and they can also focus on the resurrected Christ even before they give praises to the born and crucified Christ. Everything happens in the present during the Holy Liturgy, and not a bit of the past is annulled therein, either. The break between the past and the present is therefore surpassed. Christ is the same yesterday and today…33

The entire Church is represented on the Holy Diskos, and is symbolically gathered around the slain Lamb, just as depicted in the Book of Revelation (Revel. 5, 9–14). The Offering sits in the midst of the Church symbolized by the bread, which is an aliment leavened with man's labour, sweat and self-sacrifice.34 The cutting of the particles for the Theotokos and the saints, as well as the liturgical formulas uttered upon the occasion by the priest, show that the triumphant heavenly Church is likewise glorified through the Transubstantiation of the Gifts.35 To Father Dumitru Stăniloae, the act of cutting particles entwined with the reading of the names of saints and believers, both living and departed, establishes a mystical connection between all those remembered and those who remember them. As the name is not only a concentrated expression of one person’s traits, but also an expression of its unique core, when the priest reads aloud the name of a person in prayer, he “places the person's self in vibration, for then he touches its very live and tangible uniqueness.”36

THE HOLY LITURGY: THE COMMON ADVANCEMENT IN THE KINGDOM OF THE HOLY TRINITY Before his actual commentary on the Holy Liturgy, Father Stăniloae explains why the first part of the Eucharistic Synax was and still is known today as the “Liturgy of the Word,” or the “Liturgy of the Catechumens.” Regardless of the number of non-baptized attendees, the author proposes that the 33 Ibid., 113. 34 Ibid., 116. 35 Ibid., 123. 36 Ibid., 126.



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name of this first part of the Liturgy stay the same, because all faithful are called “to immerse themselves deeper into the study of Christian teachings and hence to improve their lives accordingly,”37 as well as to journey through an uninterrupted chain of “epektases,” to remain Catechumens but temporarily, and to grow into the state of genuine believers. With his commentary on the opening blessing, Father Dumitru Stăniloae presents his entire view on the Eucharistic Synax, which he sees as the Kingdom of sacrificial love within the Holy Trinity, which is available to all believers through the Saviour’s sacrifice. All the concatenated liturgical acts mark the presence of a new reality that is being fostered into this world, the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven, where the entire congregation is called to ascend to in union with the crucified and resurrected Christ. The mystery of salvation is the mystery of love between the Persons of the Holy Trinity and us. And it is from the Holy Trinity that we drink in the love that was brought within us by the Son of God, Who became like one of us and suffered death for our sins, and Who remains in this state of absolute love forever united with us. For as love is not to be disrupted, neither should Christ's liturgical state of sacrifice for us to the Father be interrupted.38

Prior to his analysis of the main acts of the Holy Liturgy, Father Dumitru Stăniloae unveils his whole view on man's participation in the Kingdom of love within the Most Holy Trinity. This Kingdom of the Holy Trinity is a kingdom of perfect unity in love and consummate freedom, of mercy and love for people, of freely chosen sacrificial love that has the power to draw all in. In some of his passages, Father Dumitru Stăniloae manages to combine his own experiences with the dogmatic teachings of the Fathers so profoundly, that his words sound as if they were taken from the Philokalia:

37 Ibid., 132. 38 St. Cyril, Adoration, note 649, 605.

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CIPRIAN STREZA The generous interest that God's love has in us is also visible in the fact that His kingdom is the Kingdom of the One Who freely and willingly chose to father us, too. The Father . . . is not forced by His love into creating other sons or into making His Son a man so as to adopt them all. He wishes us to be happy, but He also wants us to freely choose this happiness… The happiness He wishes us to experience lies in the communion between our voluntary love and Him, in the revelation of His love for us and in our response to His love, as a confirmation of our contentment in His love.39

Moreover: “That is why we bless the Holy Trinity and thank Them for everything They did in order to make us partakers of Their Kingdom, and along with the thankfulness and joy that we give back to Them, we also commit ourselves to walk on the path Christ has shown us through His sacrifice.”40 This Kingdom is a large family united by sacrificial love, wherein man is filled up with altruistic love, and where “the King is the Father and all the citizens are His sons through adoption or by grace, and therefore they are brothers to Christ, the Only Begotten Son of the Father according to being.”41

By analyzing the contents of the three litanies at the beginning of the Holy Liturgy and of the three prayers that the priest reads in a low voice, Father Dumitru Stăniloae finds that God’s mercy and sacrificial love are the defining themes in all the petitions the believers make to the Lord during the Holy Liturgy. This boundless mercy and sacrificial love is the very Kingdom of God.42 Through it God wants to bring the whole creation to

39 Stăniloae, Spirituality and Communion, 136. 40 Ibid., 139. 41 Ibid., 144. 42 Ibid., 160.



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Him, for reciprocal self-giving and selfless love are the only virtues able to engender perfect communion between people. The Small Entrance represents the beginning of the Saviour’s public activity, and also indicates that “Christ is coming out more tangibly now, at the same time that He enters the Heavenly Altar through his service as a man.”43 There are two planes where Christ is present: nesting in a state of perpetual sacrifice at the right hand of the Father, and resting symbolically yet genuinely in the services of the Church, where He increasingly unveils His live, dynamic and communion-building presence, with each liturgical act that unfolds. The chanting of the Trisagion Hymn is the liturgical moment when the whole Church—visible and invisible—praises God’s holiness manifest in Christ, Who brought this holiness down and imprinted it onto human nature by purifying it in the fire of sacrifice and returning it restored to the Father. The bridge between the heavenly and the earthly planes is made up of the spiritual life of each member of the community, for “Only because we participate in Christ's redemptive activity through faith, and by cleansing our souls [of passions] are we deemed worthy to perceive and feel the holiness of God within us.”44 The Apostle and Gospel reading is the peak moment in the Liturgy of Catechumens. Christ becomes more and more known through His words, His presence and activity amidst His newly chosen people. The good news of the Gospel is the power of God at work in the hearts and souls of the faithful. Father Dumitru Stăniloae highlights the fact that there is a mystical connection between the words of the Saviour and His Person. This connection exists in such a manner, that the divine word is not an empty informative notice on His life and teaching, but it is energy and power that springs directly from within Christ’s being and right into the souls of the faithful, which He nourishes spiritually, He commands and claims for Himself, and then fills and changes by reconfiguring them according to His model.45 43 Ibid., 180. 44 Ibid., 185. 45 Ibid., 90.

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The Liturgy of the Catechumens ends with the Litany of Fervent Supplication and the Litany for the Deceased, in which God is implored to have mercy on all the members of the Church, both living and dead. In explaining the petitions in these litanies, Father Dumitru Stăniloae delivers an ample excursus on God’s mercy, which: is not an external gesture united with an internal indifference, but it is God’s inner participation in the suffering of those He bestows His mercy upon…and it is this very participation in the anguish of His creatures that impulses God to supply them with whatever they are in need of, that is to give Himself to them, but only if they want to receive Him… God’s mercy is the mystery of a living God, and not of a divinity that is paralyzed in his unfeelingness.46

THE LITURGY OF THE FAITHFUL, OR THE SACRIFICE AND THE HOLY COMMUNION The main part of the Eucharistic Synax begins with the examination of the petitions for the faithful and of the two prayers that the priest reads in preparation for the bringing and consecration of gifts. Father Stăniloae reaffirms therein the leitmotif of his liturgical commentary: Christ is continually in a state of sacrifice, and because He experiences the fragmentation of His Body and the shedding of His Blood as an uninterrupted present that goes on forever in the eternity of His love, He wants to offer Himself with this sacrificial love through the liturgical service, through the prayers of the priest and the chants of the faithful, to all who open up to Him in faith. His sacrifice is thus fully efficient, and it “reaches completion when it becomes imprinted in Him as an eternal state that He wishes to impress upon all of His brothers by humanity.”47 All the liturgical acts that come before the beginning of the Eucharistic Anaphora function to prepare the faithful to receive and experience the unique and mysterious heavenly reality of the Eucharist.

46 Ibid., 202–03. 47 Ibid., 222.



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To Father Dumitru Stăniloae, the Great Entrance is where the typological symbol attains the consistency of eschatological realism. Therefore, the priest᾽s coming out of the holy altar is a symbol of the Saviour᾽s entrance in Jerusalem, which epitomizes His entrance into the Heavenly Altar before the Father: At that moment, the community silently witness the great Mystery in awe: how the King reveals Himself historically to us and enters Jerusalem in total humility, only to be crucified on Mount Golgotha and buried; and back to their present time, how He places Himself within spiritual sight as the resurrected Christ, Who remains nonetheless in a perpetual state of sacrifice on the Heavenly Altar before the Father. He walks toward a Golgotha of compassion and inside a tomb where He intends to lure our old lives into, and towards the permanence of His Heaven-bound sacrificial state for us.48

The placing of the Holy Gifts on the Holy Table symbolizes the placing of the Lamb who is forever slain on the Holy Altar Table above the Heavens. This is again an opportunity for the great theologian to expand on the Saviour᾽s state of sacrifice, which he understands as the utmost self-offering a human being is capable of, the sole possibility for man to immerse himself in the live dynamics of love within the Holy Trinity, and as the truly one and only meeting between man and God.49 The litany and the prayer read by the priest right before the Creed mark an increasingly pronounced ascent of the community towards the Kingdom of the Holy Trinity. The petitions are now more openly eschatological: “We pray that the Lord receive the Gifts and make them worthy to be consecrated into His Body and Blood. Therefore, we do not ask anything for ourselves, but we simply bring our offering to God…”50 The Creed integrates synthetically all the truths of faith that the Christians are summoned to experience at the Holy Liturgy. To Father Dumitru Stăniloae, the Creed is the liturgical act wherein the ecclesial assembly shows the connection 48 Ibid., 229. 49 Ibid., 228–37. 50 Ibid., 243.

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between Christian love and the confession of faith, and also the connection between sacrificial love and knowledge. His theological observations on the Creed acquire philokalic accents once again: In the Creed, I profess that God is not a blind force that cares nothing about people, but a Father filled with love for an only Son, a God Who wished to show His fatherly love to other sons as well, and thus created men. This same God then sent His Only Begotten Son to take on human flesh, to be crucified for us, to rise again and to remain forever united with us… Salvation is not based on a blind law of repetition, but on the conscious love towards each and every human being. This love gathers in itself the sense and the sum of fundamental meanings of existence, which are all integrated in the Creed.51

The most important moment in the Liturgy is prepared by an introductory dialogue, wherein the Holy Trinity is lauded, as everything that goes on under the mark of symbols is rooted in and justified by the love of the three divine Persons, which is poured down on the whole community through Christ’s invaluable Self-sacrifice. The Holy Trinity is manifest all through the Liturgy, and Their love falls gradually on the souls of the faithful, reaching its plenum at Epiclesis and upon their receiving of the Holy Communion. The Trinity descends in those who ascend to God. The converging movement towards this meeting is initiated and made by both parties…The Trinity descends to those who lift their souls to the Godhead with their “sacrifice of praise” and with humble pleas…It is an endless dialogue of mutually approaching steps taken by those who would never reach the end of the path to union.52

51 Ibid., 249. 52 Saint Maximus the Confessor, “Mystagogy.” PG 91, 659C. See also the critical edition published in 2011 by Christian Baudignon in



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The whole text of the Eucharistic Anaphora is an expression of gratitude towards the Holy Trinity for the entire economy of salvation that was carried out through our Saviour. The unfathomable descent of Christ, constantly updated at every Holy Liturgy, which allows the faithful to feel Him approaching any willing soul, gives birth to the thankfulness and praise that the entire community brings to God. Yet in this experience, the faithful sense God's boundless immensity and their own inability to laud and praise Him properly. In his commentary on the Theological Prayer, Father Dumitru Stăniloae notes that in this section of the prayer, the priest declares that the gratitude which is owed God is as tremendous as the heights from whence He descended. In his explanation of the paradox between the apophatism and cataphatism of God’s love, the great theologian left us another written account worthy of the Philokalia: I feel contained within the knowledge of God, not as if I were an object, but as a subject is contained within a supreme Subject…I feel myself contained within a Subject Who not only willed to think me into being, but He actually brought me into being out of nothing, and cares to preserve me forever in an intimate communion with Him, by giving me and communicating to me everything He has. And so, I feel contained within a Subject Who is filled with love for me or for all of us…I do not know Him only through some cold apophatism of my mind, but I experience Him as an apophatic reality Whose loving warmth envelops me; He is the more apophatic to my senses, as I recognize His great descent to my state of being out of His sheer love. And see how the apophatic does not translate Maximi Confessoris Mystagogia una cum latina interpretatione Anastasii Bibliothecarii. CCSG 69 (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2011), 3–74. The first translation into Romanian after the critical text was done by Arhid. Dr. Ioan Ică jr in his exceptional work: De la Dionisie Areopagitul la Simeon al Tesalonicului. Integrala comentariilor liturgice bizantine (Sibiu: Deisis, 2011), 203–39.

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CIPRIAN STREZA into knowing nothing about God, but it means to have the experience of some of His deeds that make His glory even more incomprehensible…53

In the theological prayer, the praise of the community intertwines with that sung by the angels in the biblical Trisagion hymn. In the following Christological Prayer, the priest expresses the community's whole gratitude for the entire economy of salvation, and thus he prepares the liturgical transition to the invocation of the Holy Spirit at Epiclesis. Christ’s wondrous redemptive deeds are the guarantee that allows the community to plead for the descent of the Comforter on the Gifts, so that the transubstantiation may take place. Alongside these prayers, Christ's presence gradually increases, while the distance between the visible Lamb in the Holy Altar and the Lamb in the Heavenly Altar decreases.54 The anamnesis of the economy of salvation ends with the evocation of the Saviour’s Words of Institution of the Holy Eucharist, which He uttered at the table of the Mystical Supper. In commenting upon these words, Father Dumitru Stăniloae explains how the Apostles were able to partake of Christ before He went through His passion on the Cross. This was possible because right before His death, the Saviour carried within Himself “the acute awareness of His sacrifice for us, and by this intense awareness of the sacrifice and by the Spirit that was in Him, He transfigured His Body at its core, and through this He also transfigured the ontological foundation of the bread, leaving only its appearance of a bread, for the sake of its organic connection with the entire cosmos before the end of times.”55 At the Last Supper, Jesus experienced beforehand the state of being physically overwhelmed by His Holy Spirit, and in this state of peak spiritual awareness, He penetrated the rationale of the bread up to the point when it was absorbed into the rationale of His Body. The consecration of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is a mystery incomprehensible in its sense and 53 Stăniloae, Spirituality and Communion, 263. 54 Ibid., 268. 55 Ibid., 269.



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in the way, it is carried out. This mystery, says Father Dumitru Stăniloae: is established…on a profound and mystical connection between the divine Word and His live human body that the bread would transubstantiate into. Yet it is also founded on the fact that the bread is the most adequate and emblematic gift we could bring God… Inside the bread, God's gift to us meets our gift to Him, especially in the bread that we bring for consecration as a gift at the altar.56

The Epiclesis is, to Father Dumitru Stăniloae, the quintessential prayer of the Church, one that has utmost efficiency, because it is the absolute meeting of man’s rational ministry with the rational ministry of the Word through the Spirit, and because in it Christ does not only ask the Father that the gifts be consecrated into His Body and Blood, but He also performs the consecration. The bread and the wine are transubstantiated into the Body and the Blood of the Saviour by the assimilation of their rationale into that of Christ's Body, and this takes place by the action of the Holy Spirit, Who “compels the Body of Christ, and through it the Hypostasis of the Word, to assimilate the rationale of the bread until complete absorption, and thus institutes the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist.”57 This is the culmination of the Holy Liturgy, a renewed Pentecost through which the real ontological circuit of love between the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and the community is brought to perfection, as an endless mutual gift exchange.58 The community offers the bread and the wine as a symbol of its sacrifice, and receives the Gifts consecrated into the Body and Blood of Christ. This mystical heavenly reality is accessible to all the faithful, but is lucrative only through their constant desire to attain a state of dispassion. About this, Father Dumitru Stăniloae writes: “The surrender of our whole lives to Christ is the inner Epiclesis visibly acted upon through deeds, an invocation (calling) of the grace of the Holy Spirit upon us.”?59 A life 56 Ibid., 273. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid., 297. 59 Ibid., 293.

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offered to God and to one’s brethren is the most efficient prayer, petition and plea to the Father for the grace of His Holy Spirit. After transubstantiation comes a series of petitions which remind of the most important spiritual gifts that the community expects to receive upon taking the Holy Mysteries, i.e., vigilance of soul, forgiveness of sins, fulfillment of the Kingdom of Heaven, confidence before God. Then the priest goes on with the specified list of those for whom the Eucharistic sacrifice is brought: for the saints so that they advance in God's glory, and for the living and the dead, so that their souls might be spiritually blessed. Father Dumitru Stăniloae shows that the entire creation feeds upon Christ’s sacrifice, as if it were an inexhaustible font of goods, because in Him, “Who is up in Heaven before the Father, as a High Priest, a Sacrifice and an Altar, there are our gifts, too, for He constantly lifts us up to the heights He ascended to as a man through His sacrifice.”60 The moment the Lord’s Prayer is recited represents, for Father Dumitru Stăniloae, the visible sign of the adoption that the faithful receive in the Kingdom of love within the Holy Trinity. For if He makes us worthy to call Him Father, He also makes us worthy of uniting our body and blood with His Son’s Body and Blood. Or is it that through the very fact that we are deemed worthy to receive—when we are in a state of cleanness—His Son’s precious Body and Blood…that we become pleasing in the eyes of the Father; in such case, the love of the Father for the humanity of the Son that was sacrificed to Him reaches out and covers all of us as well.61

The love of the Holy Trinity is far from being static; it is rather the Kingdom of love that offers itself to all. The eternal Son brings love into this world and presents Himself to the Father with His sacrifice and the community’s, calling Him Father and thus stirring the love of the entire Trinity to move towards those souls who open up to Them in faith. 60 Ibid., 318. 61 Ibid., 325.



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The commentary on the Holy Liturgy concludes with the description of the ritual of preparation of the holy Gifts for the Holy Communion and with an analysis on how important it is for the faithful to receive the Holy Eucharist in a state of worthiness, so that they may pre-taste and experience eternal life through the Holy Liturgy. At this point, Father Dumitru Stăniloae manages once more to center his entire liturgical discourse on the importance of having a spiritual life, of pursuing a personal ascetic effort to attain dispassion, in order to have access to the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven. The faithful know that the Body of Christ that is presented to them is forever “broken in a mystical way” and given as sacrifice for the sins of the people. Through the Eucharist, Christ not only irradiates His crucified and resurrected state over men, but He actually gives them His own passion made manifest in His transfigured Body. And this Body that He shares is alive and full of divine breath, capturing inside the sensibilities of His deified human soul which implants the pneuma to those who partake of Him.

THE LITURGY AFTER THE LITURGY: OUR SACRIFICE WITH CHRIST IN A LIFE OF ASCESIS AND OBSERVANCE OF THE HOLY COMMUNION Father Dumitru Stăniloae’s entire theological work is a real assertion of the complex and unitary character of the Christian life. Man’s participation in the life of communion of the Holy Trinity is the consummate gift that God gives to him, and He does that through the Saviour’s sacrifice. In this sacrifice, the faithful may partake of the sacramental life of the Church, only to actuate it in their own personal ascetic lives in their pursuit to observe the commandments. This interweaving of Mysticism and Ascetics, this correlation between being and living in Christ, is characteristic of Orthodox spirituality. Through the Holy Mysteries, the Saviour enters the soul of every Christian, and the ensuing connection with Him becomes effective through faith and the observance of His commandments, so that the force of His humanity may ripen into the force of our humanity. That is why our ascetic efforts represent our gradual death with Christ, the

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CIPRIAN STREZA fulfillment of our whole selves with His sacrificial state as a sign of His sway, the death of the old man and an intentional extension of the baptism. It is more than an imitatio Christi, as they coin it in the West, it is rather a heroic mortification with and in Christ…we do not rise with Christ unless we die with Him first.”62

Father Dumitru Stăniloae was an initiator, an apostle, an excellent teacher, for he managed to synthesize in a creative manner, throughout his entire theological discourse, almost all the major themes of Orthodox theology and spirituality. The Liturgy is the outpouring of life that gave birth to his theological expression. That is the reason why his view of the Eucharistic Synax is simultaneously undiluted, all-encompassing and complex: There is but one Liturgy, the Liturgy of consummate love within the Holy Trinity, of which all creation is called to partake. Men can do this by participating in the services of the Church, which is in essence a diastole, the way God’s love reaches out into the world so as to draw all creation through His systole of love into the life of intra-Trinitarian communion. The Liturgy of the Eucharist is in fact this very universal dynamism that draws the entire cosmos towards union with God; it unites men with God, and men with men, and thus it unveils the eschatological sense of the human existence. The uniqueness of Father Dumitru Stăniloae’s liturgical discourse lies in its mystagogic finality, in his desire to initiate Christians in the mystery of God’s presence in and within people, with all the dogmatic, liturgical, and ascetic implications that it entails. Such profound theologizing is nothing more than his way of expressing himself, a happy refining of the living ecclesial tradition and of the outpouring of life that springs from the unseen though vivid presence of Christ in the Church through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Father Dumitru Stăniloae took this refining and furthered it through the filter of his profound personality, abundant in spiritual delicacy and sensitiv-

62 Dumitru Stăniloae, Orthodox Spirituality, 10.



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ity, which made it possible that his entire deeply spiritual patristic discourse be received by his contemporaries as “not a word about redemption but a redeeming word, one that nourishes and enlightens the man.”63

63 Panagiotis Nellas, “Introduction” to Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae. On Orthodox Ecumenism, Eucharist, Faith and Church [in Greek], (Athos Piraeus Publications, 1976), 17.



II.2.

THE SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH: BASIS OF SPIRITUALITY, BUILDING BLOCKS OF THE KINGDOM PHILIP ZYMARIS It is the claim of the Orthodox Church that spirituality cannot exist outside of sacramental life. This is true first and foremost because of the centrality of the Eucharist in Eastern ecclesiology. Indeed, all religions have some form of mission, catechism, evangelization and asceticism so these dimensions of religious life cannot be that which makes the Church unique. That which is particular to the Church is the Eucharist: i.e., identification and communion with the Body of Christ the GodMan. When Christ was about to be crucified he did not offer a new philosophy of life nor any particular last minute teachings; rather he offered a meal and communion with his person. Therefore, whereas all religions claim to somehow heal the human condition through what they offer or teach, in the Church this “therapeutic” aspect is not the primary purpose but rather the result that ensues from communion (a relationship) with a person—the person of Christ. Our spiritual life, our prayers, our asceticism, our sacraments and everything else that heals us cannot stand by themselves. Instead they issue forth from this communion with Christ, i.e., the fact of the

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Eucharist.1 This is the basis of everything uniquely Christian and therefore of Christian sacramental and spiritual life. Another way of putting this is that, from an Orthodox point of view, there is essentially one sacrament, and this is the one mystery of Christ, the Eucharist, which is identified with the Church herself.2 Everything else follows from this. In keeping with this, we must note that from both a theological and a historical point of view, each of the specific realities that we call sacraments today originate from this reality of the Church as Eucharist. The sacraments therefore cannot be understood as magic pills or “divine bandades” to improve our spiritual life, as if they were autonomous realities unrelated to the Eucharistic assembly, which is communion with Christ. This is evident due to the fact that the only reason these realities can even be called sacraments is because of their actual organic liturgical and historical connection to the Eucharist. They are made valid, “ecclesiacized,” “churchified” or “sacramentalized” by virtue of this connection. This connection was more obvious in the early Church when each of these rites were actually celebrated only in the context of the eucharistic

1 This is the view of the so-called “eucharistic ecclesiology” as opposed to a “therapeutic ecclesiology.” 2 See John Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church: The Unity of the Church in the Divine Eucharist and the Bishop During the First Three Centuries, E. Theokritoff, trans. (Brookline: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2001), 43ff.



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celebration.3 Unfortunately, today the only sacrament that retains this pristine connection is the sacrament of ordination.4 In any case, from a liturgical point of view, even though today’s sacramental rites have been separated from their natural eucharistic context due to various historical factors that go beyond the scope of this paper, these origins are still imbedded in the very structure of these rites. The “shape of the liturgy” is still discernable in these services, as is especially evident in the services of baptism and marriage.5 An important point to be made here to facilitate explaining how the sacraments are the foundation of our life in Christ and therefore ultimately “building blocks of the Kingdom” is their character as icon. They constitute icons of the eschatological situation of the Kingdom where the definitive healing of the human condition will be the catholic reality. In order to understand what follows, I stress at this point that an icon, in

3 For the connection of all sacraments with the Eucharist, see Nenad Milosevic, To Christ and the Church: The Divine Eucharist as the All-Encompassing Mystery of the Church (Los Angeles: Sebastian Press, 2012); Milosevic, The Holy Eucharist as the Center of Divine Worship: The Connection of the Sacraments to the Eucharist (Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 2001) (in Greek). For a historical review of the connection of marriage specifically with the Eucharist, see P. Skaltses, Marriage and Divine Liturgy: A Look at the History of Worship (Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1998) (in Greek). 4 The consecration of Holy Myrrh is also still done in the context of the Eucharist. For a brief history and the service see Ecumenical Patriarchate, Holy Myrrh in the Orthodox Church (Istanbul: Histos Publishing, 2012). 5 For the Eucharistic origins of the service of baptism and the remnants of the “shape of the liturgy” that are evident to this day in the Byzantine baptismal rite see, besides the books referenced above by N. Milosevic, the classic work by Alexander Schmemann, Of Water and the Spirit: A Liturgical Study of Baptism (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974); for the “shape of the liturgy” in the service of marriage, see P. Skaltses, Marriage and Divine Liturgy.

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the Orthodox tradition, is not merely an “image” or a representation of something else. Rather, it is understood to be a true communication of and a participation in whatever is depicted. If this were not the case, then the iconoclasts were right and icons are idols! Any discussion of Orthodox sacramental life should also begin with the disclaimer that the Eastern Church has never made an official promulgation of any list of seven specific sacraments. This supports the above principle that the true sacrament is ultimately the Eucharist alone, and therefore rites celebrated in the Church can only have sacramental value in virtue of their connection to the Eucharistic assembly. Seven happens to be a nice number with symbolic underpinnings in scripture.6 The specific list that we are accustomed to today, then, originally developed in the West and gradually trickled to the East imperceptibly and was accepted almost by “osmosis” in no truly official context. Indeed, regarding the specific list of seven sacraments accepted as the “standard” today, even in the West as this concept was developing, one finds various lists with differing “sacraments” and different numbers of sacraments previous to the ultimate crystallization of today’s familiar list.7 The first time that today’s list of seven sacraments appears in the East seems to be the 13th century.8 For example, at the second Council of Lyons (1274), which was a

6 For example, see A. Schmemann, Of Water and the Spirit, 115. 7 Yves Congar, L’Eglise de st. Augustin à l’époque modern. Histoire des Dogmes III (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1970); Congar, “Quelques problèmes touchant les ministères,” NRT 93 (1971): 785–800. 8 John Zizioulas, “Ἅγιον Βάπτισµα καὶ Θεία Λειτουργία,” (“Holy Baptism and Divine Liturgy”) in Τὸ Ἅγιον Βάπτισµα (Holy Baptism) (Athens: Department of Publications, Media and Education Ministry of the Church of Greece, 2003), 213, note 4. See also Yury P. Avvakumov, “Sacramental Ritual in Middle and Later Byzantine Theology: Ninth–Fifteenth Centuries,” in The Oxford Handbook of Sacramental Theology. H. Boersma & M. Levering, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 253.



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union council, the representative of Emperor Michael Paleologos was compelled to make a profession of faith that included a list of seven sacraments. 9 This text was obviously given to him to read and betrays a particularly Western concept of the sacraments. For example, the Eucharist is fourth in the list (i.e., merely one of the seven rather than that which constitutes the reality of the rest); chrismation has become confirmation; marriage is considered dissolved at the death of one of the members (implying the familiar subsequent cinematic phrase: “until death do us part”); unction is identified with “last rites,” etc. Of course, in the context of this union council, Emperor Michael was not interested in the minutiae of theology. He participated in this council hoping to save the dwindling Byzantine Empire that he had recently regained from the Crusaders from the aggressive pretensions of Charles of Anjou who had his eyes set on Constantinople. Interestingly enough, although this union council was rejected by the consciousness of the Church in the East, in practice the concept of seven sacraments has been accepted by default in popular piety and is typically assumed as the only 9 The text recited by Michael goes as follows: “The same Holy Roman Church also holds and teaches that there are seven sacraments of the Church: one is baptism, which has been mentioned above; another is the sacrament of confirmation which bishops confer by the laying on of hands while they anoint the reborn; then penance, the Eucharist, the sacrament of order, matrimony and extreme unction which, according to the doctrine of Blessed James [James 5:14–15] is administered to the sick. The same Roman Church performs the sacrament of the Eucharist with unleavened bread; she holds and teaches that in this sacrament the bread is truly transubstantiated into the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the wine into His blood. As regards matrimony she holds that neither is a man allowed to have several wives at the same time nor a woman several husbands. But, when a legitimate marriage is dissolved by the death of one of the spouses, she declares that a second and afterwards a third wedding are successively licit, if no other canonical impediment goes against it for any reason.” Cf. The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church, rev. ed., J. Neusner and J. Dupuis, ed., (New York: Alba House, 1982), no. 28 [= DenzingerSchönmetzer, Enchiridion, 860].

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standard, even in academic circles. In other words, this notion of seven sacraments seems to have seeped into the East unconsciously and perhaps this council reflects an increasing familiarity with this specific list. It should be noted, however, that even in the West this list was definitively officialized very late, in the 16th century Council of Trent. One can therefore say that, on the one hand, there is essentially one sacrament,—the Church (Eucharist) itself—while, on the other hand also, everything attached to this mystery and, therefore, ultimately all of Christian life, should be a foretaste of the Kingdom and, therefore, there are actually innumerable “sacraments.” Be that as it may, how is it that the rites that we today call sacraments give us a foretaste of the ultimate goal of spirituality which is the Kingdom? Because we are used to a more Western interpretation of what the sacraments do, i.e., that they are some kind of a “divine bandage” that “improves” us ethically or that they are a kind of magical “channel of grace” that imparts spiritual strength to the individual, we often misunderstand the sacraments. A review of the Eastern view on sacraments which stresses the eschatological community rather than the present individual will help us understand how the sacraments and, by extension, our Orthodox spiritual life aim to be a participation here and now in the Kingdom of the end-times. The whole purpose of the Church’s existence is to bring to us the reality of the Kingdom—full communion with God— here and now. This Kingdom, then, for which we pray to become a reality on “earth at it is in heaven,” is the final reality when God will set all things aright. All shortcomings, weaknesses, setbacks and sicknesses—all little “deaths”—that become obstacles to our full potentiality in life and that culminate in the “ultimate enemy” (1 Cor. 15:26): death, will be overcome in the Kingdom. The ultimate role of the Church, therefore, is to be a meeting place of “heaven and earth,” i.e., the Kingdom here and now. A mistaken translation of John 18:36 that “my kingdom is not of this world” has clouded this pristine and robust Christian teaching and has encouraged, especially in popular piety, a sort of dualism where this world has no ultimate value since our ultimate goal is purportedly to abandon it and “go to heaven,” which means “somewhere



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else.” This suggests that earth and the rest of material creation will cease to have any purpose for existence at the end-times.10 However, the Greek original actually doesn’t say this, for “ἡ βασιλεία ἡ ἐµὴ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τοῦ κόσµου τούτου” should better be translated as “my Kingdom is not from this world,” a notion that does not preclude that this Kingdom (indeed not from this world) must in fact ultimately be joined with this world to transform it at the end-times.11 Indeed, according to the teaching of our Church reflected in the patristic notion of the “καινὴ κτίση” (renewed, transformed creation), we clearly look forward to such a transformation of this world (meaning the whole creation, the whole universe created by God, material and immaterial, heaven and earth) into the new world of the Kingdom. This is important for sacramental theology because this means that the physical materials we use now in the sacraments are not understood as a sort of temporary surrogate that are “here today, gone tomorrow.” In the Kingdom the material creation will be saved and transformed, as also our physical bodies will be resurrected,12 so the material creation will 10 This mentality has led in modern times to the ecological problem, for if the creation is “here today, gone tomorrow,” and will not be part of the Kingdom, why not “use it and abuse it” while we can now? This certainly is relevant today when in certain political circles the whole question of global warming is conveniently dismissed as a “hoax.” Such a mentality betrays a certain theological stance regarding the ultimate purpose of creation and allows for an unbridled abuse of its resources. For an excellent article on how such a distorted view has led to today’s ecological problem, see John Zizioulas, “Preserving God’s Creation, Three Lectures on Theology and Ecology,” KTR 12 (1989): 1–5; 12 (1989): 41–45; 13 (1990): 1– 5. 11 Christ even continues: (18:36) “but now my kingdom is not here,” meaning that the goal is that it will be here at the second coming in order to transform it. Note that what he refers to here is His coming and not our “going.” 12 A “spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44) does not mean an immaterial body but a transformed body as was the body of Christ after the

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clearly have an existence and purpose in that Kingdom that is to come.13 All of the Church’s rites—especially the sacraments—as well as her architecture, art, hymnography and spiritual life have a physical aspect and all serve to stress this final meeting of heaven and earth. This is the ultimate eschatological hope offered by the Church; the definitive overcoming of our fallen human condition. Indeed, one could visualize this sacramental role of the Church by conjuring up the image of the 1513 fresco by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel of Rome where the finger of God is depicted barely touching the finger of Adam. Adam, as human being (a microcosm according to Maximus the Confessor), represents the whole creation. The sacramental life of the Church is the actual meeting (or, according to biblical imagery, the marriage)14 of God and Man, heaven and earth, the Resurrection—clearly physical but transformed. We are not to become angels (disembodied), but rather “like the angels” (Matt. 22:30). 13 See Revelation 21:1–3. This joining of heaven and earth which is identified with the Kingdom of God of the end-times (note that only Matthew, concerned with the sensibilities of a Jewish audience, employs the term “Kingdom of Heaven,” which does not mean a “Kingdom in the sky,” but was understood to refer to the Kingdom of God), is likened to a marriage, the “New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride…” Note that the “saved,” therefore, are not whisked up into heaven—which would propagate a dualism where the creation is a temporary place that must be abandoned at the second coming—rather heaven comes down and joins earth. This is an important statement supporting the Orthodox sacramental theology which does not harbor a dualistic view of the matter used in sacramental life precisely because it is this world that will be transformed by the joining of heaven and earth into the Kingdom of God. 14 The underlying theme of Scripture from beginning to end is clearly this notion of communion between God and Man, heaven and earth. As stated above, this goal of total communion is illustrated repeatedly with the symbol of marriage, and for this reason scripture



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divine life of God with humanity / creation. The sacraments, therefore, through the material creation, serve as bridges between God and Man and thus comprise true foretastes of the final, totally healed reality of the Kingdom, which will also clearly have a physical aspect. In short, by employing material means as a vehicle, the sacraments make this reality of the personal presence of the resurrected Christ and His Kingdom, where all the injustices of the fallen world (i.e., all deaths) will be healed, a present reality. The importance of the material creation to communicate this reality to us sacramentally is manifestly evident in the sacramental life of the Eastern Church. It originates from Christianity’s initially clear affirmation of the goodness of creation in keeping with the scriptural creation account (Gen. 1: 8, 31: “καὶ ἰδοὺ καλὰ λίαν”), and the Incarnation of Christ leading to the uniquely Christian notion of the physical Resurrection. This generous use of the material creation in our sacramental services, then, very appropriately causes Orthodox worship and Orthodox worship venues to be truly a “feast for the senses.” All five senses participate because the whole human being, body and soul15 created in the image and likeness of God, participates in worship and sacramental life as a psychosomatic whole. This pristine Christian concept of the participation of the whole of creation in God’s ultimate plan is unique to Christianity. In spite of this, many Western Christian theological traditions have de-emphasized the cosmological aspect of salvation (for reasons beyond the scope of this paper). Nevertheless, thankfully in Eastern sacramental practice this uniquely begins and ends with marriage: Adam and Eve in the beginning (Gen. 1:27; 2:23) and the marriage of the Lamb at the end (Rev. 21:9). 15 It must be noted that even this division of body and soul is something foreign to the original scriptural language of Christianity; it in fact seeped into Christian language much later due to Hellenistic influences. For the Jews “nephesh,” usually translated as ψυχή (“soul”) in the Bible, really means a living being in its entirety and does not assume a Hellenistic dichotomy between soul and body.

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Christian concept is retained to this day.16 This is in contrast to later medieval Western tendencies towards a dualism in sacramental life which gradually tended to “de-materialize” the physical aspect of worship and sacramental life, as if too much matter somehow takes away from the spiritual experience, or as if spirit and matter are somehow opposed to each other. Indeed, in some later Western sacramental practices, one gets the impression that the matter used is almost used in spite of itself as a sort of necessary evil—as a temporary situation for the time being in our miserable present human condition until matter will finally become obsolete in a distant abstract heaven of clouds and harps! For example, this tendency can be seen in the Latin Christian practice of sprinkling rather than immersing in baptism and in the use of a host for the Eucharist that has been so spiritualized so as to not remind us in any way of the real bread we eat at table. On the other hand, in keeping with the earlier Christian paradigm, Orthodox sacraments are known for their emphasized physicality, almost to the point of becoming “messy.” This is seen, for example, in the baptismal service where the neophyte is fully anointed in the oil of gladness and totally immersed in the baptismal waters and subsequently anointed with holy myrrh (chrism) and then communed.17 This same physicality is clearly evident in all the sacraments and ultimately begins from the sacrament of sacraments—the Eucharist itself—which uses the materials of bread and wine to communicate the presence of Christ himself. To be more specific let us look at how this joining of heaven and earth is reflected in each of the sacraments. Let us first examine the Eucharist. The Eucharist, in the pristine 16 Even if many modern Orthodox tend to forget this, and this trend is not limited to popular piety but even to some academic theological circles. 17 Orthodox priests, as a rule have a set of vestments made of cheaper material and earmarked only for the celebration of baptism, for it is guaranteed that this set will eventually be filled with oil stains! Note that the practice of fully anointing the candidate for baptism in the oil of gladness is practiced amongst the Greeks but not the Slavs.



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Christian sense, is a cosmological event which has repercussions for the whole creation. One may thus describe it as the entire history of salvation—God’s ultimate plan for healing our present human condition—in a nutshell. God’s goal—perfect communion, the sharing of His divine life with creation— is brought to bear in the Eucharist. Later Eucharistic theologies, especially in the West, but also in the East on a more popular level in recent times, have somewhat forgotten this cosmological dimension and have emphasized the Eucharist solely as a sacrifice. This originated in a later understanding of the Eucharist primarily as a re-enactment of the Last Supper and of the sacrifice at Calvary.18 Although this aspect has its place,19 early Christianity certainly did not understand the liturgy as a repetition of Christ’s sacrifice (which was done once and for all—ἐφάπαξ [Heb. 10:10]) but rather as a manifestation here and now of the ultimate eschatological sanctification of matter and time.20 This sanctification and salvation of all creation is brought to bear due to the unique role of the human being as “priest of creation.” To understand what the liturgy has to do with the ultimate salvation of the entire cosmos, 18 See Paul Meyendorff, St. Germanos of Constantinople: On the Divine Liturgy (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984), 51f. The notion of sacrifice is crucial to Christianity but it has been given a totally new twist. Whereas in traditional “religions” before Christ, human beings made repeated sacrifices to God, in Christianity this is turned on its head as Christ-God sacrificed himself for us once and for all. Thus Christianity is the fulfillment and the end of all traditional religion. In Christ the God-Man the chasm between divinity and humanity that all religions formerly attempted to bridge through sacrifice has been bridged definitively. It is for this reason that Christ was crucified by religious leaders. They rightly saw his gospel to be a threat to religion! 19 If the Eucharist is to be seen as a sacrifice at all, it is a new and unprecedented kind: a “bloodless sacrifice” that has occurred “once and for all.” 20 John Zizioulas, “Preserving God’s Creation: Three Lectures on Theology and Ecology,” KTR, 12 (1989): 4.

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then, we must now turn to the specific role of the human being in creation. The creation account in the book of Genesis helps us approach the crucial question of God’s intent in creating the cosmos and the human being’s special role in this creation. According to the account, God created freely out of nothing in order to share his divine life with something other than Himself—Creation—and thus to save it. Because such a genuine relationship can only be realized if both parties are free, the human being was created as a free being. This freedom therefore is that unique aspect that makes the human being a creature made according to the image and likeness of God.21 According to the Genesis account, humanity was created from pre-existing material, and this denotes that humanity is tangibly and organically connected with that which came before it, and ultimately with the rest of creation, and thus can serve the role of microcosm in order to represent the entirety of creation. How is all this brought to bear in the Eucharist? As we know according to the Genesis account, Adam and Eve were called to cultivate,22 i.e., to transform, the gift of creation given them in order to present it back to God, so that God could, in his turn, transform it and give it back to them as the Kingdom 21 Genesis 1:26. According to the pristine Christian conception, freedom is that which makes the human being unique, not his rational abilities. In later times the rational abilities of the human being gradually began to play a predominant role in the Western view of what makes the human an image of God. This notion passed from theology into philosophy as is evident in Descartes’ (17th c.) classic phrase: “I think, therefore I am.” This has never been the case in the Eastern patristic tradition since it is clear that animals also have some kind of rationality, which means the difference between human and animal rationality is a difference in degree and not of kind. The freedom of the human being, however, is something unique in the material creation as we know it. Angels, which are immaterial beings, are also understood as having free will but they cannot serve the role of link between creation and God since they only participate in the immaterial portion of creation. 22 Gen. 2:15.



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of God, i.e., perfect communion. That sharing of divine life was the purpose of creation in the first place. However, because of the Fall (man’s refusal to freely bring this plan to fruition), this intent of God, which cannot be thwarted, took a longer route. This more circuitous route is what we call in theological language the “economy of salvation.” Through the Incarnation of Christ, whatever the first Adam did not accomplish was accomplished by the second Adam—Christ—who in this sense is the only true human being. Through his crucifixion, death and resurrection, all of creation, distorted by the Fall and therefore “groaning and laboring” (Rom. 8:22), is finally connected with his life and therefore unable to die. How so? He became part of it himself as human microcosm connected organically to the rest of creation and healed it from the inside. By dying he even filled death with life and thus conquered it. This connection with his life, according to the economy of salvation, is brought to fruition through the Church due to two major events that followed the Resurrection: the Ascension and Pentecost. According to the scriptural account, after the Resurrection Christ ascended to heaven23 as a true, full human being (not as a ghost or as a disembodied “soul”), which was necessary so he could send his Spirit at Pentecost. This sending of the Spirit allows the ascended Christ to be present with us here and now and, for this reason, Pentecost can be understood as the “birthday” of the Church. Through the community of the Church, Christ is present in the Holy Spirit when we freely become members of his body through baptism, chrismation and our Eucharistic/sacramental life. In this way, the Church becomes the presence of Christ in the world. As his body we are able to continue his salvific work that is a work still in process (until the second coming)—this is the uniquely Christ-like human work of the priest of creation—which has been accomplished only by Christ and now by extension only in his body, the Church made up of human beings like us. This 23 Not to stay there but to return: See Acts 1:11. This is the first step in a two-part movement that leads to the final marriage of heaven and earth. Here a “piece of earth” (Christ’s humanity) goes to heaven. At the second coming heaven comes to earth.

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work, as stated above, is to bring his Kingdom here “on earth as it is in heaven.” In the liturgy, then, the same purpose and reality that was the original plan as recorded in the book of Genesis and fulfilled in the second coming described in the New Testament is offered to the world for its salvation. Indeed, as in the case of Adam and Eve, in the Church we transform the gifts given us in the creation (we transform wheat and grapes into bread and wine) in order to offer them up to God (this is the Anaphora, the central Eucharistic prayer of the liturgy), so he, in his turn, can transform them and give them back to us as the Kingdom, i.e., true communion (holy communion is Eucharist). Having outlined this cosmological role of the Eucharist, then, we can now examine briefly how all of the sacraments fit into this plan of bringing the final communion of the Kingdom as a present reality. It is clearly evident that each of the sacraments, in a way following exactly the pattern of the Eucharist just outlined, use material to communicate this foretaste of the final communion and ultimate healing of the end-times. As suggested above, one analogy that can help us understand how this comes about is to compare the sacraments to the icons used in Orthodox worship. In icons the true presence of the eschatological situation is communicated to us in a tangible way through the material means used. By means of wood and paint images of the transformed existence of the endtimes are presented to us.24 However, the wood and paint are not worshipped; rather they serve the role of vehicle to bring to us here and now the personal presence of the resurrected Christ and his saints, the reality of the community of the endtimes. Similarly, in the liturgical celebration of the sacraments, the materials used are not worshipped but are vehicles to communicate the eschatological reality. Having already examined the “sacrament of sacraments” let us now see how this works tangibly in each of the “other” sacraments. The sacrament that is the first step for incorporation into this reality of the Church is baptism and the pattern outlined 24 For this reason true Byzantine iconography does not attempt to be a copy of this fallen world but depicts everything as transformed by the end-times.



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above is clearly evident in this rite. Especially in the Byzantine tradition, the universal religious symbol of water plays a prominent role as an icon of all creation and as a recapitulation of the entire salvation history. Water as a symbol includes concepts such as primal matter, source of life, cleansing and purification but it also conjures up notions of death and annihilation (the flood, the Red Sea, etc.). 25 Indeed, water taken from this Old Testament background, is thus understood in baptism as a “tomb and a womb.” For this reason, in this sacrament we physically descend into and ascend out of the waters of baptism and this symbolizes our true participation in the death and rising of Christ (Romans 6:3–4). However, this rising out of the waters of baptism in Christ, because of our organic connection with the rest of creation, ultimately signifies the raising up of the entire cosmos with us in Christ. Baptism therefore is not limited to the individual who is baptized. Instead, the eschatological salvation of the whole cosmos is alluded to in this sacrament. In baptism, then, just as in the Eucharist itself, man, and the cosmos through man, is offered a true foretaste of the end-times and its transfiguration. Thus, water becomes a true symbol in the patristic sense of the word, which denotes a true participation in the thing “symbolized.” According to the Greek etymology the σύµβολον brings seemingly disparate things together (σύν + βάλλω). This is in contrast to our modern understanding of symbol as something that merely represents something else without any essential relationship with the thing “symbolized.” Hence, according to the original meaning of the word and the patristic understanding of it, there is clearly a connection with what we do in baptism and the “real thing.” This connection is clearly manifest, for example, in the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem where he states: O strange and inconceivable thing! We did not really die, we were not really buried, we were not really crucified and raised again; but our imitation was in a figure, and our salvation in reality. Christ was actually crucified, and actually buried, and truly rose again; and all these things He 25 Schmemann, Of Water and the Spirit, 39.

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We now turn to chrismation. In this sacrament, once again, material means—sweet smelling myrrh (chrism) consecrated at the Ecumenical Patriarchate (or at other autocephalous Churches that are authorized to consecrate their own chrism)—are employed to bring present the reality of the eschaton. In this sacrament the neophyte is granted the gift of the Holy Spirit (not “gifts,” rather the gift). This Spirit that is given is only Christ’s Spirit by right. By receiving it, then, we in fact become “little christs.” Indeed, the name Christ comes from the fact that he is the “anointed one” (Christos-Messiah). We thus also become “anointed ones” like Christ and share in his royal, priestly and prophetic attributes. Indeed, by becoming “Christs” we find our actual selves (John 15:5: “without me you can do nothing.”). Thus, this is our personal Pentecost, our ordination to the state of the lay person—we become the λαὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ. We therefore here and now truly become the people of God, i.e., citizens of the Kingdom of the end-times. In this way we find our true identity which will be entirely revealed only at those end-times (this is in keeping with St. Maximos the Confessor’s concept of the “λόγοι τῶν ὄντων”). As our personal Pentecost, then, this is actually our personal ordination to our particular unique and unrepeatable role and ministry in the Church and, ultimately, in the Kingdom. The Spirit, then, as we will see below when dealing with ordination, initiates us into our unique ministry that will reach full fruition in the Kingdom. The specific role of the Holy Spirit, besides bringing Christ present as mentioned above, is also to break all bound-

26 St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 20 (On the Mysteries II), Of Baptism 5 in A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, Vol II: The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1838), 264.



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aries of time and space. In this way, through the Spirit, the eschaton and our ultimate unique role, are brought to us as a present reality. This role of the Holy Spirit is clear in the anaphora of St. Chrystostom where, in the Spirit we can “remember the future”: Remembering, therefore, this saving commandment and all that has been done for our sake: the Cross, the tomb, the Resurrection on the third day, the Ascension into heaven, the enthronement at the right hand, and the second and glorious coming again.27

Let us continue with marriage. In this case, a foretaste of the Kingdom is granted through the sharing of our whole being with another unique person. The material employed here is the psychosomatic reality of our total personality, mind, soul, emotions and body. The goal for the couple is to potentially live out and communicate between them the disinterested love that exists in the Holy Trinity and that will be the norm in the Kingdom; they also together are to be a witness of this reality to the outside world.28 This is a restoration of the human being to the way God intended us to be, i.e., the reinstatement of the human being as king and queen of a harmonious creation as was poetically portrayed in the Garden of Eden according to Genesis. For this reason, the service is called “crowning.” The “regal” connotation of crowning points to kingly dignity, equality and restoration of the human couple from the fallen 27 The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, The Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom. Priest Edition (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2015), 53. 28 According to the same imagery the family, that is to say the couple and their children, is also understood to be an icon of the Trinity or of the Kingdom. However, in cases where, for whatever reason, a couple cannot have children, this icon of the Kingdom in marriage is by no means diminished. Marriage is a good in and of itself and therefore not subjected to or justified by other goals. See Philip Sherrard, Christianity and Eros: Essays on the Theme of Sexual Love (Limni: Denise Harvey Publications, 2002), 77.

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state to the way of the Kingdom. This is why both are crowned as co-citizens and co-rulers of the Kingdom and this is in stark contrast to the popular emphasis on the veil for the woman in the Western marital tradition which points to subjugation29 or shame30 (both post-lapsarian phenomena) rather than equality. Of course, veils might be worn is the East as fashions change but this is not mandatory, whereas crowns for both are necessary liturgically because of their theological import. On the subject of marriage as a foretaste of the Kingdom, it must also must emphasized that, in the Orthodox conception, marriage is eternal. One of the most frequent biblical images for the love between God and Creation that will be consummated forever in the Kingdom is the marriage feast. The sacrament of marriage, as an icon of this situation is also seen as continuing in a transformed form in the Kingdom, as is clearly evident in the following prayer from the end of the wedding service: O God our God, who was present in Cana of Galilee, and blessed the marriage there, do you also bless these your servants, who, by your providence, are joined in the community of marriage… Replenish their life with all good things. Accept their crowns in Your Kingdom unsoiled and undefiled; and preserve them without offense to the ages of ages.

So, there is no such thing as “until death do we part,” in the Orthodox understanding, even though the Church allows for remarriage in the unfortunate situation of the death of a spouse as well as in other pastoral situations. But the notion that marriage is an eternal part of our identity that will live on mysteriously in the Kingdom in a transformed state is emphasized by Chrysostom who sees the love in marriage to be stronger than death: “Our time here is brief, and fleeting, but if we are pleasing to God, we can exchange this life for the 29 1 Cor. 11:10. 30 I. Kogoulis, C. Oikonomou, P. Skaltses, Ὁ Γάµος (Thessaloniki: Lydia Publishers, 1996), 47.



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Kingdom to come. Then we will be perfectly one both with Christ and each other and our pleasure will know no bounds.”31 In ordination we also have a foretaste of the situation of the Kingdom. It must be stressed that there are many ordinations. We must do away with the simplistic and clericalist conception that the Church is composed of “ordained” and “nonordained” members. The language of the early Church makes it clear that all Church members are ordained to a specific ministry and all these ministries together cooperate to make the body of Christ—the Church—catholic, that is to say, complete. Indeed, as mentioned above, someone who is not part of the body of the Church (i.e., someone who is not baptized and chrismated) is not even a lay person because such a person is not part of the people of God—laos tou Theou—in the Eucharist. This is a foretaste of the situation of the Kingdom when all the dispersed peoples will be gathered around Christ without losing their own personal particularities (unity in diversity, as is the case of the Trinity). Indeed, the personal uniqueness of everyone will be enhanced rather than abrogated in the Kingdom, and all will have some task to do connected with their personal uniqueness. This, then, is what all ordinations 31 St. John Chrysostom, On Marriage and Family Life, Homily 20, C. P. Roth, trans., (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1986), 61. See also Pia Chaudhari, “Uncovering Desire: Explorations in Eros, Aggression and the Question of Theosis in Marriage,” in Love, Marriage and Family in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition, T. G. Dedon and S. Trostyanskiy, eds., (Sophia Studies in Orthodox Theology, vol. 7 (New York: The Theotokos Press, 2013): “This counsel is striking in the depth and weight he gives to the love, and pleasure in such love, between a husband and wife. Notably, this love does not end with death but transcends it, extending into the Kingdom… Elsewhere he [Chrysostom] speaks warmly of the same bond, saying ‘the power of this love is truly stronger than any passion; other desires may be strong but his one alone never fades. This love (eros) is deeply planted within our inmost being,’” 107 (quote from St. Chrysostom, Homily 20, 44).

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in the Church prefigure. Besides the lay state, there are the other major roles of bishop, presbyter and deacon, which all are icons of the situation of the Kingdom. According to Ignatius of Antioch, the bishop is in the “place of Christ,” the presbyters are icons of the apostles, the deacons of the angels, and the lay people are all the dispersed peoples of the earth finally gathered around Christ.32 Thus the Church is like a nation of priests under Christ. Indeed, the bishop/priest has a special leadership role to play but he actually plays the role of president over a synaxis of priests: he is the presider and mouthpiece over a community of “christs.” In this way, the whole Church fulfills the role that Christ served as the true human being, the true priest of creation. Indeed, to be a priest in this sense is the most human thing to do: to follow God’s plan to transform the world into the Kingdom. So, all ordinations (including to the “lay” state) derive directly from Christ33 and are foretastes here and now of the transformed situation of the Kingdom. In unction, once again, material means are employed to impart a foretaste of the end-times when we will be healed from all suffering. In the same way that water is a significant religious symbol, olive oil also had a central role and significance in the culture and religious sensibilities of the ancient Mediterranean world from which Christianity issued forth. It was a source of food, light, joy, reconciliation,34 peace, medicine and healing (see Gen. 8:11). According to the model of James 5:14,35 through the prayers of the Church, sanctified oil becomes a vehicle for physical healing of ailments. Included in 32 Ignatius of Antioch, Smyrn. 8, cited in Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church, 107. 33 John Zizioulas, “Ordination and Communion,” Study Enc. 6 (1970): 187. 34 See Gen. 8:11: “and the dove came back to him in the evening, and there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth.” 35 “Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord….”



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this healing is the imparting of the strength needed to deal with the pain and illness of this life in cases where actual physical healing is not granted. Regardless of whether one is in fact healed physically or not, he or she is put on the receiving end of a loving praying community. This precisely is a foretaste here and now of the physical healing ensuing from the communion of the end times. Similarly, confession / repentance is also a foretaste of the eschatological situation of the Kingdom where we will find ourselves face to face with Christ. In the Kingdom that is to come, one will not be able to hide anything and all will be in the open— the uncreated light allows for no shadows. This is already experienced in the honest opening of one’s heart in confession. Thus, through this sacrament, in a psychosomatic way that involves the whole person, we bring ourselves here and now before the judgment of the last times. Every time we sin we betray our true nature which was restored to us by baptism, chrismation and the Eucharist. In the sacrament of repentance, one is brought back again to this state for which we were created: the state of the Kingdom. The fact that confession is done face to face with the confessor and that the body is involved in gestures such as kneeling, again point to the participation of the physical as a vehicle to the end-times situation that is so typical in all the sacraments. Needless to say, confession is addressed to the bishop / presbyter because the bishop is in the “place of Christ” and represents the whole local Eucharistic assembly. In conclusion, then, through the sacraments the Church is able in a very tangible way to restore us to what we were made for: communion with God in the Kingdom. This is tantamount to a foretaste here and now of the final healing of our human condition. This foretaste is given to us through material means. This involvement of the material creation in each of the sacraments affirms the goodness of creation and its future participation in that Kingdom. Therefore, the Christian is not to reject matter and the things of this life as useless in a Neoplatonic way, rather the faithful must contribute to sanctifying this world now in order to foster the coming of the Kingdom which will transform and not replace this world. The sacraments therefore present the Kingdom as a tangible reality and

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the model for true life “on earth as it is in heaven,” and not as an ethereal otherworldly situation. According to this sacramental theology the Christian is therefore not to reject this world as a lost case and sit back and wait for the Kingdom to come, as if the Kingdom will somehow abrogate this world. Rather, one must labor here and now to make this world as transparent as possible to that Kingdom that will be fully revealed at the end-times. This is done in the sacraments in a specific way but all activities in life should potentially be sacramental, i.e., “Kingdom bringers.” Hence, in the same way that the sacraments constitute foretastes of the final victory of God’s Kingdom, all activities in Christian life should similarly become such foretastes of the Kingdom—this is the essence of Orthodox spirituality. This is clearly in keeping with Scripture which affirms in no uncertain terms that what we do here in our present situation “in the Lord is not in vain (1 Cor. 15:58),” for “whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward” (Mark 9:41). Therefore, the import of whatever we do now to allow this Kingdom to show forth will be fully revealed in the Kingdom in the same way that the sacraments as foretastes of this reality will be fully realized in the Kingdom as the “normal” reality. As one theologian wrote: “What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, diggings wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life …. less beastly, a little more bearable … [t]hey are part of what we may call building for God’s kingdom.”36 Such activities are extensions of the sacramental life of the Church and are the closest we can get in our present situation to the reality that will be fully re-

36 N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2008), 162.



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vealed in the Kingdom. Because of the Incarnation and Resurrection, this reality is brought to us unabashedly in a very physical way. As John of Damascus states, “I salute all matter with reverence, because God has filled it with his grace and power. Through it my salvation has come to me.”37 At the second coming all will see that everything done in the present world according to the sacramental way of the Church will be included, celebrated, and appropriately transformed.38

37 John of Damascus, Apologetic Treatises Against Those Decrying the Holy Images, M. H. Almes (trans.) (London: Thomas Baker, 1898), 15–16. 38 Wright, Surprised by Hope, 294.



II.3. THE MYSTERY OF REPRESENTATION: THEODORE THE STUDITE ON SEEING THE INVISIBLE SERGEY TROSTYANSKIY

Ninth-century Byzantine thought was marked off by the continual struggle over the issues of divine representation. The second wave of the iconoclastic controversy, initiated by Constantine V (the Isaurian) in the middle of the eighth century, made a drastic turn, shifting its intellectual cursor to the Christological implications of the theory of representation. Any discussion of divine representation since the mid-eighth century was driven by Constantine’s Christological dilemma. By depicting Christ, he argued, the painter either con-circumscribes (συµπεριγραφήσεται) Christ’s divinity along with his humanity, or divides and separates (χωρίζεται) natures, thus hypostasizing the humanity of Christ so that it may alone be depicted.1 The Christological ramifications of the first facet of the dilemma were argued to be such as to lead its proponent to side with the heresy of Monophysitism since con-circumscription entails the confusion of natures in Christ.2 The second facet of 1 “ἢ ψιλὸν µόνον ἄνθρωπον νοεῖσθαι τὸν Χριστὸν καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ µόνης πρόσωπον διδεῖν καὶ εἰκονίζειν αὐτὸν οὕτως.” Constantine V, Πεῦσις 1, XIII; Cf. Mansi XIII, 257 E – 260 A-B. In this article I used Georg Ostrogorsky’s edition of Constantine’s πεύσεις presented in the Studien zur Geshihte des byzantinishen Bilderstreites (Breslau: Verlag von M. & H. Marcus, 1929). 2 Mansi XIII, 252 A-B.

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the dilemma, on the other hand, was thought of as a concession to Nestorius, as it aimed to conceptualize Christ as a mere man.3 Both choices are blasphemous. They are ruled out. Thus, one must not make an image of Christ. The limits of representation here are premised upon the idea that the divine nature of Christ is un-circumscribable4 and aprosopic.5 The iconoclast council of Heireia (754) lifted up this dilemma and presented it as primary conceptual thread directed against the iconophiles and the leitmotif of the ongoing theological contest. This dilemma indeed offered a great aporia to the best minds of the century and seemed irresolvable. The orthodox council of Nicaea II (787) was for the most part dismissive of the dilemma and of its possible implications. It opted not to address them fully. Despite offering a subtle theology of representation, Nicaea II thus failed to fully engage with Constantine’s theology so as to invalidate the dilemma. In part, this was a well calculated move since the issue of representation seemed to require a different solution from that of Christology. The limits of Christological thought necessitated a different line of inquiry.6 Even so, by dismissing the problem and failing to respond to Constantine’s challenge, the synod deferred the solution to the aporia to the following century. This deferment resulted in another outbreak of the controversy reaching its climax at the iconoclastic council of Hagia Sophia (815) convoked by Leo V (the Armenian). The third wave of iconoclastic crisis was thus set in motion. During the final third stage, the controversy shifted emphasis from Christology, considering its limitations in discerning the subject at hand, to a full-fledged philosophy of representation, one that could put an end to the ongoing crisis of 3 “ὅτι ἐπὶ τῆς σαρκὸς καὶ µόνης ἴδιον πρόσωπον περιγράφει ψιλοῦ ἀνθρώπου.” Constantine V, Πεῦσις 1, VII. 4 “ἀπερίγραπτον τυγχάνειν.” Ibid. Πεῦσις 1, XII. 5 “ταύτῃ τὴν θείαν φύσιν ἀπρόσωπον.” Ibid. 6 Charles Barber, Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 76.



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Byzantine self-understanding.7 Theodore the Studite (759– 826) and Nicephoros of Constantinople (758–828), quintessential careers of the Byzantine mindset, set the grounds for the full justification of divine representation. Theodore, the abbot of the Stoudios Monastery in Constantinople, was a staunch supporter of icons and one of the main protagonists of the iconophile movement in Byzantium. His intricate account of divine representation presents to us a classical manifestation of Byzantium Orthodox phronema. Theodore and Nicephoros were both educated in the classical tradition of rhetoric and philosophy. This was perhaps the reason behind the modern attempt to classify their theoretical input as falling under the species of scholasticism. However, the word “scholastic” can be indeed misleading in many ways, as it is unclear what it may entail. I may note in this context that the input of Theodore was far from being a school-like exercise since he was actively engaged in the controversy, aiming to offer a unique and persuasive account backing the tradition of iconic representations of the divine. Let us assume that scholastic means philosophical in this context. The reading of Theodore’s treatises indeed immediately creates the impression that at stake is a very sophisticated account of representation, one that is indebted to classical and late antique philosophical traditions. The role of the iconophiles in utilizing classical thought so as to discern the subject at hand appears well studied, especially when certain logical

7 Modern scholars speak of different phases of the controversy that marked off theological developments of the eighth–ninth centuries. The three phases here seem to emerge: (1) apologetic, associated with Leo III and John of Damascus; (2) Christological, associated with Constantine V and Nicaea II; and finally (3) scholastic, associated with Leo V, Theodore the Studite, and Patriarch Nicephoros of Constantinople. A “classical” exposition of such a classification schema is found in Paul J. Alexander, The Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople: Ecclesiastical Policy and Image Worship in the Byzantine Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), 189–90.

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threads borrowed from Aristotle’s Organon are concerned.8 However, it seems to me that this line of inquiry does not advance our knowledge of Theodore’s thought far. It is my contention that Theodore’s main philosophical achievement was to set out firm grounds of the theory of divine representation within the scope of imagination. Aristotle’s theory of fantasia, however, could not provide sufficient backing for this.9 It was rather late antique thought that largely defined the philosophical underpinnings of Theodore’s theory of representation. Unfortunately, Theodore’s theory remains largely understudied in this respect. There is a lack in literature on the subject of ninth century theological aesthetics as far as it pertains to the notion of imagination. This article aims to fill in the gap in the scholarly literature by discussing Theodore’s account, especially as far as it concerns our capacity to see God. It is my contention that the most lucid thread of Theodore’s critique of Constantine was that he restricted divine images to the lower fantasia, one that is intrinsically tied to sense perception and remains confounded within the boundaries of sense data. Divine images, understood in the way, appear ostensibly deficient and incapable of reflecting the glory and majesty of Christ’s divinity. Constantine’s critique must suffice 8 Among the resent studies that tackle philosophical underpinnings of the controversy I should mention the following: Charles Barber, Figure and likeness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002); John Travis, In Defense of the Faith: The Theology of Patriarch Nikephoros of Constantinople (Brookline, MA: Hellenic College Press, 1984); Kenneth Perry, Depicting the Word: Byzantine Iconophile Thought of the Eighth and Ninth Centuries (Leiden, New York, Köln: E.J. Brill, 1996); Thalia Anagnostopoulos, “Aristotle and Byzantine Iconoclasm.” GRBS 53 (2013): 763–790. 9 It should be noted that although Aristotle argued that thinking involves images, he nevertheless linked imagination with sense perception. Hence, all images that thinking entails are ostensibly generated by sense perception and not by the higher faculties. Aristotle, De An. III.3, 428b.10 ff.



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in respect to this type of image.10 However, fantasia is not limited to its lower phase alone. This lowering of the power of fantasia was the main shortcoming of Constantine’s theory. The dual energy of imagination, clearly delineated in philosophical circles since the third century (largely because of the creative input of Plotinus, Iamblichus and Proclus, among others), allowed fantasia to be tied to both, sense perception (so as to be productive of lower images), and at the same time to the higher faculties (discursive and non-discursive reasoning), including those that allow one to see God. This being said, Theodore endeavored to discern the role of imagination in representing or manifesting the divine. Even more so, a definitive link between the phases, posited by Theodore, seemed to bridge the gap so as to allow even for the products of lower imagination to be connected with the higher ones. This meant that the faithful could start a journey to Christ on the ladder of spiritual contemplation that begins with the images seen on canvas and ascends to a clear grasp of self-revelatory visions. There seems to be two lines of defense in Theodore’s discourse, one responding to the challenges of Constantine’s dilemma by undertaking Constantine’s premises, and another one elaborating on the theory of imagination. The former line appears to me to be less successful and ultimately, incapable of resolving Constantine’s dilemma. However, the second line, pinning down the subject at hand by highlighting the role of imagination in discerning God, seemed philosophically subtle and persuasive. This latter line of reasoning gained Theodore the place he had in Byzantine philosophy. Theodore made various attempts to conceptualize icons. He distinguished between natural and artificial types of

10 That since the divine nature happens to be un-circumscribable (ἀπερίγραπτον τυγχάνειν), one may not form an image of it. Hence it is aprosopic, i.e. without external manifestation (ταύτῃ τὴν θείαν φύσιν ἀπρόσωπον). IT follows that the faculty of sense perception is incapable of grasping that which is formless. Constantine V, Πεῦσις 1, XII.

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icons.11 His predominant concern was indeed with artificial representations of the divine presence, i.e., with hand-made images of God. What is an icon? Theodore started his discourse by making some etymological inquiries. He tells us that the word icon (εἰκών) comes from ἐοικὸς, which means “similar” (in the sense of likeness). There is another relevant word, idol (εἴδωλον). “It comes from the word εἶδος, ‘form’.”12 What is the difference between icon and idol? Theodore indeed noted that ultimately, “both words amount to the same in meaning.”13 However, the question in this context does not touch upon the issues of etymology but has roots in theology. Whereas icon is a legitimate appellation as far as theology is concerned, the word idol refers to something banned from Christian discourse due to the biblical prohibitions of the Second Commandment. The same assessment is also found in classical thought. As Anne Sheppard pointed out, “[i]n Plato the word eidolon is usually pejorative, as at Rep. 9.586e, whereas the word eikon, meaning ‘image’ or ‘copy’ and used as a correlative of the word paradeigma, ‘model,’ can bear a 11 He argued that “[e]very image has a relation to its archetype; the natural image has a natural relation, while the artificial image has an artificial relation. The natural image is identical both in essence and in likeness with that of which it bears the imprint (ἀποσφράγισµα)… The artificial image is the same as its archetype in likeness, but different in essence.” Theodore the Studite, Antirrh. 3.B.2. PG 99, 418. English translation in Catharine P. Roth, St. Theodore the Studite: On the Holy Icons (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001), 100. 12 “According to Theodore the word form (εἶδος) has different meanings. Among those he indicated the following: (1) “species” as distinguished from genus: for example, man in general; (2) the form of each individual, by which we differ one from another; and (3) the sight of things to come which surpasses the present figures.” It is the second meaning of form that, according to Theodore, is applicable to the issue at hand. Theodore, Antirrh. 3D.13. 13 Ibid, Antirrh. 1.16.



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more positive sense.”14 However, it is precisely the εἴδωλα and their cognates, i.e., external forms captured by seeing, that allow one to see Christ. Theodore would then combine the notion of likeness with that of external form (χαρακτήρ or σχῆµα or µορφή) in order to shed light on divine representation. Icons, as well as all products of imitative art, always represent something. In other words, they have a prototype. Icon is an icon of its prototype. What does it represent? Theodore tells us that “every image is an image of form, shape, or appearance, and of color; εἰ πἄσα εἰκὼν, µορφῆς ἢ σχήµατος, ἢ εἴδους, καὶ χρώµατός.”15 Hence, the prototype must have these characteristics. It would then follow that “an artificial icon is the likeness of a thing of which it is an icon. It in itself exhibits/represents the character of its archetype by imitation…the truth is in likeness, the archetype is in the image.”16 The prototype of the icon of Christ is thus Christ in his bodily form.17 In these sentences Theodore attempted to engage with Constantine’s thought. Theodore’s arguments here, for the most part, followed Constantine’s rendering of image.18 However this rendering of the subject again faced the challenges of Constantine’s great dilemma. It tells us that the faculty of sense perception grasps the external form of a thing or receives its imprints and passes it to imagination (φαντασία). The soul, or

14 Anne Sheppard, The Poetics of Phantasia: Imagination in Ancient Aesthetics (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), 57. 15 Theodore, Antirrh. 3Α.11. 16 “Πᾶσα τοίνυν τεχνητὴ εἰκὼν, ὁµοίωσίς ἐστιν οὗ ἂν ᾖ εἰκὼν, καὶ ἐν ἑαυτῇ τὸν χαρακτῆρα τοῦ ἀρχετύπου µιµητικῶς δείκνυσι… τὸ ἀληθὲς ἐν τῷ ὁµοιώµατι· τὸ ἀρχέτυπον ἐν τῇ εἰκόνι.” Theodore, Ad Plat. PG 99, 500B–501A. 17 Thus, Theodore tells us, “[w]e use the word ‘icon’ rather in reference to the bodily form of Christ.” It is “the shadow of the flesh which is united to the divinity.” Theodore, Antirrh. 1.20 (Anathemas). 18 Constantine spoke of an icon as “τὴν µορφὴν χαρακτῆρος τοῦ πρωτοτύπου αὐτῆς προσώπου.” Constantine V, Πεῦσις 1, X.

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one of its powers, here functions as a mirror capable of reflecting those forms.19 The forms thus captured originally belong to things. Imagination receives their imprints and stabilizes them so that they may be memorized and brought to mind even when the object is not present. They thus turn into images. Then those images are transferred into canvas. However, the divine nature of Christ, according to Constantine, is aprosopic. It does not have form or shape, etc. One may not form such an image from the data collected by the faculty of sense perception. Therefore, a proper image of Christ, one that can save the people,20 must be expressive of the divine nature without making it manifest in the visual form. It would then follow that a painted icon cannot fully express Christ since one of his natures is inexpressible. While utilizing this approach, Theodore tried different techniques to prove that the image of Christ is produced by the prototype, and that it is “like” its prototype. By doing so, he aimed to combat Constantine’s theses that the painted icon (of Christ) and its prototype (Christ) are neither the same, nor alike; and, ultimately, that the icon has no relation to its intended prototype unless one may think of it as a failed attempt to resemble its intended prototype. In this respect Theodore’s discourse was largely indebted to Aristotle’s theory of predicamenta. An extensive use of such notions as substance, quality and relation along with that of homonymy (as it was discussed by Aristotle in the pre-predicamenta section of the Categories) was meant to establish firm links between the icon and its prototype.21 However, at times, Theodore, while drawing ramifications from Constantine’s premises thus aiming to 19 See Sheppard, The Poetics of Phantasia, 2. 20 “ἵνα

τὸ ὅλον σωθῇ, ἐπεὶ ουδὲ εἰκών.” Constantine V, Πεῦσις 1, III.

21 He would persistently argue that “when one considers the

likeness to the original by means of a representation, it is both Christ and the image of Christ. It is Christ by the identity of name, but the image of Christ by its relationship.” Theodore, Antirrh. 1.11. The notions of homonymy and relation thus became the cornerstones of Theodore’s apologetic endeavor.



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refute his conclusion, also seemed to give concession to Constantine by arriving at similar conclusions and confirming that the icon may not be precisely like its prototype.22 This line of reasoning ultimately led Theodore to argue that the icon rather conceals than reveals Christ (the prototype not being present as a whole in the icon), thus indirectly complying with Constantine’s thesis that fantasia (at least an aspect of it tied to sense perception) and its products do not provide us with sufficient means of representing Christ. Hence a line of reasoning in Theodore’s discourse that assumed Constantine’s premises, did not seem to resolve in a viable solution of the issue at hand. Even more so, it did not allow him to deconstruct Constantine’s dilemma. Theodore’s thesis that “[e]verything which is subject to vision must also be subject to circumscription (εἰ δὲ ὦπται, καὶ περιγέγραπται),”23 entailed that the prototype of the icon (of Christ) must be circumscribable. The divinity of Christ, on the other hand, always remains un-circumscribable. It would then follow that what is seen in the icon is the humanity of Christ alone. However, if an icon is the image of a mere body, its radical Christological insolvency is postulated. Here we necessarily encounter a deadlock. There has to be some other solution. Theodore, however, found a parallel but different approach to the subject at hand. This approach is clearly presented in his Letter 36 (to Naucratius). But it is also featured in other treatises, notably in his Refutations. There Theodore spoke of painted images as also linked to fantasia in its high phase. It should be noted in this context, that by the time of Theodore, fantasia was no longer perceived as an aspect that belongs exclusively to imitative arts. There was a significant shift in understanding of fantasia in late antique thought. On the one hand, fantasia retained its epistemological inferiority to intellectual powers. However, it was lifted up from the place 22 That it is a mere shadow of the flesh of Christ. See Theodore, Antirrh. 3.A.33. 23 Ibid., Antirrh. 2.45. Cf. “πἄν γἀρ τὸ ὁρώµενον, περιγραπτὸν καὶ ὁριστὸν.” Nicephoros, Antirrh. 1.22. PG 100, 248C.

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reserved for it in Plato’s Divided Line.24 It remained inferior to the higher faculties of discursive and non-discursive reasoning, but it was also linked to these faculties to the extent that even intellectual cognition required fantasia. Thus, even the higher powers of the soul seemed incapable to ascend to intelligible objects “themselves by themselves,” always requiring projections of these entities in fantasia. The idea that the human intellect cannot ascend to the level of pure being, thus extending its power beyond the level of imagination, was well entertained in various late antique philosophical circles.25 Even mathematical projections, intellectual acts and religious inspiration seem to necessitate fantasia. In other words, a predominantly negative assessment of imagination and its products (characteristic of Plato’s thought) had changed to a more affirmative apprehension of fantasia by the late antique thinkers.26 It appears that Plotinus’ idea of the dual power of imagination was formative for most of late antique speculations on the subject. This dual power, according to Plotinus, mirrors or reflects both the imprints of material objects and of intelligible realities.27 Fantasia thus assimilates the forms of both material and immaterial realities. It operates with images. In doing this

24 As Anne Sheppard rightly observed, “the analogy of the Line makes clear … that all types of image and reflection have a very low metaphysical status.” Anne Sheppard, “The Mirror of Imagination: The Influence of Timaeus 70e ff.” BICS. Supplement 78. Ancient Approaches to Plato’s “Timaeus.” (2003): 205. 25 Thus, “just as there are no perceptions unless the sense organs are affected, so there are no thoughts (noeseis) without phantasia.” Gerald Watson, Phantasia in Classical Thought (Galway: Galway University Press, 1988), 105. 26 See Anne Sheppard, “Phantasia and Mathematical Projection in Iamblichus.” Syll. Class. 8 (1997): 113–20. 27 Plotinus, Enneads IV.3.31. We can still see Plotinus’ refusal to allow his sculpture to be made, however, we can also see a very lofty place of fantasia in his treatises.



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it becomes akin to the work of the painter or sculptor.28 Hence a definitive link between paining and fantasia was postulated. However, a proper domain of fantasia seemed to extend far beyond the realm of imitative arts, at least, those that mimic nature. Synesius of Cyrene in his De Insomniis would argue in this respect that fantasia is the most hallowed form of perception through which “we constantly enter into relationship with gods.”29 Fantasia thus differs from mimesis. We would learn from Philostratus that the power of fantasia extends as far as being capable to help us ascend to the divine. A strong link between sense perception and imagination appeared to be dissolved or loosened.30 As a result, fantasia was “treated as the element which makes it possible to portray the gods.”31 Iamblichus, further elaborating on these ideas, would classify fantasia as that which belongs to all faculties of the soul equality.32 Theodore seems to receive this positive assessment of 28 See Porphyry: Ptolemaei Harmonica 13. Thus, “the power to ‘form images of particular characteristics’ [became] the point of comparison between fantasia and the capacity of the painter or sculptor.” Anne Sheppard, “Porphyry’s View on Phantasia.” BICS. Supplement 98. Studies on Porphyry (2007): 73. 29 Synesius of Cyrene, De Insom. 3. It seems that the seat of fantasia was located in the celestial vehicle of the soul. Synesius identified it with pneuma and seems to argued that “pneuma is on the border between the irrational and reason, the incorporeal and body, and is common territory for both, and through it the divine comes into contact with matter.” Watson, Phantasia, 111. 30 Thus, “imitation can only create as its handiwork what it has seen, but imagination equally what it has not seen for it will conceive of its ideal with reference to the reality.” Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, 6.19. English translation in F.C. Conybeare, Vol. 2 (London: William Heinemann, 1921), 79. 31 Sheppard, The Poetics, 81. 32 “The teachings of Iamblichus that the imagination is produced alongside all the faculties of the soul and receives an impression and stamp from all the likenesses of forms and transmits the appearances of some to other faculties, rousing some from sense

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fantasia from various late antique thinkers, especially PseudoDionysius, whom he quoted extensively. Theodore, following the footsteps of his intellectual predecessors, used metaphors to shed light on the meaning of icon. He metaphorically delineated the painted icon as a shadow, reflection in the mirror, a moon light, and an imprint of the seal. The being of the icons is thus derivative, referring to something that it reveals, mirrors, reflects, i.e., its prototype. It reveals the prototype by mimicking it in a visual form. The visual aspect of this revelation was thus confirmed and properly accentuated. However, contrary to the Constantinian approach, this visual aspect was no longer conceived as received exclusively from and ultimately tied to the senses. Theodore first presented fantasia as one of the five powers of the soul, along with a non-discursive faculty, discursive reasoning, opinion and perception.33 Apparently, in saying this he aimed to elaborate on John of Damascus’ theory of imagination. However, it appears to me that Theodore’s exposition of fantasia did not really grow out of Damascene’s account. John’s understanding of it was apparently indebted to a more ancient tradition. During the first wave of the controversy the main apologetic aim of the iconophiles was to create a radical demarcation line between images and idols. In this context Damascene also sought to distinguish between true and false images, those that can be classified as idols. It seems perception to opinion and offering a second set from intellect to opinion, since it receives images from all of these in itself; and that it is appropriately characterized in accordance with assimilation, in making and receiving what belongs to intellectual or generative or median operations, receiving impressions from all the activities of the soul, combining external with internal activities, and bestowing on lives extended around bodies the appearances descending from the Intellect.” Priscianus, Metaphrasis in Theophrastum 23.13–23. In John F. Finamore & John M. Dillon, Iamblichus, De An. PA 42 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002), 239. 33 Cf. “Τῆς ψυχῆς εἰσι δυνάµεις πέντε. νοῦς, διάνοια, δόξα, φαντασία, αἴσθησις.” John of Damascus, Fragmenta. PG 95. 232B.



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that John reverted to the Stoic theory of imagination in order to accomplish this goal. We may recall in this context Chrysippus’ distinction between φαντασία, i.e., true representation and φάντασµα, an empty thought (which mainly occurs in dreams). He spoke of fantasia as “an affection which reveals itself and its cause,”34 and juxtaposed it to φανταστικόν. He argued that, whereas φαντασία has its cause in some particular thing that affects the soul, thus functioning as an impressor (φανταστὸν), φανταστικόν is an empty attraction, one that does not arise from an impressor. John, for the most part, repeats this theory by saying that “[a]n imagination (φαντασία), is an affection of the irrational part of the soul arising from some imaginable object. But an imagining (φάντασµα) is an empty affection arising in the irrational parts of the soul from no imaginable object at all. The organ of the imagination is the anterior ventricle of the brain.”35 Hence, the true image always refers to its prototype, whereas the false one represents nothing real. Moreover, the seat of imagination, accosting to John, is located in a bodily organ and is thus intrinsically connected with senses (which follows Stoic materialistic approach). For Theodore, however, fantasia was not a mere faculty situated between sense perception and reasoning or opinion, one that absorbs sense data. Neither is it tied to a bodily organ. Theodore apprehended fantasia as an icon and argued that both (i.e., fantasia and icon) are kinds of images.36 At a certain level, both icon and fantasia are identical. However, he also distinguished between the two kinds or, rather, phases of fantasia, i.e., the higher (προὐργιαιτέρα) and the lower (ὑφειµενεστέρα). According to Theodore, the lower fantasia is precisely one of the faculties of the soul. On the other hand, the fantasia associated with the images of the divine belongs to

34 Aetius 4.12–1–5, in A.A. Long & D.N. Sedley, eds. The Hellenistic Philosophers. Vol. II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 237. 35 John of Damascus, Orthodox Faith, 17. 36 “Φαντασία δὲ δόξειέ τις εἰκών. ἰνδάλµατα γὰρ ἀµφότερα.” Theodore, Ep. 36 (ad Nauc), 1220C.

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the higher phase. There seems to be present two types of fantasia in Theodore’s discourse. In this contest one may ask whether Theodore had a unitive approach to fantasia. Does it not seem that at stake was the two conceptually separate fantasias? It is my contention that the textual evidence of Theodore’s treatises creates an impression that he was leaning towards or, rather, consciously pursued a unitive approach to fantasia. By doing so, he exhibited a certain proximity to Imablichus’ speculations, perhaps thinking of fantasia as the power that facilitates and unites the activities of all faculties of the soul. Theodore argued that if one is to deny the higher phase of fantasia, one would necessarily destroy the integrity of all powers of the soul (the arrangement of parts within the whole). This denial would necessarily lead him/her to also annihilate the lower phase and all other faculties along with it, including discursive and non-discursive reasoning. He thus seemed to be pursuing the unitive approach to fantasia, thus speaking of one and the same fantasia that manifests itself in two diverging phases, one attached to sense and another one capable of reflecting higher entities, including God. Theodore insistently admired (ἄγαµαι) fantasia and spoke of its great power. He illustrated the power of fantasia by telling us a story of the lady who during her conception imagined an Ethiopian and then gave birth to the Ethiopian. He also mentions a Biblical example from Gen. 30:37–39 to exemplify the power of imagination.37 The former example immediately brings to mind Porphyry’s Ad Gaurum where he discussed an opinion attributing to the women the power of ascribing to their children the likeness of those whom they looked at while conceiving.38 Porphyry would refute this opin-

37 “Then Jacob took fresh sticks of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks. He set the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places, where the flocks came to drink.” 38 Porphyry, Ad Gaurum 5–6. In Karl Kalbfleisch, Die neuplatonische, fälschlich dem Galen zugeschriebene Schrift, Pros Gauron



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ion and argue that this power properly belongs to the daemons, as they can project or transfer their own fantasia/images to their celestial vehicle so as to appear as they wish.39 As we can see, Theodore exhibited some familiarity at least with the thread if not with the text itself by evoking this ancient belief. It appears that he also incidentally ascribed demonic capacities to women. Perhaps this was done in order to amplify the power of imagination and thus of icons. One line of Theodore’s reasoning indeed aimed to demonstrate that the hypostasis of Christ, his single divine subsistence, is made visually manifested through the incarnation. And as such it can be seen and subsequently depicted because our soul can receive impressions from the object (i.e., Christ), stabilize them in fantasia and transfer them into canvas. This entails that that people who saw Christ formed an image of him and passed it to their heirs. This image was ultimately tied to the material object perceived. There were two kinds of difficulties associated with this account, one concerning the limits of representation, and another one—the issue of transmission of the originally observed image across centuries. Although the divine hypostasis of God the Word gave hypostatic subsistence to the human nature of Christ and thus revealed itself in the visual form, it is still the human constituent of Christ that was made thus manifested. Hence, what was depicted is the body. The second facet of the dilemma immediately challenges this account, as it appears impermissible to depict a mere man. Moreover, even if the original form of Christ was memorized by the apostles and its imprint transferred to canvas, it is unclear to what extent the copies of the copy, i.e., icons painted after this original imprint, remain faithful to the form of Christ. It seems that it would not be out of place to think of them as becoming blurry with the passage of time, thus losing their resemblance to the form which the apostles had once peri tou pōs empsychoutai ta embrya (Berlin: Königl. Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1895). English translation in James Wilberding, Porphyry: to Gaurus on How Embryos are Ensouled and on What is in our Power (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2011). 39 See Sheppard, “The Mirror of Imagination,” 210.

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contemplated. In other words, even if a painter is capable of placing the image of Christ in front of our eyes so as to make it vivid a few centuries after Easter, this image may not possess the authenticity of the original imprint (assuming that such an imprint existed in the first place). However, a more persuasive argument of Theodore seems to demonstrate that, although the image of Christ subsists in the icon visibly,40 this same image is, nevertheless, apprehended apart from the matter of the canvas. It is similar to the reflection in the mirror since the face of the seer is depicted, so to say, in the mirror.41 Thus the appearance (ἴνδαλµα), or, rather, the form of the prototype visible in the icon, subsists apart from matter. This argument also shows that the image in some ways transcends the surface of the painted icon, that it is independent of the canvas. It can be seen reflected or mirrored by various surfaces, so to say. Hence, the icon is the icon of Christ and not of the body of Christ. It is not a mere shadow of a once seen Jesus of Nazareth. It is the icon that represents Christ holistically. It can be replicated as many times as one can imagine, it can subsist in different material surfaces while remaining one and the same. Theodore also asserted that this shadow, carrying a holistic “seeing,” is inseparable from the prototype. Thus “the shadow cannot be separated from the body, but always subsists along with it, even if it does not appear.”42 He then concluded that, similarly, Christ’s own image cannot be separated from Christ. As the shadow becomes clearer with the radiation of the sun (ἀλλ᾽ ὥσπερ ἡ σκιὰ τῇ τοῦ ἡλίου βολίδι µᾶλλον εἰς τοὐµφανὲς πρόεισιν),43 so also Christ’s image becomes more

40 “κἂν

ἐν αὐτῇ ὁρᾶται.” Theodore, Ad Plat., 504C. µοι δοκεῖ τῷ ἐν κατόπτρῳ παραδείγµατι ἐοικέναι. κἀκεῖ γὰρ οἱονεὶ διαγράφεται τοῦ ὁρῶντος τὸ πρόσωπον. Ibid. 42 Theodore, Antirrh., 3D.12. 43 Ibid. 41 Καὶ



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conspicuous to all when it appears by imprinting itself in materials.44 What first comes to mind is indeed the idea of inseparability. However, what it also evokes is Plotinus who spoke of the dual power of the soul to produce images. He argued that “when one [phase of] soul is in tune with the other, and their image-making powers are not separate, and that of the better soul is dominant, the image becomes one, as if a shadow followed the other and as if a little light slipped in under the greater one.”45 Based on this comparison we may assume that Theodore had the first-hand knowledge of late antique thought, at least as far as it concerns the notion of imagination. It should be noted in this context that the metaphor of a shadow was often used in Christian discourse. We may immediately think about John of Damascus’ parallel between the early life and shadow, following the Chronicles 29:15: Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding: Σκιά ἐστιν ὁ βίος ἡµῶν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς.46 Hence the incarnate condition is like a shadow of real existence. Cyril spoke of the shadow of truth associated with the Old Testament narrative prefiguring the gospels. Perhaps shadow marks off the condition of the incarnate life. Icon is a shadow of its prototype. But it can shine out with clearness and vividness. It can also be dim, depending on the medium. It thus requires a more and less stable medium. So it is in Imablichus. Theodore’s intention behind his evocation of the metaphor of a shadow arose within a different intellectual horizon than those of Cyril and John. He was not concerned with the notion of image as a prefiguring, was John. Theodore’s main point was to demonstrate the presence of God in the icon. Following this approach, he defined icon as the representation or appearance of a self-manifested seeing:

44 Theodore, Antirrh. 3B.12. 45 Plotinus, Enneads, IV.3.31. 46 John of Damascus, Sacra Parallela, PG 95, 1113D.

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SERGEY TROSTYANSKIY The icon is a manifestation of the state of seeing with one’s own eyes,47 and some sort of lunar light, so that I use a familiar example, as if compared to solar light (ἔµφασις γάρ ἐστι τῆς αὐτοψίας, καὶ σεληνιαῖόν τι φῶς, ἴνα καὶ οἰκείῳ παραδείγµατι χρήσωµαι, πρὸς ἡλιακὸν φῶς ἡ εἰκών).48

But what would this entail? What kind of seeing was he talking about? It is interesting to note in this context that the notion of αὐτοψίας was utilized in Neoplatonic narrative, mainly pertaining to divine manifestations. For instance, Porphyry’s story about the invocation of Plotinus’ guardian spirit uses the word to denote the divine revelation of gods.49 Iamblichus, in turn, also reserved it for the supernatural manifestations of the gods.50 This seeing is caused by God and does not represent the usual pattern of cognition wherein the soul receives the sense data so that it can be molded by the faulty of imagination in the form of internal representation, i.e., image in the soul. Neither is it the result of abstraction. These images belong to the kind of unstable and blurry representations. On the contrary, this type of image is such as to be qualified by extreme clarity and vividness. Iamblichus tells us that “their visions are seen more clearly than the truth itself, and they shine forth sharply and are revealed in brilliant differentiation.”51 The notion of ἐνάργεια clearly sustains this point. More important is the main ramification of this definition that God can be seen and yet preserve the quality of being uncircumscribed. In other words, one may see the Christ with the mode of seeing that is impartial. The entire Christ subsisting as both God and man will be seen holistically. This seeing would not only grasp the human form/shape of Christ, i.e., his body, but the whole Christ in both his ineffable glory and his lowliness. This indeed goes against the other line of reasoning 47 Or a self-manifested vision, according to Giakalis’ translation. See Ambrosios Giakalis, Images of the Divine: the Theology of Icons at the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Leiden and New York: E.J. Brill, 1994), 91. 48 Theodore, Ep. 36 (ad Nauc), 1220A. 49 Porphyry, The Life of Plotinus, 10.21–22. 50 Iamblichus, De Myst., 2.4. 51 Ibid.



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where Theodore argued that the subject of vision must be circumscribed. How is this possible? Apparently, this seeing is ineffable. It cannot be given rational, i.e., discursive rendering. In other words, the power of intertwining logoi may not help us understand this seeing. Another important ramification of this rendering seemed to concern the nature of the art of painting. It turns to some kind of prophetic utterance by means of colors in that it no longer merely imitates a sensible particular that was once seen by the eyes of the disciples. On the contrary, the painter apparently first contemplates, that is, has a first-hand encounter with Christ. This is a type of holistic encounter which mirrors in higher imagination Christ in his theandric mode of subsistence. Hence, it contemplates God and man hypostatically united. Then this prophetic or revealed image is transferred into canvas. The art of painting can no longer be perceived as a mere imitative activity. It combines revelation and imitation, considering that what is imitated is no longer sublunar nature (or external objects), but the divine incarnate being. It is no longer an external form of a sensible particular, i.e., the body that is mimicked in painting, but the ineffable vision of Godman. Finally, another ramification of Theodore’s thesis concerns the unity of manifestation. The painted image of Christ reabsorbs into unity both the lower and higher aspects of fantasia. In other words, it brings together an external two- or three-dimensional figure inscribed on canvas or stone and the ineffably seen form of formless God. This formless form and shapeless shape, mysteriously coexisting in one depiction, allows one to take a journey in an ascending and descending series of contemplative actions. Hence, one can see now God and then man, or both. Indeed, our capacity to see the image fully is determined by our spiritual condition. This is another aspect of the issue at hand. It does not concern “showing” or “manifesting” or “revealing” but “seeing” or “envisioning.” In other words, our failure to grasp the image holistically is not due to an intrinsic incapacity of the image to make transparent its prototype, but to our own deficiency. This would mean that our own mirror of the soul is not polished.

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Theodore thus highlighted the unity of contemplation. Following Pseudo-Dionysius, he argued that the icon is an imitation of the prototype. Hence, it is through the icon that we ascend to the prototype. He argued in this context that “the imitation excites a strong spiritual contemplation (ἡ πνευµατικὴ θεωρία) of the prototype.”52 Here he tells us that the reflection in the canvas stabilizes the image, makes it firm and clear. Moreover, it seems that this image is capable of triggering a different image, one that is seen with clarity since it comes from God. This integrating power of fantasia brings together both phases, thus uniting them in one contemplation of the self-manifested seeing. The notion of the unity of contemplation was premised on the late antique idea that all created realities are products of immaterial entities, that they represent their immaterial patterns. Was this account of Theodore, associated with the second line of reasoning, immune from Constantine’s dilemma? His first solution wherein he undertook Constantine’s premises seemed not to escape from the trap set by Constantine. There he argued that the divinity is un-circumscribable and invisible and thus indepictable. Hence, it is only the humanity of Christ that is reflected in the image. Now it appears that a viable solution to the dilemma had emerged from the notion of divine un-circumscribability in conjunction with visibility. God is uncircumscribable but visibly manifested. Theodore’s understanding of painting as prophetic inspiration fully sustained this view. Thus, the painter has to be inspired to see Christ incarnate in his divine glory. This inspiration seemed analogous to the consecrated sacraments thus being entitled for veneration. Moreover, in order to escape the charge of idolatry, Theodore argued that it is not the image itself that is venerated but its referent. We may now conclude by saying that, while pursuing a line of argument associated with fantasia, Theodore seemed to successfully resolve the issue at hand. He was also able to escape from both facets of Constantine’s dilemma. It is not a mere man that is depicted in the icon. It is Christ in his glory. However, this glory may not be transparent to everyone, but 52 Theodore, Ep. 36 (ad Nauc), 1220A.



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only to those who approach it with “a pure heart,” for only “the pure in heart shall see God” (Mt. 5:8). Moreover, the icon does not entail the confusion of natures. The divine nature of Christ remains un-circumscribed while his human nature is circumscribed. The icon does not signify their mixture or fusion. However, both natures can be seen by a spectator capable of ascending to Christ on the ladder of contemplative vision.



III.1

UNDERSTANDING MY AVATAR: CYBERBEING, BIO-DIGITAL PERSONHOOD, AND FICTIONAL TRANSCENDENCES FROM AN ORTHODOX PERSPECTIVE INTI YANES-FERNANDEZ “Becoming a cyborg is not a vision anymore, it is now your choice. Design Your Evolution.” – Cybornest.net …νῦν δ’ἠπορήκαµεν… – Plato

Perhaps today more than ever it is difficult to discern between essence and phenomenon and acquire a reliable representation of things themselves. The hallmark of our epoch is the quasi universal oblivion of the Real. Our post-industrial heritage goes from the post-structuralist claim that nothing is intelligible beyond enunciations, groundless master narratives, discourses, and linguistic signifiers,1 to the persuasion that, according to Gilles Lipovetsky and Fredric Jameson, contemporary society has lost all modern ideals and has fallen victim 1 Good examples of such a narrative are found in J. Derrida, J. Lacan, J. F. Lyothard, and J. Boudrillard.

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of a radical meaninglessness, chaotic temporalities and the control of the “hypers,” e.g. hyper-consumerism, hyperproductivism, hyper-technologization, etc.2 In all cases, the common theme seems to be confusion, in-discernibility, and obscure-mindedness. Already in the 4th century, St. Gregory of Nyssa refers to the most peculiar feature of evil, i.e., to appear to man’s perception under the fashion of the good: Μέµικται δὲ διὰ τῶν ἐναντίων ὁ καρπὸς ἐκεῖνος… οὐ γυµνὸν πρόκειται τὸ κακὸν αὐτὸ ἐφ' ἑαυτοῦ κατὰ τὴν ἰδίαν φύσιν φαινόµενον… Νυνὶ δὲ σύµµικτός πώς ἐστιν ἡ τοῦ κακοῦ φύσις͵ ἐν µὲν τῷ βάθει τὸν ὄλεθρον͵ οἷόν τινα δόλον ἐγκεκρυµµένον ἔχουσα͵ ἐν δὲ τῇ κατὰ τὸ φαινόµενον ἀπάτῃ καλοῦ τινα φαντασίαν παραδεικνύουσα.3

From the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil “comes the fruit of mixed knowledge (ἡ σύµµικτος γνῶσις καρποφορεῖται),” states St. Gregory. This fruit of mixed knowledge is clearly seen in modern cyber-culture, cyber-being. Cyberbeing, as an onto-genetic matrix, creates a man to its own image and likeness. Cyber-culture assigns a new destination to the entire humanity. Bearing the mark of his origin, cyber-human, just like the mythical demigods, is concurrently half-human and halfcyborg: it constitutes, as it will be seen, the highest form of the avatar-complexity, in which the discernment between human 2 See the use of this term in Fay Patel, Giselle Rampersad, and Prahalad Sooknanan, “Diffusing the Innovation Divide in International Development. Redressing the Injustices of Modernity.” In Fay Patel, Prahalad Sooknanan, Giselle Rampersad, and Anuradha Mundkur, Information Technology, Development, and Social Change (New York: Routledge, 2012), 3–15. 3 “[a]nd that fruit is combined of opposite qualities … the evil is not exposed in its nakedness … the nature of evil is in a manner mixed, keeping destruction like some snare concealed in its depths, and displaying some phantom of good in the deceitfulness of its exterior.” Gregory of Nyssa, De opificio hom. PG 44. English translation in NPNF 5.



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(onto-reality) and cyborg (cyber-reality) becomes impossible and meaningless. In the present article, I focus on the phenomena of cyberbeing and cyber-culture.4 The notion of cyber-culture comprises the whole of phenomena, production, exchange and consumption of information generated via digital technologies and interfaces. Cyberbeing refers to the “ontological” categories that determine the way of being of cyberculture as a world in itself. I critically engage with David I. Dubrovsky’s evolutionary epistemology5 and Byzantine sacred theology and aesthetics. I develop a critical approach to cybernetic anthropology and avatar-theory analyzing their meaning and implications from a Greek-Orthodox perspective. I also shed light on the changes in subjectivity and technological appropriation currently taking place in cyber-culture and on their potential impact on human self-understanding. An especial attention is given to the experience of the sacred and to the “onto-formal transcendentals” of man’s being as existence.6

4 In my understanding of cyber-being and cyber-culture I essentially agree with Alec McHoul in his approach to these cyber-phenomena from an onto-existential viewpoint as a bio-technological merging. See Alec McHoul, “Cyberbeing and space.” http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/cyberbeing and cyberspace.html. Accessed on 3/12/2017. 5 For this concept, see D.T. Campbell, Evolutionary Epistemology. In P. Schilpp, The Philosophy of Karl Popper, Part I (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1974), 412–63, and also Michael Bradie and William Harms, “Evolutionary Epistemology.” SEP (Spring 2017 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta. 6 Following Edmund Husserl’s notion of formal ontology as formal Mathesis Universalis and the notion of transcendental as intentional being constituted in pure consciousness.

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Human being is essentially homo theologicus.7 A human being’s existence is marked by being meaningful, by a contradictory unity between inner-worldliness and beyond-worldliness, by intentional temporality, and by the will for or desire to attain perpetual bliss. A human being is a subject-person in the twofold structure of Divine-human/human-human selfconsciousness (indicating her/his perichoretic dimension).8 S/he is a creature (i.e., a created individual being), qualified by thisness or haecceity, and by her/his self (onto)care and preservation. How do these ontological conditions correspond with cyber-being? One feature essential to cyber-being is its un-concealment of Being. This un-concealment exhibits the transcendental (and therefore most proper) mode of humanity’s way of being. Un-concealment had never occurred in the Western cultural experience in such an essential and terminal way before the world-epoch of cyber-being and cyber-culture. The emergence of cyber-being and cyber-culture, however, is not merely incidental. It manifests the fate of Western culture, its final destination. It should be noted in this context that cyber-being clears the way of human being’s own inner-worldliness while preserving his essence as homo theologicus, but in an alienated form. Cyber-being is a fictional epiphany of the most peculiar and most concealed property of human existence, a desire for being free in the open as bliss in perpetuity. Cyber-culture is a 7 Cf. T. Howland Sanks, SJ, “Homo Theologicus: Toward a Reflexive Theology (with the Help of Pierre Bourdieu).” Theol. Stud. 68 (2007): 515–30. 8 From Greek περί (peri): around, together; and χωρέω (choreo): to contain, to fit in a space. Perichoresis [περιχώρησις] (or interpenetration) is a term in Christian theology first found within the Church Fathers that was later reinvigorated among contemporary figures such as C. Baxter Kruger, Jurgen Moltmann, Miroslav Volf, and John Zizioulas, among others. The term originally referred to the mutual inter-participation and indwelling within the threefold nature of the Trinity: God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We use it to indicate the inter-participation of the divine and the human as an ontological Transcendental of man.



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correlate of cyber-being as a form of technological propriation. In this context we must recognize the facticity of the onto-formal transcendentals of human existence. Transcendentals are the primordial structures that determine the whole of human existence, perception, subjectivity, consciousness, and praxis. They are absolute conditions of the possibility of being human. The essence of cyber-culture discloses the will to transcendence under the form of a prosthesis, and in cyber-being the formal transcendentals of man’s being appear in an alienated fashion insofar as they acquire a “dubious” facticity as fictional antithesis (cyber-reality) to the onto-reality. So, the self-centered personhood transfigures into a de-centered manifoldness; and the horizon of inter-selfconsciousness as the only possibility of human knowledge, becomes a subjective structure leading to what is called here “unijectivity.” By unijectivity I understand a de-centered, virtually networked, in-process form of subjectivity, construed by the cyber-being’s structures of cyber-hedonism, i.e., cybernetic self-indulgence, fictional transcendences, and technological ontogenesis, among others, gathered together by a virtual interface—a joint-device that I call “virtual game.”9 To understand unijectivity we need to consider the relationship between the real person and the avatar. Cyber-being summons avatar as the virtualization of the biological system (a real person) for the sake of cyber-unijectivity. This is the basic premise of Dubrovsky’s evolutionary epistemology, and his prognosis of the full merging between human and avatar. Indeed, unijectivity is somewhat the correlate of what John von Newman in 1958 called technological singularity. Stanislav Ulam, the same year, described the: [e]ver accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the

9 See the film Gate to Avalon, a Polish-Japanese coproduction directed by Mamuro Oshii.

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Unijectivity obtains when a real subject turns into a cybernetic function of a self-replicating automat. But, due to the human person-centered intentionality, this automat also acquires a human profile and becomes avatar. Then we speak of a “hacked subjectivity” or “minus-subject” and “minus-subjectivity.” Now both, the bio-subject and the avatar, are brought into cyber-being as each other’s replicants: fictional bioengineered entities mirroring each other as reciprocal operative functions. This creates the “avatar syndrome,” understood as a cyber-disease that, in its first stage, inhibits in a human being the idea of and the responsibility for being “real.” The uniject has also a consciousness that calls him. This consciousness calls the uniject to a fictional transcendence. What calls the uniject is the game as a joint-device. This imperative call in the uniject’s consciousness that gathers him together and leads him towards the virtual game is designated the “call-to-play.” Therefore, game as the transcendental horizon of the call-toplay constitutes the uniject’s ultimate virtual destination. This virtual uniject is the “cyber-man.” It is not just a new form of technology. Yet in its very essence it is technology-determined. It is a new form of subjectivity that results from the structural-functional crossing between a cyber-mediated selfconsciousness and the cyber-brain technological singularity. It is not just a technological super-intelligence as envisaged by Vernor Vinge, Raymond Kurzweil, and David I. Dubrovsky. Cyberman is a bio-cybernetic form of intelligent “life” involving hacked subjectivities (minus-subjectivities) and extremely developed forms of artificial intelligence. Cybermen’s networked relationships constitute a peculiar phenomenon

10 Stanislaw Ulam, “John von Neumann 1903–1957.” Bull. Am. Math. Soc. 64.3 (1958): 8.



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called here “virtual interplay.”11 In this new horizon of subjectivity, transcendence turns into a disintegration of personhood in the interactive virtual plurality, while the body transfigures into a borderless flux of sensations based on what Sulkowska-Janovska calls “body de-carnation.”12 Actually, the process of body de-carnation is just a moment of a more complex reshaping device. We assist rather to a cyber-transformation of bodylines itself, to the management of resurrection that was traditionally considered only a divine prerogative. Body “de-carnation” is an imaginary movement from a dysplastic to an anaplastic moment of bio-techno-corporality itself. We are moving from the gravity of bodies of the Newtonian spatium absolutum to the post-Hawking self-creating cyber-corporality as a complex networked virtual flux of intelligent stimuli. Just as an example, we can sneak about the phenomenon of “cyber-dildonics.”13 Thus, the essence of cyber-being gathers human beings together in cyber-spatiality as the virtual facticity of cyberworldliness. The re-ordered and re-programmed body, along with an ‘in(cyber)carnated’ consciousness in the avatar (a cyborg meta-personhood), called-to-play by cyber-game, dwells, as “being-in-the-world.” But, what happens then when bodyness is experienced just as a flux of stimuli outing toward reordering and re-programming, and consciousness becomes a de-centered polynomial structure anchored in the cyber-facticity instead of in the traditional Newtonian-Einsteinian space, i.e., in avatar and cyber-spatiality? Is there room there for any form of “dwelling,” as dwelling is the way man exists as “in-the-world” propriating himself in openness to transcendence? Indeed, there is. A human being exists in a way 11 To further expand this concept in the most proper way, there should be first developed a phenomenology of space in general and of cyber-spatiality in particular. This, for obvious reasons, should be done elsewhere. 12 A. T. Tymieniecka (ed.), “The Virtualization of the Body,” 189, note 7. 13 Albert Benschop, ed., Sociosite, last modified 10/11/2015. http://www.sociosite.net/topics/cybersex.php. Accessed 9/23/ 2016.

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that s/he cannot prevent her/himself from dwelling: being a human is being a chrono-spatial dweller. The question then is: where does cyberman dwell? It has been shown that cyberworld is necessarily a form of spatiality: a cyber-spatiality. A cyberman as an avatar-turned-self-engineered creature called-to-play by a cyber-game, remains essentially “ek-static" in this new ontological environment. In cyber-being, life becomes a mere ability to exchange data and programming/processing information in the framework of auto-replicating processes. Life also transfigures into the concentration of intelligent data in the avatar as human/virtual interface. This is especially valid for the issue of eternal life. Russian scientist David I. Dubrovsky, a co-chairman of the Scientific Council of the Russian Academy of Sciences for artificial intelligence modeling, wrote an article in 2012 called: “Cybernetic Immortality. Phantasy or a Scientific Problem?” A version of a book written by the scientist in 1988 was entitled: The Problem of the Ideal: The Nature of Mind and Its Relationship to the Brain and Social Medium.14 In the article, Dubrovsky states: Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, an “avatar,” will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged… Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.15

This simply means that, according Dubrovsky, “[t]his is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new

14 D. I. Dubrovsky, The Problem of the Ideal: The Nature of Mind and Its Relationship to the Brain and Social Medium, trans. Vladimir Stankevich (Moskow: Progress Publishers, 1988). 15 D. I. Dubrovsky, “Cybernetic Immortality. Phantasy or a Scientific Problem?” in 2045. Strategic Social Initiative (2012). http://2045.com/articles/30810.html. Accessed 09/23/2016.



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bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive!”16 In this sense, Dubrovsky can be regarded the most important scientist involved in both a theoretical and practical way in the creation of an immortal bio-digital avatar as a radical substitution/complementation of human race. This thinker has come to establish what can be called a cyber-technological anthropology. This cyber-technological anthropology has as its first postulated an ontological premise that there can be a process of ontogenesis as an infinitely exponential controlled self-recreation and transformation towards cybernetic perfection. Therefore, a factual immortality appears as a realistically attainable achievement. One of the most important turns in Dubrovsky’s scientific approach is the perception of human will to immortality as an undeniable fact resulting from a natural continuation of the will to life. This will to immortality, according to the authors of the Cybernetic Manifesto, Valentin Turchin and Cliff Joslyn, cannot be fulfilled either via rational knowledge or religious mysticism. It cannot be experienced either as an impossible task in existential resignation. On the contrary, it must be conquered and sorted out through a transdisciplinary approach and cyber-technology: Extensive prospects for this are opened by the convergent development of NBICS (nano-technologies, bio-technologies, information, cognitive and social technologies, and fields of scientific knowledge corresponding to them). Mutually enriching each other, these technologies create unprecedentedly powerful methods for transforming the human and the social environment, in particular, the possibility for constructing systems that are capable of reproducing the functions of life and thought on non-biological substrates. This is the path of trans-humanistic transformation, the transfiguration of the mind and the personality.17 Thus, the attainment of immortality is the central goal of Dubrovsky’s scientific and anthropological agenda, something he manages to clarify beyond any reasonable doubt. This indeed distances him form the scientific reductionism and the 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid.

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essentially mechanistic interpretation of life of Russian dialectical materialism: The “2045” Initiative puts the problem of cybernetic immortality in the context of a new model of civilization. Or rather, it urgently sets the problem of the global future and evolution of the human being, the problem of preserving earthly civilization in a situation of an approaching singular boundary, beyond which it awaits either degradation or destruction, or a transition to a new level of life activity. Therefore, cybernetic immortality is directly connected with the problem of the immortality of the human being, and may serve as the pledge and guarantee of the immortality of earthly civilization, and the human mind.18

Another foundational premise of Dubrovsky’s cyber-technological anthropology (now an onto-epistemological one), is that thinking, as a derived function, can be reduced to its material matrix: the neuro-biological structures of brain. At this point he invokes the principle of iso-functionalism of systems that “essentially heralded the beginning of the computer era.”19 The iso-functionalism assumes that a function of a given system can be reproduced or replicated in another system (substrate) if this system can replicate or reproduce the functional conditions of the first system, even with different physical properties. In other words, thinking as a function of the bio-brain can be reproduced or replicated by a cyber-machine (which has different physical properties) if this cybermachine can replicate the functional structures of the biobrain. In Dubrovsky’s own words: The idea of this principle is that the same complex of functions may be reproduced on substrates with different physical properties. This means the fundamental possibility to reproduce the functions of a living system and the brain on non-biological substrates, which also fully applies to mental functions.20 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid.



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This is the grounding premise of Duvrovsky’s cyber-technological anthropology: thinking, as involving not only rational operations but the existence of a human personality and selfawareness, can be achieved on the technological substrate of the cyber-machine. Therefore, according to Dubrovsky, the technological reproduction of the biological conditions of brain functionality via cyber-technological devices can create the new material substrate for thinking—not just for an “artificial thinking” of the machine, but for human thinking itself whose material substrate is being artificially and technologically replicated in the cyber-device. Dubrovsky, optimistically, adds: “This development will profoundly change the world; it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence…”21 Yet, despite his application of the principle of isofunctionalism of systems and its necessary premise that thinking essentially is a hetero-determined activity, Duborvsky cannot be accused of reductionism. Dubrovsky seems to believe that, despite being the result of brain operations, the thinking self retains an ontological peculiarity that cannot be reduced to or understood via its material substrate. In this sense, Dubrovsky seems to agree with John Searle in that consciousness is a brain process, but the conscious/cognitive self is a non-reductive existential product of the brain activity.22 However, these thinkers arrive at two opposite conclusions on the matter of cardinal importance. While Dubrovsky believes that the principle of iso-functionalism of systems allows us to conclude that thinking and self (and therefore consciousness) are replicable and reproducible via cyber-technological devices, for Searle it is clear that “[w]hile the brain with consciousness is a given, we cannot duplicate or simulate the conscious self.”23 Thus in Searle’s view, consciousness, self, and thinking are brain-emerged operations that, nevertheless, cannot either be reduced to their material substrate, or be

21 Ibid. 22 John Searle, Minds, Brains and Science (Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 38. 23 Dubrovsky, “Cybernetic Immortality.”

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replicated and reproduced via a different, non-biological substrate. Dubrovsky states that self-awareness as the quality of subjective reality, “is realized at the level of the Ego-system of the brain—a special structural and functional subsystem of the brain, which is responsible for the peculiar qualities of the person (it is also called “selfhood”).”24 The ego-system appears itself to be an interface of conscious and unconscious processes. For Dubrovsky, conscious processes here are selfawareness and thinking. However, the life of a person also includes unconscious processes. Ultimately, it is not clear to what extent unconscious processes are reducible to mechanical operations of the brain as the material substrate of personhood. Yet what is important here is that two main informational levels are involved in these conscious-unconscious processes, both genetic and biographical: The ego system is a conscious and unconscious circuit of information processes, and includes two mutually connected levels: genetic and biographical, reflecting the history of the personality and its awareness.25

The genetic structure can be replicated through bio-engineering processing, while the biographical element can be supplied to a new cyber-device through electronic-digital transferences. Thus the Russian scientist reduces brain’s functions to genetic material and life experiences to biographical information. From these premises, Dubrovsky constructs a theory that is opposed to Searle’s theory marked off by his insistence on genetic and technical irreproducibility of selfhood and consciousness. According to Dubrovsky: A study and understanding of the specific functional structures of the Ego system of the brain, and their self-organization can open paths for creating an equivalent functional structure on a suitable non-biological substrate. Of course, we are still at the beginning of this path. But neural 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid.



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sciences are developed at extremely fast rates, and there are grounds to believe that in the next 10–15 years, there will be a major breakthrough in this field.26

Thus Dubrovsky believes that the traditional self as self-consciousness and personhood, determined by the principle of identity, can find a digital metempsychosis or replication on a cyber-technological substrate and become an “avatar,” i.e., a function of a new onto-epistemological structure that is called here cyber-being. In cyber-being, “onto-reality” and embodiment become dispersed shadows as chaos; ‘flux of stimuli’ can be immediately re-ordered and re-programmed in the cyberspatiality through the “game” as the joint-device that interfaces between a “shadowed onto-reality” and cyber-being. The totality of these complex processes is already taking place in the globalized cyber-technological world. Even so, they do not, as of today, fully hold sway over the plurality of consciousness and the reality of cyber-culture or just cyber-world. In cyber-being, there is a total dissociation between the body and the self: body itself becomes a cyber-function in the sense of an “app” of the “real.” The essence of cyber-spatiality is the paradoxical device of timeless temporality, de-centered circularity, and networked, one-dimensional polymorphism. For the first time, the essence of humanity and consciousness, as well as his human’s primordial ontological structures have been “created” through and even by man himself in a totally virtual cyber-world. That is why this phenomenon is called here “fictional transcendence.” Cyborg-ness, in part as imagined by (1965) D. S. Halacy in Cyborg: Evolution of the Superman and (1974) Alan E. Nourse in The Blade Runner, may become now a built-in feature of human ontology. At this point, the very notion of nature (physis) as opposed to technical production (poiesis), so dear to ancient Greeks, turns out to be meaningless and just part of an already shifted semantic-epistemological paradigm. Yet, at some point Dubrovsky shows caution and acknowledges the difficulties inherent to his project. In his critique of A. Bolonkin’s overly optimistic prediction to achieve 26 Ibid.

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immortality by 2020 and IBM’s announcement of creating a supercomputer with an information capacity equivalent to the human brain by 2019, the scientist tells us: Here the most important thing is lacking—the thing that has called awareness, which has the inalienable quality of subjective reality. The most complex and difficult thing in the problem of cybernetic immortality is reproducing on a non-biological medium the self-organization of information processes, which create the quality of subjective reality.27

In the same hermeneutic line, Josh Conterio, one of the leaders of the so-called “Cyberpunk Project,” presents an interesting opposition between what he calls “meatspace” and “cyberspace.” Conterio wires “afterlife” with “being wired.” He argues that he finds the ultimate answer to a transcendental question precisely in cyberspace. Is there life after death? Maybe, if you’re wired. After all, death is just a failure of storage media. Science fiction is full of people who’ve died in meatspace, only to live on in cyberspace. Here’s our inventory of cyber-Heaven.28 Now, cyber-human self-referentiality will be mediated by this ontogenesis that leads to “Cyber-Heaven.” Yet, are we really witnessing the beginning of the end of human era? We can apply Fermi’s Paradox to cyber-being and the bio-cybernetic uniject. This paradox points out to the contradiction between the lack of evidence and high probabilities for something to occur. Nobody can provide hard evidence to prove cyber-being’s and uniject’s existence in the sense we depict them here. However, many scientists use this law along with Gordon Moore’s Law in order to postulate the accelerated increase in artificial intelligence as it exceeds brainpower to the extent that the state of “singularity” would be a cultural27 Ibid. 28 Josh Conterio, “Virtual Resurrection: The Dead Who Went to Cyber-Heaven.” In i09: We Come from the Future. http://io9.gizmodo.com/5281164/virtual-resurrection-the-dead-who-went-tocyber-heaven. Accessed 09/20/2016.



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technological fact in a few decades.29 Cyberman resembles indeed Ray Kurzweil’s announced “spiritual machine.”30

CYBERMAN, CYBERBEING, AND BYZANTINE SACRED ARTS … χρεὼ δε σε πάντα πυθέσθαι ἠµὲν Ἀληθείης εὐκλυκλέος ἀτρεµὲς ἦτορ ἠδὲ βροτῶν δόξας, ταῖς οὐκ ἔνι πίστις ἀληθής – Parmenides (Fragment I, 28ff)

Dubrovsky’s utopia is just the peak of the iceberg. It clearly showcases the complex bio-technological interaction of postindustrial times. Then, how can we conceive a Byzantine impact on the cyber-culture and cyber-man? Certainly, as it can be witnessed in Dubrovsky’s thought, cyber-culture is not necessarily either the opposite of the sacred or the absolute oblivion of it, if the sacred designates the affirmation of human immortality, i.e., the transcendental goal of man’s very existence. Nevertheless, something is clear in Dubrovsky’s and Coterio’s ontological anthropology: a human self-created immortality does not entail mediation of a demiurge or transcendent God. While Dubrovsky’s affirmation of human will to immortality as a legitimate aspiration that should not dismissed or reduced to psychological or dialectic-materialistic theories, his materialistic vein emerges again and exposes itself in his godless self-sufficient anthropology. Dubrovsky’s thought and utopia reveal the cyber-appropriation and interpretation of the fundamental transcendentals of human existence within the horizon opened by unijectivity and cyber-being. Therefore, Dubrovsky offers a fictional-transcendental solution to the problem of existence and death, which is determined by cyber-man. Without being him-

29 Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines (New York: Viking Press, 1999), 30–32, and documentary film Transcendent Man. The Life and Ideas of Ray Kutzweil (2011). http://transcendentman.com/. Accessed 09/23/2016. 30 Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near (New York: Penguin Group, 2005), 9.

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self a cyber-man as a bio-digital interface that produces a human self through cyber-technological devices, Dubrovsky frames his discourse within the horizon of cyber-culture. This acknowledgement of human will to immortality and the possibility of resurrection and cyber-fictional immortality brings us close to the sacred. This acknowledgement reveals the essence of the human as homo theologicus. It discloses the desire to attain to the level of un-concealment of beings, the platonic νῦν δ’ἠπορήκαµεν,31 and the quest for a body-virtualization beyond any “meatspatial” limitation, open to a perpetual state of continuous self-aware onto-preservation, i.e., immortality. It is in this context that sacred Byzantine arts and the Byzantine mystical ideal of human deification as ontological therapy can open an horizon in which cyberman’s essence as homo theologicus can be properly restored, saved, and preserved. Byzantine aesthetics as an ontological therapeutic way with transcendental origin and telos, can contribute to the de-oblivion of man’s essence. In a more concrete way, sacred architecture can re-appropriate vital space as a theophany that gathers together different forms of sacred arts creating a mystical allegory of the transcendent. Sacred icons as a perfect unity between nature (body) and idea (spirit), invite to the mystical contemplation aimed at restoring human’s shattered mind. They can re-center man’s being upon the ontological principle of self-identity, rescuing him from the interactive cyber-dispersal. Byzantine sacred music can lead man to the self-consciousness as homo theologicus by creating the awareness of his existential intentionality towards the sacred. The reinterpretation of Byzantine sacred aesthetic-artistic corpus today can contribute in general to the de-oblivion of cyberman’s real essence as an ex-static dwelling in the neighborhood of Being. According to Byzantine theology, the τέλος of life is the perfect (re)union with God: ὁ θεανδρισµός. The Orthodox term for the mystery of human and divine religatio is “deification” or theosis [θέωσις] (2 Cor 3.18). To that aim, the Temple reveals 31 ‘Now we have become perplexed,’ see “Sophist.” In John M. Cooper, ed. Plato: Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997), 244a.



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the sacred and becomes a shelter-in-the-world for the most perfect hierophania (ἱεροφάνια), the Eucharistic mystery. It is an allegorical incarnation of the New Creation (the Paulian Καινή Κτίσις), where “architecture” means the harmonic re-integration of all beings in the Person of Christ. Christ’s risen body is the new ontological architecture. This system of sacred arts operates as a symbolico-allegorical whole able to impact cyberman’s alienated perception of transcendence and perpetuity through the uncreated divine operations (θείαι ἐνέργειαι). A special way by which God operates his own “unconcealment” (epiphany) in the world is the sacred aesthetico-artistic creation. Sacred arts work as an inner-worldly disclosure of the uncreated Beauty and pave the way for sensesand-mind deification. Byzantine aesthetic doctrine appears as an essential derivation of its onto-theological experience. It states that the world, especially the human person, transformed by God’s uncreated operations, can become an allegorical manifestation of the sacred and at the same time a New Creation itself. Sacred arts, as such, are always hierophanic. For instance, in the structure of the temple, the narthex’s allegorical meaning is crystal-clear if we remember Hesiod’s account, “that the noble son of Iapetus (Prometheus) stole again fire for men from Zeus the counsellor in a hollow fennelstalk”32 (fennel means in Greek narthex). The “Beautiful Gate” (ἡ Ὥραία Πύλη) in the main entrance to the Sanctum Sanctorum (τὸ Ἱερόν Βήµα) is crowned with a barrel-vaulted roof that stretches until the center of the “cross” where the central dome is located. After having gone through the first purifying stage symbolized in the narthex, the faithful is prepared to immerse deeper into the mystery of God’s deifying presence. In the nave, the faithful are then surrounded by the saints, martyrs, angels while partaking already—although still prophetically rather than factually—in the inner-worldly chronotope which is now transfigured after the mystical image of the Kingdom. Furthermore, in its symbolical meaning, the central

32 Hesiod, Works and Days in Hugh G. Evelyn-White, ed. and trans., The Homeric Hymns and Homerica (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914).

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dome represents Christ All-Mighty and refers to the all-embracing, all-deifying presence of the resurrected Lord as the “God-man,” the Θεάνθρωπος, and to the Church as His Mystical Body. But, ultimately, can we really think of an aesthetic education as a pharmakon for the arriving cyber-man in cyber-culture? How can this be done? Perhaps today, in the context of intermediality, self-controlled evolution, and auto-genesis, man could look for new ways of thinking and experiencing Truth, and its relationship with culture and (cyber)technology. It is nevertheless necessary to be aware of St. Gregory of Nyssa’s warning and to be able to discern between essence and phenomenon. Zenon’s aporiai and Plato’s eide, exhibit ancient Greeks’ awareness of the perils of taking the real for fictional (or even worse, the fictional for real) in the same fashion as the tragic poets. In the Helen, Euripides put into words the tragic sentiment about human existence. To be human is to dwell between the mortal finitude and the often-deceitful transcendence of gods. Euripides’s pen makes human beings appear fighting for a shadow, fallen into the oblivion of the real. In Egypt, Helen meets Menelaus, who cannot hide his shock at finding Helen there instead of where she was expected to be: perhaps in Troy, perhaps back in Sparta. Helen explains the reason: “I did not go to Troy; that was a phantom (Οὐκ ἦλθον ἐς γῆν Τρωάδ᾿, ἀλλ᾿ εἴδωλον ἣν).”33 The king discovers in horror that non-being was taken for being, unreal for real, whereas the real remained concealed. All was done in vain: “and sent forth to Hades many valiant souls of heroes,”34 so many lives wasted away, a senseless war, a meaningless sacrifice. Later, Menelaus tells the messenger: “She is not; I was tricked by the gods and had in my arms the baneful image of a cloud.”35 The latter cannot hide in horror his frustration: 33 Euripidis, Helena, 582. In G. Murray, Euripidis fabulae, Vol. 3 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902; repr. 1966). 34 Homer, The Iliad. A.T. Murray, trans. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1924), Vol. 1. 35 For Greek, see Murray, Euripidis Fabulae, 705.



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“Τί φῆς; Νεφέλης ἀρ᾿ ἄλλως εἴχοµεν πόνους πέρι (What are you saying? We suffered in vain for the sake of a cloud?)”36 Through the aesthetico-spiritual impact of Byzantine sacred arts on cyber-man, a radical existential openness to the meaning of Being can be activated. There are three elements that make possible this existential openness: thinking, dwelling and language. Thinking, saying and living in the world are no longer simple conditions of the social being or functional “acquisitions” of centuries of evolution. On the contrary, they become onto-existential fields of theanthropic encounter insofar as thinking, saying, and dwelling in the world man is headed towards the numinous experience of meaning in Being or suffers in the absence of this fundamental orientation, which is indeed the root of the experience of Angst. Yet, angst is not necessarily the ultimate fate of the human. It is only the most proper mood as per discovering, under the form of experience, his way of existence as being to transcendence through death. Thus, in this very moment, death can be understood as the possibility of immortality. To that extent death becomes a vehicle of joy and self-fulfillment. Thus, in the highest peak of spiritual awareness, living human life-in-the-world, turns out to be a celebration. But not celebration in the vulgar sense. It turns to be a feast in the sense of a celebration that is a preparation for entering into perpetual unity with the Good and the Beautiful through the upraising impetus of Eros. Now, if the essence of life discloses itself as a feast, then thinking unveils something of what is peculiar to it: thanking. Thinking becomes thanking when it discovers life’s essence not as “Sein-zum-Tode” (“being-towarddeath”) but as a celebration. Thus, in thinking-thanking-livingfeasting-as-celebrating, the most radical onto-existential structure of man un-conceals itself to show the domain of the essence of humanity. This essence can be traced in the depth of cultural unconscious and therefore inscribed in the essence of language. Indeed, there is a compelling connection between celebration and perpetuity in the Old English term symbel. Symbel bears both meanings: celebration and perpetuity. One could say that this overlapping of meaning shows only the 36 Ibid.

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communal sense of the Nordic culture gathered together around the tribal myths-related feasts as an essentially social praxis. Yet this would be insufficient to explain the real dimension of this semantic neighborhood. According to this connection, being could be understood as a feast taking place on perpetuity. However, the question is: who does properly celebrate, and why? Because celebration is the celebration of someone because of or regarding to something. So, let’s attempt to reach for an answer following tentatively a different but intertwined shortcut. The experience of Byzantine sacred arts in the context of the faith experience is a propaedeutic for the theognosia understood as an immediate visio in religatio with the deifying uncreated operations of God. God is essentially the Absolute Other. He cannot be thought of onto-theologically or scientifically. In this sense, for instance, both St. Thomas of Aquinas with his quinque viae and Stephen Hawking with his theory of the spontaneous and capricious self-creation of the pluriverse seem to fail in their onto-theological attempt: the first, attempting to prove while the second managing to deny God’s existence. God is not, essentially, a matter of rational calculating, cybernetic or scientific-technological thinking. This form of metaphysical thinking reaches its peak in Hegel’s Science of Logic, because, as Heidegger noted, truth here means the certainty of absolute knowledge. Yet for theological thinking truth lays no longer in the theologico-conceptual formulations but in “being-in-with” in the neighborhood of Being in which aletheia as the unconcealment of Truth occurs. God remains totally unattainable by means of conceptual-discursive knowledge and man however can dwell in the Taboric light of the Holy. At this point, before the mystery of being, theologizing returns to its non-conceptual form. The mystical experience as the culmination of all true theology as “knowledge of God” is at the same time the experience of the very essence of man, it is the fulfilled form of its most essential existential possibilities. Truth lays no longer for it in the theological-conceptual formulations but in “being-in-with” in the neighborhood of Being:



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θεὸν νοῆσαι µὲν χαλεπόν· φράσαι δὲ ἀδύνατον, ὥς τις τῶν παρ’ Ἕλλησι θεολόγων ἐφιλοσόφησεν,—οὐκ ἀτέχνως ἐµοὶ δοκεῖν… ἀλλὰ φράσαι µὲν ἀδύνατον, ὡς ὁ ἐµὸς λόγος, νοῆσαι δὲ ἀδυνατώτερον.37

Dubrovsky represents the return of onto-theology under the form of a self-sufficient scientific rationality and post-philosophical speculation. Indeed, in this kind of thinking science shows itself as the real essence of traditional metaphysics, in a way that scientific rationality inherits both the right to debunk “traditional” ontology based on the onto-reality principle and to recall “pure-thought” speculative discourse as a legitimate source of futurist knowledge. In other words, in Dubrovsky’s scientific rhetoric, thought recovers its prophetic capacity but only under the form of scientific formulations. As in Stephen Hawking, scientific post-philosophical thinking lays the foundations of its own reality-modelling in a way similar to traditional metaphysical speculative thinking: it showcases metaphysics’ same tautological conundrums and it suffers from the same inner contradictions. In opposition to this post-philosophical scientific onto-theology, theological thinking is an existential praxis and not a logical unfolding of ideas and concepts. Logos as the fundamental clearing of meaning (true Urphaenomenon—root phenomenon—and Urwessentlichkeit—root essentiality), is not the resulting unity of external balances but the unifying center in the strictest sense of being, the absolute principle of integration. The destination of thinking is the experience of being signed in thinking itself.

37 Gregorio of Nazianzus, II Theological Discourse, 4 PG 36, 29 C: “Certainly, on one side it is difficult to understand God: to express Him on the other impossible, such as philosophized a theologian from among the Greeks, it is not senseless in my opinion… But I think that on the one side expressing Him is impossible, on the other understanding it is absolutely impossible.” The “theologian from among the Greeks” to which Gregory of Nazianzus refers is Plato, who expressed in Tim. 28c: “τὸν µὲν οὖν ποιητὴν καὶ πατέρα τοῦδε τοῦ παντὸς εὑρεῖν τε ἔργον καὶ εὑρόντα εἰς πάντας ἀδύνατον λέγειν”: “It is task for all impossible to find and to say (to set in words, to express) the creator and father of all things.”

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Thinking is not founding supra-temporal systems or pure rational categories but concentrating on the center of Logos the multiple dynamics of the cosmos orientated towards a fundamental perichoresis, the ultimate unity/reconciliation of human and Divine in the person of Christ. However, one the most important features of Dubrovsky’s metaphysical thinking is the way in which man’s ontoexistential transcendentals are reproduced and recovered for a scientific modelling of reality in open opposition to the positivist and data-limited scientism. In Dubrovsky’s thought human essence becomes unconcealed; yet, under the fashion of a cybernetic fictional transcendence, onto-real immortality is replaced with a cyber-fictional techno-granted perpetuation. Thus, ontological human-divine perichoresis becomes a biodigital interface involving a minus-subjectivity and a cybernetic automat to create a post-human avatar as man’s projected and prophesized resurrection. Cyber-being is the new creation in which bio-digital automation is all in all things, and personal perpetuity is achieved via a bio-technological transmigration from the brain-based to the software-based subjectivity. In other words, here we move from the modern subjectivity to the post-industrial cyber-digital unijectivity. Avatar, this originally controlled self-replication of bio-being in cyberreality will turn, according to Dubrovsky, into the technofunctional substrate of human subjectivity, of human self and therefore human glorious and perpetual body in a cyber-resurrection. In this sense, Dubrovsky’s techno-metaphysics illuminates a chronotope of our homeless world: human being essentially seeks immortality and onto-transcendence. In other words, man exists in a way that “being in the world” is already a form of being transcendent, and transcendence appears as a radical un-concealment of Being in the center of man’s worldliness. Thus, death discloses for man not only the closure of his inner-worldly horizon but also the possibility of his self-recognition as ek-stasis, i.e., as a “being in the world as transcendence toward death.” “In the world and toward death” man envisages his own calling to perpetuity not because this perpetuity is an essential ontological privation. On the contrary, it happens because perpetuity is the only way through which a



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human being can experience her/himself as properly authentic, as self-propriation. Precisely because ‘world’ is the clearing of Being into which man stands out on the basis of his thrown essence, man self-relationship as a subjectivity may vary from epoch to epoch and, consequently, can be understood in many different ways. Subjectivity emerges in history as history in the horizon of meaning opened in the clearing of Being that always precedes man’s “being in the world” and every form of his “being with.” Indeed, as Heidegger writes: Man is never first and foremost man on the hither side of the world, as a “subject,” whether this is taken as “I” or “We.” Nor is he ever simply a mere subject which always simultaneously is related to objects, so that his essence lies in in the subject-object relation. Rather, before all this, man in his essence is ek-sistent into the openness of Being, into the open region that clears the “between” within which a “relation” of subject to object can “be.”38

In this light, Dubrovsky is not an outdated fanciful pseudothinker. On the contrary, he introduces a new form of subjectivity on the basis of the clearing of Being that occurs in the horizon of cyber-technology under the fashion of cyber-being. He is envisaging a peculiar form of relation of subject to object and to itself within the categorial filum of cyber-reality. As an epoch-defining reality, cyber-culture and cyber-being appear as cleared by Being for man in history and therefore as a “destining of revealing”39 and a Geschick,40 i.e., a destiny man must cope with but cannot just simple avoid of “get rid of.” The questioning here, which is also a questioning to Heidegger’s ontology and ontological anthropology, is whether or not there is a most radical way of clearing of Being in which human being can exist in the “ek” of the fulfillment of his onto38 Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings. ed. David Farrel Krell (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993), 252. 39 “Man is endangered by destining. The destining of revealing is as such, in every one of its modes, and therefore necessarily, danger.” See Heidegger, ibid., 331, note 8. 40 See Heidegger’s understanding of the notion of “destining” in history as crystalized in the word Geschick. Heidegger, ibid., note 12.

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existential possibilities. If God-based onto-reality and Divinehuman perichoresis as personal deification as person in the image of Christ have still any kind of privilege against cyberbeing and bio-digital interfacing, then Dubrovsky’s world represents at the same time an essential disclosure of human essence in history and the most radical way of estrangement in which this essential disclosure can occur. A human being is essentially homo theologicus. Consequently, s/he can experience the divine while this experiencing transfigures and transforms her/his own being. Yet, the dominion of the cybernetic onto-enframing, the blatant ignorance of Christian theology alongside the linguistico-nihilistic vein of contemporary philosophy, and the emergence of today’s cyber-culture, have determined and deepened what Heidegger called “das Unheil” (“the malignancy”) of our world-epoch: the oblivion of the Sacred (des Heilen).41 We witness thus a twofold irrationalism: the cyber-rationalism and the indifference toward the Real. Yet, the experience of the divine vision is supra-rational, not irrational. Therefore, no rational knowledge can properly account for its inner phenomenology, and no irrational onto-indifference can fill its absence. Essentially, both rational metaphysics and onto-indifferentism fall prey of nihilism, as history has shown. Recalling—if possible at all—the God-rooted sacred essence of the human in our cyber-society will open a horizon in which the essence of theological thought—the contemplation of Truth—and of man as homo theologicus can be radically restored and properly understood as Þenchen in Þanchen on symbel: as a perpetual thanking in the celebration of thinking.

41 “Perhaps what is distinctive about this word-epoch consists in the closure of the dimension of the hale [des Heilen]. Perhaps that is the sole malignancy [Unheil].” Heidegger, Ibid., 254.



III.2.

A THEORY OF PRACTICE: A MEDITATION ON PRACTICE ITSELF MARK W. FLORY PREAMBLE In his Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Vladimir Lossky argues that “the eastern tradition has never made a sharp distinction between mysticism and theology; between personal experience of the divine mysteries and the dogma affirmed by the Church.”1 While this assertion is certainly subject to many historical qualifications, I want to employ it for a different purpose. If, in fact, it can be considered a desideratum of theology that it roots dogmatics in experience of “the divine mysteries,” then mysticism, as Lossky intends it, must account for such experience. In addition, if we are to describe this experience in an Orthodox way, in distinction from accounts of mysticism based on Western mysticism (while allowing that there will be inevitable overlap, as well), we require a more precise, and not merely dogmatic or metaphysical account of the experience of the divine. In this paper, I provide one such description of the possibility of the direct experience of the divine: that of the Hesychastic system of spiritual practice. To show how this spiritual

1 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976), 8.

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system makes experience of God possible,2 I will provide a detailed analysis of the various exercises and virtues produced by Hesychastic practice.3 However, the goal of the paper is not so much analysis, or even phenomenological description or deriving essences in regard to spiritual practice. Rather, as the subtitle suggests, the goal is to engage in a meditation on practice itself, by which both the reader and this author may inform and deepen our own spiritual practice.4 It is important to reflect from time to time on the nature of the system of practices, the interconnections of practices, and, in particular, on 2 Of course, to speak of the “experience” of God is paradoxical, since according to Orthodox Christian teaching at least, the experience of God transcends anything that can be said about it. As I will show, this very paradox (which is the basis for apophatic or negative theology) lies at the heart of the Hesychastic system of practices. 3 The present work represents a continuation of the research project that informed the paper that I delivered to the Sophia Conference in 2015. See Mark Flory, “The Art of Re-Integration: Sacred Art in the Light of Hesychastic & Other Perspectives.” In John A. McGuckin, ed. Orthodoxy and the Sacred Arts. Sophia Studies in Orthodox Theology, Vol. 9 (New York: Theotokos Press, 2016), 87–108. 4 For this practice, see Geshe Sonam Rinchen, The Heart Sutra, an Oral Teaching, trans. and ed. by Ruth Sonam (Ithaca, NY and Boulder, CO: Snow Lion Publications, 2003), 76. In the Hesychastic tradition, we find an insistence on the importance of undertaking the practices in the correct order or sequence. See, e.g., Neilos the Ascetic, “Ascetic Discourse,” The Philokalia, Vol. 1 (London: Faber & Faber, 1979), 222. The sequence of practices, or of virtues (or alternately, of vices) are often presented in a kind of chain: faith in God leads to fear of God, which leads to keeping the commandments, which leads to enduring affliction, which leads to hope in God, which leads to separation of the intellect from material attachment, which leads to love of God, which leads to salvation. For this sequence, see Peter of Damaskos, “A Treasury of Divine Knowledge, Book I,” in The Philokalia, Vol. 3 (Faber & Faber: London, 1984), 88. Such chains provide a means for discerning one’s particular “place” in the total context of the system of practices.



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our specific “place” within that system—our levels of achievement in regard to different practices and virtues. This meditation, obviously, strengthens one’s discernment in regard to the state of his/her own spiritual progress. However, to meditate on the system of practices is also to meditate on the interconnections of the practices, the manifold relationships between them, the dynamic nature of spiritual life, wherein we are all at multiple places at once, where progress is never assured, where not to progress is to fall back. To meditate on the system of spiritual practices not only helps to direct our spiritual progress, but to make present to us the totality of complex interactions of practices, and therefore the nature of transformativity itself. The overall methodology of this paper is the “reciprocal illuminations” of different theoretical and theological systems.5 My analysis utilizes insights from three major approaches to the question of practice: the social-scientific theory (or theories) of practice; the Hesychastic system of practices of Eastern Orthodox Christianity; and phenomenological description. When brought together, these three approaches illuminate and elucidate important elements of practice that may remain occluded when they are utilized individually. I will briefly explain the three different approaches. The social-scientific theory of practice comprises a broad category of theories that are united in seeking a conceptualization of practice that will account for the particular functioning of societies, social groups, and other types of social relations. The social-scientific literature on practice is vast, and theories of practice have been developed in many other areas, from pedagogy to politics, from public to private. To summarize, the issues that a theory of practice must account for include the relationship between the physical, bodily nature of practices, and their mental and/or spiritual corollaries; the 5 For the concept of “reciprocal illuminations,” see Arvind Sharma, Religious Studies and Comparative Methodology: The Case for Reciprocal Illumination (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2005).

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material concomitants of such practices, from buildings, to the physical arrangement of buildings, to clothing and other relevant physical objects;6 the relationship between individual and corporate practices, and between individual freedom and the norming pressures or determinants imposed by the collective; the means of production and power in the practice, and the reproduction of the entire system of practice itself; the multivalent nature of the exercises, activities, and goals in any practice; the teleological nature of practice, including the range (scopos) of exercises and activities, and their goal or standard of success (telos); and, related to this last point, the function of normative claims.7 The theory of practice presented in this paper addresses each of these issues, from the

6 As we will see, physical objects also display the scopos-telos structure characteristic of practices. A candle, for example, has a multitude of non-spiritual and non-religious applications, but has a particular set of usages within such applications, along with a multivalent symbolism that supports and explains these usages, and that transforms reciprocally in relationship to those meanings. 7 The body of literature on the theory of practice is growing rapidly, but some important texts include Theodore R. Schatzki, Karin Knorr Cetina, and Eike von Savigny, eds. The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 2005); Natalie Depraz, Francisco J. Varela, and Pierre Vermersch, eds. On Becoming Aware: A Pragmatics of Experiencing (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2003) [n.b.: this text is also important for the phenomenology of consciousness, about which see below]; the journal Phenomenology & Practice (2007–2017) continues to publish excellent articles on theory of practice and phenomenology of practice; Sherry B. Ortner’s excellent summary of the development of theory in anthropology contains important observations on practice theory: Ortner, “Theory in Anthropology since the Sixties,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 26, 1 (1984): 126–166; see also Joseph Rouse, “Practice Theory,” Division I Faculty Publications, 2007. (https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/pandpr/index.php/pandpr/index). Accessed 1/4/2016.



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unique perspective of Hesychastic practice, and I will refer to these throughout the essay.8 The Hesychastic system of spiritual practices builds on and systematizes a range of Orthodox Christian beliefs and meditative and bodily exercises originating in scripture and early ascetic literature.9 Hesychasm marries this practice to the apologetic and dogmatic theology of the early Church to produce a unique Orthodox system of spiritual practice. This system operates under the slogan of Evagrius: “If you are a theologian, you will pray truly. And if you pray truly, you are a theologian.”10 Prayer incorporates not only verbal and mental forms (including repetitive prayer: the well-known “Jesus Prayer”), but also bodily postures, breath control, and ascetic practices. These practices not only discipline the “lower” self 8 In addition, I have also gained insight and perspective through comparative examination of texts from other spiritual and philosophical traditions, including Hinduism and Buddhism, Hellenistic philosophy, and medieval theology and mysticism. 9 There is no fixed canon of Hesychastic writings, but the main body of texts is undoubtedly The Philokalia, a collection of texts assembled by Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and Makarios of Corinth in the 18th century. This collection includes writings ranging from the 4th to the 15th centuries, including works by Symeon the New Theologian, Evagrios, John Cassian, Maximus the Confessor, Gregory Palamas, and many others. However, Hesychastic literature includes these works, other works by these authors, and other works—like The Ladder of Divine Ascent by John Climacus and Unseen Warfare by 19th century Russian monk, Theophan the Recluse—that share the same general approach to spiritual progress. There are no comprehensive, systematic treatments of Hesychasm; the closest is by Tomáš Špidlík, The Spirituality of the Christian East: A Systematic Handbook, trans. Anthony P. Gythiel (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, Inc., 1986). Also of key importance in Hesychasm are the writings of Origen and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. 10 Evagrios the Solitary, “On Prayer: One Hundred and FiftyThree Texts,” in The Philokalia Vol. 1, §61, 62.

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(appetites, emotions, passions, and thoughts) but also enable practitioners to realize their “true” self, their nous (spirit or mind). Through the gradual realization of this self as divine in origin, and becoming transformed by God’s energies, both body and soul regain their divine-like nature in theosis, or perfection. This system was attacked in the 14th century, and in its defense, St. Gregory Palamas formulated it into a coherent spiritual regimen. However, Hesychastic teachings are rarely presented systematically, in the sense of a logical or theoretical system. As Pierre Hadot put it in reference to Hellenistic philosophy (another important influence on Hesychasm), “systematic coherence was subordinated to spiritual effectiveness.”11 However, I will also argue for a more general level of analysis—a phenomenology of practice12—that goes beyond the 11 Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1995), 60. 12 For a very brief summary of those aspects of phenomenological method which are commonly employed in comparative religions, see John D. Dadosky, The Structure of Religious Knowing: Encountering the Sacred in Eliade and Lonergan (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2004), 9. I base my phenomenological approach on that of the great phenomenologists of religion, Joachim Wach and Mircea Eliade—with the necessary correctives provided by Arvind Sharma, Jeffrey Kripal, and others. In Wach and Eliade’s interpretations of religion, they employ various elements of the phenomenological method. First, following Husserl, they reject the a priori method of finding evidence to fit one’s theory. They also follow Husserl in rejecting “naive realism”: the assumption that objects are separate from and independent of our consciousness of them. Still, the comparativists no more limit themselves to the descriptive approach than Husserl himself, but derived “essences,” “types,” and “categories” from the particulars described. This allowed them to examine such general themes across many different religious and spiritual traditions, without getting lost in endless particularities. However, the danger of the deriving of essences is that the essences



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limits of most social-scientific models of practice. The examination of the beliefs, symbols, exercises, and outcomes involved in spiritual practice reveals a number of complex strategies and patterns. I have identified and labeled six of these (see below). Approached phenomenologically, spiritual progress has a paradox at its heart. Spiritual progress calls for a transformation of human nature that goes beyond the natural

themselves can fulfill the theorist’s agenda, as Eliade’s early fascist activities seem to show. More recent comparative work has sought to evade this danger by either rejecting theorization and categorization altogether, or allowing all theories as somehow equally true, or as multivalent perspectives on the phenomenon. While I believe that the reasons for these approaches to theorization are important, I think the result has been a kind of “Wild West” of undigested facts and theories, a kind of “theoretical polyamory” that feels nice, but has no teeth—and so it threatens to gum us to death. Arvind Sharma’s approach of reciprocal illumination provides a phenomenological approach that allows for the multivalence of religious symbols, beliefs, and practices, as well as for a productive means of their relating to and transforming each other. Jeffrey Kripal’s work points out that the comparative method—and the phenomenological approach itself—strongly resembles the trajectory of spiritual progress described in many religious traditions. He argues that the comparative religionist transcends (or stands outside of) all traditions, as a member of all and none, and he notes both the freedom and the dangers of this standpoint. Further, the comparative standpoint parallels in detail the paradoxical path of enlightenment, with its own version of the transcendence of natural conditions. Therefore, for Kripal, to do comparative religions is to do mysticism; he says, “I know longer want to study mystical literature. I want to write it” (a sentiment that I share). Jeffrey Kripal, The Serpent’s Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2007). Kripal points to the dangers of reifying the elements of any particular system of practice, of assuming that every commonality between traditions is the result of a shared essence. My only criticism of Kripal’s approach is that he could go further in tying his analysis of comparative method to specific spiritual practices.

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conditions of existence itself. This paradox points to the essence of spiritual practice itself, which I call “transformativity”—the reciprocal transformations of practitioner and practice. Not to be flippant, transformativity changes everything. To emphasize the reciprocally transformative nature of spiritual practices in the first place avoids the tendency to reify those practices. Too often in presentations of regimens of practice, the categories, concepts, goals, and virtues that we use to explain the dynamic, transformational process become fixed concepts, divorced from their context (standpoint) within the whole transformative course. In addition, the analysis of spiritual progress in terms of transformativity helps to explain the complex and dynamic relations between the elements of a regimen of practice, and even within a practice itself. In addition, transformativity reveals the full trajectory of the reintegrative process, which does not culminate with the transcendence of natural conditions, but with their transformation. This is important for the entire nature of spiritual practice itself; it bears on how we as practitioners, not detached observers, engage our system of transformative practices, whatever it may be.13 For example, the transcendence14 of nat-

13 The best presentation of the general structure of spiritual progress, its paradoxical transcendence of natural conditions, and fact that this transcendence is a limited form of enlightenment, not “full-on” enlightenment can be found in Georg Feuerstein, Holy Madness: Spirituality, Crazy-Wise Teachers, and Enlightenment (Prescott, AZ: Hohm Press, 2006). 14 I am contrasting transcendence and transformation. Transcendence connotes the occasional, temporary suspending of natural conditions. Transformation connotes the ongoing and reciprocal transformation of these conditions. Feuerstein presents this distinction in terms of mysticism, which is a temporary form of transcendence that emphasizes practices that produce ecstatic feelings or ex-



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ural conditions that occurs in the illuminative stage of progress is found in many spiritual traditions. These traditions are aware that understanding spiritual life as the transcendence of natural conditions can result in a dualistic, quietistic, and/or reifying conceptualization of the transformative dynamics of spiritual practice. In the first place, emphasizing the transcendence of natural conditions contributes to the dualistic belief that nature is evil and therefore to be escaped, and can imply a mistrust or rejection of nature and the body, which can have grave personal, social, and environmental implications in addition to the spiritual ones. Sometimes cooperating with dualism, and sometimes free-standing, quietism is an escapist form of spirituality, which views this existence not as something to be transformed but as something to be evaded (because it is evil, transitory, or painful). In addition, the conceptualization of spiritual progress in terms of transcendence very often leads to the reification of the exercises, activities, virtues, and goals of spiritual practice. While transcendence of natural conditions is a necessary stage on the way to perfection or theosis, for these reasons it cannot be the ultimate goal or nature of spiritual progress. Theosis postulates a goal beyond transcendence: a transfiguration of our natural potentialities, which can only be realized through a process of detachment (purification and enlightenment) and reintegration,15 a reciprocal transformation of practitioner and practice.

periences, and “full-on enlightenment,” which involves transformation of conditions. He notes that most spiritual teachers, spiritual directors, gurus, swamis, and others have had the former kind of experience, not the latter. 15 The term “reintegration” derives from Maximus the Confessor. As St. Maximus says, “For by continual participation in the divine radiance his intellect becomes totally filled with light; and when it has reintegrated its passible aspect, it redirects this aspect toward God…filling it with an incomprehensible and intense longing for Him and with unceasing Love.” In “Second Century of Texts on Love,” The Philokalia, Vol. 2 (London: Faber and Faber, 1990), §48, 73. Gregory

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THE TRANSFORMATIVE NATURE OF PRACTICE The term “practice” connotes more than a particular regimen of exercises of a practitioner or group of practitioners, and more than the theory of such disciplines as a whole. A practice, in the sense used here, refers to a system of such exercises (and the moral and meditative virtues to which the exercises give rise) that transforms the practitioner while at the same time undergoing transformation itself. A practice incorporates an integrated imaginal world16 that provides a complete and integrated cosmology (theory of the cosmos), anthropology (theory about human nature), and ethical and / or ascetic exercises (practices that produce the kind of person that the anthropology describes). Transformation occurs through the practitioner’s integration into the imaginal world. Through integrating the symbolic system of the practice, the practitioner begins to live through those symbols, whereby in turn the symbols themselves transform. Practice is both transforming

of Nyssa’s concept of “logophasis” resembles Maximus’ reintegration, as does the famous statement of St. Seraphim of Sarov: “Acquire the Spirit of God, and thousands around you will be saved.” Of course, the model for our human reintegration is the reintegration of humanity in Christ: “What is the purpose of Christ's advent? The restoration and reintegration of human nature in Him.” Symeon Metaphrastis, “Paraphrase on the Homilies of St. Makarios of Egypt VI.” The Philokalia, Vol. 3, §150, 353. 16 The concept of an “imaginal world,” or of the “transcendent imagination” must be distinguished from the everyday notion of the imagination, or fantasy, and stands in direct contrast to fantasy. The imaginal world comprises the horizon of possibility of image-formation; thus, it is the groundless ground for all thought. See Mark Peckler, “Imagination, Religious Practice, and World Transformations: Sophia, Heidegger, and Jacob Bohme’s The Way to Christ” (Ph.D. diss, Joint Ph.D. Program, University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology, Denver, 2009).



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and transformed, it consists of reciprocal transformations,17 it is transformative. As defined, the system of practice is complex, comprehending both sacred and secular practices, individual and social practices, physical and mental disciplines, and the relations between these. A practice, then, connotes a continuum, a connected series of exercises and activities that encompasses both sacred and secular practices. Within the continuum of a practice, some exercises and activities are more intrinsically transformative than others. The continuum of practice forms the context for the exercises and virtues that comprise it. Just as there would be no continuum of practice without exercises and virtues, so there could be no exercises and virtues without the continuum that gives them their meaning(s). The defining property of a practice is that it transforms and is transformed, that is, it is transformative. Not all practices that possess such power of transformativity are equal. Rather, differences between such systems can and should be measured with the yardstick of transformativity itself.18

17 While I believe that the concept of reciprocal transformations is present in Hesychasm (and other forms of spiritual practice), the clearest analysis of this idea (which he calls “mutual transformations”) is found in from Tanabe Hajime, Philosophy as Metanoetics (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986). 18 Social scientific theories of practice generally eschew any normative commitment, on the ground that such commitments must derive from “outside” the practice itself. In their desire to be seen as scientific, any such external standard of practice would seem to undermine the claim of scientific rigor and disinterestedness. It is worth noting that though these theories explicitly reject any normative commitments, they tend nevertheless to import, surreptitiously, such commitments anyway. A key example would be Theodore Schatzki’s concept of “rationality” as opposed to “what makes sense,” where “rationality” connotes a standard of decision-making against which actual instances of “making sense of” may be judged.

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THE DYNAMICS OF HESYCHASTIC PRACTICE Hesychasm presents spiritual progress in three major stages: purification, illumination (or enlightenment), and perfection (or theosis).19 The purification stage describes the beginning steps of an intentional spiritual life, starting with the rejection of the world in exile and solitude, the undertaking of obedience to a spiritual director, undergoing ascetic exercises, praying, developing the virtues, and culminating in the spiritual virtues of dispassion and attentiveness. These practices eventuate in experiences associated with illumination: the restoration of the spiritual senses, the charismata (spiritual gifts, especially, in the Orthodox tradition, the experience of divine warmth and light), the transcendence of the subject/object (intentional) structure of knowledge (also known as unitive knowledge), the transcendence of the law of noncontradiction (the key examples being Christological and Trinitarian doctrine), the contemplation of created essences, See Theodore R. Schatzki, “Practice-Minded Orders,” in Schatzki, Karin Knorr Cetina, and Eike Von Savigny, The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 55–66. Another example, as I have argued elsewhere, comes from the claim of many modern theories of scientific practice that claim that knowledge and progress are ideals intrinsic to the scientific process itself. As I have shown, these ideals are in fact external to science itself, and they conflict with other ideals that are, arguably, more central to science. Transformativity, as presented here, is not an external standard, but is intrinsic to practice itself. See Flory, “The Standpoint of Transformativity: Re-envisioning Science, Nature, and the Self,” in Joshua Coleman, ed., Seeing and Being Seen: Aesthetics and Environmental Philosophy (Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2017), 47–84. 19 There are various presentations of the stages of spiritual progress presented in patristic and Hesychastic writings. These differences are driven by the various spiritual concerns of their authors. Nevertheless, the three-stage system presented here is the most common one, and other presentations of the stages can be shown to conform to it.



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and, ultimately, the contemplation of providence and the Trinity. The third and final stage of spiritual progress goes beyond even these supernatural experiences in the unitive, silent, contemplative union with God. As you can see, to the external observer there is an obvious tension, or even contradiction, in this progression. In the stage of purification, one strips away one’s worldly conditioning, replacing it with the virtues of humility, obedience, dispassion, and attentiveness. However, in the second and third stages, the very conditions for these virtues are themselves transcended. What is the purpose of the upbuilding of virtue, if these very virtues are to be transcended? The answer to this question is to be found in the transformative nature of Hesychastic practice. If spiritual progress ended at the point of the practices of purification, the result would be a kind of moralism, i.e., an adherence to the law that, far from transforming our nature, merely reaffirms it.20 The exercises and virtues of illumination, however, transcend our natural being, taking us beyond the natural by means of the supernatural workings of grace. Here again, however, there is a danger, if the experiences of the stage of illumination become themselves an attachment. The monastic literature— and religious literature around the world—is rife with stories of monks who have achieved some charismata—such as the power of discerning another’s state of being—who have used the power to control and manipulate others. Therefore, it is necessary wholly to transform our natural being, to be freed from all natural forms of conditioning. On the other hand, however, there is a danger here of emphasizing the supernatural at the expense of the natural, of upholding a kind of spirit-over-matter dualism that Christian tradition explicitly rejects. It is important to emphasize equally the transformative quality of natural being itself, when brought 20 The monastic and Hesychastic traditions offer many examples of warnings against allowing one’s spiritual regimen become an attachment that limits our transformation. Moralism constitutes perhaps the biggest threat to spirituality, and to the Church, since it tends to reduce religion to a narrow moral compass, making it subject to the criticisms of attackers of religion, such a Nietzsche.

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into relationship with spirit. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, we gather ourselves into the imaginal world of created being—i.e., we engage the world as symbolon—through the sacraments, the liturgy, prayer practices, and other means. These practices, along with the practices of virtue and other purificatory and illuminatory practices, serve not only to transform our natural being, but in the process, they themselves transform.21 Thus, the Hesychastic system of spiritual progress provides a comprehensive curriculum or continuum of beliefs, exercises, and outcomes (virtues) that eventuate in transformativity—a perpetual and reciprocal transformation of the elements of the practice itself. In order to examine how transformativity is produced, we will now examine six of the “essences” or “types” (or perhaps “structures” or “archetypes”) that underlie the transformative regimen (practice) itself: intentionality,22 potentiation, teleology, multivalence, transcendence of subjectivity / objectivity, and transformativity. These are based on close readings of the Hesychastic texts, as well as comparative examination (reciprocal illumination) of spiritual texts in other traditions (particularly Hindu and Buddhist). In addition, they resonate with the major issues raised

21 It is fair to ask: the practices transform into what? The answer to this points to the paradoxical nature of spiritual progress itself. They (the conditions of practice, including practitioner—body and soul—exercises, virtues, and conceptuality) transform in order to realize their own nature—which is transformation. The degree to which they achieve perfect mutuality of transformation is the degree to which they achieve perfection. Thanks to my editor for raising the question. 22 Though this is a phenomenological presentation of these dynamics, I am not using intentionality in its proper Husserlian connotation, but simply in the sense of undertaking an action with intent.



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by social-scientific theory of practice. Finally, these are the dynamics that appear in the course of spiritual practice itself; they emerge from the actual undertaking of the practices.23 Any practice begins with intention: the undertaking of the practice to achieve the goal of that practice. The first mark of a practice in the special sense that the term has here is that it is intentional, that is, it is undertaken for the sake of spiritual transformation. This characteristic of practice has two important corollaries. First, at the “beginning” of a practice, the practice cannot fully be undertaken as a practice, since the practitioner’s intention cannot be fully developed. It is almost cliché to say that if one knew the degree of transformation that would occur through engaging in spiritual practice, no one would have the courage to begin. As Georg Feuerstein comments, if we knew what ego death entailed, we would not dare to undertake to attain it.24 Our ignorance of the degree of transformation called for is a providential safeguard, since what is called for is nothing less than the death of the self. Second, at the same time, there is never an absolute beginning of practice in this sense, because the practitioner is always already involved in some degree of transformation. Intentionality and practice are mutually transformative: as intentionality increases, transformation increases; as transformation increases, intentionality likewise increases. Following

23 The introduction of personal experience is, on the one hand, an offense to the standards of academic scholarship, much less modern science. On the other hand, the kind of phenomenological approach used here requires the reference to personal experience. This is in line not only with tendencies in existentialism and phenomenology, but also with the oft-repeated teachings of many religious traditions, that one can only know the truth offered by the religion by engaging in the transformative practices of the religion. It is for this reason that I have subtitled this paper “a meditation on practice itself”: the intent is that these observations will be useful to the reader, and to myself, in our practice. 24 Feuerstein, Holy Madness, 188.

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Kierkegaard, I call this quality “potentiation.”25 However, as for Kierkegaard, potentiation eventuates in its own paradox, which is that ultimately the practitioner’s self reaches a point at which it no longer is the intentional force behind spiritual progress. Increasingly, if spiritual progress is to achieve its ultimate end, the practitioner’s self must decrease so that the power of God can increase. This is the first connotation of the term “transformativity.” It also means that each spiritual practice and spiritual progress as a whole have a teleological (i.e., scopos-telos) structure: it consists of a scopos of exercises that work toward a telos. This also means that each practice will connote both a series of discrete exercises and the goal (telos) of this series. For example, prayer can connote the manifold practices of prayer—thanksgiving, petition, contrition, praise, doxology, etc. Prayer also connotes the goal of prayer, the attainment of a state of prayer, of a constant residing in prayer. Such a state implies the attainment of attentiveness, itself a practice consisting of practices that eventuate in a perfect state of attention. From the perspective of the practitioner, each practice has different meanings at different points in the course of progress. Because of this, each practice (as wells as the components of a practice, such as symbols, virtues, parables, etc.) takes on multitudinous meanings; it is multivalent.26 There-

25 According to Kierkegaard, “the law for the movement in potentiation is, here as everywhere, in the inward direction, in more and more intense consciousness.” See Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1941), 124. 26 On the multivalence of symbols, see John D. Dodaro, “Sacred Symbols as Explanatory: Geertz, Eliade and Lonergan,” FJIRS 4.1 (2010): 144. Dodaro quotes Eliade on the multivalence of symbols to the effect that this multivalence results from the fact the “reality manifests itself in contradictory ways,” which is undoubtedly true, but misses the more particular role that multivalence plays in spiritual progress. Here, practices take on different meanings because they occur at various times in the process of transformation.



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fore, it requires discernment to utilize the teachings of the Fathers, since we must examine each teaching, the “level” of practitioner (beginner, intermediate, or advanced) at which it is aimed, and whether we are at that level. The requirement of humility is obviously key here, too. In the first instance, practice appears to connote a set of exercises undertaken by a practitioner, a subject, for the purpose of transforming, perfecting, or restoring her subjectivity. While from one perspective this is true, this kind of Kierkegaardian apotheosizing of subjectivity as opposed to objectivity (viz., his satirizing of Hegel’s “world-historical consciousness”) tends to occlude the effects of transformation, and specifically the nature of transforming/transformed. Practice, in its fullest sense, incorporates a movement of return from an uncritical immersion in the objective to the subjective consciousness, but this movement is itself only a moment within the transformative continuum. This movement, from uncritical objectivity to the self-consciousness of subjectivity, is relativized by the further movement whereby the practitioner’s subjectivity is transformed and “later” is wholly transmuted as universal consciousness, omniscient awareness. In this way, as we are transformed, the practices themselves transform. This is the quality I refer to as transformativity. Importantly, I am not saying simply that in the process of our own spiritual transformation our relation to the practices changes. The fact that our relation to the practices changes as we ourselves change means that the practices themselves change: as levels or potentiations of consciousness itself, practices transform the very relationship of subjectivity and objectivity. The system of practices that produce transformation in us (by the grace of God!), undergoes transformation as we more and more transform toward the telos of the system of practices: theosis as process and goal. The extent to which there is a perfect reciprocity or mutuality of transformations is the extent to which the practice fulfills its goal, which is nothing less than theosis as goal. Hesychasm, then, as a system of spiritual practice, provides an example of practice (in the sense of transformativity). But it also contextualizes other, related practices, such as cat-

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aphasis. Indeed, approaching Hesychasm as a system of practices helps to reveal the nature of its subsidiary practices, such as cataphasis, as themselves transformative, i.e., as also having the characteristics of a “practice.” In turn, considering these subsidiary practices as constituting practices in their own right helps to clarify their transformative nature, as well as their place within the entire continuum of practices. By means of this kind of contextualizing, we may avoid errors that come from interpreting specific practices as free-standing reifications, and we may open ourselves to their rich multivalence and dynamism.

CONCLUSION In this paper, I have advanced a theory of practice that emphasizes the transformative nature of any practice, defining “practice” in terms of the mutuality of transformations that occur between the participant and the practice itself. This theory of practice avoids the pitfalls of most theories of practice, in that it does not seek to impose, and does not require, an external criterion of value (whether metaphysical, aesthetic, ethical, pragmatic, or otherwise). That is, a practice, so defined, provides its own criterion of value, namely this very mutual transformativity. Therefore, we have a basis, intrinsic to any practice itself, for deciding the relative validity of any such practice. Moreover, the theory of practice presented here provides us with a theory that itself has the nature of a practice, having the structure of transformativity. To return to Vladimir Lossky’s statement with which we began this paper, mysticism, at least in the popular mentality, connotes out-of-body experiences, otherworldly lights, sounds, and smells, and other such supernatural experiences. Orthodox spirituality, in contrast, is a system of practices. The complexity of the dynamics of this system points to, among other things, the subjective nature of spiritual progress, and addresses the needs of individual practitioners. Different practitioners at different stages in their spiritual progress can access the system at different “places.” At the same time, the practices serve as common guideposts along the spiritual path



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toward theosis. In concert with the communal liturgical practices of the Church (which are themselves multivalent, teleological, transformative symbols), the system of spiritual practice described here has a transformative effect on human nature. Therefore, the practice of meditation on the system of practices itself also transforms those who undertake it.

APPENDIX: AN OUTLINE OF HESYCHASTIC PRACTICES A. Purification 1. Exile 2. Solitude and/or Community 3. Asceticism a. physical disciplines (prayer, rituals [esp. Liturgy] fasting, vigil, not sleeping, continence, etc.) b. mental disciplines (inner prayer, meditation, lectio divina, reading, memorization) c. patient acceptance of tribulations 4. Prayer 5. Obedience 6. The Practice of the Virtues 7. Discernment 8. Attentiveness 9. Dispassion B. Illumination 1. Restoration of the Spiritual Senses 2. Perception of the Light of the Mind 3. Contemplation of Created Essences 4. Contemplation of Providence 5. Charismata (warmth in the heart, perception of the light of Mt. Tabor) 6. Perception of Universal Selfhood (Egolessness) 7. Transcendence of the Canons of Rationality a. Of Intentionality b. Of the Law of Non-Contradiction c. Of the A priori structures of consciousness (time, space, the categories) 8. Cataphasis and Apophasis 9. Contemplation of the Hierarchies

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10. Contemplation of the Liturgy 11. Teleological Suspension of the Ethical C. Perfection (Theosis) 1. Contemplation of Incorporeal Essences 2. Contemplation of the Holy Trinity 2. Perception of the Light of Mount Tabor 3. Union with God 4. Reintegration



III.3. THE PRAYER OF THE HEART AS METHOD OF COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOTHERAPY CAMERON MCCABE

I was late for class. It seemed the universe was conspiring against me. As I stood on the platform waiting for my delayed “express” train, I felt myself growing more tense and irritated with every passing minute. I breathed a small sigh of relief when my train finally pulled into the station. All I needed was a smooth transfer to the 1 train at Columbus Circle. I bolted from the train as soon as it arrived in the station, making my way up the stairs. The train had already arrived, the doors were open and people were still boarding. I broke into a full sprint, convinced I could make it. I was just a few feet away when I heard the fateful ding dong warning that the doors were about to close. “Hold the door!” I screamed to the passengers inside, but to no avail. I watched with dismay as the doors slid shut in front of me—the passengers looking at me smug and unapologetic. I had missed the train. Breathless from running, I felt a wave of frustration, anger, shame, and anxiety wash over me as I watched the train pull away. A knot quickly formed in my chest and my eyes welled up with tears. I cursed the universe, myself, the MTA, and the old lady who had slowed me down going up the stairs. My mind reeled with the unfairness of it all, and my emotions spiraled downward into a sea of self-loathing, irritation, and defeat. I felt nauseous. It was not even 10 a.m. and all I wanted to do was go home and crawl back into bed. I know it seems ridiculous, but I couldn’t get a hold of myself. I was utterly 237

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overwhelmed by emotion in that moment. I felt others looking at me with concern and I knew I needed to try to calm down. Then a thought crept into my head… “Try the Jesus Prayer.” When the next train arrived, I sat down, closed my eyes and inhaling, thought to myself, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,” and exhaling, “have mercy on me.” I repeated this action for the next fifteen minutes until I arrived at my stop. By the time I exited the train, I was no longer angry or upset. I felt… normal. More than that, I felt good. I wasn’t even worried about being late anymore. I felt everything would be okay. And I thought, “Wow! The Jesus Prayer really worked!” The “Jesus Prayer,” or, as it is referred to in the Eastern Orthodox tradition of Christianity, the “Prayer of the Heart,” is a spiritual practice aimed at effecting theosis—that is, the regeneration, transfiguration, or deification of human kind through communion with God in the Holy Spirit and participation in the divine grace made possible by the incarnation of the Logos of God (Jesus Christ). It is a process by which we are “healed and strengthened, body and soul, and freed from compulsion to sin.”1 The prayer teaches believers to be vigilant about their thoughts by analyzing them, discerning the truth, and rejecting lies. For the last fifty years, therapists and psychologists have been developing a similar approach to psychotherapy, called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, that encourages clients to scrutinize their thoughts and challenge erroneous ideas that provoke anxiety or depression. There are a number of correlations between methods of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, mind-body therapy, and the Eastern Orthodox “Prayer of the Heart.” The premise of this paper is to show how regular practice of the Jesus Prayer can be used as a valid method of Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapy.

1 Frederica Mathewes-Green. The Jesus Prayer: The Ancient Desert Prayer that Tunes the Heart To God (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2009), 22.



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I began seeing a therapist a little over a year ago for treatment of my depression and anxiety. I struggled with debilitating bouts of rumination (“the tendency to repetitively think about the causes, situational factors, and consequences of one’s negative emotional experience”2) and / or obsessive thinking. I often found myself unable to manage the recurrence of upsetting thoughts and images in my mind. I had an uncontrollable preoccupation with the past that would send me into emotional spirals of guilt, anger, shame, regret, and deep sadness over irreversible mistakes, losses, wounds, actions or inaction. I felt constantly overwhelmed by feelings of self-loathing and condemnation associated with my false perceptions of myself and the world. To combat the problem, my therapist showed me different ways of interrupting or quieting those negative thought cycles. She told me to immediately try shifting my attention to something else when a triggering thought or image entered my mind. I also began confronting negative thoughts, questioning their accuracy or authenticity, rather than trying to unsuccessfully ignore or stop them. She also suggested I practice yoga for its relaxation and mindfulness techniques. Coincidentally (or Providentially), I heard about the Jesus Prayer not long after beginning therapy. As I learned more about it, I could not help but notice how much it held in common with the form of therapy I was receiving—Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. When I began incorporating the “Prayer of the Heart” into my daily routine, the results were remarkable. By using the prayer (in addition to other practices) to deliberately interrupt my bouts of rumination, my number of depressive episodes significantly decreased. Furthermore, I experienced a decrease in my anxiety level and an increase in my overall sense of inner-peace and well-being. Sadly, nearly 40 million other adults in the U.S. (18% of the population) struggle with anxiety and depression. These 2 Susan Nolen-Hoeksema. “Responses to Depression and Their Effects on the Duration of the Depressive Episode.” J. Abnorm. Psychol. 100 (1991): 569–82.

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days it appears we are in the throes of a virtual epidemic. Depression affects approximately 14.8 million adults in a given year and the numbers are only increasing.3 Not only that, but the number of Americans suffering from mental and physical conditions associated with stress is astronomical. For years, doctors and psychologists turned to pharmaceutical drugs and traditional psychotherapy, blaming such disorders on chemical imbalances in the brain reinforced by subconscious neurosis. Indeed, brain chemistry is a factor. However, it simply does not justify the current epidemic in our country, leaving doctors scrambling for alternative explanations and methods of treatment. In the early 1960’s, Dr. Aaron Beck began developing a form of psychotherapy he termed “cognitive therapy.” Operating under the theory that “it is not a situation in and of itself that determines what people feel, but rather how they construe a situation,” he concluded that it was dysfunctional thinking that influenced a person’s mood and behavior and devised a present-oriented psychotherapy aimed at conceptualizing, understanding, and modifying specific dysfunctional beliefs and patterns of behavior.4 He purported that every disorder could be characterized by a unique set of beliefs and behavioral strategies for coping with those beliefs, resulting in dysfunctional thinking and behavior. In other words, erroneous core beliefs cause individuals to falsely interpret certain situations in ways that reinforce their false beliefs. These false interpretations are often subconscious, taking of the form of what he calls “automatic thoughts.” These thoughts or ideas trigger emotional and behavioral reactions. Automatic thoughts are a normal part of the human experience and are attached to our core beliefs about ourselves, the world, and others. However, inaccurate or false core beliefs result in unrealistic and maladaptive responses. Teaching patients to test the validity of their 3 “Facts and Statistics.” Anxiety and Depression Association of America (Sept 2014. Web. May 2016). http://www.adaa.org/aboutadaa/press-room/facts-statistics. Accessed 35/3/2016. 4 A.T. Beck. “Thinking and Depression: II. Theory and Therapy.” JAMA Psych. 10 (1964): 561–71.



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thoughts and ideas and what they reveal about their underlying belief system results in the modification of dysfunctional cognitions. This can lead to enduring emotional and behavioral change and a return to more normal functionality. Over time, Beck’s method became known as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps patients develop healthy responses to their inaccurate automatic thoughts, images (mental pictures), and/or underlying beliefs by teaching them methods of “gaining distance (i.e. seeing their cognitions as ideas, not necessarily as truths), evaluating the validity and utility of their cognitions, and / or de-catastrophizing their fears.”5 Automatic thoughts spring up spontaneously and are usually so brief that we barely register them in our consciousness. They spring up from our core beliefs—“enduring understandings so fundamental and deep that that they can be difficult to articulate. Nevertheless, we regard them as absolute truths,” says Judith Beck, who now carries on her father’s work in the field of psychology.6 For example, a woman raised by an excessively over-protective mother may later struggle with social anxiety and agoraphobia (fear of the outside world) because she was instilled with the core belief that the world was a fundamentally dangerous and unsafe place. Other examples of common false core beliefs are that we are incompetent, unlovable, unwanted, defective, or powerless. These can directly influence our perception of the world and our place in it. The automatic thoughts that spring from such core beliefs can be crippling. However, by asking, “What is going through my mind right now,” one can gain distance from automatic thoughts, label distortions (i.e., dichotomous thinking, catastrophizing, emotional reasoning or reactivity without evidence, labeling, magnifying or minimizing, mind reading, overgeneralizing, personalization, or tunnel vision), and test their validity.

5 Judith S. Beck. Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond, 2nd ed. (New York: The Guilford Press, 2011), 23. 6 Ibid., 32.

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A wide variety of strategies can be used over time to assess and modify thoughts so that one can begin viewing themselves and their circumstances more realistically: Socratic questioning, behavioral experiments, intellectual-emotional role-playing, core belief worksheets, imagery, and listing advantages and disadvantages of beliefs.7 Other techniques specifically aimed at influencing a person’s thinking, behavior, mood, and physiological arousal include problem solving, concrete decision-making, refocusing, relaxation, and mindfulness. The latter three—mindfulness, refocusing, and relaxation response—are all mind/body methods of CBT that are consistent with the methodology of the Jesus Prayer. It is best to evaluate automatic thoughts on the spot, but sometimes that option is unfeasible. Since automatic thoughts are spontaneous, there are countless triggers that might incite an emotional episode. Often, one can become fixated or obsessive over a certain thought and then rational evaluation becomes ineffective or impossible in the moment. One tool for overcoming this problem is called “refocusing”—redirecting one’s attention to interrupt or side step a negative thought cycle, thereby allowing one to return to the task at hand. Another method is called “relaxation response”—a mental and physical state of tranquility achieved through controlled breathing. Finally, there is “mindfulness”—non-judgmental observation and passive acceptance of automatic thoughts and images. The Jesus Prayer incorporates all three of these methods in some way. The Jesus Prayer, a form of monologistic prayer, has been a treasured spiritual practice of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church for more than 1,500 years. Its origins are relatively unknown, but tradition holds that it has been practiced since the earliest days of the Church. The earliest records of the practice date all the way back to the Desert Fathers of the 3rd and 4th century A.D. It eventually became the preferred practice of monks on Mount Athos, the renowned center of Orthodox spirituality in northern Greece. It is discussed at length in the Philokalia, a collection of ten centuries worth of writings 7 Ibid., 256.



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on prayer and the monastic life by monks in the Eastern tradition. It was made popular in Western culture via the translation of an anonymous (and likely fictitious) nineteenth century Russian memoir called The Way of the Pilgrim that explored the concept of “unceasing prayer.”8 In its most basic form, the prayer goes as follows: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me.” In the first part, you are invoking the name (and person/presence/energy) of the Lord (Jesus), and in the second part you are calling upon His compassion for healing. It is a prayer of both confession and adoration. In the Philokalia (and elsewhere), elders describe a breathing technique to enhance the prayer. Basically, one must try to focus her attention as best she can and inhale, mouthing the words of the first part of the prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God”), following that intake of breath down to the heart, and holding it there for a moment before exhaling the phrase “have mercy on me.” One can sit or stand as she do this. In fact, this can be done anytime, anywhere. However, it is ideal to find a quiet place to bow the head, close the eyes, and tune out the world. Simply repeating the Jesus Prayer in this manner, however, does not effect theosis. Frederica Mathewes-Green explains: “Prayer of the Heart occurs when the prayer moves from mere mental repetition, forced along by your own effort, to an effortless and spontaneous self-repetition of the prayer that emanates from the core of your being, your heart. You discover that the Holy Spirit has been there, praying, all along. Then heart and soul, body and mind, memory and will, the very breath of life itself, everything that you have and are unites in gratitude and joy, tuned like a violin string to the name of Jesus.”9 The Prayer of the Heart is a form of psychosomatic prayer—that is, a prayer aimed at establishing the unity of the spirit and body, as a single psychosomatic organism and is predicated on the doctrine of theosis.

8 1 Thess. 5:16–18: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. ESV. 9 Mathewes-Green, The Jesus Prayer, 19.

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The doctrine of theosis, or the deification of humanity, holds that man and woman were fashioned in the image and after the likeness of God. However, their perfect communion with their Creator was broken when they fell and were estranged from God. The “image” of God in them became obscured by their sin and they lost all awareness of their original destiny. Through the incarnation (enfleshment) of the Logos of God (Jesus), human nature was deified making it possible for all humanity to once again obtain likeness with God. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, humanity finds access to the regenerative and divine work of Christ that has already been accomplished once for all.10 The Sacraments of the Church (Baptism and Eucharist) are the means of communion with God in the Holy Spirit whose grace penetrates the soul and regenerates the mind and body. There are not only enduring spiritual implications to this process, but physical implications as well. One man, in particular, Gregory Palamas (1296–1359), emphatically defended the role of the human body in prayer and theosis. He devoted most of his life to the defense of hesycastic monasticism and the belief that God was accessible via personal experience in light of the incarnation. Hesychastic monks sought various methods (such as the Prayer of the Heart) to achieve a level of quietude/stillness (within and without) wherein they could experience the Divine Presence. Their goal was theosis. According to Palamas and the Hesychasts, “just as the divinity of the Word of God incarnate is common to soul and body, since He has deified the flesh through the mediation of the soul to make it also accomplish the works of God; so similarly, in spiritual man, the grace of the Spirit, transmitted to the body through the soul, grants to the body also the experience of things divine, and allows the same blessed experience as the soul undergoes.”11 He believed

10 Georgios I. Mantzaardis. The Deification of Man: St. Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition. (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984), 15. 11 John Myendorff, ed. Gregory Palamas: The Triads. (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1983), C: I. 12.



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that because of the incarnation of Christ, humanity was capable of transcending its own physical and spiritual nature, having been provided with new life and new sight. For Palamas, the only true thought was a thought that came through a mind influenced by Christ. This idea was connected to an ancient Platonic anthropology dividing the soul into three parts: the bodily appetite (passion; desire), emotion, and the intellect or, in Greek, the nous. This concept of the nous cannot be equated with modern concepts of the mind associated only with empirical reason. Rather, it connotes a meaning more along the lines of wisdom, understanding, and recognition of ultimate truth. It is the highest level of the soul—the place where our spirits can perceive God’s voice and presence via the Holy Spirit. However, the nous gets underused and is often abused. It requires healing. The fog of sin clouds our perception of reality. Therefore, if we want to encounter God we must cultivate the nous and undergo the tedious process of discerning our thoughts and eradicating the lies. Prayer reorients the nous and elevates it to the sphere of God’s grace. The more time spent in prayer, the more the nous is subjected to the divinizing transformation of the Holy Spirit, and the more perfect and full is one’s knowledge of God and self. Unfortunately, the nous is a restless organ that craves stimulation and can be as difficult to tame as the body. It does not want to be trained, quieted, or redirected. In fact, as soon as one sits still and tries to pray, one finds that their mind suddenly grows terribly restless and distracted, with thoughts running to and from after one train of thought or another. In Greek, these attacking automatic thoughts are called logismos. Logismos are false beliefs that make us fearful, resentful, greedy, prideful, malicious and unforgiving. They are attached to inaccurate core beliefs and are frequently damaging to ourselves and others. Ultimately, they impede the work of the Holy Spirit, undermine our trust in God, and lead to all manner of human dysfunction. With regular use of the Jesus Prayer, however, the Hesychasts and Palamas believed the perception of the nous became more accurate as one began to acquire “the nous (mind) of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16). For example, Nicephorus (1259–

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1282), a hesychastic monk from Mount Athos, was so convinced of its effectiveness that he insisted one should, “Have no other occupation or meditation than the cry of: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me!’ Under no circumstances give yourself any rest. This practice protects your spirit from wandering and makes it impregnable and inaccessible to the suggestions of the enemy and lifts it up every day in love and desire for God.”12 Such a commitment required serious self-discipline. So serious, in fact, that the hesychasts insisted that complete withdrawal from the world, a hermetic lifestyle, ascetic practices, and ceaseless prayer were the only means by which a transcendent encounter with the divinely transformative light of Christ could be achieved. That said, the reward for such discipline was great. An encounter with the Divine Light was a foretaste of Heaven—a glimpse of the joy and triumph of the kingdom of God not yet fully realized here on Earth. To that end, the Jesus Prayer presupposes that the heart is the vital center of psychosomatic life. Palamas refers to the human body and the heart, in particular, as the natural “temple of the Holy Spirit which is in us.” (1 Cor. 6:19) While engaging the practice of the Jesus Prayer, recitation becomes automatic, as the mind and body are kept occupied (through a method of refocusing, relaxation, and mindfulness) and the nous is able to descend into the heart where it encounters the divine light of Christ and enters a state of natural contemplation. This natural contemplation is the result of a union (a comingling) of the mind of Christ with our own, which “occurs mystically and ineffably by the grace of God, after the stripping away of everything below which imprints itself on the mind, or rather after the cessation of intellectual activity.”13 It creates a state of inner detachment or vigilance. The Jesus Prayer is (in part) a form of psychotherapy, enabling the healing of the soul. That conclusion is consistent with the findings of Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School, an expert in the field

12 Ibid., 16. 13 Myendorff, Gregory Palamas, B. I. iii. 17.



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of mind/body medicine. Dr. Benson coined the term “relaxation response,” identifying the possibility of the body’s undergoing a physiological reaction that is the exact opposite of a stress response (fight-or-flight). He proved that one could harness the healing power of the mind through the use of mental techniques in order to prevent, treat, and even cure various medical conditions, particularly those exacerbated by stress such as hypertension, irregular heartbeats, anxiety, depression, phobias, insomnia, chronic pain, headaches, and various other somatic disorders. Since the 1970’s, he has been publishing research showing how mind/body strategies can improve a body’s physiology, biochemistry, brain functioning and even genetic activity. He maintains that every human being has the “God-given capacity of self-healing” that can be tapped into via transcendental meditation.14 This form of meditation produces the relaxation response, a “hypometabolic physiological state” that counteracts the effects of stress. Incidentally, Benson claims that many types of repetitive prayer are able to trigger the relaxation response while simultaneously triggering the equally powerful mind/body phenomenon of “expectation and belief.” That is, it produces a kind of placebo effect wherein one’s spiritual orientation or religious worldview reinforces one’s belief in the power of the mind to influence the body. The science behind this phenomenon is simple. Deep breathing mantras cause the body to release nitric oxide (NO) that protects the body from harmful bacteria, viruses, and illnesses related to stress. The choice of a focus word or phrase that is associated with one’s personal belief system serves to bolster the technique’s effectiveness. Medical journals and experienced therapists agree, “we can learn to bring the mind right into the body and inhabit the whole of it with awareness… we can shift our minds from doing to being—allowing for a different way of knowing.”15 14 Herbert Benson and William Proctor. “The Coming Relaxation Revolution: Introducing Evangelical Christians to the Science and Genetics of Mind Body Therapy.” CTR 8.1 (September 2010), 7. 15 Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal, and Jon KabatZinn. The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself From Chronic Unhappiness. (New York: The Guilford Press, 2007), 102–03.

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Such language is particularly reminiscent of the theology behind the Jesus Prayer, is it not? Clearly, there are a number of correlations between methods of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, mind/body therapy and the Eastern Orthodox “Prayer of the Heart.” All three methods are aimed at teaching people vigilance in their thought-life to the end of achieving an accurate perception of reality and liberation from the disastrous mental and physical consequences of dysfunctional thinking. The evidence is undeniable. It appears we are designed, all the way down to the genetic level, to experience the fullness of life made possible through the transformative power of a divine encounter within. Similarly, the Desert Fathers believed silence and unceasing prayer were like oxygen to the soul—without these, it would wither and die. In a manner of speaking, the Jesus Prayer functions as a kind of fountain of youth or rather, a fountain of transfiguration, reversing the effects of sin and death in our lives and transforming us into the image and likeness of the Divine, whereby we are fashioned into the eternal children of God we were destined to be since the beginning.



III.4.

ORTHOPRAXIS AND THEOSIS: THE ROLE OF RITUAL IN THE TRAINING OF THE MIND ANTHONY PERKINS PREAMBLE There are various ways of describing the road to theosis or the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. Vladimir Lossky describes the “ascent towards perfect union” as being composed of two inseparable stages: action and contemplation.1 Action, here meaning the ascetic disciplines of Orthodoxy, is the mechanism that tames the flesh.2 Right action eventually leads it to a state of stillness and immunity from the passions of the world.3 Contemplation is developed through acts of the intellect (to include apophaticism), but has as its goal an explicitly inactive state of quiet vigilance.4 This paper uses findings from the field of psychology (especially the work of Daniel Kahneman and Jonathan Haidt) and examples from parish life to describe how common Orthodox rituals do this work of stilling the passions so that contemplation can occur without outside distraction. It then goes on to explain how Orthopraxis can 1 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976), 202. 2 Ibid., 203. 3 Ibid., 199–200. 4 Ibid., 203–04.

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create a safe and sustainable spiritual state for those who are as of yet incapable of or unready for the advanced work of quiet vigilance. In this intermediate stage, ascetic disciplines tame the will, rituals strengthen the moral instincts, and positive theology imbues rituals with meaning, 5 thus allowing actions of the body and mind to work together in accordance with God's will and grace.6 The resulting state provides a safe and stable foundation for the next step of transformation. The paper ends with a call for an increased focus on Orthopraxis and ritual apologetics at the parish level.

INTRODUCTION The first time I read Vladimir Lossky’s The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, I assumed it was some sort of hazing ritual for inquirers. Subsequent iterations didn't prove that first instinct wrong, but it did demonstrate once again the value of Orthodox podvig. The lessons it and the material it introduced me to helped me take theology—and my spiritual life—more seriously. This appreciation only grew as I began to teach spirituality and theology at seminary and, more importantly, try to find ways to share its lessons as a parish priest. My first instinct as a pastor was to have classes on spiritual theology and hesychasm; there were some takers (there always are), and some continue to put the lessons into effect. But what about the other 99% of the people I served who weren’t interested? Assuming my experience was generalizable, what about most of the people in most of our parishes? I saw this as a huge pastoral problem: “union with God” was the goal of human life, but even seminarians had a hard time mastering the description of how it works. Was it possible that God only wanted union with people who could work their way through difficult texts and had the self-discipline necessary to live the kind of ascetic life they prescribe? Obviously, I was trying too hard.

5 Ibid., 189. 6 Ibid., 180.



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Orthodox Christianity is the fullness of the faith. It is designed as the way to theosis, not just for philosophers, academic theologians, and monks, but for every human being. This being true, active participation in the life of the Church should guide every believer towards theosis. Lossky is not raising the bar for sanctification, he is describing (as well as could be hoped) how Orthodoxy is able to deliver on its objective (or rather on God’s desire; e.g. John 17). Adherents of the Orthodox Way should naturally grow through cataphatic and apophatic knowledge of God, develop an intuition (and then real knowledge) about the distinction between God’s essence and energies, and finally know how God works to bring His people into His presence through personal experience. But is this really true? Are our parishes really full of men and women growing in the knowledge of God that comes from increasing union with him? I am not suspicious of the system, I am suspicious about our application of it. I am convinced that the answer is not, per my first inclination, to make mystical theology more accessible through classes, it is to reinvigorate the practice of Orthodoxy within our parishes. Here I do not just have in mind the kind of liturgical and sacramental revival that previous generations have called for; I think this is generally well understood and accepted. What I have in mind is doing the same work they did for the many ritual movements (e.g. crossings and prostrations) that move theological concepts into the lives and minds (and especially the instinctive part; i.e. the “reigns”) of ordinary believers. Because the written word really is sacramental and mysterious for academic theologians, the importance of ritual actions can fall off their radar; but for most people (i.e. to include those who read next to nothing… ever), these motions are central to their spiritual development (as they are—or at least should be—to academics, as well). In this paper, I will describe the way Orthodox rituals work as part of the Orthodox system7 to move believers through the stages of spiritual development (I break it into three) and protects them from heresy and idolatry. I will con-

7 Please note that this is not a complete account of theosis; ritual is only a small part of the life in Christ.

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clude with a description of ways in which priests and lay leaders can help ensure that parishes take Orthopraxis seriously and foster a ritual culture that will naturally lead its members towards sanctification and union with God.

THE COMPONENTS OF OUR MINDS AND THE STAGES OF THEIR DEVELOPMENT Orthodoxy divides the mind into three parts. Theologians give them different names, but for now let's think of them as the “gut”, the “brain”, and the “heart”. The first stage of spiritual development focuses on the training of the gut; the second continues that training, but adds the development of the brain; the third continues both of those, but focuses on the development of the heart. Stage One: Training the Gut; the Development of Moral Instinct Most Orthodox Christians enter the Church as infants. Given the physiology of these “new men”, it is not surprising that the Church focuses on the development of their gut. However, there are sound psychological and theological ones for training the gut first8: for most people most of the time, it is the instincts that drive decisions, especially moral ones. Moreover, if his instincts are poorly developed, some theological ideas will find no resonance within the mind of even the most sincere believer. All of this is born out by solid psychological research, and especially by work on slow vs. fast thinking and on moral decision making. The first set of findings that informs spiritual development describes the difference between deliberative and instinctive decision-making. Daniel Khaneman, the preeminent

8 The training of adult catachumens and newly christmated Orthodox Christians recognizes this, as well. Even the most intellectual of inquirers is encouraged to participate in parish life (and especially of worship) as soon as possible.



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researcher in this area, calls these “fast” or “system one” thinking and “slow” or “system two” thinking.9 In the schema of the mind described above (i.e. gut, brain, and heart), system one corresponds to the gut and system two corresponds to the brain. The important point, further developed by Jonathan Haidt,10 is that in moral reasoning, the default is for system one (i.e. the gut) to make the decision and system two (i.e. the brain) to serve as its advocate. The irony is that this process is invisible to the decision maker: the brain makes it seem to the thinker as though the decision came from objective analysis rather than instinct. This makes the training of the gut of paramount importance.11 The second set of findings that inform spiritual development also comes from the work of Jonathan Haidt (and this is his primary contribution to the field). His cross-cultural analysis has found that there are six main moral categories within the human gut: care vs. harm, fair vs. unfair, liberty vs. oppression, loyalty vs. betrayal, tradition/authority vs. subversion,

9 See especially his magnum opus; Daniel Khaneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Macmillan Publishers, 2011). While Khaneman's book is accessible to non-specialists, I also recommend Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (New York: Little Brown, 2007). 10 Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2012). Part One basically summarized Khaneman’s work and describes how it applies to moral psychology. 11 Orthopraxy can change this. One way of thinking of dispassion is of allowing system one to provide information without giving it control. Unfortunately, it seems all but impossible to know that one has achieved a sufficient level of dispassion. This is why discernment (like the scientific enterprise) requires both an individual and communal effort. The problem of teaching a brain theology without changing the gut is addressed below.

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and sanctity vs. depravity.12 Research has found that in America the first three categories are universal, while the second three “conservative”13 instincts are not. Liberals and conservatives may disagree about the application of the first three instincts (e.g. what sorts of policies cause harm, are fair, or support liberty), but they all recognize that care, fairness, and liberty are legitimate bases for making moral arguments. With regard to the last three categories, it isn’t so much that liberals and conservatives disagree about their application; liberals claim that moral arguments based on these instincts lack legitimacy. While this has many implications for improving empathy towards and understanding of the other (and this is one of the best things about Haidt's work), the point for us is that Orthodoxy assumes the full spectrum of moral instinct. Liberals can, of course, be Orthodox, but theological concepts involving tradition/authority, loyalty, and sanctity will lack resonance with them and, according to the research, these concepts will not receive the same weight as the “universal” virtues of care,14 fairness, and liberty in their reasoning. For example, conservatives and liberals can both agree that a prohibition on same-sex marriage is not fair in some objective legal sense, but conservatives will go on to claim that concerns of tradition and sanctity trump fairness, a claim that liberals will reject as having no moral merit. I exaggerated the differences between liberals and conservatives in the previous paragraph. The fact is that research shows that everyone's gut resonates to some degree with all 12 His TED talk on this research does not include one of the universal moral categories; liberty vs. oppression. https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind/ transcript?language=en. Accessed 8/24/2017. 13 Please note that I am not making any political points here; “liberal” in Haidt’s work applies to those who have the first three instincts but not (or at least less of) the second three; “conservatives” are those who feel all six instincts to be legitimate. 14 This is hardly a fatal flaw; “care” is by far the most cited virtue in the New Testament.



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six moral categories, but that the conservative categories have atrophied within the guts of liberals. Haidt compares the moral receptors to taste receptors (i.e. saltiness, sweetness, bitterness, sourness, and umami), pointing out that cultures vary in terms of how much they develop reception of each flavor.15 Stereotyping once again, WEIRD16 Americans, following the trend of the Reformation and Enlightenment, have long been dubious about the independent moral value of tradition/authority, loyalty, and sanctity/purity (more on this below). They might be willing to consider the utility of them, but they are not willing to give them their own moral weight. Nor has this been simply an ideological commitment; it has been re-enforced by a concomitant mistrust of the rituals that might support those virtues17. Society has long recognized how important rituals are in training the instincts. Stepping outside of the area of theology, the military has soldiers do the same things over and over again until their actions become automatic. Ditto for musicians and athletes. They do this because it works. And just as we can move actions and basic problem solving from System Two to System One (e.g. clearing the malfunction in a rifle or doing basic mathematics), rituals can build up the availability of each of the moral categories. This is similar to the way parents and teachers assign fairy tales and adventure stories to children; the expectation is that these will build up their moral imagination in a way that will make them more capable of understanding / intuiting virtue as adults. 15 Haidt, The Righteous Mind, chapter 6. Note that there is an issue of heredity involved. 16 WEIRD is an acronym for “Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic.” Henrich, Joseph, Steven Heine, and Ara. Norenzian, “The Weirdest People in the World?” Behav. Brain Sci. 33. 2– 3 (2010): 61–83. See also Haidt, The Righteous Mind, chapter 5. 17 Here I am stepping away from the work of moral psychologists and relying on the literature on habit and instinct formation. See Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business (New York: Random House, 2012).

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Orthodopraxy can be seen as a ritual system that does this important work.18 The way we move into and through the various areas of the church builds up our capacity to intuit sanctity; prostrations and kissing the hands of clergy build up our capacity to intuit authority; the fact that we come to Divine Liturgy every Sunday no matter what else is going on in our lives builds up our capacity to intuit loyalty.19 Table One: The Conservative Moral Instincts and Examples of Supporting Rituals Conservative Moral Instinct Tradition/Authority

Loyalty Sanctity/Purity

Supporting Ritual Prostrations, Hand Kissing, Attentiveness (even during long dull homilies!), the Structure of the Liturgy, the Architecture of the Worship Space Sacrificial Attendance, Distinctiveness, High Barriers to Entry Movement in Sacred Space, Behaviors Related to the Reception of Communion, Special Use of the Voice and Language in Church

Unfortunately, our broader society has little use or time for ritual, and especially religious ritual. We are all affected by the culture around us. Orthodoxy may thrive on ritual, but one cannot help but notice the way traditional practices have declined in American parishes and families. The effect this has on spiritual development is treated below. Stage Two: Training the Brain; giving words to the mind When I was providing intelligence support to undermine the Taliban in Afghanistan, every once in a while, seemingly out of 18 Note that I am not implying that this is ritual’s only purpose and more than I would claim that the pedagogical value of prayer its only purpose or utility. 19 I am focusing on the conservative virtues because our society seems to do fine at helping people intuit the universal virtues.



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nowhere, protests would erupt throughout the country. Sometimes these came soon after the media had shared news about the alleged desecration of the Koran. When I would ask analysts why people were so quick to protest the such things, they would point to things like the role of agitators and other secular factors or make the point that as Muslims, the people of Afghanistan consider the Koran to be holy. The latter was closer to the mark than the former (although secular factors are always important), but missed a vital point: the protesters did not just think of the Koran as being holy, they felt it to be holy in their gut. A violation of the Koran led to a visceral rather than intellectual reaction. Even the religious analysts I worked with had a hard time understanding this. Muslims are taught to revere the Koran from the earliest age, from how they listen to it (and memorize it) to how they handle it. It’s not something they learn from words; the actions themselves are the theological instruction and the instruction is effective. Similarly, if you are to ask any of our parishioners to name the three persons of the Holy Trinity, they will respond automatically. This is not because they have read theological books on the subject, but because from the time they could move their arms they have been taught to do so in a specific way every time they hear or say the words “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” The ontology of the Trinity is made real in the mind of ordinary believer through the ritual action of blessing. It is not something they learn from books or even from being told; the repetition of the words and actions themselves are the theological instruction, and the theological instruction is effective. Given the central role of the Trinity in our Unity with God20, this is reassuring; as discussed above, believers need not read Lossky et. al. to benefit from Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy itself is the path. People who experience theology primarily in their brain may need academic theology to get them headed in the right direction, but Orthodoxy is what it is, and it is effective. This does not mean that we can neglect training the brains of believers: we do. Blessing oneself has obvious theological content (especially when one does it as the Antiochians 20 Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 43 and Chapter Three.

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I know do, adding “One God” to the end), but not all of our rituals are self-explanatory (and even the Trinity could use some—but not too much—explanation!). Giving believers true words and concepts is not just important for their sanctification and protection, it is important for everyone's safety. As asserted above, Orthodoxy is fantastic at developing moral instincts. I can think of little more dangerous than someone who has a strongly attenuated capacity for moral instinct that has not been trained in its proper use. Remember, the default setting in moral reasoning is for instinct to come first and the rationalization for the decision to come second. The man who has, thanks to years of prostrations, attentive worship attendance, and hand kissing, developed a strong automatic deference to authority is dangerous if he has not also been trained that the only legitimate recipient of that automatic deference is God. Similarly, the instinctive bias towards loyalty and holiness can be and has been misdirected in horrific ways. This is why we cannot help but be sympathetic with the Western agenda to undermine conservative moral instincts and the rituals that might support them; liberals have chosen the most risk-adverse (i.e. conservative!) approach to the problem: focusing attention on the universal moral instincts (and on the bare or actual requirements of salvation) of care, fairness, and liberty while allowing the other categories to have intellectual but not visceral weight in decision-making. It may be worth noting that the removal or toning down of some conservative rituals and moral categories was intentional within the early generations of my own Ukrainian “Autocephalist” Orthodox tradition. As with the broader Western “liberal” movement, this is understandable: many of the pioneers of Ukrainian Orthodoxy in America, following the autocephalists in Ukraine, were reacting against the misuse of Church authority in the Russian Empire. This is not to say that the liberalizers were or are right. After all, it is easier to achieve success (in this case, union with God!) when all the constituent components of the mind are actively working towards the same goal. There are certain things that need to happen during this stage of training the mind. First, rituals need to be connected with their theological concepts. For example, the altar server



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that (Lord willing!) learned how to move and act within the altar and the nave as a young boy needs to be told, as soon as he can absorb it why the altar has such sacred gravity (he should be exposed to the ideas before this, but they won't mean much until he reaches the right place in his development);21 loyalty needs to be pointed towards the Christ, the Creed, and the Orthodox and Catholic Church in a way that is positive but not triumphalist; and deference towards authority and tradition must, as stated above, be tempered with skepticism when applied very far past God, the Holy Bible, and the Nicene Creed. Although this has less to do with ritual in way I am treating it in this paper, this is also the time when the theology and history of the various components of the Divine Liturgy should be taught. Obviously, there is more, but I think we generally understand how to do “regular” catechism. My main concern here is that we fill the spaces ritual has created within the guts of our youth with words that allow them to resonate with the right theological concepts in their brains. To the extent ritual has inherent theological content, it will, on its own protect the believer from heresy and other misapplications; but even so, cataphatic theology has an important role to play in the believer's union with God. There is another warning that I need to share. Just as the committed ritualist can be lead astray by his strong instincts, so it is with the committed intellectual (or even the believer who knows “just enough to be dangerous”). It is not the case that the gut will simply stay quiet in the mind of the man that has not trained it. The default would still be true: his gut would make the decision and his brain would justify it (all the while convincing him that he is objective and rational). When we give such a person more words and concepts all we have really 21 The same goes for the ritual movement through the nave of all the boys and girls. Special attention should be paid to explaining things in a way that discourages girls from intuiting or believing that they are less holy because they cannot serve in the altar etc. This is a case where ritual can actually be counter-productive if we are not careful!

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done is given him more tools for justifying his inherent prejudices. It is even worse when, after such a person has mastered all the requisite words and concepts, we grant him ecclesial or academic authority!22 In order to guard against this, further training of the gut and brain must take place during this stage, most especially the norms of humility, repentance, and patience. The rituals that support these norms go beyond regular confession and service to the ascetic disciplines of commitment to a prayer rule, to fasting, and to quiet. Stage Three: Taking Words Away Vladimir Lossky describes the “ascent towards perfect union” as being composed of two inseparable stages: action and contemplation.23 Action, here meaning the ascetic disciplines of Orthodoxy, is the mechanism that tames the flesh.24 I have described some of the ways that ritual, a subset of ascetic action, 22 A brief aside; when I worked in the intelligence community, one of my major responsibilities was teaching analysts 1) that their own flawed minds and the fog of war made objectivity and finding the truth about any given event all but impossible and 2) they needed to follow individual and collective procedures (similar to the scientific method and peer review) to work around and through these problems. I was still astounded by how many analysts and decision-makers acted as if their instincts and analyses were reliable (but those who disagreed with them were not). I have found the situation to be pretty much the same within “professional” Christianity. We spend a lot of time in seminary teaching our students that, 1) due to the fallenness of their own minds and the fog of spiritual war, their discernment was suspect and that 2) they needed to follow specific individual level (e.g. asceticism and humility) and collective (e.g. submitting to Tradition and ecclesial authority, having an experienced spiritual father, and having an informal council of friends, mentors, and advisors) procedures. However, I have been even more astounded than before at how many behave as though such things do not apply to them. 23 Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 202. 24 Ibid., 203.



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tames the gut.25 At least as important in training the mind is the ability to control (to include quieting) the gut (to include the passions) and the brain. This is how “right action” eventually leads the believer into to a state of stillness and immunity from the passions of the world.26 Contemplation is developed through acts of the intellect (to include apophaticism), but has as its goal an explicitly inactive state of quiet vigilance.27 During this stage, the ritual of hesychasm develops an instinct of quiet attentiveness, focus, and single-mindedness. It also seems to be the case that the other rituals, worship, and sacramental participation resonate more deeply for the believer as all three parts of His mind work in concert, subject to the heart which is itself increasingly informed by its access and proximity (and even union with) to God. There are myriad new dangers and temptations that occur during this stage and these are magnified to the extent that the previous two stages were skipped or poorly done. For example, Lossky follows others in using the image of Moses climbing into the darkness as a metaphor for the role of apophaticism in union with God. He points out that, at some point (it would be at the end of Stage Two and the beginning of Stage Three in the schema I have presented) words have a decreasing utility for the believer and that he needs to accept the unknowability of God. He argues that heresies like Originism come from “is always the result of forsaking the apophaticism which is truly characteristic of the whole tradition of the Eastern Church.”28 Unfortunately, while humility regarding positive knowledge of God is a sign of spiritual maturity and while apophaticism protects the believer from excessive imagination, it can be misapplied. Using the metaphor of the ascent, there is only One God and He dwells on His holy 25 The gut is not just the source of visceral morality, it is also the source of worldly passions. Were this a paper on theosis more generally, it would focus more on the use of asceticism in taming the passions than on the use of ritual for building up the theological mind. 26 Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 199–200. 27 Ibid., 203–04. 28 Ibid., 43.

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mountain. However, there are other mountains that are inhabited by other gods. We have all met people who have misunderstood and misapplied the fact of the unknowability of God and ended up on the wrong mountain with the wrong god. This is something that a well trained gut would warn one away from, especially when it is working with a well-trained brain (without a disciplined gut, the brain alone is capable of using words to clothe even the demons with the majesty of the Triune God).

CONCLUSION God desires the unity of his children and that they grow in union with Him. Through Christ and the Church that is His body, He has made this possible. Orthodoxy, to include the rituals of Orthopraxy, is the system or mechanism that makes what is theologically possible real. This is reassuring, but it also comes with a challenge. As leaders of the Church, it is our responsibility to ensure that the Orthodoxy that is offered in our parishes includes the fullness of the faith. This doesn't just mean proper theology, worship, and sacraments, it also means ensuring that the rituals of Orthodoxy are regular part of the parish culture and that they are repeatedly explained in a way that connects them to Orthodox theology. Moreover, catechism needs to ensure that all of the actions of Orthodoxy are similarly connected to its theology, and that the mature ascetic disciplines of patience, quiet, and watchfulness are fostered in all those who are ready.



INDICES SUBJECT INDEX Divine Energy (Energeia) 7, 36-40, 43, 49, 54, 56, 82-3, 133, 243 Economy (of Salvation) 30, 81-2, 88, 97, 120, 137-8, 157 Eighth Day 28-9, 41, 49 Equivocity 70, 74 Eucharist 4, 51, 119-20, 122, 130, 134, 137, 139, 141-2, 145-6, 148-50, 154-8, 165, 209, 244 Fantasia (See Imagination) Freedom 33, 43, 131, 156, 220 Hesychasm / Hesychastic 7, 117, 218-9, 221-2, 228230, 233-4, 246, 250, 261 Icon / Iconography 1, 7, 1478, 158-9, 162, 164, 171, 173-7, 180-1, 183-186, 188-9, 208 Iconoclasm / Iconoclast 148, 169-70 Illumination 61, 219, 228-30, 235 Imagination 5, 64, 172-3, 175-6, 178-9, 181-3, 185, 187, 255, 261

Analogy 67, 77-9, 96, 109-10, 158, Apophatic Theology / Apophasis / Apophaticism 6, 13-14, 16, 20-1, 23, 39, 67, 70, 72-3, 76, 80-2, 137, 235, 249, 251, 261 Asceticism / Ascesis 33, 49, 103, 111, 141, 145, 235 Avatar 194-5, 197-201, 205, 214 Baptism 91, 142, 147, 154, 157-9, 165, 244 Bio-Digital 201, 208, 214, 216 Cataphasis 234-5 Cognitive Behavioral Therapy 238, 241, 248 Communion 17, 24, 35, 37-8, 47, 49, 81, 89, 120-1, 1234, 127-8, 132-3, 136-7, 141-2, 145-6, 150, 155, 157-8, 165, 238, 244 Contemplation (See Theoria) Cyberbeing 194-5, 216 Deification 7, 23, 27-31, 34, 39, 41, 44-49, 52, 64, 2089, 216, 222, 225, 228, 233, 235-6, 238, 243-4, 249, 251

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Ineffable 2, 5-6, 31, 34, 46, 48, 54, 59, 62, 64, 72, 79, 83, 106, 186-7, 246 Jesus Prayer 221, 238-9, 2426, 248 Kingdom of God / of Heaven 2, 41-2, 119, 131-2, 135, 140-1, 147, 150-3, 156, 158, 160-7, 209, 246 Liturgy vii, 1, 4, 118-20, 122, 128-37, 139, 141-2, 147, 155, 158, 230, 235-6, 256, 259 Love (Agape, Eros, Philia) 3,16, 24, 28, 34-5, 37-8, 434, 47, 49, 64, 103, 106, 109, 119, 121-3, 128, 131-7, 139-142, 161-2, 211, 246 Mariology 87, 90 Marriage (Sacrament) 147, 149, 152, 161-2 Metaphor 21, 76, 99, 109, 180, 185, 261 Mystical Theology vii, 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 21, 23, 25, 34-6, 46, 49, 51-54, 58, 63, 66, 69, 71-2, 78, 82, 102, 117, 217, 250-1 Neoplatonism 3, 7, 11-2, 34, 37, 63, 65, 186 Oikonomia (See Economy of Salvation) Ontogenesis 197, 201, 206 Orthopraxis 249-50, 252 Philokalia 30, 32-3, 42, 118, 137, 242-3 Praxis / Practice: Spiritual, Sacramental, Mystical, Ascetical vii, 1, 27, 31-3, 35, 38, 44, 46, 48-9, 55, 104,

106-7, 109, 118, 153-4, 197, 212-3, 217-35, 238-9, 242, 246, 251, 256 Prayer of the Heart (see Jesus Prayer) Prototype 64, 79, 175-7, 1801, 184-5, 188 Purification 4, 21, 54, 60, 159, 225, 228-9, 235 Recapitulation / Restoration 85-9, 91-7, 126, 161, 228, 235 Ritual 2, 4, 120, 129, 141, 235, 249-52, 255-62 Sacraments 6-7, 24, 145-50, 153-4, 158, 165-6, 188, 230, 244, 262 Salvation 18, 24, 30, 89-91, 93-7, 112, 118, 120, 127, 131, 136-8, 155, 157-60, 167, 258 Spirituality 1, 29-30, 49, 118, 141-2, 145, 166, 225, 234, 242, 250 Stages of Spiritual Progress / Development 228-9, 234, 251, 260-1 Symbol / Symbolism 3-4, 15, 24, 28, 58, 61-2, 64, 12930, 133, 135-6, 139, 148, 159, 164, 209, 223, 226, 230, 232, 235 Theology / Theologia 18, 31, 34, 36, 46, 49, 53, 77, 81-2 Theoria / Contemplation 7, 31, 33-5, 45-6, 48-9, 51, 53, 59, 62, 106, 173, 188, 208, 216, 228-9, 235-6, 246, 249, 261 Theosis (see Deification)



INDICES

Transcendence 14, 16-8, 40, 61, 66, 72, 78, 197-9, 205, 209-11, 214, 224-5, 228, 235 Transcendental/s 18, 195, 197-8, 206-8, 214, 247 Transformative 29, 42-3, 46, 49, 224-5, 227, 229-31, 233-5, 246 Transformativity 219, 224, 230, 233-4 Trinity 3-4, 19-20, 30



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Typology 4, 86-8, 91-2, 95-7, 129, 135 Unijectivity 197-8, 214 Union with God / Mystical Union 2-3, 5-6, 21-4, 47, 51-3, 57, 60, 63, 67, 104, 106, 109, 131, 136, 142, 208, 229, 236, 246, 24952, 258-61 Univocal / Univocity 69-70, 73, 78, 82-3



INDEX OF NAMES Antony the Great 107 Aristotle 172, 176 Balthasar, Hans 27 Benson, Herbert 246-7 Constantine V 169-70, 172-3, 175-7, 188 Dubrovsky, Daniel 195, 1978, 200-5, 207-8, 213-16 Evagrius 29, 102, 107-8, 221 Florovsky, Georges 19 Gregory Nazianzus 29, 31, 213 Gregory of Nyssa 12-13, 5360, 63-4, 66-7, 69-70, 7280, 82-3, 101, 194, 210 Gregory Palamas 7, 14, 24, 222, 244 Haidt, Jonathan 249, 253-5 Iamblichus 173, 179, 186 Irenaeus of Lyons 85-98 Louth, Andrew 1

Lossky, Vladimir 1, 7, 16, 201, 42, 60, 65, 81-2, 217, 249-51. 257, 260-1 Mathewes-Green, Frederica 243 Maximus the Confessor 12, 27-41, 44-49, 152 McGuckin, John viii, Miola, Maria del Fiat 86, 90, 92 Nicephoros 171, 245 Origen of Alexandria 3, 29, 31 Plato 174, 178, 193, 208, 210, 245 Plotinus 3, 51, 63, 65, 173, 178, 185-6 Porphyry 182, 186 Proclus 3, 11, 63, 173 Pseudo-Dionysius 3, 7, 11-25, 29, 37, 53, 60-67, 71, 80, 180, 188 Sheppard, Anne 174



INDICES

Transcendence 14, 16-8, 40, 61, 66, 72, 78, 197-9, 205, 209-11, 214, 224-5, 228, 235 Transcendental/s 18, 195, 197-8, 206-8, 214, 247 Transformative 29, 42-3, 46, 49, 224-5, 227, 229-31, 233-5, 246 Transformativity 219, 224, 230, 233-4 Trinity 3-4, 19-20, 30



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Typology 4, 86-8, 91-2, 95-7, 129, 135 Unijectivity 197-8, 214 Union with God / Mystical Union 2-3, 5-6, 21-4, 47, 51-3, 57, 60, 63, 67, 104, 106, 109, 131, 136, 142, 208, 229, 236, 246, 24952, 258-61 Univocal / Univocity 69-70, 73, 78, 82-3



INDEX OF NAMES Antony the Great 107 Aristotle 172, 176 Balthasar, Hans 27 Benson, Herbert 246-7 Constantine V 169-70, 172-3, 175-7, 188 Dubrovsky, Daniel 195, 1978, 200-5, 207-8, 213-16 Evagrius 29, 102, 107-8, 221 Florovsky, Georges 19 Gregory Nazianzus 29, 31, 213 Gregory of Nyssa 12-13, 5360, 63-4, 66-7, 69-70, 7280, 82-3, 101, 194, 210 Gregory Palamas 7, 14, 24, 222, 244 Haidt, Jonathan 249, 253-5 Iamblichus 173, 179, 186 Irenaeus of Lyons 85-98 Louth, Andrew 1

Lossky, Vladimir 1, 7, 16, 201, 42, 60, 65, 81-2, 217, 249-51. 257, 260-1 Mathewes-Green, Frederica 243 Maximus the Confessor 12, 27-41, 44-49, 152 McGuckin, John viii, Miola, Maria del Fiat 86, 90, 92 Nicephoros 171, 245 Origen of Alexandria 3, 29, 31 Plato 174, 178, 193, 208, 210, 245 Plotinus 3, 51, 63, 65, 173, 178, 185-6 Porphyry 182, 186 Proclus 3, 11, 63, 173 Pseudo-Dionysius 3, 7, 11-25, 29, 37, 53, 60-67, 71, 80, 180, 188 Sheppard, Anne 174

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Stă niloae Dumitru 117-22, 124-35, 137-43 Steenberg, Matthew 86, 90, 92, 94, 96-7 Syncletica 99-113 Synesius of Cyrene 179



Theodore the Studite 171-7, 179-85, 187-8 Tollefsen, Torstein 38, 43 Törönen, Melchisedec 43 Thunberg, Lars 28, 35, 38, 434, 49