========================================================================
  FOLLOWING THE HOLY FATHERS AN ANTHOLOGY OF THEOLOGICAL ARTICLES
  by Fr Georges Florovsky
========================================================================

An anthology of theological articles by Fr. Georges Florovsky, the influential
20th-century Orthodox theologian, advocating a return to the patristic sources
as the foundation for authentic Christian theology.

  Chapters: 35

------------------------------------------------------------------------
  TABLE OF CONTENTS
------------------------------------------------------------------------

    1. 01 - Revelation and Interpretation
    2. 02 - The Lost Scriptural Mind
    3. 03 - The Work of the Holy Spirit in Revelation.
    4. 04 - Revelation, Philosophy and Theology
    5. 05 - The Idea of Creation in Christian Philosophy
    6. 06 - Creation & Creaturehood
    7. 06a - Creation & Creaturehood (Part 2)
    8. 07 - The Last Things & the Last Events
    9. 08 - The Incarnation & Redemption (Part 1)
   10. 08a - The Incarnation & Redemption (Part 2)
   11. 08b - The Incarnation & Redemption (Part 3)
   12. 09 - Cur Deus Homo? The Motive of the Incarnation
   13. 10 - The Catholicity of the Church
   14. 11 - The Church: Her Nature & Task
   15. 12 - Function of Tradition in the Ancient Church
   16. 13 - Authority of the Ancient Councils
   17. 14 - The Limits of the Church
   18. 15 - Scripture & Tradition: Orthodox Point of View
   19. 16 - St. Gregory Palamas & Tradition of Fathers
   20. 17 - The Ascetic Ideal & the NT (Part 1)
   21. 17a - The Ascetic Ideal & the NT (Part 2)
   22. 17b - The Ascetic Ideal & the NT (Part 3)
   23. 18 - The "Immortality" of the Soul
   24. 19 - The Darkness of Night
   25. 20 - The Sacrament of Pentecost
   26. 21 - The Work of the Holy Spirit in Revelation
   27. 22 - The Gospel of Resurrection
   28. 23 - The Ever-Virgin Mother of God
   29. 24 - On the Veneration of the Saints
   30. 25 - Faith & Culture
   31. 26 - Antinomies: Empire and Desert
   32. 27 - Christianity and Civilization
   33. 28 - The Social Problem in the Orthodox Church
   34. 29 - A Criticism of Lack of Concern for Doctrine
   35. 30 - The Fathers of the Church & the Old Testament

========================================================================
  CHAPTER 1: 01 - REVELATION AND INTERPRETATION
========================================================================

Revelation and Interpretation For what if some did not believe? Shall their
unbelief make the faith of God without effect? (Romans 3:3) Message and Witness.

What is the Bible? Is it a book like any other intended for any occasional
reader, who is expected to grasp at once its proper meaning? Rather, it is a
sacred book addressed primarily to believers. Of course, a sacred book can be
read by anyone as well, just ’as literature.’ But this is rather irrelevant to
our immediate purpose. We are concerned now not with the letter but with the
message. St. Hilary put it emphatically: Scriptura est non in legendo, sed in
intelli­gendo. [Scripture is not in the reading, but in the under­standing.] Is
there any definite message in the Bible, taken as a whole, as one book? And
again, to whom is this message, if any, properly addressed? To individuals, who
would be, as such, entitled to understand the book and to expound its message?
Or to the community, and to individuals only in so far as they are members of
that community?

Whatever the origin of particular documents included in the book may have been,
it is obvious that the book, as a whole, was a creation of the community, both
in the old dispensation and in the Christian Church. The Bible is by no means a
complete collection of all historical, legislative and devotional writings
available, but a selection of some, au­thorized and authenticated by the use
(first of all liturgical) in the community, and finally by the formal authority
of the Church. And there was some very definite purpose by which this
“selection” was guided and checked. “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the
presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are
written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that
believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:30-31). The same
applies, more or less, to the whole Bible. Certain writings have been selected,
edited and compiled, and brought together, and then commended to believers, to
the people, as an authorized version of the divine message. The message is
divine; it comes from God; it is the Word of God. But it is the faithful
community that acknowledges the Word spoken and testifies to its truth. The
sacred character of the Bible is ascertained by faith. The Bible, as a book, has
been composed in the community and was meant primarily for its edification. The
book and the Church cannot be separated. The book and the Covenant belong
together, and Covenant implies people. It was the People of the Covenant to whom
the Word of God had been entrusted under the old dispensation (Romans 3:2), and
it is the Church of the Word Incarnate that keeps the message of the Kingdom.
The Bible is the Word of God indeed, but the book stands by the testimony of the
Church. The canon of the Bible is obviously established and authorized by the
Church.

One has, however, not to overlook the missionary back­ground of the New
Testament. “The Apostolic Preaching,” therein embodied and recorded, had a
double purpose: the edification of the faithful and the conversion of the world.
Therefore the New Testament is not a community-book in the same exclusive sense
as the Old Testament surely was. It is still a missionary book. Yet it is no
less fenced-off from the outsiders. Tertullian’s attitude to the Scriptures was
typical. He was not prepared to discuss the controversial topics of the faith
with heretics on the Scriptural ground. Scriptures belonged to the Church.
Heretics’ appeal to them was unlawful. They had no right on foreign property.
Such was his main argument in the famous treatise: De prae­scriptione
haereticorum. An unbeliever has no access to the message, simply because he does
not “receive” it. For him there is no “message” in the Bible.

It was no accident that a diverse anthology of writings, composed at various
dates and by various writers, came to be regarded as a single book. Ta biblia is
of course plural but the Bible is emphatically singular. The scriptures are
indeed one Holy Scripture, one Holy Writ. There is one main theme and one main
message through the whole story. For there is a story. Or, even more, the Bible
itself is this story, the story of God’s dealings with his chosen people. The
Bible records first of all God’s acts and mighty deeds, Magnalia Dei. The
process has been initiated by God. There is a beginning and an end, which is
also a goal. There is a starting point: the original divine fiat - “in the
beginning” (Genesis 1:1). And there will be an end: “even so come” (Revelation
22:20). There is one composite and yet single story - ­from Genesis to
Revelation. And this story is history. There is a process going on between these
two terminal points. And this process has a definite direction. There is an
ultimate goal, an ultimate consummation is expected. Every particular moment is
correlated to both terms and has thereby its proper and unique place within the
whole. No moment therefore can be understood except in the whole context and
perspec­tive. God has spoken “at sundry times and in divers manners” (Hebrews
1:1). He was revealing himself through ages, not once, but constantly, again and
again. He was leading his people from truth to truth. There were stages in his
revela­tion: per incrementa. This diversity and variety should not be ignored or
overlooked. Yet it was ever the same God, and his ultimate message was ever the
same. It is the identity of this message that gives to the various writings
their real unity, despite the variety of manners. Different versions were taken
into the book as they stood. The Church has resisted all attempts to substitute
a single synthetic Gospel for four differing Gospels, to transform the
Tetraevangelion into a Dia-tessaron, in spite of the difficulties implied in the
“con­tradictions of the Evangelists” (with which St. Augustine was wrestling).
These four Gospels did secure the unity of the message well enough, and perhaps
in a more concrete form than any other compilation could afford. The Bible is a
book about God. But the God of the Bible is not Deus absconditus, but Deus
revelatus. God is manifest­ing and revealing himself. God intervenes in human
life. And the Bible is not merely a human record of these divine inter­ventions
and deeds. It is a kind of divine intervention itself. It carries with itself a
divine message. God’s deeds constitute themselves a message. No need therefore
to escape time or history in order to meet God. For God is meeting man in
history, i.e. in the human element, in the midst of man’s daily existence.
History belongs to God, and God enters human history. The Bible is intrinsically
historical: it is a record of the divine acts, not so much a presentation of
God’s eternal mysteries, and these mysteries themselves are available only by a
historical mediation. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son,
which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18). And he
declared him by entering history, in his holy incarnation. Thus the historical
frame of the revelation is not something that ought to be done away with. There
is no need to abstract revealed truth from the frame in which revelations took
place. On the contrary, such an abstraction would have abolished the truth as
well. For the Truth is not an idea, but a person, even the Incarnate Lord. In
the Bible we are struck by the intimate relation of God to man and of man to
God. It is an intimacy of the Covenant, an intimacy of election and adoption.
And this intimacy culminates in the incarnation. “God sent forth his Son, born
of a woman, born under the law” (Galatians 4:4). In the Bible we see not only
God, but man too. It is the revela­tion of God, but what is actually revealed is
God’s concern about man. God reveals himself to man, “appears” before him,
“speaks” and converses with him so as to reveal to man the hidden meaning of his
own existence and the ultimate purpose of his life. In Scripture we see God
coming to reveal himself to man, and we see man meeting God, and not only
listening to his voice, but answering him too. We hear in the Bible not only the
voice of God, but also the voice of man answering him - in words of prayer,
thanksgiving and adora­tion, awe and love, sorrow and contrition, exultation,
hope or despair. There are, as it were, two partners in the Coven­ant, God and
man, and both belong together, in the mystery of the true divine-human
encounter, which is described and recorded in the story of the Covenant. Human
response is integrated into the mystery of the Word of God. It is not a divine
monologue, it is rather a dialogue, and both are speaking, God and man. But
prayers and invocations of the worshipping psalmist are nevertheless “the Word
of God.” God wants, and expects, and demands this answer and response of man. It
is for this that he reveals himself to man and speaks to him. He is, as it were,
waiting for man to converse with him. He establishes his Covenant with the sons
of men. Yet, all this intimacy does not compromise divine sovereignty and
transcendence. God is “dwelling in light unapproachable” (1 Timothy 6:16). This
light, however, “lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9). This
constitutes the mystery, or the “paradox” of the revela­tion. Revelation is the
history of the Covenant. Recorded reve­lation, i.e. the Holy Scripture, is
therefore, above all, history. Law and prophets, psalms and prophecies, all are
included and, as it were, woven into the living historical web. Reve­lation is
not a system of divine oracles only. It is primarily the system of divine deeds;
one might say, revelation was the path of God in history. And the climax was
reached when God entered history himself, and for ever: when the Word of God was
incarnate and “made man.” On the other hand, the book of revelation is as well
the book of human destiny. First of all, it is a book which narrates the
creation, fall and salvation of man. It is the story of salvation, and therefore
man organically belongs to the story. It shows us man in his obedience and in
his obstinate rebellion, in his fall and in his restoration. And the whole human
fate is condensed and exemplified in the destiny of Israel, old and new, the
chosen people of God, a people for God’s own possession. The fact of election is
here of basic importance. One people has been elected, set apart from all other
nations, constituted as a sacred oasis in the midst of human disorder. With one
people on earth only did God establish his Cove­nant and grant his own sacred
law. Here only a true priesthood has been created, even though but a provisional
one. In this nation only true prophets were raised, who spoke words inspired by
the Spirit of God. It was a sacred, though hidden centre for the whole world, an
oasis granted by God’s mercy, in the midst of a fallen, sinful, lost and
un­redeemed world. All this is not the letter, but the very heart of the
Biblical message. And all this came from God, there was no human merit or
achievement. Yet, all this came for the sake of man, “for us men and for our
salvation.” All these privileges granted to the Israel of old were subordinate
to the ultimate purpose, that of a universal salvation: “For salvation is of the
Jews” (John 4:22). The redeeming pur­pose is ever universal indeed, but it is
being accomplished always by means of separation, selection or setting apart. In
the midst of human fall and ruin a sacred oasis is erected by God. The Church is
also an oasis still, set apart, though not taken out of the world. For again
this oasis is not a refuge or shelter only, but rather a citadel, a vanguard of
God. There is a centre in the Biblical story, or a crucial point on the line of
the temporal events. There is a new beginning within the process, which does
not, however, divide or cut it into parts, but rather gives to it an ultimate
cohesion and unity. The distinction between the two Testaments belongs itself to
the unity of the Biblical revelation. The two Testa­ments are to be carefully
distinguished, never to be confused. Yet they are organically linked together,
not as two systems only, but primarily in the person of the Christ. Jesus the
Christ belongs to both. He is the fulfiller of the old dispen­sation and by the
same act that he fulfills the old, “the Law and the prophets,” he inaugurates
the new, and thereby becomes the ultimate fulfiller of both, i.e. of the whole.
He is the very centre of the Bible, just because he is the archē and the telos -
the beginning and the end. And unexpectedly this mysterious identity of the
start, the centre and the goal, instead of destroying the existential reality of
time, gives to the time-process its genuine reality and full meaning. There are
no mere happenings which pass by, but rather events and achievements, and new
things are coming to existence, that which never existed before. “Behold I make
all things new” (Revelation 21:5). Ultimately, the Old Testament as a whole has
to be con­sidered as “a book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of
David, the Son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1). It was the period of promises and
expectation, the time of covenants and prophecies. It was not only the prophets
that prophesied. Events also were prophecies. The whole story was prophetical or
“typical,” a prophetical sign hinting forward towards ap­proaching consummation.
Now, the time of expectation is over. The promise had been accomplished. The
Lord has come. And he came to abide among his people for ever. The history of
flesh and blood is closed. The history of the Spirit is disclosed: “Grace and
truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). But it was an accomplishment, not
destruction of the old. Vetus Testamentum in Novo patet. [The Old Testament
extends into the New]. And patet means precisely: is revealed, disclosed,
fulfilled. Therefore, the books of the Hebrews are still sacred, even for the
new Israel of Christ - ­not to be left out or ignored. They tell us still the
story of salvation, Magnalia Dei. They do still bear witness to Christ. They are
to be read in the Church as a book of sacred history, not to be transformed into
a collection of proof-texts or of theological instances (loci theologici), nor
into a book of parables. Prophecy has been accomplished and law has been
superseded by grace. But nothing has passed away. In sacred history, “the past”
does not mean simply “passed” or “what had been,” but primarily that which had
been accomplished and fulfilled. “Fulfilment” is the basic category of
revelation. That which has become sacred remains consecrated and holy for ever.
It has the seal of the Spirit. And the Spirit breathes still in the words once
inspired by him. It is true, perhaps, that in the Church and for us now the Old
Testament is no more than a book, simply because the Law and the Prophets were
superseded by the Gospel. The New Testament is obviously more than a book. We do
belong to the New Testament ourselves. We are the People of the New Covenant.
For that reason it is precisely in the Old Testament that we apprehend
revelation primarily as the Word: we witness to the Spirit “that spake through
the prophets.” For in the New Testament God has spoken by his Son, and we are
called upon not only to listen, but to look at. “That which we have seen and
heard declare we unto you” (1 John 1:3). And, furthermore, we are called upon to
be “in Christ.” The fullness of revelation is Christ Jesus. And the New
Testament is history no less than the Old: the Gospel history of the Incarnate
Word and the beginnings of church history, and the apocalyptic prophecy too. The
Gospel is history. Historic events are the source and the basis of all Christian
faith and hope. The basis of the New Testament is facts, events, deeds - not
only teaching, commandments or words. From the very beginning, from the very day
of Pentecost, when St. Peter as an eye-witness (Acts 2:32 : “whereof we are all
witnesses,”martyres) witnessed to the fulfilment of salvation in the Risen Lord,
apostolic preaching had emphatically an historical character. By this historical
witness the Church stands. Creeds have an historical structure too, they refer
to the events. Again, it is a sacred history. The mystery of Christ is precisely
in that “in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians
2:9). This mystery cannot be comprehended within the earthly plane alone, there
is another dimension too. But historical boundaries are not obliterated, not
dimmed: in the sacred image historical features are dearly seen. Apostolic
preaching was always a narrative, a narrative of what had really happened, hic
et nunc. But what happened was ultimate and new: “The Word was made flesh” (John
1:14). Of course, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Ascension are
historical facts not quite in the same sense or on the same level as the
happenings of our own daily life. But they are no less historical for that, no
less factual. On the contrary, they are more historical - they are ultimately
eventful. They cannot obviously be fully ascertained except by faith. Yet this
does not take them out of the historical context. Faith only discovers a new
dimension, apprehends the historical datum in its full depth, in its full and
ultimate reality. The Evangelists and the Apostles were no chroniclers. It was
not their mission to keep the full record of all that Jesus had done, day by
day, year by year. They describe his life and relate his works, so as to give us
his image: an historic, and yet a divine image. It is no portrait, but rather an
ikon - but surely an historic ikon, an image of the Incarnate Lord. Faith does
not create a new value; it only discovers the inherent one. Faith itself is a
sort of vision, “the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 : St. John
Chrysostorn explains elenchos precisely as opsis). The “invisible” is no less
real than “visible” - rather more real. “And yet no man can say that Jesus is
the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost” (1 Corinthians 12:3). It means that the Gospel
itself can be apprehended in all its fulness and depth only in spiritual
experience. But what is discovered by faith is given in very truth. The Gospels
are written within the church. In this sense they are the witness of the Church.
They are records of church experience and faith. But they are no less historical
narratives and bear witness to what had really taken place, in space and in
time. If “by faith” we discover much more than what can be detected “by senses,”
this only discloses the utter inadequacy of “senses” in the knowledge of
spiritual matters. For what had really happened was the mighty deed of the
Redeeming God, his ultimate intervention in the stream of historical events. One
should not divorce the “fact” and the “meaning” - both are given in reality.

Revelation is preserved in the Church. Therefore, the Church is the proper and
primary interpreter of revelation. It is protected and reinforced by written
words; protected, but not exhausted. Human words are no more than signs. The
testimony of the Spirit revives the written words. We do not mean now the
occasional illumination of individuals by the Holy Ghost, but primarily the
permanent assistance of the Spirit given to the Church, that is “the pillar and
bulwark of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). The Scriptures need interpreta­tion. Not
the phrasing, but the message is the core. And the Church is the divinely
appointed and permanent witness to the very truth and the full meaning of this
message, simply because the Church belongs itself to the revelation, as the Body
of the Incarnate Lord. The proclamation of the Gospel, the preaching of the Word
of God, obviously belongs to the esse of the Church. The Church stands by its
testimony and witness. But this witness is not just a reference to the past, not
merely a reminiscence, but rather a continuous rediscovery of the message once
delivered to the saints and ever since kept by faith. Moreover, this message is
ever re-enacted in the life of the Church. Christ himself is ever present in the
Church, as the Redeemer and head of his Body, and continues his redeeming office
in the Church. Salvation is not only announced or proclaimed in the Church but
precisely enacted. The sacred history is still continued. The mighty deeds of
God are still being performed. Magnalia Dei are not circum­scribed by the past;
they are ever present and continued, in the Church and, through the Church, in
the world. The Church is itself an integral part of the New Testament message.
The Church itself is a part of revelation - the story of “the Whole Christ”
(totus Christus: caput et corpus, in the phrase of St. Augustine) and of the
Holy Ghost. The ultimate end of revelation, its telos, has not yet come. And
only within the experience of the Church is the New Testa­ment truly and fully
alive. Church history is itself a story of redemption. The truth of the book is
revealed and vindi­cated by the growth of the Body.

History and System.

We must admit at once that the Bible is a difficult book, a book sealed with
seven seals. And, as time runs on, it grows no easier. The main reason for that,
however, is not that the Book is written in an “unknown tongue” or contains some
“secret words that man may not repeat.” On the contrary, the very
stumbling-block of the Bible is its utter sim­plicity: the mysteries of God are
framed into the daily life of average men, and the whole story may seem to be
all too human. just as the Incarnate Lord himself appeared to be an ordinary
man.

The Scriptures are “inspired,” they are the Word of God. What is the inspiration
can never be properly defined - there is a mystery therein. It is a mystery of
the divine-human encounter. We cannot, fully understand in what manner “God’s
holy men” heard the Word of their Lord and how they could articulate it in the
words of their own dialect. Yet, even in their human transmission it was the
voice of God. Therein lies the miracle and the mystery of the Bible, that it is
the Word of God in human idiom. And, in whatever the manner we understand the
inspiration, one factor must not be overlooked. The Scriptures transmit and
preserve the Word of God precisely in the idiom of man. God spoke to man indeed,
but there was man to attend and to perceive. “Anthropomorphism” is thus inherent
in the very fact. There is no accommodation to human frailty. The point is
rather that the human tongue does not lose its natural features to become a
vehicle of divine revelation. If we want the divine word to ring clear, our
tongue - is not to leave off being human. What is human is not swept away by
divine inspira­tion, it is only transfigured. The “supernatural” does not
destroy what is “natural": hyper physin does not mean para physin. The human
idiom does not betray or belittle the splendour of revelation, it does not bind
the power of God’s Word. The Word of God may be adequately and rightly expressed
in human words. The Word of God does not grow dim when it sounds in the tongue
of man. For man is created in the image and likeness of God - this “analogical”
link makes communication possible. And since God deigned to speak to man, the
human word itself acquires new depth and strength and becomes transfigured. The
divine Spirit breathes in the organism of human speech. Thus it becomes possible
for man to utter words of God, to speak of God. “Theology” becomes possible -
theologia, i.e. logos peri theou. Strictly speaking, theology grows possible
only through revelation. It is the human response to God, who has spoken first.
It is man’s witness to God who has spoken to him, whose word he has heard, whose
words he has kept and is now recording, and repeating. Surely this response is
never complete. The­ology is ever in the process of formation. The basis and the
starting point are ever the same: the Word of God, the revelation. Theology
witnesses back to the revelation. It witnesses in divers manners: in creeds, in
dogmas, in sacred rites and symbols. But in a sense Scripture itself is the
pri­mary response, or rather Scripture itself is at once both the Word of God
and the human response - the Word of God mediated through the faithful response
of man. There is always some human interpretation in any Scriptural
presen­tation of the divine Word. So far it is always inescapably
“situation-conditioned.” Is it ever possible for man to escape his human
situation? The Church has summarized the Scriptural message in creeds, and in
many other ways and methods. Christian faith has developed or grown into a
system of beliefs and convictions. In any such system the inner structure of the
basic message is shown forth, all particular articles of faith are presented in
their mutual interdependence. Obviously, we need a system, as we need a map in
our travels. But maps refer to a real land. And any doctrinal system too must be
related to the revelation. It is of utter importance that the Church has never
thought of her dogmatic system as a kind of substitute for the Scriptures. Both
are to be kept side by side: a somewhat abstract or generalized presentation of
the main message in a creed or in a system, and all particular documents
referring to the concrete in­stances of revelation. One might say a system and
the history itself. Here a problem arises: how, and to what extent, can history
be framed into a system? This is the main problem of theological hermeneutics.
What is the theological use of the Bible? How should the divers and concrete
witnesses, covering hundreds of years, be used for the construction of a single
scheme? The Bible is one indeed, and yet it is, in fact, a collection of various
writings. We are not entitled to ignore that. The solution depends ultimately
upon our conception of history, upon our vision of time. The easiest solution
would have been indeed if we could simply over­look or overcome the diversity of
times, the duration of the process itself. Such a temptation faced Christianity
from an early date. It was at the root of all allegorical interpreta­tions, from
Philo and Pseudo-Barnabas to the new revival of allegorism in post-Reformation
times. It was a permanent temptation of all mystics. The Bible is regarded as a
book of sacred parables, written in a peculiar symbolical lan­guage, and the
task of exegesis is to detect their hidden meaning, to detect the eternal Word,
which happens to have been uttered in divers manners and under divers veils. The
historical truth and perspective are irrelevant in this case. Historical
concreteness is no more than a pictorial frame, a poetical imagery. One is in
search of eternal meanings. The whole Bible would be then reconstructed into a
book of edifying examples, of glorious symbols, which point out the
supertemporal truth. Is not the truth of God ever the same, identical and
eternal? In that mood, it is but natural to look in the Old Testament for the
evidences of all distinctive Christian beliefs and convic­tions. Two Testaments
are as it were melted into one, super-temporal, and their distinctive marks
obliterated. The dangers and shortcomings of such a hermeneutical approach are
too obvious to need an extensive refutation. But the only real remedy against
this temptation would be the restoration of historical insight. The Bible is
history, not a system of belief, and should not be used as a summa theologiae.
At the same time, it is not history of human belief, but the history of the
divine revelation. The basic problem remains, however, still unsolved: for what
purpose do we need both system and history? By what reason and for what purpose
did the Church keep them always to­gether? Again, the easiest answer to this
question is the­ least satisfactory: one may suggest at once that the
Scrip­tures are the only authentic record of the revelation, and everything else
is no more than a commentary thereupon. And commentary can never have the same
authority as the original record. There is some truth in this suggestion, but
the true difficulty we have to face is elsewhere. Why are not the earlier stages
of the revelation superseded by the later ones? Why do we still need the law and
the prophets even in the new covenant of Christ, and, to a certain extent, on
the same level of authority as the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament
writings? I mean, as chapters of the same unique book, as it were. For,
obviously, they are included in the canon of Scripture, not as historical
documents only, not as chapters on the stages of history already passed away.
This applies particularly to the Old Testament. “For all the prophets and the
law prophesied until John” (Matthew 11:13). Why do we still keep both the law
and the prophets, and in what sense? What can be the right use of the Old
Testament in the Church of Christ? First of all, it needs to be an historical
use. Yet, again this history is a sacred history - not a history of human
convictions and their evolution, but a history of the mighty deeds of God. And
these deeds are not disconnected ir­ruptions of God into human life. There was
an intimate unity and cohesion. They led and guided the chosen people into God’s
supreme purpose, unto Christ. Therefore, in a sense, the earlier ones were
reflected, as it were, or im­plied in the later ones. There was a continuity of
the divine action, as there was an identity of the goal and purpose as well.
This continuity is the basis of what was called the “typological”
interpretation. Patristic terminology was at that point rather fluent. Still,
there was always a clear distinction between two methods and approaches.
“Allegory” was an exegetical method indeed. An allegorist dealt pri­marily with
the texts; he searched out the hidden and ul­timate meaning of Scriptural
passages, sentences and even particular words, behind and beneath “the letter.”
On the contrary, “typology” was not an exegesis of the texts them­selves, but
rather an interpretation of the events. It was an historical, and not merely a
philological method. It was the inner correspondence of the events themselves in
the two Testaments that had to be detected, established and brought forward. A
typologist looked not for the “parallels” or similarities. And not every event
of the Old Testament has its “correspondence” in the New. Yet there are certain
basic events in the old dispensation which were the “figures” or “types” of the
basic events in the new. Their “corres­pondence” was of divine appointment: they
were, as it were, stages of a single process of the redemptive Provid­ence. In
this manner “typology” was practiced already by St. Paul (if under the name of
an “allegory”: Galatians 4:24 : Hatina estin allegoroumena). There is an
identical purpose of God behind all his mighty interventions, and in full it has
been revealed in Christ. St. Augustine put it very clearly: “in ipso facto, non
solum in dicto, mysterium requirere debemus [We ought to seek the mystery not
just in word, but in the fact itself] (inPsalms 68:1-35, sermo, 2, 6). And “the
mystery” of the Old Testament was Christ; not only in the sense that Moses or
the prophets “spoke” of him, but pri­marily because the whole stream of sacred
history was divinely oriented towards him. And in this sense he was the
fulfilment of all prophecies. For that reason, it is only in the light of Christ
that the Old Testament can be pro­perly understood and its “mysteries” unveiled
- they were, in fact, unveiled by the coming of him “who should come.” The true
prophetic meaning of the prophecies is clearly seen only, as it were, in
retrospect, after they have been actually fulfilled. An unaccomplished prophecy
is always dim and enigmatic (so are the prophecies of the Book of Revelation,
which point to what is still to come, “at the end”). But it does not mean that
we simply put arbitrarily a new meaning into the old text: the meaning was
there, though it could not yet be seen clearly. When, for instance, we, in the
Church, identify the Suffering Servant (in the Book of Isaiah) as Christ the
crucified, we do not simply “apply” an Old Testament vision to a New ’Testament
event: we detect the meaning of the vision itself, although this meaning surely
could not have been clearly identified in the times preceding Christ. But what
had been first just a vision (i.e. an “anticipation”) has become an historical
fact. Another point is of utter importance. For an “allegorist” the “images” he
interprets are reflections of a pre-existing prototype, or even images of some
eternal or abstract “truth.” They are pointing to something that is outside of
time. On the contrary, typology is oriented towards the future. The “types” are
anticipations, pre-figurations; their “prototype” is still to come. Typology is
thus an historical method, more than a philological one. It presupposes and
implies intrinsically the reality of history, directed and guided by God. It is
organically connected with the idea of the covenant. Here the past, the present
and the future are linked in a unity of divine purpose, and the purpose was
Christ. Therefore typology has emphatically a Christological meaning (the Church
is included here, as the Body and the Bride of Christ). In practice, of course,
a true balance was never strictly kept. Even in patristic use typology was
variously contaminated by allegorical deviations or accre­tions, especially in
the devotional and homiletic use. What is, however, of importance is that in the
catechetical tradi­tion of the Early Church, closely related to the
administration of the sacraments, this balance was always kept. This was the
tradition of the Church, and deviations were due more to the curiosity or
imagination of individual scholars. The Church was, in full sobriety,
historically minded. Along with a presentation of the doctrine (i.e. a system)
the Holy Bible was always read in the churches, with the deliberate purpose of
reminding the faithful of the historical basis and back­ground of their faith
and hope. St. Augustine suggested that the prophets spoke of the Church even
more clearly than of Christ himself, i.e. of the Messiah (inPsalms 30:2,
enarratio, 2, M.L., 36, 244). In a sense, this was only natural. For there was
already a Church. Israel, the chosen people, the people of the covenant, was
much more a Church than a nation, like other “nations.” Ta ethne,nationes or
gentes - these kindred terms were used in the Bible (and later) precisely to
describe the heathen or pagans in contrast to the only nation or people that was
also (and primarily) a Church of God. The Law was given to Israel just in her
capacity as a Church. It embraced the whole life of the people, the “temporal”
as well as the “spiritual,” precisely because the whole of human existence had
to be regulated by the divine precepts. And the division of life into “temporal”
and “spiritual” departments is, strictly speaking, precarious. In any case,
Israel was a divinely con­stituted community of believers, united by the Law of
God, the true faith, sacred rites and hierarchy - we find here all elements of
the traditional definition of the Church. The old dispensation has been,
accomplished in the new, the covenant has been reconstituted, and the old Israel
was rejected, because of her utter unbelief: she missed the day of her
visitation. The only true continuation of the old cove­nant was in the Church of
Christ (let us remember that both terms are of Hebrew origin: the Church is
qahal and Christ means Messiah). She is the true Israel, kata pneuma. In this
sense already St. Justin emphatically rejected the idea that the Old Testament
was a link holding together the Church and the Synagogue. For him the opposite
was true. All Jewish claims were to be formally rejected: the Old Testament no
longer belonged to the Jews, as they had not believed in Christ Jesus. The Old
Testament belonged now to the Church alone. Nobody could any longer claim Moses
and the pro­phets, if he was not with Jesus the Christ. For the Church was the
New Israel and the only heir of the promises of old. A new and important
hermeneutical principle was implied in these rigoristic utterances of the early
Christian apologist. The Old Testament was to be read and interpreted as a book
of the Church. The book on the Church, we should add. The Law was superseded by
the truth, and in it has found its accomplishment, and thereby was abrogated. It
no longer had to be imposed upon the new converts. The New Israel had its own
constitution. This part of the Old Testament was antiquated. It proved to be
basically “situation-condi­tioned” - not so much in the sense of a general
historical relativity as in a deeper providential sense. The new redemp­tive
situation had been created or inaugurated by the Lord: a new situation in the
sacred perspective of salvation. Every­thing that belonged essentially to the
previous stage or phase had now lost its meaning, or rather kept its meaning as
a prefiguration only. Even the Decalogue perhaps was not exempt from this rule
and was overruled by the “new com­mandment.” The Old Testament is now to be used
solely in its relation to the Church. Under the old dispensation the Church was
limited to one nation. In the new all national discriminations are emphatically
abrogated: there is no more distinction between a Jew and a Greek - all are
indiscriminate­ly in the same Christ. In other words, one has no right to
isolate certain elements of the old dispensation, apart from their immediate
relation to the life of the Church, and set them as a Scriptural pattern for the
temporal life of the nations. The old Israel was a provisional Church, but she
was not a pattern nation. One may put it this way. Obviously, we can learn a lot
from the Bible on social justice - this was a part of the message of the Kingdom
to come. We can learn a lot about a particular political, social and economic
organization of the Jews through the ages. All that may possibly be of great
help in our sociological discussions. And yet it is hardly permissible to detect
in the Bible (viz. in the Old Testament) any permanent or ideal pattern of
political or economic settlement for the present or for any other historical
realm at all. We may learn quite a lot from Hebrew history. This will, however,
be only a historical lesson, not a theological one. Biblical fundamentalism is
no better in sociology than anywhere else. The Bible is no authority on social
science, as it is no authority on astronomy. The only sociological lesson that
can be extracted from the Bible is precisely the fact of the Church, the Body of
Christ. But no reference to the Bible in “temporal” affairs can be regarded as a
“Scriptural evidence.” There are “Scriptural evidences” only in theology. It
does not mean that no guidance whatever can be found or even sought there in the
Bible. In any case, such a search will not be a “theological use” of the Bible.
And perhaps the lessons of the old Hebrew history are on the same level as any
other lessons of the past. We have to distinguish more carefully between what
was permanent and what was but provisional (or “situation-conditioned”) in the
old covenant (and first of all we have to overcome its national limitations).
Otherwise we would be in danger of overlooking what was new in the new covenant.
In the New Testament itself we have to make a clear distinction between its
historical and prophetical aspects too. The true theme of the whole Bible is
Christ and his Church, not nations or societies, nor the sky and the earth. The
old Israel was the “type” of the new, i.e. of the Church Universal, not of any
particular or occasional nation. The national frame of the provisional Church
has been done away by the universality of salvation. There is, after Christ, but
one “nation,” the Christian nation, genus Christianum - in the ancient phrase,
tertium genus - i.e. precisely the Church, the only people of God, and no other
national description can claim any further Scriptural warrant: national
differences belong to the order of nature and are irrelevant in the order of
grace. The Bible is complete. But the sacred history is not yet completed. The
Biblical canon itself includes a prophetical Book of Revelation. There is the
Kingdom to come, the ultimate consummation, and therefore there are prophecies
in the New Testament as well. The whole being of the Church is in a sense
prophetical. Yet, the future has a different meaning postChristum natum. The
tension between present and future has in the Church of Christ another sense and
character than it had under the old dispensation. For Christ is no more in the
future only, but also in the past, and therefore in the present also. This
eschatological perspective is of basic importance for the right understanding of
the Scriptures. All hermeneutical “principles” and “rules” should be re-thought
and re-examined in this eschatological perspec­tive. There are two major dangers
to be avoided. On the one hand, no strict analogy can be established between the
two Testaments, their “covenantal situations” being pro­foundly different: they
are related as “the figure” and “the truth.” It was a traditional idea of
patristic exegesis that the Word of God was revealing himself continuously, and
in divers manners, throughout the whole of the Old Testament. Yet all these
theophanies of old should never be put on the same level or in the same
dimension as the incarnation of the Word, lest the crucial event of redemption
is dissolved into an allegorical shadow. A “type” is no more than a “shadow” or
image. In the New Testament we have the very fact. The New Testament therefore
is more than a mere “figure” of the Kingdom to come. It is essentially the realm
of accomplishment. On the other hand, it is premature to speak of a “realized
eschatology,” simply because the very eschaton is not yet realized: sacred
history has not yet been closed. One may prefer the phrase: “the inaugurated
eschat­ology.” It renders accurately the Biblical diagnosis - the crucial point
of the revelation is already in the past. “The ultimate” (or “the new”) had
already entered history, although the final stage is not yet attained. We are no
more in the world of signs only, but already in the world of reality, yet under
the sign of the Cross. The Kingdom has been already inaug­urated, but not yet
fulfilled. The fixed canon of Scripture itself symbolizes an accomplishment. The
Bible is closed just because the Word of God has been incarnate. Our ultimate
term of reference is now not a book, but a living person. Yet the Bible still
holds its authority - not only as a record of the past, but also as a
prophetical book, full of hints, pointing to the future, to the very end. The
sacred history of redemption is still going on. It is now the history of the
Church that is the Body of Christ. The Spirit-Comforter is already abiding in
the Church. No complete system of Christian faith is yet possible, for the
Church is still on her pilgrimage. And the Bible is kept by the Church as a book
of history to remind believers of the dynamic nature of the divine revelation,
“at sundry times and in divers manners.”


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 2: 02 - THE LOST SCRIPTURAL MIND
========================================================================

The Lost Scriptural Mind “As the Truth is in Jesus” (Ephesians 4:21).

Christian ministers are not supposed to preach their private opinions, at least
from the pulpit. Ministers are commissioned and ordained in the church precisely
to preach the Word of God. They are given some fixed terms of reference -
namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ - and they are committed to this sole and
perennial message. They are expected to propagate and to sustain “the faith
which was once delivered unto the saints.” Of course, the Word of God must be
preached “efficiently.” That is, it should always be so presented as to carry
conviction and command the allegiance of every new generation and every
particular group. It may be restated in new categories, if the circumstances
require. But, above all, the identity of the message must be preserved.

One has to be sure that one is preaching the same gospel that was delivered and
that one is not introducing instead any “strange gospel” of his own. The Word of
God cannot be easily adjusted or accommodated to the fleeting customs and
attitudes of any particular age, including our own time. Unfortunately, we are
often inclined to measure the Word of God by our own stature, instead of
checking our mind by the stature of Christ. The “modern mind” also stands under
the judgment of the Word of God.

Modern Man and Scripture.

But it is precisely at this point that our major difficulty begins. Most of us
have lost the integrity of the scriptural mind, even if some bits of biblical
phraseology are retained. The modern man often complains that the truth of God
is offered to him in an “archaic idiom” - i.e., in the language of the Bible -
which is no more his own and cannot be used spontaneously. It has recently been
suggested that we should radically “demythologize” Scripture, meaning to replace
the antiquated categories of the Holy Writ by something more modern. Yet the
question cannot be evaded: Is the language of Scripture really nothing else than
an accidental and external wrapping out of which some “eternal idea” is to be
extricated and disentangled, or is it rather a perennial vehicle of the divine
message, which was once delivered for all time? We are in danger of losing the
uniqueness of the Word of God in the process of continuous “reinterpretation.”
But how can we interpret at all if we have forgotten the original language?
Would it not be safer to bend our thought to the mental habits of the biblical
language and to relearn the idiom of the Bible? No man can receive the gospel
unless he repents - “changes his mind.” For in the language of the gospel
“repentance” (metanoeite) does not mean merely acknowledgment of and contrition
for sins, but precisely a “change of mind” - a profound change of man’s mental
and emotional attitude, an integral renewal of man’s self, which begins in his
self-renunciation and is accomplished and sealed by the Spirit. We are living
now in an age of intellectual chaos and disintegration. Possibly modern man has
not yet made up his mind, and the variety of opinions is beyond any hope of
reconciliation. Probably the only luminous signpost we have to guide us through
the mental fog of our desperate age is just the “faith which was once delivered
unto the saints,” obsolete or archaic as the idiom of the Early Church may seem
to be, judged by our fleeting standards.

Preach the Creeds!

What, then, are we going to preach? What would I preach to my contemporaries “in
a time such as this?” There is no room for hesitation: I am going to preach
Jesus, and him crucified and risen. I am going to preach and to commend to all
whom I may be called to address the message of salvation, as it has been handed
down to me by an uninterrupted tradition of the Church Universal. I would not
isolate myself in my own age. In other words, I am going to preach the
“doctrines of the creed.” I am fully aware that creeds are a stumbling block for
many in our own generation. “The creeds are venerable symbols, like the tattered
flags upon the walls of national churches; but for the present warfare of the
church in Asia, in Africa, in Europe and America the creeds, when they are
understood, are about as serviceable as a battle-ax or an arquebus in the hands
of a modern soldier.” This was written some years ago by a prominent British
scholar who is a devout minister too. Possibly he would not write them today.
But there are still many who would wholeheartedly make this vigorous statement
their own. Let us remember, however, that the early creeds were deliberately
scriptural, and it is precisely their scriptural phraseology that makes them
difficult for the modern man. Thus we face the same problem again: What can we
offer instead of Holy Scripture? I would prefer the language of the Tradition,
not because of a lazy and credulous “conservatism” or a blind “obedience” to
some external “authorities,” but simply because I cannot find any better
phraseology. I am prepared to expose myself to the inevitable charge of being
“antiquarian” and “fundamentalist.” And I would protest that such a charge is
gratuitous and wrong. I do keep and hold the “doctrines of the creed,”
conscientiously and wholeheartedly, because I apprehend by faith their perennial
adequacy and relevance to all ages and to all situations, including “a time such
as this.” And I believe it is precisely the “doctrines of the creed” that can
enable a desperate generation like ours to regain Christian courage and vision.
The Tradition Lives.

“The church is neither a museum of dead deposits nor a society of research.” The
deposits are alive - depositum juvenescens, to use the phrase of St. Irenaeus.
The creed is not a relic of the past, but rather the “sword of the Spirit.” The
reconversion of the world to Christianity is what we have to preach in our day.
This is the only way out of that impasse into which the world has been driven by
the failure of Christians to be truly Christian. Obviously, Christian doctrine
does not answer directly any practical question in the field of politics or
economics. Neither does the gospel of Christ. Yet its impact on the whole course
of human history has been enormous. The recognition of human dignity, mercy and
justice roots in the gospel. The new world can be built only by a new man.

What Chalcedon Meant.

“And was made man.” What is the ultimate connotation of this creedal statement?
Or, in other words, who was Jesus, the Christ and the Lord? What does it mean,
in the language of the Council of Chalcedon, that the same Jesus was “perfect
man” and “perfect God,” yet a single and unique personality? “Modern man” is
usually very critical of that definition of Chalcedon. It fails to convey any
meaning to him. The “imagery” of the creed is for him nothing more than a piece
of poetry, if anything at all. The whole approach, I think, is wrong. The
“definition” of Chalcedon is not a metaphysical statement, and was never meant
to be treated as such. Nor was the mystery of the Incarnation just a
“metaphysical miracle.” The formula of Chalcedon was a statement of faith, and
therefore cannot be understood when taken out of the total experience of the
church. In fact, it is an “existential statement.” Chalcedon’s formula is, as it
were, an intellectual contour of the mystery which is apprehended by faith. Our
Redeemer is not a man, but God himself. Here lies the existential emphasis of
the statement. Our Redeemer is one who “came down” and who, by “being made man,”
identified himself with men in the fellowship of a truly human life and nature.
Not only the initiative was divine, but the Captain of Salvation was a divine
Person. The fullness of the human nature of Christ means simply the adequacy and
truth of this redeeming identification. God enters human history and becomes a
historical person. This sounds paradoxical. Indeed there is a mystery: “And
without controversy great is the mystery of godliness; God was manifested in the
flesh.” But this mystery was a revelation; the true character of God had been
disclosed in the Incarnation. God was so much and so intimately concerned with
the destiny of man (and precisely with the destiny of every one of “the little
ones”) as to intervene in person in the chaos and misery of the lost life. The
divine providence therefore is not merely an omnipotent ruling of the universe
from an august distance by the divine majesty, but a kenosis, a
“self-humiliation” of the God of glory. There is a personal relationship between
God and man.

Tragedy in a New Light.

The whole of the human tragedy appears therefore in a new light. The mystery of
the Incarnation was a mystery of the love divine, of the divine identification
with lost man. And the climax of Incarnation was the cross. It is the turning
point of human destiny. But the awful mystery of the cross is comprehensible
only in the wider perspective of an integral Christology; that is, only if we
believe that the Crucified was in very truth “’the Son of the living God.” The
death of Christ was God’s entrance into the misery of human death (again in
person), a descent into Hades, and this meant the end of death and the
inauguration of life everlasting for man. There is an amazing coherence in the
body of the traditional doctrine. But it can be apprehended and understood only
in the living context of faith, by which I mean in a personal communion with the
personal God. Faith alone makes formulas convincing; faith alone makes formulas
live. “It seems paradoxical, yet it is the experience of all observers of
spiritual things: no one profits by the Gospels unless he be first in love with
Christ.” For Christ is not a text but a living Person, and he abides in his
body, the church. A New Nestorianism.

It may seem ridiculous to suggest that one should preach the doctrine of
Chalcedon “in a time such as this.” Yet it is precisely this doctrine - that
reality to which this doctrine bears witness - that can change the whole
spiritual outlook of modern man. It brings him a true freedom. Man is not alone
in this world, and God is taking personal interest in the events of human
history. This is an immediate implication of the integral conception of the
Incarnation. It is an illusion that the Christological disputes of the past are
irrelevant to the contemporary situation. In fact, they are continued and
repeated in the controversies of our own age. Modern man, deliberately or
subconsciously, is tempted by the Nestorian extreme. That is to say, he does not
take the Incarnation in earnest. He does not dare to believe that Christ is a
divine person. He wants to have a human redeemer, only assisted by God. He is
more interested in human psychology of the Redeemer than in the mystery of the
divine love. Because, in the last resort, he believes optimistically in the
dignity of man. A New Monophysitism.

On the other extreme we have in our days a revival of “monophysite” tendencies
in theology and religion, when man is reduced to complete passivity and is
allowed only to listen and to hope. The present tension between “liberalism” and
“neo-orthodoxy” is in fact a re-enactment of the old Christological struggle, on
a new existential level and in a new spiritual key. The conflict will never be
settled or solved in the field of theology, unless a wider vision is acquired.
In the early church the preaching was emphatically theological. It was not a
vain speculation. The New Testament itself is a theological book. Neglect of
theology in the instruction given to laity in modern times is responsible both
for the decay of personal religion and for that sense of frustration which
dominates the modern mood. What we need in Christendom “in a time such as this”
is precisely a sound and existential theology. In fact, both clergy and the
laity are hungry for theology. And because no theology is usually preached, they
adopt some “strange ideologies” and combine them with the fragments of
traditional beliefs. The whole appeal of the “rival gospel” in our days is that
they offer some sort of pseudo theology, a system of pseudo dogmas. They are
gladly accepted by those who cannot find any theology in the reduced
Christianity of “modern” style. That existential alternative which many face in
our days has been aptly formulated by an English theologian, “Dogma or… death.”
The age of a-dogmatism and pragmatism has closed. And therefore the ministers of
the church have to preach again doctrines and dogmas - the Word of God. The
Modern Crisis.

The first task of the contemporary preacher is the “reconstruction of belief.”
It is by no means an intellectual endeavor. Belief is just the map of the true
world, and should not be mistaken for reality. Modern man has been too much
concerned with his own ideas and convictions, his own attitudes and reactions.
The modern crisis precipitated by humanism (an undeniable fact) has been brought
about by the rediscovery of the real world, in which we do believe. The
rediscovery of the church is the most decisive aspect of this new spiritual
realism. Reality is no more screened from us by the wall of our own ideas. It is
again accessible. It is again realized that the church is not just a company of
believers, but the “Body of Christ.” This is a rediscovery of a new dimension, a
rediscovery of the continuing presence of the divine Redeemer in the midst of
his faithful flock. This discovery throws a new flood of light on the misery of
our disintegrated existence in a world thoroughly secularized. It is already
recognized by many that the true solution of all social problems lies somehow in
the reconstruction of the church. “In a time such as this” one has to preach the
“whole Christ,” Christ and the church - totus Christus, caput et corpus, to use
the famous phrase of St. Augustine. Possibly this preaching is still unusual,
but it seems to be the only way to preach the Word of God efficiently in a
period of doom and despair like ours. The Relevance of the Fathers.

I have often a strange feeling. When I read the ancient classics of Christian
theology, the fathers of the church, I find them more relevant to the troubles
and problems of my own time than the production of modern theologians. The
fathers were wrestling with existential problems, with those revelations of the
eternal issues which were described and recorded in Holy Scripture. I would risk
a suggestion that St. Athanasius and St. Augustine are much more up to date than
many of our theological contemporaries. The reason is very simple: they were
dealing with things and not with the maps, they were concerned not so much with
what man can believe as with what God had done for man. We have, “in a time such
as this,” to enlarge our perspective, to acknowledge the masters of old, and to
attempt for our own age an existential synthesis of Christian experience.

“The Lost Scriptural Mind” originally appeared in the December 19, 1951 issue
ofThe Christian Centuryas “As the Truth is in Jesus.” Copyright by The Christian
Century Foundation.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 3: 03 - THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN REVELATION.
========================================================================

The Work of the Holy Spirit in Revelation. From “The Christian East” Journal
Vol. XIII No. 2 (pages 49-64) 1932 “Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today
and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8)

It is always the first definitions which are the most difficult. Here we have
nothing to which we can refer, nothing from which we can draw deductions. We
must not prove, but show; we must look and see.

And just now I am very keenly conscious of the difficulty of speaking of initial
principles.

Revelation is a primordial fact, the initial gift of Christianity, of Christian
life and faith. “But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the
Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God... The things of God
knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10-11). And again: “No
man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost” (1 Corinthians 12:3).

In our usual conception of Revelation there is a certain heterogeneity, even a
certain ambiguity. And the first thing we have to do is to find out in what this
heterogeneity consists, and how we are to set it aside. In a certain sense the
whole world is the Revelation of God. The creation of the world is a revelation,
“a manifestation of God,” in “conceivable images.” The whole world testifies of
God, of His Wisdom, Mercy and Love. This is generally named: “Revelation through
Nature.” This is Revelation in matter, so-to-say, the Revelation which is
immanent in the very nature and essence of things; which is inscribed and
implanted there. Above all, it exists in the nature of man himself; man, who was
created and made in God’s image and likeness. This is the “Law of God” “Written
in the hearts of men” (Romans 2:15). But strictly speaking this is not
Revelation in the direct meaning of the word. It is better to speak here not of
Revelation, but of God’s manifestation. In Nature, visible and invisible, God is
manifested, not revealed. In Nature and in the human soul we find only “certain
traces of God,” “vestigia Dei naturalia.” But, so far, this is no theophany.
This is only a testimony (Testmonium) of God; and from it the human mind may
conclude or presuppose God’s existence; may become conscious of God; may divine
God in His works. This gives birth to “seeking after God,” to religious longing,
to religious needs, still unclear and wavering: “That they should seek the Lord,
if haply they might feel after Him and find Him, though He be not far from every
one of us” (Acts 17:27). But so far this is not yet knowledge of God, it is not
seeing or knowing. Strictly speaking Revelation is not the fundamental essence
of every religious life. Even more, we have a right to say that Revelation is,
in general, not religion, but it is greater than religion. It is something
different, something apart from religion. It is not the manifestation of God in
his creation, in the beings created by Him, but a direct vision of God granted
to man. God is manifested in all and always. Here we stand before a certain
continuity, the continuity of Divine Omnipresence of Him “who is omnipotent and
omnipresent.” But not everywhere and not to all is this vision of God granted.
There is no continuity in theophanies. Here we are in a realm of rupture and
interruptions, of interruptions in the continuous stream of the world’s natural
order, though this too is established by Divine command and by Divine
Providence, by the Providence of the Omnipotent Creator. This is the realm of
the supernatural, and only the “supernatural” is the Revelation of God in the
real meaning of the word. In the “Religion of Nature” man recognizes and divines
God; seeks after Him and reaches out for Him, for “He be not far from every one
of us.” But this is only the path of man towards God. Revelation is the path of
God towards man. This is above nature, supernatural, this is something new and
different, something greater than that force of movement and life which has been
implanted in every created being by the pre-eternal and creative “Fiat.” Or, in
other words, in Nature God is manifested as the Creator of vitality, the Giver
of existence and of life. But in the supernatural, in what is above nature, God
in His transcendence appears and is revealed as He who spake; “Who at sundry
times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the Fathers by the
Prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2).
God is revealed in the Word, and only God’s word is Revelation in its direct and
exact meaning. Revelation is the Divine Voice, the Voice of God, speaking to
man. Man hears this Voice, listens to it, accepts it, and understands the Divine
Word. For God speaks so that man should hear Him. God created man in His image
and likeness that man should listen for His Voice and Word, should hear it, and,
even more, that he should treasure it, remember it, and keep it. When we speak
of Revelation, we have in mind just the Word of God that has been heard by us.
Some heard it direct, without any intermediary; these were the great initiated
and prophets. Others heard of it through the mediation of those who were
commanded by God and by the power and aid of the Holy Ghost to repeat what they
had heard and seen themselves. The Holy Scriptures are the written record of the
Revelation they heard, and it was God who gave them the Strength, through the
outpouring of His Holy Ghost, to bear and write down His words. The sacred
mystery of Divine inspiration cannot be completely fathomed by us. We cannot
fully understand in what manner “God’s Holy men” heard the Word of their God and
how they repeated it in the words of their own tongue. But even in their
transmission it was the Voice of God, the Voice of the Holy Ghost, that was
heard, and the feeble human voice, the voice of flesh and blood, had no part in
it. Therein lies the miracle and mystery of the Bible that it is the Word of
God, the Word of the Spirit, who “spake by the prophets,” and yet it is the Word
of the Spirit in a human tongue. And whatever the manner in which we understand
the Divine inspiration of Scripture, one thing is important. The scriptures
transmit and preserve for us the Divine Voice in the tongue of man. The
scriptures transmit and preserve for us the Divine Word such as it had been
heard, such as it sounded in the receptive soul of man. The mystery of Divine
inspiration is not only that God spoke to man, but also that man was listening
to God and heard him. God descends to man, shows his Face to man; speaks to him.
And man sees God, is lost in the vision of God, and describes what he has seen
and heard, bearing witness to what has been revealed to him. Therein lies the
significance of the Old Testament Divine visions, of the Old Testament
Revelations. In them there is a certain essential anthropomorphism, and this not
so much because of the weakness of human understanding, or from a sense of
“adaptability,” but as a foretaste of the coming incarnation. It is already in
the Old Testament that the Divine Word becomes human, is incarnated in the human
tongue. And there is another point of great importance. If we want the Divine
Word to ring clear, the human tongue must not lose its natural qualities. It
must not leave off being human. What is human is not suppressed or swept away by
Divine inspiration; it is only transfigured. The supernatural does not go
counter to what is natural. Therefore, it is that God chooses to speak in the
human tongue, that through Divine inspiration, through the Breath of the Spirit
of Omniscience and Wisdom, human nature should be completed, fulfilled. The
human tongue does not weaken or belittle the absoluteness of Revelation; it does
not limit the power of God’s Word. The Word of God may be exactly and strictly
expressed in the language of man, who is created in the image and likeness of
God; in the image of God’s Word, as was taught by some of the Fathers of the
Church. The Word of God does not grow dim because it sounds and is pronounced in
the tongue of man. On the contrary, the human word becomes transfigured,
transubstantiated, because God deigned to speak in the human tongue. The Divine
Spirit breathes in the organism of human speech, in the substance of human
words. And therefore the tongue of man acquires force and firmness. It becomes
possible for the word of man to speak of God. Theology becomes possible.
Strictly speaking theology grows possible only through Revelation. It is the
answering speech of man to God, as man’s witness of God who had spoken to him;
whose voice he had heard and remembered, and whose words he had kept and was
repeating. So-called “natural theology” is no theology in the true sense of the
word. It is rather a philosophy, a word about the “Unknown God,” towards whom
the restless human soul reaches out but has not yet found; frequently it loses
its way in its search. This is the “Word about a God who has not yet revealed
Himself; about whom man can so far say nothing, unless it be that his soul
panteth for Him and longeth for Him as the hart panteth for the spring of
water.” And it is only through Revelation that true theology becomes possible.
For the first time in answer to Revelation true prayer is poured out in words of
testimony, words of adoration, of thanksgiving and of petition. Again it is an
answer to the Word of God. In Sacred Scripture we are, first of all, struck by
the intimate relation of God to man and of man to God. In Scripture we see not
only God, but man as well. It is the Revelation of God, but it is also a
revelation concerning man. God reveals Himself to man, appears before him,
becomes visible to him, speaks with him, so as to reveal to man the hidden
meaning of his existence, to show him the path and meaning of human life. In
Scripture we see God coming to reveal Himself to man, and we see man meeting God
and not only listening to His Words, but answering them. In Scripture we not
only hear the Voice of God, but also the voice of man answering Him - in words
of prayer, thanksgiving, adoration, sorrow, and contrition. God wants, and
expects, and demands this answer. It is for this that He speaks with man. He
expects man to answer Him. He is waiting for man to talk with Him. And He draws
up His covenant with man.

Revelation is the history of this covenant. Recorded Revelation - Sacred
Scripture - is, first of all, history. Law and prophets, psalms and prophecies
are included and woven into the living historical web.

Scripture is history, the history of the world created by God, and the history
of man who is called to be the priest, the prophet, and the king of this world.
Scripture begins with the creation of the world and is brought up to the eve of
the new creation: “Behold I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5). Between
these two extreme points, that of the first creative, “Let there be,” and that
of the latest prophecy, the living web of Sacred Scripture dynamically unfolds
itself. Revelation is not only a system of Divine words, but, above all, the
system of Divine works. This is the reason of the extension of time in Sacred
Scripture. We might say that Revelation was the path of God in history. And the
culminating point is reached when God enters history for all time; when the Word
is incarnated, when God-Man is revealed.

Revelation is also the book of human fate. First of all, it is the book which
narrates the fall and the salvation of man. It speaks of the first created
paradise, of Adam’s expulsion from it as a consequence of his sin; of the first
promise of salvation, the so-called “First Gospel” (Genesis 3:15). It speaks of
the path fallen man had to tread upon earth, of the new promises, and, at last,
of the chosen “Father of all the faithful,” Abraham, and of the covenant made
with him. It is from here that the actual Old Testament begins. The Old
Testament is the sacred history of Israel, the history of that unique people,
the people chosen by God, with whom God concluded his covenant. Here the most
important thing is the fact of election; the separation of Israel, the setting
Israel apart from all other peoples. Israel is the grace-given, sacred oasis in
the history of fallen mankind. Only with one people on earth did God conclude a
covenant and give it His own law, Divinely inscribed on tables of stone. God
establishes in the midst of this people a true priesthood, even though only a
temporal and prophetic one. He raises from among it the prophets, who speak
words inspired by the Spirit of God. Before Christ it was in Israel alone that
there existed a true priesthood and not only an idolatrous one. Therefore it was
only there that true Divine service was performed. Here alone was sacrifice,
pleasing in God’s eyes, offered. Here alone was there a true temple of God, the
only temple of the sort in all the world. It was a sacred center for all the
world - an oasis granted by the Grace of God, in the midst of a sinful,
unredeemed world. It is from here that sanctification begins. “The cloud filled
the house of the Lord” (1 Kings 8:10). This election and separation of Israel is
easily understood and explained from an historical standpoint, from the
historical mission of Israel. Israel is the first-fruit of mankind. Its
historical mission leads to the birth in its midst of the world’s Savior. In it
was to be accomplished the last limit of the final Revelation of God, the
incarnation of the Word. It was because of this that the legislation of Mount
Sinai was granted to this people; because of this the prophets spoke. The Sacred
meaning of the Old Testament is that it is the history of the ancestors of our
Savior, and therefore it is by mentioning them that the Gospels begin their
narrative: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, time son of David, the
son of Abraham,” (Matthew 1:1). “For salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). The
Old Testament is the period of the Messianic expectation, the time of covenants
and prophecies. It is not only the prophets that prophesy. Events also become
prophecies. The Old Testament history, as a whole, is a kind of fore given
image, an historical symbol, a looking forward towards approaching events. St.
Augustine said: “The New Testament is contained within the Old and the Old is
revealed in the New. In VetereTestamentoNovumlatet, inNovo Testamento Vetus
patet; and the Messianic tense expectation culminates in the appearance of the
God-Man: “But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made
of a woman” (Galatians 4:4). The time of expectation is passed; the promise has
been accomplished; the Lord has come. He has come to abide and remain with those
who believe in Him: “Always, even unto the end of the world” (Math. 28:20). The
Old Testament history is finishing - the history of flesh and blood. The history
of the Spirit is beginning - the Kingdom of Truth and Grace is opened (John
1:17). And yet the law is not destroyed, but fulfilled (Matthew 5:17), and the
prophecies have been accomplished and did not prove vain. The Old Testament was
fulfilled, revealed, and completed in the New, in Novo patet. And therefore the
books of the Hebrews are still sacred for Christians. Not only, because once, in
olden times, God spoke to Israel, but also because now, too, the Word of God is
to be heard in the Bible, and now through this eternal, eternally living book,
God’s Revelation continues coining down to us. It is therein that the mystery of
the Bible consists; this is the mystery of the inspired, transfigured,
transubstantiated word. This does not mean that time Bible is used in the Church
as a book of parables, as a book of historical examples and cases, a collection
of texts or theological instances (Loci Theologici). No, the Bible remains
history, and it is just as a book of sacred history that it preserves all its
power. The law is already set aside and is replaced by something higher. The
temple exists no more in Jerusalem and the House of Israel is empty (Luke
13:35). Prophecy has been accomplished. However, in sacred history events not
only take place and pass away, but they are accomplished and fulfilled, they are
completed. The Past does not mean “passed” or “was,” but, above all, has been
fulfilled. Fulfillment is the fundamental essence of Revelation. That which has
become sacred remains Holy for always and without change. It has the seal, the
sign, and the blessing of the Holy Ghost. For even to the present moment the
Spirit breathes in the words once inspired by it. The Old Testament is, above
all, a book for us. The New Testament is more than a book. In the Old Testament
we see most clearly the meaning of the Revelation as of a Word. Therefore we
witness to the Spirit “that spake in times past unto the Fathers by the
Prophets” (Hebrews 1:2). In the New Testament God hath spoken to us by his Son,
and we are bound not only to hear, but to see, too. We admit that the Old
Testament is a difficult book. And, as time runs on, it grows no easier.
Perhaps, on the contrary, it is more difficult for us to read it than it was for
our ancestors. This is not the time or place to ask and discuss the question
concerning the “historical authenticity” of the Old Testament. There is no time
here to unravel the complex and difficult problem of the so-called “Higher
Criticism.” It would involve us in giving too much time to it in this paper. But
all these critical investigations do not touch upon the fundamental principle of
Revelation; do not deflect from its Divine inspiration. Scientific criticism
cannot prove the sacred value of the Bible; cannot refute it. Divine inspiration
is not a category of autonomous science. The reason of man, left to itself,
cannot feel inspiration. Divine inspiration presupposes a certain rupture in the
natural order. We need a special method of seeing to be able to recognize it.
This in no wise means that faith and reason cannot be united, and that reason
knows no religious truths and postulates; that religious truth, the truth of
Revelation, is not obligatory or convincing for reason. On the contrary! But to
achieve this, reason itself must be transfigured. Out of a world of two
dimensions we must pass over into one of three; we must feel depth. Herein lies
the nucleus of the theological question of Higher Criticism. To be able to feel
the breath of the Spirit in Sacred Scripture, we must “strive after the Spirit,”
we must possess spiritual intuition and insight. We must learn to discern
profanum et sacrum; we must know and feel what is profanum and what is sacrum;
we must admit and know that there is a sacrum, quite apart from profanum. And
this transfiguration of our consciousness can he accomplished only in the
Church, in its spiritual charismatic completeness. Revelation has been granted
to the Church not to individuals. In the Old Testament also “God’s Words” were
entrusted not to individuals, but to God’s people (Romans 3:2). Revelation has
been given only to the Church, and only in the Church is it accessible to us;
i.e., it can be accessible only in the fullness of spiritual life. Outside the
Church, for outsiders, it becomes unclear, unconvincing. This unclearness is the
nether side of our inattention, of our absence of intuition. The apex of
Revelation is in the Gospels. For the fullness of Revelation - is Christ. The
New Testament is also, first of all, history - the Gospel history of the
incarnated Word and of the beginning of the history of the Church, which is now
expecting its apocalyptic fulfillment. The basis of the New Testament is facts,
events, realities, commandments, teaching, and words. Here the basis is Christ
and the Church, His Body. “The fullness of Him that filleth all in all”
(Ephesians 1:23). The Gospel is history. Historical events are the subject and
source of Christian faith and Christian hope. From the beginning, from the very
day of Pentecost, when the Apostle Peter as an eye-witness, (“Whereof we are all
witnesses,” Acts 2:32), witnessed to the fulfillment of salvation, apostolic
preaching had an historical character. But again it is a sacred history. The
Apostles always speak of concrete historical facts and events. They bring
vividly before the consciousness of their hearers the image of Christ, they make
it live anew, and they show who He was. The uniqueness, the marvel of this
historical Figure consists in the fact that He who became visible, whom we saw,
was the Son of God, the Savior of the world. Therefore it is that human limits,
belonging to a world of two dimensions, cannot encompass this Image. It
transcends them; and within historical boundaries we see what is
super-historical, what is above the earth. But the boundaries are not
obliterated, not wiped away, not dimmed; in the sacred Image historical features
are still visible. Therein lies the meaning and importance of apostolic
preaching that it is a narrative, a narrative of what the Apostles themselves
heard and saw, of what was fulfilled and accomplished, hic et nunc. “Which we
have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our
hands have handled” (1 John 1:1). But what happened was unheard of: “The Word
was made flesh” (John 1:14). Therefore this narrative is more than merely a
narrative; it relates not only something that took place, but something that was
realized and completed. Through historical vision we catch sight of what is
visible only to the eyes of faith, what only the few saw and recognized during
the lifetime of the Savior; what even the Apostles saw and recognized fully only
later, after His resurrection, when He had opened their understanding that they
might understand “The mysteries of the Kingdom” (Luke 24:45). The Gospel is a
narrative and an image, but it is the narrative about God-Man. And just because
it is a narrative and an historical witness there is a certain reserve in it.
The scope of faith is more than reminiscence. Faith grows living, in creative
recognition of what it has seen and heard in communion with Christ. The Gospels
give us a unique, integral image, an image both Divine and human - the image of
God become man. For those whose capacity of perception is not fine enough this
image often appears as two separate images, just as it did to those who saw Him
in the flesh, as long as their hearts had not been enlightened by faith. The
Evangelists and the Apostles were no chroniclers. It was not their mission to
relate all that had been done by Jesus, day by day, year by year. They described
His image and related His works, so as to give us His image; an historical, yet
a Divine image. The Gospels may be called “An historical icon,” an icon in words
not in lines and colors, yet a picture of His face. Or, to be more exact, the
Gospels are not one, but four icons, a four-fold icon of God-Man. And this icon
has been delineated by the power of the Spirit. The gospels are the records of
the apostolic “good tidings,” and the preaching of the Apostles was contained
not “in the doubtful words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit
and of power” (1 Corinthians 2:4), in the numerous separate reminiscences the
figure of Jesus grows living and the sensitive heart recognizes in Jesus of
Nazareth, crucified and risen, the Savior of the world and the God-Man. The
earthly plan of the Gospel is always mysteriously transparent, and through the
historical evidence we see the glimmering of Divine reality. It is true that not
all see this, just as not all saw it then; and not “flesh and blood,” but the
Father which is in heaven hath revealed that He was the Son of the living God
(Matthew 16:16-17). In the mysterious blending of the double features the Face
of God-Man has been drawn, seen, and recognized. For thus it was described by
the Evangelists. The whole of the New Testament throbs with historical
fulfillment of what has been and is accomplished. But this is no historically
isolated earthly stream of events, of “natural events.” The narrative of what
took place is a realistic narrative. It was, it happened, this meeting of the
sky and the earth, of God and man. The meeting and the union: “And the Word was
made flesh” (John 1:14) “And yet no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by
the Holy Ghost” (1 Corinthians 12:3). It means that revelation becomes clearly
heard by us in all its fullness only in spiritual experience. Therefore the
Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, has been sent down to us that He “Will guide you
into all truth” (John 16:13), that He should “bring all things to your
remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you’ (John 14:26). And to the present
day, “The same anointing teacheth, you all things” (1 John 2:27). The Gospels
are written within the Church. They are the records of the apostolic “good
tidings,” of the apostolic preaching, and the strength of this preaching built
up the Church: “Go ye, therefore, and teach.” The Gospels are the records of
Church experience and faith, records of what is visible in the experience of the
Church. It is the living Image of Christ which the Church has contemplated from
the beginning; and it is only within the Church that this Image is fully and
wholly accessible. St. Athanasius the Great says: “It is the direct and living
meeting with Christ, into whom all the faithful are clothed in the sacrament of
Holy Baptism; we are satisfied by the Spirit; we drink Christ.” Divine
Revelation is preserved in the Church. It is protected arid strengthened by the
words of Scripture; it is protected, but not exhausted. The words of Scripture
do not exhaust the whole fullness of Revelation; do not exhaust the whole
fullness of Christian experience and of the charismatic reminiscence of the
Church. The experience of the Church is wider than its direct testimony.
Therefore those who abide in the Church know infinitely more and quite otherwise
than “outsiders.” For those who abide within the Church, the testimony of the
Spirit makes the Scriptures a clearer, a fuller thing; this testimony once more
lives in their own personal experience. And this is why we must not speak of the
“self-sufficing quality” of Scripture. For Scripture is not only preserved by
the power of human memory; it is also protected by the power of Grace in the
charismatic life of the Church. In the Church, Revelation becomes an inner
spiritual experience. The Church in itself is already a Revelation_ From the Day
of Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost entered the world to abide in it, Revelation
has become an uninterrupted continuity. The fiery baptism of the created world
was accomplished. It was represented by the twelve Apostles and those that were
with them, as the chosen first-fruit (Matthew 3:2). At any rate the Scriptures
demand that they should he expounded and explained. And a true explanation will
be one that proceeds from the realities described in the Scriptures. It must be
no outward, but an inward explanation, growing out of the depth of spiritual
experience. And here we do not so much speak of the personal spiritual intuition
of every separate expounder, as, above all, of the living of the fullness of the
spiritual experience of the Church itself. For in this experience the Scriptures
become vivified by the same Spirit who had once inspired them. When the Church
expounds Scripture it bears witness to that of which the Scriptures testify. But
frequently new words are used. Revelation is received in the silence of faith,
the silence of contemplation - such is the first silently receptive moment of
theology. And in this receptive silence of contemplation the whole fullness of
Truth is contained and given. But Truth must still be expressed and pronounced.
Because man is called not only to receive Truth attentively, but also to witness
of it. Silencium mysticum does not exhaust the complete calling of man. He is
called to creative activity, above all, to the building up of his own self.
God’s Word must become evident in the reality of human thought; God’s Word must
give birth to human thought. This is the creative or positive moment of the
knowledge of God. Divine reality revealed in the experience of the Church may be
described in manifold ways. Either in images and symbols, in religious poetry
and religious art - such was the language of the Old Testament prophets; thus
frequently spoke the Evangelists, thus preached the Apostles, and thus the
Church is still preaching in the songs and hymns of its Divine service, in the
symbolic meaning of its rites. This is the tongue of preaching or witnessing; it
is the tongue of charismatic theology. Or, Divine reality may be described in
the conceptions of the mind, in research. This is the language of dogma, of
dogmatic theology. “Preaching” and “Dogma” are the two ways in which the Church
bears witness to Truth, to that inner Revelation which is still continuing in
the Church by the power of the Spirit abiding in it (cp. St. Basil the Great
concerning the Holy Ghost) This Revelation, this deepening and growing into “The
Knowledge of Truth,” is the life of the Church: “Till we all come in the unity
of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13) Dogma is
thought witnessing to Revelation, to what it has seen, to what was revealed to
it, to the visible and the contemplated in the Catholic experience of the
Church. And this witness is expressed in definitions and conceptions. Dogma is
the sentence of experience, the mental vision, true contemplation. We may name
it the “logical image,” the “logical icon” of Divine reality. And, at the same
time, dogma is a definition. Therefore it is that both the logical form of
dogma, that “inner word” which is fixed and made definite in outward expression,
and the outward choice of words, which are so important in dogma. Dogma is no
new Revelation; dogma is only a witness, a witness of the mind, such as is
worthy of the experienced and recognized Divine Revelation, a Revelation granted
and revealed in the charismatic experience of faith, of the mysteries of life
eternal, such as has been shown by the Holy Ghost. All dogma is revealed by
experience, in true contact with “things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). This is the
source of dogmatic decisive authority and of the unchangeableness of Truth,
revealed and preserved from the beginning. Dogmas are not developed or changed.
They are inviolable, even in their outward choice of words. Perhaps it may sound
paradoxical, but it is still true to say that dogma can arise, can be
established and expressed, but they cannot be developed. A dogma once
established is an eternal inviolable “rule of faith” and the measure of it. Of
course this does not mean that something new, some “new truth” is being
revealed; but it does mean that such a truth is being expressed and pronounced.
In its dogmatic witness the Church is expressing and pronouncing truths
preserved within its fold. And its aim is to find and establish the exact words,
which should truly express the experience of the Church. These words must be
able to transmit the “vision of the mind,” which is being revealed to the
faithful spirit in experience and contemplation. There is a pre-dogmatic period
of Church consciousness; then the language chosen is one of images and symbols.
But after this comes the time for bearing dogmatic witness. For truth of faith
is truth of reason as well, and thought must enter “into the knowledge of
truth.” In doing this it becomes creatively transfigured, the very realm of
thought becomes transfigured, sanctified, and renewed. When Divine Truth is
pronounced and expressed in the human tongue, the very words are transfigured,
and the fact that the Truths of Revelation are imparted in logical images and
conceptions witnesses to the transfiguration of word and thought, words become
sacred. The words of dogmatic definitions, frequently taken from the habitual
philosophic vocabulary, are no more simple, casual words, which might have been
and still may be replaced by some others. No, they have grown to be eternal,
irreplaceable words. This signifies that in the adequate expression of a Divine
Truth certain words, i.e., definite conceptions and ideas, or a definite train
of thought have been eternalized and stabilized. This means that eternal and
absolute ideas are being sought; therefore the Truth of Revelation may be and is
adequately expressed in them. This Truth of Revelation has been positively
granted, and not only postulated. Not something to be sought, but something
given. However incommensurable our present knowledge “in part” is to the
promised knowledge that is to be “face to face,” - still, now as always, it is
full and perfect. Truth is being revealed in Catholic experience and is being
expressed in dogmatic definitions. The dogmas of the Fathers repeat in
categories of thought the unchangeable contents of “apostolic preaching,” they
express “in words of reason dogmas which once were narrated in simple words by
fishermen, who had received wisdom thereto by the power of the Spirit.” By the
power of the Spirit. In the dogmatic definitions of the Church we again feel the
life-giving power of the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Wisdom. Dogmas are
pronounced not by the arbitrary desire of man, but by the inspiration of the
Spirit. Usually this was done during the Ecumenical Councils, but sometimes also
through the silent reception of “ecclesiœ sparsœ.”

And again; dogmas do not exhaust the experience of the Church; just as
Revelation is not exhausted in the words or the “letter” of Scripture. In
dogmatic definitions the Truth of experience is only determined and protected,
but not exhausted. The experience and faith of the Church are fuller and wider
than its dogmatic word. There is much to which the Church witnesses even to the
present day in images, symbols, and similes, in symbolic theology. Probably this
will exist to the end of time, i.e., to the last passing over from here to the
beyond (see St. Gregory the Theologian). From the very beginning the Church was
given the fullness of Truth. But it is only gradually and “in part” that this
fullness is being expressed. In general all our knowledge here, is always a
knowledge “in part.” The exhaustive fullness will be revealed only in the
beyond, in the Second Advent, in the “meeting with Our Lord.” From here proceeds
the dogmatic incompleteness of the Church’s witness; this is also caused by the
Church being “in a state of pilgrimage,” “in via”; that it is still being
“completed and maketh increase” (Ephesians 4:16). The human spirit and reason
are still “increasing.” The historical aims of the knowledge of God, of
understanding Revelation, are still facing us. There is much that is still to be
accomplished. However the incompleteness and the inexhaustibleness of our
knowledge here does not weaken its truth, its finality, the impossibility of
replacing it; does not deprive it of the finality which has been attained.
Within the limits of Church experience there are many mysteries for us to
contemplate, mysteries for which no dogmatic words have been found so far. Here
there is scope for “theological opinions” and research. There can also exist
freedom in the understanding of established dogmas. Of course there is no room
here for subjective arbitrary mental choice. Theology must always remain vital,
intuitive; it must be nourished by the experience of faith, and must not be
split up into autonomous isolated dialectic conceptions. Once more we want to
remind you that the dogmas of faith are the truths of experience and of life -
therefore they can he unfolded through no logical synthesis and analysis, but
only through spiritual life, through actual participation in the fullness of
Church experience. A lawful “theological opinion” can he attained not through
any logical deduction, but only through direct vision, and this again can only
be attained through strenuous prayerful effort, through a striving after the
Spirit, through personal spiritual growth, through living communion with the
constant Catholic experience of the Church.

Theology can be realized only through a Catholic transfiguration of those who
are striving to attain knowledge. Catholicity is a victory over all manner of
separatism. Catholicity strives against all kinds of individual isolation,
against the self-assertion of exclusiveness and isolation. Catholicity is a
certain attitude of consciousness, the measure and limit of spiritual growth. In
this Catholic transfiguration, personality grows complete and receives the
faculty and strength of feeling and expressing the consciousness and life of the
whole. And those, who, in striving to attain Catholic development, have gained
this power, accept it as a gift of the Spirit. We name those who express the
experience and consciousness of the Church, “Fathers and Teachers of the
Church”; because from them we hear not only their own personal professions, but
also the witness of the Church. It is out of Catholic fullness that they speak.
In their words we feel the breath of the Spirit. The fullness of Revelation is
assimilated by the Church in the measure of its spiritual growth. And this
gradualness in the profession of faith is connected with the dynamic growth of
Church existence, with the process of vital salvation, sanctification, and
transfiguration. Perhaps it is not by chance that it is just those dogmatic
definitions which treat of the building up of the “new creation” and of the
final fate of the Church, which have not yet been expressed. Because this has
not yet been fulfilled in time, because we are still seeing its fulfillment: and
therefore we know not all about it, and can speak of it only in prophecies and
symbols. In those dogmas which have already been established, that which
pertains to the future is but partially visible. We possess no categorical
definitions concerning the abiding of the Holy Spirit in the world, the action
of the Holy Spirit in it; not of the life of the saints and sinners beyond the
tomb, nor of much else that is awaiting its accomplishment. Here the Church
often limits itself to dogmatic negation, i.e., it witnesses in an authoritative
manner to what we are not allowed and must not think. And this witness proceeds
from the depth of that experience which has not yet been and cannot be
expressed. But the Church does not hasten to establish in dogmatic formulae
positive theological opinions of the future. And this not because it does not
know, but because the time has not yet come for it to pronounce itself. The
Church witnesses in a categorical manner to that which is ever present, to that
which does not belong to time (as for instance the dogma of the Holy Trinity);
or to that which has already been revealed, seen, and accomplished (the dogma of
the Person of Our Savior). And in the dogma of Christ the first things defined
were those which pertained to the past, in so far as they belonged to time
(Incarnation, reality of the sufferings and death on the cross, Resurrection,
Ascension); or again it witnesses to that which was revealed direct by Our
Savior himself (the Second Advent, universal resurrection, the Day of Judgment).
Of all else the Church prefers to bear testimony in symbols and similes, but
liturgically; as when it establishes the solemn festivals of Ascension and
Transfiguration; or that of the Life-giving Cross. Here the Church testifies to
much that has not yet found its final dogmatic expression; to much that is bound
up with the sanctification, i.e., the perfection of the world; a sanctification
that is being, but has not yet been, accomplished. The mystery of the Ascension
of Our Lord can be fully revealed only at the Second Advent “When He shall so
come in like manner, as ye have seen Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). For only
then, and in the resurrection of all, will the created body be fully
re-established and become incorruptible. The mystery of the Lord’s
Transfiguration is also closely connected with this. We catch but a glimpse of
it in the witness of the Light of Mount Tabor, given by the Byzantine Councils
of the XIV century. There is no doubt that much has been given us only as
foreknowledge. However, this does not mean that we have the right to form
whatever opinion we like concerning the truths that have not been expressed; or
that here there is nothing obligatory for us. The realm of foreknowledge is no
“doubtful realm” (Dubitum) in which unlimited “freedom” is permitted us (In
dubiis libertas). The absence of “dogmatic” definitions does not indicate
absence of knowledge, and does not authorize complete reserve from all judgment.
For that which has not been given in dogma has been given us in an experience,
which is the source of the dogmatic definitions of the Church. It has also often
been given in written recorded Revelation, which is not exhausted in dogmatic
expressions, and which is full of mystery and prophecies. Not all that is known
and revealed is proclaimed dogmatically by the Church, but all is given in the
dialectic experience of the Church, which indissolubly abides with its head,
Jesus Christ, and is unchangeably enlightened and inspired by the Life-giving
Spirit.

Father Sergius Bulgakov expressed himself very adequately when he said: “He who
has once met Christ, His Savior, on his own personal path, and has felt His
Divinity, has, in that very moment, accepted all fundamental Christian dogmas -
Virgin Birth, incarnation, Second Glorious Advent, the Coming of the Comforter,
the Holy Trinity.” (S. Bulgakov: “The Undying Light.”1917, p.57). To this I want
to add: “Or else he has not yet met Christ, or, at any rate, has not recognized
him.” “The Spirit abideth with us now, and, in the striving after the Spirit,
the path towards the fullness of the knowledge of God is opened to us.” (St.
Gregory the Theologian).

God speaks to man through His Spirit; and only in the measure in which man
abides in the Spirit does he hear and understand this voice: ’The wind bloweth
where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it
cometh and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (1 John
3:8). There are no isolated paths of spiritual life. Since the Day of Pentecost
the Spirit abideth in the Church, where God hath ordained “the action of the
Spirit”(“Omnem operationem Spiritus,” as St. Ireneus of Lyons said). Here, by
the power of the Spirit, is every soul quickened. Here the Word of God rings and
is heard - all the words pronounced since the beginning. Here is the fullness
and the path of knowledge. The striving after the Spirit, the prayer for the
granting of the Spirit, is the path in which we can glorify God. Through the
Breath of the Spirit God’s Revelation will be eternally vivified and will be
built up into the living organism of the one and undivided Truth The Church
teaches us to pray:

“Our Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, Omnipresent and All-fulfilling,
Treasure of all Good, and Giver of Life, come and abide in us, cleanse us from
all evil, and save, O All-merciful, our souls.”


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 4: 04 - REVELATION, PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY
========================================================================

Revelation, Philosophy and Theology This article originally appeared as
“Offenbarung, Philosophic und Theologie” in Zwischen den Zeiten, Heft 6
(München, 1931). Translated from the German by Richard Haugh.

I. Revelation.

There are two aspects of religious knowledge: Revelation and Experience.
Revelation is the voice of God speaking to man. And man hears this voice,
listens to it, accepts the Word of God and understands it. It is precisely for
this purpose that God speaks; that man should hear him. By Revelation in the
proper sense, we understand precisely this word of God as it is heard. Holy
Scripture is the written record of the Revelation which has been heard. And
however one may interpret the inspired character of Scripture, it must be
acknowledged that Scripture preserves for us and presents to us the voice of God
in the language of man. It presents to us the word of God just as it resounded
in the receptive soul of man. Revelation is theophany. God descends to man and
reveals himself to man. And man sees and beholds God. And he describes what he
sees and hears; he testifies to what has been revealed to him. The greatest
mystery and miracle of the Bible consists of the fact that it is the Word of God
in the language of man.

Quite properly the early Christian exegetes saw in the Old Testamental
Scriptures an anticipation and prototype of the coming Incarnation of God.
Already in the Old Testament the Divine Word becomes human. God speaks to man in
the language of man. This constitutes the authentic anthropomorphism of
Revelation. This anthropomorphism however is not merely an accommodation. Human
language in no way reduces the absolute character of Revelation nor limits the
power of God’s “Word.” The Word of God can be expressed precisely and adequately
in the language of man. For man is created in the image of God. It is precisely
for this reason that man is capable of perceiving God, of receiving God’s Word
and of preserving it. The Word of God is not diminished while it resounds in
human language. On the contrary, the human word is transformed and, as it were,
transfigured because of the fact that it pleased God to speak in human language.
Man is able to hear God, to grasp, receive and preserve the word of God. In any
case, Holy Scripture speaks to us not only of God, but also of man. Furthermore,
God himself speaks in his Revelation not only about himself but also about man.
Thus historical Revelation fulfills itself precisely in the appearance of the
God-Man. Not only in the Old but also in the New Testament we see not only God,
but also man. We apprehend God approaching and appearing to man; and we see
human persons who encounter God and listen attentively to his Word - and, what
is more, respond to his words. We hear in Scripture also the voice of man,
answering God in words of prayer or of thanksgiving or of praise. It is
sufficent to mention the Psalms in this connection. And God desires, expects,
and requires this response. God desires that man not only listens to his words
but that man also responds to them. God wants to involve man in “conversation.”
God descends to man - and he descends in order to elevate man to him. In
Scripture one is astounded, above all, by this intimate nearness of God to man
and of man to God, this sanctification of all human life by the presence of God,
this overshadowing of the earth with Divine protection. In Scripture we are
astonished by the very fact of sacred history itself. In Scripture it is
revealed that history itself becomes sacred, that history can be consecrated,
that life can be sanctified. And, to be sure, not only in the sense of an
external illumination of life - as if from outside - but also in the sense of
its transfiguration. For Revelation is indeed completed with the founding of the
Church and with the Holy Spirit’s descent into the world. Since that time the
Spirit of God abides in the world. Suddenly in the world itself the source of
eternal life is established. And Revelation will be consummated with the
appearance of the new heaven and the new earth, with a cosmic and universal
transformation of all created existence. One can suggest that Revelation is the
path of God in history - we see how God walks among the ranks of men. We behold
God not only in the transcendent majesty of his glory and omnipotence but also
in his loving nearness to his creation. God reveals himself to us not only as
Lord and Pantocrator but, above all, as Father. And the main fact is that
written Revelation is history, the history of the world as the creation of God.
Scripture begins with the creation of the world and closes with the promise of a
new creation. And one senses the dynamic tension between both these moments,
between the first divine “fiat” and the coming one: “Behold, I make all things
new” (idu, kenapiopanda, ιδου καινα ποιω παντα Revelation 21:5). This is not the
place to treat in detail the basic questions of Biblical exegesis. Nevertheless
one thing must be unconditionally stated. Scripture can be viewed from a double
perspective: outside of history or - as history. In the first case the Bible is
interpreted as a book of eternal and sacred images and symbols. And one must
then unravel and interpret it precisely as a symbol, according to the rules of
the symbolical or allegorical method. In the ancient Church the adherents of the
allegorical method interpreted the Bible in this manner. The mystics of the
Middle Ages and of the era of the Reformation understood the Bible also in this
manner. Many contemporary theologians, especially Roman Catholic theologians,
also lean toward such an understanding. The Bible appears then as a kind of Law
Book, as a codex of divine commandments and ordinances, as a collection of texts
or “theological loci,” as a compilation of pictures and illustrations. The Bible
then becomes a self-sufficient and self-contained book - a book, so to speak,
written for no one, a book with seven seals ... One need not reject such an
approach: there is a certain truth in such an interpretation. But the totality
of the Spirit of the Bible contradicts such an interpretation; it contradicts
the direct meaning of Scripture. And the basic error of such an understanding
consists in the abstraction from man. Certainly the Word of God is eternal truth
and God speaks in Revelation for all times. But if one admits the possibility of
various meanings of Scripture and one recognizes in Scripture a kind of inner
meaning which is abstracted and independent from time and history, one is in
danger of destroying the realism of Revelation. It is as though God had so
spoken that those to whom he first and directly spoke had not understood him -
or, at least, had not understood as God had intended. Such an understanding
reduces history to mythology. And finally Revelation is not only a system of
divine words but also a system of divine acts; and precisely for this reason -
it is, above all, history, sacred history or the history of salvation
(Heilsgeschichte), the history of the covenant of God with man. Only in such an
historical perspective does the fulness of Scripture disclose itself to us. The
texture of Scripture is an historical texture. The words of God are always, and
above all, time-related - they have always, and above all, a direct meaning. God
sees before him, as it were, the one to whom he speaks, and he speaks because of
this in such a way that he can be heard and understood. For he always speaks for
the sake of man, for man. There is a symbolism in Scripture - but it is rather a
prophetic than an allegorical symbolism. There are images and allegories in
Scripture, but in its totality Scripture is not image and allegory but history.
One must distinguish between symbolism and typology. In symbolism one abstracts
from history. Typology, however, is always historical; it is a kind of prophecy
- when the events themselves prophesy. One can also say that prophecy is also a
symbol - a sign which points to the future - but it is always an historical
symbol which directs attention to future events. Scripture has an historical
teleology: everything strives toward an historical boundary-point, upward toward
the historical telos. For this reason there is such a tension of time in Holy
Scripture. The Old Testament is the time of messianic expectation - this is the
basic theme of the Old Testament. And the New Testament is, above all, history -
the evangelical history of the Divine Word and the beginning of the history of
the Church, which is directed anew to the expectation of Apocalyptic
fulfillment. “Fulfillment” is in general the basic category of Revelation.
Revelation is the Word of God and the Word about God. But, at the same time, in
addition to this, Revelation is always a Word addressed to man, a summons and an
appeal to man. And in Revelation the destiny of man is also revealed. In any
case the Word of God is given to us in our human language. We know it only as it
resounds through our receptiveness, in our consciousness, in our spirit. And the
substance and objectivity of Revelation is apprehended not by man’s abstracting
himself from himself, nor by depersonalizing himself, nor by shrinking to a
mathematical point, thereby transforming himself into a “transcendental
subject.” It is precisely the opposite: a “transcendental subject” can neither
perceive nor understand the voice of God. It is not to a “transcendental
subject,” not to any “consciousness-in-general” that God speaks. The “God of the
Living,” the God of Revelation speaks to living persons, to empirical subjects.
The face of God reveals itself only to living personalities. And the better, the
fuller and the clearer that man sees the face of God, so much the more distinct
and living is his own face, so much the fuller and clearer has the “image of
God” exhibited and realized itself in him. The highest objectivity in the
hearing and understanding of Revelation is achieved through the greatest
exertion of the creative personality, through spiritual growth, through the
transfiguration of the personality, which overcomes in itself “The wisdom of
flesh,” ascending to “The measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (εις
μετρον ηλικιας του πληρωματος του Χριστου Ephesians 4:13). From man it is not
self-abnegation which is demanded but a victorious forward movement, not
self-destruction but a rebirth or transformation, indeed a theosis (θεωσις).
Without man Revelation would be impossible - because no one would be there to
hear and God would then not speak. And God created man so that man would hear
his words, receive them, and grow in them and through them become a participator
of “eternal life.” The Fall of man did not alter the original intention of God.
Man has not lost completely the capacity of hearing God and praising him. And
finally - the dominion and power of sin has ceased. “And the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us ... and we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son
from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The way of life and light
is open. And the human spirit has anew become capable of hearing God completely
and of receiving his words.

II. Philosophy. But God spoke to man not only so that he would remember and call
to mind His words. One can not just keep the “Word of God in his memory. One
must preserve the Word of God, above all, in a living and burning heart. The
Word of God is preserved in the human spirit as a seed which sprouts and brings
forth fruit. This means that the truth of divine Revelation must unfold within
human thought, must develop into an entire system of believing confession, into
a system of religious perspective - one may say, into a system of religious
philosophy and a philosophy of Revelation.

There is no subjectivism in this. Religious knowledge always remains in its
essence heteronomous, since it is a vision and a description of divine reality
which was and is revealed to man by the entrance of the Divine into the world.
God descends into the world - and unveils not only his countenance to man but
actually appears to him. Revelation is comprehended by faith and faith is vision
and perception. God appears to man and man beholds God. The truths of faith are
truths of experience, truths of a face. It is precisely this which is the
foundation of the apodictic certainty of faith. Faith is a descriptive
confirmation of certain facts - “thus it is,” “thus it was,” or “thus it will
be.” Precisely for this reason faith is also undemonstrable - faith is the
evidence of experience. One must distinguish clearly between the epochs of
Revelation. And one ought not ascertain the essence of the Christian faith on
the basis of Old Testamental precedents. The Old Testament was the time of
expectation; the entire pathos of Old Testamental man was directed toward the
“future” - the “future” was the basic category of its religious experience and
life. The faith of Old Testamental man was expectation - the expectation of that
which was not yet, of that which had not yet come to pass, of that which was
also “invisible.” Indeed the time of expectation came to an end. The prophecies
are fulfilled. The Lord has come. And he has come in order to remain with those
who believe on him “Always, to the close of the age” (Matthew 28:20). He has
given man “the power to become children of God” (John 1:12). He has sent the
Holy Spirit into the world to lead believers “Into all truth” (John 16:13), and
bring to remembrance all that the Lord has said (John 14:26 : εκεινος υμας
διδαξει παντα και υπομνησει υμας παντα α ειπον υμιν εγω). For this reason the
believers have “the anointing by the Holy Spirit, and know all ... and have no
need that any one should teach them” (1 John 2:20; 1 John 2:27). They have the
“unction of truth,” charisma veritatis, as St. Irenaeus states. In Christ the
possibility and the path of spiritual life opens itself to man. And the height
of spiritual life is knowledge and vision, gnosis (γνοσις) and theoria (θεωρια).
This alters the meaning of faith. The Christian faith is not directed primarily
toward “the future,” but rather toward that which was already fulfilled - more
properly expressed, toward that Eternal Present, toward the divine fulness which
has been and is being revealed by Christ. In a certain sense one can say that
Christ made religious knowledge possible for the first time; that is, the
knowledge of God. And this he accomplished not as preacher or as prophet, but as
the “Prince of Life” and as the High Priest of the New Covenant. Knowledge of
God has become possible through that renewal of human nature which Christ
accomplished in his death and resurrection. This renewal was also a renewal of
human reason and of the human spirit. That meant again the renewal of man’s
vision. And the knowledge of God has become possible in the Church, in the Body
of Christ as the unity of the life of grace. In the Church Revelation becomes an
inner Revelation. In a certain sense Revelation becomes the confession of the
Church. It is very important to remember that the New Testamental writings are
younger than the Church. These writings are a book written in the Church. They
are a written record of the faith of the Church, of the faith which is preserved
in the Church. And the Church confirms the truth of Scripture, confirms its
authenticity - verifies it by the authority of the Holy Spirit who dwells in the
Church. One should not forget this with regard to the Gospel. In the written
Gospels the image of the Saviour is held firm, that same image which lived from
the very beginning in the living memory of the Church, in the experience of
faith - not just in the historical memory but in the very memory of faith. This
is an essential distinction. Because we know Christ not just from memories and
accounts. Not only is his image living in the memory of believers - he himself
abides among them, standing always before the door of each soul. It is precisely
in this experience of the living community with Christ that the Gospel becomes
alive as a holy book. Divine Revelation lives in the Church - how else should it
be able to preserve itself? It is sketched and strengthened by the words of
Scripture. To be sure, it is sketched - but these words do not exhaust the
entire fulness of Revelation, do not exhaust the entire fulness of Christian
experience. And the possibility of new and other words are not excluded.
Scripture, in any case, calls for interpretation. And the unalterable truths of
experience can be expressed in different ways. Divine reality can be described
in images and parables, in the language of devotional poetry and of religious
art. Such was the language of the prophets in the Old Testament, in such a
manner the Evangelists often speak, in such a way the Apostles preached, and in
such a manner the Church preaches even now in her liturgical hymns and in the
symbolism of her sacramental acts. That is the language of proclamation and of
good tidings, the language of prayer and of mystical experience, the language of
“Kerygmatic” theology. And there is another language, the language of
comprehending thought, the language of dogma. Dogma is a witness of experience.
The entire pathos of dogma lies in the fact that it points to Divine reality; in
this the witness of dogma is symbolic. Dogma is the testimony of thought about
what has been seen and revealed, about what has been contemplated in the
experience of faith - and this testimony is expressed in concepts and
definitions. Dogma is an “intellectual vision,” a truth of perception. One can
say: it is the logical image, a “logical icon” of divine reality. And at the
same time a dogma is a definition - that is why its logical form is so important
for dogma, that “inner word” which acquires force in its external expression.
This is why the external aspect of dogma - its wording - is so essential. Dogma
is by no means a new Revelation. Dogma is only a witness. The whole meaning of
dogmatic definition consists of testifying to unchanging truth, truth which was
revealed and has been preserved from the beginning. Thus it is a total
misunderstanding to speak of “the development of dogma.” Dogmas do not develop;
they are unchanging and inviolable, even in their external aspect - their
wording. Least of all is it possible to change dogmatic language or terminology.
As strange as it may appear, one can indeed say: dogmas arise, dogmas are
established, but they do not develop. And once established, a dogma is perennial
and already an immutable “rule of faith (“regula fidei;” o kanon tis pisteos, ο
κανων της πιστεως). Dogma is an intuitive truth, not a discursive axiom which is
accessible to logical development. The whole meaning of dogma lies in the fact
that it is expressed truth. Revelation discloses itself and is received in the
silence of faith, in silent vision - this is the first and apophatic step of the
knowledge of God. The entire fulness of truth is already contained in this
apophatic vision, but truth must be expressed. Man, however, is called not only
to be silent but also to speak, to communicate. The silentium mysticum does not
exhaust the entire fulness of the religious vocation of man. There is also room
for the expression of praise. In her dogmatic confession the Church expresses
herself and proclaims the apophatic truth which she preserves. The quest for
dogmatic definitions is therefore, above all, a quest for terms. Precisely
because of this the doctrinal controversies were a dispute over terms. One had
to find accurate and clear words which could describe and express the experience
of the Church. One had to express that “spiritual Vision” which presents itself
to the believing spirit in experience and contemplation. This is necessary
because the truth of faith is also the truth for reason and for thought - this
does not mean, however, that it is the truth of thought, the truth of pure
reason. The truth of faith is fact, reality - that which is. In this “quest for
words” human thought changes, the essence of thought itself is transformed and
sanctified. The Church indirectly testified to this in rejecting the heresy of
Apollinarius. Apollinarianism is, in its deepest sense, a false anthropology, it
is a false teaching about man and therefore it is also a false teaching about
the God-Man Christ. Apollinarianism is the negation of human reason, the fear of
thought - “it is impossible that there be no sin in human thoughts” (“αδυνατον
δε εστιν εν λογισμοις ανθρωπινοις αμαρτιαν” Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Apollin.
II, 6, 8; I, 2). And that means that human reason is incurable -
atherapevtonesti, αθεραπευτον εστι - that is, it must be cut off. The rejection
of Apollinarianism meant therefore, at the time, the fundamental justification
of reason and thought. Not in the sense, of course, that “natural reason” is
sinless and right by itself but in the sense that it is open to transformation,
that it can be healed, that it can be renewed. And not only can but also must be
healed and renewed. Reason is summoned to the knowledge of God. The
“philosophizing” about God is not just a feature of inquisitiveness or a kind of
audacious curiosity. On the contrary, it is the fulfillment of man’s religious
calling and duty. Not an extra-achievement, not a kind of opus supererogatorium
- but a necessary and organic moment of religious behavior. And for this reason
the Church “philosophized” about God - “formulated dogmas which fishermen had
earlier expounded in simple words” (from the service in honor of the Three
Hierarchs), The “dogmas of the Fathers” present again the unchanging content of
“apostolic preaching” in intellectual categories. The experience of truth does
not change and does not even grow; indeed, thought penetrates into the
“understanding of truth” and transforms itself through the process. One can
simply say: in establishing dogmas the Church expressed Revelation in the
language of Greek philosophy - or, if preferable: translated Revelation from the
Hebraic, poetic and prophetic language into Greek. That meant, in a certain
sense, a “Hellenization” of Revelation. In reality, however, it was a
“Churchification” (“Verkirchlichung”) of Hellenism. One can speak at length
about this theme - indeed, much and often has this theme been taken up and
discussed - indeed, it has been discussed and disputed too much and too often.
It is essential here to raise only one issue. The Old Covenant has passed.
Israel did not accept the Divine Christ, did not recognize Him nor confess Him
and “the promise” passed to the Gentiles. The Church is, above all, ecclesia ex
gentibus. We must acknowledge this basic fact of Christian history in humility
before the will of God, which is fulfilled in the destiny of nations. And the
“calling of the Gentiles” meant that Hellenism became blessed by God. In this
there was no “historical accident” - no such accident could lie therein. In the
religious destiny of man there are no “accidents.” In any case the fact remains
that the Gospel is given to us all and for all time in the Greek language. It is
in this language that we hear the Gospel in all its entirety and fulness. That
does not and cannot, of course, mean that it is untranslatable - but we always
translate it from the Greek. And there was precisely as little “chance” or
“accident” in this “selection” of the Greek language - as the unchanging
proto-language of the Christian Gospel - as there was in God’s “selection” of
the Jewish people - out of all the people of antiquity - as “His” People - there
was as little “accident” in the “selection” of the Greek language as there was
in the fact that “salvation comes from the Jews” (John 4:22). We receive the
Revelation of God as it occurred. And it would be pointless to ask whether it
could have been otherwise. In the selection of the “Hellenes” we must
acknowledge the hidden decisions of God’s will. In any case, the presentation of
Revelation in the language of historical Hellenism in no way restricts
Revelation. It rather proves precisely the opposite - that this language
possessed certain powers and resources which aided in expounding and expressing
the truth of Revelation. When divine truth is expressed in human language, the
words themselves are transformed. And the fact that the truths of the faith are
veiled in logical images and concepts testifies to the transformation of word
and thought - words become sanctified through this usage. The words of dogmatic
definitions are not “simple words,” they are not “accidental” words which one
can replace by other words. They are eternal words, incapable of being replaced.
This means that certain words - certain concepts - are eternalized by the very
fact that they express divine truth. This means that there is a so-called
philosophia perennis - that there is something eternal and absolute in thought.
But this does not at all mean there is an “eternalization” of one specific
philosophical “system.” To state it more correctly - Christian dogmatics itself
is the only true philosophical “system.” One recalls that dogmas are expressed
in philosophical language - indeed, in a specific philosophical language - but
not at all in the language of a specific philosophical school. Rather, one can
speak of a philosophical “eclecticism” of Christian dogmatics. And this
“eclecticism” has a much deeper meaning than one usually assumes. Its entire
meaning consists of the fact that particular themes of Hellenic philosophy are
received and, through this reception, they change essentially; they change and
are no longer recognizable. Because now, in the terminology of Greek philosophy,
a new, a totally new experience is expressed. Although themes and motives of
Greek thought are retained, the answers to the problems are quite different;
they are given out of a new experience. Hellenism, for this reason, received
Christianity as something foreign and alien, and the Christian Gospel was
“foolishness” to the Greeks (εθνεσιν δε μωιαν 1 Corinthians 1:23). Hellenism,
forged in the fire of a new experience and a new faith, is renewed; Hellenic
thought is transformed. Usually we do not sufficiently perceive the entire
significance of this transformation which Christianity introduced into the realm
of thought. This is so, partially because we too often remain ancient Greeks
philosophically, not yet having experienced the baptism of thought by fire. And
in part, on the contrary, because we are too accustomed to the new world-view,
retaining it as an “innate truth” when, in actuality, it was given to us only
through Revelation. It is sufficient to point out just a few examples: the idea
of the creaturehood of the world, not only in its transitory and perishable
aspect but also in its primordial principles. For Greek thought the concept of
“created ideas” was impossible and offensive. And bound up with this was the
Christian intuition of history as a unique - once-occurring - creative
fulfillment, the sense of a movement from an actual “beginning” up to a final
end, a feeling for history which in no way at all allows itself to be linked
with the static pathos of ancient Greek thought. And the understanding of man as
person, the concept of personality, was entirely inaccessible to Hellenism which
considered only the mask as person. And finally there is the message of
Resurrection in glorified but real flesh, a thought which could only frighten
the Greeks who lived in the hope of a future dematerialization of the Spirit.
These are some of the new vistas disclosed in the new experience, out of
Revelation. They are the presuppositions and categories of a new Christian
philosophy. This new philosophy is enclosed in Church dogmatics. In the
experience of faith the world reveals itself differently than in the experience
of “natural man.” Revelation is not only Revelation about God but also about the
world. For the fulness of Revelation is in the image of the God-Man; that is, in
the fact of the ineffable union of God and Man, of the Divine and the human, of
the Creator and the creature - in the indivisible and unmerged union forever. It
is precisely the Chalcedonian dogma of the unity of the God-Man which is the
true, decisive point of Revelation, and of the experience of faith and of
Christian vision. Strictly speaking, a clear knowledge of God is impossible for
man, if he is committed to vague and false conceptions of the world and of
himself. There is nothing surprising about this. For the world is the creation
of God and therefore, if one has a false understanding of the world, one
attributes to God a work which he did not produce; one therefore casts a
distorted judgment on God’s activity and will. In this respect a true philosophy
is necessary for faith. And, on the other hand, faith is committed to specific
metaphysical presuppositions. Dogmatic theology, as the exposition and
explanation of divinely revealed truth in the realm of thought, is precisely the
basis of a Christian philosophy, of a sacred philosophy, of a philosophy of the
Holy Spirit. Once again it must be stressed: dogma presupposes experience, and
only in the experience of vision and faith does dogma reach its fulness and come
to life. And again: dogmas do not exhaust this experience, just as Revelation is
not exhausted in “words” or in the “letter” of Scripture. The experience and
knowledge of the Church are more comprehensive and fuller than her dogmatic
pronouncement. The Church witnesses to many things which are not in “dogmatic”
statements but rather in images and symbols. In other words, “dogmatic” theology
can neither dismiss nor replace “Kerygmatic” theology. In the Church the fulness
of knowledge and understanding is given, but this fulness is only gradually and
partially disclosed and professed - and, in general, the knowledge in this world
is always only a “partial” knowledge, and the fulness will be revealed only in
the Parousia. “Now I know in part” - (“αρτι γινωσκω εκ μερους...” 1 Corinthians
13:12). This “incompleteness” of knowledge depends upon the fact that the Church
is still “in pilgrimage,” still in the process of becoming; she witnesses to the
mystical essence of time in which the growth of mankind is being accomplished
according to the measure of the image of Christ. And furthermore: the Church
does not endeavor at all to express and declare everything. The Church does not
endeavor to crystallize her experience in a closed system of words and concepts.
Nevertheless, this “incompleteness” of our knowledge here and now does not
weaken its authentic and apodictic character, A Russian theologian described
this situation in the following way: “The Church gives no fixed plan of the City
of God to her members but rather she gives them the key to the City of God. And
he who enters, without having a fixed plan, may occasionally lose his way; yet,
everything he sees, he will behold as it is, in full reality. He, however, who
will study the City according to plan, without possessing the key to the actual
city, will never get to the City” (B. M. Melioranskii, from the Lectures on the
History of the Ancient Christian Church, “Strannik,” June, 1910, p. 931, in
Russian).

III. Theology.

Revelation is preserved in the Church. It was given by God to the Church, not to
separate individuals. Just as in the Old Testament “the words of God” (“τα λογια
του Θεου,” ta logia tu Theu - Romans 3:2) were entrusted not to individuals but
to the People of God. Revelation is given, and is accessible, only in the
Church; that is, only through life in the Church, through a living and actual
belonging to the mystical organism of the Body of Christ. This means that
genuine knowledge is only possible in the element of Tradition.

Tradition is a very important concept, one which is usually understood too
narrowly: as oral Tradition in contrast to Scripture. This understanding not
only narrows but also distorts the meaning of Tradition. Sacred Tradition as the
“tradition of truth,” - traditio veritatis, as St. Irenaeus stated - is not only
historical memory, not simply an appeal to antiquity and to empirical
unchangingness. Tradition is the inner, mystical memory of the Church. It is,
above all, the “unity of the Spirit,” the unity and continuity of the spiritual
experience and the life of grace. It is the living connection with the day of
Pentecost, the day when the Holy Spirit descended into the world as the “Spirit
of Truth.” The faithfulness to Tradition is not a loyalty to antiquity but
rather the living relationship with the fulness of the Christian life. The
appeal to Tradition is not so much the appeal to earlier patterns as it is an
appeal to the “catholic” experience of the Church, to the fulness of her
knowledge. As the well-known formula of St. Vincent of Lerins states: quod
semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est - in this formula, to which
one so often appeals, there is an essential ambiguity. “Semper” and “ubique”
must not be understood literally and empirically. And “omnes” does not include
all who claim to be Christian but only the “true” Christians who preserve the
right doctrine and interpret it correctly. Those, however, who are “heretics,”
who are misled, and those who are weak in faith are not included in the concept
of “all.” The formula of St. Vincent is based on a tautology. The scope of
Tradition cannot be established simply by historical research. That would be a
very dangerous path. That would mean a complete disregard for the spiritual
nature of the Church. Tradition is known and understood only by belonging to the
Church, through participation in her common or “catholic” life. The term
“catholic” is often understood wrongly and imprecisely. The katholikos
(καθολικος) of katholu (καθ ολου) does not at all mean an external universality
- it is not a quantative but rather a qualitative criterion. “Catholic” does not
mean “universal;” katholikos is not identical with ikumenikos (οικουμενικος).
The “Catholic Church” can also historically turn out to be the “small flock.”
There are probably more “heretics” than “Orthodox believers” in the actual world
and it can turn out that “heretics” are “everywhere” - ubique - and the true
Church is pushed into the background of history, into the “desert.” This was
often the case and it may happen again. But this empirical limitation and
situation does not in any way destroy the “catholic” nature of the Church. The
Church is catholic because she is the Body of Christ, and in the unity of this
Body the reciprocal co-growth of individual members takes place; mutual
seclusion and isolation is overcome, and the true “community” or the “common
life” - kinonia or kinovia - is realized. And that concerns thought also. In the
unity of the Church the catholicity of consciousness is realized. In this the
true mystery of the Church is contained: “that they may all be one; even as
thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us...so that
they may become perfectly one...” (“ινα παντες εν ωσιν-ινα ωσιν τετελειωμενοι
εις εν” John 17:21; John 17:23). This “fulness of unity” in the image of the
Trinity is precisely the catholicity of the Church. In explaining the High
Priestly prayer of our Lord, the late Metropolitan Anthony of Kiev stated: “This
prayer concerns nothing else other than the establishment of a new, united
existence of the Church on earth. This reality has its image not on earth, where
there is no unity but only division, but rather its image is in heaven where the
unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit unites Three Persons in one Being.
Thus there are not three Gods but One God who lives One life. The Church is the
completely new, particular, unique existence on earth, a unique existence which
one cannot define clearly by certain concepts taken from profane life. The
Church is an image of Trinitarian existence, an image in which many persons
become one being. Why is such an existence, as also the existence of the Holy
Trinity, new and, for ancient man, inaccessible? For this reason; because in the
natural self-consciousness a person is enclosed within himself and is radically
opposed to every other person” (Archbishop Anthony Khrapovitskti, Collected,
Works, II, 2; St. Petersburg, 1911, - “The Moral Idea of the Dogma of the
Church,” pp. 17 and 18; in Russian). Elsewhere Metropolitan Anthony states: “The
Christian therefore must free himself, in the measure of his spiritual
perfection, from the direct opposition of “I” and “non-I" - to transform from
its very foundation the structure of human self-consciousness” (Ibid., p. 65).
Such a transformation of “human self-consciousness” also takes place in the
Church, in the “catholic” or “communal” consciousness of the Church. “Catholic”
consciousness is not a collective-consciousness, not a universal or profane
community-consciousness - neither is it a conglomerate of single conscious
individuals; it is not an impersonal “consciousness-in-general.” “Catholicity”
is the concrete “unity of thoughts” and “community of persons.” “Catholicity” is
structure and style, “the determination of personal consciousness,” which
overcomes its limitation and isolation and matures to a “catholic” height -
“catholicity” is the ideal standard or boundary-point, the “telos,” (τελος) of
personal consciousness which is realized in the affirmation, not in the
abolition, of personality. And the measure of “catholicity” can only be
fulfilled through life in Christ. And not because we realize in our
consciousness an abstract “consciousness-in-general” or an impersonal nature of
logical thought, but rather “catholicity” is realized by concrete experience or
by the Vision of the Truth. Unity is realized through participation in the one
truth; it realized itself in the truth, in Christ. And therefore consciousness
transforms itself. As the clearest expression of this transformation one must
recognize that mysterious overcoming of time which takes place in the Church. In
Christ the believers of all eras and generations unify and unite themselves -
meeting each other, as it were, as mystically united contemporaries. In this
consists precisely the religious and metaphysical meaning of “the communion of
the saints” - communio sanctorum. And therefore the memory of the Church is
oriented not to the past which has passed away but rather to what has been
achieved or “completed” - the memory of the Church is turned toward those of the
past as contemporaries in the fulness of the Church of the Body of Christ, which
embraces all times. Tradition is the symbol of this “all-time-ness.” To know or
perceive through Tradition means to know or perceive from the fulness of this
experience of “all-time-ness.” And this can be known within the Church by each
person in his personal experience, according to the measure of his spiritual
maturity. To turn oneself toward Tradition means to turn oneself toward this
fulness. The “Catholic transformation” of consciousness makes it possible for
each person to know - not in fact for himself only but for all; it makes the
fulness of experience possible. And this knowledge is free from every
restriction. In the catholic nature of the Church there is the possibility of
theological knowledge and not just something founded upon theological
“opinions.” I maintain that each person can realize the catholic standard in
himself. I do not say that each person does realize it. That depends upon the
measure of one’s spiritual maturity. Each person is, however, called. And those
who realize it we call Fathers and Teachers of the Church, for we hear from them
not simply their personal opinions but the very witness of the Church - because
they speak out of the Catholic fulness. This fulness is unexhausted and
inexhaustible. And we are summoned to testify about this and in this the
vocation of man is fulfilled. God revealed and reveals himself to man. And we
are called to testify to that which we have seen and see.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 5: 05 - THE IDEA OF CREATION IN CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY
========================================================================

The Idea of Creation in Christian Philosophy Behold, I have graven thee upon the
palms of my hands. - Isaiah 49:16.

I The idea of Creation is one of the main distinctive marks of the Christian
mind. It was foreign and alien to the Greek mind. Perhaps, the true point of
discrimination between the two systems was exactly this idea of Creation. It was
much more than the answer to the problem of origins. In this answer the whole
further development is already implied. Charles Renouvier, the great French
philosopher of the last century, was undoubtedly right in suggesting a
dichotomic classification of philosophical systems (“une division binaire”).
Philosophical systems, he contended, could not be arrayed in a linear order, as
if they were but steps in the formation of some ultimate and all-inclusive
synthesis. There was, in his opinion, no linear progress in philosophy, even no
dialectical one. There was a radical opposition and an irreconcilable conflict
of the two visions of the world, an ultimate opposition of sic and non, an
ultimate either - or. One of the main antitheses was for Renouvier precisely
this: evolution or creation. Renouvier was not a Christian philosopher himself,
he was decidedly anti-Christian. But paradoxically, on main burning issues of
metaphysics he was unexpectedly closer to the truth of Revelation than many of
those who had claimed for themselves the honorific title of Christian thinkers.
And his monumental Esquisse d’une classification systematique des doctrines
philosophiques (1866, 2 vols.) is an excellent guide through the labyrinth of
metaphysical controversies. Now, the two visions of the world Renouvier was
speaking of, are in the last resort precisely the Greek and the Christian. The
idea of Creation was, in fact, a striking Christian innovation in philosophy. No
wonder it is still a stumbling-block for philosophers. For, as a rule,
philosophers, up to the present day, are thinking in Greek categories. Time and
again, various attempts were being made to tame or reduce this startling idea,
to sterilize it, as it were, to take the sting out of it, or else to explain it
away altogether. Yet, an adequate idea of Creation is the distinctive test of
the integrity of Christian mind and faith. An inadequate conception of Creation,
on the contrary, is inevitably subversive of the whole fabric of Christian
beliefs.

II To say: the world is created is, first of all, to emphasize its radical
contingency and precisely - a contingency in the order of existence. Or, in the
other words, a created world is a world which might not have existed at all.
Perhaps, this is the best definition of Creation. On one hand, it is to say that
the Universe has in itself no sufficient reason for existence - cur potius sit
quam non sit. It is to say, that the world is, utterly and entirely, ab alio,
and in no sense a se. It is a derived and depended existence, it is not
self-explanatory. The very existence of the world points out to Another, to the
existence of God. “Behold, there exist the sky and the earth. They cry out that
they have been made... They cry out also that they did not make themselves: we
are because we have been made; we were not before we were, to be able to be made
by ourselves.” - Ecce sunt coelum et terra, clamant quod facta sunt… Clamant
etiam quod se ipsa non fecerint: ideo sumus quia facta sumus; non ergo eramus,
antequam essemus, ut fieri possemus a nobis. Et vox clamantium est ipsa
evidentia (St. Augustine, Conf. xi, 4). On the other hand, it is to say that
God, as it were, could not have created any world at all. The world had been
brought into existence out of nothing by the free act of God, and not by any
“necessity” inherent in His own being. It was a libertas contradictionis. God
was ultimately and absolutely free either to create or not to create at all,
without any prejudice or detriment to His supreme perfection and plenitude. Let
us quote Etienne Gilson: “God added nothing to Himself by the creation of the
world, nor would anything be taken away from Him by its annihilation - events
which would be of capital importance for the created beings concerned, but null
for Being Who would be in no wise concerned qua being.” Thus, the contingency is
double; on the part of the Created, and on the part of the Creator Himself.
Neither should be overlooked or underestimated. The true reality of the Universe
is secured, in a startling way, precisely by its being unnecessary to God’s own
being. Otherwise it would have been but a shadow. The existence of the world is
the miracle of the Divine Freedom.

III The idea of Creation implies therefore some ultimate duality in existence.
God and the Creature. This and is an “and” of absolute freedom. God is for the
world exactly “the Other,” and the world is for God an outside. The Creation is
precisely the Creation of this mysterious “outside.” There is an absolute and
ultimate distance between God and the created world, an utter and ultimate
hiatus - and it is a distance in nature, in the phrase of St. John Damascene:
πανδααπεχειΘεουουτοπω,αλλαφυση (de fide orth. i, 13). This duality of God and
the world is not a logical antithesis of the Absolute and the relative, of the
Infinite and the finite; in such an antithesis the terms are correlative and
mutually complementary - they are only possible together. No more is it duality
of principles ; the Creature is not an autonomous principle, there is but one
true “principle” - God Himself. But there are two natures - this terminology has
been authorized and consecrated by its use in the christological definition of
Chalcedon. We may say: there is a second nature, and it is (or exists) beside
and outside God. The existence of this “second” nature constitutes the proper
mystery of Creation. Again, this “outside” is, in the strictest sense, an
ultimate and contingent “surplus” of existence. These two adjectives: “ultimate”
and “contingent” may seem to be rather contradictory and incompatible. Surely,
they are antinomical. Yet, this antinomy is exactly the basis of the created
existence. The mystery of the Creation consists precisely in that what might not
have existed at all - by the supreme and inscrutable Will of God - does actually
and really exist. The idea of Creation itself is basically antinomical. And this
is antinomy of freedom. Freedom is always essentially antinomical. The creative
fiat of God is a free, but ultimate act of God. God has created the world simply
for existence: εκτισε γαρ εις το είναι τα παντα (Wis 1:14). There was no
provision for recalling in this creative decree. “The Lord hath sworn, and will
not repent” (Psalms 110:4). “The world also is stablished, that it cannot be
moved” (Psalms 93:1-5; Psalms 1:1-6). The sting of the antinomy is exactly here:
the world has a contingent beginning, but no end. Here is the whole novelty of
the Christian conception. For the Greeks “beginnings” and “ends” were
intrinsically interconnected: an “end” was implied in any “beginning,” and “no
end” could mean automatically “no beginning.” Or again, in the Greek conception,
only that what was “necessary” could claim a true and permanent “existence.”
This was inevitable in the monistic system of metaphysics. Now, the whole
perspective has been changed in the light of the Revelation.

IV

Contingency implies a “beginning.” The world has been begun. It has had a
chronological beginning. Of course, the world is created not in time, but rather
with time. “The beginning of time is not yet time and not even the least
particle of it,” says St. Basil - just as the beginning of the road is not yet
the road itself, and again “the beginning, in effect, is indivisible and
instantaneous (αμερες τι και αδιαστατον, in Hexaemeron, hom. 1, 6). St.
Augustine was also emphatic on this point; procul dubio non est mundus factus in
tempore, sed cum tempore; quis non videat quod tempora not fuissent, nisi
creatura fieret? (Civ. Dei, i i; 6). The created world alone exists in time, as
in a real succession or duration. The creation of the world therefore is the
creation of time also. Yet, the created world can exist also in another manner,
once it had been created. This mode of existence is still inconceivable for us
now. But, after the General Resurrection, suggested St. John Damascene, there
will no longer be any succession of moments, of days and of nights, even for the
creatures, but for the righteous there will be one eternal day, and for the
wicked and condemned - one endless night (de fide orth. 2; 1). The sequence of
moments, the temporal series itself, will have its last term. But, let us
remember, the end of time will not be the end of the creaturely existence. This
again is the Christian innovation. The temporal series had its first term. We
can imagine this beginning of time only in a retrospective manner, by remounting
the series of successions - this was precisely the method of St. Basil (Hexaem.
1; 6 - "ascending into the past”). And then, we come ultimately to the point at
which we have simply to stop, or rather we postulate the halt. This is the
absolutely first term of the temporal series, or the last of our mental
retrogression. Before it, or beyond it, there are no terms at all, i.e. no terms
or moments of the temporal series, because there was no time before the time
begun. For time is precisely “the number of movement, estimated according to its
before and after” (Aristotle, Phys. 4: 3). We cannot visualize this first
beginning directly. Yet, we can visualize it by the contrary, by discovering and
postulating the impossibility of infinite retrogression. It matters little,
whether we can really measure the time elapsed since this beginning exactly in
centuries or days. What does really matter is just this postulate of the halt.
This postulate means also that the “number” of the times past is a finite
number. Surely, time was not begun in time, for there was simply nothing to
precede time in time. An “empty time “ is but a fiction. It is highly inaccurate
to say that God was before the time begun. The word “before” implies just the
sequence of instants, it is an utterly temporal expression. But God does not
precede the created world in time. “Nor dost Thou by time precede time; else
shouldest Thou not precede all times. But Thou precedest all things past by the
sublimity of an ever present eternity - celsitudine semper presentis
aeternitatis... Thy years are one day; and Thy day is not daily, but To-day...
Thy To-day is eternity “ (St. Augustine, Conf. 11; 16). We cannot understand the
transition from the Divine Eternity to duration or the succession of times -
precisely because there is no homogeneous transition, but an ultimate hiatus and
rupture. “Eternity” and “time” are two different modes of existence. They differ
essentially - in quality, not just in measure or length. And Omne tempus would
not be the true Semper, to quote St. Augustine once more (Civ. Dei 12; 15. But
time began. This beginning of time, with the created world, is an absolute
beginning - the beginning of all that begins, that is begun. Time and eternity
cannot be added together: they have no common measure, they are, as it were,
different dimensions of existence. “We are dealing with two orders of being not
to be added together nor subtracted; they are, in all rigour, incommensurable,
and that is also why they are compossible.”

V The Fathers of the fourth century, in their struggle against Arian heresy,
were especially concerned with a clear definition of Creation. As St. Athanasius
puts it, created things have nothing in common with God κατ’ουσιαν, and are
constituted outside of Him (εξωσεν), being created by His grace and will χαριτι
και βουλησει), so that they could even cease to exist if He would wish so (c.
arian. 1; 20). Creation, first of all, excludes all “consubstantiality” of the
productive Cause and the things produced. It is to be strictly distinguished
from another mode of self-production which would have for origin its own proper
nature. The Word of God is eternally born εκ της μακαριας εκεινης και αει ουσης
ουσιασ, but the world is created εκ βουλησεος (c. Arian. 2; 2; cf. 3; 60-6). We
find again the same distinction in St. Cyril of Alexandria: ετερον γαρ τι εστιν
παρα το κτισμα το γεννυμα, το μεν γαρ εκ της ουσιας του γεννωντυς προεισι
φυσικος, το δε εξωθεν εστιν, ως αλλοτριον (Thes. ass. 15, M.G. 75, 276; cf. ass.
A, 313; το με γαρ ποιειν ενεργειας εστιν φυσεως, δε το γενναν, φυσις δε και
ενεργτια ου ταυοτν). Finally, St. John of Damascus sums up the established
patristic tradition in the following concise statements. “For we hold that it is
from Him, that is, from the Father’s Nature, that the Son is generated… For
creation, even though it originated later, is nevertheless not derived from the
essence of God (ουκ εκ της του Θεου ουσιας); but is brought into existence out
of nothing by His Will and power (βουλησει και δυναμει). For generation means
that the begetter produces out of his essence offspring similar in essence (το
εκ της ουσιας του γεννωντος προαγεσθαι το γεννωμενον ομοιον κατ’ουσιαν); But
creation and making mean that the Creator and maker produces from that which is
external, and not of his own essence, a creation of absolutely dissimilar nature
(ουκ εκ της ουσιας του κτιζοντος και ποιουντος γενεσθαι το κτιζομενον και
ποιουμενον ονομοιον παντελως)… But generation in Him is without beginning and
everlasting, being the work of nature and producing out of His own essence
(αναρχος και αιδιος, φυσεως εργον ουσα και εκ της ουσιας αυτου προαγουσα)… While
creation in God (επι Θεου), being the work of will (θελησεως εργον ουσα), is not
co-eternal with God.” (de fide orth. 1; 8). By virtue of His natural fecundity
(της φυσικης γονιμοτητος) the Father has begotten His eternal Son. “Natural
fecundity” is precisely a capacity to beget of Himself, of His own substance or
nature - to beget consubstantials. There is, as it were, something of “natural”
or essential necessity. The eternal Generation and Procession are realized
within the Divine nature (or “essence”). But Creation is an act of will, an act
and action entirely and essentially free. And by this creative act God brings
into being things wholly dissimilar to Himself. As a work of the will, not of
the substance of God, the creature is not at all consubstantial or even similar
to the Creator. “In the creature there is nothing appertaining to the Trinity
save that the Trinity formed it,” says St. Augustine: non de Dei natura sed a
Deo sit facta de nihilo, nibilque in ea esse quod ad Trinitatem pertineat, nisi
quod Trinitas condidit (de Gen. ad litt. lib. imp., c. I, M.L. 34: 221).

VI The world is created - it means; it is brought into existence by freedom pure
and absolute, ex mera libertate, or liberrimo consilio. Duns Scotus, doctor
subtilis, formulated this thought with a very subtle clarity: God created
things, not by a necessity either of essence or of prescience or of will, but by
a pure liberality, which nothing outside Him constrains to cause what He
creates. Procedit autem rerum creatio a Deo non aliqua necessitate vel
essentiae, vel scientiae, vel voluntatis, sed ex mera libertate, quae non
movetur et multo minus necessitatur ab aliquo extra se ad causandum (Duns
Scotus, Quaest. disp. de rerum principio, qu. 4, art. I, n. 3). Yet, it is not
enough to exclude all external constraint. Obviously, no such constraint was
ever possible before the “outside” itself was created. Before creation nothing
existed beside God. As it has been already pointed out, Creation is precisely
the first positing of an “outside” in relation to God - of course, not as any
limit or restriction of the Divine being and nature, but in the sense that
another nature is brought into existence beside God, that a new mode of
existence, of a derived existence, is initiated. Doubtlessly, in the act of
Creation God is only determined by Himself. Now, we have to make one step still
further: He is not even determined or moved to creation by any internal
necessity. Or, in other words, God qua God is not inevitably Creator. He might
not have created at all, without any diminution of His supreme fullness or of
His superabundant perfection. Or again, in the phrase of E. Gilson, “it is quite
true that a Creator is an eminently Christian God, but a God whose very essence
is to be a creator is not a Christian God at all.” But precisely at this very
point we have to face the greatest antinomy of all - nodus totius tbeologiae
intricatissimus, as Billuart hast styled it. It has been plainly stated already
by Origen, but, unfortunately, his own solution of the problem was wrong and
misleading. Origen begins with the analysis of the name Almighty, and proceeds
as follows. “As no one can be a father without having a son, nor a master
without possessing a servant, so even God cannot be called omnipotent unless
there exists those over whom He may exercise His power; and therefore, that God
may be shown to be almighty, it is necessary that all things should exist. For
if anyone would have some ages or portions of time, or whatever else he likes to
call them, to have passed away, while those things which were afterwards made
did not yet exist, he would undoubtedly show that during those ages or periods
God was not omnipotent, but became so afterwards, viz. from the time that He
began to have persons over whom to exercise power; and in this way He will
appear to have received a certain increase, and to have risen from a lower to a
higher condition; since there can be no doubt that it is better for Him to be
omnipotent than not to be so. And now how can it appear otherwise than absurd,
that when God possessed none of those things which it was befitting for Him to
possess, He should afterwards, by a kind of progress, come into the possession
of them? But if there never was a time when He was not omnipotent, of necessity
those things by which He receives that title must also exist; and He must always
have had those over whom He exercised power, and which were governed by Him
either as king or prince” (de princ. 1:2-10). God is unchangeable. Now, He is
the Lord of creation. Is it conceivable, asks Origen, to admit that He began to
be a Lord? Again, one is a Lord of somebody else. is it not inevitable that this
somebody should exist from all eternity, if God is to be the Lord at all ? Is it
not inevitable for God to have an eternal companion, if He has to have a
companion at all? But there is a companion, the created Universe. Can we escape
the conclusion, that the Universe existed always? Origen returns once more to
the same question. He had to face the following objection: “ if the world had
its beginning in time, what was God doing before the world began? For it is at
once impious and absurd to say that the nature of God is inactive immovable, or
to suppose that goodness at one time did not do good, and omnipotence at one
time did not exercise its power.” Origen had nothing to offer except an evasive
suggestion that there were “other worlds” before the present world had been
started. “We can give a logical answer in accordance with the standard of
religion, when we say that not then for the first time did God begin to work
when He made this visible world; but as, after its destruction, there will be
another world, so also we believe that others existed before the present came
into being” (de princ. 3; 5, 3). Origen’s difficulty was real. St. Augustine has
faced the same problem. Cum cogito cujus rei Dominus semper fuit, si semper
creatura non fuit, affirmare aliquid pertimesco (Augustine, Civ. Dei, 12: 15).
Origen has complicated the problem by his inadequate conception of the eternal
time, i.e. of an infinite sequence of instants or duration. But the core of the
problem was not there. He has admitted much more than what could be imposed upon
him by this erroneous conception of time. He went to insist on the intrinsic
necessity for God to be revealed ad extra, on the intrinsic inevitability to
have realized from all eternity at least implicitly everything that could be
realized at all. If the world had to exist at all, it had to be created
eternally. The main reason of Origen was precisely the Divine immutability. He
had to come to the conclusion that some co-eternal non-ego was necessary for
God, as a condition of the Divine fullness and perfection. At this point he was
unable to overcome the limitations of the Greek mind and apprehend the novelty
of Christian Revelation in its full and mysterious depth. He failed to
understand the very point of the doctrine of Creation. Yet, even if we reject
Origen’s conception of an eternal and infinite time, it remains questionable,
whether at least the idea of the world does not ultimately belong to the
unconditional fullness of the Divine Being. Let us take for granted, that the
real, or “the visible world,” as Origen used to say, has had really a true
beginning with time, and one can pretend that there was when it had not existed.
Still, we have to face the deeper challenge: is not the idea of the world ever
present in the Divine mind, does it not belong to the unchangeable fullness of
the Divine self-knowledge and selfdetermination ? It is a subtle and delicate
question indeed. But we can hardly avoid it. The true antinomy can be stated in
this way. “To be creator” is not an “essential” or constitutive attribute of
God, of the Divine being - God creates in perfect and unlimited freedom. The
omnipotence of God must be defined not only as the supreme power to create, but
also as an absolute power not to create at all. God might have tolerated that
nothing should exist outside Himself (we have already stressed this point). To
create and not to create are for God, as it were, equal goods, and it is useless
to seek a “sufficient reason” for’ the Divine choice, because the creative act
has not been imposed upon God in any sense, even by His own goodness or His own
superabundant perfection. In His full and infinite beatitude God has need of
nothing. Rather it is a miracle and mystery that God should have reasons to
create. There is no imperative or necessary link between the Divine Nature (or
Essence) and the creative decree. But, if God is not necessarily Creator, by His
own nature or essence, did He begin to create? An absurd and impious supposition
indeed, because, God is above all change, and in Him “there is no shadow of
turning” (James 1:17). But again, if He did not begin to be creator, if His
creative Will is eternal, as it obviously is, does He then create ab aeterno and
is the creature coeternal with God? An affirmation still more absurd, since it
is the distinctive characteristic of the creature, as such, to be begun, to come
into existence out of nothingness. “Nulla fiebat creatura, antequam fieret ulla
creatura,” as St. Augustine says (Conf. 11: 12). The world was begun - with Time
itself. And God did not begin to create. There is here a sharp enough antinomy.
It is much more than “a sacred puzzle,” aenigma sacrum. And it cannot be solved
or simply dismissed by a distinction between the eternal will and its temporal
accomplishment. Obviously, there is no difficulty at all in conceiving an
eternal disposition of effects to be produced in time, i.e. in temporal order
and sequence. But the true knot of problem is not there. The real problem is
precisely this: what is the relation between the eternal essence of God and His
eternal Will. Or, in other words, the ultimate antinomy is implied in the
conception of the eternal freedom. Or again, how can we reconcile the perfect
Immutability of God with His creative Freedom? I mean, how can we escape
ascribing the unchangeable God some inevitable plan of Creation? be it only a
plan of a possible creation. Even in such an assumption some necessity would be
already implied.

VII The Divine creative thought is eternal. “God,” says St. John Damascene,
“contemplated everything before creation, thinking outside time (αχρονως
εννοησας); and everything comes to pass in its time according to His timeless
volitional thought, which is predetermination and image and pattern - κατά την
θελητικην ουτου αχρονον εννοιαν, ηυις εστι προορισμος, και εικων, και παραδειγμα
(de fide orth. 1; 9). These “images” and “patterns” constitute the eternal and
immutable counsel of God, in which all that is foreordained by God and is being
unfailingly realized is eternally figured, εχαρακτηριξετο η βουλη αυτου η
προαιωνιος και αει ωσαυτως εχουσα (St. John Damasc. de imagin. 1, 10). This
“counsel” of God is eternal and has no beginning (αναρχος), because everything
is immutable in God. It is “the image of God,” the second type of the Divine
images, oriented ad extra (de imag. 3:10 - δευτερος τροπος εικονος, η εν τω Θεω
των υπ’αυτου εσωμενων εννοια τουτεστιν η προαιωνιος αυτου βουλησις, η αει
ωσαυτως εχουσα, ατρεπτον γαρ το Θειον, και η βουλησις αυτου αυτουαναργος). St.
John quotes Pseudo Dionysius. “And we give the name of “Exemplars” to those laws
which, pre-existent in God as an Unity, produce the essences of things; laws
which are called in theology “Preordinations” or Divine and benevolent
Volitions, laws whereby the Super-Essential pre-ordained and brought into being
the whole Universe” (de div. nomin. 5; 8 παραδειγματα δε φαμεν είναι τους εν Θεω
των οντων ουσιοποιους και ενιαιως προυφεστωτας λογους, ους η θεολογια
προορισμους καλει, και θεια και αγαθα θεληματα των οντων αφοριστικα και
ποειτικα, καθ’ ους ο Υπερουσιος τα οντα παντα και προωρισε και παρηγαγεν). These
“ideas” and “pre-ordinations” are, in the phrase of St. Maximus the Confessor,
perfect and eternal notions of the Eternal God, νοησεις αυτοτελεις αιδιοι του
αιδιου Θεου (schol. in div. nom. 5; 5, M.G. 4: 317 C). We have now to ask and to
answer two different questions, and it is highly important not to confuse them,
for they belong ultimately to different levels or theological contexts. First,
what is the relation between these “pre-eternal patterns” of the world and the
temporal world actually in existence ? Secondly, what is its relation to the
very essence and being of God. The first belongs to the sphere of the Divine
economy, the last to theology proper. Let us begin with the former.

VIII

God has constituted the creature in His idea - from all eternity. But it was not
yet the creature itself. It was only an image, a sketch, a plan, a proposition
of the creature. The creatures before they were created - with time - existed
and did not yet exist, as St. Augustine admirably suggested: they existed in the
prescience of God, but they did not exist in their proper nature. - Haec igitur
antequem fierent, utique non erant. Quomodo ergo Deo nota erant quae non erant ?
Proinde, antequam fierent, et erant et non erant; erant in Dei scientia;.non
erant in sua natura (St. Augustine, de Gen. ad. litt., 5; 18). The term “exist”
is ambiguous and misleading just at this very point. Properly speaking, the
creatures simply do not exist before they come to existence in their own and
temporal nature. The idea of the world is not yet the world itself. And there is
an absolute and qualitative hiatus, a true distance of nature - there is no
continuous or inevitable passage between the two. Transition from the “notion”
or “pattern” (the Divine εννοημα) to the “act” and actualization (εργον) is not
a process in the Divine idea, but exactly the emergence, creation and first
positing of the new reality, that, in the strictest sense, simply did not exist
at all or, as it were is preceded on its own level and in its own kind, by
“nothingness” (“out of” which it first emerges), i.e. precisely by nothing at
all. As we have already stated, it is an absolute beginning in the order of
existence, or a beginning of the new order of existence itself. The Divine idea
remains outside the world, that is created according to it. The idea itself does
not enter into the temporal process, into the process des Werdens. God created
according to His idea or ideas and not out of His idea. The Divine Idea is an
eternal prototype in God’s own mind, in accordance with which all that is
produced is produced, shaped and formed. It is a transcendent plan of creation.
This was precisely the conception of St. Augustine, Sant namque ideae
principales formae quaedam, vel rationes rerum stabiles atque incommutabiles,
quae ipsae formatae non sunt, ac per boc aeternae ac semper eodem modo se
habentes, quia in Divina mente continentur. Et cum ipsae neque oriantur, neque
intereant; secundum eas tamen formari dicitur omne quod oriri et interire
potest, et omne quod oritur et interit (St. Augustine, de div. quaest. 83, qu.
46; 2, M.L. Matthew: 30). The idea of the world is in God, and the world itself
is outside God. The fundamental error of the pantheists consists exactly in
their identifying the idea and this existential “itself”: then it would be the
Divine idea as such which would be developed in time and be the subject of the
temporal process; then again, the “substance” of things would be a “substantial”
revelation of God’s own being and existence; then God Himself would be involved
into the process of the world. On the contrary, we have to insist on the basic
fact that the idea is not the germ of things at all. The “germ” of things comes
precisely out of nothing, i.e. is created. The idea of things is their
transcendent “image” or exemplar, and their norm - not an immanent one. Creation
consists in God’s calling, “out of nothing” (εξ ουκ οντων) into existence a new
reality, which becomes the bearer or carrier of His idea, without being ever
existentially identified with it - which must and can actualize the idea, in the
creaturely order of existence, by its own proper becoming what it was meant and
foreordained to become. The created world is an “exterior”object of the Divine
thought, and not this thought itself. It participates in the idea, in so far as
it is conformed to it. But even in this participation there is no confusion of
the orders of existence, Thus the own reality of the created world is fully
secured.

IX And now we come to the crucial point. We have to turn to our second question.
- The idea of Creation, of a Divine “outside,” a Divine “non-ego,” obviously
does not belong to the intrinsic plenitude of the Divine being - it is not
produced in virtue of the “natural fecundity” of God, for in this case it would
be a sort of “fourth hypostasis,” - a supposition impious and sacrilegious. It
has been produced from all eternity, but in a supreme freedom, by an act of
will. We can dare to say that this idea might not have been produced as well.
Certainly it is for us a casus irrealis, a wholly formal possibility. But it
helps us to understand the full meaning of the idea of Creation. We may say also
that the Trinitarian being is an intrinsic revelation of the Divine essence,
that it is eminently necessary - and perhaps, there is nothing necessary, in the
strict and ultimate sense, except the Holy Trinity, consubstantial and
indivisible. God is Trinity. And He has His idea of the Creation - from all
eternity. Still, there is an ultimate difference between the “is” and the “has.”
Otherwise we would deny His creative freedom, which is not only a libertas
specificationis, but, above all and ultimately, a libertas contradictionis. God
has invented His idea of the world - from all eternity. That is to say at once
that He had supreme reasons for positing it and that He was not constrained in
this eternal act, even by His own Goodness and Love. We cannot say that God
created the world with the same “necessity” with which He loves Himself. The
Love of God, His blessed goodness, cannot be augmented by the contemplation of
all the finite existences which can be brought out of nothingness to participate
in the Divine grace. No more can the superabundant beatitude of God be limited
by the absence of these existences, or even by the absence of the idea of their
essence. God is supremely αυταρκης. He has no need of any non-ego, even
imagined, even in idea. God does not think in antitheses. He has not to oppose
Himself to another, to raise Himself above another, God is supremely free in
regard to possible creatures. There is no cause weighing down His will. God is
eminently free in regard even to the very possibility of creatures. There is
then a clear distinction between the necessity of the Divine nature and the
absolute freedom of His beneficent will. Or else, there is a distinction between
His being and His will. God is not, strictly speaking, causa sui - He is Who is.
But He is causa mundi - precisely in the order of existence. This distinction is
not, of course, a division - there is no division, no interval in the Divine
Life. Moreover, the Divine Will reveals the Divine Nature. Let us quote, at this
point, St. Gregory of Nazianzus. “God invented (or imagined) the angelic and
heavenly powers, and this imagination became deed,” και το εννοημα εργον ην
(orat. 45, in S. Pascha, 5). Imagined - it is the very word. From all eternity,
“before” creation, says St. Gregory on another occasion, the thought of God
“contemplated the splendour ardently desired of His goodness, the equal and
equally perfect splendour of His tri-hypostatic Divinity, as it is known to God
Himself and to him to whom He deigns to manifest it. The Intelligence which gave
origin to the world scanned also in its sublime conceptions the forms of this
world” (carm. 4, de mundo, vv. 60-9). These forms do not belong to the perfect
splendour of the tri-hypostatic Divinity.. The creative initiative is surely
eternal, but it comes, as it were, second. We have to admit some mysterious
gradation in the eternal life of God. With a daring, but tolerable inexactitude
we may say perhaps, that creative intention is eternal and yet not co-eternal
with God. That is not to say that it is accidental, but to emphasize that it is
free. Of course, there is a limit to our logical understanding: here every word
becomes dumb and inexact - all words have here a value rather apophatic,
prohibitive or exclusive, than positive and cataphatic. Yet, cataphatic theology
itself ever needs an apophatic correction. The world, even in the Divine idea of
it, is an absolute surplus, a superadded reality, or rather a superadded gift,
free and generous, of the almighty freedom and superabundant Love of God. That
means exactly that the world is created. This may seem enigmatic, paradoxical,
antinomical. Now, creation is indeed paradoxical, miraculous, mysterious, and
enigmatic. The natural reason of man seeks always reasons, necessary and
sufficient, imposing themselves inevitably. There is no such reason for the
Creation. Surely, the creature cannot exist without the Creator, but the Creator
is free not to create - this means exactly that He is a Creator. It does not
mean only a possibility of not executing the eternal plan in time, but also of
not having or setting up any plan at all. This plan is obviously eternal, like
all the designs of the Divine Will. Yet, and just in order to escape the
dangerous confusion, we have to distinguish, as it were, two modes of eternity:
the essential eternity in which only the Trinity lives, and the contingent
eternity of the free acts of Divine grace.

X

All that we affirm positively about God does not reveal His very nature, but only “what has reference to it,” τα παρι την φυσιν (St. John Damasc. de fide orth. 1:3). St. John here sums up the typical motives of the Greek theology (St. Augustine diverges radically from it just at this point). It is according to St. Athanasius that God presents Himself in all things by His power and goodness, but remains outside everything in His own proper nature, εξω δε των παντων --- κατά την ιδιαν φυσιν (de decr. 2). It is according to St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nyssa that in the world only the Divine energies, the active forces of the Divine goodness, are manifested and operate; and it is only these energies which are comprehensible and accessible to us in our relations with God (St. Basil, adv. Eun. 1:32 - δυναμεως γαρ, και σοφιας, και τεχνυς, ουχι δε της ουσιας αυτης ενδεικτικα εστιν ποιηματα, cf. bom. inillu Vol. etc., M.G. xxxi, 216 A; εκ των ενεργειων γωωριζεται μονον, St. Gregory of Nyssa, in Cant. cant. II, M.G. xlix, 1013 B: την θειαν φυσιν ακαταληπτον ουσαν παντελως και ανεικαστον, δια μονης ενεργειας γινωψκεσθαι). Yet, these energies are God Himself. The depths of the essence of God, dwelling in light unapproachable, are closed for us for ever. But what is comprehensible of Him, God has revealed by His operations in the world. By them we can contemplate His eternal Divinity and power (Romans 1; 19-20). But the Nature of God is ineffable and inaccessible - it is only accessible to God Himself, as St. Basil says (adv. Eun. 1:14). We only know the Divine actions - ”something which follows on His nature,” according to St. John of Damascus (τι των παρεπουμενων τη φυσει, de fide orth. I; 9) - τα περι αυτον, as St. Gregory of Nazianzus says (orat. 38:7). We can only touch His grace, but Himself is there; He descends to us by His energies, but we can never approach His nature, says St. Basil (Ephesians 234, ad Amphil., M.G. xxxii, c. 869 A-B: αι μεγαρ ενεργεια αυτου προς ημας καταβαινουσιν, η δε ουσια αυτου μενει απροσιτος). It was the common opinion of the Greek Fathers of the fourth century (St. John Chrysostom included; cf. his de incompr. Dei natura 3; 3, M.G. xlviii, 722). - grace is in no way separated from God, it is Himself. But, perhaps, we have to say it is the face of God turned outwards - ad extra, towards the creature, or just the Right Hand of God which creates and preserves. These are not vain and anthropomorphic metaphors. There is no better way to emphasize the distinctive difference between that which is strictly essential (and in this sense “necessary”) and what which is eminently free in God. This difference is of course not a division. Divine Nature and Divine grace are utterly indivisible, in the unity of the Divine being. Yet, we have to distinguish them. This distinction is implied already in the traditional distinction of Theology (in the proper sense) and Economy, θεολιγια and οικονομια, which distinction we can trace back to the early date. The Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church from the early times distinguished with care that what is to be said of God Himself and that which is said (and should be said) of His voluntary condescendence (beginning precisely with the Creation itself). One basic difficulty was inherent in this distinction. We know God only through His revelation, i.e. precisely in so far as He is, as it were, turned towards us or the created world in general. We know Him only in His relation to us. Even more, He is knowable only in His “economy.” Our theological vocabulary is inevitably “relative,” i.e. presupposes our own existence. Therefore, “theology” in the strict sense is inevitably apophatic and analogical. All theological terms are anthropomorphic, and we can transcend this anthropomorphic limitation only by a combined use of negation and sublimation, by a double way negationis and eminentiae. In the Ante-nicene period this distinction was never carried up to the full clarity. Doctrine of Holy Trinity was not yet completely liberated from cosmological motives, and the Word of God was described usually in the context of the Divine Revelation, exactly as the God of Revelation. There was an inherent danger of Subordinationism implied in this approach itself. There was some ultimate ambiguity in the whole doctrine of the Logos, as it had been developed by the Apologists and the Alexandrians. This ambiguity was finally overcome only in theology of the fourth century. We can properly understand the Cappadocian distinction between the Divine ουσια and ενεργεια only in this historical perspective and context. The whole Patristic doctrine on this subject was summed up later on by St. Gregory Palamas. The doctrine of the Divine “energies” was elaborated and formulated at the Councils of Constantinople in the fourteenth century (1341, 1347, 1351, 1352). There is no need, for our immediate purpose, to go into details of this doctrine. It is enough to recall the main features. The Divine ουσια is absolutely incommunicable to the creatures, absolutely inaccessible for them, αμεθεκτη. Yet, God is still accessible to His creation - in His “energies.” The creatures never partake in the very “essence” of God, but only in the Divine “energy” - yet, this participation in grace means precisely their intimate and true communion with God. The energy of God is the very source and supreme principle of the “deification” (θεωσις) of the creation (St. Gregory Palamas, Capita, 75, M.G. CL, 1173; 78, 1176; 92 - 3, 1188; also Tbeoph. c. 912). This distinction has been already suggested by St. Maximus the Confessor (apud Euthym. Zygaben., Panoplia dogmatica,Titus 3:1-15, M.G. cxxx, 132; μεθεκτος μεν ο Θεος κατά τας μεταδοσεις αυτου, αμεθεκτος δε κατά το μιδεν μετεχειν της ουσιας αυτου). The Divine Energy differs from the intrinsic essence of God, but is in no sense divided or separated from it (Theoph. c. 940), it is exactly a “natural and indivisible energy” of God (Council of 1352, in Triodion, ed. Venice 182, p. 170 φυσικη και αχωριστος ενεργεια και δυναμις του Θεου). Nor is the Energy merely “an accident” (ουτε συμβεβηκος - Cap. 127, c. 1209), for it is absolutely unchangeable and eternal (αμεταρλγτον), without beginning and end, co-eternal and pre-eternal (Cap. 140, c. 1220: η δε του Θου ενεργεια ακτιστος εστι και συναιδιος Θεω; cf. The Tbeoph. c. 953 ακτιστος και αιδιος ως δυναμις θεοπρεπη περι τον Θεον ουσα και προ της του κοσμου συστασεως; Council Of 1351, M.G. cli, c. 736). It is an eternal. revelation of the creative will of God, or the eternal power of God (Tbeoph, C. 956 η προνοια φυσικη και ουσικοδης ενεργεια; Cap. 135, c. 1216). It is again an eternal προοδος of God, His eternal “coming-forward” (Tbeoph. c. 937). Both the idea and the term itself are traditional and can be traced back to Pseudo-Dionysius and his early commentators (cf. especially Scholia in De div. nom. 1: 5 and 5; 1, M.G. iv, 205-8 and 309; προοδον δε την θειαν ενεργειαν λεγει, ητις πασαν ουσιαν παρηγαγε; cf. also St. John Damascene, de fide orth. 1:14 εν γαρ εξαλμα και μια κινησις, η θεια ελλαμψισκαι ενεργεια). “Essence” and “energy” differ, but without any prejudice to the Divine “simplicity.” We have not to overlook that God is the Living God, the Holy Trinity, and not simply an Absolute - He Who Is, and not merely the Being. The ultimate purpose of the Palamite distinction between the “essence” and “energy” in God was exactly to safeguard the Divine freedom and aseity. Denial of this difference seems to imply that the whole “economy” of God is but His “natural” act, i.e. to say “necessary,” or constitutive of His own being, as it were, imposed upon Him. The difference between “Generation” and “creation” would be then obscured, the one and the other being equally acts of the essence or nature. Again, the difference between the ουσια and the θελυσις of God would be obscured also. There would be no clear distinction between the Divine Prescience and the actual Creation: would not the actual creation itself become eternal or sempiternal? Briefly, the Freedom of God will be dangerously compromised (Capita, 96 ss., c. 1181 ff.; cap. 135, c. 1216; cf. also Mark of Ephesus, Capita syllog. 13 ss., ed. W. Casz, Die Mystik des Nicolas Cabasilas, Greiszwald, 1849, Appendix II, s. 217 ff.; St. Gregory Palamas refers himself to the authority of St. Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaur. ass. 18, M.G. lxxv, 313; το μεν ποιειν ενεργειας εστιν, φυσεως δε το γενναν, φυσις δε και ενεργεια ου ταυτον). The only means to escape or to avoid these dangerous implications and consequences was precisely to draw a clear distinction between the “nature” or “essence” and the “energy.” This was also the next step of the radical adaptation of the Greek philosophy to the new requirements of Christian mind.

XI

We have to keep in mind the basic distinction between “theology” and “economy.”
God is eminently free in His creative operations. Therefore all cosmological
motifs should be most carefully avoided in the theological doctrine of the Holy
Trinity. The slightest shadow of cosmology would introduce contingency of will
into the mutual relations of the Divine Hypostases, and then the perfect
“consubstantiality” of the Holy Trinity will be compromised. Clear expressions
had to be found for formulating the mystery of the Trinity as a sempiternal and
constitutive law of the Divine Essence, abstraction made of all “economic”
motifs or aspects, whether cosmological or soteriological. As we have already
mentioned, the teachers of the Early Church sought and found classic expression
which mark this difference and exclude all “economy” from the Trinitarian dogma.
In order to understand aright and to confess in adequate terms the true Divinity
of the Only Begotten Son, we must eliminate not only the Plotinian and Philonic
motifs from the doctrine of the Divine Logos, but even all “christological”
elements as well. In the course of theological reflexion, it is exactly the
Person, of the Incarnate Word which is the starting-point. But for formulating
triadological faith, abstraction must be made of Christology too. The relations
of the Three Divine Hypostases must be defined without any relation to the
creature, preconceived, realized, fallen into sin, saved, or sanctified. The
demiurgic role of the Divine Word is certain, it is certified by St. John (John
1:3-4), it is confessed in the Creed: by Whom all things were made - surely, not
only because He is God, but also because He is the Word and the Son, the
hypostatic Wisdom of God. Yet, this demiurgical moment itself must be eliminated
in explaining the eternal Generation of the Son. If the world had not been
created, the Son would none the less have existed, because He is the Son by
nature, κατά φυσιν. It was one of the principal thoughts of St. Athanasius. “The
Divine Word did not receive existence because of us; on the contrary, we
received it because of Him. Not for our infirmity did He, the Mighty, receive
existence from the Father alone, so that by Him as instrument the Father might
create us. God forbid. It is not so. For even had it seemed good to God not to
make the creatures, yet none the less the Word was with God, and the Father was
in Him.” Although “for the creatures it was impossible to receive existence
without the Word” - or “impossible to receive existence otherwise than by Him” -
His own hypostatic existence does not at all depend on the creative will of the
Father concerning the creation of the world. And it is impious to think, as the
arians do, that “the Son Himself has received existence because of us” and that
the Father “desiring us created Him because of us” (St. Athanasius, c. arian. 30
and 31). The creation is only realizable by the Word, but the Word is not
begotten in order that the creatures might be created. The hypostatic
distinction and properties of the Word must be envisaged in their relation to
the intimate life of the Divine Being, abstraction having been made of the
destinies of the (created or to-be-created) world. Nicene theology insists that
the Trinity would be even if there were no creature at all - but since the world
is created, we observe everywhere the manifestations of the Holy Trinity,
vestigia Trinitatis, and certain Divine operations should be appropriated to the
particular Persons of the Trinity. Again, in the same manner, all soteriological
motifs must be eliminated. Of course, the Divine plan of the Redemption and of
the Incarnation is an eternal decree (κατά προθεσιν των αιωνων, Ephesians 3:11),
an “economy” of the mystery hidden since the beginning of the ages (Ephesians
3:9), a decree of the Divine Prescience (Acts 2:23). The Son of God was
eternally predestined to the Incarnation, or even to Calvary, and in virtue of
this eternal predestination He is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the
world” (Revelation 13:8) and the eternal High-Priest (St. Polycarp, Philipp. 12;
και αυτος ο αιωνιος αρχιερευς), “the Priest for ever” after the order Of
Melchisedec. Yet this “economic” predestination does not belong to the intimate
life of the Holy Trinity, in so far as its intrinsic being is concerned - this
predestination, προθεσις, is a free act of the mercy and the grace of God, not
an aspect of His essential Being. The way of Incarnation is not, as it were,
pressed upon Divine Will - that is to say, the Incarnation is not necessary for
God to be true God, the Blessed Trinity. It is a work of the “economic”
condescendence, not of the nature, as St. John Damascene puts it (c. Jacobitas,
52, M.G. xciv, 1464: ου φυσεως εργον η σαρκωσις, αλλα τροπος οικονομικης
συνκαταβασεως). And more than that. The Word is only Priest in virtue of the
Incarnation - before becoming Incarnate, He was not priest. To sum up, all
Revelation, all “Economy,” is a manifestation of the supreme and absolute
freedom of God. It is not absolutely “necessary.” God does not need exterior
revelation. It is what we can dare to name the Divine Contingency. But it is
contingency modo Divino. And since, in His mysterious freedom, God has chosen
and decreed creation, all is accomplished according to His designs and His
prescience, and the whole creation manifests the Glory of its Creator. The
contingent but eternal decree is an unalterable decree, because the Divine does
not change or alter. Yet this unalterability must not be identified with natural
necessity. On the contrary, the unalterability of the Will of God is based
exactly on His supreme freedom - because, in His sovereign freedom, He has so
decided unalterably - from all eternity. This eternal unalterability does not
annul the freedom. We may recall at this point the scholastic distinction
between the absolute and ordained power - potentia absolula and potentia
ordinata.

XII From all eternity God has “imagined” or “invented” the idea of the creature.
And with time itself the creature was brought out of nothingness to existence,
or rather the new existence has been posited. The chain of times begun. In the
historic process the creature, or rather the creatures, had to be realized
according to the Divine Plan and to the Divine prototypes. But these
“prototypes” are not exactly inescapable “laws of nature.” They are designs and
calls. They are to be realized in freedom, in obedience and submission, but
ultimately by free efforts of the created beings. There is a problem to solve,
and not merely a germ to make evolve. Let us risk the unusual term: a
transcendent entelechy. That is why the historic process is, as it were, an
imitative creation. Of course, there are inferior creatures which simply evolve,
which have only to develop themselves, i.e. to realize the potentialities hidden
in their own nature; that is precisely Nature, the Cosmic existence. But man is
more than a “natural being” only, and it is in him that the general idea of
creation is fully revealed or disclosed - man is a “little world,” a microcosm.
And man cannot realize himself by an evolution of his innate potentialities
only. His goal is exactly to surpass himself and to rise towards God, and even
more than that - to partake in the Divine Life. It is only by this participation
that man becomes fully himself. In this rising he realizes himself, as it were,
creates himself. However, for the full realization the free effort of man must
be corroborated by the condescendence of grace. Again, by the free effort of man
not only are the innate germs developed, but also new realities are produced.
The free effort and the grace are not separable in this ontological ascent or
growth of the “reasonable beings” - yet there is no confusion, nor composition -
as it were, no “transubstantiation” of the creature. The “deification,” θεωσις,
is precisely, so to say, an impregnation with grace, εκ χαριτος (the terms are
of St. Maximus; cf. St. Anastasius Sinait., Hodegos, M.G. lxxxix, c. 77: η επι
το κρειττον υψωσις … η μεταστασις, ου μεν της οικειας φυσεος αλαωθεν). At this
level of his ascent man becomes truly conformed with these uncreated prototypes,
with the idea that God has of him from eternity - conformed, but never
identical. By the hypostatic Incarnation of the Word the way of the ascent is
reopened for the redeemed humanity. For men are given (again) “the power to
become the sons of God” (John 1:12), the possibility of becoming members of
Christ, i.e. members of His Mystical Body. In the course of the history of the
Church, human nature is formed, constituted, and realized - it is being realized
for total conformity to its eternal predestination, to become the vessel of
grace Divine. And here we have to face once more an antinomy, or rather the
eschatological aspect of the same basic antinomy of creation. The unalterable
decree and design of God is not simply forced upon the created existence, the
design itself is at once a mighty and effective fiat, and a call and appeal to
the created freedom. Historical process is ultimately dyotheletic, and Will of
God is mediated through the will of men. The true existence and proper
subsistence of the creation are certified in the first place precisely by its
freedom. Of course, freedom is more than the free will of indifference or merely
the possibility of choice - yet the choice too belongs somehow to the very
essence of the created freedom, i.e. of the freedom of created beings. There are
indeed two ways open before the creature: towards God and away from God - the
way of Union (or Participation) and the way of separation (or estrangement). In
obedience and disobedience, in acquisition and spoliation, the same freedom is
manifested and realized. Surely, the two cases are not exactly parallel. Only in
the Union with God is the creaturely freedom truly actualized, and a
thoroughgoing self-renunciation is the only way of access; yet the renunciation
itself must be free, if it is to be freedom and productive. On the other hand,
the abuse of freedom which drives man away from God, culminates ultimately in
bondage of sin and passions, and kills freedom altogether. But again, the abuse
itself is a free venture, and a sinner is responsible for his failure. After
all, the Fall is a failure of freedom to make the right choice or to respond
duly to the creative appeal. Man has capacity and power not only for the choice,
but for the perseverance in the choice once made. The duality of the ways is not
a formal or logical possibility only, it is a real possibility first of all.
Doubtless, the ascent towards God is only realizable under the condition of
reciprocal Divine condescendence, of the aid of Grace. But even this Divine aid
leaves man in his freedom, and God produces nothing in man without the consent
(and even co-operation) of the human will. “The ancient law of human freedom,”
as St. Irenaeus says, excludes all constraint or violence of grace. Again, the
way of separation is ultimately a way of perdition and death. Strangely enough,
man has this paradoxical capacity for ontological suicide and power for
committing it. Freedom in man is ever ambiguous and ambivalent. Now, in this
freedom is manifested the ultimate reality of created “nature.” Doubtless again,
the creature is produced and fore-ordained for a union with God, for a
participation in the Divine Life and Glory. Yet, this participation is not a
necessity of the created nature. It is a supernatural perfection. It is rather a
norm, apart from which the creatures cannot realize themselves, since the
creature’s realization consists precisely in surpassing itself; however, the
spurning of this norm does not automatically imply the annihilation of the
fallen creature. There is a call - to perfection, an appeal to freedom. There is
freedom in the world precisely because the world is created and therefore -
contingent. There was no room for freedom in the closed and static world of the
Greek philosophy. There is no freedom in the world of emanation. Man is free
because he is not divine by nature, and his goal of perfection is above his
nature, and he has to overgrow and overcome himself. Man can only realize
himself by surmounting his own “natural” limits, or rather, he can only become
truly himself by mounting beyond his own nature, i.e. in the communion with God.
But if the creature, or a creature, does not realize this end, if it deviates,
if it resists, if it contradicts or neglects the Divine call - and by this
obstinacy and resistance in a certain sense ceases to live - still it never
ceases to exist. For, as St. Augustine says, for the creature “ being is not the
same thing as living” - non hoe est ei esse quod vivere(St. Augustine, de Gen.
ad litt. 1: 5). Creatures have the freedom for ontological suicide, i.e. for an
ultimate frustration of their existence, but cannot have a power to annihilate
themselves, to free themselves from existence. Cannot, precisely because they do
not exist by themselves, their existence being given to them, as it were, from
“outside,” i.e. by the Other. By the creative fiat of God the world is
unalterably determined for existence. The created world will not be annihilated,
although it will be finally reshaped by its Maker. If the creatures fail to rise
towards God - if they turn away from Him - they stay in their narrow limits, but
never descend below that mysterious line which divides existence from
non-existence. Eternal death itself is not an annihilation, or a ceasing of
existence, but rather a depraved mode of existing, in the outer darkness of the
ultimate estrangement from God. There is, as it were, no exit out or from
existence, since the divine decree of Creation is given once for all. It is
perfectly true, in a certain sense, evil is only the privation or lack of being,
it has no proper essence or nature, it is utterly “essenceless,” ανουσιος, in
the phrase of St. John Damascene (c. Manich. 14, M.G. xciv, 1597). Yet, it is
real as an active force, it is real in its results - destructive but definitive.
Evil has a negative or privative character, but still it is real in its
terrifying void. It has the enigmatic power of imitating creation, and this
perverse imitation is productive in its destructions, Evil devastates and
distorts things, but, in the case of persistence in evil, an these devastations
and perversions will persist, i.e. these distorted existences will enter into
“eternity,” though the eternity of hell. Evil is a void of nothingness, but,
paradoxically, a real void. It engulfs beings. It is more than simply the lack
of being, it is, as it were, a positive nothingness - the phrase is paradoxical,
just as the phenomenon of evil is paradoxical itself. Evil has a
quasi-productive power, it produces new realities in the world - false
realities, of course, but none the less real and existent. It adds new aspect to
what is produced by God - as it were, it can “create” what is not created by
God, nor willed by God - namely itself. Sin and death, they are quasi-additions
to being, a novelty in the created world. Sin as set up for the world new laws,
it has produced death, and has subjected to it the whole creation. This false
production will undergo the last judgement of the Creator, but the power of
Divine Love, as we are positively instructed by the Scripture, will not surpass
either the resistance of the “ sons of perdition “ or the ravages produced by
sin. Perseverance in evil will not be overcome by an indiscriminate forgiveness.
Estrangement of those who had chosen it will continue in the world to come.
Eschatology is full of mysteries and antinomies, and for us too often mysteries
look like riddles. But all eschatological antinomies are already hidden and
implied in the primordial mystery and antinomy of Creation.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 6: 06 - CREATION & CREATUREHOOD
========================================================================

Creation and Creaturehood

(Part 1) Translated from Russian

“Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands, and thy walls are
continually before me” (Isaiah 49:16).

I The world is created. That means: the world came out of nothing. That means
there was no world before it sprang up and came into being. It sprang up and
came into being together with time. Because when there was no world, there was
no time. Because “time is reckoned from the creation of the heavens and the
earth,” as St. Maximus the Confessor said.1 Only the world exists in time - in
change, succession, duration. Without the world there is no time. And the
genesis of the world is the beginning of time.2 This beginning, as St. Basil the
Great explains, is not yet time, nor even a fraction of time, just as the
beginning of a road is not yet the road itself. It is simple and uncomposite.3
There was no time; and suddenly, all at once, it began. Creation springs, comes
into being, passes from out of non-being into being. It begins to be. As St.
Gregory of Nyssa says, “The very subsistence of creation owed its beginning to
change,”4 “the very transition from non-entity to existence is a change,
non-existence being changed by the Divine power into being.”5 This primordial
genesis and beginning of change and duration, this “transition” from void to
existence, is inaccessible to human thought. But it becomes comprehensible and
imaginable from its opposite. We always calculate time in an inverse order, back
from the present, retreating into the depths of time, going backwards in the
temporal sequence; and only secondarily do we think in terms of consecutive
reckoning. And going backwards into the past, we stop at some determinate link,
one which is calculated and calculable from within the series, with a clear
consciousness that we have to stop. The very notion of the beginning of time is
this necessity of stopping, is the very impossibility of an infinite regression
into the past. It makes no difference whether we can or cannot compute this
limit of retreat in terms of centuries or of days. The prohibition itself
remains in full force. A first unit is absolutely postulated in the temporal
series, before which there are no other links, no other moments of time, because
there was no change, and no sequence whatever. It is not time that precedes
time, but “the height of ever-present eternity” transcending duration -
celsitudo semper praesentis aeternitatis, as St. Augustine used to say. Time
began. But there will be a time “when time shall be no more” - “oti hronos
uketiestin” (“οτι χρονος ουκετι εσται” Revelation 10:6). Change will cease. And
according to St. John Damascene, “Time, after the resurrection, will no longer
be numbered by days and nights; rather, there will be one day without evening.”6
The temporal sequence will be broken; there will be a last unit in it. But this
end and cessation of change does not indicate the abolition of what began with
time, of what was and existed in time; it does not suggest a return or relapse
into nothingness. There will be no time, but creation will be preserved. The
created world can exist even not in time. Creation began, but it will not
cease.7 Time is a kind of line segment, with a beginning and an end. And
therefore it is incommensurate with eternity, because time has a beginning. And
in eternity there is no change, neither a beginning. The whole of temporality
does not coincide with eternity. “The fullness of the times” (omne tempus) does
not necessarily mean “always” (semper), as Augustine has pointed out.8 Infinity
or endlessness does not necessarily imply beginninglessness. And creation may be
compared to a mathematical “bundle of rays,” halves of straight lines extending
from their point of origin to infinity. Once brought out of nothingness and
non-being, the world has in the creative fiat an immutable and final foundation
and support for its existence. “The creative word is like an adamantine bridge
upon which creatures are placed, and they stand under the abyss of the Divine
Infinitude, over the abyss of their own nothingness,” said Metropolitan
Philaret. “Because the word of God must not be imagined as like the spoken word
of man, which, when it has been pronounced, straightway desists and vanishes in
air. In God there is nothing of cessation, nothing of vanishing: His word
proceeds but does not recede: “The word of the Lord endureth for ever (1 Peter
1:25).”9 God “Created all things, that they might have their being’” (Wis 1:14).
And not for the time being, but for ever did He create: He brought creation into
being by His creative word. “For He hath established the world, so that it shall
not be moved” (Psalms 93:1).

The world exists. But it began to exist. And that means; the world could have
not existed. There is no necessity whatsoever for the existence of the world.
Creaturely existence is not self-sufficient and is not independent. In the
created world itself there is no foundation, no basis for genesis and being.
Creation by its very existence witnesses to and proclaims its creaturehood, it
proclaims that it has been produced. Speaking in the words of Augustine, “[It]
cries out that it has been created - it cries out that it did not create itself:
[I] exist because I am created; and I was not before I came to be, and I could
not issue from myself...” - clamant quod facta sunt. Clamant etiam quod seipsa
non fecerint: ideo sumus, quia facta sumus; non eramus ante quam essemus, ut
fieri possemus a nobis...10 By its very existence creation points beyond its own
limits. The cause and foundation of the world is outside the world. The world’s
being is possible only through the supra-mundane will of the merciful and
Almighty God, “Who calls the things that be not, to be” (Romans 4:17). But,
unexpectedly it is precisely in its creaturehood and createdness that the
stability and substantiality of the world is rooted. Because the origin from out
of nothing determines the otherness, the “non-consubstantiality” of the world
and of God. It is insufficient and inexact to say that things are created and
placed outside of God. The “outside” itself is posited only in creation, and
creation “from out of nothing” [ex nihilo] is precisely such a positing of the
“outside,” the positing of an “other” side by side with God. Certainly not in
the sense of any kind of limitation to the Divine fullness, but in the sense
that side by side with God there springs up an other, a heterogeneous substance
or nature, one different from Him, and in a certain sense an independent and
autonomous subject. That which did not exist springs now up and comes forth. In
creation something absolutely new, an extra-divine reality is posited and built
up. It is precisely in this that the supremely great and incomprehensible
miracle of creation consists - that an “other” springs up, that heterogeneous
drops of creation exist side by side with “the illimitable and infinite Ocean of
being,” as St. Gregory of Nazianzus says of God.11 There is an infinite distance
between God and creation, and this is a distance of natures. All is distant from
God, and is remote from Him not by place but by nature - u topo alla physi (ου
τοπω αλλα φυσει)- as St. John Damascene explains.12 And this distance is never
removed, but is only, as it were, overlapped by immeasurable Divine love. As St.
Augustine said, in creation “there is nothing related to the Trinity, except the
fact that the Trinity has created it” - nihilique in ea esse quod ad Trinitatem
pertineat, nisi quod Trinitas condidit...13 Even on the most exalted heights of
prayerful ascent and intimacy there is always an impassable limit, there can
always be perceived and revealed the living duality of God and creation. “He is
God, and she is non-God,” said Macarius “the Great” of the soul. “He is the
Lord, and she the handmaid; He the Creator, and she the creation; He the
Architect, and she the fabric; and there is nothing in common between Him and
her nature.”14 Any transubstantiation of creaturely nature into the Divine is as
impossible as the changing of God into creation, and any “coalescence” and
“fusion” of natures is excluded. In the one and only hypostasis and person of
Christ - the God-Man - in spite of the completeness of the mutual
interpenetration of the two natures, the two natures remain with their
unchanged, immutable difference; “without the distinction of natures being taken
away by such union, but rather the specific property of each nature being
preserved” (“Ουδαμου της των φυσεων διαφορας ανηρημενες δια τυν ενωσιν σωζομενης
δε μαλλον της ιδιοτητος εκατερας φυσεως” the Oros [ορος] of Chalcedon). The
vague “out of two natures” the Fathers of Chalcedon replaced by the strong and
clear “in two natures,” and by the confession of the double and bilateral
consubstantiality of the God-Man they established an unshakeable and
indisputable criterion and rule of faith. The real existence of a created human
nature, that is, of an other and second nature outside of God and side by side
with Him, is an indispensable prerequisite for the accomplishment of the
Incarnation without any change in or transmutation of the Divine nature. What is
created is outside of God, but is united with Him. The Fathers of the fourth
century, moved by the Arian controversy to define the concept of creation in a
clear and precise manner, stressed above all else the heterogeneity of the
created and Creator in counter distinction to the “consubstantiality” of
generation; and they corrected this heterogeneity with the dependence of
creation upon the will and volition. Everything created, wrote St. Athanasius
the Great, “is not in the least like its Creator in substance, but is outside of
Him,” and therefore also could have not existed.15 Creation “comes into being,
made up from outside.”16 And there is no similarity between that which bursts
forth from nothing and the Creator Who verily is, Who brings creatures out of
nothing.17 Will and volition precede creating. Creating is an act of will [ek
vulimatos, εκ βουληματος], and therefore is sharply distinguished from the
Divine generation, which is an act of nature [gennakataphysin, γεννα κατα
φυσιν].18 A similar interpretation was given by St. Cyril of Alexandria. The
generation is out of the substance, kataphysin (κατα φυσιν). Creating is an act,
and is not done out of the creator’s own substance; and therefore a creation is
heterogeneous to its creator.19 Summarizing the patristic interpretation, St.
John of Damascus gives a following definition: “Begetting means producing from
the substance of the begetter an offspring similar in substance to the begetter.
Creation, or making, on the other hand, is the bringing into being, from outside
and not from the substance of the creator, an actor of something, entirely
unlike [by nature].” Generation is accomplished “by a natural power of
begetting,” (“της γονιμοτητος φυσικης”) and creating is an act of volition and
will -theliseosergon (θελησεως εργον).20 Creaturehood determines the complete
dissimilarity of the creation and God, its otherness, and hence its independence
and substantiality. The whole section of St. John is actually an elaborate
rejoinder to arguments of Origin. Creation is not a phenomenon but a
“substance.” The reality and substantiality of created nature is manifested
first of all in creaturely freedom. Freedom is not exhausted by the possibility
of choice, but presupposes it and starts with it. And creaturely freedom is
disclosed first of all in the equal possibility of two ways: to God and away
from God. This duality of ways is not a mere formal or logical possibility, but
a real possibility, dependent on the effectual presence of powers and capacities
not only for a choice between, but also for the following of, the two ways.
Freedom consists not only in the possibility, but also in the necessity of
autonomous choice, the resolution and resoluteness of choice. Without this
autonomy, nothing happens in creation. As St. Gregory the Theologian says, “God
legislates human self-determination.”21 “He honored man with freedom that good
might belong no less to him who chose it than to Him Who planted its seed.”22
Creation must ascend to and unite with God by its own efforts and achievements.
And if the way of union requires and presupposes a responsive prevenient
movement of Divine Mercy, “the ancient law of human freedom,” as St. Irenaeus
once put it, is not undermined by this. The way of disunion is not closed to
creatures, the way of destruction and death. There is no irresistible grace,
creatures can and may lose themselves, are capable, as it were, of “metaphysical
suicide.” In her primordial and ultimate vocation, creation is destined for
union with God, for communion and participation in His life. But this is not a
binding necessity of creaturely nature. Of course, outside of God there is no
life for creation. But as Augustine happily phrased it, being and life do not
coincide in creation.23 And therefore existence in death is possible. Of course,
creation can realize and establish herself fully only by overcoming her
self-isolation, only in God. But even without realizing her true vocation, and
even opposing it, thus undoing and losing herself, creation does not cease to
exist. The possibility of metaphysical suicide is open to her. But the power of
self-annihilation is not given. Creation is indestructible - and not only that
creation which is rooted in God as in the source of true being and eternal life,
but also that creation which has set herself against God. “For the fashion of
this world passeth away” (1 Corinthians 7:31), and shall pass. But the world
itself shall not pass. Because it was created “that it might have being.” Its
qualities and properties are changeable and mutable, and do change; but its
“elements” are immutable. And immutable above all is the microcosm man, and
immutable are men’s hypostases, sealed as they are and brought out of nothing by
the creative will of God. Indeed, the way of rebellion and apostasy is the way
of destruction and perdition. But it leads not towards non-being, but to death;
and death is not the end of existence, but a separation - the separation of soul
and body, the separation of creation from God. In fact, evil “is not an
entity.”24 Evil has no “substance” - it is anusion (ανουσιον) according to St.
John Damascene.25 Evil has a negative and privative character, it is the absence
and privation of true being. And at the same time, as St. Gregory of Nyssa says,
“in its very non-being it has its being.” (εν τω μη ειναι εχει)26 The root and
character of evil is delusion and error. Evil, in the incisive phrase of one
German theologian, is “a mythopoeic lie” [“eine dichtende Lüge” - F.
Staudenmeier]. It is a kind of fiction, but a fiction loaded with enigmatic
energy and power. Evil is active in the world, and in this actuality is real.
Evil introduces new qualities into the world, as it were, adding something to
the reality created by God, a something not willed and not created by God,
although tolerated by Him. And this innovation, in a certain sense “non-being,”
is in an enigmatic fashion real and powerful, “For God made not death” (Wis
1:13), and nevertheless the whole creation is become subject to futility, and to
the bondage of corruption (Romans 8:20-21). By sin death spread to all men
(Romans 5:12), and sin, being itself a fictitious innovation in the world, the
spawn of the created will and of human devices, creates death and as it were
sets up a new law of existence for creation, a kind of anti-law. And in a
certain sense, evil is ineradicable. Yet, because the final perdition in eternal
torment provoked by evil in “the resurrection unto judgment” does not mean total
annihilation nor the total suppression of evil beings, it is impossible to
ascribe to evil such anti-creative power which would overcome the creative power
of God. By its devastation of being, evil does not wipe out being. And, such a
devastated, distorted, deceitful, and false reality is mysteriously received
into eternity, even though in the torments of unquenchable fire. The eternity of
torments that will come upon the sons of perdition points out with a special
urgency and sharpness the reality of creation as a second and extra-divine
reality. It is provoked by a persistent though free rebellion, by a
self-assertion in evil. Thus, as in becoming, so in dissolution - as in
holiness, so in perdition - as in obedience, so in disobedience - creation
manifests and witnesses to her own reality as the free object of the divine
decrees. The idea of creation is alien to the “natural” consciousness.
Classical, Hellenistic thought did not know it. Modern philosophy has forgotten
it. Given in the Bible, it is disclosed and manifested in the living experience
of the Church. In the idea of creation are juxtaposed the motif of the
immutable, intransitory reality of the world as a free and active subject (more
precisely, as a totality of interacting subjects) and the motif of its total
non-self-sufficiency, of its ultimate dependence upon Another higher principle.
And therefore any supposition of the world’s beginninglessness, the necessity of
its existence, and any admission of its elimination are excluded. Creation is
neither self-existent being, nor transitory becoming; neither eternal
“substance,” nor illusory “appearance.” In creaturehood a great wonder is
revealed. The world also might not have existed at all. And that which might not
have existed, for which there are no inevitable causes or bases, does exist.
This is a riddle, a “foolishness” for “natural” thought. And hence comes the
temptation to attenuate and blunt the idea of creation, to replace it by other
notions. Only by the contrary approach can the mystery of creation be clarified,
by the exclusion and suspension of all evasive speculation and conjecture.

II

God creates in perfect freedom. This proposition is framed with remarkable
precision by the “Subtle Doctor” of the Western middle ages, Duns Scotus:
Procedit autem rerum creatio a Deo, non aliqua necessitate, vel essentiae, vel
scientiae, vel voluntatis, sed ex mera libertate, quae non movetir et multo
minus necessitatur ab aliquo extra se ad causandum. “The creation of things is
executed by God not out of any necessity, whether of essence or of knowledge or
of will, but out of a sheer freedom which is not moved - much less constrained -
by anything external that it should have to be a cause.”27 Even so, in defining
God’s freedom in creation it is not enough to do away with crude conceptions of
compulsion, of external necessity. It is obvious that we cannot even speak of
any kind of external compulsion, because the very “outside” itself is first
posited only in creation. In creation God is determined only by Himself. But it
is not so easy to demonstrate the absence of any internal “necessity” in this
self-determination, in the revelation of God ad extra. Here, the thought is
beset by alluring temptations. The question may be put in this manner: Is the
attribute of Creator and Sustainer to be considered as belonging to the
essential and formative properties of the Divine Being? The thought of the
Divine immutability may prevent us from giving a negative answer. Precisely so
did Origen reason in his time. “It is alike impious and absurd to say that God’s
nature is to be at ease and never to move, or to suppose that there was a time
when Goodness did not do good and Omnipotence did not exercise its power.”28
From the perfect extra-temporality and immutability of the Divine Being, Origen,
in the words of Bolotov, draws the conclusion “that all His properties and
predicates always belong to God in a strict sense - in actu, in statu quo.”29
Here, “always” for Origen has the meaning of “extra-temporal eternity,” and not
only “the whole of temporality.” - “Just as nobody can be a father without
having a son, nor a lord without holding a possession or a slave,” reasons
Origen, “so too we cannot even call God Almighty - Pantocrator if there are no
creatures over whom he can exercise His power. For if anyone would have it that
certain ages, or periods of time, or of Divine Omnipotence - whatever he cares
to call them - elapsed during which the present creation did not exist, he would
undoubtedly prove that in those ages or periods God was not Almighty but that He
became Pantocrator afterward, that He became Almighty from the time when he
began to have creatures over whom he could exercise power. Thus God will
apparently have experienced a kind of progress, for there can be no doubt that
it is better for Him to be Almighty than not to be so. Now how is it anything
but absurd that God should at first not possess something that is appropriate to
Him and then should come to possess it? But if there was no time when God was
not Almighty, there must always have existed the things in virtue of which He is
Almighty; and there must always have existed things under his rule, over which
He is their Ruler.”30 In view of the perfect Divine immutability, “it is
necessary that the creatures of God should have been created from the beginning,
and that there should be no time when they were not.” Because it is inadmissible
to think that, in time, God “would pass from inaction to action.” Hence it is
necessary to recognize “that with God all things are without beginning and are
co-eternal.”31

It is not simple or easy to escape from Origen’s dialectical nets. In this very
problematic there lies an incontestable difficulty. “When I think what God was
Lord of from eternity, if creation be not from always,” exclaimed Augustine, “I
fear to affirm anything.” Cum cogito cuius rei dominus semper fuit, si semper
creatura non fuit, affirmare aliquid pertimesco...32 Origen complicated his
question by his inability to extricate himself completely from time as change.
Together with the sempiternal and immobile eternity of the Divine Being, he
imagined an endless flow of ages which had to be filled. Furthermore, any
sequence in the Divine predicates appeared to him under the form of real
temporal change; and therefore, having excluded change, he was inclined to deny
any sequence at all to, or interdependence among, those predicates taken as a
whole; he asserted more than the mere “co-eternity” of the world with God; he
asserted the necessity of the Divine self-disclosure ad extra, the necessity of
the revelation and out-pouring of Divine goodness upon the “other” from all
eternity, the necessity of the eternal realization of the fulness and of all the
potentialities of Divine power. In other words, in order to comply with the
notion of the Divine immutability, Origen had to admit the necessity of a
conjointly ever-existent and beginningless “not-I” as a corresponding
prerequisite to and correlative of the Divine completeness and life. And here is
the ultimate sting of the question. It was also possible that the world might
not have existed at all - possible in the full sense of the word only granted
that God can also not create. If, on the other hand. God creates out of
necessity, for sake of the completeness of His Being, then the world must exist;
then it is not possible that the world might not have existed. Even if one
rejects the Origenistic notion of the infinitude of real past time and
recognizes the beginning of time, the question remains: Does not at least the
thought of the world belong to the absolute necessity of the Divine Being? We
may assume that the real world came into being together with time, and that
“there was when it was not,” when there was no temporal change. But the image of
the world, does not this remain eternal and everlasting in the Divine knowledge
and will, participating immutably and ineluctably in the fulness of the Divine
self-knowledge and self-determination? On this point St. Methodius of Olympus
had already put his finger, against Origen, stressing that the Divine
All-Perfectness cannot depend on anything except God Himself, except on His own
nature.33 Indeed, God creates solely out of His goodness, and in this Divine
goodness lies the only basis of His revelation to the “other,” the only basis of
the very being of that “other” as recipient and object of this goodness. But
should we not think of this revelation as eternal? And if we should - since God
lives in eternity and in unchangeable completeness - would not this mean that in
the final analysis “the image of the world” was present, and conjointly present,
with God unchangingly in eternity, and moreover in the unalterable completeness
of all its particular predicates? Is there not a “necessity of knowledge or
will?” Does not this mean that God in His eternal self-contemplation also
necessarily contemplates even whatHe is not, that which is not He, but other? Is
God not bound in His sempiternal self-awareness by the image of His “Non-I” at
least as a kind of possibility? And in His self-awareness is He not forced to
think of and to contemplate Himself as a creative principle and as the source of
the world, and of the world as an object of and participant in His good
pleasure? And on the other hand, over the whole world there lies imprinted the
Divine seal, a seal of permanence, a reflection of the Divine glory. The Divine
economy of the world, the unchanging and immutable Providence of God, conveys -
to our vision - perfect stability and wise harmony - and also a kind of
necessity. This vision hinders our understanding and apprehension of the claim
that the world also might not have existed. It seems we cannot conceive the
world as non-existing without introducing a kind of impious fortuitousness or
arbitrariness in its existence and genesis, either of which is contradictory and
derogatory to the Divine Wisdom. Is it not obvious that there must be some kind
of sufficient cause for the world, cur sit potius quam non sit? And that this
cause must consist of the unchangeable and sempiternal will and command of God?
Does it not follow that once the world is impossible without God, God also is
impossible without the world? Thus the difficulty is only shelved, but not
solved, if we limit ourselves to the chronological beginnings of the actual
existence of the world, since, in this case, the possibility of the world, the
idea of the world. God’s design and will concerning it, still remains eternal
and as though con-jointly everlasting with God. And it must be said at once that
any such admission means introducing the world into the ultra-Trinitarian life
of the Godhead as a co-determinant principle. And we must firmly and
uncompromisingly reject any such notion. The idea of the world, God’s design and
will concerning the world, is obviously eternal, but in some sense not
co-eternal, and not conjointlyeverlasting with Him, because “distinct and
separated,” as it were, from His “essence” by His volition. One should say
rather that the Divine idea of the world is eternal by another kind of eternity
than the Divine essence. Although paradoxical, this distinction of types and
kinds of eternity is necessary for the expression of the incontestable
distinction between the essence (nature) of God and the will of God. This
distinction would not introduce any kind of separation or split into the Divine
Being, but by analogy expresses the distinction between will and nature, the
fundamental distinction made so strikingly explicit by the Fathers of the fourth
century. The idea of the world has its basis not in the essence, but in the will
of God. God does not so much have as “think up” the idea of creation.34 And He
“thinks it up” in perfect freedom; and it is only by virtue of this wholly free
“thinking up” and good pleasure of His that He as it were “becomes” Creator,
even though from everlasting. But nevertheless He could also not have created.
And any such “refraining” from creation would in no way alter or impoverish the
Divine nature, would mean no diminution, Just as the very creation of the world
does not enrich the Divine Being. Thus by way of opposites we can come close to
an understanding of God’s creative freedom. In a sense, it would be
“indifferent” to God whether the world exists or not - herein consists the
absolute “all-sufficiency” of God, the Divine autarchy. The absence of the world
would mean a kind of subtraction of what is finite from the Infinite, which
would not affect Divine fulness. And conversely, the creation of the world would
mean the addition of what is finite to the Infinite, which in no way affects
Divine plenitude. The might of God and the freedom of God must be defined not
only as the power to create and to produce but also as the absolute freedom not
to create. All these words and presuppositions, obviously, are insufficient and
inexact. They all have the character of negations and prohibitions, and not of
direct and positive definitions; but they are necessary for the testimony to
that experience of faith in which the mystery of Divine freedom is revealed.
With a tolerable inexactitude, one could say that God is able to permit and
tolerate the absence of anything outside of Himself. By such a presumption the
whole immeasurability of the Divine love is not diminished, but on the contrary
is thrown into relief. God creates out of the absolute superabundance of His
mercies and goodness, and herein His good pleasure and freedom are manifest. And
in this sense, one could say that the world is a kind of a surplus. And further,
it is a surplus which in no way enriches the Divine fulness; it is, as it were,
something “supererogatory” and superadded, something which also could not have
existed, and which exists only through the sovereign and all-perfect freedom and
unspeakable good pleasure and love of God. This means that the world is created
and is “the work of” God’s will, theliseosergon (θελησεως εργον). No outward
revelation whatever belongs to the “necessity” of the Divine nature, to the
necessary structure of the intra-Divine life. And creative revelation is not
something imposed upon God by His goodness. It is executed in perfect freedom,
though in eternity also. Therefore it cannot be said that God beganto create, or
“became” Creator, even though “to be Creator” does not belong to those
definitions of Divine nature which includes the Trinity of Hypostases. In the
everlasting immutability of God’s Being there is no origination whatsoever, nor
any becoming, nor any sequence. And nevertheless there is a kind of all-perfect
harmonic order which is partially knowable and expressible on the level of the
Divine names. In this sense St. Athanasius the Great used to say that “to
create, for God, is secondary; and to beget, primary,” that “what is of nature
[essence]” is antecedent to “what is of volition.”35 One has to admit
distinctions within the very co-eternity and immutability of the Divine Being.
In the wholly simple Divine life there is an absolute rational or logical order
[taxis, ταξις] of Hypostases, which is irreversible and inexchangeable for the
simple reason that there is a “first principle” or “source” of Godhead, and that
there is the enumeration of First, Second, and Third Persons.36 And likewise it
is possible to say that the Trinitarian structure is antecedent to the will and
thought of God, because the Divine will is the common and undivided will of the
All-Holy Trinity, as it is also antecedent to all the Divine acts and
“energies.” But even more than this, the Trinity is the internal,
self-revelation of the Divine nature. The properties of God are also revelations
of the same sort, but in their particular disclosure God is free. The unchanging
will of God freely postulates creation, and even the very idea of creation. It
would be a tempting mistake to regard the “thinking up” of the world by God as
an “ideal creation,” because the idea of the world and the world of ideas are
totally in God, εν τω Θεω, and in God there is not, and there cannot be,
anything of the created. But this ambiguous notion of an “ideal creation”
defines with great clarity the complete distinction between the necessity of the
Trinitarian Being on the one hand and the freedom of God’s design - His good
pleasure concerning creation - on the other. There remains an absolute and
irremoveable distinction, the denial of which leads to picturing the whole
created economy as made up of essential acts and conditions which disclose the
Divine nature as though of necessity, and this leads to raising the world, at
least the “intelligible world” [kosmos noitos, κοσμος νοητος] to an improper
height. One might, with permissible boldness, say that in the Divine idea of
creation there is a kind of contingency, and that if it is eternal, it is not an
eternity of essence, but a free eternity. We could clarify the freedom of God’s
design - His good pleasure - for ourselves by the hypothesis that this idea need
not have been postulated at all. Certainly, it is a casus irrealis, but there is
no inherent contradiction in it. Certainly, once God “thought up” or postulated
such an idea, He had sufficient reason for doing so. However, one thinks that
Augustine was right in prohibiting any search for “the cause of God’s will.”37
But it is bound by nothing and preordained by nothing. The Divine will is not
constrained by anything to “think up” the world. From eternity, the Divine Mind,
rhapsodized St. Gregory the Theologian, “contemplated the desirable light of His
own beauty, the equal and equally-perfect splendor of the triple-rayed
Divinity... The world-creating Mind in His vast thoughts also mused upon the
patterns of the world which He made up, upon the cosmos which was produced only
afterwards, but which for God even then was present. All, with God, lies before
His eyes, both what shall be, and what was, and what is now... For God, all
flows into one, and all is held by the arms of the great Divinity.”38 “The
desirable light” of the Divine beauty would not be enhanced by these “patterns
of the world,” and the Mind “makes them up” only out of the superabundance of
love. They do not belong to the splendor of the Trinity; they are postulated by
His will and good pleasure. And these very “patterns of the world” are
themselves a surplus and super-added gift or “bonus” of Him Who is All-Blessed
Love. In this very good pleasure of His will to create the world the infinite
freedom of God is manifest. So St. Athanasius says, “The Father creates all, by
the Word, in the Spirit,”39 - Creation is a common and indivisible act of the
All-Holy Trinity. And God creates by thought, and the thought becomes deed
(κτζει δε ενοων και το εννοημα εργου υφισταται), says St. John Damascene.40 “He
contemplated everything from before its being, from eternity pondering it in His
mind; hence each thing receives its being at a determinate time according to His
timeless and decisive thought, which is predestination, and image, and pattern”
(κατα την θελητικην αυτου αχρονον εννοιαν ητις εστι προορισμος και
παραδειγμα).41 These patterns and prototypes of things that are to be constitute
the “pre-temporal and unchangeable counsel” of God, in which everything is given
its distinctive character [echarakterizo, εχαρακτειριζετο] before its being,
everything which is preordained by God in advance and then brought to existence
(η βουλη αυτου η προαιωνιος και αει ωσαυτως εχουσα).42 This “counsel” of God is
eternal and unchanging, pre-temporal and without beginning - [anarhos, αναρχος]
- since everything Divine is immutable. And this is the image of God, the second
form of the image, the image turned towards the creation.43 St. John Damascene
is referring to Pseudo-Dionysius. These creative patterns, says the Areopagite,
“are creative foundations pre-existent together in God, and together compose the
powers that make being into entities, powers which theology calls
‘predestinations,’ Divine and ‘beneficient,’ decisions which are determinative
and creative of all things extant, according to which He Who is above being has
preordained and produced all that exists” (Παραδειματα δε φαμεν ειναι τους εν
Θεω των οντων ουσιοποιους και ενιαιως προυφεστωτας λογους, ους η Θεολογια
προορισμους καλει, και Θεια και αγαθα θεληματα, των οντων αφοριστικα και ποιητκα
καθ ους ο Υπερουσιος τα οντα παντα και προωρισε και παρηγαγεν).44 According to
St. Maximus the Confessor these types and ideas are the Divine all-perfect and
everlasting thoughts of the everlasting God (νοησεις αυτοτελεις αιδιοι του
αιδιου Θεου).45 This eternal counsel is God’s design and decision concerning the
world. It must be rigorously distinguished from the world itself. The Divine
idea of creation is not creation itself; it is not the substance of creation; it
is not the bearer of the cosmic-process; and the “transition” from “design”
[ennoima, εννοημα] to “deed” [ergon, εργον] is not a process within the Divine
idea, but the appearance, formation, and the realization of another substratum,
of a multiplicity of created subjects. The Divine idea remains unchangeable and
unchanged, it is not involved in the process of formation. It remains always
outside the created world, transcending it. The world is created according to
the idea, in accordance with the pattern - it is the realization of the pattern
- but this pattern is not the subject of becoming. The pattern is a norm and a
goal established in God. This distinction and distance is never abolished, and
therefore the eternity of the pattern, which is fixed and is never involved in
temporal change, is compatible with temporal beginning, with the
entering-into-being of the bearers of the external decrees. “Things before their
becoming are as though non-existent,” said Augustine, utiquae non erant. And he
explains himself: they both were and were not before they originated; “they were
in God’s knowledge: but were not in their own nature” - erant in Dei scientia,
non erant in sua natura.46 According to St. Maximus, created beings “are images
and similes of the Divine ideas,”47 in which they are “participants.”48 In
creation, the Creator realizes, “makes substantial” and “discloses” His
knowledge, pre-existent everlastingly in Himself.49 In creation there is
projected from out of nothing a new reality which becomes the bearer of the
Divine idea, and must realize this idea in its own becoming. In this context the
pantheistic tendency of Platonic ideology and of the Stoic theory of “seminal
reasons” [spermatikilogi, σπερματικοι λογοι] is altogether overcome and avoided.
For Platonism the identification of the “essence” of each thing with its Divine
idea is characteristic, the endowment of substances with absolute and eternal
(beginningless) properties and predicates, as well as the introduction of the
“idea” into real things. On the contrary, the created nucleus of things must be
rigorously distinguished from the Divine idea about things. Only in this way is
even the most sequacious logical realism freed from a “pantheistic flavor; the
reality of the whole will nevertheless be but a created reality. Together with
this, pan-logism is also overcome: The thought of a thing and the Divine
thought-design concerning a thing are not its “essence” or nucleus, even though
the essence itself is characterized by logos λογος, [logikos, λογικος]. The
Divine pattern in things is not their “substance” or “hypostasis;” it is not the
vehicle of their qualities and conditions. Rather, it might be called the truth
of a thing, its transcendental entelechy. But the truth of a thing and the
substance of a thing are not identical.50 Continued in Part 2 Notes and
References 1. Maximus the Confessor in Lib. de div. nomin. schol., in V. 8,. PG
iv, 336.

2. This relationship is vividly elucidated by Augustine, De Genesi ad lit. V. 5,
PL xxxiv, 325: factae itaque creaturae motibus coeperunt currere tempora: unde
ante creaturura frustra tempora requiruntur, quasi possint inveniri ante tempora
tempora ... potius ergo tempora a creatura, quam creatura coepit a tempore;
utrumque autem ex Deo; cf. de Genesi c. manich. I. 2 PL xxiv, 174, 175; de Civ.
Dei, XI, t, PL xli, 321; quis non videat quod tempora non fuissent, nisi
creatura fieret, quae aliquid aliqua mutatione mutaret; c. 322: procul dubio non
est mundus factus in tempore, sed cum tempore; Confess. XI, 13, PL xxxii,
815-816 et passim. Cf. P. Duhem, Le Système du Monde, II (Paris, 1914), pp. 462
ff.

3. St. Basil the Great in Hexam. h. 1, n. 6, PG xxix, c. 16.

4. St. Gregory of Nyssa Or. cath. m., с. 6, PG xlv, c. 28; cf. St. John
Damascene, De fide orth. I, 3, PG xciv, 796: "for things whose being originated
with a change [απω τροπης] are definitely subject to change, whether it be by
corruption or by voluntary alteration.”

5. Gregory of Nyssa De opif. hom. c. XVI, PG xliv, 184; rf. Or. cath. m., c. 21,
PG xlv, c. 57: ["The very transition from nonentity to existence is a change,
non-existence being changed by the Divine power in being"] (Srawley’s
translation). Since the origin of man comes about "through change," he
necessarily has a changeable nature.

6. St. John Damascene De fide orth. II, 1, PG xciv, c. 864. Ουδε γαρ μετα την
αναστασιν ημεραις και νυξιν ο χρονος αριθμησεται εσται δε μαλλον μια ημερα
ανεσπερος. The whole passage is of interest: Λεγεται παλιν αιων, ου χρονος ουδε
χρονος τι μερος, ηλιου φορα και δρομω μερουμενον, ηγουν δι ημερων και νυκτων
συνισταμενον, αλλα το συμπαρεκτινομενον τοις αιδιοις συνισταμενον, αλλα το
συμπαρεκτεινομενον τοις αιδιοις, οιον τι χρονικον κινημα, και διαστημα.

7. St. Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 29, PG xxxi, 89-81: και ηρκται ου παυτεται.

8. St. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, XII, c. xv, PL XLI, 363-5.

9. The Works of Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, "Discourses and Speeches,"
vol. III (Moscow, 1877), p. 436, "Address on the Occasion of the Recovery of the
Relics of Patriarch Alexey," 1830.

10 St. Augustine, Confessiones, XI, 4, PL xxxii, c. 812.

11. St. Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 38, In Theoph., n. 7, PG xxxvi, c. 317.

12. St. John Damascene, De fide Orth. I, 13, PG xcvi, c. 583 [Russian, I, 183].

13. St. Augustine, De Genesi ad lit., I, imp. c. 2: non de Dei natura, sed a Deo
sit facta de nihile... quapropter creaturam universam neque con-substantialem
Deo, neque coaeternam fas est dicere, aut credere. PL xxxiv, c. 221.

14. St. Macarius of Egypt, Hom. XLIX, c. 4, PG xxxiv. c. 816.

15. St. Athanasius, C.arian, Or. 1, n. 20, PG xxvi, c. 53.

16. St. Athanasius, C.arian. Or. 2, ьf6Ephesians 2:1-22, PG xxvi, c. 152.

17. Ibid., C. arian. Or. I, n. 21, c. 56.

18. Ibid., C.arian. Or. 3, nfl 60ss., c. 448 squ.

19. St. Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus, XV, PG LXXV, c. 276: το γεννημα ... εκ
της ουσιας του γεννωντος προεισι φυσικως; - το κτισμα) ... εξωθεν εστιν ως
αλλοτριον; ass. xviii, с. 313: το μεν ποιειν ενεργειας εστι φυσεως δε το γενναν;
φυσις δε και ενεργεια ου ταυτον.

20. St. John Damascene De fide orth. I, 8, PG xciv, c. 812-813; cf. St.
Athanasius С.arian. or. 2, n. 2, PG xxvi. He rebukes the Arians for not
recognizing that καρογονος εστιν αυτη η Θεια ουσια. The same expression is to be
found in St. Cyril’s writings.

21. St. Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 45 in S. Pascha, a. 28, PG xxxvi, 661.

22. Ibid., n. 8, Colossians 632.

23. St. Augustine, De Genesi ad lit., I, 5, PL xxxiv, c. 250.

24. St. Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. XL in S. Baptism, PG xxxvi, 424.

25. St. John Damascene, C. Manich n. 14, PG xciv, c. 1597.

26. St. Gregory of Nyssa, De anima et resurr., PG XLVI, 93 В.

27. ...Waddingi, IV, Paris, 1891. This whole discourse of Duns Scotus is notable
for its great clarity and profundity. Duns Scotus question disputatae de rerum
principio, quaestio IV, articulus I, n. 3 and 4, - Opera omnia, editio nova
juata editionem.

28. Origen, De princ. III, 5, 3. PG 327, English translation of G. W.
Butterworth.

29. V. V. Bolotov, Origen’s Doctrine of the Holy Trinity, St. Petersburg, 1879,
p. 203.

30. Origen, De princ. I, 2, 10, PG 138-9.

31. Ibid., Nota ex Methodic Ol. apud Phot. Bibl. cod., 235, sub linea, n. (40).

32. St. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, XII, 15, PL XLI, c. 36.

33. St. Methodius, De creatis, apud Phot. Bibl. Colossians 235, PG cii, c. 1141.

34. St. Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 45, n. 5, PG xxxvi, c. 629: εννοει; Саrт. 4,
theol. IV, De mundo, c. 67-68, PG xxxv II, 421.

35. St. Athanasius, C. arian. Or. 2, п. 2, PG xxvi, c. 152 - δευτερον εστι το
δημιουργειν του Θεον, - πολλω προτερον, - το υπερκειμενον της βουλησεως.

36. Of. V. V. Bolotov, "On the Filioque Question, III: The significance of the
sequence of the Hypostases of the Holy Trinity according to the view of the
Eastern Fathers," Christian Readings [(Khristianskoe Chtenie) Russian], 1913,
Sept., pp. 1046-1059.

37. St. Augustine, De div. quaest. qu. 28, PL XLVI, c. 18: nihil autem majus est
voluntatis Dei; non ergo ejus causa quaerenda Esther 38. St. Gregory of
Nazianzos, Carm. theol. IV - De mundo, v. 67-68, PG xxxvii, 421: κοσμοι
τυπους...

39. St. Athanasius, Ad Serap. Ep. III, n. 5, PG xxvi, c. 632.

. St. John Damascene, De fide orth. I, 2, PG xciv, c. 865; St. Gregory of
Nazianzos, Or. 45 in S.Pascha, n. 5, PG xxxvi, c. 629.

41. St. John Damascene, De fide orth., I, 9, PG xciv, c. 837.

42. St. John Damascene De imagin., I, 10, PG xciv, c. 1240-1241.

43. Ibid; c. 1340: "The second aspect of the image is the thought of God on the
subject of that which He will create, that is, His pre-eternal counsel, which
always remains equal to itself; for the Divinity remains unchangeable and His
counsel is without beginning” [δευτερος τροπος εικονος, η εν το Θεω των υπ αυτου
επομενων εννοια, τουτεστιν η προαιωνιος αυτου βουλησις, η αει ωσαυτως εχουσα].

44. Dionysius the Areopagite, De divin. nomin. V, n. 8, PG III, c. 824; cf. c.
VII, n. 2, c. 868-869.

45. St. Maximus the Confessor, Scholia in liberus de divine nominitus in cap. V
5, - PG iv, c. 31; cfr. n. 7... Cf. n. 7, с. 324А: "In the cause of all things,
everything is preconstituted [προυρεστηκεν], as in an idea or prototype;” n. 8,
с. 329A-B: οτι ποιησιν αυτοτελη αιδιον του αιδιου Θεου την ιδεαν, ητοι το
παραδειγμα φηοι. In contrast to Plato, who separated the ideas or God, Dionysius
speaks of "images" and "logoi" in God. Cf. A. Brilliantov, The Influence of
Eastern Theology on Western Theology in the Works of Eriugene (St. Petersburg,
1898), pp. 157 ff, 192 ff.

46. St. Augustine, De Genesi: ad l.t., I, V, c. 18, PL xxxiv, c. 334; cf. De
Trin., I, IX, с. 6 vel s. n. 9, PL XLII, c. 965: alia notitia rei in ipsa se,
alia in ipsa aeterna veritate; cf. ibid., I, VIII, c. 4 vel s. n. 7, c. 951-952.
See also De div. qu., 83, qu. 46, n. 2., PL XL, c. 30: ideae igitur latine
possumus vel formas vel species dicere . . . Sunt namque ideae principales
formae quaedam, vel rationes rerum stabiles atque incommutabiles, quae ipsae
formatae non sunt, ac per hoc aeternae ac semper eodem modo sese habentes, quia
in divina mente continentur. Et cum ipsae neque oriantur, neque intereant;
secundum cas tamen formari dicitur omne quod oriri et interire potest, et omne
quod oritur et interit.

47. St. Maximus the Confessor. Lib. de div. nom. shol., vii, 3, PG iv, 352: τα
γαρ οντα ... εικονες εισι και ομοιωματα των δειων ιδεων ... εικονες τα της
κτισεως αποτελεσματα.

48. St. Maximus the Confessor, Lib. de div. nom. schol., V, 5, PG iv, 317; ων
μετεχουσιν.

49. St. Maximus the Confessor. De charit., c. iv, c. 4, PG xc, c. 1148: την εξ
αιδιον εν αυτω ο Δημιουργος των οντων προυπαρχουσαν γνωσιν, οτε εβουληθη,
ουσιωσε και πρεβαλετο; Lib. de div. nom. schol; IV, 14, PG, iv, 265. One must
also take into consideration different aspects of the image as described by St.
John Damascene, De imag. II, 19, PG xciv, 1340-1341: The first aspect of the
image is natural, φυσικος - the Son. The second image is the pre-eternal counsel
- εν τω Θεω. The third aspect is man, who is an image by imitation: - ο κατα
μιμησιν υπο Θεου γενομενος -since one who is created cannot have the same nature
as He who is not created. In this passage St. John Damascene perceives the
likeness of man to God in the fact that the soul of every man consists of three
parts; cf. Fragm., PG xcv, 574. By indicating difference of natures in God and
in man, the divine nature of the eternal ideas of His counsel is emphasized. The
notion of "image" received its final definition only during the Iconoclastic
period, especially in the writings of St. Theodore the Studite. He connects the
possibility of having icons with the creation of man according to the image of
God. "The fact that man is created according to the image and likeness of God
indicates that making icons is to some extent a divine occupation" (St. Theod.
Stud. Antirrh. Ill, c. 2, 5, PG xciv. St. Theodore follows here the ideas of
Areopagitica. In this case it is enough to mention that St. Theodore underscores
the indissoluble connection between the "image" and the "proto-image," but makes
a sharp distinction between them in essence of nature. Cf. Antirrh. III, c. 3,
10, Colossians 424 : "The one is not separate from the other, except in respect
to the distinction of essences” [της ουσιας διαφορον]. Cf. К. Schwartzlose. Der
Bilderstreit (Gotha, 1890), pp. 174 ff.; the Rev. N. Grossou, St. Theodore the
Stylite, His Times, His Life, His Works (Kiev, 1908), Russian, pp. 198 ff.; 180
ff.; A. P. Dobroklonsky, St. Theodore the Studite, Vol. I (Odessa, 1901 [1914]),
Russian.

50. A penetrating and thorough investigation of the problem of ideas is given by
a noted Roman Catholic theologian, F. A. Staudenmaier, Die Philosophic des
Christentums, Bd. I (the only published), "Die Lehre von der Idee" (Gieszen,
1840), and also in his monumental work Die Christliche Dogmatik, Bd. Ill,
Freiburg im Breisgau 1848 (recently reprinted, 1967).


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 7: 06A - CREATION & CREATUREHOOD (PART 2)
========================================================================

Creation and Creaturehood

(Part 2)

III The acceptance of the absolute creatureliness and non-self-sufficiency of
the world leads to the distinguishing of two kinds of predicates and acts in
God. Indeed, at this point we reach the limit of our understanding, all words
become, as it were, mute and inexact, receiving an apophatic, prohibitive, not a
cataphatic, indicative sense. Nevertheless, the example of the holy Fathers
encourages a speculative confession of faith. As Metropolitan Philaret once
said, “We must by no means consider wisdom, even that hidden in a mystery, as
alien and beyond us, but with humility should edify our mind towards the
contemplation of divine things.”51 Only, in our speculation we must not overstep
the boundaries of positive revelation, and must limit ourselves to the
interpretation of the experience of faith and of the rule of faith, presuming to
do no more than discern and clarify those inherent presuppositions through which
the confession of dogmas as intelligible truths becomes possible. And it must be
said that the whole structure of the doctrine of faith encourages these
distinctions. In essence, they are already given in the ancient and primary
distinction between “theology” and “economy.” From the very beginning of
Christian history, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church endeavored to
distinguish clearly and sharply those definitions and names which referred to
God on the “theological” plane and those used on the “economical.” Behind this
stands the distinction between “nature” and “will.” And bound up with it is the
distinction in God between “essence” [usia, ουσια] and “that which surrounds the
essence,” “that which is related to the nature.” A distinction, but not a
separation.

“What we say about God affirmatively shows us,” as St. John Damascene explains,
“not His nature, hut only what is related to His nature” (ου τυν φυσιν, αλλα τα
περι τυν φυσιν),52 “something which accompanies His nature” [u physin, allata
paraphysin, τι των παρεπομενων την φυσει].53 And “what He is by essence and
nature, this is unattainable and unknowable.” 54 St. John expresses here the
basic and constant assumption of all Eastern theology: God’s essence is
unattainable; only the powers and operations of God are accessible to
knowledge.55 And as matters stand, there is some distinction between them. This
distinction is connected with God’s relation to the world. God is knowable and
attainable only in so far as He turns Himself to the world, only by His
revelation to the world, only through His economy or dispensation. The internal
Divine life is hedged by “light unapproachable,” and is known only on the level
of “apophatic” theology, with the exclusion of ambiguous and inadequate
definitions and names. In the literature of the ante-Nicene period, this
distinction not seldom had an ambiguous and blurred character. Cosmological
motives were often used in the definition of intra-Trinitarian relations, and
the Second Hypostasis was often defined from the perspective of God’s
manifestation or revelation to the world, as the God of revelation, as the
Creative Word. And therefore the unknowability and inaccessibility were assigned
primarily to the Hypostasis of the Father as being un-revealable and ineffable.
God reveals Himself only in the Logos, in “the spoken Word” [logos prophorikos,
λογος προφορικος], as “in the idea and active power” issuing forth to build
creation.56 Connected with that was the tendency to sub-ordinationism in the
ante-Nicene theological interpretation of the Trinitarian dogma. Only the
Fathers of the fourth century obtained in their Trinitarian theology the basis
for an adequate formulation of God’s relation to the world: the whole entire and
undivided “operation” [energie, ενεργειαι] of the consubstantial Trinity is
revealed in God’s acts and deeds. But the single “essence” [usia, ουσια] of the
undivided Trinity remains beyond the reach of knowledge and understanding. His
works, as St. Basil the Great explains, reveal the power and wisdom of God, but
not His essence itself. 57 “We affirm,” he wrote to Amphilochius of Iconium,
“that we know our God by His energies, but we do not presume that it is possible
to approach the essence itself. Because although His energies descend to us, His
essence remains inaccessible.” And these energies are multiform, yet the essence
is simple.58 The essence of God is unfathomable for men, and is known solely to
the Only-begotten Son and to the Holy Spirit.59 In the words of St. Gregory the
Theologian, the essence of God is “the Holy of Holies, closed even to the
Seraphim, and glorified by the three ‘Holies’ that come together in one
‘Lordship’ and ‘Godhead.’” And the created mind is able, very imperfectly, to
“sketch” some small “diagram of the truth” in the infinite ocean of the Divine
entity, but based not upon what God is, but upon what is around Him [ek ton
periavton, εκ των περι αυτον].60 “The Divine essence, totally inaccessible and
comparable to nothing,” says St. Gregory of Nyssa, “is knowable only through His
energies.”61 And all our words concerning God denote not His essence but His
energies.62 The Divine essence is inaccessible, unnameable, and ineffable. The
manifold and relative names referring to God do not name His nature or essence
but the attributes of God. Yet the attributes of God are not just intelligible
or knowledgeable signs or marks which constitute our human notion of God; they
are not abstractions or conceptual formulae. They are energies, powers, actions.
They are real, essential, life-giving manifestations of the Divine Life - real
images of God’s relation to creation, connected with the image of creation in
God’s eternal knowledge and counsel. And this is “that which may be known of
God” (το γνωστον του Θεου, Romans 1:19). This is, as it were, the particular
domain of the undivided but yet “many-named” Divine Being, “of the Divine
radiance and activity,” - η Θεια ελλαμψις και ενεργεια, as St. John Damascene
says, following the Areopagitica.63 According to the Apostolic word, “the
invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made, even His everlasting power and Godhead”
(η τε αιδιος αυτου δυναμις και Θειοτης, Romans 1:20). And this is the revelation
or manifestation of God: “God hath shewed it unto them” (Romans 1:19;
ephanerosen, εφανερωσεν). Bishop Silvester rightly explains in commenting on
these Apostolic words: “The invisible things of God, being actually existent and
not merely imaginary, become visible not in a kind of illusory way, but
certainly, veritably; not as a mere phantom, but in His own eternal power; not
merely in the thoughts of men, but in very fact - the reality of His
Divinity.”64 They are visible because manifested and revealed. Because God is
present everywhere, not phantasmally, not in remoteness, but really present
everywhere - “which art in all places, and fillest all things, the Treasury of
good things, and Giver of life.” This providential ubiquity (different from the
“particular” or charismatic presence of God, which is not everywhere) is a
particular “form of existence” for God, distinct from the “form of His existence
according to His own nature.”65 And furthermore this form is existentially real
or subsistent - it is an actual presence, not merely an omnipraesentia
operativa, sicut agens adest ei in quod agit. And if we “do not particularly
understand” (in the phrase of St. Chrysostom66) this mysterious omnipresence,
and this form of the Divine Being ad extra, nevertheless it is indisputable that
God “is everywhere, whole and entirely,” “all in all,” as St. John Damascene
said (ολον ολικως πανταχου ον, ολον εν πασι).67 The life-giving acts of God in
the world are God Himself - an assertion which precludes separation but does not
abolish distinction.68 In the doctrine of the Cappadocian fathers concerning
“essence” and “energies” we find in an elaborate and systematic form the
mysterious author of the Areopagitica that was to determine the whole subsequent
development of Byzantine theology. Dionysius bases himself on the strict
distinction between those “Divine Names” which refer to the intra-Divine and
Trinitarian life and those which express the relation of God ad extra69 But both
series of names tell of the immutable Divine reality. The intra-Divine life is
hidden from our understanding, is known only through negations and
prohibitions,70 and in the phrase of St. Gregory the Theologian “one who by
seeing God has understood what he has seen, has not seen Him.”71 And
nevertheless God really reveals Himself and acts and is present in creation
through His powers and ideas - in “providences and graces which issue from the
incommunicable God, which pour out in a flooding stream, and in which all
existing things participate,”72 “in an essence-producing procession,” [usiopion
proodon, ουσιοποιον προοδον], in “a providence that works good things,”
[agathopion pronian, αγαθοποιον προνοιαν], which are distinguishable but not
separable from the Divine entity “which surpasses entity,” from God Himself, as
St. Maximus the Confessor says in his scholia.73 The basis of these
“processions” and of the, as it were, procession of God in His providences out
of Himself - [eks eavtugenete, εξω εαυτου γινεται] - is His goodness and love.74
These energies do not mix with created things, and are not themselves these
things, but are only their basic and life-giving principles; they are the
prototypes, the predeterminations, the reasons, the logi (λογοι) and Divine
decisions respecting them, of which they are participants and ought to be
“communicants.”75 They are not only the “principle” and the “cause,” but also
the “challenge” and beckoning goal which is beyond and above all limits. It
would be difficult to express more forcefully both the distinction between and
the indivisibility of the Divine Essence and the Divine energies than is done in
the Areopagitica (το ταυτον και το ετερον).76 The divine energies are that
aspect of God which is turned towards creation. It is not an aspect imagined by
us; it is not what we see and as we see it, but it is the real and living gaze
of God Himself, by which He wills and vivifies and preserves all things - the
gaze of Almighty Power and Superabundant Love. The doctrine of the energies of
God received its final formulation in the Byzantine theology of the fourteenth
century, and above all in St. Gregory Palamas. He bases himself on the
distinction between Grace and Essence, “the divine and deifying radiance and
grace is not the essence, but the energy of God” (η Θεια και Θεοποις ελλαμψις
και χαρις ουκ ουσια αλλ ενεργια εστι Θεου)77 The notion of the Divine energy
received explicit definition in the series of Synods held in the fourteenth
century in Constantinople. There is a real distinction, but no separation,
between the essence or entity of God and His energies. This distinction is
manifest above all in the fact that the Entity is absolutely incommunicable and
inaccessible to creatures. The creatures have access to and communicate with the
Divine Energies only. But with this participation they enter into a genuine and
perfect communion and union with God; they receive “deification.”78 Because this
is “the natural and indivisible energy and power of God,” (φυσικη και αχωριστος
ενεργεια και δυναμις του Θεου)79 “it is the common and Divine energy and power
of the Tri-Hypostatic God.”80 The active Divine power does not separate itself
from the Essence. This “procession” [proiene, προιεναι] expresses an “ineffable
distinction,” which in no way disturbs the unity “that surpasses essence.”81 The
active Power of God is not the very “substance” of God, but neither is it an
“accident” [symvevikos, συμβεβηκος]; because it is immutable and coeternal with
God, it exists before creation and it reveals the creative will of God. In God
there is not only essence, but also that which is not the essence, although it
is not accident - the Divine will and power - His real, existential,
essence-producing providence and authority.82 St. Gregory Palamas emphasizes
that any refusal to make a real distinction between the “essence” and “energy”
erases and blurs the boundary between generation and creation - both the former
and the latter then appear to be acts of essence. And as St. Mark of Ephesus
explained, “Being and energy, completely and wholly coincide in equivalent
necessity. Distinction between essence and will [thelisis, θελησις] is
abolished; then God only begets and does not create, and does not exercise His
will. Then the difference between foreknowledge and actual making becomes
indefinite, and creation seems to be coeternally created.”83 The essence is
God’s inherent self-existence; and the energy is His relations towards the other
[proseteron, προς ετερον]. God is Life, and has life; is Wisdom, and has wisdom;
and so forth. The first series of expressions refers to the incommunicable
essence, the second to the inseparably distinct energies of the one essence,
which descend upon creation.84 None of these energies is hypostatic, nor
hypostasis in itself, and their incalculable multiplicity introduces no
composition into the Divine Being.85 The totality of the Divine “energies”
constitutes His pre-temporal will, His design - His good pleasure - concerning
the “other,” His eternal counsel. This is God Himself, not His Essence, but His
will.86 The distinction between “essence” and “energies” - or, it could be said,
between “nature” and “grace” [physis, φυσις and haris, χαρις] - corresponds to
the mysterious distinction in God between “necessity” and “freedom,” understood
in a proper sense. In His mysterious essence God is, as it were, “necessitated”
- not, indeed, by any necessity of constraint, but by a kind of necessity of
nature, which is, in the words of St. Athanasius the Great, “above and
antecedent to free choice.”87 And with permissible boldness one may say: God
cannot but be the Trinity of persons. The Triad of Hypostases is above the
Divine Will, is, as it were, “a necessity” or “law” of the Divine nature. This
internal “necessity” is expressed as much in the notion of the
“consubstantiality” as in that of the perfect indivisibility of the Three
Persons as They co-exist in and intercompenetrate one another. In the judgment
of St. Maximus the Confessor, it would be unfitting and fruitless to introduce
the notion of will into the internal life of the Godhead for the sake of
defining the relations between the Hypostases, because the Persons of the
All-Holy Trinity exist together above any kind of relation and action, and by
Their Being determine the relations between Themselves.88 The common and
undivided “natural” will of God is free. God is free in His operations and acts.
And therefore for a dogmatic confession of the reciprocal relations between the
Divine Hypostases, expressions must be found such as will exclude any
cosmological motives, any relation to created being and its destinies, any
relation to creation or re-creation. The ground of Trinitarian being is not in
the economy or revelation of God ad extra. The mystery of the intra-Divine life
should be conceived in total abstraction from the dispensation; and the
hypostatic properties of the Persons must be defined apart from all relationship
to the existence of creation, and only according to the relationship that
subsists between Themselves. The living relationship of God - precisely as a
Triad - to the creation is in no way thus obscured; the distinction in the
relations of the different Hypostases towards the creation is in no wise
obscured. Rather, a fitting perspective is thus established. The entire meaning
of the dogmatic definition of Christ’s Divinity as it was interpreted by the
Church actually lay in the exclusion of all predicates relative to the Divine
condescension which characterize Him as Creator and Redeemer, as Demiurge and
Saviour, in order to understand His Divinity in the light of the internal Divine
Life and Nature and Essence. The creative relationship of the Word to the world
is explicitly confessed in the Nicene Creed - by Whom all things were made. And
“things” were made not only because the Word is God, but also because the Word
is the Word of God, the Divine Word. No one was as emphatic in separating the
demiurgical moment in Christ’s action from the dogma of the eternal generation
of the Word as St. Athanasius the Great. The generation of the Word does not
presuppose the being - and not even the design - of the world. Even had the
world not been created, the Word would exist in the completeness of His Godhead,
because the Word is Son by nature [Yos kataphysin, υιος κατα φυσιν]. “If it had
pleased God not to create any creatures, the Word would nevertheless be with
God, and the Father would be in Him,” as St. Athanasius said; and this because
creatures cannot receive their being otherwise than through the Word.89 The
creatures are created by the Word and through the Word, “in the image” of the
Word, “in the image of the image” of the Father, as St. Methodius of Olympus
once expressed it.90 The creation presupposes the Trinity, and the seal of the
Trinity lies over the whole creation; yet one must not therefore introduce
cosmological motifs into the definition of the intra-Trinitarian Being. And yet
one may say that the natural fulness of the Divine essence is contained within
the Trinity, and therefore that the design - His good pleasure - concerning the
world is a creative act, an operation of the will - an abundance of Divine love,
a gift and a grace. The distinction between the names of “God in Himself,” in
His eternal being, and those names which describe God in revelation, “economy,”
action, is not only a subjective distinction of our analytical thinking; it has
an objective and ontological meaning, and expresses the absolute freedom of
Divine creativity and operation. This includes the “economy” of salvation. The
Divine Counsel concerning salvation and redemption is an eternal and
pre-temporal decree, an “eternal purpose” (Ephesians 3:11), “the mystery which
from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God” (Ephesians 3:9). The Son
of God is from everlasting destined to the Incarnation and the Cross, and
therefore He is the Lamb “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of
the world” (1 Peter 1:19-20), “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world”
(Revelation 13:8). But this “purpose” [prothesis, προθεσις] does not belong to
the “essential” necessity of the Divine nature; it is not a “work of nature, but
the image of economical condescension,” as St. John Damascene says.91 This is an
act of Divine love - for God so loved the world ... And therefore the predicates
referring to the economy of salvation do not coincide with those predicates by
which the Hypostatic Being of the Second Person is defined. In Divine revelation
there is no constraint, and this is expressed in the notion of the perfect
Divine Beatitude. Revelation is an act of love and freedom, and therefore
introduces no change into the Divine nature.92 It introduces no change simply
because there are no “natural” foundations for revelation at all. The sole
foundation of the world consists in God’s freedom, in the freedom of Love.

IV From eternity God “thinks up” the image of the world, and this free good
pleasure of His is an immutable, unchangeable counsel. But this immutability of
the accomplished will does not in the least imply its necessity. The
immutability of God’s will is rooted in His supreme freedom. And therefore it
does not bind His freedom in creation, either. It would be very appropriate here
to recall the scholastic distinction between potentia absoluta and potentia
ordinata.

And in conformity with the design - the good pleasure of God - creation,
together with time, is “built up” from out of nothing. Through temporal
becoming, creation must advance by its own free ascent according to the standard
of the Divine economy respecting it, according to the standard of the
pre-temporal image of and predestination for it. The Divine image of the world
always remains above and beyond creation by nature. Creation is bound by it
unchangeably and inseparably, is bound even in its very resistance to it.
Because this “image” or “idea” of creation is simultaneously the will of God
[thelitikiennia, θελητικη εννοια] and the power of God by which creation is made
and sustained; and the beneficent counsel of the Creator is not made void by the
resistance of creation, but through this resistance turns out to be, for rebels,
a Judgment, the force of wrath, a consuming fire. In the Divine image and
counsel, each creature - i.e., every created hypostasis in its imperishable and
irreproducible form - is contained. Out of eternity God sees and wills, by His
good pleasure, each and every being in the completeness of its particular
destiny and features, even regarding its future and sin. And if, according to
the mystical insight of St. Symeon the New Theologian, in the age to come
“Christ will behold all the numberless myriads of Saints, turning His glance
away from none, so that to each one of them it will seem that He is looking at
him, talking with him, and greeting him,” and yet “while remaining unchanged. He
will seem different to one and different to another”93 - so likewise out of
eternity, God in the counsel of His good pleasure, beholds all the innumerable
myriads of created hypostases, wills them, and to each one of them manifests
Himself in a different way. And herein consists the “inseparable distribution”
of His grace or energy, “myriadfold hypostatic” in the bold phrase of St.
Gregory Palamas,94 because this grace or energy is beneficently imparted to
thousands upon myriads of thousands of hypostases. Each hypostasis, in its own
being and existence, is sealed by a particular ray of the good pleasure of God’s
love and will. And in this sense, all things are in God - in “image” [en idea ke
paradigmati, εν ιδεα και παραδειγματι] but not by nature, the created “all”
being infinitely remote from Uncreated Nature. This remoteness is bridged by
Divine love, its impenetrability done away by the Incarnation of the Divine
Word. Yet this remoteness remains. The image of creation in God transcends
created nature and does not coincide with “the image of God” in creation.
“Whatever description may be given to the “image of God” in man, it is a
characteristic moment of his created nature - it is created. It is a “likeness,”
a mirroring.95 But above the image the Proto-Image always shines, sometimes with
a gladenning, sometimes with a threatening, light. It shines as a call and a
norm. There is in creation a supra-natural challenging goal set above its own
nature - the challenging goal, founded on freedom, of a free participation in
and union with God. This challenge transcends created nature, but only by
responding to it is this nature itself revealed in its completeness. This
challenging goal is an aim, an aim that can be realized only through the
self-determination and efforts of the creature. Therefore the process of created
becoming is real in its freedom, and free in its reality, and it is by this
becoming that what-was-not reaches fulfilment and is achieved. Because it is
guided by the challenging goal. In it is room for creation, construction, for
re-construction - not only in the sense of recovering, but also in the sense of
generating what is new. The scope of the constructiveness is defined by the
contradiction between the nature and the goal. In a certain sense, this goal
itself is “natural” and proper to the one who does the constructive acts, so
that the attainment of this goal is somehow also the subject’s realization of
himself. And nevertheless this “I” which is realized and realizable through
constructiveness is not the “natural” and empiric “I,” inasmuch as any such
realization of one’s self” is a rupture - a leap from the plane of nature onto
the plane of grace, because this realization is the acquisition of the Spirit,
is participation in God. Only in this “communion” with God does a man become
“himself;” in separation from God and in self-isolation, on the contrary, he
falls to a plane lower than himself. But at the same time, he does not realize
himself merely out of himself. Because the goal lies beyond nature, it is an
invitation to a living and free encounter and union with God. The world is
substantially different from God. And therefore God’s plan for the world can be
realized only by created becoming - because this plan is not a substratum or
substantia that comes into being and completes itself, but is the standard and
crown of the “other’s” becoming. On the other hand, the created process is not
therefore a development, or not only a development; its meaning does not consist
in the mere unfolding and manifestation of innate “natural” ends, or not only in
this. Rather, the ultimate and supreme self-determination of created nature
emerges in its zealous impulse to outstrip itself in a kinisis yper physin
κινησις υτερ φυσιν, as St. Maximus says.96 And an anointing shower of grace
responds to this inclination, crowning the efforts of the creatures. The limit
and goal of creaturely striving and becoming is divinisation [theosis, θεωσις]
or deification [theopiisis, θεοποιησις]. But even in this, the immutable,
unchangeable gap between natures will remain: any “transubstantiation” of the
creature is excluded. It is true that according to a phrase of St. Basil the
Great preserved by St. Gregory the Theologian, creation “has been ordered to
become God.” 97 But this “deification” is only communion with God, participation
[metusis, μετουσια] in His life and gifts, and thereby a kind of acquisition of
certain similitude to the Divine Reality. Anointed and sealed by the Spirit, men
become conformed to the Divine image or prototype of themselves; and through
this they become “conformed to God” [symmorphiTheo, συμμορφοι Θεω].98 With the
Incarnation of the Word the first fruit of human nature is unalterably grafted
into the Divine Life, and hence to all creatures the way to communion with this
Life is open, the way of adoption by God. In the phrase of St. Athanasius, the
Word “became man in order to deify [theopiisi, θεοποιηση] us in Himself,”99 in
order that “the sons of men might become the sons of God.” 100 But this
“divinization” is acquired because Christ, the Incarnate Word, has made us
“receptive to the Spirit,” that He has prepared for us both the ascension and
resurrection as well as the indwelling and appropriation of the Holy Spirit.”101
Through the “flesh-bearing God” we have become “Spirit-bearing men”; we have
become sons “by grace,” “sons of God in the likeness of the Son of God.”102 And
thus is recovered what had been lost since the original sin, when “the
transgression of the commandment turned man into what he was by nature,”103 over
which he had been elevated in his very first adoption or birth from God,
coinciding with his initial creation.104 The expression so dear to St.
Athanasius and to St. Gregory the Theologian, Theon genesthe (Θεον γενεσθαι),105
finds its complementary explanation in a saying of two other Cappadocian Saints:
omiosis pros ton Theon (ομοιωσις προς τον Θεον).106 If Macarius the Egyptian
dare speak of the “changing” of Spirit-bearing souls “into the Divine nature,”
of “participation in the Divine nature,”107 he nevertheless understands this
participation as a krasis diolon κρασις δι ολον, i.e., as a certain “mingling”
of the two, preserving the properties and entities of each in particular.108 But
he also stresses that “the Divine Trinity comes to dwell in that soul which, by
the cooperation of Divine Grace, keeps herself pure - He comes to dwell not as
He is in Himself, because He is incontainable by any creature - but according to
the measure of the capacity and receptivity of man.109 Explicit formulae
concerning this were not established all at once, but from the very beginning
the impassable gulf between the natures was rigorously marked, and the
distinction between the notions kata usian, κατ ουσιαν (or κατα φυσιν) and
katametusian, κατα μετουσιαν was rigorously observed and kept. The concept of
“divinization” was crystallized only when the doctrine of God’s “energies” had
been explicated once and for all. In this regard the teaching of St. Maximus is
significant. “The salvation of those who are saved is accomplished by grace and
not by nature,”110 and if “in Christ the entire fulness of the Godhead dwelt
bodily according to essence then in us, on the contrary, there is not the
fulness of the Godhead according to grace.”111 The longed-for “divinization”
which is to come is a likeness by grace (και φανωμεν αυτω ομοιοι κατα την εκ
χαριτος θεωσιν).112 And even by becoming partakers of Divine Life, “in the unity
of love,” “by co-inhering totally and entirely with the whole of God,” (ολος ολω
περιχωρησας ολικως τω Θεω) by appropriating all that is Divine, the creature
“nevertheless remains outside the essence of God.”113 And what is most
remarkable in this is the fact that St. Maximus directly identifies the deifying
grace with the Divine good pleasure as regards creation, with the creative
fiat.114 In its efforts to acquire the Spirit, the human hypostasis becomes a
vehicle and vessel of Grace; it is in a manner imbued with it, so that by it
God’s creative will is accomplished - the will which has summoned
that-which-is-not into being in order to receive those that will come into His
communion. And the creative good pleasure itself concerning each and every
particular is already by itself a descending stream of Grace-but not everyone
opens to the Creator and God Who knocks. Human nature must be freely discovered
through a responsive movement, by overcoming the self-isolation of its own
nature; and by denying the self, as one might say, receive this mysterious, and
terrifying, and unspeakable double-naturedness for sake of which the world was
made. For it was made to be and to become the Church, the Body of Christ. The
meaning of history consists in this - that the freedom of creation should
respond by accepting the pre-temporal counsel of God, that it should respond
both in word and in deed. In the promised double-naturedness of the Church the
reality of created nature is affirmed at the outset. Creation is the other,
another nature willed by God’s good pleasure and brought forth from nothing by
the Divine freedom for creation’s own freedom’s sake. It must conform itself
freely to that creative standard by which it lives and moves and has its being.
Creation is not this standard, and this standard is not creation. In some
mysterious way, human freedom becomes a kind of “limitation” on the Divine
omnipotence, because it pleased God to save creation not by compulsion, but by
freedom alone. Creation is “other,” and therefore the process of ascent to God
must be accomplished by her own powers - with God’s help, to be sure. Through
the Church creaturely efforts are crowned and saved. And creation is restored to
its fulness and reality. And the Church follows, or, rather, portrays the
mystery and miracle of the two natures. As the Body of Christ, the Church is a
kind of “plenitude” of Christ - as Theophan the Recluse says - “Just as the tree
is the ‘plenitude’ of the seed.”115 And the Church is united to Her Head. “Just
as we do not ordinarily see iron when it is red-hot, because the iron’s
qualities are completely concealed by the fire,” says Nicholas Cabasilas in his
Commentary on the DivineLiturgy, “so, if you could see the Church of Christ in
Her true form, as She is united to Christ and participates in His Flesh, then
you would see Her as none other than the Lord’s Body alone.”116 In the Church
creation is forever confirmed and established, unto all ages, in union with
Christ, in the Holy Spirit.

Notes and References

51. Discourses and Speeches of a Member of the Holy Synod, Philaret,
Metropolitan of Moscow, part 11, Moscow, 1844, p. 87: "Address on the Occasion
of the Recovery of the Relics of Patriarch Alexey" (Russian).

52. St. John Damascene, De fide orth., I, 4, PG xciv, 800.

53. Ibid., I, 9, c. 836.

54. Ibid., I, 4, c. 797.

55. For a survey of this question see I. V. Popov, The Personality and Teachings
of the Blessed Augustine, Vol. I, part 2 (Sergiev Posad, 1916, and Lichnost’ i
Uchenie Blazhennago Avgustina), pp. 350-370 ff. (Russian).

56. In the words of Athenagoras, Legat. c. 10, PG vi, c. 908: εν ιδεα και
ενεργεια. Cf. Popov, pp. 339-41; Bolotov, pp. 41 ff.; A Puech, Les apologistes
grecs du IIesiècle de notre ère (Paris, 1912). On Origen, see Bolotov, pp. 191
ff. From the formal aspect, the distinction between "essence" and "energies"
goes back to Philo and Plotinus. Nevertheless, in their view God receives his
own character, even for Himself, only through His inner and necessary
self-revelation in the world of ideas, and this "cosmological sphere" in God
they named "Word" or "Mind." For a long time the cosmological concepts of Philo
and Plotinus retarded the speculative formulation of the Trinitarian mystery. In
fact cosmoiogical concepts have no relation to the mystery of God and Trinity.
If Cosmological concepts must be discarded, then another problem appears, that
of the relationship of God to the world, indeed of a free relationship. The
problem is relationship in the conception of the "pre-eternal counsel of God."
On Philo see M. D. Muretov, The Philosophy of Philo of Alexandria in its
Relation to the Doctrine of St. John the Theologian on the Logos, Vol. I
(Moscow, 1885); N. N. Gloubokovsky, St. Paul the Apostle’s Preaching of the Glad
Tidings in its Origin and Essence, Vol. IΙ (St. Petersburg, 1910), pp. 23-425;
V. Ivanitzky, Philo of Alexandria (Kiev, 1911); P. J. Lebreton, Les origines du
dogme de la Trinité (Paris, 1924), pp. 166-239, 570-581, 590-598; cf. excurus A,
"On the Energies," pp. 503-506. Cf. also F. Dölger, "Sphragis," Studien zur
Geschichte und Kultur des Alterhums, Bd. V, Hf. 3-4 (1911), pp. 65-69.

57. St. Basil the Great, C.Eun., Ι, ΙI, 32, PG xxix, 648; cf, St. Athanasius, De
decret., n. II, PG xxv, c. 441: "God is in all by His goodness and power; and He
is outside of all in His own nature” [κατα την ιδιαν φυσιν].

58. St. Basil the Great, Ad Amphil., PG xxxii, 869, А-В.

59. St. Basil the Great, C. Eun., I, I, n, 14, PG xxix, 544-5; cf. St. Gregory
of Nazianzos, Or. 28, 3, PG xxxvi, 29; Or. 29, Colossians 88 B.

60. St. Gregory Nazianzos, Or. 38, in Theoph., n. 7, PG xxxvi, 317.

61. St. Gregory of Nyssa, Cant. cant. h. xi, PG xlix, 1013 В; In Phalm. II, 14,
PG xliv, 585; cf. V. Nesmelov, The Dogmatic System of St. Gregory of Nyssa
(Kazan, 1887), pp. 123 ff.; Popov, pp. 344-49.

62. St. Gregory of Nyssa, Quod non sint tres dii, PG xlv, 121B: "We have come to
know that the essence of God has no name and it is inexpressible, and we assert
that any name, whether it has come to be known through human nature or whether
it was handed to us through the Scriptures, is an interpretation of something to
be understood of the nature of God, but that it does not contain in itself the
meaning of His nature itself… On the contrary, no matter what name we give to
the very essence of God, this predicate shows something that has relation to the
essence” [τι των περι αυτην]. Cf. С. Eunom. Л, PG xlv, с. 524-5; De beatitud.,
Or. 6, PG xliv, 1268: "The entity of God in itself, in its substance, is above
any thought that can comprehend it, being inaccessible to ingenious conjectures,
and does not even come close to them. But being such by nature, He who is above
all nature and who is unseen and indescribable, can be seen and known in other
respects. But no knowledge will be a knowledge of the essence;" In Ecclesiasten,
h. VII, PG xliv, 732: “and the great men speak of the works [εργα] of God, but
not of God.” St. John Chrysostom Incompreh. Dei natura, h. III, 3, PG xlviii,
722: in the vision of Isaiah (vi, 1-2), the angelic hosts contemplated not the
"inaccessible essence" but some of the divine "condescension," - "The dogma of
the unfathomability of God in His nature and the possibility of knowing Him
through His relations towards the world" is presented thoroughly and with
penetration in the book of Bishop Sylvester, Essay on Orthodox Dogmatic
Theology, Vol. I, (Kiev, 1892-3), pp. 245 ff.; Vol. II (Kiev, 1892-3), pp. 4 ff.
Cf. the chapter on negative theology in Father Bulgakov’s book, The Unwaning
Light (Moscow, 1917), pp. 103 ff.

63. St. John Damascene, De fide orth., I, 14, PG xciv, 860.

64. Bishop Sylvester, II, 6.

65. Cf. ibid., II, 131.

66. St. John Chrysostom, In Hebr. h-2, n. 1.

67. St. John Damascene, De fide orth., I, 13, PG xciv, 852.

68. The Eastern patristic distinction between the essence and energies of God
has always remained foreign to Western theology. In Eastern theology it is the
basis of the distinction between apophatic and cataphatic theology. St.
Augustine decisively rejects it. See Popov, pp. 353 ft.; Cf. Brilliantov, pp.
221 ff.

69. Dionysius Areopagite, De div. nom., II, 5, PG iii, 641.

70. Cf., for example, De coel. hier., II, 3, с. 141.

71. Ep. I, ad Caium, с. 1065А.

72. De div, nom; xi, 6, с. 956.

73. Dionysius Areopagite, De div. nom., I, 4, PG iii, 589; St. Max. Schol. in V
1; PG iv, 309: προοδον δε την Θειαν ενερεια λεγει, ητις πασαν ουσιαν παρηγαγε;
is contrasted here with αυτος ο Θεος.

74. De div. nom., IV, 13, PG iii, 712.

75. De div. nom., V, 8, PG iii, 824; V, 5-6, с. 820; XI, 6, с. 953, ss. Cf.
Brilliantov’s whole chapter on the Areopagitica, pp. 142-178; Popov, pp. 349-52.
The pseudo-epigraphic character of the Areopagtiica and their close relationship
with Neo-Platonism does not belittle their theological significance, which was
acknowledged and testified to by the authority of the Church Fathers. Certainly
there is need for a new historical and theological investigation and appraisal
of them.

76. Dionysius Areopagite, De div. nom; IX, PG iii, c. 909.

77. St. Gregory Palamas, Capit. phys., theol. etc., PG cl, c. 1169.

78. Ibid., cap. 75, PG cl, 1173: St. Gregory proceeds from a threefold
distinction in God: that of the essence, that of the energy, and that of the
Trinity of the Hypostases. The union with God κατ ουσιαν is impossible, for,
according to the general opinion of the theologians, in entity, or in His
essence. God is "imparticipable" [αμεθεκτον]. The union according to hypostasis
[καθ υποστασιν] is unique to the Incarnate Word: cap. 78, 1176: the creatures
who have made progress are united to God according to His energy; they partake
not of His essence but of His energy [κατ ενεργειαν]: cap. 92, 1168; through the
partaking of “God given grace” they are united to God Himself (cap. 93). The
radiance of God and the God-given energy, partakers of which become deified, is
the grace of God [χαρις] but not the essence of God [φυσις]: cap. 141, 1220;
cap. 144, 1221; Theoph. Colossians 912: 928D: cf- 921, 941. Cf. the Synodikon of
the council of 1452 in Bishop Porphyrius [Uspensky]’s book. History of Mt.
Athos, III, 2 (St. Petersburg, 1902), supplements, p. 784, and in the Triodion
(Venice, 1820), p. 168. This is the thought of St. Maximus: μθεκτος μεν ο Θεος
κατα τας μεταδοσεις αυτου, αμεθεκτος δε κατα το μηδεν μετεχειν της ουσιας αυτου,
apud Euth. Zyg. Panopl., Titus 3:1-15, PG cxxx. 132.

79. Bishop Porphyrios, 783.

80. St. Gregory Palamas, Theoph., PG cl, 94l.

81. Ibid., 940: ει και διενηνοχε της φυσεως, ου διασπαται ταυτης. Cf. Triodion,
p. 170; and Porphyrius, 784: "Of those who confess one God Almighty, having
three Hypostases, in Whom not only the essence and the hypostases are not
created, but the very energy also, and of those who say that the divine energy
proceeds from the essence of God and proceeds undividedly, and who through the
procession designate its unspeakable difference, and who through the undivided
procession show its supernatural unity. .. eternal be the memory." Cf. ibid., p.
169, Porphyrius, 782 - ενωσις Θειας ουσιας και ενεργειας ασυγχυτον ... και
διαφορα αδιαστατη. See St. Mark Eugen. Ephes. Cap. Syllog., apud W. Gasz, Die
Mystik des N. Cabasilas (Greiszwald, 1849), App. II, c. 15, p. 221: επομενην ...
αει και συνδρομον.

82. St. Gregory Palamas, Cap., 127, PG cl, 1209: ουτε γαρ ουσια εστιν ουτε
συμβεβηκος; p. 135, 1216: το γαρ μη μονον ουκ απογινομενον, αλλ ουδ ευξησιν η
μειωσιν ηντιναουν επιδεχομενον, η εμποιουν, ουκ εσθ οπως αν συναριθμοιτο τοις
συμβεβηκοσιν ... αλλ εστι και ως αληθως εστιν, ου των καθ εαυτο υφεστηκοτων
εστιν; ... εχει αρα ο Θεος, και ο ουσια, και ο μη ουσια καν ειμη συμβεβηκος
καλειτο, την Θειαν δηλονοτι βολην και ενεργειαν; Theoph. p. 298: την δε θεατικην
δυναμιν τε και ενεργειαν του παντα πριν γενεσεως ειδοτος και την αυτου εξουσιαν
και την προνοιαν; c.f. p. 937, 956.

83. St. Gregory Palamas, Cap. 96, PG cl, 1181: ει ... διαφερει της Θειας ουσιας
η Θεια ενεργεια, και το ποιειν, ο της ενεργειας εστι κατ ουδεν διοισει του
γενναν και εκπορευειν, α της ματος και του προβληματος; cf. Cap. 97, 98, 100,
102; Cap. 103, 1192: ουδε τω θελειν δημιουργει Θεος, αλλα το περφυκεναι μονον;
c. 135, 1216: ει τω βουλεσθαι ποιει ο Θεος, αλλα ουχ απλως τω πεφυκεναι, αλλο
αρα το βουλεσθαι, και ετερον το πεφυκεναι. S. Mark of Ephesus, apud Gasz., s.
217: ετι ει ταυτον ουσια και ενεργεια, ταυτη τε και παντως αμα τω ειναι και
ενεργειν τον Θεον αναγκη συνιδιος αρα τω Θεω η κτισις εξ αιδιου ενεργουντα κατα
τους ελληνας.

84. St. Gregory Palamas, Cap. 125, PG cl, 1209; St. Mark of Ephesus, apud Gasz.,
c. 14, s. 220; c. 9, 219: с. 22, 225: ει πολυποικιλος μεν η του Θεου σοφια
λεγεται τε και εστι πολυποικιλος δε αυτου η ουσια εστιν, ετερον αρα η αυτου
ουσια και ετερον η σοφια; c. 10, 209.

85. St. Gregory Palamas, Theoph., PG cl, 929; 936; 941; St. Mark of Ephesus,
apud Gasz., c. 21, s. 223.

86. Byzantine theology concerning the powers and energies of God still awaits
monographic treatment, much the more so since the greater part of the works of
St. Gregory Palamas are still in MSS. For the general characteristics and
theological movements of the times, see Bishop Porphyry’s book, First Journey
into the Athonite Monasteries and Sketes, part II, pp. 358 ff., and by the same
author, History of Mt. Athos, part III, section 2, pp. 234 ff.; Archimandrite
Modestus, St. Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica (Kiev, 1860), pp.
58-70, 113-130; Bishop Alexey, Byzantine Church Mystics of the XIV Century
(Kazan, 1906), and in the Greek of G. H. Papamichael, St. Gregory Palamas,
Archbishop of Thessalonica (St. Petersburg-Alexandria, 1911); cf. the Review of
the book by J. Sokolov in the Journal of the Ministry of Public Education, 1913,
April-July issues. The Eastern distinction between essence and energy met with
severe censure from Roman Catholic thelogy. Petavius speaks of it at great
length and most harshly, Petavius, Opus de theologicis, ed. Thomas, Barri-Ducis
(1864), tomus I, I, I, c. 12-13, 145-160; III, 5, 273-6.

87. St. Athanasius, C. arian. Or. III, c. 62-63, PG xxvi.

88. St. Maximus the Confessor, Ambigu., PG xci, c. 1261-4.

89. St. Athanasius, C.arian., II, 31, PG xxvi, c. 212: "It was not for our sake
that the Word of God received His being; on the contrary, it is for His sake
that we received ours; and all things were created... for Him (Col. i.16). It
was not because of our infirmity that He, being powerful, received His being
from the One God, that through Him as by some instrument we were created for the
Father. Far be it. Such is not the teaching of the truth. Had it been pleasing
not to create creatures, nevertheless the Word was with God, and in Him was the
Father. The creatures could not receive their being without the Word, and that
is why they received their being through Him, which is only right. Inasmuch as
the Word is, by the nature of His essence, Son of God; inasmuch as the Word is
from God and is God, as He Himself has said, even so the creatures could not
receive their being but through him."

90. St. Methodius of Olympus, Conviv., VI, I, PG xvii, c. 113.

91. St. John Damascene, C. Jacobitas, n. 52, PG xciv, 144.

92. Ibid., De fide orth., I, 8, c. 812.

93. St. Symeon, Βιβλος των ηθικων, III-St. Symeon le Nouveau Theologien, Traitιs
théologiques et Ethiques "Sources Chrétiennes," No. 122 (Paris, 1966), p. 414:
Ενθεν τοι και βλεπομενος παρα παντων και πασας βλεπων αυτος τας αναριθμητους
μυριαδας και το εαυτου ομμα εχων αει ατενιζον και αμετακιντων ισταμενον, εκαστος
αυτων δοκει βλεπεσθαι παρ αυτου και της εκεινου απολαυειν ομιλιας και
κατασπαζεσθαι υπ αυτου ... αλλος αλλο τι δεικνυμενος ειναι και διαρων εαυτον κατ
αξιαν εκαστω, καθα τις εστιν αξιος ...

94. St. Gregory Palamas, Theoph., PG cl. 941.

95. Cf. απεικονισμα in St. Gregory of Nyssa, De hom. opif., PG xliv, 137. St.
Augustine happily distinguishes and contrasts imago ejusdem substantiae, man.
August. Quaest. in heptateuch, I, V, qu. 4, PL xxxiv, c. 749. For the most
complete catalogue of the opinions of the Church Fathers on the "image of God"
in Russian, see V. S. Serebrenikov, The Doctrine of Locke on the Innate
Principles of Knowledge and Activity (St. Petersburgh, 1892), pp. 266-330.

96. St. Maximus the Confessor, Ambigu., PG xci, c. 1093.

97. St. Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 43, In laudem Basil. Magni, PG xxxvi, c. 560.

98. St. Amphilochius, Or. I In Christi natalem, 4.

99. St. Athanasius, Ad Adelph., 4, PG xxvi, 1077.

100. Ibid.,De incarn. et с. аrian., 8, с. 996.

101. Ibid., С. arian., Ι, 46. 47, с. 108-109.

102. Ibid., De incarn. et c. arian., 8, с. 998.

103. Ibid., De incarn; 4, с. PG xxv, 104: εις το κατα φυσιν επεστρεπεν.

104. Ibid; С. arian., II, 58-59, с. 272-3. Cf. N. V. Popov, The Religious Ideal
of Sl. Athanasius, Sergiev Posad, 1903.

105. For a summary of citations from St. Gregory see K. Holl, Amphilochius von
Ikonium in seinem Verhältniss zu den grossen Kappa-doziern (Tübingen and
Leipzig, 1904), p. 166; cf. Also N. Popov, "The Idea of Deification in the
Ancient Eastern Church" in the journal Questions in Philosophy and Psychology
(1909, II-97), pp. 165-213.

106. Cf. Holl, 124-125, 203 ff.

107. St. Macarius of Egypt, hom. 44, 8, 9, PG xxxiv; αλλαγηναι και μεταβληθηναι
... εις ετεραν καταστασιν, και φυσιν θειαν.

108. Cf. Stoffels, Die mystische Theologie Makarius des Aegyptars (Bonn, 1900),
pp. 58-61.

109. St. Macarius of Egypt, De amore, 28, PG xxxiv, 932: ενοικει δε ου καθ ο
εστιν.

110. St. Maximus the Confessor, Cap, theol. et. oecon. cent., I, 67, PG xci,
1108: κατα χαριν γαρ, αλλ ου κατα φυσιν εστιν η των σωζωμενων σωτηρια.

111. Ibid., Cent, II, 21, Colossians 1133.

112. Ibid., Ad Ioannem cubic., ep., XLII, c. 639; cf. Div. cap., I, 42, PG xc,
1193; De charit., c. III, 25, c. 1024: κατα μετουσιαν, ου κατ ουσιαν, κατα
χαριν, ου κατα φυσιν, Ambigu., 127a: "being deified by the grace of the
Incarnate God;" PG xci, 1088, 1092.

113. St. Maximus the Confessor, Ambigu. 222: The goal of the creature’s
ascension consists in this-that, having united the created nature with the
uncreated by love, in order to show them in their unity and identity - εν και
ταυτον δειξειε - after having acquired grace and integrally and wholly
compenetrating with the whole of God to become all that is God - παν ει τι περ
σετιν ο Θεος - PG xci, 1038; cf. also Anastasius of Sinai Οδηγος, c. 2, PG
lxxxix, c. 77: “Deification is an ascension towards the better, but it is not an
increase or change in nature - ου μην φυσεως μειωσις, η μεταστασις -neither is
it a change of one’s own nature.”

114. St. Maximus the Confessor, 43 Ad Ioann. cubic; PG xci, 639; "He has created
us for this purpose, that we might become participants of the Divine nature and
partakers of eternity’s very self, and that we might appear to Him in His
likeness, by deification through grace, through which is brought about the
coming-into-being [η ουσιωσις] of all that exists, and the bringing-into-being
and genesis of what does not exist - και η των μη ορτων παραγωγη και γενεισις.

115. Bishop Theophan (the Recluse), Commentary on the Epistles of Sf. Paul the
Apostle to the Ephesians (Moscow, 1882), in Russian, pp. 112-113, to the
Ephesians, I, 23.

116. Nicholas Cabasilas, Stae liturgiae expositio, cap., 38, PG cl., c. 452.
(Russian version - Writings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church concerning
the Divine Services of the Orthodox Church [St. Petersburg, 1857], p. 385.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 8: 07 - THE LAST THINGS & THE LAST EVENTS
========================================================================

The Last Things and the Last Events “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation
21:5) Eschatology - an unpopular topic.

Eschatology was for a long time a neglected field in modern theology. The
arrogant phrase of Ernst Troeltsch - “The bureau of eschatology is for the most
part closed” - was distinctively characteristic of the whole liberal tradition,
since the Age of the Enlightenment. Nor is this neglect for eschatological
issues fully overcome in contemporary thought. In certain quarters eschatology
is still regarded as an obsolete relic of the forlorn past. The theme itself is
avoided, or it is summarily dismissed as unreal and irrelevant. The modern man
is not concerned with the last events. This attitude of neglect was recently
reinforced by the rise of theological Existentialism. Now, Existentialism does
claim to be itself an eschatological doctrine. But it is a sheer abuse of terms.
Eschatology is radically interiorized in its existentialist reinterpretation. It
is actually swallowed up in the immediacy of personal decisions. In a sense,
modern Existentialism in theology is but a fresh variation on the old Pietistic
theme. In the last resort, it amounts to the radical dehistorization of the
Christian faith. Events of history are eclipsed by the events of inner life. The
Bible itself is used as a book of parables and patterns. History is no more than
a passing frame. Eternity can be encountered and tasted at any time. History is
no more a theological problem. On the other hand, precisely in the last few
decades, the basic historicity of the Christian faith has been reassessed and
reaffirmed in various trends of contemporary theology. This was a momentous
shift in theological thinking. Indeed, it was a return to Biblical faith. Of
course, no elaborate “philosophy of history” can be found in the Bible. But
there is in the Bible a comprehensive vision of history, a perspective of an
unfolding time, running from a “beginning” to an “end,” and guided by the
sovereign will of God toward the accomplishment of His ultimate purpose. The
Christian faith is primarily an obedient witness to the mighty deeds of God in
history, which culminated, “in those last days,” in the Advent of Christ and in
His redemptive victory. Accordingly, Christian theology should be construed as a
“Theology of History.” Christian faith is grounded in events, not in ideas. The
Creed itself is a historical witness, a witness to the saving or redemptive
events, which are apprehended by faith as God’s mighty deeds. This recovery of
the historic dimension of the Christian faith was bound to bring the
eschatological theme into the focus of theological meditation. The Bible and the
Creed are both pointing to the future. It has been recently suggested that Greek
philosophy was inescapably “in the grip of the past.” The category of the future
was quite irrelevant in the Greek version of history. History was conceived as a
rotation, with an inevitable return to the initial position, from which a new
repetition of events was bound to start again. On the contrary, the Biblical
view opens into the future, in which new things are to be disclosed and
realized. And an ultimate realization of the divine purpose is anticipated in
the future, beyond which no temporal movement can proceed - a state of
consummation. In the witty phrase of von Balthasar, “Eschatology is the ‘eye of
the storm’ in, the theology of our time” (Hans Urs von Balthasar,
“Eschatologie,” Fragen der Theologie Heute. Feiner, Trütsch, Böckle, editors
(Zürich: Köln, 1958), pp. 493-421). Indeed, it is a “subtle knot” in which all
lines of theological thinking intersect and are inextricably woven together.
Eschatology cannot be discussed as a special topic, as a separate article of
belief. It can be understood only in the total perspective of the Christian
faith. What is characteristic of contemporary theological thought is precisely
the recovery of the eschatological dimension of the Christian faith. All
articles of faith have an eschatological connotation. There is no common
consensus in the contemporary theology of “the Last Things.” There is rather a
sharp conflict of views and opinions. But there is also a new widening of the
perspective.

Emil Brunner’s contribution to the current discussion was both provocative and
constructive. His theology is a theology of hope and expectation, as it befits
one who stands in the Reformed tradition. His theology is inwardly oriented
toward “the Last Events.” Yet, at many points, his vision is limited by his
general theological presuppositions. Indeed, his theology reflects his personal
experience of faith.

Why an “end”? The mystery of the Last Things is grounded in the primary paradox
of Creation. According to Brunner, the term Creation, in its Biblical use, does
not denote the manner in which the world did actually come into existence, but
only the sovereign Lordship of God. In the act of Creation God posits something
totally other than Himself, “over against” Himself. Accordingly, the world of
creatures has its own mode of existence-derivative, subordinate, dependent, and
yet genuine and real, in its own kind. Brunner is quite formal at this point. “A
world which is not God exists alongside of Him.” Thus, the very existence of the
world implies a certain measure of self-imposed “limitation” on the side of God,
His kenosis, which reaches its climax in the cross of Christ. God, as it were,
spares room for the existence of something different. The world has been “called
into existence” for a purpose, in order that it manifest the glory of God. The
Word is the principle and the ultimate goal of Creation.

Indeed, the very fact of Creation constitutes the basic paradox of the Christian
faith, to which all other, mysteries of God can be traced back, or rather in
which they are implied. Brunner, however, does not distinguish clearly, at this
point, between the very “being” of God and His “will.” Yet, the “being” of God
simply cannot be “limited” in any sense. If there is a “limitation,” it can
refer only to His “will,” insofar as another “will” has been “called into
existence,” a will which could not have existed at all. This basic “contingency”
of Creation testifies to the absolute sovereignity of God. On the other hand,
the ultimate climax of the creative kenosis will be reached only in “the Last
Events.” The sting of the paradox, of the kenosis, is not in the existence of
the world, but in the possibility of Hell. Indeed, the World may be obedient to
God, as well as it may be disobedient, and in its obedience it would serve God
and manifest His glory. It will be not a “limitation,” but an expansion of God’s
majesty. On the contrary, Hell means resistance and estrangement, pure and
simple. However, even in the state of revolt and rebellion, the world still
belongs to God. It can never escape His Judgment.

God is eternal. This is a negative definition. It simply means that the notion
of time cannot be applied to His existence. Indeed, “time” is simply the mode of
creaturely existence. Time is given by God. It is not an imperfect or deficient
mode of being. There is nothing illusory about time. Temporality is real. Time
is really moving on, irreversibly. But it is not just a flux, as it is not a
rotation. It is not just a series of indifferent “time-atoms” which could be
conceived or postulated as infinite, without any end or limit. It is rather a
teleological process, inwardly ordained toward a certain final goal. A telos [an
end] is implied in the very design of Creation. Accordingly, what takes place in
time is significant - significant and real for God Himself. History is not a
shadow. Ultimately, history has a “metahistoric” goal. Brunner does not use this
term, but he stresses strongly the inherent “finitude” of history. An infinite
history, rolling on indefinitely, without destination or end, would have been an
empty and meaningless history. The story is bound to have an end, a conclusion,
a katharsis, a solution. The plot must be disclosed. History has to have an end,
at which it is “fulfilled” or “consummated.” It has been originally designed to
be “fulfilled.” At the end there will be no history any more. Time will be
filled with eternity, as Brunner puts it. Of course, eternity means in this
connection simply God. Time has meaning only against the background of eternity,
that is - only in the context of the divine design.

Yet, history is not just a disclosure of that primordial and sovereign design.
The theme of actual history, of the only real history we know about, is given by
the existence of sin. Brunner dismisses the query about the origin of sin. He
only stresses its “universality.” Sin, in the biblical sense of the term, is not
primarily an ethical category. According to Brunner, it only denotes the need
for redemption. Two terms are intrinsically correlative. Now, sin is not a
primary phenomenon, but a break, a deviation, a turning away from the beginning.
Its essence is apostasy and rebellion. It is this aspect of sin that is
emphasized in the biblical story of the Fall. Brunner refuses to regard the Fall
as an actual event. He only insists that without the concept of the Fall the
basic message of the New Testament, that is - the message of salvation would be
absolutely incomprehensible. Yet, one should not inquire into the “when” and
“how” of the Fall. The essence of sin can be discerned only in the light of
Christ, that is - in the light of redemption. Man, as he can be observed in
history, always appears as sinner, unable not to sin. The man of history is
always “man in revolt.” Brunner is fully aware of the strength of evil - in the
world and in the history of man. He commends the Kantian notion of radical evil.
What he has to say about the Satanic sin, as different from man’s sin, about the
super-personal Satanic power, is impressive and highly relevant for theological
inquiry, as much as all that may inevitably offend and disturb the mind of
modern man. But the major question remains still without answer. Has the Fall
the character of an event? The logic of Brunner’s own argument seems to compel
us to regard it as event, as a link in the chain of events. Otherwise it would
be just a symbol, a working hypothesis, indispensable for interpretative
purposes, but unreal. Indeed, the end of history must be regarded, according to
Brunner, as “an event,” howsoever mysterious this event will be. “The beginning”
also has the character of “event,” as the first link in the chain. Moreover,
redemption is obviously “an event” which can be exactly dated-indeed, the
crucial event, determinative of all others. In this perspective it seems
imperative to regard the Fall as event, in whatever manner it may be visualized
or interpreted. In any case, redemption and Fall are intrinsically related to
each other, in Brunner’s own interpretation.

Brunner distinguishes clearly between the creatureliness as such and sin.
Creatures come from God. Sin comes from an opposite source. Sinfulness is
disclosed in events, in sinful acts and actions. Indeed, it is an abuse of
power, an abuse of freedom, a perversion of that responsible freedom which has
been bestowed upon man in the very act by which he was called into existence.
Yet, before the abuse became a habit, it had to have been exercised for the
first time. The revolt had to have been started. Such an assumption would be in
line with the rest of Brunner’s exposition. Otherwise one lapses into some kind
of metaphysical dualism which Brunner himself vigorously denounces. In any case,
creatureliness and sinfulness cannot be equated or identified.

Indeed, Brunner is right in suggesting that we must start from the center, that
is, with the glad tidings of redemption in Christ. But in Christ we contemplate
not only our desperate “existential predicament” as miserable sinners, but,
above all, the historical involvement of men in sin. We are moving in the world
of events. Only for that reason are we justified in looking forward, to “the
Last Events.” The course of history has been radically challenged by God - at
one crucial point. According to Brunner, since the coming of Christ, time itself
has been charged, for believers, with a totally new quality - “an otherwise
unknown quality of decision.” Ever since, believers are confronted with an
ultimate alternative, confronted now - in this “historic time.” The choice is
radical - between heaven and hell. Any moment of history may become decisive -
for those who are bound to make decisions, through Christ’s challenge and
revelation. In this sense, according to Brunner, “the earthly time is, for
faith, charged with an eternity-tension.” Men are now inescapably called to
decisions, since God has manifested His own decision, in Christ, and in His
Cross and Resurrection. Does it mean that “eternal decisions” - that is,
decisions “for eternity”- must be made in this “historic time?” By faith - in
Jesus Christ, the Mediator - one may, already now, “participate” in eternity.
Since Christ, believers dwell already, as it were, in two different dimensions,
both inside and outside of the “ordinary” time - this universal time, or age, in
which the dying give place to those being born (St. Augustine, Civ. Dei, XV.I).
Time has been, as it were, “polarized” by Christ’s Advent. Thus, it seems, time
is related now to eternity, that is to God, in a dual manner. On the one hand,
time is always intrinsically related to the eternal God, as its Creator: God
gives time. On the other hand, time has been, in those last days, radically
challenged by God’s direct and immediate intervention, in the person of Jesus
Christ. As Brunner says himself, “temporality, existence in time, takes on a new
character through its relationship to this event, Jesus Christ, the eph hapax of
history, the once-for-all quality of His cross and Resurrection, and is newly
fashioned in a paradoxical manner that is unintelligible to thinking guided by
reason alone” (Brunner, Eternal Hope (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press,
1954), p. 48).We have reached the crucial point in Brunner’s exposition. His
interpretation of human destiny is strictly Christological and Christocentric.
Only faith in Christ gives meaning to human existence. This is Brunner’s strong
point. But there is an ambiguous docetic accent in his Christology, and it
affects grievously his understanding of history. Strangely enough, Brunner
himself addresses the same charge to the traditional Christology of the Church,
claiming that it never paid enough attention to the historic Jesus. It is a
summary charge which we cannot analyze and “refute” just now. What is relevant
for our purpose now is that Brunner’s Christology is obviously much more docetic
than that of the Catholic tradition. Brunner’s attention to the historical Jesus
is utterly ambiguous. According to Brunner, Christ is a historic personality
only as man. When He “unveils Himself” - that is, when He discloses His Divinity
to those who have the eye of faith - He is no more a historical personality at
all. In fact, Christ’s humanity, according to Brunner, is no more than “a
disguise.” The true self of Christ is divine. To faith Christ discards His
disguise, His “incognito,” to use Brunner’s own phrase. “Where He discloses
Himself, history disappears, and the Kingdom of God has begun. And when He
unveils Himself, He is no longer an historical personality, but the Son of God,
Who is from everlasting to everlasting” (Brunner, The Mediator (London:
Lutterworth Press, 1949), p. 346). This is a startling language, indeed.

Actually, Christ’s humanity is just a means to enter history, or rather - to
appear in history. God’s relation to history, and to human reality, is, as it
were, no more than tangential, even in the crucial mystery of Incarnation.
Actually, Christ’s humanity interests Brunner only as a medium of revelation, of
divine self-disclosure. Indeed, according to Brunner, in Christ God has really
found a firm footing in humanity. But this does not seem anything more than that
God has now challenged man in his own human element, on his own human ground and
level. In order to meet man, God had to descend - to man’s own level. This may
be understood in a strictly orthodox way. Indeed, this was the favorite thought
of the ancient Fathers. But Brunner denies any real interpenetration of divine
and human aspects in Christ’s person. In fact, they are no more than “aspects.”
Two elements meet, but there is no real unity. Christ of faith is only divine,
even if in a human disguise. His humanity is just a means to enter history, or
rather - to appear in history. Is history just a moving screen on which divine
“eternity” is to be projected? God had to assume a beggar’s robe of man, for
otherwise He would be unable to encounter man. There was no real “assumption” of
human reality into the personal experience of the Incarnate. The role of
Christ’s humanity was purely instrumental, a disguise. Basically it is a sheer
“Docetism,” however much attention may be given to “historic Jesus.” After all,
“historic Jesus” does not belong, in this interpretation, to the realm of faith.

Real decisions are not made on the plane of history, says Brunner. “For that is
the sphere in which men wear masks. For the sake of our “masquerade,” that is,
for the sake of our sinful mendacity, Christ also, if I may put it like this,
has to wear a mask; this is His Incognito” (Ibid, p. 346). Now, in the act of
faith, man takes away his mask. Then, in response, Christ also discards His
mask, His human disguise, and appears in His glory. Faith, according to Brunner,
breaks down history. Faith itself is a kind of a “metahistoric” act, which
transcends history, or even discards it. Indeed, Brunner stresses the uniqueness
of God’s redemptive revelation in Christ. For man it only means that the
challenge is radical and ultimate. Man is now given a unique opportunity, or
occasion, to make his decision, to overcome his own limited humanity, and even
his intrinsic temporality - by an act of faith which takes him beyond history,
if only in hope and promise, till the final keros [time] has come. But is human
history ultimately just a masquerade? According to Brunner’s own emphatic
statement, temporality as such is not sinful. Why, then, should divine
revelation in Christ discard history? Why should historicity be an obstacle to
God’s self-revelation, an obstacle that must be radically removed? In the last
resort, the radical change in history - the New Age, released by Christ’s Advent
- seems to consist only in the new and unprecedented opportunity to take sides.
God actually remains as hidden in history as He has been before, or, probably,
even more than before, since the ultimate incommensurability of divine
revelation with the human masquerade has been made self-evident and conspicuous.
God could approach man only in disguise. The actual course of history has not
been changed, either by God’s intervention, or by man’s option. Apart from the
decision of faith, history is empty, and still sinful. The intimate texture of
actual historic life has not been affected by the redemptive revelation.
Nevertheless, a warning has been given: The Lord comes again. This time He is
coming as judge, not as Redeemer, although judgment will actually accomplish and
stabilize redemption. By faith we can now discern an “eschatological tension” in
the very course of history, although it would be idle and in vain to indulge in
any kind of apocalyptic calculations. This tension seems to exist on the human
level alone. The eschatological interim is the age of decisions - to be taken by
men. God’s decision has been already taken. As a whole, Christian history,
according to Brunner, was a sore failure, a history of decay and
misunderstanding. This is an old scheme, firmly established in Protestant
historiography at least since Gottfried Arnold. The primitive Christian
community, the ecclesia, was a genuine Messianic community, “the bearer of the
new life of eternity and of the powers of the divine world,” as Brunner puts it.
But this primitive ecclesia did not survive, at least as an historic entity, as
an historic factor. Brunner acknowledges partial and provisional “advents” of
the Kingdom of God in the course of history. But all these “advents” are
sporadic. Where faith is, there is ecclesia or Kingdom. But it is hidden, in the
continuing “masquerade” of history. Ultimately, the ongoing history is a kind of
testing ground, on which men are challenged and their responses are tried and
tested. But does the “saving history” still continue? Is God still active in
history, after the First Advent - or is history now left, after the great
intervention of Christ, to man alone, with that eschatological provision that
finally Christ comes again?

Now, history is obviously but a provisional and passing stage in the destiny of
man. Man is called to “eternity,” not to “history.” This is why “history” must
come to its close, to its end. Yet, indeed, history is also a stage of growth -
the wheat and the tares are growing together, and their ultimate discrimination
is delayed - till the day of harvest. The tares are growing indeed, rapidly and
wildly. But the wheat is growing also. Otherwise there would be no chance for
any harvest, except for that of tares. Indeed, history matures not only for
judgment, but also for consummation. Moreover, Christ is still active in
history. Brunner disregards, or ignores, that component of Christian history.
Christian history is, as it were, “atomized,” in his vision. It is just a series
of existential acts, performed by men, and, strangely enough, only negative
acts, the acts of rebellion and resistance, seem to be integrated and
solidarized. But, in fact, ecclesia is not just an aggregate of sporadic acts,
but a “body,” the body of Christ. Christ is present in the ecclesia not only as
an object of faith and recognition, but as her Head. He is actually reigning and
ruling. This secures the Church’s continuity and identity through the ages. In
Brunner’s conception Christ seems to be outside history, or above it. He did
come once, in the past. He is coming again, in the future. Is He really present
now, in the present, except through the memory of the past and the hope of the
future, and indeed in the “metahistoric” acts of faith?

Creation, according to Brunner, has its own mode of existence. But it is no more
than a “medium” of divine revelation. It must be, as it were, transparent for
divine light and glory. And this strangely reminds us of the Platonizing gnosis
of Origen and his various followers. The whole story is reduced to the
dialectics of eternal and temporal. Brunner’s own term is “parabolic.” The
Second Coming The notion of “the end” - of an ultimate end - is a paradoxical
notion. An “end” both belongs to the chain or series, and breaks it. It is both
“an event” and “the end of all events.” It belongs to the dimension of history,
and yet it dismisses the whole dimension. The notion of “the beginning” - first
and radical - is also a paradoxical notion. As St. Basil has said once, “the
beginning of time is not yet time, but precisely the beginning of it” (Hexaem.
1.6). It is both an “instant” and more than that. Of the future we can speak but
in images and parables. This was the language of the Scripture. This imagery
cannot be adequately deciphered now, and should not be taken literally. But in
no sense should it be simply and bluntly “demythologized.” Brunner is formal at
this point. The expected Parousia [the appearance]of Christ must be regarded as
“an event.” The character of this event is unimaginable. Better symbols or
images can be hardly found than those used in the Bible. “Whatever the form of
this event may be, the whole point lies in the fact that it will happen”
(Brunner, Eternal Hope, p. 138). The Christian kerygma is decisive at this
point: “the ultimate redemptive synthesis has the character of an event.” In
other words, the Parousia belongs to the chain of historic “happenings,” which
it is expected to conclude and to close. “A Christian faith without expectation
of the Parousia is like a ladder which leads nowhere but ends in the void.” At
one point, in any case, we can go beyond images: it is Christ that is coming.
The Parousia is a “return,” as much as it is an ultimate novelty. “The Last
Events” are centered around the person of Christ. The end will come “suddenly.”
And yet it is, in a certain sense, prepared inside of history. As Brunner says,
“the history of man disclose radically apocalyptic traits.” At this point he
indulges in metaphysical speculations. “The swing of the pendulum becomes ever
faster.” This acceleration of the tempo of human life may reach the point at
which it can go no further. History may simply explode suddenly. On the other
hand, and on the deeper level, disharmonies of human existence are steadily
increasing: there is “an everwidening split in the human consciousness.” Of
course, these suggestions have no more than a subsidiary or hypothetical value.
Brunner tries to commend the paradoxical concept of the end to the modern mind.
But they are also characteristic of his own vision of human reality. History is
ever ready to explode, it is vexed and overburdened with unresolved tensions.
Some years ago a Russian religious philosopher, Vladimir Th. Ern, suggested that
human history was a kind of “catastrophical progress,” a steady progression
toward an end. Yet the end was to come from above, in a Parousia. Accordingly,
it was to be more than just a “catastrophe,” or an immanent or internal
“judgment” - a disclosure of inherent contradictions or tensions. It was to be
an absolute judgment, the Judgment of God.

Now, what is judgment? It is no less “an event” than the Parousia. It is an
ultimate encounter between the sinful humanity and the Holy God. First of all,
it will be an ultimate disclosure or manifestation of the true state of every
man and of the whole mankind. Nothing will be left hidden. Thus, judgment will
terminate that state of confusion and ambiguity, of inconclusiveness, as Brunner
puts it, which has been characteristic of the whole historic stage of human
destiny. This implies an ultimate and final “discrimination” - in the light of
Christ. It will be an ultimate and final challenge. The will of God must be
finally done. The will of God must be ultimately enforced. Otherwise, in the
phrase of Brunner, “all talk of responsibility is idle chatter.” Indeed, man is
granted freedom, but it is not a freedom of indifference. Man’s freedom is
essentially a responsive freedom - a freedom to accept God’s will. “Pure
freedom” can be professed only by atheists. “To man is entrusted, of man is
expected, merely the echo, the subsequent completion, of a decision which God
has already made about him and for him” (Ibid, p. 178). There is but one fair
option for man - to obey; there is no real dilemma. Man’s purpose and goal are
fixed by God.

All this is perfectly true. Yet, at this very point, the vexing question arises.
Will actually all men accept, at the Last Judgment, God’s will? Is there any
room for radical and irreversible resistance? Can man’s revolt continue beyond
judgment? Can any creaturely being, endowed with freedom, persist in
estrangement from God, which has been persistently practiced before, that is -
to pursue its own will? Can such a being still “exist” - in the state of revolt
and opposition, against the saving will of God, outside God’s saving purpose? Is
it possible for man to persevere in rebellion, in spite of the call and
challenge of God? Is the Scriptural picture of separation - between the sheep
and the goats - the last word about man’s ultimate destiny? What is the ultimate
status of creaturely “freedom?” What does it mean that finally the will of God
must and will prevail? These are queer and searching questions. But they cannot
be avoided. They are not dictated only by speculative curiosity. They are
“existential” questions. Indeed, the Last Judgment is an awful mystery, which
cannot, and should not, be rationalized, which passes all knowledge and
understanding. Yet, it is a mystery of our own existence, which we cannot
escape, even if we fail to comprehend or understand it intellectually.

Brunner emphatically dismisses the “terrible theologoumenon” of double
predestination, as incompatible with the mind of the Bible. There is no eternal
discrimination in God’s creative design. God calls all men to salvation, and for
that purpose He calls them into existence. Salvation is the only purpose of God.
But the crucial paradox is not yet resolved. The crucial problem is, whether
this only purpose of God will be actually accomplished, in all its fullness and
comprehensiveness, as it is admitted and postulated in the theory of universal
salvation, for which one may allege Scriptural evidence. Brunner rejects the
doctrine of the Apokatastasis, as a “dangerous heresy.” It is wrong as a
doctrine. It implies a wrong security for men - all ways lead ultimately to the
same end, there is no real tension, no real danger. And yet, Brunner admits that
the doctrine of the forgiving grace, and of the justification by faith, leads
logically to the concept of an universal redemption. Can the will of the
omnipotent God be really resisted or, as it were, overruled by the obstinacy of
feeble creatures? The paradox can be solved only dialectically - in faith. One
cannot know God theoretically. One has to trust His love.

It is characteristic that Brunner discusses the whole problem exclusively in the
perspective of the divine will. For that reason he misses the very point of the
paradox. He simply ignores the human aspect of the problem. Indeed, “eternal
damnation” is not inflicted by “the angry God.” God is not the author of Hell.
“Damnation” is a self-inflicted penalty, the consequence and the implication of
the rebellious opposition to God and to His will. Brunner admits that there is a
real possibility of damnation and perdition. It is dangerous and erroneous to
ignore that real possibility. But one should hope that it will never be
realized. Now, hope itself must be realistic and sober. We are facing the
alternative: either, at the Last Judgment, unbelievers and unrepentant sinners
are finally moved by the divine challenge, and are “freely” converted - this was
the hypothesis of St. Gregory of Nyssa; or their obstinacy is simply overruled
by the divine Omnipotence and they are saved by the constraint of the divine
mercy and will - without their own free and conscious assent. The second
solution implies contradiction, unless we understand “salvation” in a forensic
and formalistic manner. Indeed, criminals may be exonerated in the court of
justice, even if they did not repent and persevere in their perversion. They
only escape punishment. But we cannot interpret the Last Judgment in this
manner. In any case, “salvation” involves conversion, involves an act of faith.
It cannot be imposed on anyone. Is the first solution more convincing? Of
course, the possibility of a late “conversion” - in “the eleventh hour,” or even
after - cannot be theoretically ruled out, and the impact of the divine love is
infinite. But this chance or possibility of conversion, before the Judgment-Seat
of Christ, sitting in glory, cannot be discussed in abstracto, as a general
case. After all, the question of salvation, as also the decision of faith, is a
personal problem, which can be put and faced only in the context of concrete and
individual existence. Persons are saved, or perish. And each personal case must
be studied individually. The main weakness of Brunner’s scheme is in that he
always speaks in general terms. He always speaks of the human condition and
never of living persons. The problem of man is for Brunner essentially the
problem of sinful condition. He is afraid of all “ontic” categories. Indeed, man
is sinner, but he is, first of all, man. It is true, again, that the true
stature of genuine manhood has been exhibited only in Christ, who was more than
man, and not a man. But in Christ we are given not only forgiveness, but also
the power to be, or to become, children of God, that is - to be what we are
designed to be. Of course, Brunner admits that believers can be in communion
with God even now, in this present life. But then comes death. Does faith, or -
actually - one’s being en Christo, make any difference at this point? Is the
communion with Christ, once established by faith (and, indeed, in sacraments),
broken by death? Is it true that human life is “a being unto death.” Physical
death is the limit of physical life. But Brunner speaks of the death of human
persons, of the “I.” He claims that it is a mystery, an impenetrable mystery, of
which rational man cannot know anything at all. But, in fact, the concept of
this “personal death” is no more than a metaphysical assumption, derived from
certain philosophical presuppositions, and in no way a datum of any actual or
possible experience, including the experience of faith. “Death” of a person is
only in the estrangement from God, but even in this case it does not mean
annihilation. In a sense, death means a disintegration of human personality,
because man is not designed to be immaterial. The bodily death reduces the
integrity of the human person. Man dies, and yet survives - in the expectation
of the general end. The ancient doctrine of the Communion of Saints points to
the victory of Christ: In Him, through faith (and sacraments), even the dead are
alive, and share - in anticipation, but really - the everlasting life. Communio
Sanctorum is an important eschatological topic. Brunner simply ignores it
altogether - surely not by accident but quite consistently. He speaks of the
condition of death, not of personal cases. The concept of an immortal soul may
be a Platonic accretion, but the notion of an “indestructible person” is an
integral part of the Gospel. Indeed, only in this case there is room for a
general or universal judgment, at which all historic persons, of all ages and of
all nations, are to appear - not as a confused mass of frail and unprofitable
sinners, but as a congregation of responsive and responsible persons, each in
his distinctive character, congenital and acquired. Death is a catastrophe. But
persons survive, and those in Christ are still alive - even in the state of
death. The faithful not only hope for life to come, but are already alive,
although all are waiting for Resurrection. Brunner, of course, is fully aware of
this. In his own phrase, those who believe “will not die into nothingness but
into Christ.” Does it mean that those who do not believe “die into nothingness?”
And what is “nothingness” - “the outer darkness” (which is probably the case) or
actual “nonbeing?”

It is also true that full integrity of personal existence, distorted and reduced
by death, will be restored in the general Resurrection. Brunner emphasizes the
personal character of the Resurrection. “The New Testament faith knows of no
other sort of eternal life except that of the individual persons” (Ibid, p.
148). The flesh will not rise. But some kind of corporeality is implied in the
Resurrection. All will rise, because Christ is risen. Now, Resurrection is at
once a Resurrection unto life - in Christ, and a Resurrection - to Judgment.
Brunner discusses the general Resurrection in the context of faith, forgiveness,
and life. But what is the status of those who did not believe, who did not ask
for forgiveness, and never knew of the redemptive love of Christ, or probably
have obstinately denounced and rejected it as a myth, as a fraud, as a deceit,
or as an offense for the autonomous personality ? And this brings us back again
to the paradox of the judgment. Strangely enough, at this point Brunner speaks
more as a philosopher than as a theologian, precisely because he tries to avoid
metaphysical inquiry, and all problems which have been suppressed reappear in
disguise. Brunner puts the question in this way: how can we reconcile divine
Omnipotence and human freedom, or - on a deeper level - divine holiness (or
justice) and divine merry and love. It is a strictly metaphysical problem, even
if it is discussed on the scriptural basis. The actual theological problem is,
on the other hand: what is the existential status of unbelievers - in the sight
of God, and in the perspective of the human destiny? The actual problem is
existential - the status and destiny of individual persons. For Brunner the
problem is obscured by his initial choice - his sweeping bracketing together of
all men as sinners, without any real ontic or existential discrimination between
the righteous and the unrighteous. Indeed, all are under the judgment, but,
obviously, not in the same sense. Brunner himself distinguishes between those
who fail being tempted, and those who choose to tempt others and to seduce. He
knows of deliberate perversion. But he does not ask, how an individual human
person may be affected, in his inner and intimate structure, by deliberate and
obstinate perversion, apostasy and “love for evil.” There is a real difference
between weakness and wickedness, between frailty and godlessness. Can all sins
be forgiven, even the non-avowed and non-repented? Is not forgiveness received
only in humility and in faith? In other words, is “condemnation” just a
“penalty,” in the forensic sense, or a kind of negative “reward?” Or is it
simply a manifestation of what is hidden - or rather quite open and conspicuous
in those who have chosen, by an abuse of “freedom,” that wide path which leads
into Gehenna.

There is no chapter on Hell in any of Brunner’s books. But Hell is not just a
“mythical” figure of speech. Nor is it just a dark prospect, which - one wants
to hope - may never be realized. Horribile dictu - it is a reality, to which
many human beings are even now committed, by their own will, or at least - by
their own choice and decision, which may mean, in the last resort, bondage, but
is usually mistaken for freedom. “Hell” is an internal state, not a “place.” It
is a state of personal disintegration, which is mistaken for self-assertion -
with certain reason, since this disintegration is grounded in pride. It is a
state of self-confinement, of isolation and alienation, of proud solitude. The
state of sin itself is “hellish,” although it may be, by an illusion of selfish
imagination, mistaken for “Paradise.” For that reason sinners chose “sin,” the
proud attitude, the Promethean pose. One may make of “Hell” an ideal, and pursue
it - deliberately and persistently.

Indeed, ultimately, it is but an illusion, an aberration, a violence, and a
mistake. But the sting of sin is precisely in the denial of the divinely
instituted reality, in the attempt to establish another order or regime, which
is, in contrast with the true divine order, a radical disorder, but to which one
may give, in selfish exaltation, ultimate preference. Now, sin has been
destroyed and abrogated - it can not be said that “sin” has been redeemed, only
persons may be redeemed. But it is not enough to acknowledge, by faith, the deed
of the divine redemption - one has to be born anew. The whole personality must
be cleansed and healed. Forgiveness must be accepted and assessed in freedom. It
cannot be imputed - apart from an act of faith and gratitude, an act of love.
Paradoxically, nobody can be saved by love divine alone, unless it is responded
to by grateful love of human persons. Indeed, there is always an abstract
possibility of “repentance” and “conversion” in the course of this earthly or
historic life. Can we admit that this possibility continues after death? Brunner
will hardly accept the idea of a “Purgatory.” But even in the concept of
Purgatory no chance of radical conversion is implied. Purgatory includes but
believers, those of good intentions, pledged to Christ, but deficient in growth
and achievement. Human personality is made and shaped in this life - at least,
it is oriented in this life. The difficulty of universal salvation is not on the
divine side - indeed, God wants every man “to be saved,” not so much, probably,
in order that His will should be accomplished and His Holiness secured, as in
order that man’s existence may be complete and blessed. Yet, insuperable
difficulties may be erected on the creaturely side. After all, is “ultimate
resistance” a greater paradox, and a greater offense, than any resistance or
revolt, which actually did pervert the whole order of Creation, did handicap the
deed of redemption? Only when we commit ourselves to a Docetic view of history
and deny the possibility of ultimate decisions in history, in this life, under
the pretext that it is temporal, can we evade the paradox of ultimate
resistance.

St. Gregory of Nyssa anticipated a kind of universal conversion of souls in the
afterlife, when the Truth of God will be revealed and manifested with compelling
evidence. Just at that point the limitation of the Hellenic mind is obvious.
Evidence seemed to it to be the decisive motive for the will, as if “sin” were
merely ignorance. The Hellenic mind had to pass through a long and hard
experience of asceticism, of ascetic self-examination and self-control, in order
to overcome this intellectualistic naïveté and illusion and discover a dark
abyss in the fallen soul. Only in St. Maximus the Confessor, after some
centuries of ascetic preparation, do we find a new and deepened interpretation
of the Apokatastasis. Indeed, the order of creation will be fully restored in
the last days. But the dead souls will still be insensitive to the very
revelation of Light. The Light Divine will shine to all, but those who once have
chosen darkness will be still unwilling and unable to enjoy the eternal bliss.
They will still cling to the nocturnal darkness of selfishness. They will be
unable precisely to enjoy. They will stay “outside” - because union with God,
which is the essence of salvation, presupposes and requires the determination of
will. Human will is irrational and its motives cannot be rationalized. Even
“evidence” may fail to impress and move it.

Eschatology is a realm of antinomies. These antinomies are rooted and grounded
in the basic mystery of Creation. How can anything else exist alongside of God,
if God is the plenitude of Being? One has attempted to solve the paradox, or
rather to escape it, by alleging the motives of Creation, sometimes to such an
extent and in such a manner as to compromise the absoluteness and sovereignty of
God. Yet, God creates in perfect freedom, ex mera liberalitate, that is, without
any “sufficient reasons.” Creation is a free gift of unfathomable love.
Moreover, man in Creation is granted this mysterious and enigmatic authority of
free decision, in which the most enigmatic is not the possibility of failure or
resistance, but the very possibility of assent. Is not the will of God of such a
dimension that it should be simply obeyed without any real, that is, free and
responsible, assent? The mystery is in the reality of creaturely freedom. Why
should it be wanted in the world created and ruled by God, by His infinite
wisdom and love? In order to be real, human response must be more than a mere
resonance. It must be a personal act, an inward commitment. In any case, the
shape of human life - and now we may probably add, the shape and destiny of the
cosmos - depends upon the synergism or conflict of the two wills, divine and
creaturely. Many things are happening which God abhors - in the world which is
His work and His subject. Strangely enough, God respects human freedom, as St.
Irenaeus once said, although, in fact, the most conspicuous manifestation of
this freedom was revolt and disorder. Are we entitled to expect that finally
human disobedience will be disregarded and “dis-respected” by God, and His Holy
Will shall be enforced, regardless of any assent? Or it would make a dreadful
“masquerade” of human history? What is the meaning of this dreadful story of
sin, perversion, and rebellion, if finally everything will be smoothed down and
reconciled by the exercise of divine Omnipotence?

Indeed, the existence of Hell, that is, of radical opposition, implies, as it
were, some partial “unsuccess” of the creative design. Yet, it was more than
just a design, a plan, a pattern. It was the calling to existence, or even “to
being,” of living persons. One speaks sometimes of the “divine risk,” says Jean
Guitton. It is probably a better word than kenosis. Indeed, it is a mystery,
which cannot be rationalized - it is the primordial mystery of creaturely
existence.

Brunner takes the possibility of Hell quite seriously. There is no security of
“universal salvation,” although this is, abstractly speaking, still possible -
for the omnipotent God of Love. But Brunner still hopes that there will be no
Hell. The trouble is that there is Hell already. Its existence does not depend
upon divine decision. God never sends anyone to Hell. Hell is made by creatures
themselves. It is human creation, outside, as it were, of “the order of
creation.” The Last Judgment remains a mystery.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 9: 08 - THE INCARNATION & REDEMPTION (PART 1)
========================================================================

The Incarnation and Redemption.

(Part 1)

“The Word became flesh:” in this is the ultimate joy of the Christian faith. In
this is the fullness of Revelation. The Same Incarnate Lord is both perfect God
and perfect man. The full significance and the ultimate purpose of human
existence is revealed and realized in and through the Incarnation. He came down
from Heaven to redeem the earth, to unite man with God for ever. “And became
man.” The new age has been initiated. We count now the “anni Domini!” As St.
Irenaeus wrote: “the Son of God became the Son of Man, that man also might
become the son of God.”1 Not only is the original fullness of human nature
restored or re-established in the Incarnation. Not only does human nature return
to its once lost communion with God. The Incarnation is also the new Revelation,
the new and further step. The first Adam was a living soul. But the last Adam is
the Lord from Heaven (1 Corinthians 15:47). And in the Incarnation of the Word
human nature was not merely anointed with a superabundant overflowing of Grace,
but was assumed into an intimate and hypostatical unity with the Divinity
itself. In that lifting up of human nature into an everlasting communion with
the Divine Life, the Fathers of the early Church unanimously saw the very
essence of salvation, the basis of the whole redeeming work of Christ. “That is
saved which is united with God,” says St. Gregory of Nazianzus. And what was not
united could not be saved at all. This was his chief reason for insisting,
against Apollinarius,2 on the fullness of human nature, assumed by the Only
Begotten in the Incarnation. This was the fundamental motive in the whole of
early theology, in St. Irenaeus, St. Athanasius, the Cappa-docian Fathers, St.
Cyril of Alexandria, and St. Maximus the Confessor. The whole history of
Christological dogma was determined by this fundamental conception: the
Incarnation of the Word as Redemption. In the Incarnation human history is
completed. God’s eternal will is accomplished, “the mystery from eternity hidden
and to angels unknown.” The days of expectation are over. The Promised and the
Expected has come. And from henceforth, to use the phrase of St. Paul, the life
of man “is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). The Incarnation of the Word
was an absolute manifestation of God. And above all it was a revelation of Life.
Christ is the Word of Life, ο λόγος της ζωής… “and the life was manifested, and
we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life,
which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us” (1 John 1:1-2).3 The
Incarnation is the quickening of man, as it were, the resurrection of human
nature. But the climax of the Gospel is the Cross, the death of the Incarnate.
Life has been revealed in full through death. This is the paradoxical mystery of
the Christian faith: life through death, life from the grave and out of the
grave, the mystery of the life-bearing grave. And we are born to real and
eternal life only through our baptismal death and burial in Christ; we are
regenerated with Christ in the baptismal font. Such is the invariable law of
true life. “That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die” (1
Corinthians 15:36).

“Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Timothy
3:16). But God was not manifest in order to recreate the world at once by the
exercise of His omnipotent might, or to illuminate and transfigure it by the
overwhelming light of His glory. It was in the uttermost humiliation that this
revelation of Divinity was wrought. The Divine will does not abolish the
original status of human freedom or “self-power” [το αύτεξούσιον], it does not
destroy or abolish the “ancient law of human freedom.”4 Herein is revealed a
certain self-limitation or “kenosis” of the Divine might. And more than that, a
certain kenosis of Divine Love itself. Divine love, as it were, restricts and
limits itself in the maintenance of the freedom of the creation. Love does not
impose the healing by compulsion as it might have done. There was no compelling
evidence in this manifestation of God. Not all recognized the Lord of Glory
under that “guise of the servant” He deliberately took upon Himself. And
whosoever did recognize, did so not by any natural insight, but by the
revelation of the Father (cf. Matthew 16:17). The Incarnate Word appeared on
earth as man among men. This was the redeeming assumption of all human fullness,
not only of human nature, but also of all the fullness of human life. The
Incarnation had to be manifested in all the fullness of life, in the fullness of
human ages, that all that fullness might be sanctified. This is one of the
aspects of the idea of the “summing up” of all in Christ (recapitulatio,
άνακεφαλαίωσις) which was taken up with such emphasis by St. Irenaeus from St.
Paul.5 This was the “humiliation” of the Word (cf. Php 2:7). But this “kenosis”
was no reduction of His Divinity, which in the Incarnation continues unchanged,
ανευ τροπής. It was, on the contrary, a lifting-up of man, the “deification” of
human nature, the “theosis.” As St. John Damascene says, in the Incarnation
“three things were accomplished at once: the assumption, the existence, and the
deification of humanity by the Word.”6 It must be stressed that in the
Incarnation the Word assumes the original human nature, innocent and free from
original sin, without any stain. This does not violate the fullness of nature,
nor does this affect the Savior’s likeness to us sinful people. For sin does not
belong to human nature, but is a parasitic and abnormal growth. This point was
vigorously stressed by St. Gregory of Nyssa and particularly by St. Maximus the
Confessor in connection with their teaching of the will as the seat of sin.7 In
the Incarnation the Word assumes the first-formed human nature, created “in the
image of God,” and thereby the image of God is again re-established in man.8
This was not yet the assumption of human suffering or of suffering humanity. It
was an assumption of human life, but not yet of human death. Christ’s freedom
from original sin constitutes also His freedom from death, which is the “wages
of sin.” Christ is unstained from corruption and mortality right from His birth.
And like the First Adam before the Fall, He is able not to die at all, potens
non mori, though obviously He can still die, potens autem mori. He was exempt
from the necessity of death, because His humanity was pure and innocent.
Therefore Christ’s death was and could not but be voluntary, not by the
necessity of fallen nature, but by free choice and acceptance.9 A distinction
must be made between the assumption of human nature and the taking up of sin by
Christ. Christ is “the Lamb of God that taketh the sin of the world” (John
1:29).10 But He does not take the sin of the world in the Incarnation. That is
an act of the will, not a necessity of nature. The Savior bears the sin of the
world (rather than assumes it) by the free choice of love. He bears it in such a
way that it does not become His own sin, or violate the purity of His nature and
will. He carries it freely; hence this “taking up” of sin has a redeeming power,
as a free act of compassion and love.11 This taking up of sin is not merely a
compassion. In this world, which “lies in sin,” even purity itself is suffering,
it is a fount or cause of suffering. Hence it is that the righteous heart
grieves and aches over unrighteousness, and suffers from the unrighteousness of
this world. The Savior’s life, as the life of a righteous and pure being, as a
life pure and sinless, must inevitably have been in this world the life of one
who suffered. The good is oppressive to this world, and this world is oppressive
to the good. This world resists good and does not regard light. And it does not
accept Christ, it rejects both Him and His Father (John 15:23-24). The Savior
submits Himself to the order of this world, forbears, and the very opposition of
this world is covered by His all-forgiving love: “They know not what they do”
(Luke 23:34). The whole life of Our Lord is one Cross. But suffering is not yet
the whole Cross. The Cross is more than merely suffering Good. The sacrifice of
Christ is not yet exhausted by His obedience and endurance, forbearance,
compassion, all-forgivingness. The one redeeming work of Christ cannot be
separated into parts. Our Lord’s earthly life is one organic whole, and His
redeeming action cannot be exclusively connected with any one particular moment
in that life. However, the climax of this life was its death. And the Lord
plainly bore witness to the hour of death: “For this cause came I unto this
hour” (John 12:27). The redeeming death is the ultimate purpose of the
Incarnation.” The mystery of the Cross is beyond our rational comprehension.
This “terrible sight” seems strange and startling. The whole life of Our Blessed
Lord was one great act of forbearance, mercy and love. And the whole of it is
illuminated by the eternal radiance of Divinity, though that radiance is
invisible to the world of flesh and sin. But salvation is completed on Golgotha,
not on Tabor, and the Cross of Jesus was foretold even on Tabor (cf. Luke 9:31).
Christ came not only that He might teach with authority and tell people the name
of the Father, not only that He might accomplish works of mercy. He came to
suffer and to die, and to rise again. He Himself more than once witnessed to
this before the perplexed and startled disciples. He not only prophesied the
coming Passion and death, but plainly stated that He must, that He had to,
suffer and be killed. He plainly said that “must,” not simply “was about to.”
“And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be
rejected by the elders, and the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed,
and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31, Matthew 16:21, Luke 9:22; Luke
24:26). “Must” [δει] not just according to the law of this world, in which good
and truth is persecuted and rejected, not just according to the law of hatred
and evil. The death of Our Lord was in full freedom. No one takes His life away.
He Himself offers His soul by His own supreme will and authority. “I have
authority,” - έξουσίαν εχω - (John 10:18). He suffered and died, “not because He
could not escape suffering, but because He chose to suffer,” as it is stated in
the Russian Catechism. Chose, not merely in the sense of voluntary endurance or
non-resistance, not merely in the sense that He permitted the rage of sin and
unrighteousness to be vented on Himself. He not only permitted but willed it. He
“must have died according to the law of truth and love. In no way was the
Crucifixion a passive suicide or simply murder. It was a Sacrifice and an
oblation. He had to die. This was not the necessity of this world. This was the
necessity of Divine Love. The mystery of the Cross begins in eternity, “in the
sanctuary of the Holy Trinity, unapproachable for creatures.” And the
transcendent mystery of God’s wisdom and love is revealed and fulfilled in
history. Hence Christ is spoken of as the Lamb, “who was foreknown indeed before
the foundation of the world” (Peter 1:19), and even “that hath been slain from
the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). “The Cross of Jesus, composed of
the enmity of the Jews and the violence of the Gentiles, is indeed but the
earthly image and shadow of this heavenly Cross of love.”14 This “Divine
necessity” of the death on the Cross passes all understanding indeed. And the
Church has never attempted any rational definition of this supreme mystery.
Scriptural terms have appeared, and do still appear, to be the most adequate
ones. In any case, no merely ethical categories will do. The moral, and still
more the legal or juridical conceptions, can never be more than colorless
anthropomorphism. This is true even of the idea of sacrifice. The sacrifice of
Christ cannot be considered as a mere offering or surrender. That would not
explain the necessity of the death. For the whole life of the Incarnate One was
one continuous sacrifice. Why then was this purest life yet insufficient for
victory over death? Why was death vanquished only by death? And was death really
a terrifying prospect for the Righteous One, for the Incarnate One, especially
in the supreme foreknowledge of the coming Resurrection on the third day? But
even ordinary Christian martyrs have accepted all their torments and sufferings,
and death itself, in full calm and joy, as a crown and a triumph. The Chief of
martyrs, the Protomartyr Christ Himself, was not less than they. And, by the
same “Divine decree,” by the same “Divine necessity,” He “must” not only have
been executed and reviled, and have died, but also have been raised on the third
day. Whatever may be our interpretation of the Agony in the Garden, one point is
perfectly clear. Christ was not a passive victim, but the Conqueror, even in His
uttermost humiliation. He knew that this humiliation was no mere endurance or
obedience, but the very path of Glory and of the ultimate victory. Nor does the
idea of Divine justice alone, justitia vindicativa, reveal the ultimate meaning
of the sacrifice of the Cross. The mystery of the Cross cannot be adequately
presented in terms of the transaction, the requital, or the ransom.15 If the
value of the death of Christ was infinitely enhanced by His Divine Personality,
the same also applies to the whole of His life. All His deeds have an infinite
value and significance as the deeds of the Incarnate Word of God. And they cover
indeed superabundantly both all misdeeds and sinful shortcomings of the fallen
human race. Finally, there could hardly be any retributive justice in the
Passion and death of the Lord, which might possibly have been in the death of
even a righteous man. For this was not the suffering and death of a mere man,
graciously supported by the Divine help because of his faithfulness and
endurance. This death was the suffering of the Incarnate Son of God Himself, the
suffering of unstained human nature already deified by its assumption into the
hypostasis of the Word. Nor is this to be explained by the idea of a
substitutional satisfaction, the satisfactio vicaria of the scholastics. Not
because substitution is not possible. Christ did indeed take upon Himself the
sin of the world. But because God does not seek the sufferings of anyone, He
grieves over them. How could the penal death of the Incarnate, most pure and
undefiled, be the abolition of sin, if death itself is the wages of sin, and if
death exists only in the sinful world? Does Justice really restrain Love and
Mercy, and was the Crucifixion needed to disclose the pardoning love of God,
otherwise precluded from manifesting itself by the restraint of vindicatory
justice? If there was any restraint at all, it was rather a restraint of love.
And justice was accomplished, in that Salvation was wrought by condescension, by
a “kenosis,” and not by omnipotent might. Probably a recreation of fallen
mankind by the mighty intervention of the Divine omnipotence would have seemed
to us simpler and more merciful. Strangely enough, the fullness of the Divine
Love, which is intent to preserve our human freedom, appears to us rather as a
severe request of transcendent justice, simply because it implies an appeal to
the cooperation of the human will. Thus Salvation becomes a task for man himself
also, and can be consummated only in freedom, with the response of man. The
“image of God” is manifested in freedom. And freedom itself is all too often a
burden for man. And in a certain sense it is indeed a superhuman gift and
request, a supernatural path, the path of “deification,” theosis. Is not this
very theosis a burden for a self-imprisoned, selfish, and self-sufficient being?
And yet this burdensome gift of freedom is the ultimate mark of the Divine love
and benevolence towards man. The Cross is not a symbol of Justice, but the
symbol of Love Divine. St. Gregory of Nazianzus utters all these doubts with
great emphasis in his remarkable Easter Sermon: To whom, and why, is this blood
poured out for us and shed, the great and most precious blood of God, the High
Priest and Victim … We were in the power of the Evil One, sold to sin, and had
brought this harm on ourselves by sensuality … If the price of ransom is given
to none other than him in whose power we are held, then I ask, to whom and for
what reason is such a price paid … If it is to the Evil One, then how insulting
is this! The thief receives the price of ransom; he not only receives it from
God, but even receives God Himself. For his tyranny he receives so large a price
that it was only right to have mercy upon us … If to the Father, then first, in
what way ? Were we not in captivity under Him … And secondly, for what reason?
For what reason was the blood of the Only Begotten pleasing to the Father, Who
did not accept even Isaac, when offered by his father, but exchanged the
offering, giving instead of the reasonable victim a lamb? By all these questions
St. Gregory tries to make clear the inexplicability of the Cross in terms of
vindicatory justice. And he concludes: “From this it is evident that the Father
accepted [the sacrifice], not because He demanded or had need, but by economy
and because man had to be sanctified by the humanity of God.”16

Redemption is not just the forgiveness of sins, it is not just man’s
reconciliation with God. Redemption is the abolition of sin altogether, the
deliverance from sin and death. And Redemption was accomplished on the Cross,
“by the blood of His Cross” (Colossians 1:20; cf. Acts 20:28; Romans 5:9;
Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14; Hebrews 9:22; 1 John 1:7; Revelation 1:5-6;
Revelation 5:9). Not by the suffering of the Cross only, but precisely by the
death on the Cross. And the ultimate victory is wrought, not by sufferings or
endurance, but by death and resurrection. We enter here into the ontological
depth of human existence. The death of Our Lord was the victory over death and
mortality, not just the remission of sins, nor merely a justification of man,
nor again a satisfaction of an abstract justice. And the very key to the Mystery
can be given only by a coherent doctrine of human death. The Mystery of Death
and Redemption In separation from God human nature becomes unsettled, goes out
of tune, as it were, is decomposed. The very structure of man becomes unstable.
The unity of the soul and the body becomes insecure. The soul loses its vital
power, is no more able to quicken the body. The body is turned into the tomb and
prison of the soul. And physical death becomes inevitable. The body and the soul
are no longer, as it were, secured or adjusted to each other. The transgression
of the commandment “reinstated man in the state of nature,” says St. Athanasius,
εις το κατά φύσιν έπέστρεφεν “that as he was made out of nothing, so also in his
very existence he suffered in due time corruption according to all justice.”
For, being made out of nothing, the creature also exists over an abyss of
nothingness, ever ready to fall into it. The created nature, St. Athanasius
says, is mortal and infirm, “flowing and liable to decomposition,” φύσις ρευστή
και διαλυομένη. And it is only saved from this “natural corruption” by the power
of heavenly Grace, “by the indwelling of the Word.” Thus separation from God
leads the creature to decomposition and disintegration.” “For we must needs die,
and are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again” (2
Samuel 14:14). In Christian experience death is first revealed as a deep
tragedy, as a painful metaphysical catastrophe, as a mysterious failure of human
destiny. For death is not a normal end of human existence. Just the contrary.
Man’s death is abnormal, is a failure. God did not create death; He created man
for incorruption and true being, that we “might have being,” εις το είναι (cf.
Wis 6:18; Wis 2:23). The death of man is the “wages of sin” (Romans 6:23). It is
a loss and corruption. And since the Fall the mystery of life is displaced by
the mystery of death. What does it mean for a man to die? What is actually dying
is obviously the body, for only the body is mortal and we speak of the
“immortal” soul. In current philosophies nowadays, the “immortality of the soul”
is emphasized to such an extent that the “mortality of man” is almost
overlooked. In death this external, visible, and earthly bodily existence
ceases. But yet, by some prophetic instinct, we say that it is “the man” who
dies. For death surely breaks up human existence, although, admittedly, the
human soul is “immortal,” and personality is indestructible. Thus the question
of death is first the question of the human body, of the corporeality of man.
And Christianity proclaims not only the after-life of the immortal soul, but
also the resurrection of the body. Man became mortal in the Fall, and actually
dies. And the death of man becomes a cosmic catastrophe. For in the dying man,
nature loses its immortal center, and itself, as it were, dies in man. Man was
taken from nature, being made of the dust of the earth. But in a way he was
taken out of nature, because God breathed into him the breath of life. St.
Gregory of Nyssa comments on the narrative of Genesis in this way. “For God, it
says, taking dust from the earth, fashioned man and by His own breath planted
life in the creature which He formed, in order that the earthly element might be
raised by union with the Divine, and so the Divine grace in one even course
might uniformly extend through all creation, the lower nature being mingled with
that which is above the world.”18 … Man is a sort of “microcosm,” every kind of
life is combined in him, and in him only the whole world comes into contact with
God.19 Consequently man’s apostasy estranges the whole creation from God,
devastates it, and, as it were, deprives it of God. The Fall of man shatters the
cosmic harmony. Sin is disorder, discord, lawlessness. Strictly speaking it is
only man that dies. Death indeed is a law of nature, a law of organic life. But
man’s death means just his fall or entanglement into this cyclical motion of
nature, just what ought not to have happened at all. As St. Gregory says, “from
the nature of dumb animals mortality is transferred to a nature created for
immortality.” Only for man is death contrary to nature and mortality is evil.20
Only man is wounded and mutilated by death. In the generic life of dumb animals,
death is rather a natural moment in the development of the species; it is the
expression rather of the generating power of life than of infirmity. However,
with the fall of man, mortality, even in nature, assumes an evil and tragic
significance. Nature itself, as it were, is poisoned by the fatal venom of human
decomposition. With dumb animals, death is but the discontinuation of individual
existence. In the human world, death strikes at personality, and personality is
much greater than mere individuality. It is the body that becomes corruptible
and liable to death through sin. Only the body can disintegrate. Yet it is not
the body that dies, but the whole man. For man is organically composed of body
and soul. Neither soul nor body separately represents man. A body without a soul
is but a corpse, and a soul without body is a ghost. Man is not a ghost
sans-corpse, and corpse is not a part of man. Man is not a “bodiless demon,”
simply confined in the prison of the body. Mysterious as the union of soul and
body indeed is, the immediate consciousness of man witnesses to the organic
wholeness of his psycho-physical structure. This organic wholeness of human
composition was from the very beginning strongly emphasized by all Christian
teachers.21 That is why the separation of soul and body is the death of the man
himself, the discontinuation of his existence, of wholeness, i.e. of his
existence as a man. Consequently death and the corruption of the body are a sort
of fading away of the “image of God” in man. St. John Damascene, in one of his
glorious anthems in the Burial Service, says of this: “I weep and I lament, when
I contemplate death, and see our beauty, fashioned after the image of God, lying
in the tomb disfigured, dishonored, bereft of form.”22 St. John speaks not of
man’s body, but of man himself. “Our beauty in the image of God,” ή κατ’ εικόνα
θεου πτλασθεισα ώραιότης, this is not the body, but man. He is indeed an “image
of the unfathomable glory” of God, even when wounded by sin, εικών άρρητου
δόξης.23 And in death it is disclosed that man, this “reasonable statue”
fashioned by God, to use the phrase of St. Methodius,24 is but a corpse. “Man is
but dry bones, a stench and the food of worms.” This is the riddle and the
mystery of death. “Death is a mystery indeed: for the soul by violence is
severed from the body, is separated, by the Divine will, from the natural
connection and composition… Ο marvel! Why have we been given over unto
corruption, and why have we been wedded unto death?” In the fear of death, often
so petty and faint-hearted, there is revealed a profound metaphysical alarm, not
merely a sinful attachment to the earthly flesh. In the fear of death the pathos
of human wholeness is manifested. The Fathers used to see in the unity of soul
and body in man an analogy of the indivisible unity of two natures in the unique
hypostasis of Christ. Analogy may be misleading. But still by analogy one may
speak of man as being just “one hypostasis in two natures,” and not only of, but
precisely in two natures. And in death this one human hypostasis is broken up.
Hence the justification for the mourning and weeping. The terror of death is
only warded off by the hope of the resurrection and life eternal.

However, death is not just the self-revelation of sin. Death itself is already,
as it were, the anticipation of the resurrection. By death God not only punishes
but also heals fallen and ruined human nature. And this not merely in the sense
that He cuts the sinful life short by death and thereby prevents the propagation
of sin and evil. God turns the very mortality of man into a means of healing. In
death human nature is purified, pre-resurrected as it were. Such was the common
opinion of the Fathers. With greatest emphasis this conception was put forward
by St. Gregory of Nyssa. “Divine providence introduced death into human nature
with a specific design,” he says, “so that by the dissolution of body and soul,
vice may be drawn off and man may be refashioned again through the resurrection,
sound, free from passions, pure, and without any admixture of evil.” This is
particularly a healing of the body. In St. Gregory’s opinion, man’s journey
beyond the grave is a means of cleansing. Man’s bodily structure is purified and
renewed. In death, as it were, God refines the vessel of our body as in a
refining furnace. By the free exercise of his sinful will man entered into
communion with evil, and our structure became alloyed with the poison of vice.
In death man falls to pieces, like an earthenware vessel, and his body is
decomposed again in the earth, so that by purification from the accrued filth he
may be restored to his normal form, through the resurrection. Consequently death
is not an evil, but a benefit (ευεργεσία). Death is the wages of sin, yet at the
same time it is also a healing process, a medicine, a sort of fiery tempering of
the impaired structure of man. The earth is, as it were, sown with human ashes,
that they may shoot forth in the last day, by the power of God; this was the
Pauline analogy. The mortal remains are committed to the earth unto the
resurrection. Death implies within itself a potentiality of resurrection. The
destiny of man can be realized only in the resurrection, and in the general
resurrection. But only the Resurrection of Our Lord resuscitates human nature
and makes the general resurrection possible. The potentiality of resurrection
inherent in every death was realized only in Christ, the “first-fruits of them
that are asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20).25

Redemption is above all an escape from death and corruption, the liberation of
man from the “bondage of corruption” (Romans 8:21), the restoration of the
original wholeness and stability of human nature. The fulfilment of redemption
is in the resurrection. It will be fulfilled in the general “quickening” when
“the last enemy shall be abolished, death” (1 Corinthians 15:26 : έσχατος
εχθρός). But the restoration of unity within human nature is possible only
through a restoration of the union of man with God. The resurrection is possible
only in God. Christ is the Resurrection and the Life. “Unless man had been
joined to God, he could never have become a partaker of incorruptibility,” says
St. Irenaeus. The way and the hope of the resurrection is revealed only through
the Incarnation of the Word.26 St. Athanasius expresses this point even more
emphatically. The mercy of God could not permit “that creatures once made
rational, and having partaken of the Word, should go to ruin and turn again to
non-existence by the way of corruption.” The violation of the law and
disobedience did not abolish the original purpose of God. The abolition of that
purpose would have violated the truth of God. But human repentance was
insufficient. “Penitence does not deliver from the state of nature [into which
man has relapsed through sin], it only discontinues the sin.” For man not only
sinned but fell into corruption. Consequently the Word of God descended and
became man, assumed our body, “that, whereas man turned towards corruption, he
might turn them again towards incorruption, and quicken them from death by
appropriation of his body and by the grace of the Resurrection, banishing death
from them like a straw from the fire.”27 Death was grafted on to the body, then
life must be grafted on to the body again, that the body may throw off
corruption and be clothed in life. Otherwise the body would not be raised. “If
death had been kept away from the body by a mere command, it would nonetheless
have been mortal and corruptible, according to the nature of our bodies. But
that this should not be, it put on the incorporeal Word of God, and thus no
longer fears either death or corruption, for it has life as a garment, and
corruption is done away in it.”28 Thus, according to St. Athanasius, the Word
became flesh in order to abolish corruption in human nature. However, death is
vanquished, not by the appearance of Life in the mortal body, but rather by the
voluntary death of the Incarnate Life. The Word became incarnate on account of
death in the flesh, St. Athanasius emphasizes. “In order to accept death He had
a body,” and only through His death was the resurrection possible.29 The
ultimate reason for Christ’s death must be seen in the mortality of man. Christ
suffered death, but passed through it and overcame mortality and corruption. He
quickened death itself. By His death He abolishes the power of death. “The
dominion of death is cancelled by Thy death, Ο Strong One.” And the grave
becomes the life-giving “source of our resurrection.” And every grave becomes
rather a “bed of hope” for believers. In the death of Christ, death itself is
given a new meaning and significance. “By death He destroyed death.”

Continued in Part 2 Notes and References

1. St. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, III. 10.2: ut fieret filius hominis, ad hoc
ut et homo fieret filius Dei, M.G. VII, c. 875; cf. III. 19.1, coll. 939-940;
IV.33.4, c. 1074; V. praef., c. 1120. See also St. Athanasius, De incarnatione,
54, M.G. XXV, c. 192: αυτός γαρ ένανθρώπησεν ίνα ήμεΐς θεοποιηθώμεν.

2. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Epist. CI, ad Cledonium, M.G. XXXVII, c. 118-181: o
δε ήνωται τω θεφ τούτο και σώζεται.

3. Cf. St. Ignatius, Ephes. VII.2: “in death true life,” έν θανάτφ ζωή αληθινή,
Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, Pt. II, v. II.1, p. 48.

4. The phrase is by St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres, IV.37.1, M.G. VII, c. 1099:
“veterem legem libertatis humanae manifestavit, quid liberum eum Deus fecit ab
initio, habentem suam potestatem sicut et suam animam, ad utendum sententiam Dei
voluntarie, et non coactum a Deo.”

5. Ibid., III.18.1: sed quando incarnatus est, et homo factus, longam hominum
expositionem in seipso recapitulavit, in compendio nobis salutem praestans.” (c.
932); 111,18.7: quapropter et per omnem venit aetatem omnibus restituens earn
quae est ad Deum communionem. (c. 937); II.22.4: sed omnem aetatem sanctificans
per illam, quae ad ipsum erat, similitudinem . . . ideo per omnem venit aetatem,
et injantibus infans factus, sanctificans infantes, in parvulis parvulus,
sanctificans hanc ipsam habentes aetatem . . ., in juvenibus juvenis, exemplus
juvenibus fiens et sanctificans Domino; sicut senior in senioribus etc., c. 784.
Cf. F. R. Montgomery Hitchcock, Irenaeus of Lugdunum, A Study of his Teaching
(Cambridge, 1914), p. 158 f.; A. d’Ales, La doctrine de la recapitulation en S.
Irenee, Recherches de Science religieuse, VI, 1916, pp. 185-211.

6. St. John Damascene, De fide orth. 111.12, M.G. XCIV, c. 1032: τήν πρόσληψιν,
τήν ϋπαρξιν, τήν θέωσιν αυτής υπό του λόγου.

7. St. Gregory of Nyssa, In Ecclesiastes, h. VII, M.G. XLIV, p. UW 725: “evil,
considered by itself, does not exist apart from free choice.” See on St. Gregory
of Nyssa J. B. Aufhauser, Die Heilslehre des hi. Gregor von Nyssa (Miinchen,
1910); F. Hilt, Des hi. Gregor von Nyssa Lehre vom Mensch (Koln, 1890). In St.
Maximus the distinction between “nature” and “will” was the main point in his
polemics against the monotheletists. There is a “natural will” (θέλημα φυσικόν),
and this is sinless; and there is a “selective will (θέλημα γνωμικόν), and this
is the root of sin. This “natural will” is just what makes man a free being, and
freedom belongs to man by nature, as well as reason. Without this “natural will”
or freedom man simply would not be man at all, ου χωρίς εΐναι την άνθρωπίνην
φύσιν αδύνατον. See St. Maximus, Ad Marynum, c. 5, M.G. XCI, c. 45: θέλημα γαρ
εστί φυσικόν δύναμις του κατά ψύσιν οντος ορεκτική, και τών ουσιωδώς τη φύσει
προσόντων, συνεκτικήν πάντων ίδιομάτωσις; cf. 49. This “natural will” is not any
definite choice or resolve, not yet a προαίρεσις, but rather a presupposition of
all choices and decisions, an innate impulse of freedom, an δρεξις, or an
appetitus, as Comfebis renders the term, and not yet a γνώμη, sententia. Cf.
Disputatio cum Pyrrho, c. 304: ουδείς γάρ ποτέ θέλειν διδάσκει, άρα φύσει
θελητικός ό άνθρωπος, και πάλιν, ει φύσει λογικός ό άνθρωπος, το δε φύσει
λογικόν και φύσει αύτεξούσιον. το γάρ αύτεξούσιον. . . θέλησις εστίν. On St.
Maximus see H. Straubinger, Die Christologie des hi. Maximus Confessor (Diss.
Bonn, 1906). A brief but excellent study on the whole of the theology of St.
Maximus is given by S. L. Epifanovich, St. Maximus the Confessor and Byzantine
Theology (Kiev, 1915) [Russian].

8. See also M. Lot Borodine, La Doctrine de la “deification” dans I’Uglise
grecque jusqu’au XI siecle, Revue de Vhistoire des religions, t. CV, CVI and
CVII, 1932-1933; J. Gross, La Divinisation du chretien d’apres les Veres Grecs
(Paris, 1938).

9. Cf. St. Maximus, ad Marynum presb., M.G. XCI, 129: κατ’ έξουσίαν
άπειροδύναμον, αλλ’ ουκ ανάγκη ύπεύθυνον. ου γάρ εκτισις ην ώς έφ’ ημών, αλλά
κένωσις υπέρ ημών του σαρκωθέντος. That was why St. Maximus categorically denied
the penal character of Our Lord’s death and sufferings.

10. “Taketh” seems to be a more accurate rendering of the Greek αιρων, than the
“taketh away” of both the Authorized and Revised Versions, or rather, both
meanings are mutually implied. See Bishop Westcott’s The Gospel according to St.
John, I (1908), p. . The word αϊρειν may mean either (1) to take upon him or (2)
to take away. But the usage of the LXX and the parallel passage, 1 John 3:5, are
decisive in favor of the second rendering (Vulg. qui to Hit, all. qui aufert) ;
and the Evangelist seems to emphasize this meaning by substituting another word
for the unambiguous word of the LXX (φέρει, beareth). It was, however, by
“taking upon Himself our infirmities” that Christ took them away (Matthew 8:17);
and this idea is distinctly suggested in the passage in Isaiah (Isaiah 53:11).
The present tense marks the future result as assured in the beginning of the
work, and also as continuous (cf. 1 John 1:7). The singular άμαρτίαν “is
important, in so far as it declares the victory of Christ over sin regarded in
its unity, as the common corruption of humanity, which is personally realized in
the sins of the separate men.” Cf. A. Plummer’s Commentary (1913), p. 80:
“taketh away rather than beareth is right, Christ took away the burden of sin by
bearing it; but this is not expressed here, although it may be implied”; την
άμαρτίαν, “regarded as one great burden or plague.” Archbp. J. H. Bernard,
Gospel according to St. John (1928), I, 46-47, describes the present tense
“taketh” as juturum praesens, “not only an event in time, but an eternal
process.” “See St. Maximus, ad Marynum, M.G. XCI, c. 220-221: οίκείωσιν δέ ποίαν
φασεί; την ουσιώδη, καθ’ ην τα προσόντα φυσικώς εκαστον έχοντα οικειοϋται δια
την φύσιν ή την σχετικήν καθ’ ην τα αλλήλων φυσικώς στέργομεν τε καΐ
οικειούμεθα, μηδέν τούτων αυτοί πάσχοντες η ενεργούντες. St. Maximus was
concerned here with the problem of Our Lord’s “ignorance.” The same distinction
in St. John Damascene, De fide orth. Ill, 25, M.G. XCIV, c. 1903: “It should be
known, that the act of appropriation (οικείωσις) involves two things: one the
natural and essential (φυσική και ουσιώδης), and the other the personal and
relative (προσωπική καΐ σχετική). The natural and essential is that in which the
Lord by his love to man has assumed our nature and all that belongs to it (τήν
φύσιν καΐ τα φυσικά πάντα), really and truly became man and experienced the
things which are of nature. The personal and relative appropriation is that in
which someone for some reason (e.g. through love or compassion) takes upon
himself another’s person (του έτερου υποδύεται πρόσωπον) and says something
having no relation at all to himself, in the other’s stead and to his advantage.
In this sense the Lord appropriated to Himself both the curse and our desertion,
things having no relation to nature (ουκ δντα φυσικά), but it was thus that He
took our person and placed Himself in line with us (μεθ’ ημών τασσόμενος).”

12. Cf. Bp. Westcott, ad locum, 11.125: “Christ came that He might suffer, that
He might enter into the last conflict with sin and death, and being saved out of
it win a triumph over death by dying”; Archbp. Bernard, 11.437, translates: “and
yet for this very purpose,” scil., that His ministry should be consummated in
the Passion. . . The Glorification of the Father (5:28) is achieved not only by
the obedience of the Son, but rather by the accomplishment of the ultimate
purpose, the victory over death and evil.”

13. Cf. P. M. J. Lagrange, Evangile selon St. Luc (1921), p. 267, ad loc.
“marque le decret divin”; A. Plummer, Commentary on St. Luke, 1905, p. 247: “it
expresses logical necessity rather than moral obligation (ώφειτεν, Hebrews 2:17)
or natural fitness (επρεπεν, Hebrews 11:10). “It is a Divine decree, a law of
the Divine nature, that the Son of Man must suffer”; Β. Ε. Easton, The Gospel
according to St. Luke, Edinb. (1926), ad loc.y p. 139; δει, “by divine decree,”
especially as set forth in the Old Testament.

14. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, Sermon on Good Friday (1816), Sermons and
Speeches, I (1973), p. 94 [Russian].

15. The Scriptural evidence in favor of the Ransom conception is very scarce.
Λύτρον does indeed mean “ransom,” but the word is used in the New Testament only
once, in the parallel passages Mark 10:45 and Matthew 20:28, and the main
emphasis seems to be here rather on the “loosing” effect of Christ’s Messianic
ministry, than on ransoming in the strict sense. The primary meaning of the verb
λύω is just to “loose” or to “set free.” The word άντίλυτρον occurs in the New
Testament also only once: 1 Timothy 2:6. The middle λυτρουσθαι, both in Luke
24:21 and in Titus 2:14, or in 1 Peter 1:18 f, does not necessarily imply any
“ransom”-motive. “Jedenfalls ware es vollig verkehrt fur Titus 2:14 und 1 Peter
1:18 zu hehaupten: we’ll in dem Sprachgebrauch der LXX λυτρουσθαι als Gottestat
nicht die Losegeld-Vorstellung enthdlt, enthdlt es sie auch an diesen Stellen
nicht” [Buchsel in Kittel’s Worterbuch, IV.6, s. 353]. Λύτρωσις in Luke 1:68 is
no more than simply “salvation” (cf. 5:69, 71, 77). Hebrews 9:12 : αίωνίαν
λύτρωσιν does not imply any ransom either. “An ein Losegeld ist wohl hier kaum
gedacht, wenn auch vom Blute Jesu die Rede ist. Die Vorstellung in Hebr. ist
mehr kultisch als rechtlich” (Buchsel, s. 354). Άπολύτρωσις in Luke 21:28 is the
same as λύτρωσις in Luke 1:68 or Luke 2:38, a redeeming Messianic consummation.
This word is used by St. Paul with the same general meaning. See Buchsel, s.
357f. “Endlich muss gefragt iverden: wie weit ist in άπολύτρωσις die Vorstellung
von einem λύτρον, einem Losegeld oder dergleichen noch lebendig? Soil man
voraussetzen, dass ueberall, wo von άπολύτρωσις die Rede ist, auch an ein λύτρον
gedacht ist? Ausdrucklich Bezug genommen wird auf ein Losegeld an keiner der
Άπολύτρωσις-Stellen. . . Wie die Erlosung zustande kommt, sagt Paulus mit der
έλαστήριον- Vorstellung, was uberflussig ware, wenn in άπολύτρωσις die
Lose-geldvorstellung lebendig ware. . .Die richtige deutsche Ubersetzung von
άπολύτρωσις ist deshalb nur Erlosung oder Befreiung, nicht Loskauf, ausnahmweise
auch Freilassung Hebrews 11:35 und Erledigung Hebrews 9:15.”

16. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, orat. XLV, in S. Pascha, 22, M.G. XXXVI, 653.

17. St. Athanasius, De incarnatione, 4-5, M.G. XXV, c. 194; Robertson’s
translation (London, 1891, pp. 7-10): “as soon the thought came into their
heads, they became corruptible, and being enthroned death ruled over them ...
for being once nought by nature they were called into being by the indwelling
and love of the Word; thence it followed, that, when they lost their
understanding of God, they lost also their immortality; and this means: they
were suffered to remain in death and corruption.” Cf. Contra Gentes 41,
Colossians 81-84.

18. St. Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio cat., 6, Srawley p. 81: ώς αv συνεποιθαίη τω
θείω το γήϊνον και μία τις κατά τό όμότιμον δια πάσης της κτίσεως ή χάρις
διήκοι, της κάτω φύσεως προς τήν ύπερκό-σμιον συγκερναμένης. Srawley’s
translation, p. 39- .

19. St. Gregory of Nyssa, De anima resurr., M.G. XLVI, c. 28; cf. De opific.
hominis, cap. 2-5, M.G. XLIV, Colossians 133 ss. The idea of the central
position of man in the cosmos is strongly emphasized in the theological system
of St. Maximus the Confessor.

20. St. Gregory of Nyssa, Orat. cat., cap. 8, “the potentiality of death which
was the distinctive mark of the dumb creatures,” τήν προς τό νεκροΰσθαι δύναμιν
ή της αλόγου φύσεως εξαίρετος fjv, p. 43-44 Srawley; cf. De anima et resurr.,
M.G. XLVI, c. 148: “that which passed to human nature from dumb life,” σχήμα τής
άλογου φύσεως. De opif. hominis, 11, M.G. XLIV, c. 193: “what was bestowed upon
dumb life for self-preservation, that, being transferred to human life, became
passions.” The interpretation of the “coats of skins” in the Biblical narrative
as of the mortality of the body is connected with that; cf. St. Gregory of
Nazianzus, Onto 38, n. 12, M.G. XXXVI, c. 324. The Valentinian Gnostics seem to
have been the first to suggest that the “coats of skins” in Genesis 3:21 meant
the fleshly body; see St. Irenaeus, Adv. haereses, 1.5.5, M.G. VII, c. 501:
ύστερον δε περιτεθεΐσθαι λέγουσιν αύτω τον δερμάτινον χιτώνα, τούτο δε το
αίσθητόν σαρκίον εΐναι λέ-γουσΐ; cf. Tertullian, Adv. Valentinianos, 24, p. 201
Kroymann: carnalem superjiciam postea aiunt choico supertextam, et bane esse
pelliceam tunicam obnoxiam sensui; De carnis resurr., 7, p. 34 Kroymann; ipsae
erunt carnis ex limo reformation. Clement of Alexandria, a quote from Julius
Cassianus, of the Valentinian school, Stromata, III, 14, p. 230 Stahlin II:
χιτώνας δέ δερμάτινους ται ό Κασσιανός τά σώματα. Excerpta ex Theodoto, 55, 125
Stahlin III: τοις τρισίν άσωμάτοις έπί του Αδάμ τέταρτον επενδύεται τον χοϊκόν,
τους δερμάτινους χιτώνας. Ε. R. Dodds suggested that this interpretation was in
connection with old Orphic use of the word χιτών. “The word χιτών seems to have
been originally an Orphic-Pythagorean term for the fleshly body. In this sense
it is used by Empedocles, fragm. 126 Diels, σαρκών άλλόγνωστι περιστέλλουσα
χιτών ι, with which may be compared Plato Gorg. 523c, where the fleshly body is
described as an άμφίεσμα, which the soul takes off at death. The clean linen
tunic of the Orphic votary perhaps symbolizes the purity of his “garment of
flesh.” Proclus, The Elements of Theology, a revised text with translation,
introduction and commentary by E. R. Dodds (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1933), p.
307. Porphyry on several occasions calls the fleshly body a “coat of skin.”

21. Cf. Athenagoras, De resurr., 15, p. 65-67 Schwartz; Pseudo-Justin, De
resurrectione, ap. Holl, Fragmente vornica’nischen Kirchenvdter aus den Sacra
Parallela, Harnack-Gebhardt, Texte und Untersuchungen, XX.2, 1889, frg. 107, p.
45: τι γαρ έστιν ό άνθρωπος αλλ’ ή το εκ ψυχής καΐ σώματος συνεστός ζώον
λογικόν; μη οδν καθ’ έαυτήν ψυχή άνθρωπος; δν, αλλ’ ανθρώπου ψυχή* μη οδν
καλεΐτο σώμα άνθρωπος; 6ν, αλλ’ ανθρώπου σώμα καλείται’ εΐπεν οΰν κατ’ Ιδίαν μεν
τούτων ούδέτερον άνθρωπος εστιν,τό δέ έκ της αμφοτέρων συμπλοκής καλείται
άνθρωπος, κέκτηκε δέ ό θεός εις ζωήν και άνάστασιν τον άνθρωπον ου το μέρος,
άλλα το δλον κέκτηκεν αυτόν. St. Irenaeus, Adv. haereses, V.6.1, M.G. VII, c.
1137: anima autem et spirit us pars hominis esse possunt, homo autem nequaquam;
perfect us autem homo commistio et adunatio est· animae, assumentis Spiritum
Patris, et admistae ei came, quae est plasmata secundum imaginem Dei; c. 1138:
neque enim plasmatio carnis ipsa secundum se homo perfectus est, sed corpus
hominis, et pars hominis. Neque enim et anima ipsa secundum se homo, sed anima
hominis, et pars hominis. Neque Spiritus homo, Spiritus enim, et non homo
vocatur, Commistio autem et unitio horum omnium perfectum hominem efficit;
Tertullian, De carnis resurrectione, c. , p. 83 Kroymann III: nee anima per
semet-ipsam homo, quae figmento jam homini appellato postea inserta est; nee
caro sine anima homo, quae post exsilium animae cadaver inscribitur, ita
vocabulum homo conseratum substantiarum duarum quodammodo fibua est etc.; St.
Methodius, De resurrectione, 1.34.4, p. 272 Bonwetsch: άνθρωπος δέ αληθέστατα
λέγεται κατά φύσιν οϋτε ψυχή χωρίς σώματος, οϋτ’ άν πάλιν σώμα χωρίς ψυχής, άλλα
το έκ συστάσεως ψυχής και σώματος εις μίαν την του καλοϋ μορψήν συντεθέν. In
later times some Fathers, however, adapted the Platonic definition of man; see
for instance St. Augustine, De moribus ecclesiae, 1.27.52, M.L. XXXII, c. 1332:
homo igitur, ut homini apparet, anima rationalis est mortali corpore atque
terreno utens; In Joan. Evang. tr. XIX, 5, 15, M.L. XXXV, c. 1553: Quid est
homo? anima rationalis habens corpus. Anima rationalis habens corpus non facit
duas personas, sed unum hominem.

22. Hapgood, Service Book, p. 386; cf. 389-390.

23. Many of the Fathers regarded the “image of God” as being not in the soul
only, but rather in the whole structure of man. Above all in his royal
prerogative, in his calling to reign over the cosmos, which is connected with
the fulness of his psycho-physical composition. This idea was brought forward by
St. Gregory of Nyssa in his De opijicio hominis; later it was strongly
emphasized by St. Maximus the Confessor. And, probably under the influence of
St. Maximus, St. Gregory Palamas emphasized the fulness of the human structure,
in which an earthly body is united with the reasonable soul, as the preeminent
title of man to be regarded as the “image of God,” Capita physica, theol. etc.,
63, 66, 67, M.G. CL, Colossians 1147, 1152, 1165.

24. St. Methodius, De resurr., 1.34.4, Bonwetsch 275: τό άγαλμα τό λογεΐν.

25. Cf. St. Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio cat., 35, ed. Srawley, p. 133; Eng. transl.
p. 103; c. 8, p. 46, transl. p. 47; De mortuis, M.G. XLVI, Colossians 520, 529;
Orat. fun. de Placid., XLVI, 876-877. St. Gregory here reechoes St. Methodius,
the similarity is even in the terms used; see Srawley’s comparison in the
introduction to his edition of the “Catechetical Oration,” p. xxv-xxviii. The
analogy of refinement itself is taken from St. Methodius: see De resurr.
1.43.2-4, Bonwetsch (1917), p. 291; 42.3, p. 288-289; cf. Symp. ix.2, Bonw. 116.
Methodius reproduces the tradition of Asia Minor. See in Theophilus of Antioch,
ad Autolicum 11.26, Otto s. 128 ss. Almost word for word St. Irenaeus, adv.
haeres. III.23.6; 19.3, M.G. VII, 964, 941; 23-111; cf. frg. XII, c. 1233, 1236.
The same in Hippolitus, adv. Graecos, 2, ap. Hell, TU XX.2, frg. 353, s. 140.
St. Epiphanius includes large sections from Methodius in his Panarion, haeres.
64, cap. 22-29, ed. Holl II, 435-448. St. Basil also held the conception of
death as a healing process, Quod Deus non est auctor malor., 1, M.G. XXXI, 345;
also St. John Chrysostom, De resurr. mart. 7, M.G. L, c. 429.

26. St. Irenaeus, adv. haeres. III. 18.7: ήνωσεν οΰν τον άνθρωπον τω θεω (lot.:
haerere facit et adunavit), M.G. VII, c. 937; 19.2: non enim proteramus aliter
incorruptelam et immortalitatem percipere, nisi adunati fuissemus incorruptelae
et immortalitati, nisi prius incorruptela et immorta-litas facta fuisset id quod
et nos, ut absorberetur quod erat corruptibile ab incorruptela; c. 939; V.12.6:
hoc autem et in semel totum sanum et integrum redintegravit hominem, perfectum
eum sibi praeparans ad re-surrectionem, c. 1155-1156.

27. St Athanasius, De Incarnatione, 6-8; M,G. XXV. c. 105-109; Robertson’s
translation, p. 10-15.

28. Ibid., 44, Colossians 126; 28, c. 143; cf. Or. 2 in Arianos, 66, M.G. XXVI,
298.

29. De incarn., 21, c. 133; 9, c. 112; Of. 2 in Arianos, 62-68; c. 289-292. See
also in St. Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio cat., cap. 32, Srawley 116-117: “if one
inquires further into the mystery, he will say rather, not that death happened
to Him as a consequence of birth, but that birth itself was assumed on account
of death, μη δια τήν γένεσιν συμβεβηκέναί τον θάνατον, άλλα το εμπαλιν του
θανάτου χάριν παραληφθήναι τήν γένεσιν. For the ever-living assumed death, not
as something necessary for life, but in order to restore us from death to life.”
See also the sharp utterance of Tertullian, De came Christi, 6, M.L. II, URY
746: Christus mori missus, nasci quoque necessario habuit, ut mori posset, . .
forma moriendi causa nascendi est. However, all that does not presume that the
Incarnation depends exclusively upon the Fall and would not have taken place,
had not man sinned. Bp. Westcott was right in suggesting “that the thought of an
Incarnation independent of the Fall harmonizes (better) with the general tenor
of Greek theology”; Commentary on the Epistles of St. John (London, 1883), the
excursus on “The Gospel of Creation,” p. 275. Cf. Excursus I, Cur Deus homo?


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 10: 08A - THE INCARNATION & REDEMPTION (PART 2)
========================================================================

The Incarnation and Redemption.

(Part 2) Immortality, Resurrection, and Redemption

Death is a catastrophe for man; this is the basic principle of the whole
Christian anthropology. Man is an “amphibious” being, both spiritual and
corporeal, and so he was intended and created by God. Body belongs organically
to the unity of human existence. And this was perhaps the most striking novelty
in the original Christian message. The preaching of the Resurrection as well as
the preaching of the Cross was foolishness and a stumbling-block to the
Gentiles. The Greek mind was always rather disgusted by the body. The attitude
of an average Greek in early Christian times was strongly influenced by Platonic
or Orphic ideas, and it was a common opinion that the body was a kind of a
“prison,” in which the fallen soul was incarcerated and confined. The Greeks
dreamt rather of a complete and final disincarnation. The famous Orphic slogan
was: σώμα-σήμα.30 And the Christian belief in a coming Resurrection could only
confuse and frighten the Gentile mind. It meant simply that the prison will be
everlasting, that the imprisonment will be renewed again and for ever. The
expectation of a bodily resurrection would befit rather an earthworm, suggested
Celsus, and he jeered in the name of common sense. This nonsense about a future
resurrection seemed to him altogether irreverent and irreligious. God would
never do things so stupid, would never accomplish desires so criminal and
capricious, which are inspired by an impure and fantastic love of the flesh.
Celsus nicknames Christians a “φιλοσώματον γένος,” “a flesh-loving crew,” and he
refers to the Docetists with far greater sympathy and understanding.31 Such was
the general attitude to the Resurrection.

St. Paul had already been called a “babbler” by the Athenian philosophers just
because he had preached to them “Jesus and the Resurrection” (Acts 17:18; Acts
17:32). In the current opinion of those heathen days, an almost physical disgust
of the body was frequently expressed. There was also a wide-spread influence
from the farther East; one thinks at once of the later Manichean inundation
which spread so rapidly all over the Mediterranean. St. Augustine, once a
fervent Manichean himself, has intimated in his Confessiones that this
abhorrence of the body was the chief reason for him to hesitate so long in
embracing the faith of the Church, the faith in the Incarnation.32

Porphyry, in his Life of Plotinus, tells that Plotinus, it seemed, “was ashamed
to be in the flesh,” and from this Porphyry starts his biography. “And in such a
frame of mind he refused to speak either of his ancestors or parents, or of his
fatherland. He would not sit for a sculptor or painter to make a permanent image
of this perishable frame.” It is already enough that we bear it now (Life of
Plotinus, 1). This philosophical asceticism of Plotinus, of course, must be
distinguished from Oriental asceticism, Gnostic or Manichean. Plotinus himself
wrote very strongly “against Gnostics.” Here, however, there was only a
difference of motives and methods. The practical issue in both cases was one and
the same, a “retreat” from this corporeal world, an escape from the body.
Plotinus suggested the following analogy: Two men live in the same house. One of
them blames the builder and his handiwork, because it is made of inanimate wood
and stone. The other praises the wisdom of the architect, because the building
is so skillfully erected. For Plotinus this world is not evil, it is the “image”
or reflection of the world above, and is perhaps even the best of images. Still,
one has to aspire beyond all images, from the image to the prototype, from the
lower to the higher world. And Plotinus praises not the copy, but the pattern.33
“He knows that when the time comes, he will go out and will no longer have need
of a house.” This phrase is very characteristic. The soul is to be liberated
from the ties of the body, to be disrobed, and then it will ascend to its proper
sphere.34 “The true awakening is the true resurrection from the body, not with
the body. For the resurrection with the body would be simply a passage from one
sleep to another, to some other dwelling. The only true awakening is an escape
from all bodies, since they are by nature opposite to the nature of the soul.
Both the origin, and the life and the decay of bodies show that they do not
correspond to the nature of the souls.”35 With all Greek philosophers the fear
of impurity was much stronger than the dread of sin. Indeed, sin to them just
meant impurity. This “lower nature,” body and flesh, a corporeal and gross
substance, was usually presented as the source and seat of evil. Evil comes from
pollution, not from the perversion of the will. One must be liberated and
cleansed from this filth. And at this point Christianity brings a new conception
of the body as well. From the beginning Docetism was rejected as the most
destructive of temptations, a sort of dark anti-gospel, proceeding from
Anti-Christ, “from the spirit of falsehood” (1 John 4:2-3). This was strongly
emphasized in St. Ignatius, St. Irenaeus, and Tertullian. “Not that we would be
unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be
swallowed up by life” (2 Corinthians 5:4). This is precisely the antithesis to
Plotinus’ thought.36 “He deals a death-blow here to those who depreciate the
physical nature and revile our flesh,” commented St. John Chrysostom. “It is not
flesh, as he would say, that we put off from ourselves, but corruption; the body
is one thing, corruption is another. Nor is the body corruption, nor corruption
the body. True, the body is corrupt, but it is not corruption. The body dies,
but it is not death. The body is the work of God, but death and corruption
entered by sin. Therefore, he says, I would put off from myself that strange
thing which is not proper to me. And that strange thing is not the body, but
corruption. The future life shatters and abolishes not the body, but that which
clings to it, corruption and death.”37 Chrysostom, no doubt, gives here the
common feeling of the Church. “We must also wait for the spring of the body,” as
a Latin apologist of the second century put it - “expec-tandum nobis etiam et
corporis ver est.”38 A Russian scholar, V. F. Ern, speaking of the catacombs,
happily recalls these words in his letters from Rome. “There are no words which
could better render the impression of jubilant serenity, the feeling of rest and
unbounded peacefulness of the early Christian burial places. Here the body lies,
like wheat under the winter shroud, awaiting, anticipating and foretelling the
other-worldly eternal Spring.”39 This was the simile used by St. Paul. “So also
is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption: it is raised in
incorruption” (1 Corinthians 15:42). The earth, as it were, is sown with human
ashes in order that it may bring forth fruit, by the power of God, on the Great
Day. “Like seed cast on the earth, we do not perish when we die, but having been
sown, we rise.”40 Each grave is already the shrine of incorruption. Death itself
is, as it were, illuminated by the light of triumphant hope.41

There is a deep distinction between Christian asceticism and the pessimistic
asceticism of the non-Christian world. Father P. Florenskii describes this
contrast in the following way: “One is based on the bad news of evil dominating
the world, the other on the good news of victory, of the conquest of evil in the
world. The former offers superiority, the latter holiness. The former type of
ascetic goes out in order to escape, to conceal himself; the latter goes out in
order to become pure, to conquer.” Continence can be inspired by different
motives and different purposes. There was, certainly, some real truth in the
Orphic or Platonic conceptions as well. And indeed only too often the soul lives
in the bondage of the flesh. Platonism was right in its endeavor to set free the
reasonable soul from the bondage of fleshly desires, in its struggle against
sensuality. And some elements of this Platonic asceticism were absorbed into the
Christian synthesis. And yet the ultimate goal was quite different in the two
cases. Platonism longs for the purification of the soul only. Christianity
insists on the purification of the body as well. Platonism preaches the ultimate
disincarnation. Christianity proclaims the ultimate cosmic transfiguration.
Bodily existence itself is to be spiritualized. There is the same antithesis of
eschatological expectation and aspiration: “to be unclothed” and “to be clothed
upon,” again and for ever. And strange enough, in this respect Aristotle was
much closer to Christianity than Plato. In the philosophical interpretation of
its eschatological hope, Christian theology from the very beginning clings to
Aristotle.43 On this point he, the writer of prose amid the throng of poets,
sober among the inspired, points higher than the “divine” Plato. Such a biased
preference must appear altogether unexpected and strange. For, strictly
speaking, in Aristotle there is not and cannot be any “after-death” destiny of
man. Man in his interpretation is entirely an earthly being. Nothing really
human passes beyond the grave. Man is mortal through and through like everything
else earthly; he dies never to return. Aristotle simply denies personal
immortality. His singular being is not a person. And what does actually survive
is not properly human and does not belong to individuals; it is a “divine”
element, immortal and eternal.44 But yet in this weakness of Aristotle is his
strength. Aristotle had a real understanding of the unity of human existence.
Man is to Aristotle, first of all, an individual being, an organism, a living
unit. And man is one just in his duality, as an “animated body” (τό εμψυχον);
both of the elements in him exist only together, in a concrete and indivisible
correlation. Into the “body” the matter is “formed” by the soul, and the soul
realizes itself only in its body. “Hence there is no need to inquire whether
soul and body are one, any more than whether the wax and the imprint (τό σχήμα)
are one, or, in general, whether the matter of a thing is the same with that of
which it is the matter” [De anima, 417b 6]. The soul is just the “form” of the
body (εΐδος και μορφή, 407b 23; λόγος τις και ειδος, 4lla 12), its “principle”
and “term” (αρχή and τέλος), its very being and “actuality.”45 And Aristotle
coins a new term to describe this peculiar correlation: the soul is εντελέχεια
“the first actuality of a natural body” (εντελέχεια ή πρώτη σώματος φυσικού,
412a 27). Soul and body, for Aristotle they are not even two elements, combined
or connected with each other, but rather simply two aspects of the same concrete
reality.46 “Soul and body together constitute the animal. Now it needs no proof
that the soul cannot be separated from the body” (4l3a 4). Soul is but the
functional reality of the corresponding body. “Soul and body cannot be defined
out of relation to each other; a dead body is properly only matter; for the soul
is the essence, the true being of what we call body.”47 Once this functional
unity of the soul and body has been broken by death, no organism is there any
more, the corpse is no more a body, and a dead man can hardly be called man at
all.48 Aristotle insisted on a complete unity of each concrete existence, as it
is given hie et nunc. The soul “is not the body, but something belonging to the
body (σώματος δέτι), and therefore resides in the body and, what is more, in a
specific body (και έν σώματι τοιούτω). Our predecessors were wrong in
endeavoring to fit the soul into a body without further determination of the
nature and qualities of that body, although we do not even find that of any two
things taken at random the one will admit the other (του τυχόντος ... το τυχόν).
For the actuality of each thing comes naturally to be developed in the
potentiality of each thing; in other words, in the appropriate matter” (4l4a 20:
τη οικεία ΰλη). The idea of the “transmigration” of souls was thus to Aristotle
altogether excluded. Each soul abides in its “own” body, which it creates and
forms, and each body has its “own” soul, as its vital principle, “eidos” or
form. This anthropology was ambiguous and liable to a dangerous interpretation.
It easily lends itself to a biological simplification and transformation into a
crude naturalism, in which man is almost completely equated with other animals.
Such indeed were the conclusions of certain followers of the Stagirite, of
Aristoxenus and Dikaearchus, for whom the soul was but a “harmony” or a
disposition of the body (αρμονία or τόνος, “tension”) and of Strata etc.49
“There is no more talk about the immaterial soul, the separate reason, or pure
thought. The object of science is the corporate soul, the united soul and
body.”50 Immortality was openly denied. The soul disappears just as the body
dies; they have a common destiny. And even Theophrastes and Eudemus did not
believe in immortality.51 For Alexander of Aphrodisias the soul was just an
“είδος ενυλον.”52 Aristotle himself has hardly escaped these inherent dangers of
his conception. Certainly, man is to him an “intelligent being,” and the faculty
of thinking is his distinctive Mark53 Yet, the doctrine of Nous does not fit
very well into the general frame of the Aristotelian psychology. It is obviously
the most obscure and complicated part of his system. Whatever the explanation of
this incoherence may be, the stumbling-block is still there. “The fact is that
the position of νους in the system is anomalous.”54 The “intellect” does not
belong to the concrete unity of the individual organism, and it is not an
εντελέχεια of any natural body. It is rather an alien and “divine” element, that
comes in somehow “from outside.” It is a “distinct species of soul” (ψυχής γένος
έτερον), which is separable from the body, “unmixed” with the matter. It is
impassive, immortal and eternal, and therefore separable from the body, “as that
which is eternal from that which is perishable.”55 This impassive or active
intellect does survive all individual existences indeed, but it does not
properly belong to individuals and does not convey any immortality to the
particular beings.56 Alexander of Aphrodisias seems to have grasped the main
idea of the Master. He invented the term itself: νους ποιητικός. In no sense is
it a part or power of the human soul. It supervenes as something really coming
in from outside. It is a common and eternal source of all intellectual
activities in individuals, but it does not belong to any one of them. Rather is
it an eternal, imperishable, self-existing substance, an immaterial energy,
devoid of all matter and potentiality. And, obviously, there can be but one such
substance. The νους ποιητικός is not only “divine,” it must be rather identified
with the deity itself, the first cause of all energy and motion.” The real
failure of Aristotle was not in his “naturalism,” but in that he could not see
any permanence of the individual. But this was rather a common failure of the
whole of ancient philosophy. Plato has the same short sight. Beyond time, Greek
thought visualizes only the “typical,” and nothing truly personal. Personality
itself was hardly known in pre-Christian times. Hegel suggested, in his
Aesthetics, that Sculpture gives the true key to the whole of Greek mentality.58
Recently a Russian scholar, A. F. Lossev, pointed out that the whole of Greek
philosophy was a “sculptural symbolism.” He was thinking especially of
Platonism. “Against a dark background, as a result of an interplay and conflict
of light and shadow, there stands out a blind, colorless, cold, marble and
divinely beautiful, proud and majestic body, a statue. And the world is such a
statue, and gods are statues; the city-state also, and the heroes, and the
myths, and ideas, all conceal underneath them this original sculptural
intuition… There is no personality, no eyes, no spiritual individuality. There
is a “something,” but not a “someone,” an individualized “it,” but no living
person with his proper name… There is no one at all. There are bodies, and there
are ideas. The spiritual character of the ideas is killed by the body, but the
warmth of the body is restrained by the abstract idea. There are here beautiful,
but cold and blissfully indifferent statues.”59 And yet, in the general frame of
such an impersonalist mentality, Aristotle did feel and understand the
individual more than anyone else. He got closer than anybody else to the true
conception of human personality. He provided Christian philosophers with all the
elements out of which an adequate conception of personality could be built up.
His strength was just in his understanding of the empirical wholeness of human
existence.60

Aristotle’s conception was radically transformed in its Christian adaptation,
for new perspectives were opened, and all the terms were given a new
significance. And yet one cannot fail to acknowledge the Aristotelian origin of
the main eschatological ideas in early Christian theology. Such a christening of
Aristotelianism we find in Origen, to a certain extent in St. Methodius of
Olympus as well, and later in St. Gregory of Nyssa. The idea of εντελέχεια
itself now receives new depth in the new experience of spiritual life. The term
itself was never used by the Fathers, but there can be no doubt about the
Aristotelian roots of their conceptions.61 The break between intellect,
impersonal and eternal, and the soul, individual but mortal, was healed and
overcome in the new self-consciousness of a spiritual personality. The idea of
personality itself was a great Christian contribution to philosophy. And again,
there was here a sharp understanding of the tragedy of death also. The first
theological essay on the Resurrection was written in the middle of the second
century by Athenagoras of Athens. Of the many arguments he puts forward, his
reference to the unity and integrity of man is of particular interest.
Athenagoras proceeds from the fact of this unity to the future resurrection.
“God gave independent being and life neither to the nature of the soul by
itself, nor to the nature of the body separately, but rather to men, composed of
soul and body, so that with these same parts of which they are composed, when
they are born and live, they should attain after the termination of this life
their common end; soul and body compose in man one living entity.” There would
no longer be a man, Athenagoras emphasizes, if the completeness of this
structure were broken, for then the identity of the individual would be broken
also. The stability of the body, its continuity in its proper nature, must
correspond to the immortality of the soul. “The entity which receives intellect
and reason is man, and not the soul alone. Consequently man must for ever remain
composed of soul and body. And this is impossible, if there is no resurrection.
For if there is no resurrection, human nature is no longer human.62

Aristotle concluded from the mortality of the body that the individual soul,
which is but the vital power of the body, is also mortal. Both go down together.
Athenagoras, on the contrary, infers the resurrection of the body from the
immortality of the reasonable soul. Both are kept together.63 The resurrection,
however, is no mere simple return or repetition. The Christian dogma of the
General Resurrection is not that “eternal return” which was professed by the
Stoics. The resurrection is the true renewal, the transfiguration, the
reformation of the whole creation. Not just a return of what has passed away,
but a heightening, a fulfillment of something better and more perfect. “And what
you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel... It is sown a
physical body, it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:37; 1
Corinthians 15:44). A very considerable change is implied. And there is here a
very real philosophical difficulty. How are we to think of this “change” so that
“identity” shall not be lost? We find in the early writers merely an assertion
of this identity, without any attempt at a philosophical explanation. St. Paul’s
distinction between the “natural” body (σώμα φυσικόν) and the “spiritual” body
(σώμα πνευματικόν) obviously needs some further interpretation (cf. the contrast
of the body “of our humiliation,” της ταπεινώσεως ημών, and the body “of His
glory,” της δόξης αύτοΰ, in Php 3:21). In the period of the early controversies
with the Docetists and Gnostics, a careful and precise answer became urgent.
Origen was probably the first who attempted to give one. Origen’s eschatology
was from the very beginning vigorously denounced by many, indeed with good
reason, and his doctrine of the Resurrection was perhaps the chief reason why
his orthodoxy was challenged. Origen himself never claimed any formal authority
for his doctrine. He offered merely some explanation, to be tested and checked
by the mind of the Church. For him it was not enough to refer simply to Divine
omnipotence, as the earlier writers sometimes did, or to quote certain
appropriate passages of Holy Scripture. One had rather to show how the doctrine
of the Resurrection fitted into the general conception of human destiny and
purpose. Origen was exploring a via media between the fleshly conception of the
simpliciores and the denial of the Docetists: “fugere se et nostrorum carries,
et haereticorum phantasmata,” as St. Jerome puts it.64 And both were
dissatisfied and even offended.65 The General Resurrection is an article of
faith indeed. The same individuals will rise, and the individual identity of the
bodies will be preserved. But this does not imply for Origen any identity of
material substance, or identity of status. The bodies indeed will be
transfigured or transformed in the Resurrection. In any case, the risen body
will be a “spiritual” body, and not a fleshly one. Origen takes up the simile of
St. Paul. This fleshly body, the body of this earthly life, is buried in the
earth, like a seed that is sown, and disintegrates. And one thing is sown, and
another rises. The germinating power is not extinguished in the dead body, and
in due season, by the word of God, the new body will be raised, like the ear
that shoots forth from the seed. Some corporeal principle remains undestroyed
and unaffected by the death. The term Origen used was obviously Aristotelian:
“το είδος,” “species,” or “form.” But it is not the soul that Origen regards as
the form of the body. It is rather a certain potential corporeality, pertaining
to each soul and to each person. It is the forming and the quickening principle
of the body, just a seed capable of germination. Origen also uses the term λόγος
σπερματικός, ratio seminalis.66 It is impossible to expect that the whole body
should be restored in the resurrection, since the material substance changes so
quickly and is not the same in the body even for two days, and surely it can
never be reintegrated again. The material substance in the risen bodies will be
not the same as in the bodies of this life (το ύλικόν ύποκείμενον ουδέποτε έχει
ταυτόν). Yet the body will be the same, just as our body is the same throughout
this life in spite of all changes of its material composition. And again, a body
must be adapted to the environment, to the conditions of life, and obviously in
the Kingdom of Heaven the bodies cannot be just the same as here on earth. The
individual identity is not compromised, because the “eidos” of each body is not
destroyed (το εΐδος το χαράκτηριζον το σώμα). It is the very principium
individuationis. To Origen the “body itself” is just this vital principle. His
είδος closely corresponds to Aristotle’s εντελέχεια. But with Origen this “form”
or germinative power is indestructible; that makes the construction of a
doctrine of the resurrection possible. This “principle of individuation” is also
principium surgendi. In this definite body the material particles are composed
or arranged just by this individual “form” or λόγος. Therefore, of whatever
particles the risen body is composed, the strict identity of the psycho-physical
individuality is not impaired, since the germinative power remains
unchangeable.67 Origen presumes that the continuity of individual existence is
sufficiently secured by the identity of the reanimating principle. This view was
more than once repeated later, especially under the renewed influence of
Aristotle. And in modern Roman theology the question is still rather open: to
what extent the recognition of the material identity of the risen bodies with
the mortal ones belongs to the essence of the dogma.68 The whole question is
rather that of metaphysical interpretation, not a problem of faith. It may even
be suggested that on this occasion Origen expresses not so much his own, as
rather a current opinion. There is very much that is questionable in Origen’s
eschatological opinions. They cannot be regarded as a coherent whole. And it is
not easy to reconcile his “Aristotelian” conception of the resurrection with a
theory of the pre-existence of souls, or with a conception of the periodical
recurrent cycles of worlds and final annihilation of matter. There is no
complete agreement between this theory of the Resurrection and the doctrine of a
“General apokatastasis” either. Many of Origen’s eschatological ideas may be
misleading. Yet his speculation on the relation between the fleshly body of this
life and the permanent body of the resurrection was an important step towards
the synthetic conception of the Resurrection. His chief opponent, St. Methodius
of Olympus, does not seem to have understood him well. St. Methodius’ criticisms
amounted to the complete rejection of the whole conception of the είδος. Is not
the form of the body changeable as well as the material substance? Can the form
really survive the body itself, or rather is it dissolved and decomposed, when
the body of which it is the form dies and ceases to exist as a whole? In any
case the identity of the form is no guarantee of personal identity, if the whole
material substratum is to be entirely different. For St. Methodius the “form”
meant rather merely the external shape of the body, and not the internal vital
power, as for Origen. And most of his arguments simply miss the point. But his
emphasis on the wholeness of the human composition was a real complement to
Origen’s rather excessive formalism.69

St. Gregory of Nyssa in his eschatological doctrine endeavored to bring together
the two conceptions, to reconcile the truth of Origen with the truth of
Methodius. And this attempt at a synthesis is of exceptional importance.70 St.
Gregory starts with the empirical unity of body and soul, its dissolution in
death. And the body severed from the soul, deprived of its “vital power” (ζωτική
δύναμις),71 by which the corporeal elements are held and knit together during
life, disintegrates and is involved into the general circulation of matter. The
material substance itself, however, is not destroyed, only the body dies, not
its elements. Moreover, in the very disintegration the particles of the decaying
body preserve in themselves certain “signs” or “marks” of their former
connection with their own soul (τα σημεία του ημετέρου συγκρίματος). And again,
in each soul also certain “bodily marks” are preserved, as on a piece of wax -
certain signs of union. By a “power of recognition” (γνωστική τη δυνάμει), even
in the separation of death, the soul somehow remains nevertheless near the
elements of its own decomposed body (του οικείου εφαπτομένη). In the day of
resurrection each soul will be able by these double marks to “recognize” the
familiar elements. This is the “είδος” of the body, its “inward image,” or
“type.” St. Gregory compares this process of the restoration of the body with
the germination of a seed, with the development of the human foetus. He differs
sharply from Origen on the question as to what substance will constitute the
bodies of the resurrection, and he joins here St. Methodius. If the risen bodies
were constructed entirely from the new elements, that “would not be a
resurrection, but rather the creation of a new man,” και ούκέτι αν είη το
τοιούτον άνάστασις, άλλα καινοΰ ανθρώπου δημιουργία.72 The resurrected body will
be reconstructed from its former elements, signed or sealed by the soul in the
days of its incarnation, otherwise it would simply be another man. Nevertheless,
the resurrection is not just a return, nor is it in any way a repetition of
present existence. Such a repetition would be really an “endless misery.” In the
resurrection human nature will be restored not to its present, but to its normal
or “original” condition. Strictly speaking, it will be for the first time
brought into that state, in which it ought to have been, had not sin and the
Fall entered the world, but which was never realized in the past. And everything
in human existence, which is connected with instability, is not so much a return
as a consummation. This is the new mode of man’s existence. Man is to be raised
to eternity, the form of time falls away. And in the risen corporeality all
succession and change will be abolished and condensed. This will be not only an
άποκατάστασις, but rather a “recapitulatio.” The evil surplus, that which is of
sin, falls away. But in no sense is this a loss. The fullness of personality
will not be damaged by this subtraction, for this surplus does not belong to the
personality at all. In any case, not everything is to be restored in human
composition. And to St. Gregory the material identity of the body of the
resurrection with the mortal body means, rather, the ultimate reality of the
life once lived, which must be transferred into the future age. Here again he
differs from Origen, to whom this empirical and earthly life was only a
transient episode to be ultimately forgotten. For St. Gregory the identity of
the form, i.e. the unity and continuity of individual existence, was the only
point of importance. He holds the same “Aristotelian” conception of the unique
and intimate connection of the individual soul and body. The very idea of
uniqueness is radically modified in Christian philosophy as compared with the
pre-Christian Greek. In Greek philosophy it was a “sculptural” uniqueness, an
invariable crystallization of a frozen image. In Christian experience it is the
uniqueness of the life once experienced and lived. In the one case it was a
timeless identity, in the other it is a uniqueness in time. The whole conception
of time is different in the two cases.

Continued in Part 3 Notes and References

30. Celsus ap. Origen., Contra Celsum, V.14: άτεχνώς σκωλήκων ή έλπίς, ποία γαρ
ανθρώπου ψυχή ποθήσειεν ετι σώμα σεσηπός;

31. Koetschau 15; and VII.36 and 39, p. 186, 189.

32. St. Augustine, Confessiones, l.V, X.19-20, ed. Labriolle, p. 108 ss.:
tnultumque mihi turpe videbatur credere figuram te habere humanae carnis et
membrorum nostrum liniamentis corporalibus terminari... metuebam itaque credere
incarnatum, ne credere cogerer ex carne inquinatum .. . It was just the
“embodiment,” the life in a body, that offended St. Augustine. In his Manichean
period St. Augustine could not get beyond corporeal categories at all.
Everything was corporeal for him, even the Intellect, even Deity itself. He
emphasizes that in the same chapters where he is speaking of the shame of the
Incarnation: “et quoniam cum de Deo meo cogitare vellem, cogitare nisi moles
corporum non noveram .. . neque enim videbatur mihi esse quicquam, quod tale non
esset. . .. quid et mentem cogitare non noveram nisi earn subtile corpus esse,
quod tamen per loci spatia difjunderetur [V. 19, 20, p. 108, 110]; non te
cogitabam, Deus, in figura corporis humani.. . sed quod te aliud cogitarem non
occurebat. . ., corporeum tamen aliquid cogitare cogerer . . . quoniam quidquid
privabam spatiis talibus, nihil mihi esse xidebatur, sed prorsus nihil [VII. 1,
p. 145-146] .. . All is corporeal, but there are stages or levels, and the
“bodily-existence” is the lower level. One has to get out of that. The
“materialistic” presuppositions of Manicheanism did not calm this rather
instinctive “abhorrence of the body.”

33. Plotinus, V.8.8: παν γαρ τό κατ’ άλλου ποιηθέν οταν τις θαυμάση, έπ’ έκεινο
έχει τό θαυμα, καθ’ ο εστι πεποιημένον.

34. Plotinus, II.9.15 to the end.

35. Plotinus, III.6.6: ή δέ αληθινή έγρήγορσις αληθινή άπό σώματος, ου μετά
σώματος άνάστασις. The polemical turn of these utterances is obvious. The body
is το άλλότριον, which does not properly belong to the human being [1.6.7]; it
is what comes in at the earthly birth [τό προσπλασθέν έν τη γενέσει IV.7.14].
Cf. R. Arnou, Le desk de Dieu dans la Philosophie de Plotin (Paris, 1924), p.
201: “Le mot est a noter Le sensible est comme un enduit, une espece de
crepissage, une couche de peinture qui n’entre pas dans I’essence de I’etre,
mats qui s’ajoutant du dehors, peut etre grattee sans Valterer, car elle reste
toujours ’I’autre’.” One has to dominate this alien element of the composition,
but one can achieve that only by running away, or “thither”: άλλα ού καθαρόν τό
δυνάμενον κρατεΐν, ει μή φύγοι, 1.8.8. Plotinus does not suggest a suicide, like
the Stoics, but rather an inner effort to overcome or dominate all lower desires
and carnal affections, to concentrate on one’s own self and to ascend towards
the good; 1.6.7: άναβατέον έπΐ τό αγαθόν; 6.9: ανάγε έπι σαύτόν καταλειπεΐν μόνη
ν και μή μετ” άλλων ή μή προς άλλο βλέπουσαν κτλ.; VI.9.4: μόνος εΐναι άποστάς
πάντων. Of course, man is not soul alone, but rather soul in a certain relation,
έν τοιωδε λόγω, and Plotinus clings to the Platonic definition [Alcib. 129e: τό
τω σώματι χρώμενον], IV.7.5.8. But he declines the Aristotelian conception of an
εντελέχεια. In any case, the body is an obstacle for the spiritual ascension
(έμπόδιον), a source of sorrows and desires, IV.8.2.3. And the soul can be free
and truly independent (κυριωτάτη αυτής καΐ ελευθέρα) only without the body, άνευ
σώματος, III.1.8. The incarnate existence of the soul is, both for Plotinus and
for Plato himself, only a transitory and abnormal, an unhappy episode in her
destiny, an outcome of the “fall”; and the soul will soon forget this earthly
life altogether when she has “returned” and ascended into glorious bliss,
through death or ecstasy. The comparison of the incarnate and sensual life with
a sleep comes from Plato [e.g. Tim. 52b], it was quite usual in Philo. The image
of escape is Platonic too: “One has to endeavor to run thither from here as
quickly as possible.” Theaet. 176a: ένθέντε έκεΐσε φεύγειν. And the true
philosopher is one who is ready and willing to die, and whose whole life is but
an “exercise in dying,” or even, a “rehearsal of death,” μελέτη θανάτου, Phaedo
64a. See J. Burnet, in his edition of the Phaedo, 1911, Notes, p. 28 and 72:
μελέτη “means the ’practising’ or ’rehearsal’ of death”; cf. Phaedo 67d: φύσις
και χωρισμός ψυχής άπό σώματος; 81a: τεθνάναι μελετώσα ραδίως; cf. Α. Ε. Taylor,
Plato, The Man and His Work, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh, 1927), p. 178ff.; “μελέτη means
the repeated practice by which we prepare ourselves for a performance,” and not
just a meditation of death; it is precisely a “rehearsal,” p. 179, note. Cf.
later in Cicero, Τ use. 1.30: “tota enim philosophorum vita ut ait idem(s)
commentatio mortis est; and Seneca, Epist. 26: egregia res est mortem
condiscere. Prof. Taylor stresses the Platonic phrase: “before he was man” [Memo
86a: άν μή f] άνθρωπος], and comments: “This way of speaking about our
ante-natal conditions is characteristic for Phaedo too: it implies that the true
self is not as is commonly thought, the embodied soul, but the soul simpliciter,
the body being the instrument (όργανον) which the soul “uses,” and the
consequent definition of “man” as a “soul using a body as its instrument,” p.
138, note 1. Cf. John Burnet, “Introduction” to his edition of the Phaedo, p.
LIII: “It is sufficiently established that the use of the word ψυχή to express a
living man’s true personality is Orphic in its origin, and came into philosophy
from mysticism. Properly speaking, the ψυχή of a man is a thing which only
becomes important at the moment of death. In ordinary language it is only spoken
of as something that may be lost; it is in fact ’the ghost,’ which a man ’gives
up’.”

36. Cf. Biichsel, s.v. άπολύτρωσις, in Kittel’s Wvrterbuch, IV, s. 355: “Die
άπολύτρωσις του σώματος ist Rom. VIII.23 nicht die Erlosung vom Leibe, sondern
die Erlosung des Leibes. Das beweist der Vergleich mit v.21 unweigerlich. Wie
die Geschopfe zur Freiheit der Herrlichkeit gelangen, indem sie frei werden von
der Sklaverei der Verganglichkeit, so sollen auch wir zur υιοθεσία, d.h. zur
Einsetzung in die Sohnesstellung mit ihrer Herrlichkeit, gelangen, indem unser
Leib, der tot ist um der Sunde willen (v.10), von dies em Τ odes lose frei wird
und Unverganglichkeit bzw. Unsterblichkeit anz’teht (l Cor. XV.53, 54).
Leiblosigkeit ist jiir Paulus nicht Erlosung, sondern ein schrecklicher Zustand
[2 Cor. V.2-4] etc.”

37. St. John Chrysostom, de resurrectione mortuorum, 6, M.G. L, c. 427-428.

38. Minutius Felix, Octavius, 34, ed. Halm, p. 49.

39. V. F. Ern, Letters on Christian Rome, 3rd letter, “The Catacombs of St.
Callistus,” Bogoslovskii Vestnik, 1913 (January), p. 106 [Russian].

. St. Athanasius, De incarnatione, 21, M.G. XXV, p. 123.

41. St. Justin regarded the belief in the General Resurrection as one of the
cardinal articles of the Christian faith: if one does not believe in the
Resurrection of the dead, one can hardly be regarded as a Christian at all;
Dial, 80, M.G. VI, 665: ot και λέγουσι μή είναι νεκρών άνάστασιν, αλλ9 άμα τω
άποθανεΐν τάς ψυχάς αυτών άναλαμβανέσθαι είς ούρανόν, μή απολαμβάνετε αυτούς
χριστιανούς. Cf. Ε. Gilson, UEsprit de la Philosophie Medievale, I (Paris 1932),
p. 177: “On surprendrait aujourd’hui beaucoup de chretiens en leur disant que la
croyance en V immortalite de I’dme chez certains des plus anciens Peres est
obscure au point d’etre a peu pres inexistante. Cest pourtant un fait, et il est
important de le noter parce qu’il met merveilleusement en relief Vaxe central de
I’anthropologie chretienne et la raison de son evolution historique. Au fond, un
Christianisme sans immortalite de I’ame n’eut pas ete absolument inconcevable et
la preuve en est qu’il a ete congue. Ce qui serait, au contraire, absolument
inconcevable, c’est un Christianisme sans resurrection de I’Homme.” See Excursus
II, Anima mortalis.

42. Paul Florensky, The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, An Essay in Christian
Theodicy (Moscow, 1914), p. 291-292 [Russian].

43. Cf. the most interesting remarks of E. Gilson in his Gifford lectures,
L’Esprit de la Philosophie Medievale, I (Paris, 1932), the whole chapter IX,
L’anthropologie chretienne, p. 173 ss. Gilson seems to have underestimated the
Aristotelian elements in Early Patristics, but he gives an excellent mis au
point of the whole problem.

44. In his early dialogue Eudemus, or On the Soul, composed probably ca. 354 or
353, Aristotle still clings close to Plato and plainly professes the belief in
an individual survival or immortality of the soul. It was a kind of a sequel to
the Phaedo, a book of personal consolation like it. There was the same intimate
quest for immortality, for the after-life, “a fervor of longing for the peace
and security of the heavenly plains” [W. Jaeger, Aristoteles, Grundlegung einer
Geschichte seiner Entwkklung (Berlin, 1923); English translation by R. Robins,
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1934, p. 40]. It is worth noticing that even so early
Aristotle used to describe the soul as an “eidos,” although not in the same
sense as in his later writings; Simpl., in De anima III.62, frg. 46 Rose; Heitz
p. 51: και διά τούτο και έν τω Εύδήμω διαλόγω εΐδος τι αποφαίνεται την ψυχήν
εΐναι, και έν τούτοις έπαινεΐ τους των ειδών δεκτικήν λέγοντος τήν ψυχήν, ουχ
ολην, άλλα νοητική ν ως τών αληθών δευτέρως ειδών γνωστικήν. In his later works,
and specially in De anima, Aristotle abandons and criticizes his earlier view.
And in his Ethics, in any case, he has no “eschatological” perspective whatever.
“Now death is the most terrible of all things, for it is the end, and nothing is
thought to be any longer either good or bad for the dead” [Eth. Nicom. III.6,
1115a 27]. Yet, he suggests, “we must, as far as we can, make ourselves immortal
(έφ’ οσον ενδέχεται άθανατίζειν) and strain every nerve to live in accordance
with the best thing in us” [1177b 33]. But this means only that one has to live
in accordance with reason, which reason is hardly human, but rather superhuman.
“But such a life would be too high for man (κρείττω ή κατ’ άνθρωπον), for it is
not in so far as he is man that he will live so, but in so far as something
divine is present in him” [1117b 26]. The very purpose of human life, and the
complete happiness of man, consists in a contemplation of the things noble and
divine [1177a 15]. “And it is a life such as the best which we enjoy, and enjoy
but for a short time (μικρόν χρόνον), for it is ever in this state, which we
cannot be, etc.” [Metaphysics, 7, 1072b 15]. It would be a divine life, and it
is beyond the human reach. “God is always in that good state in which we
sometimes (ττοτέ) are” [1.25]. Even contemplation does not break the earthly
circle of human existence. No after-death destiny is mentioned at all. The
attempt of Thomas Aquinas and of his school to read the doctrine of human
immortality into Aristotle was hardly successful. One may adapt the Aristotelian
conception for Christian purposes, and this was just what was done by the
Fathers. But Aristotle himself obviously “was not a Moslem mystic, nor a
Christian theologian” [R. D. Hicks, in the “Introduction” to his edition of De
anima, Cambridge, at the University Press, 1934, p. XVI].

45. De anima, 402a 6: εστί γαρ οΐον αρχή τών ζώων; 412b 16: τό τι ή εήναι και ο
λόγος; 415b 8: του ζώντος σώματος αιτία και αρχή; 415b 17: τό τέλος; De part.
anim. 64Lamentations 27 : ώς ή κινούσα και ώς τό τέλος; Metaph. 7. 10, 1035b 14:
ή κατά τόν λόγον ουσία κατά τό ειδος και τό τι ην ειναι τω τοιώδε σώματι.

46. Aristotle plainly rejected any speech of “communion,” “composition,” or
“connection” of soul with body (συνουσία ή σύνθεσις ή σύνδεσμος); “the proximate
matter and the form are one and the same thing, the one potentially, and the
other actually,” εστί ο’ ή εσχάτη υλη και ή μορφή τό αυτό καΐ ’εν, τό μέν
δυνάμει τό δ’ ένεργόν. Metaph. Η. 6 1045b 9s. Cf. F. Ravaisson, Essai sur la
metaphysique d’Aristote (Paris, 1836), I, p. 419-420: The soul is ’Ία realite
derniere d’un corps” that which gives it life and proper individuality. “Elle
n’est pas le corps, mais sans le corps elle ne pent pas etre. Elle est quelque
chose du corps; et ce quelque chose n’est pas ni la figure, ni le mouvement, ni
un accident quelconque, mais la forme meme de la vie, Vactivite specifique qui
determine Vessence et tons ses accidents”; cf. O. Hamelin, Le Systeme
d’Aristote, p. 374: “cette aptitude a fonctionner est precisement ce qu’Aristote
appelle I’entelechie premiere du corps.”

47. G. S. Brett, A History of Psychology, Ancient and Patristic (London, 1912),
p. 103; cf. H. Siebeck, Geschichte der Psychologie, 1.2 (Gotha, 1884), s. 13f.
Prof. E. Caird, The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers (Glasgow,
1904), I, p. 274ff., points out the complete originality of the Aristotelian
conception of the soul. “The Aristotelian idea of the soul is, indeed, a new and
original conception.” The soul is to Aristotle not the Intelligence, but just
“the form which realizes, or brings into activity and actuality, the capacities
of an organic body.” And therefore, there can hardly be any inter-telauon of the
soul and the body, for they are really one and the same reality: “soul and body
seem to be taken by him as different, but essentially correlated aspects of the
life of one individual substance.” And yet this is only one of the aspects of
the Aristotelian conception. And in many respects Aristotle comes back to a
Platonic idea of a composite being, σύνθετον, in which the heterogeneous
elements are combined, a spiritual principle and a material body, p. 282, 317.

48. De part. anim. 64Lamentations 18 : απελθούσης γουν (της ψυχής) ούκέτι ζώων
έστι; Meteor. IV.12, 389b 31: νεκρός άνθρωπος ομώνυμος.

49. On Aristoxenus, see Zeller, II.2, s. 888 and note: ap. Cicer. Tusc. 1.10.20,
ipsius corporis intentionem quandam (animam); ap. Lactantium, Instit. VII. 13,
qui negavit omnino ullam esse animam, etiam cum vivit in cor pore; on
Dikaearchus, Zeller, s. 889f and notes: Cicer. Tusc. 1.10.21, nihil esse omnino
animum et hoc esse nomen totum inane; Sext. Pyrrh. 11.31, μη εΐναι την ψυχήν;
Math. VII, 349, μηδέν εΐναι αυτήν παρά τό πώς έχον σώμα; on Strato, Zeller, s.
9l6f and notes.

50. G. S. Brett, p. 159.

51. “See Zeller, s. 864ff.

52. Alexander of Aphrodisias, in De anima, 16.2 Bruns; 21.24: φθαρτού σώματος
είδος; cf. Zeller, III.l, s. 712ff.

53. De anima, 129a 28: ή νοητική ψυχή; Eth. Nicom. X.7, 1178a 6: “since reason
more than anything else is man,” εΐπερ τουτο μάλιστα άνθρωπος.

54. R. D. Hicks, p. 326; E. Rohde, Psyche, Seelencult und
Unsterb-lichkeitsglaube der Griechen, 3 Aufl. (193), B. II, s. 305, suggested
that the whole doctrine of Nous was simply a survival of Aristotle’s early
Platonism. This idea was taken up by W. Jaeger, op. cit., p. 332: “In this
connection the third book On the soul, which contains the doctrine of Nous,
stands out as peculiarly Platonic and not very scientific. This idea is an old
and permanent element of Aristotle’s philosophy, one of the main roots of his
metaphysics . .. On and around the psycho-physical theory of the soul was
subsequently constructed, as it appears, without, however, bridging the gulf
between two parts whose intellectual heritages were so different.. . The
doctrine of Nous was a traditional element, inherited from Plato.”

55. De gen. anim. II.3, 736b 27: λείπεται δέ τόν νουν μόνον θύραθεν έπεισιέναι
και θειον ειναι μόνον, ούθέν γαρ αύτοϋ κοινωνεί σωματική ενέργεια; De anima,
4l3b 25: εοικε ψυχής γένος έτερον είναι, και τούτο μόνον ενδέχεται χωριζεσθαι
καθάπερ το άΐδιον του φθαρτού; 430a 5: soul and body cannot be separated, ούκ
έ’στιν ή ψυχή χωριστή του σώματος; “there is, however, no reason why some parts
(of the soul) should not be separated, if they are not actualities of any body
whatsoever,” δια το μηθένος εΐναι σώματος εντελέχειας; 430a 17: καΐ ουτος ό νους
χωριστός και απαθής και αμιγής, τη ουσία ών ενέργεια . . ., χωρισθείς δ’ εστι,
μόνον τουθ’ οπερ εστιν, και τούτο μόνον άθάνατον και άΐδιον .. , ό δέ παθητικός
νους φθαρτός και άνευ τούτο ουδέν.

56. De anima, 430a 25: ού μνημονεύομεν δ9 δτι τούτο μέν άλσ... , . .δέ παθητικός
νους φθαρτός; cf. 408b 27: διό και τούτον φθειρομένου οϋτε μνημονεύει, οϋτε
φιλεΐ; the meaning is obvious: whatever does survive in man after his physical
death, the memory is lost, and therewith the individual continuity. See Zeller,
II.2, p. 574, n. 3: die Continuitat des Bewusstseins zwischen dem Leben des mit
der lei-dentlichen Vernunft verbundenen und des von ihr freien Nus sowohl nach
ruckwdrts wie nach vorwarts aufhebt”; cf. G. Rodier, in the notes to his
edition, II, p. 465 s. This was the interpretation of ancient commentators too.

57. Alexander of Aphrodisias, in De anima, 89.11 Bruns: καΐ £στΐν ό τοιούτος
νους χωριστός τε και απαθής και αμιγής άλλω, δι πάντα αύτφ δια το χωρίς ϋλης
είναι υπάρχει. Χωριστός τε γαρ καΐ αυτός καθ’ αυτόν ών δια τούτο. ’Απαθής δέ ων
καΐ μή με-μιγμένος ϋλη τινι και άφθαρτος έστιν, ενέργεια ών καΐ εΐδος χωρίς
δυνάμεως τε καΐ ϋλης’ τοιούτον δέ δν δέδεικται ύπ’ ’Αριστοτέλους το πρώτον
αίτιον, δ καΐ κυρίως Μστι νους; 90.23-91.1: ό ουν νοούμενος άφθαρτος έν ήμΐν
οδτος έστιν δτι χωριστός τε έν ήμΐν και άφθαρτος νους, δν και θύραθεν
’Αριστοτέλης λέγει, νους ό έξωθεν γινόμενος έν ήμΐν, άλλ’ ούχ ή δύναμις της έν
ήμΐν ψυχής, ουδέ ή έξις; Mantissa, 108, 22: θύραθεν έστι λεγόμενος νους ό
ποιητικός, ούκ ών μόριον καΐ δύναμίς τις της ημετέρας ψυχής, άλλ’ έξωθεν
γινόμενος έν ήμΐν, δταν αυτόν νοώμεν; 113: χωριστός δέ λέγεται ό θύραθεν νους
και χωρίζεται ημών, ούχ ώς μετ’ ών που και αμείβων τόπον, άλλα χωριστός μέν ώς
καθ’ αυτόν τε ών και μή σύν ϋλη, χωριζόμενος δέ ημών τω μή νοεΐσθαι κτλ. . . .
This interpretation is accepted by most modem scholars: F. Ravaisson, Essai sur
la Metaphysique d’Aristote (Paris, 1837), I, p. 587-588; Ch. Renouvier, Manuel
de Philosophie anc’tenne (Paris, 1844), II, 134, note 3; E. Rohde, Psyche, II,
-30Iff.; E. Zeller, II.2, s. 566f.: “gelehrt hat er nur die Fortdauer des
denkenden Geistes, die Bedingungen des personlichen Daseins dagegen hat er ihm
hierbei entsagen; . . . so wenig uns seine Metaphysik einen klaren und
widerspruchlosen Aufschluss uber die Individualitat gab, ebensowenig gtbt uns
seine Psychologie einen solchen uber die Personlichkeit”; O. Hamelin, System
d’Aristote, 2ed. (Paris), p. 387; “Aristote a laisse le probleme sans solution,
ou plutot peut-etre il a volontairement evite de le poser!’ The mediaeval
interpretation of the Aritotelian conception of the soul was very different.
Thomas Aquinas and others insisted that Aristotle himself made a distinction
between an animal soul and an “intelligent soul” of man, and that he regarded
this human soul as an immortal and surviving individual being. One can agree
that the Aristotelian conception could be remolded to such an effect, and this
was precisely what was done by the Fathers. But it is hardly probable that
Aristotle himself professed an individual immortality. The Thomistic thesis was
presentd with great vigor by M. De Corte, La Doctrine de VIntelligence chez
Aristote (Paris, J. Vrin, 1934). But the author himself had to concede that
Aristotle never thought in the terms of personality, but perhaps subconsciously
[p. 91ss].

58. Hegel, Vorlesungen uber die Aesthetik, S.W. x.2, s. 377: “In seinen Dichtern
und Rednern, Geschichtsschreibern und Philosophen hat Grie-chenland noch nicht
in seinem Mittelpunkte gefasst, wenn man nicht als Schliissel zu Verstdndniss
die Einsicht in die Ideale der Skulptur mitbringt, und von dies em Standpunkt
der Plastik aus so wo hi die Gestalten der epischen und dramatischen Helden, als
auch die wirklichen Staatsmdnner und Philosophen betrachtet”; see the whole of
the section on Sculpture, which was for Hegel a peculiarly “classical art,” s.
353ff.

59. A. F. Lossev, Essays on Ancient Symbolism and Mythology, t I (Moscow, 1930),
p. 670, 632, 633. This book is a valuable contribution to research on Plato and
Platonism, including Christian Platonism. Passed by the ordinary censorship in
Soviet Russia, the book was very soon confiscated and taken out of circulation
upon the insistence of anti-religious leaders, and the whole stock was
apparently destroyed. Very few copies survived. The author was probably
imprisoned. Cf. also Lossev’s earlier book, Ancient Cosmos and Modern Science
(Moscow, 1927), a fine thrilling study of Neoplatonism, particularly of Proclus,
with valuable excursus on the earlier thinkers. Both are in Russian.

60. This unity of man is brought forward by Alexander of Aphrodisias in the
important passage of his commentary, in De anima, 23.8: ώς γαρ ου λέγομεν
βαδίζειν την ψυχήν η όραν ή άκούειν, άλλα κατά την ψυχήν τον άνθρωπον, ούτως
καί, οδσας αλλάς ενεργείας τε καί κινήσεις ώς έμψυχος τε καί ώς άνθρωπος
ένεργεΐ, ούχ ή ψυχή έστιν ή ενεργούσα τε και κινούμενη . . . αλλ’ εστί και έν
έκείναις το ζώον καί ό άνθρωπος κατά τήν ψυχήν ενεργών, καθ’ ην εστίν αύτω το
είναι άνθρώπω.

61. It is true that Nemesius of Emesa, in his famous treatise De natura hominis,
formally rejected the Aristotelian definition of the soul, as of an εντελέχεια
of the body; M.G. XL, c. 565: ου δύναμιν τοίνυν ή ψυχή, κατ’ ούδένα τρόπον
εντελέχεια του σώματος είναι άλλ’ ουσία αυτοτελής, ασώματος. But his position
was rather exceptional, since he was inclined to admit the pre-existence of the
soul.

62. Athenagoras, De resurrectione mort., 13, p. 63 Schwartz: άπλανεστάτω δέ
πεπιστεύκαμεν έχεγγύω τη του δημιουργήσαντος ή μας γνώμη, καθ’ ην έποίησεν
ανθρωπον εκ ψυχής αθανάτου και σώματος νουν τε συγκατασκεύασεν αύτώ καΐ νόμου
εμφυτον έπί σωτηρία καΐ φυλακή τών παρ5 αύτου διδυμένον: ή μεν της γενέσεως
αίτια πιστουται την εις αεί διαμονή ν, ή δε διαμονή τήν άνάστασιν, ής χωρίς ουκ
αν διαμείνειν άνθρωπος, εκ δέ τών είρημένων εύδήλον ώς τή της γενέσεως αιτία και
τη γνώμη του ποιήσαντος δείκνυνται σαφώς σαφώς ή άνάστασις; 15, ρ. 65: ει γαρ
πάσα κοινώς ή τών ανθρώπων φύσις εκ ψυχής αθανάτου και του κατά τήν γένεσιν αύτη
συναρμοσθέντος σώματος έχει τήν σύστασιν και μήτε τή φύσει του σώματος χωρίς
άπεκλήρωσεν θεός τήν τοιάνδε γένεσιν ή τήν ζωήν και τον σύμπαντα βίον, αλλά τοις
έκ τούτων ήνωμένοις άνθρώποις, ϊν, έξ ών ήνωνται και ζώσι, διαβιώσαντα εις εν τι
και κοινόν καταλήξωσιν τέλος, δει, πάντως ενός δντος έξ αμφοτέρων ζώου του και
πάσχοντος όπόσα πάθη ψυχής και όπόσα του σώματος ενεργούντος τε και πράττοντος
δποσα της αισθητικής ή τής λογικής δεΐται κρίσεως, προς εν τι τέλος άναφέρεσθαι
πάντα τον έκ τούτων είρμόν, ίνα πάντα και διά πάντων συντρέχη προς μίαν άρμονίαν
και τήν αύτήνσυμπάθειαν, ανθρώπου γένεσις, ανθρώπου φύσις, ανθρώπου ζωή,
ανθρώπου πράξεις και πάθη και βίος και το τή φύσει προσήκον τέλος; ρ. 66: ταύτης
γάρ χωρίς οϋτ’ αν ένωθείη, τά αυτά μέρη κατά φύσιν άλλήλοις, οϋτ’ αν συσταίη τών
αυτών ανθρώπων ή φύσις; ό δέ και νουν και λόγον δεξάμενος έστι άνθρωπος, ου ψυχή
καθ’ έαυτήν, ανθρωπον άρα δει τον έξ αμφοτέρων δντα διαμένειν εις αεί, τούτον δέ
διαμένειν αδύνατον μή άνιστόμενον’ αναστάσεως γάρ μή γινομένης, ουκ άν ή τών
ανθρώπων ώς ανθρώπων διαμένει φύσις. On the Aristotelian background of
Athenagoras’ conception see M. Pohlenz, Zeitsckrift fur die Wissensch.
Theologie, Bd. 47, s. 241 ff.; cf. E. Schwartz, index graecus to his edition of
Aihenagorus, s.v. Eldos, s. 105. See also J. Lehmann, Die Auferstehungslehre des
Athenagoras, Diss. (Leipsiz, 1890).

63. Cf. E. Gilson, L’Esprit de la Philosophie Medievale, I (Paris, 1932), p.
199: “Lorsqu’on pese les expressions d’Athenagore, la profondeur Deuteronomy
1:1-46’influence exercee par la Bonne Nouvelle sur la pensee philosophique
apparait a plein. Cree par Dieu comme une individual^ distincte, conserve par un
acte de creation continuee dans l’etre qu’il a recu de lui, l’homme est
desormais le personnage d’un drame qui est celui de sa propre destinee. Comme il
ne dependait pas de nous d’exister, il ne depend pas de nous de ne plus exister.
Le decret divin nous a condamnes a l’etre; faits par la creation, refaits par la
redemption, et a quel prix! nous n’avons le croix qu’entre une misere ou une
beatitude egalement eternelles. Rien de plus resistant qu’une individualite de
ce genre, prevue, voulue, e’lue par Dieu, indestructible comme le decret divin
lui-meme qui l’a fait naitre; mais rien aussi qui soit plus etranger a la
philosophie de Platon comme a celle d’Aristote. La encore, a partir du moment ou
elle visait pleine justification rationelle de son esperance, la pens£e
chrotienne se trouvait contrainte a l’originalite.”

64. St. Jerome, Epist. 38, alias 61, ad Pammachium.

65. Cf. Origen, De Principiis, 11.10.3, Koetschau 184: qui vel pro intellectus
exiguiiate, vel explanationis inopia valde vilem et abjectum sensum de
resurrectione corporis introducunt.

66. Cf. F. Prat, Origene, Le theologian et I’exeghe (Paris, 1907), p. 94:
“Contre son habitude, Origene se montre disciple trop fidele du Stagirite”; E.
de Faye, Origene, Sa vie, son oeuvre, sa pensee, v. Ill (Paris, 1928), p. 172,
suggested that Origen knew Aristotle quite well and had studied directly at
least De anima and the Nicomachean Ethics. “Notre theologien est beaucoup plus
redevable a Aristote qu’on ne le suppose. Directement ou indirectement, il a
subi son influence. Celle ci s’est fait sentir notamment dans le domaine de la
science de I’homme.” And de Faye insisted that one could never understand
Origen’s ideas on the soul without a careful and detailed confrontation with
those of Aristotle. See also R. Cadiou, La Jeunesse dOrigene (Paris, 1935), p.
119.

67. Origen dealt with the doctrine of the Resurrection on several occasions:
first in his early commentary on the first Psalm and in a special treatise De
resurrectione, which is now available only in fragments preserved by Mehodius
and in the Apology of Pamphilus; then in De Principiis; and finally in Contra
Celsum. There was no noticeable development in his views. See Selecta in Psalms
1:5, M.G. XII, c. 1906: δπερ πότε έχαρακτηρίζετο έν τη σαρκι, τούτο χαράκτη
ρισθήσεται έν τω πνευματικώ σώματι; c 1907: δ σπερματικός λόγος έν τω κόκκω του
σίτου δραξάμενος της παρακείμενης ϋλης, και δι’ δλης αυτής χωρίσας κτλ.; cf. ap.
Method. De resurr. 1.223, p. 244 Bonw.: τό ύλικόν ύποκε’ιμενον ουδέποτε έχει
ταύτόν διόπερ ού κακώς ποταμός ώνόμαστε τό σώμα, διότι ώς προς τό ακριβές τάχα
ουδέ δύο ήμερων τό πρώτον ύποκείμενον ταυτόν έστιν έν τφ σώματι ημών .. . καν
ρευστή ή ν ή φύσις του σώματος, τω τό είδος τό χαράκτηρίζον τό σώμα ταύτόν
εΐναι, ώς και τους τύπους μένειν τους αυτούς τος τήν ποιότητα Πέτρου και Παύλου
τήν σωματικήν παριστάνοντος . . . τούτο τό είδος, καθ’ δ ειδιοποιεΐται ό Παύλος
καΐ ό Πέτρος, τό σωματικόν, δ έν τη άναστάσει περι-τίθεται πάσιν τη ψυχή, επί τό
κρεΐττον μεταβάλλον. The same ap. Pamphil. Apologia pro Origene, cap. 7, M.G.
SVII, c. 594: nos vero post corruptionem mundi eosdem ipsos futuros esse homines
dicimus, licet non in eodem statu, neque in iisdem passionibus; p. 594-5: per
illam ipsam substantialem rationem, quae salva permanet; ratio ilia substantiae
corporalis in ipsis corboribus permanebat\ p. 595: rationis illius virtus quae
est insita in interioribus ejus medullis; De Princ. II.10.I, Koetschau: virtus
resurre-ctionis; schema aliquid\ 10.3: Ita namque etiam nostra corpora velut
granum cadere in terrain putanda sunt; quibus insita ratio, ea quae substantiam
continet corporalem, quamvis emortua fuerint corpora et corrupta atque dispersa,
verbo tamen Dei ratio ilia ipsa quae semper in substantia corporis salva est,
erigat ea de terra, et restituat ac reparet, sicut ea virtus quae est in grano
frumenti. ..; Dei jussu ex terreno et animali corpore corpus reparat spiritale,
quod habitare possit in coelis; Sic et in ratione hamanorum corporum manent
quaedam surgendi antiqua principia, et quasi έντεριώνη id est seminarium
mortuorum, sinu terrae conjovetur. Cum autem judicii dies advenerit, et in voce
Archangeli et in novissima tuba tremuerit terra, movebuntur statim semina, et in
puncto horae mortuos germinabunt; non tamen easdem carnes, nee in his formis
restituent quae fuerunt; cf. III.6.Isq., Koetschau, 280 ss.; 111.6.6., p. 288:
sed hocidem (corpus), abjectis his infirmitatibus in quibus nunc est, in gloriam
transmu-tabitur spiritale effectum, ut quod fuit indignitatis vas, hoc ipsum
expurga-tum fiat vas honoris et beatitudinis habitaculum; Contra Celsum, IV.57,
Koetschau 330: διό και την άνάστασιν των νεκρών άναδεχόμενοι μεταβολάς φάμεν
γενέσθαι ποιοτήτων τών έν σώμασιν* έκεΐ σπει-ρόμενά τίνα αυτών έν φθορά
εγείρεται έν αφθαρσία και σπει-ρόμενα έν ατιμία εγείρεται έν δόξη κτλ.; V.18, ρ
: ου το γε-νησόμενον σώμα φήσι σπείρεσθαι, αλλ’ από του σπειρομένου και γυμνού
βαλλομένου έπι την γήν λέγει, δίδοντος του θεού έκά-στω τών σπερμάτων ίδιον
σώμα, οιονεί άνάστασιν γίγνεσθαι’ άπό του καταβεβλημένου σπέρματος έγειρομένου
στάχυος έν τοις τοιοΐσδε’ οιονεί έν νάπυΐ ή έπί μείζονος δένδρου έν έλαίας
πυ-ρήνι f] τινι τών άκροθρύων; V.23, ρ. : ήμεΐς μεν συν ου φάμεν το διαφθαρέν
σώμα έπανέρχεσθαι εις την έξ αρχής φύσιν. . . λέγομεν γαρ ώσπερ έπι του κόκκου
του σίτου εγείρεται στάχυς, ούτω λόγος τις έγκειται τω σώματι, άφ1 οδ μη
φθειρομένου εγείρεται το σώμα έν αφθαρσία. He contrasts himself, his xiew, with
the Stoic idea on an identical repetition. See D. Huetius, Origeniana, l.II, c.
II, q.9; de resurrectione mortuorum, M.G. XVII, c. 980 sq.; Redepenning,
Origenes (Bonn, 1846), Bd. II, s. 118ff.; C. Ramers, Des Origenes Lehre von der
Auferstehung des Fleisches, In. Diss. (Trier, 1851); J. B. Kraus, Die Lehre das
Origens iiber die Auferstehung der Toten, Programm (Regensburg, 1859), J. Denis,
La Philosophie d’Origene (Paris, 1884), p. 297 ss.; Ch. Bigg, The Christian
Platonists of Alexandria (Oxford, 1886), p. 225-227, 265f., 291; the soul has a
vital assimilative “spark,” or “principles,” which lays hold of fitting matter,
and shapes it into a habitation suited to its needs; the same process, by which
it repairs the daily waste of our organism now, will enable it then to construct
a wholly new tenement for itself; L. Atzberger, Geschichte der Christlichen
Eschatologie innerhalb der Vornizaenischen Zeit (Freiburg i/Br., 1896), s.
366-456; N. Bonwetsch, Die Theologie des Methodius von Olympus, Abhandlungen d.
K. Gesellschaft d. Wissenschaften zu Gottingen, Phil.-Hist. Klasse, N.F. VII,
1904, s. 105 ff.; F. Prat, Origene, p. 87 ss.; G. Bardy, Origene, Dictionnaire
de la Theologie Cath., t.XI, 1931, c. 1545 s.; R. Cadiou, La Jeunesse d’Origene,
p. 117 ss.: “virtualite physique ou Γ idee du corps/’ nune idee active/’ “a la
fois une idee et une energie” (p. 122, note); “I’dme conserve toujours les
virtualites d’une vie physique proportionnees a ses besoins.” Cf. also Bp.
Westcott’s article on Origen in Smith and Wace Dictionary, IV, 1887.

68. Among the late scholastics, Durandus of San Porciano must be mentioned,
’doctor resolutissimus” (d. 1332 or 1334). He puts the question: “Supposito quod
anima Petri fieret in mater ia quae fuit in cor pore Pauli, utrum esset idem
Petrus qui prius erat? and answers positively: “cuicumque materiae uniatur anima
Petri in resurrectione, ex quo est eadem forma secundum numerum per consequens
erit idem Petrus secundum numerum”; quoted by Fr. Segarra, S.J., De identhate
corporis mortalis et corporis re-surgenus (Madrid, 1929), p. 147. See
Quaestiones de Novissimis, auctore L. Billot, S.J., Romae 1902, thesis ΧΙΠ, p.
143 sq.

69. See St. Methodius’ De resurrectione in the complete edition of Bonwetsch,
specially the 3rd book. Cf. Bonwetsch, opus cit., S. 119 ff.: J. Farges, Les
idees morales et religieuses de Methode d’Olympe (Paris, 1929); Folke Bostrom,
Studier till den Grekiska Theologins Fralsningslara (Lund, 1932), s. 135 ff. and
passim.

70. Of St. Gregory of Nyssa’s writings, his dialogue De anima et resurrectione,
his homilies De opificio hominis and the Great Catechetical oration are of
special importance. See the introductory article of Srawley in his edition of
the Catechetical oration, specially on the relation of St. Gregory to St.
Methodius. Cf. Hilt, Des heil. Gregors von Nyssa Lehre vom Menschen (Koln,
1890); F. Kiekamp, Die Gotteslehre des heiligen Gregor von Nyssa, I (Miinster,
1895), s. 41 ff.; K. Gronau, Poseidonius und die jiidisch-christliche
Genesis-exegese (Berlin, 1974), s. 141 ff., emphasizes the influence of
Poseidonius and specially of his commentary on the Timaeus \ Bostrom, op. cit.,
s. 159.

71. The term ζωτική δύναμις is of Stoic origin and comes probably from
Poseidonius. The first instance of its use is in Diodoros of Sycilia, Hist. II,
51, and the source of Diodoros on this occasion is supposed to be just
Poseidonius [on Arabia]. Cf. Cicero, De natura deorum II.9, 24; omne igitur quod
vivit, she animal aive terra editum, id vivit propter inclusum in eo calorem, ex
quo intellegi debet earn caloris naturam vim habere in se vitalem per omnem
mundum pertinentem; comp. 88.51, 127: (genera comnium rerum) quae quidem omnia
earn vim seminis habent in se ut ex uno plura generentur. Carl Reinhardt,
Poseidonius (Miinchen, 1921), s. 244, points out that the Greek word, rendered
by Cicero with “vis seminis,” could hardly be λόγος σπερματικός, but rather
δύναμις σπερματική. «Σπερματικός λόγος ist ein Begriff des alien
Intellectua-lismus, eine Bezeichnung fur die Weltvernunft, die zeugtend wird,
damit die Welt vernunftig werde; daher die Verbindung zwischen den λόγος und den
Qualitaten. Was Cicero, d.h. Poseidonius, unter ’vis seminis’ versteht, ist
angeschaute, in der Natur erlebte, physikalisch demonstrierte Lebenskraft, ein
Zeugen, das wohl planvoll ist, aber vor allem Zeugen ist und bleibt. Bestimmte
sich die Kategorien, worein der Begriff σπερματικός λόγος gedacht war, durch die
Korrelate Materie und Vernunft, υλη και λόγος, so bestimmt sich die Kategorien,
worein der Begriff ’vis seminis’ gedacht ist, durch die Korrelate Kraft und
Wirkung.” The term ζωτική δύναμις is used with a terminological precision by
Philo and Clement of Alexandria.

72. St. Gregory of Nyssa, De anima et resurrectione, Ai.G. XLIV, Colossians 225
sq.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 11: 08B - THE INCARNATION & REDEMPTION (PART 3)
========================================================================

The Incarnation and Redemption.

(Part 3) Time, Eternity, and Redemption

Greek philosophy did not know and was in no way prepared to admit any passage
from time into eternity, the temporal seemed to be eo ipso transitory. That
which is happening can never become everlasting. What is born must inevitably
die. Only what is unborn or unoriginated can persist. Everything that had a
beginning will have an end. Only that which had no beginning can be permanent,
or “eternal.” Therefore, for a Greek philosopher to admit future immortality
meant at once to presuppose an eternal pre-existence. Thus the whole meaning of
the historical process is a kind of descent from eternity into time. The destiny
of man depends upon his innate germs rather than upon his creative achievements.
For a Greek, time was simply a lower or reduced mode of existence. Strictly
speaking, in time nothing is produced or achieved nor is there anything to be
produced or achieved. The “eternal” and invariable realities are merely, as it
were, “projected” into a lower sphere. In this sense Plato called time a “mobile
image of eternity” (Timaeus 37d: είκών κινητόν τινά αιώνος ποιησαι). Plato had
in view astronomical time, i.e. the rotation of the heavens. No real progress is
visualized. On the contrary, time “imitates” eternity and “rolls on according to
the laws of number” (38a, b), just in order to become like the eternal as much
as possible. Time is just this permanent reiteration of itself. The basic idea
is reflection, not accomplishment.73 For everything which is worth existing
really does exist in the most perfect manner before all time, in a static
invariability of the timeless, and there is nothing to add to this perfected
fullness.74 Consequently, all that is happening is to be utterly transient. All
is perfect and complete, and nothing to be perfected or completed. And therefore
the burden of time, this rotation of beginnings and ends, is meaningless and
tiresome. There is no sense of creative duty in the Greek, mind. The
impassibility or even indifference of the sage seem to be the climax of
perfection. The sage is not concerned with or disturbed by all these
vicissitudes of the temporal order. He knows that everything is happening
according to eternal and inviolable laws or measures. He learns amid the tumult
of events to contemplate the invariable and eternal harmony of the Cosmos. The
ancient philosopher out of time dreams of eternity. He dreams of the escape from
this world to another, immovable, impassive, and permanent. Hence the sense of
fate which was so typical before Christ. It was a climax and a limit of ancient
philosophy. The temporal perspective of ancient philosophy is for ever closed
and limited. Yet the Cosmos is eternal, there will be no end of cosmic
“revolutions.” The Cosmos is a periodical being, like a clock. The highest
symbol of life is a recurrent circle. As Aristotle put it, “the circle is a
perfect thing,” and the circle only, not any straight line.75 “This also
explains the common saying that human affairs form a circle, and that there is a
circle in all other things that have a natural movement, both coming into being
and passing away. This is because all other things are discriminated by time,
and end and begin as though conforming to a cycle; for even time itself is
thought to be a circle.”76 The whole conception is obviously based on
astronomical experience. Indeed, celestial movements are periodical and
recurrent. The whole course of rotation is accomplished in a certain period [the
“Great Year,” μέγας ένιαυτός]. And then comes a repetition, a new circle or
cycle. There is no continuous progress in time, but rather “eternal returns,” a
cyclophoria.77 The Pythagoreans seem to have been the first to profess clearly
an exact repetition. Eudemus refers to this Pythagorean conception. “If we are
to believe the Pythagoreans, then in a certain time I shall again be reading to
you, with the same rod in my hands, and all of you, even as at this moment, will
be sitting in front of me, and in the same way everything else will come
again.”78 With Aristotle this periodical conception of the Universe took a
strict scientific shape and was elaborated into a coherent system of Physics.79
Later this idea of periodical returns was again taken up by the Stoics. The
early Stoics professed a periodical dissolution (έκ-πύρωσις) and palingenesis of
all things, and then every minute detail will be exactly reproduced. There will
be again a Socrates, the son of Sophroniscos and Phenareti, and he will be
married to a Xanthippe, and will be again betrayed by an Anytus and a Meletes.80
The same idea we find in Cleanthes and Chrysippus, in Poseidonius and Marcus
Aurelius and all the others. This return was what the Stoics called the
“universal restoration,” an άπτοκατάστασις των πάντων. And it was obviously an
astronomical term.81 There will be certainly some difference, but obviously no
progress whatever. And on a circle all positions are indeed relative. It is a
kind of a cosmic perpetuum mobile. All individual existences are hopelessly
involved in this perpetual cosmic rotation, in these cosmic rhythms and “astral
courses” [this was precisely what the Greeks used to call “destiny” and “fate,”
ή ειμαρμένη; vis positionis astroruni]. It is to be kept in mind that this exact
repetition of worlds does not imply necessarily any continuity of individual
existences, any survival or perseverance of the individuals, any individual
immortality. The Universe itself is always numerically the same, and its laws
are immutable and invariable, and each next world will exactly resemble the
previous one in all particulars. But, strictly speaking, no individual survival
is required for that. The same causes will inevitably produce the same effects.
Nothing really new can ever happen. There is a continuity in the Cosmos, but
hardly any true continuity of individuals.

Such was at least the view of Aristotle and the Aristotelians, and of some
Stoics.82 This periodical idea was kept by the Neoplatonists as well.83 It was a
miserable caricature of the resurrection. The permanence of these rotations,
this nightmare of invariable cosmic predestination, a real imprisonment of every
being, make this theory dull and frightening. There is no real history. “Cyclic
motion and the transmigration of souls is not history,” remarks Lossev wittily.
“It was a history built up on the pattern of astronomy, it was indeed itself a
kind of astronomy.”84 The very feeling or apprehension of time is radically
changed in Christianity. Time begins and ends, but in time human destiny is
accomplished. Time itself is essentially unique, and never comes back. And the
General Resurrection is the final limit of this unique time, of this unique
destiny of the whole creation. In Greek philosophy a cycle was the symbol of
time, or rotation. In Christian philosophy time is symbolized rather by a line,
a beam, or an arrow. But the difference is deeper still. From a Christian point
of view, time is neither an infinite rotation, nor an infinite progression,
which never reaches its goal [“die schlechte Unend-lichkeit” in Hegelian
terminology, or άπειρον of the Greek philosophers]. Time is not merely a
sequence of moments, nor is it an abstract form of multiplicity. Time is
vectorial and finite. The temporal order is organized from within. The
concreteness of purpose binds, from within, the stream of events into an organic
whole. Events are precisely events, and not merely passing happenings. The
temporal order is not the realm of privation, as it was for the Greek mind. It
is more than just a stream. It is a creative process, in which what was brought
to existence from nothingness, by the Divine will, is ascending towards its
ultimate consummation, when the Divine purpose will be fulfilled, on the last
day.85 And the center of history is the Incarnation and the victory of the
Incarnate Lord over death and sin. St. Augustine pointed out this change, which
has been brought about by Christianity, in this admirable phrase: “viam rectam
sequentes, quae nobis est Christus, eo duce it Salvatore, a vano etinepto
imporium circuitu iter fidem mentemque avertamus.”86 St. Gregory of Nyssa
describes the vectoriality of history in this way. “When mankind attains to its
fullness, then, without fail, this flowing motion of nature will cease, having
reached its necessary end; and this life will be replaced by another mode of
existence, distinct from the present, which consists in birth and destruction.
When our nature, in due order, fulfils the course of time, then, without fail,
this flowing motion, created by the succession of generations, will come to an
end. The filling of the Universe will make any further advance or increase
impossible, and then the whole plenitude of souls will return from the dispersed
and formless state to an assembled one, and the very elements will be reunited
in the self-same combination.”89 This end and this goal is the General
Resurrection. St. Gregory speaks of inner fulfillment of history. Time will come
to an end. For sooner or later things will be accomplished. Seeds will mature
and shoot forth. The resurrection of the dead is the one and unique destiny of
the whole world, of the whole Cosmos, One for all and each, an universal and
catholic balance. There is nothing naturalistic about this conception. The power
of God will raise the dead. It will be the new and final revelation of God, of
the Divine might and glory. The General Resurrection is the consummation of the
Resurrection of Our Lord, the consummation of His victory over death and
corruption. And beyond historical time there will be the future Kingdom, “the
life of the age to come.” We are still in via, in the age of hope and
expectation. Even the Saints in heaven still “await the resurrection of the
dead.” The ultimate consummation will come for the whole human race at once.90
Then, at the close, for the whole creation the “Blessed Sabbath,” that very “day
of rest,” the mysterious “Seventh day of creation,” will be inaugurated for
ever. The expected is as yet inconceivable. “It is not yet made manifest what we
shall be” (1 John 3:2). But the pledge is given. Christ is risen.

High Priest and Redeemer In the Epistle to the Hebrews the redeeming work of Our
Lord is depicted as the ministry of the High Priest. Christ comes into the world
to accomplish the Will of God. Through the eternal Spirit He offers His own self
to God, offers His blood for the remission of human sins, and this He
accomplishes through the Passion. By His blood, as the blood of the New
Testament, of the New Covenant, He enters heaven and enters within the very Holy
of Holies, behind the veil. After the suffering of death He is crowned with
glory and honor, and sits on the right hand of God the Father for ever. The
sacrificial offering begins on earth and is consummated in heaven, where Christ
presented and is still presenting us to God, as the eternal High Priest - “High
Priest of the good things to come” (άρχιερευς των μελλόντων αγαθών) as the
Apostle and High Priest of our confession, as the minister of the true
tabernacle and sanctuary of God. In brief, as the Mediator of the New Covenant.
Through the death of Christ is revealed Life Everlasting, “the powers of the age
to come” are disclosed and shown forth (δυνάμεις τε μέλλοντος αιώνος). In the
blood of Jesus is revealed the new and living way, the way into that eternal
Sabbath, when God rests from His mighty deeds.

Thus the death of the Cross is a sacrificial offering. And to offer a sacrifice
does not mean only to surrender. Even from a merely moral point of view, the
whole significance of sacrifice is not the denial itself, but the sacrificial
power of love. The sacrifice is not merely an offering, but rather a dedication,
a consecration to God. The effective power of sacrifice is love (1 Corinthians
13:3). But the offering of the sacrifice is more than the evidence of love, it
is also a sacramental action, a liturgical office, or even a mystery. The
offering of the sacrifice of the Cross is the sacrifice of love indeed, “as
Christ also hath loved us, and given Himself for us, an offering and sacrifice
to God for a sweet-smelling savour” (Ephesians 5:2). But this love was not only
sympathy or compassion and mercy towards the fallen and heavy-laden. Christ
gives Himself not only “for the remission of sins,” but also for our
glorification. He gives Himself not only for sinful humanity, but also for the
Church: to cleanse and to hallow her, to make her holy, glorious and spotless
(Ephesians 5:25). The power of a sacrificial offering is in its cleansing and
hallowing effect. And the power of the sacrifice of the Cross is that the Cross
is the path of glory. On the Cross the Son of Man is glorified and God is
glorified in Him (John 13:31) Here is the fullness of the sacrifice. “Ought not
Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?” (Luke
24:26). The death of the Cross was effective, not as a death of an Innocent One,
but as the death of the Incarnate Lord. “We needed an Incarnate God; God put to
death, that we might live” - to use a bold phrase of St. Gregory of Nazianzus.91
This is the “dreadful and most glorious mystery” of the Cross. On Golgotha the
Incarnate Lord celebrates the Holy Service, in ara crucis, and offers in
sacrifice His own human nature, which from its conception “in the Virgin’s womb”
was assumed into the indivisible unity of His Hypostasis, and in this assumption
was restored to all its original sinlessness and purity. In Christ there is no
human hypostasis. His personality is Divine, yet incarnate. There is the
all-complete fullness of human nature, “the whole human nature,” and therefore
Christ is the “perfect man,” as the Council of Chalcedon said. But there was no
human hypostasis. And consequently on the Cross it was not a man that died. “For
He who suffered was not common man, but God made man, fighting the contest of
endurance,” says St. Cyril of Jerusalem.92 It may be properly said that God dies
on the Cross, but in His own humanity. “He who dwelleth in the highest is
reckoned among the dead, and in the little grave findeth lodging.”93 This is the
voluntary death of One who is Himself Life Eternal, who is in very truth the
Resurrection and the Life. A human death indeed but obviously death within the
hypostasis of the Word, the Incarnate Word. And thence a resurrecting death.

“I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled! I
have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am constrained until it is
accomplished!” (Luke 12:49-50). Fire - the Holy Spirit - descending from on high
in fiery tongues in the “dreadful and unsearchable mystery of Pentecost.” This
was baptism by the Spirit. And Baptism, this is the death on the Cross itself
and the shedding of blood, “the baptism of martyrdom and blood, with which
Christ Himself also was baptized,” as St. Gregory of Nazianzus suggested.94 The
death on the Cross as a baptism by blood is the very essence of the redeeming
mystery of the Cross. Baptism is a cleansing. And the Baptism of the Cross is,
as it were, the cleansing of human nature, which is travelling the path of
restoration in the Hypostasis of the Incarnate Word. This is a washing of human
nature in the outpoured sacrificial blood of the Divine Lamb. And first of all,
a washing of the body: not only a washing away of sins, but a washing away of
human infirmities and of mortality itself. It is the cleansing in preparation
for the coming resurrection: a cleansing of all human nature, of all humanity in
the person of its new and mystical First-born, in the “Second Adam.” This is the
baptism by blood of the whole Church. “Thou hast purchased Thy Church by the
power of Thy Cross.” And the whole Body ought to be and must be baptized with
the baptism of the Cross. “The cup that I drink, you will drink; and with the
baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized” (Mark 10:39; Matthew
20:23).95

Further, the death of the Cross is the cleansing of the whole world. It is the
baptism by blood of all creation, the cleansing of the Cosmos through the
cleansing of the Microcosm. “A purification not for a small part of man’s world,
not for a short time, but for the whole Universe and through eternity,” to quote
St. Gregory of Nazianzus again.96 Therefore all creation mysteriously partakes
in the mortal Passion of the Incarnate Master and Lord. “All creation changed
its face in terror when it beheld Thee hanging on the Cross, Ο Christ… The sun
was darkened and of earth the foundations were shaken: All things suffered in
sympathy with Thee, Who hadst created all things.”97 This was not co-suffering
of compassion or pity, but rather co-suffering of awe and trembling. “The
foundations of the earth were set in trembling by the terror of Thy might,”
co-suffering in the joyous apprehension of the great mystery of the resurrecting
death. “For by the blood of Thy Son is the earth blessed.” “Many indeed are the
miracles of that time,” says St. Gregory of Nazianzus, “God crucified, the sun
darkened and rekindled again; for it was fitting that with the Creator the
creatures should co-suffer. The veil rent in twain. Blood and water shed from
His side, blood because He was man, and water because He was higher than man.
The earth quaked, rocks were rent for the sake of the Rock. The dead rose up for
a pledge of the final and general resurrection. The miracles before the grave
and at the grave - who will worthily sing? But none is like the miracle of my
salvation. A few drops of blood recreate the whole world and become to us what
rennet is to milk, binding us together and compressing us in unity.”98 The death
of the Cross is a sacrament, it has not only a moral, but also a sacramental and
liturgical meaning. It is the Passover of the New Testament. And its sacramental
significance is revealed at the Last Supper. It may seem rather strange that the
Eucharist should precede Calvary, and that in the Upper Room the Savior Himself
should give His Body and His Blood to the disciples. “This cup is the new
testament in my blood, which is shed for you” (Luke 22:20). However, the Last
Supper was not merely a prophetic rite, just as the Eucharist is no mere
symbolic remembrance. It is a true sacrament. For Christ who performs both is
the High Priest of the New Testament. The Eucharist is the sacrament of the
Crucifixion, the broken Body and the Blood outpoured. And along with this it is
also the sacrament of the transfiguration, the mysterious and sacramental
“conversion” of the flesh into the glorious spiritual food (μεταβολή). The
broken Body, dying, yet, in death itself, rising again. For the Lord went
voluntarily to the Cross, the Cross of shame and glory. St. Gregory of Nyssa
gives the following explanation. “Christ does not wait for the constraint of
treachery, nor does He await the thieving attack of the Jews, or the lawless
judgment of Pilate, that their evil might be the fount and source of the general
salvation of men. Of His own economy He anticipates their transgressions by
means of a hierurgic rite, ineffable and unusual. He brings His own Self as an
offering and sacrifice for us, being at once the Priest and the Lamb of God,
that ‘taketh’ the sins of the world. By offering His Body as food, He clearly
showed that the sacrificial offering of the Lamb had already been accomplished.
For the sacrificial body would not have been suitable for food if it were still
animated. And so, when He gave the disciples the Body to eat and the Blood to
drink, then by free will and the power of the sacrament His Body had already
ineffably and invisibly been offered in sacrifice, and His soul, together with
the Divine power united with it, was in those places whither the power of Him
who so ordained transported it.”99 In other words, the voluntary separation of
the soul from the body, the sacramental agony, so to say, of the Incarnate, was,
as it were, already begun. And the Blood, freely shed in the salvation of all,
becomes a “medicine of incorruption,” a medicine of immortality and life.100 The
Lord died on the Cross. This was a true death. Yet not wholly like ours, simply
because this was the death of the Lord, the death of the Incarnate Word, death
within the indivisible Hypostasis of the Word made man. And again, it was a
voluntary death, since in the undefiled human nature, free from original sin,
which was assumed by the Word in the Incarnation, there was no inherent
necessity of death. And the free “taking up” by the Lord of the sin of the world
did not constitute for Him any ultimate necessity to die. Death was accepted
only by the desire of the redeeming Love. His death was not the “wages of
sin.”101 And the main point is that this was a death within the Hypostasis of
the Word, the death of the “enhypostasized” humanity. Death in general is a
separation, and in the death of the Lord His most precious body and soul were
separated indeed. But the one hypostasis of the Word Incarnate was not divided,
the “Hypostatic union” was not broken or destroyed. In other words, though
separated in death, the soul and the body remained still united through the
Divinity of the Word, from which neither was ever estranged. This does not alter
the ontological character of death, but changes its meaning. This was an
“incorrupt death,” and therefore corruption and death were overcome in it, and
in it begins the resurrection. The very death of the Incarnate reveals the
resurrection of human nature. And the Cross is manifested to be life-giving, the
new tree of life, “by which the lamentation of death has been consumed.”102 The
Church bears witness to this on Good Saturday with special emphasis. “Although
Christ died as man, and His holy soul was separated from His most pure body,”
says St. John Damascene, “His Divinity remained both with the soul and the body,
continued inseparable from either. And thus the one hypostasis was not divided
into two hypostases, for from the beginning both body and soul had their being
with the hypostasis of the Word. Although at the hour of death body and soul
were separated from each other, yet each of them was preserved, having the one
hypostasis of the Word.

Therefore the one hypostasis of the Word was also the hypostasis of the body and
of the soul. For neither the body nor the soul ever received any proper
hypostasis, other than that of the Word. The Hypostasis then of the Word is ever
one, and there were never two hypostases of the Word. Accordingly the Hypostasis
of Christ is ever one. And though the soul is separated from the body in space,
yet they remain hypostatically united through the Word.”103

There are two aspects of the mystery of the Cross. It is at once a mystery of
sorrow and a mystery of joy, a mystery of shame and of glory. It is a mystery of
sorrow and mortal anguish, a mystery of desertion, of humiliation and shame.
“Today the Master of Creation and the Lord of Glory is nailed upon the Cross, is
beaten upon the shoulders, and receives spittings and wounds, indignities and
bufferings in the face.”104 The God-man languishes and suffers at Gethsemane and
on Calvary until the mystery of death is accomplished. Before Him are revealed
all the hatred and blindness of the world, all the obstinacy and foolishness of
evil, the coldness of hearts, all the helplessness and pettiness of the
disciples, all the “righteousness” of human pseudo-freedom. And He covers
everything with His all-forgiving, sorrowful, compassionate and co-suffering
love, and prays for those who crucify Him, for verily they do not know what they
are doing. “O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied
thee?” (Micah 6:3) - paraphrased and applied to Our Lord in the Office of Good
Friday, Matins, Antiphon XII, Troparion). The salvation of the world is
accomplished in these sufferings and sorrows, “by His stripes we are healed
(Isaiah 53:5). And the Church guards us against every docetic underestimate of
the reality and fullness of these sufferings ίνα μη κενωθη ό σταυρός του
Χρίστου” (1 Corinthians 1:17). Yet the Church guards us also against the
opposite exaggeration, against all kenotic overemphasis. For the day of the
shameful Crucifixion, when Our Lord was numbered among the thieves, is the day
of glory. “Today we keep the feast, for Our Lord is nailed upon the Cross,” in
the sharp phrase of St. John Chrysostom.105 And the tree of the Cross is an
“ever-glorious tree,” the very Tree of Life, “by which corruption is destroyed,”
“by which the lamentation of death is abolished.” The Cross is the “seal of
salvation,” a sign of power and victory. Not just a symbol, but the very power
of salvation, “the foundation of salvation,” as Chrysostom says - ύπόθεσος της
σωτηρίας. The Cross is the sign of the Kingdom. “I call Him King, because I see
Him crucified, for it is appropriate for a King to die for His subjects.” This
again is St. John Chrysostom. The Church keeps the days of the Cross and
cherishes them as solemnities - not only as a triumph of humility and love, but
also as a victory of immortality and life. “As the life of the creation does the
Church greet Thy Cross, Ο Lord.”106 For the death of Christ is itself the
victory over death, the destruction of death, the abolition of mortality and
corruption, “Thou diest and quickenest me.” And the death of the Cross is a
victory over death not only because it was followed or crowned by the
Resurrection. The Resurrection only reveals and sets forth the victory achieved
on the Cross. The Resurrection is accomplished in the very falling asleep of the
God-man. And the power of the Resurrection is precisely the “power of the
Cross,” “the unconquerable and indestructible and Divine power of the honorable
and life-giving Cross,”107 the power of the voluntary Passion and death of the
God-man. As St. Gregory of Nazianzus puts it: “He lays down His life, but He has
power to take it again; and the veil is rent, for the mysterious doors of Heaven
are opened; the rocks are cleft, the dead rise… He dies, but He gives life, and
by His death destroys death. He is buried, but He rises again. He goes down into
Hell, but He brings up the souls.”108 On the Cross the Lord “restores us to
original blessedness,” and “by the Cross comes joy to the whole world.” On the
Cross the Lord not only suffers and languishes, but rests, “having fallen
asleep, as Thou wert dead.”109 And He gives rest to man too, restores and renews
him, “and resting on the tree, Thou hast given me rest, one who was overburdened
with the burden of sins.” From the Cross Christ sheds immortality upon men. By
his burial in the grave He opens the gates of death, and renews corrupted human
nature. “Every action and every miracle of Christ are most divine and
marvellous,” says St. John Damascene, “but the most marvellous of all is His
honorable Cross. For no other thing has subdued death, expiated the sin of the
first parents, despoiled Hades, bestowed the resurrection, granted power to us
of condemning death itself, prepared the return to original blessedness, opened
the gates of Paradise, given our nature a seat at the right hand of God, and
made us the children of God, save the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The death
of Christ on the Cross clothed us with the hypostatic Wisdom and Power of
God.”110 The mystery of the resurrecting Cross is commemorated especially on
Good Saturday. As it is explained in the Synaxarion of that day, “on Great and
Holy Saturday do we celebrate the divine-bodily burial of Our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ and His descent into Hell, by which being called from corruption,
our race passed to life eternal.” This is not only the eve of salvation. It is
the very day of our salvation. “This is the blessed Sabbath, this is the day of
rest, whereon the Only Begotten Son of God has rested from all His deeds.”111
This is the day of the Descent into Hell. And the Descent into Hell is already
the Resurrection.112 The great “three days of death” (triduum mortis) are the
mysterious sacramental days of the Resurrection. In His flesh the Lord is
resting in the grave, and His flesh is not abandoned by His Divinity. “Though
Thy Temple was destroyed in the hour of the Passion, yet even then one was the
Hypostasis of Thy Divinity and Thy flesh.”113 The Lord’s flesh does not suffer
corruption, it remains incorruptible even in death itself, i.e. alive, as though
it had never died, for it abides in the very bosom of Life, in the Hypostasis of
the Word. As it is phrased in one of the hymns, “Thou hast tasted of death, but
hast not known corruption.114 St. John Damascene suggested that the word
“corruption” (φθορά) has a double meaning. First, it means “all passive states
of man” (τά πάθη) such as hunger, thirst, weariness, the nailing, death itself -
that is, the separation of soul and body. In this sense we say that the Lord’s
body was liable to corruption (φθαρτόν) until the Resurrection. But corruption
also means the complete decomposition of the body and its destruction. This is
corruption in the proper sense - or rather “destruction” (διαφθορά) - but the
body of the Lord did not experience this mode of corruption at all, it remained
even in death “incorrupt.” That is to say, it never became a corpse.115 And in
this incorruption the Body has been transfigured into a state of glory. The soul
of Christ descends into Hell, also unseparated from the Divinity, “even in Hell
in the soul, as God,” - the “deified soul” of Christ, as St. John of Damascus
suggests, ψυχή τεθεωμένη.116 This descent into Hell means first of all the entry
or penetration into the realm of death, into the realm of mortality and
corruption. And in this sense it is simply a synonym of death itself.117 It is
hardly possible to identify that Hell, or Hades, or the “subterranean abodes” to
which the Lord descended, with the “hell” of sufferings for the sinners and the
wicked. In all its objective reality the hell of sufferings and torments is
certainly a spiritual mode of existence, determined by the personal character of
each soul. And it is not only something to come, but to a great extent is
already constituted for an obstinate sinner by the very fact of his perversion
and apostasy. The wicked are actually in hell, in darkness and desolation. In
any case one cannot imagine that the souls of the unrepentant sinners, and the
Prophets of the Old Dispensation, who spake by the Holy Spirit and preached the
coming Messiah, and St. John the Baptist himself, were in the same “hell.” Our
Lord descended into the darkness of death. Hell, or Hades, is just the darkness
and shadow of death, rather a place of mortal anguish than a place of penal
torments, a dark “sheol,” a place of hopeless disembodiment and disincarnation,
which was only scantily and dimly fore-illuminated by the slanting rays of the
not-yet-risen Sun, by the hope and expectation yet unfulfilled. Because of the
Fall and Original Sin, all mankind fell into mortality and corruption. And even
the highest righteousness under the Law could save man neither from the
inevitability of empirical death, nor that helplessness and powerlessness beyond
the grave, which depended upon the impossibility of a natural resurrection, upon
the lack of power to restore the broken wholeness of human existence. That was,
as it were, a kind of ontological infirmity of the soul, which, in the
separation of death, had lost the faculty of being the true “entelechia” of its
own body, the helplessness of fallen and wounded nature. And in this sense, all
descended “into hell,” into infernal darkness, as it were, into the very Kingdom
of Satan, the prince of death and the spirit of negation; and they were all
under his power, though the righteous ones did not partake of evil or demoniac
perversion, since they were confined in death by the grip of ontological
powerlessness, not because of their personal perversion. They were really the
“spirits in prison.”118 And it was into this prison, into this Hell, that the
Lord and Savior descended. Amid the darkness of pale death shines the
unquenchable light of Life, and Life Divine. This destroys Hell and destroys
mortality. “Though Thou didst descend into the grave, Ο Merciful One, yet didst
Thou destroy the power of Hell.”119 In this sense Hell has been simply
abolished, “and there is not one dead in the grave.” For “he received earth, and
yet met heaven.” Death is overcome by Life. “When Thou didst descend into death,
Ο Life Eternal, then Thou didst slay Hell by the flash of Thy Divinity.”120 The
descent of Christ into Hell is the manifestation of Life amid the hopelessness
of death, it is victory over death. And by no means is it the “taking upon”
Himself by Christ of the “hellish torments of God-forsakenness.”121 The Lord
descended into Hell as the Victor, Christus Victor, as the Master of Life. He
descended in His glory, not in humiliation, although through humiliation. But
even death He assumed voluntarily and with authority. “It was not from any
natural weakness of the Word that dwelt in it that the body had died, but in
order that in it death might be done away by the power of the Savior,” says St.
Athanasius.122 The Lord descended into Hell to announce the good tidings and to
preach to those souls who were held and imprisoned there (1 Peter 3:19 : ?? ?
??? ???? ?? ?????? ????????? ????????? ???????? and 1 Peter 4:6 : νεκροις
εύηγγελίσθη), by the power of His appearance and preaching, to set them free, to
show them their deliverance.123 In other words, the descent into Hell is the
resurrection of the “whole Adam.” Since “Hell groans below” and “is afflicted,”
by His descent Christ “shatters the bonds eternal,” and raises the whole human
race.124 He destroys death itself, “the hold of death is broken and the power of
Satan is destroyed.”125 This is the triumph of the Resurrection. “And the iron
gates didst Thou crush, and Thou didst lead us out of darkness and the shadow of
death, and our chains didst Thou break.”126 “And Thou hast laid waste the abode
of death by Thy death today and illuminated everything by Thy light of the
Resurrection.” Thus Death itself is transmuted into Resurrection. “I am the
first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive
for evermore, Amen. And I have the keys of death and of Hades” (Revelation
1:17-18).

Continued in Part 4 Notes and References

73. Cf. A. E. Taylor’s Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus (Oxford, Clarendon Press,
1928), ad locum, p. 184 ff., and the Excursus IV, “The concept of Time in the
Timaeus,” p. 678-691; see also A. E. Taylor, Plato, p. 446 ff. and A. Rivaud,
Introduction to his Edition of the Timaeus (Paris, 1925); cf. also an
interesting comparison of the two mentalities by L. Labertonniere, Le realisme
Chretien et Videalisme grec (Paris, 1904), and the book by J. Guitton, Le temps
et I’eternite chez Plotin et St. Augustin (Paris, 1933).

74. See Aristotle, De gen. et corr. 11.11, 337b 35: “for what is of necessity
coincides with what it always, since that which ’must be’ cannot possibly
’not-be’; hence a thing is eternal, if its ’being’ is necessary; and if it is
eternal, its ’being’ is necessary; and if the ’coming-to-be’ of a thing is
therefore necessary, its ’coming-to-be’ is eternal; and if eternal, necessary”;
τό γαρ εξ ανάγκης και αεί άμα . . . και ει ή γένεσις τοίνυν έξ ανάγκης, άΐδιος ή
γένεσις τούτου, και ει άΐδιος, έξ ανάγκης. The argument is quite clear. If there
is really a reason for a thing, cur potius sit quam non sit, there can be no
reason whatever, why this thing should have not been from eternity, since
otherwise the reason for its existence would not have been sufficient, i.e.,
necessary or eternal. Cf. De part. anim. I.I, 639b 23; De gen. anim. II.l, 73lb
24; Physic. III.4, 203b 30; see A. Mansion, Introduction a la Physique
Aristotelienne (Louvain, 1913), p. 169 ss.

75. Aristotle, De Caelo 1.2, 269a 29: “the circle is a perfect thing (κύκλος των
τελείων), which cannot be said of any straight line; not of any infinite line:
for if it were perfect, it would have a limit and an end; nor of any finite
line: for in every case there is something beyond it, since any finite line can
be extended.”

76. Aristotle, Physica IV.14, 223b 29; cf. De gen. et corr. 11.11, 338a 3: “it
follows that the coming-to-be of anything, if it is absolutely necessary, must
be cyclical, i.e., must return upon itself.” διό ανάγκη κύκλω εΐναι; 1.14: απλώς
έν τω κύκλω άρα κινήσει καΐ γενέσει εστί τό έξ ανάγκης; Probl. XVII.3, 986a 25:
“Just as the course of the firmament and of each of the stars is a circle, why
should not also the coming-to-be and the decay of perishable things be of such a
kind that the same things again come into being and decay? This agrees with the
saying that ’human life is a circle’.” And so we should ourselves be “prior,”
and one might suppose the arrangement of the series to be such that it returns
back in a circle to the point from which it began and thus secures continuity
and identity of composition. If then human life is a circle, and a circle has
neither beginning nor end, we should not be “prior” to those who lived in the
time of Troy, nor they “prior” to us by being nearer to the beginning.” On the
circular movement in Aristotle see O. Hamelin, Le Systeme d’Aristote, 2 ed.
(Paris, 1931), p. 366 ss.; J. Chevalier, La Notion du Necessaire chez Aristote
et chez ses predecesseurs, particulihement chez Platon (Paris, 1915), p. 160 s.,
180 s.; R. Mugnier, La Theorie du Premier Noteur et Vevolution de la Pensee
Aristotelienee (Paris, 1930), p. 24 ss.

77. See P. Duhem, Le Systeme du Monde, Histoire des Doctrines Cosmo-logiques de
Platon a Copernic, tl (Paris, 1914), p. 65 ss., La Grande Annee, La periodicite
du monde selon les philosophes antiques’, p. 275-296, La Grande Annee chez les
Grecs et les Latins, apres Aristote; t. II (1914), p. 447 ss., Les peres de
Ifiglise et la Annee. Cf. Hans Meyer, Zur Lehre von der ewigen Wiederkunft oiler
Dinge, in Vest gab e A. Ehrhard (Bonn, 1911), s. 359 ff.

78. Eudem. Physic. Ill, frg. 51, ap. Simplic, In Physic. IV. 12, 732.27 Diels:
ει δέ τις πιστεύσεις τοΐς Πυθαγορείοις, ώστε πάλιν τά αυτά αριθμώ, καγο
μυθολογήσω το ράβδουν εχω ύμΐν καθημέ-νοις, ούτω και τά άλλα πάντα ,μοίως εξει
κτλ. Cf. Origen, Contra Celsum, V.21, Koetschau 22: τών yap αστέρων κατά τινας
περιόδους τεταγμένς τους αυτούς σχηματισμούς και σχέσεις προς αλλήλους
λαμβανόντων, πάντα τά έπί γης ομοίως εχειν φασί: τοΐς δτε το αυτό σχήμα τς
σχέσεως τών αστέρων περιεΐχεν ό κόσμος* ανάγκη τοίνυν κατά τούτον τον λόγον τών
αστέρων έκ μακράς περιόδου έλθόντων επί την αυτήν σχέσιν προς αλλήλους, οποίαν
εΐχον έπί Σωκράτους, πάλιν Σωκράτη γενέσθαι έκ τών αυτών και τά αυτά λαβείν κτλ.
This idea of the periodical succession of worlds seems to have been traditional
in Greek philosophy. See Eusebius of Caesa-rea, Praep. Evang. 1.8, M.G. XXI, 56,
and Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokra-tiker, 1.16, on Anaximandros: εξ απείρου
αιώνος ένακυκλουμένων πάντων αυτών [Eusebius’ authority in this chapter is
Pseudo-Plutarch’s Stromata}. Simplicius, In Physic. VIII.I, 1121.13 sq. Diels,
mentions also Anaximenes, Heraclitus and Diogenes, as well as the Stoics; all of
them believed that the Cosmos was eternal (άε^ μεν φασιν εΐναι κόσμον), but
periodically changed and renewed άλλοτε άλλον γινόμενον κατά τινάς χρόνων
περιόδους; cf. Simplic, In De Caelo, 1.10, 294.4-6 Heiberg.

79. P. Duhem, I, p. 275: “alors survient Aristote, qui rattache logiquement ce
croyance a son systeme rationnel de Physique. . ., la vie du Monde sublunaire
est, toute entire, une vie periodique”; cf. p. 164 s.: “Les mouvements locaux
des corps celestes sont periodiques; au bout d’un certain temps, ces corps
reviendront aus positions qu’ils occupent aujourd-hui; or periodicita des
mouvements locaux des etres incorruptibles entraine necessaire-ment la
periodicite des effets dont ces mouvements sont causes, c’est-a-dire des
transformations produites en la matiere corruptible; les generations, done, et
les corruptions qui se produisent aujourd’hut se sont deja produites une
infinite de fois dans le passe; elles se reproduiront, dans Vavenir, une
infinite de fois, .. . la vie dit I’Univers entiere sera une vie periodique.”

80. Tatianus, Adv. Graecos, c. 5, Arnim 1.32, 109: τον Ζήνωνα διά της έκπυρώσεως
άποψαινόμενον άνίστασθαι πάλιν τους αυτούς έπί τοΐς αύτοΐς, λέγω δέ “Ανητον και
μελέτη ν έπί τώ κατηγορεΐν; Stob. Ed. I, 171.2 W., Arnim II. 596, 183, on Zeno,
Cleantes and Chry-sippos: τήν ούσίαν μεταβάλλειν οΐον εις σπέρμα τό πυρ, και
πάλιν έκ τούτου τοιαύτην άποτελεΐσθαι τήν διακόσμησιν, οία πρότερον ήν; cf.
Origen, Contra Celsum, V.20, p. 21 Koetschau: ουτοι δι’ οι άνδρες φασί τη έξης
περιόδω τοιαύτα εσεσθαι, και Σωκράτη ν μέν πάλιν Σωφρονίσκου υίόν και ’Αθήναιον
εσεσθαι, και τήν Φαιναρέτην γημαμένην Σωφρονίσκω πάλιν αυτόν γεννήσειν. Καν μή
όνομάζωσιν οδν τό της αναστάσεως όνομα τό πράγμα γε δηλουσιν δτι Σωκράτης από
σπερμάτων άρξάμενος άναστήσεται τών Σωφρονίσκου και εν τη υστέρα Φαιναρέτης
διαπλασθήσεται και αναστραφείς Άθήνησι φιλοσοφήσει, κτλ.

81. Cf. Oapke, s.v. άποκατάστασις in Kittel’s Worterbuchy I, s. 389: “Vor allem
wird άποκατάστασις terminus technicus fur die Wie-derherstellung des kosmischen
Zyklus.” See Lact. Div. Instit. VII.23, Arnim 11.623, 189: Chrysippus . . . in
libris yuos de providentis scripsit haec intulit: καΐ ή μας μετά το τελευτήσοα
πάλιν περιόδων τινών είλημμένων χρόνου εις δ νυν εσμεν κατά στη σε σθ α ι σχήμα;
Nemesius, De natura homin., cap. 38, Arnim 11.625, 190: τών αστέρων ομοίως πάλιν
φερομένων, εκαστον εν τή πρότερα περιόδω γινόμενον άπαραλλάκτως άποτελεΐσθαι:
εσεσθαι γαρ πάλιν Σωκράτη και Πλάτωνα κατ’ εκαστον τών ανθρώπων συν τοις αύτοΐς
και ψίλοις καΐ πολίταις . . . και πασαν πόλιν και κώμην και άγρον ομοίως
άποκαθίστα-σθαι κτλ.

82. Heraclitus and Empedocles did not believe in any numerical persistence of
individuals. Things do perish altogether, and in the next world will be merely
reproduced, but not the same, rather as similars. See Simpl. In Dt Caelo, 1.10,
307.14 Heiberg: φθειρούμενον δέ και πάλιν γινόμενον; 295, 4: Εμπεδοκλής το
γινόμενον ού’τ αυτόν τω φθαρέντι φησίν, ει μή, άρα κατ’ εΐδος. For Aristotle no
individual identity existed in the sublunar world, changeable and corruptible.
In the successive periods there will be no numerical identity, as in the
celestial sphere, but only a similarity, a continuity of species; from
Aristotelian Physics this idea was inherited by the later schools. See
Aristotle, De gen. et corr. II.II, 338b 16: ανάγκη τω εΐδει, αριθμώ δέ μή
άνα-κάμπτειν; Probl. XVII.3, 796a 27: “to demand that those who are coming into
being should be numerically identical is foolish, but one would rather accept
the theory of the identity of the species,” τω εΐδει; cf. also Eudemus ap.
Simpl., In Physic. V.4, 886 Diels: διό τω εΐδει εν τούτο ρητέον, και ου τω
αριθμώ. See Ο. Hamelin, op. cit., p. 402; Mugnier, op. cit., p. 26 ss. It is not
quite clear to what extent the Stoics did admit an individual immortality.
Alexander of Aphrodisias suggests a positive answer, In Analyt. prior., 180.39
Wallies, Arnim 11.624, 189: πάλιν πόντα ταύτα έν τω κόσμω γίνεσθαι κατ* αριθμόν.
Cicero, Tuse. 1.32, gives another information: Stoici diu mansuros aiunt animos,
semper negant” \ in any case they do not survive the έκπύρωσις; see L. Stein,
Die Psychologie der Stoa, I (Berlin, 1886), s. 144 f., and Zeller, III.I, 582 f.
Scmeckel, Die Philosophie des mittleren Stoa (Berlin, 1902), s. 250 and Anm. 3
contests this view. In any case, Origen had to deal with a Stoic teaching that
rejected a numerical identity of the recurrent individuals. “Not the same
Socrates, but somebody fully alike,” ίνα μή Σω κράτη ς πάλιν γένηται, άλλ’
απαράλλακτος τις τω Σωκράτη, γάμησων άπαράλλακτόν τίνα Ξανθίππη, και
κατηγορηθησάμενος ύπό απαράλλακτων Άνήτω και Μελήτω; Contra Celsum, IV.68,
Koetschau 338, and Arnim 11.626, 190. Origen objected that in this case the
world itself would not have to be the same always, but also only απαράλλακτος
Μτερος έτέρω. But obviously he misses the point: for the Stoics, just because
the Cosmos is always the same (ή αυτή τάξις άπ’ αρχής μέχρι τέλος), every
particular has to be repeated in the same shape, but nothing more is required
for the uniformity of the whole.

83. Plotinus, IV.6.12; V.7.1-3. Cf. Guitton, op. cit., 55: “Plotin applique a
toute existence ce schema circulaire . . ., le cycle mythique est pour lui le
type d’existence.” See also Proclus, Institutio theologica, prop. 54, 55, 199,
ed. Dodds, p. 52, 54, 174 and notes ad loca.

84. Lossev, Symbolism, p. 643. Cf. Guitton, op. cit., p. 359-360: “Les Grecs se
representaient la presence de Veternal dans le temps sous la forme de retour
cyclique. Inversement, Us imaginaient volontiers que le temps se poursuivait
dans V eternel et que la vie presente n’etait qu’un episode du drame de I’ame:
ainsi voulaient les mythes. . . ici la pensee chretienne est decisive. . . Les
dmes n’ont pas d’histoire avant leur venue. Leur origine, c’est leur naissance;
apres la mort la liberte est abolie avec le temps et Vhistoire cesse. Le temps
mythique est condemne. Les destinies se jouent une fois peur toutes. . . . Le
temps cyclique est condamne. . . .”

85. Cf. my article, “L’idee de la Creation dans la Philosophic Chretienne,”
Logos, Revue Internationale de la pensee orthodoxe, I (Bucharest, 1926). See the
article on creation contained in this volume.

86. St. Augustine, De civitate Dei, XII.20; cf. Nemesius, De hominis natura, c.
38, M.G. XL, c. 761: εις οπταξ γαρ τά της αναστάσεως, και ου κατά περίοδον
εσεσθαι, τά του Χρίστου δοξάζει λογία.

89. St. Gregory of Nyssa, De anima et resurrectione, M.G. XLVI.

90. There is only one exception. “The grave and death were not able to hold back
the Theotokos, who is ever-watchful in prayers” [Kontakion on the day of the
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin]. The resurrection has already been actualized
in full for the Blessed Virgin, the Mother of God, by virtue of her intimate and
unique union with Him Whom she bore.

91. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Orat. XLV, in 5. Pascha, 28, M.G. XXXVI, c, 661:
έδεήθημεν θεού σαρκομένου καΐ νεκρουμένου.

92. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. XIII, 6, M.G. XXXIII, 780; cf. St. Basil, in
Psalms 48:1-14; Psalms 4:1-8; M.G. XXIX, 440.

93. Office of Good Saturday, Canon, at Matins, Irmos IX, Hapgood, Service Book,
p. 222.

94. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Orat. 39, 17, M.G. XXXVI, 356, cf. Carmina 1.1,
ser. 11,4, ves.24-92, M.G. XXXVII, c. 762.

95. It is hardly possible to agree with the interpretation suggested by J. H.
Bernard, “A Study of St. Mark X.38, 39” Journal of Theol. Studies, XXVIII
(1927), pp. 262-274. The “cup of sufferings” does include death as well. And it
is very doubtful whether we can interpret the verb βατττίζεσθαι as meaning
merely “to be overwhelmed” [sc. with the floods of misfortune}, so as to reduce
the meaning of the Lord’s saying only to this: “You will be overwhelmed by the
same flood of tribulation by which I am being overwhelmed.”

96. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Orat. 45, 13; M.G. XXXVI, c. 640; cf. 24, c. 656;
as well Orat. 4, 68; M.G. XXXV, c. 589.

97. Matins of the Good Friday, stikhira idiomela, Hapgood, op. cit., p. 216.

98. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Orat. 45, 29, M.G. XXXVI, c. 661, 664; cf.
Carmina, 1.1, ser. 1, vs. 77-80, XXXVII, c. 462-463: “And He gave to mortals a
twofold purification; one of the Eternal Spirit, and by it He cleansed in me the
old stain, which comes from the flesh; and the other of our blood, for I call
mine the blood Christ, My God, has poured, the redemption of the original
infirmities and the salvation of the world.” Cf. the interesting explanation why
the Lord suffered in the open air, in St Athanasius, De incarnatione, -25, M.G.
XXV, c. 170: “for being lifted up on the Cross, the Lord cleansed the air of the
malignity both of the devil and of demons of all kinds.” The same idea occurs in
St. John Chrysostom, in Crucem et latronem, M.G. XLIX, c. 408-409: “in order to
cleanse all her defilement”; the Lord suffered not in the temple but in an open
place, for this was the universal sacrifice, offered for the whole world.

99. St. Gregory of Nyssa, In Resurrectionem, or. I, M.G. XLVI, Colossians 612.

100. The whole question of the relation between the Last Suvper and the
Crucifixion was studied by M. de la Taille, Mysterium Fidei (Paris, 1921),
Catholic Faith in the Holy Eucharist, ed. by Fr. Lattey, Cambridge Catholic
Summer Schol, 1922; Esquisse du Mystere de la Foi suivi de quelques
eclaircissements (Paris, 1923); The Mystery of Faith and Human Opinion
contrasted and defined (London: Sheed and Ward, 1930). Fr. de la Taille insists
that the Last Supper and the Crucifixion were one Sacrifice, and the Last Supper
was a sacramental and sacerdotal action, a liturgy, a sacred rite, by which
Christ pledged Himself to death in the sight of His Father and of men. It was a
sacramental offering and presentation. The sacrifice of Redemption, the
sacrifice of His Passion and Death, was offered in the Upper Room.

101. It is sometimes suggested that, death being the common law of human nature,
Christ had to die simply because He was truly man. And His obedience was
consummated in that He submitted Himself to the Divine decree of common human
mortality. See, for instance, P. Galtier, “Obeissant jusqu’a la mort,” Revue de
VAscetique et de la Mystique I (1920, Toulouse), pp. 113-149 [Patristic
documentation]. This argument is not at all convincing. Everything depends here
upon our anthropological presuppositions.

102. Stikhira on the 3rd Sunday of Lent, Vespers.

103. St. John of Damascus, de fide orth., 111.27, M.G. XCIV, c. 1907; cf. Homil
in M. Sabbat. 29, M.G. XCVI, c. 632. This is not a subtle speculation, but a
logical implication of the strict Chalcedonian dogma. An established
Christological terminology is presupposed, and specially the doctrine of the
“enhypostasia” of the human nature in the Word, first formulated by Leontius of
Byzantium and then developed by St. Maximus the Confessor. Earlier writers
sometimes failed to present this idea of the preservation of both human elements
in an unbroken unity with the Word with complete clearness. See K. Baehr, Die
Lehre der Kirche vom Tode Jesu in den erst en drei Jahrhunderten (Sulzbach,
1834) ; G. Jouassard, L’abandon du Christ par Son Pere durant sa Passion d’apres
la tradition patristique (Lyon, 1923) [thesis]; “L’abandon du Christ d’apres St.
Augustin,” Revue des sciences relig., IV, 1925, pp. 310-326; L’abandon du Christ
au Croix dans la tradition grecque des IV et V siecles, ibid., V, 1925, pp.
609-633; J. Lebon, “Une ancienne opinion sur la condition du corps du Christ
dans la mort,” Revue de Vhistoire eccl. (XXIII, 1927), pp. 5-03, 209-241; E.
Schiltz, Le probleme theologique du corps du Christ dans la mort, Divus Thomas
[Plaisance], 1935. See Excursus III, Verba derelictionis.

104. Third Sunday in Lent, Matins, Adoration of the Cross.

105. St. John Chrysostorn, in Crucem et latronem, hi, M.G. XLIX, c. 399.

106. Tuesday of the 4th week of Lent, siedalen.

107. Prayer in Lent at Great Compline.

108. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Or at. 41, ed. Mason, pp. 105-106.

109. Exapostillarion at Easter Matins.

110. St. John Damascene, de fide orth. IV, 11, M.G. XCIV, c. 1128-1129; cf. St.
Ignatius, Smyrn. 5; Lightfoot, 303; St. Irenaeus, adv. haeres. 11.20.3: per
passionem mortem destruxit. .. vitam autem manifestavit, et ostendit veritatem
et incorruptionem donavit, Harvey 1.393; M.G. VII.778, c. 1135; V.23.2: venit ad
passionem pridie ante sabbatum, quae est sexta conditionis dies, in qua homo
plasmatus est, secundum plasmationem ei earn quae est a morte, per suam
passionem donans, Harvey, 11.389. Earlier in St. Justin, Apol. I, 63, Otto I,
174. Cf. St. Cyril of Alexandria, in Hebr. II.14, M.G. LXXIV, c. 965: “the death
of Christ is, as it were, the root of life.” Also St. Augustine, in loann. tr.
XII, 19, 11: ipsa morte liberavit nos a morte; morte occisus mortem occidit. . .
mortem suscepit et mortem suspendit in cruce . . ., in morte Christi mors mortua
est, quia vita mortua occidit mortem, plenitudo vitae deglutivit mortem, M.L.
XXXV, c 1489-1490.

111. Vespers of Good Saturday.

112. In Byzantine iconography, from the late 7th century the Resurrection of
Christ was invariably represented as the Descent into Hell, from which the Lord
leads Adam and others. It meant the destruction of the bonds of death. The
iconography depended directly upon liturgical texts and rites and was a
pictorial interpretation of the same experience. A certain influence of the
apocryphal literature is obvious, particularly that of the Evangelium Nicodemi
and of Pseudo Epiphanius’ Homily of Good Saturday [M.G. XLIII, 440-464]. A
survey of monuments and their liturgical parallels is given by N. V. Pokrovsky,
The Gospel in the Monuments of Iconography, especially Byzantine and Russian,
Acts of the VHIth Archeological Congress in Moscow 1890, v.I, p. 398f; G.
Rushforth, The Descent into Hell in Byzantine Art, Papers of the British School
at Rome, I (1902), p. Il4f. Cf. G. Millet, Recherches sur Viconographie de
Evangile aux XIV, XV et XVI siecles d’apres les monuments de Mistre, de la
Macedoine et de Mont Athos (Bibliotheque des ecoles frangaises d’Athenes et de
Rome, fasc. 109, Paris 1916), p. 396 ss. Millet states plainly, that
nViconographie primitive du Crucifiement montrait non point Jesus souffrant sur
la Croix, mats Dieu triumphant par son sacrifice volontaire. Elle s’attachait
non au drame humain, mats au dogme” [396]. See also Pokrovsky, p. 314 ff. and
especially J. Reil, Die altchristliche Bildzyklen des Lebens Jesu, Ficker*s
Studien, N. F. Hf. 10, 1910, p. WQ ff. Reil says of the early representations on
sarkophagi “Es findet sich keine Leidenszene, in der Christus als Leidender
dargestellt ist. Es erscheint immer stets als einer, der fiber dem Leiden
steht... Die Verspottung selbst sieht wie eine Verherrlichung, die Dornkronung
wie ein Siegerkronung aus” [21-22]. The emotional and dramatic motives make
their first appearance in Byzantine art not earlier than the late Xlth century,
in the West still later, only after the spreading of the Franciscan ideas and
ideals; see Millet, pp. 399-400, 555ss, and O. Schonewul, Die Darstellung
Christi, Ficker’s Studien, N. P., Hf. 9, 1909.

113. Matins of Good Saturday, 6th song, First Troparion.

114. Second Sunday after Easter, Matins, Canon, 4th Song of Solomon 1:1-17 st
troparion; cf. the synaxarion of Good Saturday: “For the Lord’s body suffered
the corruption, that is, the separation of the soul from the body. But in no
wise did it undergo that sort of corruption (διαφθορά), which is the complete
destruction of the flesh and decomposition.”

115. St. John of Damascus, de fide orth., 111.28, M.G. XCIV, c. 1097, 11900.
This distinction of the two meanings of “corruption” had a special importance
after the so-called “Aphtharto-docetic” controversy. But it was clearly made
even by Origen, In Ps. XV, 10, M.G. XII, c. 1216. A vindication of Julian of
Halicarnassus on the charge of heresy was attempted by R. Draguet, Julien
d’Halicarnasse et sa controverse avec Severe d’Antioche sur Vincorruptibilite du
corps de Jesus-Christ (Louvain, 1924) ; cf., however, M. Jugie, Julien
d’Halicarnasse et Severe d’Antioche, £chos dfOrient, XXIV (1925), p. 129-162,
and his earlier article, La controverse galanite et la passibilite du corps de
Jesus Christ, in the Dictionnaire de la theologie cath., v.VI (1920), pp.
1002-1023. The main problem is what the real meaning of the Passion and death of
Our Lord Isaiah 116. St. John Damascene, de fide orth., 111.29, M.G. XCIV, 1101.
Cf. Epiphanius, Panarion, haer. XX, 2; ed. Holl, 1.230; haer. XLIX, 52, M.G.
XLII, c. 287-305-308; St. Cyril of Alexandria de incarn. Unigeniti, M.G. LXXV,
c. 1216: ψυχή δέ θεία; St. Augustine, de Symbolo ad catech. sermo alius, c. VII,
7, M.L. XL, c. 658: totus ergo Filius apud Patrem, totus in Cruce, totus in
inferno, totus in Paradiso que et latronem introduxit.

117. It was clearly stated by Rufinus, Comm. in Symbolum Apostolorum, c. 18,
M.L. XXI, Colossians 356. Sciendum sane est quod in Ecclesiae Romanae symbolono,
habetur additum, fdescendit ad inferno”: sed neque in Orientis ecclesiis habetur
hie sermo; vis tamen verbi eadem videtur esse in eo, quod “sepultus” dicitur\
see St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. IV, 11, M.G. XXXIII, 469.

118. 1 Peter 3:19 : φυλακή, Vulg. I career, i.e. a place of confinement; under
guard; Calvin suggested: “rather a watch-tower,” lnst. II.16.97]; Acts 2:24 : τω
θανάτω variant of Acts 2:31 : εις αδην obviously with reference to Psalms 16:19.
“Hades” means here “death,” nothing more. For the whole history of this term in
Christian usage see G. L. Prestige, “Hades in the Greek Fathers,” Journal of
Theol. Studies, XXIV (July, 1927), pp. 476-485. In liturgical texts, in any
case, “Hell” or “Hades” denotes always this hopelessness of mortal dissolution.

119. Easter-kontakion, Hapgood, 230: cf. St. John Damascene, de fide orth.
III.27: “for just as darkness is dissolved on the introduction of light, so is
death repulsed on the assault of Life, and for all comes life and for the
destroyer destruction,” M.G. XCIV (1907); also 111.28, c. 1100.

110. Vespers of Good Friday, troparion. Used as well as the Sunday troparion of
the 2nd tone. This is also the main idea of the “Catechetical oration,” ascribed
to St. John Chrysostom appointed to be read at Easter Matins. Cf. St. John
Damascene, de fide orth., III.29, M.G. XCIV, c. 1101: J. N. Karmiris in his book
proves quite convincingly that the whole tradition of the Church was always
unanimous on the victorious and triumphant character of the Descent into Hell.
See Origen, in 1 Kings, horn. 2, M.G. XII, 120: εις τά χωρία έκεΐνα ούχ ως
δούλος τών έκεΐ, αλλ9 ώς XII, 1020: κατελήλυθεν εις τά χωρία έκεΐνα ούχ ώς
δούλος των έκεΐ, αλλ9 ώς δεσπότης παλαίσιον; in Cant., l.II, M.G. XIII, 184: et
ipse in morte fuerit voluntarie, et non ut nos necessitate peccati; solus est
enim qui fuit inter moruos litber; St. John Damasc, in M. Sabbat, 31, M.G. XCVI,
633: έν νεκροΐς μεν fjv, αλλά ζών, ώς ελεύθερος.

121. This idea was brought forward with great emphasis by Calvin and shared by
some other Reformed theologians, but at once was resented and vigorously
repudiated by a great number of both Reformed and Catholic divines, as a “new,
unheard-of heresy.” Calvin put a great stress on that article of the Apostles
Creed. “Mox tamen jiet, tanti interesse ad redemptionis nostrae summam, ut ea
praeterita multum ex mortis Christi jructu depereat.” “Nihil actum eart, si
corporea tantum morte defunctus fuisset Christus: sed operae simul pretium erat,
ut divinae ultionis severitate sentiret: quo ex irae ipsius intercederet, et
satisjacteret just ο judicio. Unde enim eum opportuit cum inferorum copiis
aeternaeque mortis horrore, quasi consertis manibus, luctari. .. sed alius majus
et excellentius jretium fuisse, quod diros in anima cruciatus damnati ac perdiii
hominis pertulerit. . . quantulum enim fuisset, secure et quasi per lusum
prodire ad subeundam mortem .. . Et sane nisi poenae fuisset particeps anima,
corporibus tantum fuisset Redemptor.” loannis Calvini, Institutio christianae
raligionis, ed A. Tholuck, Berolini (1834), l.II, c. 16, 8-12, pp. 332-337;
English translation by Henry Beveridge, Calvin Translation Society (Edinburgh,
1845), v.88, pp. 57-62: “The omission of it greatly detracts from the benefit of
Christ’s death. . . . Nothing had been done if Christ had only endured corporeal
death. In order to interpose between us and God’s anger and satisfy His
righteous judgement it was necessary that He should feel the weight of Divine
vengeance. Whence also it was necessary that He should engage, as it were, at
close quarters with the powers of hell and horrors of eternal death. . . . He
bore in His soul the tortures of condemned and ruined man.. .. How small a
matter had it been to come forth securely and, as it were, in sport to undergo
death. . . . And certainly had not His soul shared in the punishment, He would
have been a Redeemer of bodies only.” See also the French redaction (1539), Jean
Calvin, Institution de la religion chretienne, ed. Pannier, II, 107-108: “Ce
n’estoit rien si Jesus Christ se fust seulement acquite d’une mort corporelle,
mats il falloit aussi qui il sentist la severite du Jugement de Dieu, a fin
d’interceder, et comme s’opposer que son ire ne tombast sur nous, en
satisfaisant a icelle. Pour ce faire, il estoit expedient qu’il bataillast,
comme main a main, a Vencontre des puyssances d’Enfer et de I’horreur de la mort
eternelle. . .. Mais nous disons qu’il a soustenu la pesanteur de la vengeance
de Dieu, en tant qu’il a este frappe et afflige de sa main et a experimente tous
les signes que Dieu monstre aux pecheurs, en se courrouceant contre eulx et les
punissant.” This interpretation obviously depends upon the penal conception of
Atonement, it stands and falls with it. As a matter of fact, a somewhat similar
interpretation of the Descent into Hell was suggested before Calvin by Nicolas
of Cusa. 122St. Athanasius, de Incarnatione, 26, M.G. XXV, Colossians 141.

123. Cf. St. Cyril of Alexandria, de recta jide ad Theodos., 22, M.G. LXXVI, c.
1165, horn, pasch. VII, M.G. LXXVII, c. 352; St. John Chrysostom, horn, in
Matthew 26:1-75; Matthew 3:1-17, M.G. LVII: “How are the gates of brass wiped
away and the iron doors destroyed? Through His body....” Then for the first time
was an immortal body shown and it did destroy the power of death: τότε γαρ
πρώτον έδείχθη σώμα άθάνατον, και διαλύον του θανάτου την τυραννίδα. It
manifested that the power of death is broken, του θανάτου δείκνυσε τήν ίσχύν
άνημμένην; St. John Damascene, de fide orth. Ill, 29, M.G. XCIV, c. 110. Of the
Western Fathers see St. Augustine, Ephesians 164, ad Euodium, 12, 13, 16, 21,
M.L. XXXIII, c. 714, 715, 716. An excellent presentation of Orthodox doctrine of
the Descent into Hell was given by J. N. Karmiris, Ή είς “Αδου κάθοδος του
Χρίστου έξ απόψεως ορθοδόξου (Athens, 1939), ρ. 156; cf. J. Dietelmair, Historia
dogmatis de descensu Christi ad inferos litteraria (Altorfii, 1762); H. Quillet,
s. voce, in the Diet, de la theol. cath., t. IV; K. Gschwind, Die Niederfahrt
Christi in die Unterwelt, Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen (1911); F. Cabrol and
A. de Meester, s. voce, in the Diet. d’Archeologie char, et de liturgie, t. IV,
1916; C. Schmidt, Gesprache Jesu mit seinen Jungern nach der Auferstehung, Texte
und Untersuchungen, XLIII (1919), Excursus II, Der Descensus ad inferos in der
alien Kirche, s.453-576; J. Kroll, Gott und Holle, Studien der Bibliothek
Warburg, XX (1932); K. Prumm, Die Darstellungen des Hadesfahrtes des Herrn in
der Literatur der alien Kirche, Kritische Bemerkungen zum ersten Kapitel des
Werkes von ]. Kroll, Scholastik X (1935); J. Chaine, s. voce [Vigoureux],
Dictionnaire de la Bible, Supplement, t. II (1934), c. 395ss. The Patristic
conception of a ransom paid to the devil needs a special investigation in
connection with the doctrine of the Descent into Hell. But it seems that in most
cases the Devil stands simply for Death. The best dossier and analysis of
Patristic texts and references is given by J. Riviere, Le dogme de la
Redemption, Essai d’etude historique (Paris, 1905), the whole chapter, “La
question de droit des demons,” p. 373 [there is an English translation, London,
1911}; and again in his own books: Le dogme de la Redemption, Etudes critiques
et documents (Louvain, 1931). Here is Riviere’s conclusion. “Des lors, dire que
le Christ s’est livre au demon pour prix de noire rachat ne serait-ct pas tous
simplement une maniere metaphorique d’enseigner qu’Il s’est livre a la mort pour
notre salut?” {Revue des sciences religieusts, X, p. 621}. See Excursus IV,
Descensus ad injerna.

124. Easter Canon, 6th song, Irmos, Hapgood 230.

125. Easter Vespers.

126. Monday of Easter week, Theotokaria, 4th Song of Solomon 8:1-14c - The
Incarnation & Redemption (Part 4) The Incarnation and Redemption.

(Part 4) The Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Redemption In the death of the
Savior the powerlessness of death over Him was revealed. In the fullness of His
human nature Our Lord was mortal, since even in the original and spotless human
nature a “potentia mortis” was inherent. The Lord was killed and died. But death
did not hold Him. “It was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24).
St. John Chrysostom commented: “He Himself permitted it. ... Death itself in
holding Him had pangs as in travail, and was sore bested … and He so rose as
never to die.127 He is Life Everlasting, and by the very fact of His death He
destroys death. His very descent into Hell, into the realm of death, is the
mighty manifestation of Life. By the descent into Hell He quickens death itself.
By the Resurrection the powerlessness of death is manifested. The soul of
Christ, separated in death, filled with Divine power, is again united with its
body, which remained incorruptible throughout the mortal separation, in which it
did not suffer any physical decomposition. In the death of the Lord it is
manifest that His most pure body was not susceptible to corruption, that it was
free from that mortality into which the original human nature had been involved
through sin and Fall. In the first Adam the inherent potentiality of death by
disobedience was disclosed and actualized. In the second Adam the potentiality
of immortality by purity and obedience was sublimated and actualized into the
impossibility of death. “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). The whole fabric of human nature in Christ
proved to be stable and strong. The disembodiment of the soul was not
consummated into a rupture. Even in the common death of man, as St. Gregory of
Nyssa pointed out, the separation of soul and body is never absolute; a certain
connection is still there. In the death of Christ this connection proved to be
not only a “connection of knowledge”; His soul never ceased to be the “vital
power” of the body. Thus His death in all its reality, as a true separation and
disembodiment, was like a sleep. “Then was man’s death shown to be but a sleep,”
as St. John Damascene says.128 The reality of death is not yet abolished, but
its powerlessness is revealed. The Lord really and truly died. But in His death
in an eminent measure the “dynamis of the resurrection” was manifest, which is
latent but inherent in every death. To His death the glorious simile of the
kernel of wheat can be applied to its full extent. (John 12:24). And in His
death the glory of God is manifest. “I have both glorified it and will glorify
again” (John 12:28). In the body of the Incarnate One this interim between death
and resurrection is fore-shortened. “It is sown in dishonor: it is raised in
glory; it is sown in weakness: it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body:
it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:43-44). In the death of the
Incarnate One this mysterious growth of the seed was accomplished in three days
- “triduum mortis.”

“He suffered not the temple of His body to remain long dead, but just having
shown it dead by the contact of death, straightway raised it on the third day,
and raised with it also the sign of victory over death, that is, the
incorruption and impassibility manifested in the body.” In these words St.
Athanasius brings forward the victorious and resurrecting character of the death
of Christ.129 In this mysterious “triduum mortis,” the body of Our Lord has been
transfigured into a body of glory, and has been clothed in power and light. The
seed matures. The Lord rises from the dead, as a Bridegroom comes forth from the
chamber. This was accomplished by the power of God, as the general resurrection
will, in the last day, be accomplished by the power of God. And in the
Resurrection the Incarnation is completed, a victorious manifestation of Life
within human nature, a grafting of immortality into the human composition. The
Resurrection of Christ was a victory, not over his death only, but over death in
general. “We celebrate the death of Death, the downfall of Hell, and the
beginning of a life new and everlasting.”130 In His Resurrection the whole of
humanity, all human nature, is co-resurrected with Christ, “the human race is
clothed in incorruption.”131 Co-resurrected not indeed in the sense that all are
raised from the grave. Men do still die; but the hopelessness of dying is
abolished. Death is rendered powerless, and to all human nature is given the
power or “potentia” of resurrection. St. Paul made this quite clear: “But if
there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen… For if the dead
rise not, then is not Christ raised” (1 Corinthians 15:13; 1 Corinthians 15:16).
St. Paul meant to say that the Resurrection of Christ would become meaningless
if it were not a universal accomplishment, if the whole Body were not implicitly
“pre-resurrected” with the Head. And faith in Christ itself would lose any sense
and become empty and vain; there would be nothing to believe in. “And if Christ
be not raised, your faith is vain” (1 Corinthians 15:17). Apart from the hope of
the General Resurrection, belief in Christ would be in vain and to no purpose;
it would only be vainglory. “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become
the first-fruits of them that slept” (1 Corinthians 15:20). And in this lies the
victory of life.132 “It is true, we still die as before,” says St. John
Chrysostom, “but we do not remain in death; and this is not to die… The power
and very reality of death is just this, that a dead man has no possibility of
returning to life… But if after death he is to be quickened and moreover to be
given a better life, then this is no longer death, but a falling asleep.”133 The
same conception is found in St. Athanasius. The “condemnation of death” is
abolished. “Corruption ceasing and being put away by the grace of Resurrection,
we are henceforth dissolved for a time only, according to our bodies’ mortal
nature; like seeds cast into the earth, we do not perish, but sown in the earth
we shall rise again, death being brought to nought by the grace of the
Savior.”134 This was a healing and a renewing of nature, and therefore there is
here a certain compulsion; all will rise, and all will be restored to the
fullness of their natural being, yet transformed. From henceforth every
disembodiment is but temporary. The dark vale of Hades is abolished by the power
of the life-giving Cross.

St. Gregory of Nyssa strongly emphasizes the organic interdependence between the
Crucifixion and the Resurrection. The Resurrection is not only a consequence,
but a fruit of the death on the Cross. St. Gregory stresses two points
especially: the unity of the Divine Hypostasis, in which the soul and body of
Christ are linked together even in their mortal separation; and the utter
sinlessness of the Lord. And he proceeds: “When our nature, following its proper
course, had even in Him been advanced to the separation of soul and body, He
knitted together again the disconnected elements, cementing them together, as it
were, with a cement of His Divine power, and recombining what was severed in a
union never to be broken. And this is the Resurrection, namely the return, after
they have been dissolved, of those elements that have been before linked
together, into an indissoluble union through a mutual incorporation; in order
that thus the primal grace which invested humanity might be recalled, and we
restored to everlasting life, when the vice that had been mixed up with our kind
has evaporated through our dissolution… For as the principle of death took its
rise in one person and passed on in succession through the whole of human kind,
in like manner the principle of the Resurrection extends from one person to the
whole of humanity… For when, in that concrete humanity which He had taken to
Himself, the soul after the dissolution returned to the body, then this uniting
of the several portions passes, as by a new principle, in equal force upon the
whole human race. This then is the mystery of God’s plan with regard to His
death and His resurrection from the dead.”135 In another place St. Gregory
explains his meaning by the analogy of the broken reed, cloven in twain. Whoever
puts the broken parts together, starting from any one end, then also, of
necessity, puts together the other end, “and the whole broken reed is completely
rejointed.” Thus then in Christ the union of soul and body, again restored,
brings to reunion “the whole human nature, divided by death into two parts,”
since the hope of resurrection establishes the connection between the separated
parts. In Adam our nature was split or dissected into two through sin. Yet in
Christ this split is healed completely. This then is the abolition of death, or
rather of mortality. In other words, it is the potential and dynamic restoration
of the fullness and wholeness of human existence. It is a recreation of the
whole human race, a “new creation” (ή καινή κτίσις),136 a new revelation of
Divine love and Divine power, the consummation of creation.

One has to distinguish most carefully between the healing of nature and the
healing of the will. Nature is healed and restored with a certain compulsion, by
the mighty power of God’s omnipotent and invincible grace. One may even say, by
some “violence of grace.” The wholeness is in a way forced upon human nature.
For in Christ all human nature (the “seed of Adam”) is fully and completely
cured from unwholeness and mortality. This restoration will be actualized and
revealed to its full extent in the General Resurrection, the resurrection of
all, both of the righteous and of the wicked. No one, so far as nature is
concerned, can escape Christ’s kingly rule, can alienate himself from the
invincible power of the resurrection. But the will of man cannot be cured in the
same invincible manner; for the whole meaning of the healing of the will is in
its free conversion. The will of man must turn itself to God; there must be a
free and spontaneous response of love and adoration. The will of man can be
healed only in freedom, in the “mystery of freedom.” Only by this spontaneous
and free effort does man enter into that new and eternal life which is revealed
in Christ Jesus. A spiritual regeneration can be wrought only in perfect
freedom, in an obedience of love, by a self-consecration and self-dedication to
God. This distinction was stressed with great insistence in the remarkable
treatise by Nicolas Cabasilas on The Life in Christ. Resurrection is a
“rectification of nature” (ή άνάστασις φύσεως έστιν έπανόρθωσις) and this God
grants freely. But the Kingdom of Heaven, and the beatific vision, and union
with Christ, presume the desire (τρυψή έστιν της θελήσεως), and therefore are
available only for those who have longed for them, and loved, and desired.
Immortality will be given to all, just as all can enjoy the Divine providence.
It does not depend upon our will whether we shall rise after death or not, just
as it is not by our will that we are born. Christ’s death and resurrection
brings immortality and incorruption to all in the same manner, because all have
the same nature as the Man Christ Jesus. But nobody can be compelled to desire.
Thus Resurrection is a gift common to all, but blessedness will be given only to
some.137 And again, the path of life is the path of renunciation, of
mortification, of self-sacrifice and self-oblation. One has to die to oneself in
order to live in Christ. Each one must personally and freely associate himself
with Christ, the Lord, the Savior, and the Redeemer, in the confession of faith,
in the choice of love, in the mystical oath of allegiance. Each one has to
renounce himself, to “lose his soul” for Christ’s sake, to take up his cross,
and to follow after Him. The Christian struggle is the “following” after Christ,
following the path of His Passion and Cross, even unto death, but first of all,
following in love. “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His
life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren… Herein is
love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins” (1 John 3:16; John 4:10). He who does not die with
Christ cannot live with Him. “Unless of our own free choice we accept to die
unto His passion, His life is not in us,” says St. Ignatius.138 This is no mere
ascetical or moral rule, not merely a discipline. This is the ontological law of
spiritual existence, even the law of life itself.

Baptismal Symbolism And Redemptive Reality The Christian life is initiated with
a new birth, by water and the Spirit. First, repentance is required, “ή
μετάνοια,” an inner change, intimate and resolute. The symbolism of Holy Baptism
is complex and manifold. Baptism must be performed in the name of the Holy
Trinity; and the Trinitarian invocation is unanimously regarded as the most
necessary condition of the validity and efficacy of the sacrament. Yet above
all, baptism is the putting on of Christ (Galatians 3:27), and an incorporation
into His Body (1 Corinthians 12:13). The Trinitarian invocation is required
because outside the Trinitarian faith it is impossible to know Christ, to
recognize in Jesus the Incarnate Lord, “One of the Holy Trinity.” The symbolism
of baptism is above all a symbolism of death and resurrection, of Christ’s death
and resurrection. “Know ye not, that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus
Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism
into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the
Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4). It can
be said that baptism is a sacramental resurrection in Christ, a rising up with
Him and in Him to a new and eternal life: “Buried with Him in baptism, wherein
also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath
raised Him from the dead” (Colossians 2:12) - συνταφέντες αύτώ έν τω βαπτίσματι,
έν ω και συνηγέρθητε δια της πίστεως της ενεργείας του θεού του έγείραντος αυτόν
έκ νεκρών. Co-resurrected with Him precisely through burial: “for if we be dead
with Him, we shall also live with Him” (2 Timothy 2:11). For in baptism the
believer becomes a member of Christ, grafted into His Body, “rooted and built up
in Him” (Colossians 2:7). Thereby the grace of the Resurrection is shed abroad
on all. Before it is consummated in the General Resurrection, Life Eternal is
manifested in the spiritual rebirth of believers, granted and accomplished in
baptism, and the union with the Risen Lord is the initiation of the resurrection
and of the Life to come. “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the
glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as
by the Spirit of the Lord… Always bearing about in the body the dying of the
Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus might also be made manifest in our body…
Knowing that He which raised up the Lord Jesus shall also raise us by Jesus, and
shall present us with you… For we know, that if our earthly house of this
tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with
hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be
clothed upon with our house which is from heaven … not for that we would be
unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up by life” (2
Corinthians 3:18; 2 Corinthians 4:10; 2 Corinthians 4:14; 2 Corinthians 5:1-2).
We are changed, not only will be changed. Baptismal regeneration and ascesis are
joined together: the Death with Christ and resurrection are already operative
within believers. The resurrection is operative not only as a return to life,
but also as a lifting up or sublimation into the glory. This is not only a
manifestation of the power and glory of God, but also a transfiguration of man,
in so far as he is dying with Christ. In dying with Him, man also lives. All
will rise, but only to the faithful believer is the resurrection to be a true
“resurrection unto life.” He comes not into judgment, but passes from death to
life [John 5:24-29; John 8:51~}. Only in communion with God and through life in
Christ does the restoration of human wholeness gain meaning. To those in total
darkness, who have deliberately confined themselves “outside God,” outside the
Light Divine, the Resurrection itself must seem rather unnecessary and
unmotivated. But it will come, as a “resurrection to judgment” (John 5:29; εις
άνάστασιν κρίσεως). And in this will be completed the mystery and the tragedy of
human freedom.

Here indeed we are on the threshold of the inconceivable and incomprehensible.
The “apokatastasis” of nature does not abolish free will. The will must be moved
from within by love. St. Gregory of Nyssa had a clear understanding of this. He
anticipated a kind of universal “conversio” of souls in the after-life, when the
Truth of God will be revealed and manifested with some compelling and ultimate
evidence. Just at that point the limitations of the Hellenistic mind are
obvious. Evidence to it seemed to be the decisive reason or motive for the will,
as if “sin” were merely “ignorance.”139 The Hellenistic mind had to pass through
the long and hard experience of asceticism, of ascetic self-examination and
self-control, in order to free itself from this intellectualistic naivete and
illusion, and discover a dark abyss in the fallen soul. Only in St. Maximus the
Confessor, after some centuries of ascetic preparation, do we find a new,
remodelled and deepened interpretation of the “apokatastasis.” All nature, the
whole Cosmos, will be restituted. But the dead souls will still be insensitive
to the very revelation of Light. The Light Divine will shine to all, but those
who have deliberately spent their lives here on earth in fleshly desires,
“against nature,” will be unable to apprehend or enjoy this eternal bliss. The
Light is the Word which illuminates the natural minds of the faithful; but to
others it is a burning fire of the judgment (τη καύσει της κρίσεως). He punishes
those who, through love of the flesh, cling to the nocturnal darkness of this
life. St. Maximus admitted an “apokatastasis” in the sense of a restitution of
all beings to an integrity of nature, of a universal manifestation of the Divine
Life, which will be apprehended by every one; but it does not mean that all will
equally participate in this revelation of the Good. St. Maximus draws a clear
distinction between an έπίγνωσις and a μέθεξις. The divine gifts are dispensed
in proportion to the capacities of men. The fullness of natural powers will be
restored in all, and God will be in all, indeed; but only in the Saints will He
be present with grace δια την χάριν. In the wicked He will be present without
grace, νεκράν την χάριν. No grace will be bestowed upon the wicked, because the
ultimate union with God requires the determination of the will. The wicked will
be separated from God by their lack of a resolute purpose of good. We have here
the same duality of nature and will. In the resurrection the whole of creation
will be restored. But sin and evil are rooted in the will. The Hellenistic mind
concluded therefrom that evil is unstable and by itself must disappear
inevitably. For nothing can be perpetual, unless it be rooted in a Divine
decree. Evil cannot be but transitory. The Christian inference is the opposite
indeed. There is some strange inertia and obstinacy of the will, and this
obstinacy may remain uncured even in the universal restoration. God never does
any violence to man, and the communion with God cannot be forced upon or imposed
upon the obstinate. As St. Maximus puts it, “the Spirit does not produce an
undesired resolve, but it transforms a chosen purpose into theosis.”140 For sin
and evil come not from an external impurity, but from an internal failure, from
the perversion of the will. Consequently, sin is overcome only by inner
conversion and change, and repentance is sealed by grace in the sacraments.141

Physical death among mankind is not abrogated by the Resurrection of Christ.
Death is rendered powerless, indeed; mortality is overcome by the hope and
pledge of the coming resurrection. And yet each must justify that resurrection
for himself. This can be done only in a free communion with the Lord. The
immortality of nature, the permanence of existence, must be actualized into the
life in the Spirit. The fullness of life is not merely an endless existence. In
baptism we are initiated into this very resurrection of life, which will be
consummated in the last day.

St. Paul speaks of a “likeness” unto the death of Christ, τω όμοιώματι του
θανάτου αύτου (Romans 6:3), but this “likeness” means more than a resemblance.
It is more than a mere sign or recollection. The meaning of this “likeness” for
St. Paul himself was that in each of us Christ can and must be “formed”
(Galatians 4:19). Christ is the Head, all believers are His members, and His
life is actualized in them. All are called and every one is capable of
believing, and of being quickened by faith and baptism to live in Him. Baptism
is a regeneration, άναγέννησις, a new, spiritual, and charismatic birth. As
Cabasilas says, Baptism is the cause of a beatific life in Christ, not merely of
life.142 St. Cyril of Jerusalem lucidly explains the true reality of all
baptismal symbolism. It is true, he says, that in the baptismal font we die and
are buried only “in imitation,” only “symbolically” (δια συμβόλου). We do not
rise from a real grave (ούδ’ αληθώς έτάφημεν) and yet, “if the imitation is in
an image, the salvation is in very truth,” έν άληθεία δε ή σωτηρία. Christ was
really crucified and buried, and actually rose from the grave. The Greek word
used is οντως. It is more and stronger than simply αληθώς - “in very truth”; it
emphasizes the supernatural character of the death and resurrection of Our Lord.
Hence He gave us this chance, by “imitative” sharing of His Passion to acquire
“salvation in reality” (τη μιμήσει των παθημάτων αυτού κοινά χήσαντες). It is
not only an “imitation,” but rather a participation, or a similitude. “Christ
was crucified and buried in reality, but to you it is given to be crucified,
buried, and raised with Him in similitude” (έν ομοιώματι).143 It should be kept
in mind that St. Cyril mentions not only the death, but also the burial. This
means that in baptism man descends “sacra-mentally” into the darkness of death,
and yet with the Risen Lord rises again and crosses over from death to life.
“And the image is completed all upon you, for you are the image of Christ,”
concludes St. Cyril. In other words, all are held together by and in Christ,
hence the very possibility of a sacramental “resemblance.”144

St. Gregory of Nyssa dwells on the same point. There are two aspects in baptism.
Baptism is a birth and a death. Natural birth is the beginning of a mortal
existence, which begins and ends in corruption. Another, a new birth, had to be
discovered, which would initiate into eternal life. In baptism “the presence of
a Divine power transforms what is born with a corruptible nature into a state of
incorrup-tion.”145 It is transformed through following and imitating; and thus
what was foreshown by the Lord is realized. Only by following after Christ can
one pass through the labyrinth of life and come out of it. “For I call the
inescapable guard of death, in which sorrowing mankind is imprisoned, a
labyrinth” (την άδιέξοδον του θανάτου φρουράν). Christ escaped from this after
the three days of death. In the baptismal font “the imitation of all that He has
done is accomplished.” Death is “represented” in the element of water, and as
Christ rose again to life, so also the newly-baptized, united with Him in bodily
nature, “doth imitate the resurrection on the third day.” This is just an
“imitation,” and not “identity.” In baptism man is not actually raised, but only
freed from natural evil and the inescapability of death. In him the “continuity
of vice” is cut off. He is not resurrected, for he does not die, he remains in
this life. Baptism only foreshadows the resurrection. In baptism we anticipate
the grace of the final resurrection. Baptism is a “homiomatic resurrection” to
use the phrase of one Russian scholar. Yet in baptism the resurrection is in a
way already initiated. Baptism is the start, αρχή, and the resurrection is the
end and consummation, πέρας ... and all that will take place in the great
Resurrection already has its beginnings and causes in baptism. St. Gregory does
not mean that resurrection which consists only in a remolding of our
composition. Human nature advances towards that goal by a kind of necessity. He
speaks of the fullness of the resurrection, of a “restoration to a blessed and
divine state, set free from all shame and sorrow.” It is an apokatastasis, a
true “resurrection unto life.”146

It must be pointed out that St. Gregory specially emphasized the need of keeping
and holding fast the baptismal grace, for in baptism it is not only nature but
also the will that is transformed and transfigured, remaining free throughout.
If the soul is not cleansed and purified in the free exercise of will, baptism
proves to be fruitless; the transfiguration is not actualized; the new life is
not yet consummated. This does not subordinate baptismal grace to human license.
Grace does indeed descend. But it can never be forced upon any one who is free
and made in the image of God, it must be responded to and corroborated by the
synergism of love and will. Grace does not quicken and enliven the closed and
obstinate souls, the really “dead souls.” Response and co-operation are
required.147 That is just because baptism is a sacramental dying with Christ, a
participation in His voluntary death, in His sacrificial Love and this can be
accomplished only in freedom. Thus in baptism the death of Christ on the Cross
is reflected or portrayed as in a living and sacramental image. Baptism is at
once a death and a birth, a burial and a “bath of regeneration,” “a time of
death and a time of birth,” to quote St. Cyril of Jerusalem.148 The Eucharist
and Redemption In the Early Church the rite of Christian initiation was not
divided. Three of the sacraments belong together: Baptism, the Holy Chrism
(Confirmation), and the Eucharist. The Initiation described by St. Cyril, and
later on by Cabasilas, included all three.

Sacraments are instituted in order to enable man to participate in Christ’s
redeeming death and thereby to gain the grace of His resurrection. This was
Cabasilas’ main idea. “We are baptized in order to die by His death and to rise
by His resurrection. We are anointed with the chrism that we may partake of His
kingly anointment of the deification. And when we are fed with the most sacred
Bread and do drink the most Divine Cup, we do partake of the same flesh and the
same blood Our Lord has assumed, and so we are united with Him, Who was for us
incarnate, and died, and rose again… Baptism is a birth, and Chrism is the cause
of acts and movements, and the Bread of life and Cup of thanksgiving are the
true food and the true drink.149 In the whole sacramental and devotional life of
the Church, the Cross and the Resurrection are “imitated” and reflected in
manifold symbols and rites. All the symbolism is realistic. These symbols do not
merely remind us of something in the past. Through these sacred symbols, the
ultimate Reality is in very truth disclosed and conveyed. All this hieratic
symbolism culminates in the august mystery of the Holy Altar. The Eucharist is
the heart of the Church, the Sacrament of Redemption in an eminent sense. It is
more than an “imitatio.” It is Reality itself, veiled and disclosed in the
Sacrament.

It is “the perfect and final Sacrament,” says Cabasilas, “and one cannot go
further, and there is nothing to be added.” It is the “limit of life” - ζωής τό
πέρας. “After the Eucharist there is nothing more to long for, but we have to
stay here and learn how we can preserve this treasure to the end.”150 The
Eucharist is the Last Supper itself, again and again enacted, but not repeated
for every new celebration does not only represent, but truly is the same
“Mystical Supper” which was celebrated for the first time by the Divine High
Priest Himself, “in the night in which He was given up or rather gave Himself
for the life of the world.” The true Celebrant of each Liturgy is Our Lord
Himself. This was stressed with great power by St. John Chrysostom on various
occasions. “Believe, therefore, that even now it is that Supper, at which He
Himself sat down. For this one is in no respect different from that one. For
neither doth man make this one and Himself that one, but both this and that are
His own work. When therefore thou seest the priest delivering it unto thee,
account not that it is the priest that does so, but that it is Christ’s hand
that is stretched out.”151 And again in hom. 82, 5, Col. F.44: “He that then did
these things at that Supper, this same now also works them. We hold the rank of
ministers. He who sanctifieth and changeth them is the Same. This table is the
same as that, and hath nothing less. For it is not that Christ wrought that, and
man this, but He doth this too. This is that Upper Chamber, where they were
then.”152 And “Christ now also is present, He who adorned that table is He who
now also adorns this… The priest stands fulfilling a figure, but the power and
grace are of God.”153

All this is of primary importance. The Last Supper was an offering of the
sacrifice of the Cross. The offering is still continued. Christ is still acting
as the High Priest in His Church. The Mystery is all the same. The Sacrifice is
one. The Table is one. The priest is the same. And not one Lamb is slain, or
offered this day, and another of old; not one here, and another somewhere else.
But the same always and everywhere. One very Lamb of God, “who ‘taketh’ the sins
of the world,” even the Lord Jesus. The Eucharist is a sacrifice, not because
Jesus is slain again, but because the same Body and the same sacrificial Blood
are actually here on the Altar, offered and presented. And the Altar is actually
the Holy Grave, in which the Heavenly Master is falling asleep. Nicolas
Cabasilas put this in these words: “In offering and sacrificing Himself once for
all, He did not cease from His priesthood, but He exercises this perpetual
ministry for us, in which He is our advocate with God for ever, for which reason
it is said of Him, Thou art a priest for ever.”154 The resurrecting power and
significance of Christ’s death are made manifest in full in the Eucharist. The
Lamb is slain, the Body broken, the Blood shed, and yet it is a celestial food,
and “the medicine of immortality and the antidote that we should not die but
live forever in Jesus Christ,” to use the famous phrase of St. Ignatius.155 It
is “the heavenly Bread and the Cup of life.” This tremendous Sacrament is for
the faithful the very “Betrothal of the Life Eternal.” Because Christ’s Death
itself was the Victory and the Resurrection, this Victory and this Triumph do we
observe and celebrate in the Sacrament of the Altar. Eucharist means
thanksgiving. It is a hymn rather than a prayer. It is the service of triumphant
joy, the continuous Easter, the kingly feast of the Lord of Life and glory. “And
so the whole celebration of the Mystery is one image of the whole economy of our
Lord,” says Cabasilas.156 The Holy Eucharist is the climax of our aspirations.
The beginning and the end are here linked together: the reminiscences of the
Gospels and the prophecies of the Revelation, i.e. the fullness of the New
Testament. The Eucharist is a sacramental anticipation, a foretaste of the
Resurrection, an “image of the Resurrection” (ό τύπος της αναπαύσεως; the phrase
is from the consecration prayer of St. Basil). The sacramental life of believers
is the building up of the Church. Through the sacraments, and in them, the new
life of Christ is extended to and bestowed upon the members of His Body. Through
the sacraments the Redemption is appropriated and disclosed. One may add: In the
sacraments is consummated the Incarnation, the true reunion of man with God in
Christ.

Ο Christ, Passover great and most Holy! Ο Wisdom, Word, and Power of God!
Vouchsafe that we may more perfectly partake of Thee in the days of Thine
everlasting Kingdom. (Easter Hymn, recited by the priest at every celebration.)
Notes and References

127. St. John Chrysostom, in Acta Apost. horn. VII, M.G. LX, c. 57: και αυτό
ώδινε κατέχων αυτόν ό θάνατος, και τα δεινά ένέπασχεν; Chrysostom has in view
the words of Acts: τάς ώδΐνας του θανάτου [Acts 2:24}; cf. Psalms 17:5-6.
Strack-Billerbeck, ad Acta 11.24: “Stricke des Todes,” or “Weben des Todes”
[2:617-618]. Cf. in the Liturgy of St. Basil, the Prayer of Consecration: και
κατελθών δια του σταυρού εις τον “Αδην, ίνα πλήρωση έαυτου τά πάντα, ^λυσε τάς
όδύνας του θανάτου’ και άναστάς τη τρίτη ήμερα, καΐ όδοποιήσας πάση σαρκί την εκ
νεκρών άνάστασιν, καθότι ουκ fjv δυνατόν κρατεΐ-σθαι ύπό της φθοράς τον άρχηγόν
της ζως, έγένετο απαρχή των κεκοιμημένων, πρωτότοκος εκ τών νεκρών, ίνα ή αυτός
τά πάντα έν πάσι πρωτεύων.

128. Office for the Burial of a Priest, Stikhira idiomela by St. John of
Damascus, Hapgood, p. 415.

129. St. Athanasius, De incarn. 26, M.G. XXV, c. 141; cf. St. John Chrysostom in
loann. h. 85, [al. 84], 2: “By all means He shows that this is a sort of new
death, for everything was in the power of the dying One and death did not come
to His body until He so desired,” κοινόν τόν θάνατον τούτον δντα, M.G. LIX, c.
462.

130. Easter Canon, 2nd Song of Solomon 2:1-17 nd Troparion, Hapgood p. 231.

131. Sunday Matins, siedalen of the 3rd tone.

132. “Christ is first-born from the dead.” Colossians 1:18. Born, as it were,
from the grave. Resurrection is a new mysterious birth into full immortality,
into a new and perpetual, i.e. “eternal,” life. And death itself issues into a
birth. “The first that shall rise from the dead.” Acts 26:23 : “The first
begotten of the dead.” Revelation 1:5. Cf. J. Chaine, Diet. d.l. Bible, Suppl,
t.II, p. 418: “La resurrection est comparee a un enfantement de la part du
scheol. Jesus est le premier parmi les hommes qui soit sorti du sein de
I’Hades.”

133. St. John Chrysostom, in Hebr. h. 17, 2, M.G. LXIII, c. 129.

134. St. Athanasius, De incarn. 21, M.G. XXV, c. 132.

135. St. Gregory of Nyssa, Or at. catech., c. 16, Srawley, 70-72: πάλιν προς τήν
άρρηκτον Γνώσιν το διασχισθέν συναρμόσας . . . οίον άπό τινός αρχής εις πασαν
άνθρωπίνην φύσιν τη δυνάμει κατά το Ισον έκ τοΟ διακριθέντος έναντι διαβαίνει.
Cf. adv. Apollinarium, cap. 17, M.G. XLV, 1153, 1156: “Death is but the
separation of soul and body, but He, who has united both soul and body in
Himself, did not separate Himself from either.... Being simple and uncomposed,
He was not divided, when body and soul were separated; on the contrary, He
rather accomplishes their union, and by His own indivisibility does bring even
the separated into unity, τω γαρ καθ* εαυτόν άδιαιρέτω και τό διηρημένον εις
ενωσιν άγει. The Only Begotten God Himself raises the human nature united with
Him, first separating the soul from the body, and then co-uniting them again,
and so the common salvation of nature is achieved.”

136. St. Gregory of Nyssa, adv. Apollin, c. 55, M.G. XLV, c. 1257, 1260.

137. Nicolas Cabasilas, De vita in Christo, 11.86-96, ed. Gass, Die Mystik des
Nicolaus Cabasilas (1849), pp. 46-48. Gass’s edition is reproduced in M.G. CL. A
French translation by S. Broussaleux has been recently published by “Irenikon.”

138. St. Ignatius, Magnes 5, Lightfoot p. 117-118. The language of Ignatius is
molded on that of St. Paul; comp. Romans 6:5; Romans 6:8 :If, 29; 2 Corinthians
4:10, Php 3:10, 2 Timothy 2:11 (Lightfoot, ad locum.) 139. St. Maximus, Quaest.
ad Thalassium, qu. 39, Schol. 3, M.G. XC.393.

140. St. Maximus, Quaest. ad Thalass. 6, M.G. XC, c. 280; cf. St. Irenaeus, Adv.
haereses, IV.31.I, M.G. VII, c. 1105: ούτω καΐ ό θεός αυτός μέν οίος τε ή ν
παρασχεΐν άπ’ αρχής τω άνθρώπω τό τέ-λειον, ό δέ άνθρωπος αδύνατος λαβείν αυτό’
νήπιον γαρ fjv; cf. 1607: έκεΐνος δέ άρτι γεγονώς, αδύνατος fjv λαδεΐν αυτό, ή
και λαδών χωρήσαι, ή καΐ χωρήσας κατασχεΐν.

141. On the whole question of “universal salvation” see E. P. Pusey’s still
unantiquated pamphlet: What is of Faith as to Everlasting Punishment? 1879,
1880. Andreas of Caesarea, in his Commentary on Revelation, gives an interesting
terminological summary. (See the whole of chapter 62, ad XX.5, 6, on the “first
resurrection” and the “second death,” M.G. CVI, c. 412-413; cf. also ch. 59, ad
XIX, 21, c. 406.) There are two kinds of life and two kinds of death, and
therefore two kinds of resurrection too. The first life is that of the fallen
man, “temporary and fleshly” (πρόσκαιρος και σαρκική). The second life is Life
eternal, which is promised to the saints in the age to come. The first death is
the separation of the soul and body, a death “of the flesh” (ό της σαρκός) and
for a time only (πρόσκαιρος), up to the second resurrection. The “second death”
is the “eternal” condemnation, which is prepared for the sinners in the age to
come, eternal torments and confinement in Gehenna (ό της είς γεένναν εκπομπής).
Again, the “first resurrection” is a spiritual regeneration, a “quickening from
the deadly deeds,” and the second and ultimate resurrection is that of the
bodies, which are to be relieved out of corruption and transformed into
incorruption. Πρώτος τοίνυν ό σωματικός θάνατος, τη ανθρωπινή παρακοή δοθείς
έπιτιμίαν ό δεύτερος, ή αιώνιος κό-λασις; πρώτη δέ άνάστασις ή έκ νεκρών £ργων
ζωοποίησις* δευτέρα δέ ή έκ φθοράς τών σωμάτων είς άψθαρσίαν μεταποίησις.

142. Ν. Cabasilas, De vita in Christo, 11.95, Gass 48.

143. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystag. II. 4-5, 7, M.G. XXXIII, c. 1080-1081,
1084; cf. 8II.2, c. 1089. See also St. Basil, de Spiritu S. 55, M.G. XXXII, c.
126, 129- 144. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Myst. III.l, M.G. XXXIII, c. 1088.

145. St. Gregory of Nyssa, Orat. cat., 33, Srawley 123, 126.

146. St. Gregory of Nyssa, Orat. catech, 35, Srawley 129-130.

147. St. Gregory of Nyssa, Orat. cat. , Srawley 159-164; cf. Orat. 1 in S.
Pascha, M.G. XLVI, c. 604 s.; de propos. sec. Deum, M.G. XLV, c. 289. This was
the reason St. Gregory so vigorously attacked those who used to postpone baptism
till the later period of life. The benefit of baptism is thereby diminished,
since not enough time is left to actualize the baptismal grace by the creative
effort of a godly life (M.G. XVI, c. 416-432). On the other hand, St. Gregory
admits that the benefits of baptism will sooner or later be extended to and
appropriated by everyone, i.e. that “baptism” in some form will be administered
to all men. This idea is organically connected with the doctrine of
“apokatastasis” and of the healing character of the whole after-life up to the
final consummation. Hence the idea of a plurality of baptisms; and the last
baptism will be that of fire, which nobody can escape. Similar ideas are to be
found in St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oral. 39, 19, M.G. XXXVI, c. 357; repeated by
St. John Damascene, de fide orth., IV.3, M.G. XCIV, c. 1124-1125.

148. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystag. II, 4, M.G. XXXIII, r. 1081. Cf. N.
Cabasilas, De vita in Christo, II, 10.

149. N. Cabasilas, De vita in Christo, II.3, 4, 6, Gass 28-29.

150. N. Cavasilas, De vita in Christo, IV. 1, 4, 15, Gass 81, 82, 84-85.

151. St. John Chrysostom, in Matt. horn. 50, 3, M.G. LVIII, c. 50f.

152. Ibidem, horn. 82, 5, Colossians 744.

153. De proditione Judae, 1.6, M.G. XLIX, c. 380.

154. Nicolas Cabasilas, Explanatio dip. liturgiae, c. 23, M.G. CL, c. On the
“sacramental” remembrance and representation of Christ’s death in the Eucharist,
see Odo Casel, Das Mysteriengeddchniss der Messliturgie im Lichte der Tradition,
Jahrbucher fur die Liturgiewissenschaft, VI (1925), s. 113-204. “Das Geddchtniss
selbst besteht in der nach Vorbild des letzten Abendmahles gestalteten rituellen
Be ge bung des Erlosungswerkes. Dies Geddchtniss ist zugleich das Opfer. Es ist
nicht subjektives Sicherinnern, sondern objektive Wirklichkeit unter dem Ritus,
mit anderen Worten Symbol, Gleichnissbild, Mysterium. Die Anamnese stem pelt
also die ganze heilige Handlung zum realen Geddchtniss: der Erlosungstod wird
unterdem Schleier der Ritus Wirklichkeit [130]. .. .Dies Mysterium enthdlt so
konkrete Wirklichkeit, dass es vollstdndig mit der Tat identifiziert wird, dies
es mystisch darstellt; so sehr dass man von der symbolischen Darstellung im
Mysterium auf die Geschichtlichkeit der Tat zuruckschliessen kann. Es ist also
auf beiden Seiten diesselbe eine Tat; nur ist sie im zweiten Falle unter
symbolen verbergen. Das Mysterium bringt genau so die Erlosung, wie jene erste
Heilstat; ja es est die Erlosung [153]. . . .Nicht das historische Ereignis hebt
sich wieder aus der Vergangenheit hervor; Christus stirbt nicht wieder
historisch-real; aber die Heilstat wird sakramental, in mysterio, in Sacramento,
gegenwdrtig und dadurch fur die Heilsuchenden zugdnglich [174]. . . . Die
historisch vorgangene Passion wird sakramental gegenwdrtig [186].” Casel
provides a copious Patristic documentation. One may consult his other essays as
well. Cf. Darwell Stone, The Eucharistic Sacrifice (1920), and A. Vonier, A Key
to the Doctrine of the Eucharist (1925).

155. St. Ignatius, Ephes. XX.2, Lightfoot, 8F.

156. N. Cabasilas, Expos, liturglas, c. 16, M.G. CL, 404. See Bp. Aulen’s
article in The Ministry and Sacraments, ed. Headlam and Dunkerley (1937). “Now,
in the act of commemoration we look back to the historical events and the
Sacrifice as we see them in the right light, in the light of the Resurrection.
Therefore in celebrating the Lord’s death we are not performing a funeral
service, not yet a mere memorial of a martyrdom; the Sacrament is not only a
Sacrament of suffering Love, but also of victorious Love. We praise and magnify
the living ’Kyrios’ who comes to us in His holy Supper.”


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 12: 09 - CUR DEUS HOMO? THE MOTIVE OF THE INCARNATION
========================================================================

Cur Deus Homo? The Motive of the Incarnation “I am the Alpha and the Omega.”
(Revelation 1:8)

“Cur Deus Homo? The Motive of the Incarnation” appeared in Evhariste-rion:
Hamilcar Alivisatos (Athens, 1957), 70-79. Reprinted by permission. The
translations from Latin were done by Raymond German Ciuba; those from Greek, by
Stephen N. Scott.

I. The Christian message was from the very beginning the message of Salvation,
and accordingly our Lord was depicted primarily as the Savior, Who has redeemed
His people from bondage of sin and corruption. The very fact of the Incarnation
was usually interpreted in early Christian theology in the perspective of
Redemption. Erroneous conceptions of the Person of Christ with which the early
Church had to wrestle were criticized and refuted precisely when they tended to
undermine the reality of human Redemption. It was generally assumed that the
very meaning of Salvation was that the intimate union between God and man had
been restored, and it was inferred that the Redeemed had to belong Himself to
both sides, i.e. to be at once both Divine and human, for otherwise the broken
communion between God and man would not have been re-established. This was the
main line of reasoning of St. Athanasius in his struggle with the Arians, of St.
Gregory of Nazianzus in his refutation of Apollinarianism, and of other writers
of the IVth and Vth centuries. “That is saved which is united with God,” says
St. Gregory of Nazianzus.1 The redeeming aspect and impact of the Incarnation
were emphatically stressed by the Fathers. The purpose and the effect of the
Incarnation were defined precisely as the Redemption of man and his restoration
to those original conditions which were destroyed by the fall and sin. The sin
of the world was abrogated and taken away by the Incarnate One, and He only,
being both Divine and human, could have done it. On the other hand, it would be
unfair to claim that the Fathers regarded this redeeming purpose as the only
reason for the Incarnation, so that the Incarnation would not have taken place
at all, had not man sinned. In this form the question was never asked by the
Fathers. The question about the ultimate motive of the Incarnation was never
formally discussed in the Patristic Age. The problem of the relation between the
mystery of the Incarnation and the original purpose of Creation was not touched
upon by the Fathers; they never elaborated this point systematically. “It may
perhaps be truly said that the thought of an Incarnation independent of the Fall
harmonizes with the general tenor of Greek theology. Some patristic phrases seem
to imply that the thought was distinctly realized here and there, and perhaps
discussed.”2 These ‘patristic phrases’ were not collected and examined. In fact,
the same Fathers could be quoted in favor of opposite opinions. It is not enough
to accumulate quotations, taking them out of their context and ignoring the
purpose, very often polemical, for which particular writings were composed. Many
of these ‘patristic phrases’ were just ‘occasional’ statements, and they can be
used only with utter care and caution. Their proper meaning can be ascertained
only when they are read in the context, Le. in the perspective of the thought of
each particular writer.

II.

Rupert of Deutz (d. 1135) seems to be the first among the medieval theologians
who formally raised the question of the motive of the Incarnation, and his
contention was that the Incarnation belonged to the original design of Creation
and was therefore independent of the Fall. Incarnation was, in his
interpretation, the consummation of the original creative purpose of God, an aim
in itself, and not merely a redemptive remedy for human failure.3 Honorius of
Autun (d. 1152) was of the same conviction.4 The great doctors of the XHIth
century, such as Alexander of Hales and Albert Magnus, admitted the idea of an
Incarnation independent of the Fall as a most convenient solution of the
problem.5 Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308) elaborated the whole conception with great
care and logical consistency. For him the Incarnation apart from the Fall was
not merely a most convenient assumption, but rather an indispensable doctrinal
presupposition. The Incarnation of the Son of God was for him the very reason of
the whole Creation. Otherwise, he thought, this supreme action of God would have
been something merely accidental or ‘occasional’. “Again, if the Fall were the
cause of the predestination of Christ, it would follow that God’s greatest work
was only occasional, for the glory of all will not be so intense as that of
Christ, and it seems unreasonable to think that God would have foregone such a
work because of Adam’s good deed, if he had not sinned.” The whole question for
Duns Scotus was precisely that of the order of Divine ‘predestination’ or
purpose, i.e. of the order of thoughts in the Divine counsel of Creation.
Christ, the Incarnate, was the first object of the creative will of God, and it
was for Christ’s sake that anything else had been created at all. “The
Incarnation of Christ was not foreseen occasionally, but was viewed as an
immediate end by God from eternity; thus, in speaking about things which are
predestined, Christ in human nature was predestined before others, since He is
nearer to an end.” This order of ‘purposes’ or ‘previsions’ was, of course, just
a logical one. The main emphasis of Duns Scotus was on the unconditional and
primordial character of the Divine decree of the Incarnation, seen in the total
perspective of Creation.6 Aquinas (1224-1274) also discussed the problem at
considerable length. He saw the whole weight of the arguments in favor of the
opinion that, even apart from the Fall, “nevertheless, God would have become
incarnate,” and he quoted the phrase of St. Augustine: “in the Incarnation of
Christ, other things must be considered besides absolution from sin.” (De
Trinitate, XIII. 17). But Aquinas could not find, either in Scripture or in the
Patristic writings, any definite witness to this Incarnation independent of the
Fall, and therefore was inclined to believe that the Son of God would not have
been incarnate if the first man did not sin: “Although God could have become
incarnate without the existence of sin, it is nevertheless more appropriate to
say that, if man had not sinned, God would not have become incarnate, since in
Sacred Scripture the reason for the Incarnation is everywhere given as the sin
of the first man.” The unfathomable mystery of the Divine will can be
comprehended by man only in so far as it is plainly attested in Holy Scripture,
“only to the extent that [these things] are transmitted in Sacred Scripture,”
or, as Aquinas says in another place, “only in so far as we are informed by the
authority of the saints, through whom God has revealed His will.” Christ alone
knows the right answer to this question: “The truth of the matter only He can
know, Who was born and Who was offerred up, because He so willed.”7 Bonaventura
(1221-1274) suggested the same caution. Comparing the two opinions - one in
favor of an Incarnation apart from the Fall and the other dependent on it, he
concluded: “Both [opinions] excite the soul to devotion by different
considerations: the first, however, more consonant with the judgment of reason;
yet it appears that the second is more agreeable to the piety of faith.” One
should rely rather on the direct testimony of the Scriptures than on the
arguments of human logic.8 On the whole, Duns Scotus was followed by the
majority of theologians of the Franciscan order, and also by not a few outside
it, as, for instance, by Dionysius Carthusianus, by Gabriel Biel, by John
Wessel, and, in the time of the Council of Trent, by Giacomo Nachianti, Bishop
of Chiozza (Jacobus Naclantus), and also by some of the early Reformers, for
instance, by Andreas Osiander.9 This opinion was strongly opposed by others, and
not only by the strict Thomists, and the whole problem was much discussed both
by Roman Catholic and by Protestant theologians in the XVIIth century.10 Among
the Roman Catholic champions of the absolute decree of the Incarnation one
should mention especially Fran£ois de Sales and Malebranche. Malebranche
strongly insisted on the meta-phycical necessity of the Incarnation, quite apart
from the Fall, for otherwise, he contended, there would have been no adequate
reason or purpose for the act of Creation itself.11 The controversy is still
going on among Roman Catholic theologians, sometimes with excessive heat and
vigor, and the question is not settled.12 Among the Anglicans, in the last
century, Bishop Wescott strongly pleaded for the ‘absolute motive’, in his
admirable essay on “The Gospel of Creation.”13 The late Father Sergii Bulgakov
was strongly in favor of the opinion that the Incarnation should be regarded as
an absolute decree of God, prior to the catastrophe of the Fall.14

III. In the course of this age-long discussion a constant appeal has been made
to the testimony of the Fathers. Strangely enough, the most important item has
been overlooked in this anthology of quotations. Since the question of the
motive of the Incarnation was never formally raised in the Patristic age, most
of the texts used in the later discussions could not provide any direct
guidance.15 St. Maximus the Confessor (580-662) seems to be the only Father who
was directly concerned with the problem, although not in the same setting as the
later theologians in the West. He stated plainly that the Incarnation should be
regarded as an absolute and primary purpose of God in the act of Creation. The
nature of the Incarnation, of this union of the Divine majesty with human
frailty, is indeed an unfathomable mystery, but we can at least grasp the reason
and the purpose of this supreme mystery, its logos and skopos. And this original
reason, or the ultimate purpose, was, in the opinion of St. Maximus, precisely
the Incarnation itself and then our own incorporation into the Body of the
Incarnate One. The phrasing of St. Maximus is straight and clear. The 60th
questio ad Thalassium, is a commentary on 1 Peter, 1:19-20 : “[Christ was] like
a blameless and spotless lamb, who was foreordained from the foundation of the
world.” Now the question is: St. Maximus first briefly summarizes the true
teaching about the Person of Christ, and then proceeds: “This is the blessed
end, on account of which everything was created. This is the Divine purpose,
which was thought of before the beginning of Creation, and which we call an
intended fulfillment. All creation exists on account of this fulfillment and yet
the fulfillment itself exists because of nothing that was created. Since God had
this end in full view, he produced the natures of things. This is truly the
fulfillment of Providence and of planning. Through this there is a
recapitulation to God of those created by Him. This is the mystery
circumscribing all ages, the awesome plan of God, super-infinite and infinitely
pre-existing the ages. The Messenger, who is in essence Himself the Word of God,
became man on account of this fulfillment. And it may be said that it was He
Himself Who restored the manifest innermost depths of the goodness handed down
by the Father; and He revealed the fulfillment in Himself, by which creation has
won the beginning of true existence. For on account of Christ, that is to say
the mystery concerning Christ, all time and that which is in time have found the
beginning and the end of their existence in Christ. For before time there was
secretly purposed a union of the ages, of the determined and the Indeterminate,
of the measurable and the Immeasurable, of the finite and Infinity, of the
creation and the Creator, of motion and rest - a union which was made manifest
in Christ during these last times.” (M., P.G., XC, 621, A-B.) One has to
distinguish most carefully between the eternal being of the Logos, in the bosom
of the Holy Trinity, and the ‘economy’ of His Incarnation. ‘Prevision’ is
related precisely to the Incarnation: “Therefore Christ was foreknown, not as He
was according to His own nature, but as he later appeared incarnate for our sake
in accordance with the final economy.” (M., P.G., XC, 624D). The ‘absolute
predestination’ of Christ is alluded to with full clarity.16 This conviction was
in full agreement with the general tenor of the theological system of St.
Maximus, and he returns to the problem on many occasions, both in his answers to
Thalassius and in his Ambigua. For instance, in connection with Ephesians 1:9,
St. Maximus says: “[By this Incarnation and by our age] he has shown us for what
purpose we were made and the greatest good will be of God towards us before the
ages.” (M., P.G., 1097C). By his very constitution man anticipates in himself
“the great mystery of the Divine purpose,” the ultimate consummation of all
things in God. The whole history of Divine Providence is for St. Maximus divided
into two great periods: the first culminates in the Incarnation of the Logos and
is the story of Divine condescension (“through the Incarnation”); the second is
the story of human ascension into the glory of deification, an extension, as it
were, of the Incarnation to the whole creation. “Therefore we may divide time
into two parts according to its design, and we may distinguish both the ages
pertaining to the mystery of the Incarnation of the Divine, and the ages
concerning the deification of the human by grace… and to say it concisely: both
those ages which concern the descent of God to men, and those which have begun
the ascent of men to God… Or, to say it even better, the beginning, the middle,
and the end of all the ages, those which have gone by, those of the present
time, and those which are yet to come, is our Lord Jesus Christ.” (M., P.G., XC,
320, B-C). The ultimate consummation is linked in the vision of St. Maximus with
the primordial creative will and purpose of God, and therefore his whole
conception is strictly ‘theocentric’, and at the same time ‘Christocentric’. In
no sense, however, does this obscure the sad reality of sin, of the utter misery
of sinful existence. The great stress is always laid by St. Maximus on the
conversion and cleansing of the human will, on the struggle with passions and
with evil. But he views the tragedy of the Fall and the apostasy of the created
in the wider perspective of the original plan of Creation.17

IV.

What is the actual weight of the witness of St. Maximus ? Was it more than his
‘private opinion,’ and what is the authority of such Opinions’? It is perfectly
clear that to the question of the first or ultimate ‘motive’ of the Incarnation
no more than a ‘hypothetical’ (or ‘convenient’) answer can be given. But many
doctrinal statements are precisely such hypothetical statements or
‘theologoumena’.18 And it seems that the ‘hypothesis’ of an Incarnation apart
from the Fall is at least permissible in the system of Orthodox theology and
fits well enough into the mainstream of Patristic teaching. An adequate answer
to the question of the ‘motive’ of the Incarnaion can be given only in the
context of the general doctrine of Creation.

Notes and References: l. Epist. 101, ad Cledoniutn (M., P.G., 37, Colossians
118).

2. Bishop B. F. Westcott, “The Gospel of Creation,” in The Epistles of St. John,
The Greek Text with notes and essays, Third Edition. (Macmillan, 1892), p. 288.

8. Rupertus Tuitensis, De Gloria et honore Filii hominis super Matthaeum, lib.
13, (M., P.L., 148, Colossians 1628): “Here it is first proper to ask whether or
not the Son of God, Whom this discourse concerns, would have become man, even if
sin, on account of which all die, had not intervened. There is no doubt that He
would not have become mortal and assumed a mortal body if sin had not occurred
and caused man to become mortal; only an infidel could be ignorant as to this.
The question is: would this have occurred, and would it somehow have been
necessary for mankind that God become man, the Head and King of all, as He now
is? What will be the answer?” Rupert then quotes from St. Augustine about the
eternal predestination of the saints (De Civitate Dei, 14. 23.) and continues:
“Since, with regard to the saints and all the elect there is no doubt but that
they will all be found, up to the number appointed in God’s plan, about which He
says in blessing, before sin, ’Increase and multiply,’ and it is absurd to think
that sin was necessary in order to obtain that number, what must be thought
about the very Head and King of all the elect, angels and men, but that He had
indeed no necessary cause for becoming man, but that His love’s ’delights were
to be with the children of men.’ [Proverbs 8:31]” Cf. also De Glorificatione
Trinitatis, lib. 3. 20 (M., P.L., 169, Colossians 72): “Therefore, we say quite
probably, not so much that man [was made] to make up the number of the angels
[i.e., for those who had fallen], but that both angels and men were made because
of one man, Jesus Christ, so that, as He Himself was begotten God from God, and
was to be found a man, He would have a family prepared on both sides. .. From
the beginning, before God made anything, it was in His plan that the Word
{Logos} of God, God the Word [Logos], would be made flesh, and dwell among men
with great love and the deepest humility, which are His true delights.”
(Allusion again to Proverbs 8:31.)

4. Honorius of Autun, Libellus octo quaestionum de angelis et homine, cap. 2
(Μ., P.L., 172, Colossians 72): “And therefore the first man’s sin was not the
cause of Christ’s Incarnation; rather, it was the cause of death and damnation.
The cause of Christ’s Incarnation was the predestination of human deification.
It was indeed predestined by God from all eternity that man would be deified,
for the Lord said, ’Father, Thou hast loved them* before the creation of the
world,’ [cf. John 17:24] those, that is, who are deified through Me... It was
necessary, therefore, for Him to become incarnate, so that man could be deified,
and thus it does not follow that sin was the cause of His Incarnation, but it
follows all the more logically that sin could not alter God’s plan for deifying
man; since in fact both the authority of Sacred Scripture and clear reason
declare that God would have assumed man even had man never sinned. [*S. Script.,
John 17:24, reads ’me’ for ’them’.”]

5. Alexander Halensis, Summa tkeologica, ed. ad. Claras Aquas, dist. 3, qu. 3,
m. 3; Albertus Magnus, In 3, 1. Sententiarum, dist. 20, art. 4, ed. Borgnet, t.
28, 361: “On this question it must be said that the solution is uncertain, but
insofar as I can express an opinion, I believe that the Son of God would have
been made man, even if sin had never been.”

6. Duns Scotus, Opus Oxoniense, 3, dist. 19, ed. Wadding, t. 7, p. 415. Cf.
Reportata Parisiensia, lib. 3, dist. 7, qu. 4, schol. 2, ed. Wadding, t. 11. 1,
p. 451. “I say, nevertheless, that the Fall is not the cause of Christ’s
predestination. Indeed, even if one angel had not fallen, or one man, Christ
would still have been predestined thus-even if others had not been created, but
only Christ. This I demonstrate thus: anyone who wills methodically first wills
an end, and then more immediately, those things which are more immediate to the
end. But God wills most methodically; therefore, He wills thus: first He wills
Himself, and everything intrinsic to Himself; more directly, so far as concerns
things extrinsic, is the soul of Christ. Therefore, in relation to whatever
merit and before whatever dement was foreseen, He foresees that Christ must be
united to Him in a substantial union... The disposition and predestination is
first complete concerning the elect, and then something is done concerning the
reprobate, as a secondary act, lest anyone rejoice as if the loss of another was
a reward for himself; therefore, before the foreseen Fall, and before any
demerit, the whole process concerning Christ was foreseen... Therefore, I say
thus: first, God loves Himself; second, He loves Himself by others, and this
love of His is pure; third, He wills that He be loved by another, one who can
love Him to the highest degree (in speaking about the love of someone
extrinsic); fourth, He foresees the union of that nature which ought to love Him
to the highest degree, although none had fallen [i.e., even if no one had
fallen] ... and, therefore, in the fifth instance, He sees a coming mediator who
will suffer and redeem His people; He would not have come as a mediator, to
suffer and to redeem, unless someone had first sinned, unless the glory of the
flesh had become swelled with pride, unless something needed to be redeemed;
otherwise, He would have immediately been the whole Christ glorified.” The same
reasoning is in the Opus Oxoniensey dist. 7, qu. 3, scholium 3, Wadding 202. See
P. Raymond, “Duns Scot,” in Dictionnaire de la Theologie Catholique, t.4,
Colossians 1890-1891, and his article, “Le Motif de l’lncarnation: Duns Scot et
l’ficole scotiste,” in Etudes Franciscaines (1912); also R. ieeberg, Die
Tbeologie des Johannes Duns Scotus (Leipzig, 1900), s. 250.

7. Summa theol, 3a, qu. 1, art. 3; in 3 Sentent., dist. 1, qu. 1, art. 3.

8. Bonaventura, in 3 Sentent., dist. 1, qu. 2, ed. Lugduni (1668), pp. 10-12.

9. Cf. A. Michele, “Incarnation,” in Dictionnaire de la Theologie Catholique, t.
7, Colossians 1495 ss. John Wessel, De causis Incarnationis, lib. 2, c. 7,
quoted by G. Ullman, Die Reformatoren vor der Reformation, Bd. 2 (Gotha, 1866),
s. 398 ff. On Naclantus see Westcott, op. cit., p. 312 ff. Andreas Osiander, An
Filius Dei fuit incarnatus, si peccatum non inter-vents set in mundum? Item de
imagine Dei quid sit? Ex cert is et evidentibus S. Scripturae testimoniis et non
ex philosophicis et humanae rationis cogitationibus derompta explicatio (Monte
Regia Prussiae, 1550); see I. A. Dorner, Entivicklun gsgeschichte der Lehre von
der Person Christi, 2 Aufl. (1853), Bd. 2, s. 438 ff. and 584; Otto Ritschl,
Dogmengeschichte des Protestantismus, Bd. 2 (Leipzig, 1912), s. 462. Osiander
was vigorously criticized by Calvin, Institutio, lib. 2, cap. 12, 4-7, ed.
Tholuck, 1, s. 304-309.

10. See for instance the long discussion in “Dogmata Theologica” of L. Thomassin
(1619-1695) in tomus 3, De Incamatione Verbi Dei, 2, cap 5 to 11, ed. nova
(Parisiis, 1866), pp. 189-249. Thomassin dismisses the Scotist theory as just a
“hallucination,” contradicted openly by the evidence of Scripture and the
teaching of the Fathers. He gives a long list of Patristic passages, mainly from
St. Augustine. Bellarmin (1542-1621) dismisses this idea in one phrase: “For if
Adam had remained in that innocence wherein he had been created, doubtless the
Son of God would not have suffered; He probably would not even have assumed
human flesh, as even Calvin himself teaches”; De Christo, lib. 5, cap. 10,
editio prima Romana (Romae, 1832), t. 1, p. 432. Petavius (1583-1652) was little
interested in the controversy: “This question is widely and very contentiously
disputed in the schools, but, being removed from the controversy, we will
explain it in a few words.” There is no evidence for this conception in
Tradition, and Petavius gives some few quotations to the opposite effect. “Opus
de Theologicis Dogmatibus,” tomus 4, De Incamatione, lib. 2, cap. 17, 7-12, ed.
(Venetiis, 1757), pp. 95-96. On the Protestant side see a brief discussion in
John Gerhard, Loci Theologici, Locus Quartus, “De Persona et Officio Christi,”
cap. 7, with valuable references to the earlier literature and an interesting
set of Patristic quotations; ed. Sd. Preuss (Berolini, 1863), t. 1, pp. 513-514,
and a longer one in J. A. Quenstedt, Theologia Didactico-Polemica, sive $y
sterna Theologicum (Wittebergae, 1961), Pars 3 & 4, Pars 3, Cap. 3, Membrum 1,
Sectio 1, Quaestio 1, pp. 108-116. On the other hand, Suarez (1548-1617)
advocated a recon-ciliatory view in which both conflicting opinions could be
kept together. See his comments on Summa, 3a, Disput. 4, sectio 12, and the
whole Disp. 5a, Opera Omnia, ed. Berton (Parisiis, I860), pp. 186-266.

11. Frangois de Sales, Traite de Vamour de Dieu, Iivre 2, ch. 4 and 5, in
Oeuvres, edition complete, t. 4 (Annecy, 1894), pp. 99ss. and 102ss.
Malebranche, Entretiens sur la Metaphysique et sur la Religion, Edition critique
par Armand Cuvillier (Paris, 1948), tome 2, Entretien 9, 6, p. 14: “Oui
assurement l’lncarnation du Verbe est le premier et le principal des desseins de
Dieu; c’est ce qui justifie sa conduite”; Traite de la Nature et de la Grace
(Rotterdam, 1712), Discours 1, 1, p. 2. Seconde Eclaircissement, p. 3O2ss.;
Reflexions sur la Promotion Physique (Paris, 1715), p. 300: “II suit evidemment,
ce me semble, de ce que je viens de dire, que le premier et le principal dessein
de Dieu dans la creation, Esther 1:1-22’Incarnation du Verbe: puisque Jesus
Christ est le premier en toutes choses. . . et qu’ainsi, quand 1’homme n’aurait
point peche, le Verbe se serait incarne”; cf. p. 211 and passim. See for further
information: J. Vidgrain, Le Christianisme dans la philosophie de Maleranche
(Paris, 1923), pp. 99ss. and 112ss; H. Gouhier, La Philosophie de Malebranche et
son Experience Religieuse (Paris, 1926), p. 22ss.; J. Maydieu, “La Creation du
Monde et 1’Incarnation du Verbe dans la Philosophie de Malebranche,” in Bulletin
de Litterature Ecclesiastique (Toulouse, 1935). It is of interest to mention
that Leibniz also regarded the Incarnation as an absolute purpose in creation;
see quotations from his unpublished papers in J. Baruzi, Leibniz et I
Organization religieuse de la Terre (Paris, 1907), pp. 273-274.

12. The Scotist point of view has been presented by a Franciscan, Father
Chrysostome, in his two books: Christus Alpha et Omega, seu de Christi
universali regno (Lille, 1910, published without the name of the author) and Le
Motif Deuteronomy 1:1-46’Incarnation et les principaux thomistes contemporains
(Tours, 1921). The latter was a reply to the critics in which he assembled an
impressive array of Patristic texts. The Thomist point of view was taken by
Father E. Hogon, Le Mystere de Vlncarnation (Paris, 1913), p. 63ss., and Father
Paul Galtier, S. J. De Incarnatione et Redemptione (Parisiis, 1926); see also
Father Hilair de Paris, Cur Deus Homo? Dissertario de motivo Incarnationis
(Lyons, 1867) [includes an analysis of Patristic texts from the Thomist point of
view]. Cf. also the introduction in the book of Dr. Aloysius Spindler, Cur
Verbum, caro factum? Das Motiv der Menschiverdung und das Verhaltnis der
Erlosung zur Menschwerdung in den christologischen Glaubenskdmpfen des vierten
und funten christlichen Jahrhunderts (Paderborn, 1938) [’Torschungen zur
christlichen Literatur- und Dogmengeschichte,” hsgg. von A. Ehrhard und Dr. J.
P. Kirsch, Bd. 18, 2 Heft].

13. See note 1 above.

14. Fr. Sergii Bulgakov, Agnets Bozhii (Paris, 1933), p. 191 ff. (in Russian).
French translation, Du Verbe Incarne (Paris, 1943).

15. Dr. Spindler was the only student of the problem using the proper historical
method in handling the texts.

16. Cf. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Liturgie Cosmique: Maxime le Confesseur (Paris,
Aubier, 1947), pp. 204-205; Father Balthasar quotes Qu. ad Talass. 60 and adds
that St. Maximus would have taken the Scotist side in the scholastic
controversy, yet with an important qualification: “Maxime de reste est
totalement etranger au postulat de ce debat scholastique qui imagine la
possibilite d’un autre ordre du monde sans pecho et totalement irreel. Pour lui
la ’volonte preexistante’ de Dieu est identique au monde des ’idees’ et des
’possibles’: l’ordre des essences et l’ordre des faits coincident en ce point
supreme” (in the German edition, Kosmische Liturgie, s. 267-268). See also Dom
Polycarp Sherwood, O.S.B., “The Earlier Ambigua of Saint Maximus the Confessor”
in Studia Anselmiana (Romae, 1955), fasc. 36, ch. 4, pp. 155ff.

17. The best exposition of the theology of St. Maximus is by S. L. Epifanovich,
St. Maximus the Confessor and Byzantine Theology (Kiev, 1915; in Russian); cf.
also the chapter on St. Maximus in my book, The Byzantine Fathers (Paris, 1933),
pp. 200-227 (in Russian). In addition to the book of Father von Balthasar,
quoted above, one may consult with profit the “Introduction” of Dom Polycarp
Sherwood to his translation of The Four Centuries on Charity of St. Maximus,
Ancient Christian Writers, No. 21 (London and Westminster, Md., 1955). See also
Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus
the Confessor (Lund, 1965).

18. See the definition of “theologoumena” by Bolotov, Thesen iiber das
“Filioque,” first published without the name of the author (“von einem
russischen Theologen”) in Revue Internationale de Thiologie, No. 24 (Oct.-Dec,
1898), p. 682: “Man kann fragen, was ich unter Theologou-menon verstehe? Seinem
Wesen nach ist es auch eine theologische Meinung, aber eine theologische Meinung
derer, welche fiir einen jeden ’Katholiken’ mehr bedeuten als gewohnliche
Theologen; es sind die theologische Meinungen der hi. Vater der einen
ungeteilten Kirche; es sind die Meinungen der Manner, unter denen auch die mit
Recht hoi didaskaloi tes oikoumenes genannten sich befinden.” No
“theologoumenon” can claim more than “probability,” and no “theologoumenon”
should be accepted if it has been clearly disavowed by an authoritative or
“dogmatic” pronouncement of the Church.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 13: 10 - THE CATHOLICITY OF THE CHURCH
========================================================================

The Catholicity of the Church The theanthropic union and the Church.

Christ conquered the world. This victory consists in His having created His own
Church. In the midst of the vanity and poverty, of the weakness and suffering of
human history, He laid the foundations of a “new being.” The Church is Christ’s
work on earth; it is the image and abode of His blessed Presence in the world.
And on the day of Pentecost The Holy Spirit descended on the Church, which was
then represented by the twelve Apostles and those who were with them. He entered
into the world in order to abide with us and act more fully than He had ever
acted before; “for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet
glorified” (John 7:39). The Holy Spirit descended once and for always. This is a
tremendous and unfathomable mystery. He lives and abides ceaselessly in the
church. In the Church we receive the Spirit of adoption (Romans 8:15). Through
reaching towards and accepting the Holy Ghost we become eternally God’s. In the
Church our salvation is perfected; the sanctification and transfiguration, the
theosis of the human race is accomplished.

Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus: [Outside the Church there is no salvation]. All the
categorical strength and point of this aphorism lies in its tautology. Outside
the Church there is no salvation, because salvation is the Church. For salvation
is the revelation of the way for every one who believes in Christ’s name. This
revelation is to be found only in the Church. In the Church, as in the Body of
Christ, in its theanthropic organism, the mystery of incarnation, the mystery of
the “two natures,” indissolubly united, is continually accomplished. In the
Incarnation of the Word is the fullness of revelation, a revelation not only of
God, but also of man. “For the Son of God became the Son of Man,” writes St.
Irenaeus, “to the end that man too might become the son of God” (Adv. Haere.
3:10, 2). In Christ, as God-Man, the meaning of human existence is not only
revealed, but accomplished. In Christ human nature is perfected, it is renewed,
rebuilt, created anew. Human destiny reaches its goal, and henceforth human life
is, according to the word of the Apostle, “hid with Christ in God” (Colossians
3:3). In this sense Christ is the “Last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45), a true man.
In Him is the measure and limit of human life. He rose “As the first fruits of
them that are asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20-22). He ascended into Heaven, and
sitteth at the right hand of God. His Glory is the glory of all human existence.
Christ has entered the pre-eternal glory; He has entered it as Man and has
called the whole of mankind to abide with Him and in Him. “God, being rich in
mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead through
our trespasses, quickened us together with Christ ... and raised us up with Him,
and made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians
2:4-6). Therein lies the mystery of the Church as Christ’s Body. The Church is
fulness, (Τò πληρωμα) that is, fulfilment, completion (Ephesians 1:23). In this
manner St. John Chrysostom explains the words of the Apostle: “The Church is the
fulfilment of Christ in the same manner as the head completes the body and the
body is completed by the head. Thus we understand why the Apostle sees that
Christ, as the Head needs all His members. Because if many of us were not, one
the hand, one the foot, one yet another member, His body would not be complete.
Thus His body is formed of all the members. This means, “That the head will be
complete, only when the body is perfect; when we all are most firmly united and
strengthened” (In Ephes. Hom. 3, 2; Migne, P.G. Ixii. c. 26). Bishop Theophanes
repeats the explanation of Chrysostom: “The Church is the fulfilment of Christ
in the same manner as the tree is the fulfilment of the grain. All that is
contained in the grain in a condensed manner, receives its full development in
the tree ... He Himself is complete and all-perfect, but not yet has He drawn
mankind to Himself in final completeness. It is only gradually that mankind
enters into Communion with Him and so gives a new fulness to His work, which
thereby attains its full accomplishment (Explan. Of Ep. To Ephes. M. 1893, 2.
pp. 93-94. For the same point of view, cf. the late Very Rev. J. Armitage
Robinson, St.Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, pp. 44-45, I. 403; short ed. pp.
57-60).

The Church is completeness itself; it is the continuation and the fulfilment of
the theanthropic union. The Church is transfigured and regenerated mankind. The
meaning of this regeneration and transfiguration is that in the Church mankind
becomes one unity, “in one body” (Ephesians 2:16). The life of the Church is
unity and union. The body is “knit together” and “increaseth” (Colossians 2:19)
in unity of Spirit, in unity of love. The realm of the Church is unity. And of
course this unity is no outward one, but is inner, intimate, organic. It is the
unity of the living body, the unity of the organism. The Church is a unity not
only in the sense that it is one and unique; it is a unity, first of all,
because its very being consists in reuniting separated and divided mankind. It
is this unity which is the “sobornost” or catholicity of the Church. In the
Church humanity passes over into another plane, begins a new manner of
existence. A new life becomes possible, a true, whole and complete life, a
catholic life, “in the unity of the Spirit, in the bond of peace (Ephesians
4:3). A new existence begins, a new principle of life, “Even as Thou, Father,
art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us ... that they may be one
even as We are one” (John 17:21-23).This is the mystery of the final reunion in
the image of the Unity of the Holy Trinity. It is realized in the life and
construction of the Church, it is the mystery of sobornost, the mystery of
catholicity. The inner quality of catholicity.

The catholicity of the Church is not a quantitative or a geographical
conception. It does not at all depend on the world-wide dispersion of the
faithful. The universality of the Church is the consequence or the
manifestation, but not the cause or the foundation of its catholicity. The
world-wide extension or the universality of the Church is only an outward sign,
one that is not absolutely necessary. The Church was catholic even when
Christian communities were but solitary rare islands in a sea of unbelief and
paganism. And the Church will remain catholic even unto the end of time when the
mystery of the “falling away” will be revealed, when the Church once more will
dwindle to a “small flock.” “When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on
the earth?” (Luke 18:8). The Metropolitan Philaret expressed himself very
adequately on this point: “If a city or a country falls away from the universal
Church, the latter will still remain an integral, imperishable body” (Opinions
and Statements of Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, Concerning the Orthodox
Church in the East, St. Petersburg, 1886, p. 53). Philaret uses here the word
“universal” in the sense of catholicity. The conception of catholicity cannot be
measured by its wide-world expansion; universality does not express it exactly.
Καθολικη from Καθ óλου means, first of all, the inner wholeness and integrity of
the Church’s life. We are speaking here of wholeness, not only of communion, and
in any case not of a simple empirical communion. Καθ óλου is not the same as
Κατα παντóς; it belongs not to the phenomenal and empirical, but to the noumenal
and ontological plane; it describes the very essence, not the external
manifestations. We feel this already in the pre-Christian use of these words,
beginning from Socrates. If catholicity also means universality, it certainly is
not an empirical universality, but an ideal one; the communion of ideas, not of
facts, is what it has in view. The first Christians when using the words
‘Ekklisía Katholikí (Εκκλησια Καθολικη) never meant a world-wide Church. This
word rather gave prominence to the orthodoxy of the Church, to the truth of the
“Great Church,” as contrasted with the spirit of sectarian separatism and
particularism; it was the idea of integrity and purity that was expressed. This
has been very forcibly stated in the well known words of St. Ignatius of
Antioch: “Where there is a bishop, let there be the whole multitude; just as
where Jesus Christ is, there too is the Catholic Church” (Ignat Smyrn. 8:2).
These words express the same idea as does the promise: “Where two or three are
gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew
18:19-20). It is this mystery of gathering together (μυστηριον της συναξεως,
Mystírion tis sinákseos) that the word catholicity expresses. Later on St. Cyril
of Jerusalem explained the word “catholicity” which is used in the Creed in the
traditional manner of his Church. The word “Church” means the “gathering
together of all in one union;” therefore it is called a “gathering” (εκκλεσια,
Ekklisía). The Church is called catholic, because it spreads over all the
universe and subjects the whole of the human race to righteousness, because also
in the Church the dogmas are taught “fully, without any omission, catholically,
and completely” (καθολικως και ανελλειπως) because, again, in the Church every
kind of sin is cured and healed” (Catech. 18:23; Migne P.G. 33 c. 1044). Here
again catholicity is understood as an inner quality. Only in the West, during
the struggle against the Donatists was the word “catholica” used in the sense of
“universality,” in opposition to the geographical provincialism of the Donatists
(Cf. Pierre Batiffol, Le Catholicisme de St. Augustin, I; Paris, 1920, p. 212 -
“Rappelons que le nom ‘catholique’ a servi à qualifier la Grande Eglise par
opposition aux hérétiques … Le nom est vraisemblablement de création populaire
et apparait en Orient au second siècle. Les tractatores du 4. siècle, qui lui
cherchent une signification étymologique et savante, veulent y voir l’expression
soit de la perfection intégrale de la foi de l’Eglise, soit du fait que l’Eglise
ne fait pas acception de personnes de rang, du culture, soit enfin et surtout de
fait que l’Eglise est repandue dans le monde entire d’une extrémité à l’autre.
Augustin ne veut connaître que ce dernier sens.” Cp. Also Bishop Lightfoot, in
his edition of St. Ignatius, v. 2 (London, 1889), p. 319. Note ad Loc. The
history of the Christian and pre-Christian use of the terms ekklisía katholikí
(Εκκλησια Καθολικη) and katholikos (καθολικóς) generally in various settings
deserves careful study; apparently there have been no special investigations on
the subject. In Russian, reference may be made to the very valuable, though not
exhaustive or faultless, article of the late Professor M. D. Muretov in the
supplement to his book Ancient Jewish Prayers Ascribed to St. Peter (Sergiev
Posad, 1905). See also Bishop Lightfoot, St. Ignatius, v. 2 (London, 1889), p.
310, note). Later on, in the East, the word “catholic” was understood as
synonymous with “ecumenical.” But this only limited the conception, making it
less vivid, because it drew attention to the outward form, not to the inner
contents. Yet the Church is not catholic because of its outward extent, or, at
any rate, not only because of that. The Church is catholic, not only because it
is an all-embracing entity, not only because it unites all its members, all
local Churches, but because it is catholic all through, in its very smallest
part, in every act and event of its life. The nature of the Church is catholic;
the very web of the Church’s body is catholic. The Church is catholic, because
it is the one Body of Christ; it is union in Christ, oneness in the Holy
Ghost-and this unity is the highest wholeness and fulness. The gauge of catholic
union is that “The multitude of them that believed be of one heart and of one
soul” (Acts 4:32). Where this is not the case, the life of the Church is limited
and restricted. The ontological blending of persons is, and must be,
accomplished in oneness with the Body of Christ; they cease to be exclusive and
impenetrable. The cold separation into “mine” and “thine” disappears. The growth
of the Church is in the perfecting of its inner wholeness, its inner
catholicity, in the “perfection of wholeness”; “That they may be made perfect in
one” (John 17:23). The transfiguration of personality

The catholicity of the Church has two sides. Objectively, the catholicity of the
Church denotes a unity of the Spirit. “In one Spirit were we all baptized into
one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13). And the Holy Spirit which is a Spirit of love
and peace, not only unites isolated individuals, but also becomes in every
separate soul the source of inner peace and wholeness. Subjectively, the
catholicity of the Church means that the Church is a certain unity of life, a
brotherhood or communion, a union of love, “a life in common.” The image of the
Body is the commandment of love. “St. Paul demands such love of us, a love which
should bind us one to the other, so that we no more should be separated one from
the other ... St. Paul demands that our union should be as perfect as is that of
the members of one body” (St. John Chrysostom, In Eph. Hom. 11.1, Migne, P.G.
lxii, c. 79). The novelty of the Christian commandment of love consists in the
fact that we are to love our neighbour as ourselves. This is more than putting
him on the same level with ourselves, of identifying him with ourselves; it
means seeing our own self in another, in the beloved one, not in our own self
.... Therein lies the limit of love; the beloved is our “alter ego,” an “ego”
which is dearer to us than ourself. In love we are merged into one. “The quality
of love is such that the loving and the beloved are no more two but one man” (In
1 Cor. Hom. 33, 3, Migne, P.G. lxi. c. 280). Even more: true Christian love sees
in every one of our brethren “Christ Himself.” Such love demands self-surrender,
self-mastery. Such love is possible only in a catholic expansion and
transfiguration of the soul. The commandment to be catholic is given to every
Christian. The measure of his spiritual manhood is the measure of his
catholicity. The Church is catholic in every one of its members, because a
catholic whole cannot be built up or composed otherwise than through the
catholicity of its members. No multitude, every member of which is isolated and
impenetrable, can become a brotherhood. Union can become possible only through
the mutual brotherly love of all the separate brethren. This thought is
expressed very vividly in the well known vision of the Church as of a tower that
is being built. (Compare the Shepherd of Hermas). This tower is being built out
of separate stones-the faithful. These faithful are “living stones” (1 Peter
2:5). In the process of building they fit one into the other, because they are
smooth and are well adapted to one another; they join so closely to one another,
that their edges are no longer visible, and the tower appears to be built of one
stone. This is a symbol of unity and wholeness. But notice, only smooth square
stones could be used for this building. There were other stones, bright stones,
but round ones, and they were of no use for the building; they did not fit one
into the other, were not suitable for the building and they had to be placed
near the walls. (Hermas, Vis. 3:2:6,8). In ancient symbolism “roundness” was a
sign of isolation, of self-sufficiency and self-satisfaction - teres atque
rotundus. And it is just this spirit of self-satisfaction which hinders our
entering the Church. The stone must first be made smooth, so that it can fit
into the Church wall. We must “reject ourselves” to be able to enter the
catholicity of the Church. We must master our self-love in a catholic spirit
before we can enter the Church. And in the fulness of the communion of the
Church the catholic transfiguration of personality is accomplished. But the
rejection and denial of our own self does not signify that personality must be
extinguished, that it must be dissolved within the multitude. Catholicity is not
corporality or collectivism. On the contrary, self-denial widens the scope of
our own personality; in self-denial we possess the multitude within our own
self; we enclose the many within our own ego. Therein lies the similarity with
the Divine Oneness of the Holy Trinity. In its catholicity the Church becomes
the created similitude of Divine perfection. The Fathers of the Church have
spoken of this with great depth. In the East St. Cyril of Alexandria; in the
West St. Hilary. (For Patristic quotations very well arranged and explained, see
E. Mersch, S.J., Le Corps Mystique du Christ, Etudes de Théologie Historique, t.
1-2, Louvain, 1933). In contemporary Russian theology the Metropolitan Antony
has said very adequately, “The existence of the Church can be compared to
nothing else upon earth, for on earth there is no unity, but only separation.
Only in heaven is there anything like it. The Church is a perfect, a new, a
peculiar, a unique existence upon earth, a unicum, which cannot be closely
defined by any conception taken from the life of the world. The Church is the
likeness of the existence of the Holy Trinity, a likeness in which many become
one. Why is it that this existence, just as the existence of the Holy Trinity,
is new for the old man and unfathomable for him? Because personality in its
carnal consciousness is a self-imprisoned existence, radically contrasted with
every other personality (Archbishop Anthony Khapovitsky, The Moral Idea of the
Dogma of the Church, Works, vol. 2, pp. 17-18. St. Petersburg, 1911). “Thus the
Christian must in the measure of his spiritual development set himself free,
making a direct contrast between the ‘ego’ and the ‘non-ego’ he must radically
modify the fundamental qualities of human self-consciousness” (Ibid., The Moral
Idea of the Dogma of the Holy Trinity, p. 65). It is just in this change that
the catholic regeneration of the mind consists. There are two types of
self-consciousness and self-assertion: separate individualism and catholicity.
Catholicity is no denial of personality and catholic consciousness is neither
generic nor racial. It is not a common consciousness, neither is it the joint
consciousness of the many or the Bewusstsein ueberhaupt of German philosophers.
Catholicity is achieved not by eliminating the living personality, nor by
passing over into the plane of an abstract Logos. Catholicity is a concrete
oneness in thought and feeling. Catholicity is the style or the order or the
setting of personal consciousness, which rises to the “level of catholicity.” It
is the “telos” of personal consciousness, which is realized in creative
development, not in the annihilation of personality. In catholic transfiguration
personality receives strength and power to express the life and consciousness of
the whole. And this not as an impersonal medium, but in creative and heroic
action. We must not say: “Every one in the Church attains the level of
catholicity,” but “every one can, and must, and is called to attain it.” Not
always and not by every one is it attained. In the Church we call those who have
attained it Doctors and Fathers, because from them we hear not only their
personal profession, but also the testimony of the Church; they speak to us from
its catholic completeness, from the completeness of a life full of grace. The
sacred and the historical

The Church is the unity of charismatic life. The source of this unity is hidden
in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and in the sacrament of Pentecost, that
unique descent of the Spirit of Truth into the world. Therefore the Church is an
apostolic Church. It was created and sealed by the Spirit in the Twelve
Apostles, and the Apostolic Succession is a living and mysterious thread binding
the whole historical fulness of Church life into one catholic whole. Here again
we see two sides. The objective side is the uninterrupted sacramental
succession, the continuity of the hierarchy. The Holy Ghost does not descend
upon earth again and again, but abides in the “visible” and historical Church.
And it is in the Church that He breathes and sends forth His rays. Therein lies
the fulness and catholicity of Pentecost. The subjective side is loyalty to the
Apostolic tradition; a life spent according to this tradition, as in a living
realm of truth. This is the fundamental demand or postulate of Orthodox thought,
and here again this demand entails the denial of individualistic separatism; it
insists on catholicity. The catholic nature of the Church is seen most vividly
in the fact that the experience of the Church belongs to all times. In the life
and existence of the Church time is mysteriously overcome and mastered, time, so
to speak, stands still. It stands still not only because of the power of
historical memory, or of imagination, which can “fly over the double barrier of
time and space;” it stands still, because of the power of grace, which gathers
together in catholic unity of life that which had become separated by walls
built in the course of time. Unity in the Spirit embraces in a mysterious,
time-conquering fashion, the faithful of all generations. This time-conquering
unity is manifested and revealed in the experience of the Church, especially in
its Eucharistic experience. The Church is the living image of eternity within
time. The experience and life of the Church are not interrupted or broken up by
time. This, too, is not only because of continuity in the super-personal
outpouring of grace, but also because of the catholic inclusion of all that was,
into the mysterious fulness of the present. Therefore the history of the Church
gives us not only successive changes, but also identity. In this sense communion
with the saints is a communio sanctorum. The Church knows that it is a unity of
all times, and as such it builds up its life. Therefore the Church thinks of the
past not as of something that is no more, but as of something that has been
accomplished, as something existing in the catholic fulness of the one Body of
Christ. Tradition reflects this victory over time. To learn from tradition, or,
still better, in tradition, is to learn from the fulness of this time-conquering
experience of the Church, an experience which every member of the Church may
learn to know and possess according to the measure of his spiritual manhood;
according to the measure of his catholic development. It means that we can learn
from history as we can from revelation. Loyalty to tradition does not mean
loyalty to bygone times and to outward authority; it is a living connection with
the fulness of Church experience. Reference to tradition is no historical
inquiry. Tradition is not limited to Church archaeology. Tradition is no outward
testimony which can be accepted by an outsider. The Church alone is the living
witness of tradition; and only from inside, from within the Church, can
tradition be felt and accepted as a certainty. Tradition is the witness of the
Spirit; the Spirit’s unceasing revelation and preaching of good tidings. For the
living members of the Church it is no outward historical authority, but the
eternal, continual voice of God - not only the voice of the past, but the voice
of eternity. Faith seeks its foundations not merely in the example and bequest
of the past, but in the grace of the Holy Ghost, witnessing always, now and
ever, world without end. As Khomyakov admirably puts it, “Neither individuals,
nor a multitude of individuals within the Church preserve tradition or write the
Scriptures, but the Spirit of God which lives in the whole body of the Church”
(Russia and the English Church, p. 198). “Concord with the past” is only the
consequence of loyalty to the whole; it is simply the expression of the
constancy of catholic experience in the midst of shifting times. To accept and
understand tradition we must live within the Church, we must be conscious of the
grace-giving presence of the Lord in it; we must feel the breath of the Holy
Ghost in it. We may truly say that when we accept tradition we accept, through
faith, our Lord, who abides in the midst of the faithful; for the Church is His
Body, which cannot be separated from Him. That is why loyalty to tradition means
not only concord with the past, but, in a certain sense, freedom from the past,
as from some outward formal criterion. Tradition is not only a protective,
conservative principle; it is, primarily, the principle of growth and
regeneration. Tradition is not a principle striving to restore the past, using
the past as a criterion for the present. Such a conception of tradition is
rejected by history itself and by the consciousness of the Church. Tradition is
authority to teach, potestas magisterii, authority to hear witness to the truth.
The Church bears witness to the truth not by reminiscence or from the words of
others, but from its own living, unceasing experience, from its catholic fulness
... Therein consists that “tradition of truth,” traditio veritatis, about which
St. Irenaeus spoke (Adv. Haeres, i. 10, 2). For him it is connected with the
“veritable unction of truth,” charisma veritatis certum” (Ibid., 4. 26,2), and
the “teaching of the Apostles” was for him not so much an unchangeable example
to be repeated or imitated, as an eternally living and inexhaustible source of
life and inspiration. Tradition is the constant abiding of the Spirit and not
only the memory of words. Tradition is a charismatic, not a historical,
principle. It is quite false to limit the “sources of teaching” to Scripture and
tradition, and to separate tradition from Scripture as only an oral testimony or
teaching of the Apostles. In the first place, both Scripture and tradition were
given only within the Church. Only in the Church have they been received in the
fulness of their sacred value and meaning. In them is contained the truth of
Divine Revelation, a truth which lives in the Church. This experience of the
Church has not been exhausted either in Scripture or in tradition; it is only
reflected in them. Therefore, only within the Church does Scripture live and
become vivified, only within the Church is it revealed as a whole and not broken
up into separate texts, commandments, and aphorisms. This means that Scripture
has been given in tradition, but not in the sense that it can be understood only
according to the dictates of tradition, or that it is the written record of
historical tradition or oral teaching. Scripture needs to be explained. It is
revealed in theology. This is possible only through the medium of the living
experience of the Church. We cannot assert that Scripture is self-sufficient;
and this not because it is incomplete, or inexact, or has any defects, but
because Scripture in its very essence does not lay claim to self-sufficiency. We
can say that Scripture is a God-inspired scheme or image (eikón) of truth, but
not truth itself. Strange to say, we often limit the freedom of the Church as a
whole, for the sake of furthering the freedom of individual Christians. In the
name of individual freedom the Catholic, ecumenical freedom of the Church is
denied and limited. The liberty of the Church is shackled by an abstract
biblical standard for the sake of setting free individual consciousness from the
spiritual demands enforced by the experience of the Church. This is a denial of
catholicity, a destruction of catholic consciousness; this is the sin of the
Reformation. Dean Inge neatly says of the Reformers: “their creed has been
described as a return to the Gospel in the spirit of the Koran” (Very Rev. W. R.
Igne, The Platonic Tradition in English Religious Thought, 1926, p. 27). If we
declare Scripture to be self-sufficient, we only expose it to subjective,
arbitrary interpretation, thus cutting it away from its sacred source. Scripture
is given to us in tradition. It is the vital, crystallizing centre. The Church,
as the Body of Christ, stands mystically first and is fuller than Scripture.
This does not limit Scripture, or cast shadows on it. But truth is revealed to
us not only historically. Christ appeared and still appears before us not only
in the Scriptures; He unchangeably and unceasingly reveals Himself in the
Church, in His own Body. In the times of the early Christians the Gospels were
not yet written and could not be the sole source of knowledge. The Church acted
according to the spirit of the Gospel, and, what is more, the Gospel came to
life in the Church, in the Holy Eucharist. In the Christ of the Eucharist
Christians learned to know the Christ of the Gospels, and so His image became
vivid to them. This does not mean that we oppose Scripture to experience. On the
contrary, it means that we unite them in the same manner in which they were
united from the beginning. We must not think that all we have said denies
history. On the contrary, history is recognized in all its sacred realism. As
contrasted with outward historical testimony, we put forward no subjective
religious experience, no solitary mystical consciousness, not the experience of
separate believers, but the integral, living experience of the Catholic Church,
catholic experience, and Church life. And this experience includes also
historical memory; it is full of history. But this memory is not only a
reminiscence and a remembrance of some bygone events. Rather it is a vision of
what is, and of what has been, accomplished, a vision of the mystical conquest
of time, of the catholicity of the whole of time. The Church knows naught of
forgetfulness. The grace-giving experience of the Church becomes integral in its
catholic fulness. This experience has not been exhausted either in Scripture, or
in oral tradition, or in definitions. It cannot, it must not be, exhausted. On
the contrary, all words and images must be regenerated in its experience, not in
the psychologisms of subjective feeling, but in experience of spiritual life.
This experience is the source of the teaching of the Church. However, not
everything within the Church dates from Apostolic times. This does not mean that
something has been revealed which was “unknown” to the Apostles; nor does it
mean that what is of later date is less important and convincing. Everything was
given and revealed fully from the beginning. On the day of Pentecost Revelation
was completed, and will admit of no further completion till the Day of Judgment
and its last fulfilment. Revelation has not been widened, and even knowledge has
not increased. The Church knows Christ now no more than it knew Him at the time
of the Apostles. But it testifies of greater things. In its definitions it
always unchangeably describes the same thing, but in the unchanged image ever
new features become visible. But it knows the truth not less and not otherwise
than it knew it in time of old. The identity of experience is loyalty to
tradition. Loyalty to tradition did not prevent the Fathers of the Church from
“creating new names” (as St. Gregory Nazianzen says) when it was necessary for
the protection of the unchangeable faith. All that was said later on, was said
from catholic completeness and is of equal value and force with that which was
pronounced in the beginning. And even now the experience of the Church has not
been exhausted, but protected and fixed in dogma. But there is much of which the
Church testifies not in a dogmatic, but in a liturgical, manner, in the
symbolism of the sacramental ritual, in the imagery of prayers, and in the
established yearly round of commemorations and festivals. Liturgical testimony
is as valid as dogmatic testimony. The concreteness of symbols is sometimes even
more vivid, clear, and expressive than any logical conceptions can be, as
witness the image of the Lamb taking upon Himself the sins of the world.
Mistaken and untrue is that theological minimalism, which wants to choose and
set apart the “most important, most certain, and most binding” of all the
experiences and teachings of the Church. This is a false path, and a false
statement of the question. Of course, not everything in the historical
institutions of the Church is equally important and venerable; not everything in
the empirical actions of the Church has even been sanctioned. There is much that
is only historical. However, we have no outward criterion to discriminate
between the two. The methods of outward historical criticism are inadequate and
insufficient. Only from within the Church can we discern the sacred from the
historical. From within we see what is catholic and belongs to all time, and
what is only “theological opinion,” or even a simple casual historical accident.
Most important in the life of the Church is its fulness, its catholic integrity.
There is more freedom in this fulness than in the formal definitions of an
enforced minimum, in which we lose what is most important - directness,
integrity, catholicity. One of the Russian Church historians gave a very
successful definition of the unique character of the Church’s experience. The
Church gives us not a system but a key; not a plan of God’s City, but the means
of entering it. Perhaps someone will lose his way because he has no plan. But
all that he will see, he will see without a mediator, he will see it directly,
it will be real for him; while he who has studied only the plan, risks remaining
outside and not really finding anything (B. M. Melioransky, Lectures on the
History of Ancient Christian Churches. The Pilgrim, Russian, 1910, 6, p. 931).
The inadequacy of the Vincentian canon.

The well known formula of Vincent of Lerins is very inexact, when he describes
the catholic nature of Church life in the words, Quod ubique, quod semper, quod
ab omnibus creditum est. [What has been believed everywhere, always, and by
all]. First of all, it is not clear whether this is an empirical criterion or
not. If this be so, then the “Vincentian Canon” proves to be inapplicable and
quite false. For about what omnes is he speaking? Is it a demand for a general,
universal questioning of all the faithful, and even of those who only deem
themselves such? At any rate, all the weak and poor of faith, all those who
doubt and waver, all those who rebel, ought to be excluded. But the Vincentian
Canon gives us no criterion, whereby to distinguish and select. Many disputes
arise about faith, still more about dogma. How, then, are we to understand
omnes? Should we not prove ourselves too hasty, if we settled all doubtful
points by leaving the decision to “liberty” - in dubiis libertas - according to
the well known formula wrongly ascribed to St. Augustine. There is actually no
need for universal questioning. Very often the measure of truth is the witness
of the minority. It may happen that the Catholic Church will find itself but “a
little flock.” Perhaps there are more of heterodox than of orthodox mind. It may
happen that the heretics spread everywhere, ubique, and that the Church is
relegated to the background of history, that it will retire into the desert. In
history this was more than once the case, and quite possibly it may more than
once again be so. Strictly speaking, the Vincentian Canon is something of a
tautology. The word onmes is to be understood as referring to those that are
orthodox. In that case the criterion loses its significance. Idem is defined per
idem. And of what eternity and of what omnipresence does this rule speak? To
what do semper and ubique relate? Is it the experience of faith or the
definitions of faith that they refer to? In the latter case the canon becomes a
dangerous minimising formula. For not one of the dogmatic definitions strictly
satisfies the demand of semper and ubique. Will it then be necessary to limit
ourselves to the dead letter of Apostolic writings? It appears that the
Vincentian Canon is a postulate of historical simplification, of a harmful
primitivism. This means that we are not to seek for outward, formal criteria of
catholicity; we are not to dissect catholicity in empirical universality.
Charismatic tradition is truly universal; in its fulness it embraces every kind
of semper and ubique and unites all. But empirically it may not be accepted by
all. At any rate we are not to prove the truth of Christianity by means of
“universal consent,” per consensum omnium. In general, no consensus can prove
truth. This would be a case of acute psychologism, and in theology there is even
less place for it than in philosophy. On the contrary, truth is the measure by
which we can evaluate the worth of “general opinion.” Catholic experience can be
expressed even by the few, even by single confessors of faith; and this is quite
sufficient. Strictly speaking, to be able to recognize and express catholic
truth we need no ecumenical, universal assembly and vote; we even need no
“Ecumenical Council.” The sacred dignity of the Council lies not in the number
of members representing their Churches. A large “general” council may prove
itself to be a “council of robbers” (latrocinium), or even of apostates. And the
ecclesia sparsa often convicts it of its nullity by silent opposition. Numerus
episcoporum does not solve the question. The historical and practical methods of
recognizing sacred and catholic tradition can be many; that of assembling
Ecumenical Councils is but one of them, and not the only one. This does not mean
that it is unnecessary to convoke councils and conferences. But it may so happen
that during the council the truth will be expressed by the minority. And what is
still more important, the truth may be revealed even without a council. The
opinions of the Fathers and of the ecumenical Doctors of the Church frequently
have greater spiritual value and finality than the definitions of certain
councils. And these opinions do not need to be verified and accepted by
“universal consent.” On the contrary, it is they themselves who are the
criterion and they who can prove. It is of this that the Church testifies in
silent receptio. Decisive value resides in inner catholicity, not in empirical
universality. The opinions of the Fathers are accepted, not as a formal
subjection to outward authority, but because of the inner evidence of their
catholic truth. The whole body of the Church has the right of verifying, or, to
be more exact, the right, and not only the right but the duty, of certifying. It
was in this sense that in the well known Encyclical Letter of 1848 the Eastern
Patriarchs wrote that “the people itself” (λαος, laós), i.e, the Body of the
Church, “was the guardian of piety” (υπερασπιοτης της Θρησκειας). And even
before this the Metropolitan Philaret said the same thing in his Catechism. In
answer to the question. “Does a true treasury of sacred tradition exist?” he
says “All the faithful, united through the sacred tradition of faith, all
together and all successively, are built up by God into one Church, which is the
true treasury of sacred tradition, or, to quote the words of St. Paul, ’The
Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth’” (1 Timothy 3:15).
The conviction of the Orthodox Church that the “guardian” of tradition and piety
is the whole people, i.e. the Body of Christ, in no wise lessens or limits the
power of teaching given to the hierarchy. It only means that the power of
teaching given to the hierarchy is one of the functions of the catholic
completeness of the Church; it is the power of testifying, of expressing and
speaking the faith and the experience of the Church, which have been preserved
in the whole body. The teaching of the hierarchy is, as it were, the mouthpiece
of the Church. De omnium fidelium ore pendeamus, quia in omnem fidelem Spiritus
Dei Spirat. [We depend upon the word of all the faithful, because the Spirit of
God breathes in each of the faithful, St. Paulin. Nolan, epist. 23, 25, M.L. 61.
Colossians 281]. Only to the hierarchy has it been given to teach “with
authority.” The hierarchs have received this power to teach, not from the
church-people but from the High Priest, Jesus Christ, in the Sacrament of
Orders. But this teaching finds its limits in the expression of the whole
Church. The Church is called to witness to this experience, which is an
inexhaustible experience, a spiritual vision. A bishop of the Church, episcopus
in ecclesia, must be a teacher. Only the bishop has received full power and
authority to speak in the name of his flock. The latter receives the right of
speaking through the bishop. But to do so the bishop must embrace his Church
within himself; he must make manifest its experience and its faith. He must
speak not from himself, but in the name of the Church, ex consensu ecclesiae.
This is just the contrary of the Vatican formula: ex sese, non autem ex consensu
ecclesiae. [From himself, but not from the consensus of the Church]. It is not
from his flock that the bishop receives full power to teach, but from Christ
through the Apostolic Succession. But full power has been given to him to bear
witness to the catholic experience of the body of the Church. He is limited by
this experience, and therefore in questions of faith the people must judge
concerning his teaching. The duty of obedience ceases when the bishop deviates
from the catholic norm, and the people have the right to accuse and even to
depose him (For some more details cp. my articles: “The Work of the Holy Spirit
in Revelation,” The Christian East, 5.13, No. 2, 1932, and “The Sacrament of
Pentecost,” The Journal of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius, No 23,
March 1934).

Freedom and authority.

In the catholicity of the Church the painful duality and tension between freedom
and authority is solved. In the Church there is not and cannot be any outward
authority. Authority cannot be a source of spiritual life. So also Christian
authority appeals to freedom; this authority must convince, not constrain.
Official subjection would in no wise further true unity of mind and of heart.
But this does not mean that everyone has received unlimited freedom of personal
opinion. It is precisely in the Church that “personal opinions” should not and
cannot exist. A double problem is facing every member of the Church. First of
all, he must master his subjectivity, set himself free from psychological
limitations, raise the standard of his consciousness to its full catholic
measure. Secondly, he must live in spiritual sympathy with, and understand, the
historical completeness of the Church’s experience. Christ reveals Himself not
to separate individuals, nor is it only their personal fate which He directs.
Christ came not to the scattered sheep, but to the whole human race, and His
work is being fulfilled in the fulness of history, that is, in the Church. In a
certain sense the whole of history is sacred history. Yet, at the same time, the
history of the Church is tragic. Catholicity has been given to the Church; its
achievement is the Church’s task. Truth is conceived in labour and striving. It
is not easy to overcome subjectivity and particularism. The fundamental
condition of Christian heroism is humility before God, acceptance of His
Revelation. And God has revealed Himself in the Church. This is the final
Revelation, which passeth not away. Christ reveals Himself to us not in our
isolation, but in our mutual catholicity, in our union. He reveals Himself as
the New Adam, as the Head of the Church, the Head of the Body. Therefore, humbly
and trustfully we must enter the life of the Church and try to find ourselves in
it. We must believe that it is just in the Church that the fulness of Christ is
accomplished. Every one of us has to face his own difficulties and doubts. But
we believe and hope that in united, catholic, heroic effort and exploits, these
difficulties will be solved. Every work of fellowship and of concord is a path
towards the realization of the catholic fulness of the Church. And this is
pleasing in the sight of the Lord: “Where two or three are gathered together in
My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20).


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 14: 11 - THE CHURCH: HER NATURE & TASK
========================================================================

The Church: Her Nature and Task

“The Church: Her Nature and Task” appeared in volume 1 of the Universal Church
in God’s Design (S.C.M. Press, 1948). The catholic mind.

It is impossible to start with a formal definition of the Church. For, strictly
speaking, there is none which could claim any doctrinal authority. None can be
found in the Fathers. No definition has been given by the Ecumenical Councils.
In the doctrinal summaries, drafted on various occasions in the Eastern Orthodox
Church in the seventeenth century and taken often (but wrongly) for the
“symbolic books,” again no definition of the Church was given, except a
reference to the relevant clause of the Creed, followed by some comments. This
lack of formal definitions does not mean, however, a confusion of ideas or any
obscurity of view. The Fathers did not care so much how to define the Church
precisely because the glorious reality of the Church was open to their spiritual
vision. One does not define what is self-evident. This accounts for the absence
of a special chapter on the Church in all early presentations of Christian
doctrine: in Origen, in St. Gregory of Nyssa, even in St. John of Damascus. Many
modern scholars, both Orthodox and Roman, suggest that the Church itself has not
yet defined her essence and nature. “Die Kirche selbst hat sich bis heute noch
nicht definiert,” says Robert Grosche (Robert Grosche, Pilgernde Kirche Freiburg
im Breisgau, 1938, p. 27). Some theologians go even further and claim that no
definition of the Church is possible (Sergius Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church,
1935, p. 12; Stefan Zankow, Das Orthodoxe Christentum des Ostens, Berlin 1928,
p. 65; English translation by Dr. Lowrie, 1929, p. 6gf). In any case, the
theology of the Church is still im Werden, in the process of formation (See M.
D. Koster, Ecclesiologie im Werden, Paderborn 1940). In our time, it seems, one
has to get beyond the modern theological disputes, to regain a wider historical
perspective, to recover the true “catholic mind,” which would embrace the whole
of the historical experience of the Church in its pilgrimage through the ages.
One has to return from the school-room to the worshipping Church and perhaps to
change the school-dialect of theology for the pictorial and metaphorical
language of Scripture. The very nature of the Church can be rather depicted and
described than properly defined. And surely this can be done only from within
the Church. Probably even this description will be convincing only for those of
the Church. The Mystery is apprehended only by faith. The new reality.

The Greek name ekklesia adopted by the primitive Christians to denote the New
Reality, in which they were aware they shared, presumed and suggested a very
definite conception of what the Church really was. Adopted under an obvious
influence of the Septuagint use, this word stressed first of all the organic
continuity of the two Covenants. The Christian existence was conceived in the
sacred perspective of the Messianic preparation and fulfilment (Hebrews 1:1-2).
A very definite theology of history was thereby implied. The Church was the true
Israel, the new Chosen People of God, “A chosen generation, a holy nation, a
peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9). Or rather, it was the faithful Remnant, selected
out of the unresponsive People of old (Luke 12:32 “little flock” seems to mean
precisely the “remnant,” reconstituted and redeemed, and reconsecrated). And all
nations of the earth, Greeks and Barbarians, were to be coopted and grafted into
this new People of God by the call of God (this was the main theme of St. Paul
in Romans and Galatians, cf. Ephesians ch. 2). Already in the Old Testament the
word ekklisía (a rendering in Greek of the Hebrew Qahal) did imply a special
emphasis on the ultimate unity of the Chosen People, conceived as a sacred
whole, and this unity was rooted more in the mystery of the divine election than
in any “natural” features. This emphasis could only be confirmed by the
supplementary influence of the Hellenistic use of the word ekklesía meaning
usually an assembly of the sovereign people in a city, a general congregation of
all regular citizens. Applied to the new Christian existence, the word kept its
traditional connotation. The Church was both the People and the City. A special
stress has been put on the organic unity of Christians. Christianity from the
very beginning existed as a corporate reality, as a community. To be Christian
meant just to belong to the community. Nobody could be Christian by himself, as
an isolated individual, but only together with “the brethren,” in a
“togetherness” with them. Unus Christianus - nullus Christianus [One Christian -
no Christian]. Personal conviction or even a rule of life still do not make one
a Christian. Christian existence presumes and implies an incorporation, a
membership in the community. This must be qualified at once: in the Apostolic
community, i.e. in communion with the Twelve and their message. The Christian
“community” was gathered and constituted by Jesus Himself “in the days of His
flesh,” and it was given by Him at least a provisional constitution by the
election and the appointment of the Twelve, to whom He gave the name (or rather
the title) of His “messengers” or “ambassadors” (See Luke 6:13 : “whom alsoHe
named apostles”). For a “sending forth” of the Twelve was not only a mission,
but precisely a commission, for which they were invested with a “power” (Mark
3:15; Matthew 10:1; Luke 9:1). In any case as the appointed “witnesses” of the
Lord (Luke 24:48; Acts 1:8) the Twelve alone were entitled to secure the
continuity both of the Christian message and of the community life. Therefore
communion with the Apostles was a basic note of the primitive “Church of God” in
Jerusalem (Acts 2:42 : koinonía). Christianity means a “common life,” a life in
common. Christians have to regard themselves as “brethren” (in fact this was one
of their first names), as members of one corporation, closely linked together.
And therefore charity had to be the first mark and the first proof as well as
the token of this fellowship. We are entitled to say: Christianity is a
community, a corporation, a fellowship, a brotherhood, a “society,” coetus
fideliuim. And surely, as a first approximation, such a description could be of
help. But obviously it requires a further qualification, and something crucial
is missing here. One has to ask: in what exactly this unity and togetherness of
the many is based and rooted? what is the power that brings many together and
joins them one with another? Is this merely a social instinct, some power of
social cohesion, an impetus of mutual affection, or any other natural
attraction? Is this unity based simply on unanimity, on identity of views or
convictions? Briefly, is the Christian Community, the Church, merely a human
society, a society of men? Surely, the clear evidence of the New Testament takes
us far beyond this purely human level. Christians are united not only among
themselves, but first of all they are one - in Christ, and only this communion
with Christ makes the communion of men first possible - in Him. The centre of
unity is the Lord and the power that effects and enacts the unity is the Spirit.
Christians are constituted into this unity by divine design; by the Will and
Power of God. Their unity comes from above. They are one only in Christ, as
those who had been born anew in Him, “Rooted and built up in Him” (Colossians
2:7), who by One Spirit have been “Baptized into One Body” (1 Corinthians
12:13). The Church of God has been established and constituted by God through
Jesus Christ, Our Lord: “she is His own creation by water and the word.” Thus
there is no human society, but rather a “Divine Society,” not a secular
community, which would have been still “of this world,” still commensurable with
other human groups, but a sacred community, which is intrinsically “not of this
world,” not even of “this aeon,” but of the “aeon to come.” Moreover, Christ
Himself belongs to this community, as its Head, not only as its Lord or Master.
Christ is not above or outside of the Church. The Church is in Him. The Church
is not merely a community of those who believe in Christ and walk in His steps
or in His commandments. She is a community of those who abide and dwell in Him,
and in whom He Himself is abiding and dwelling by the Spirit. Christians are set
apart, “born anew” and re-created, they are given not only a new pattern of
life, but rather a new principle: the new Life in the Lord by the Spirit. They
are a “peculiar People,” “the People of God’s own possession.” The point is that
the Christian Community, the ekklesía, is a sacramental community: communio in
sacris, a “fellowship in holy things,” i.e. in the Holy Spirit, or even communio
sanctorum (sanctorum being taken as neuter rather than masculine - perhaps that
was the original meaning of the phrase). The unity of the Church is effected
through the sacraments: Baptism and the Eucharist are the two “social
sacraments” of the Church, and in them the true meaning of Christian
“togetherness” is continually revealed and sealed. Or even more emphatically,
the sacraments constitute the Church. Only in the sacraments does the Christian
Community pass beyond the purely human measure and become the Church. Therefore
“the right administration of the sacraments” belongs to the essence of the
Church (to her esse). Sacraments must be “worthily” received indeed, therefore
they cannot be separated or divorced from the inner effort and spiritual
attitude of believers. Baptism is to be preceded by repentance and faith. A
personal relation between an aspirant and his Lord must be first established by
the hearing and the receiving of the Word, of the message of salvation. And
again an oath of allegiance to God and His Christ is a pre-requisite and
indispensable condition of the administration of the sacrament (the first
meaning of the word sacramentum was precisely “the (military) oath.”) A
catechumen is already “enrolled” among the brethren on the basis of his faith.
Again, the baptismal gift is appropriated, received and kept, by faith and
faithfulness, by the steadfast standing in the faith and the promises. And yet
sacraments are not merely signs of a professed faith, but rather effective signs
of the saving Grace - not only symbols of human aspiration and loyalty, but the
outward symbols of the divine action. In them our human existence is linked to,
or rather raised up to, the Divine Life, by the Spirit, the giver of life. The
Church as a whole is a sacred (or consecrated) community, distinguished thereby
from “the (profane) world.” She is the Holy Church. St. Paul obviously uses the
terms “Church” and “saints” as co-extensive and synonymous. It is remarkable
that in the New Testament the name “saint” is almost exclusively used in the
plural, saintliness being social in its intrinsic meaning. For the name refers
not to any human achievement, but to a gift, to sanctification or consecration.
Holiness comes from the Holy One, i.e. only from God. To be holy for a man means
to share the Divine Life. Holiness is available to individuals only in the
community, or rather in the “fellowship of the Holy Spirit.” The “communion of
saints” is a pleonasm. One can be a “saint” only in the communion. Strictly
speaking, the Messianic Community, gathered by Jesus the Christ, was not yet the
Church, before His Passion and Resurrection, before “the promise of the Father”
was sent upon it and it was “endued with the power from on high,” “baptized with
the Holy Spirit” (cf. Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:4-5), in the mystery of Pentecost.
Before the victory of the Cross disclosed in the glorious Resurrection, it was
still sub umbraculo legis [Under the Shadow of the law]. It was still the eve of
the fulfilment. And Pentecost was there to witness to and to seal the victory of
Christ. “The power from on high” has entered into history. The “new aeon” has
been truly disclosed and started. And the sacramental life of the Church is the
continuation of Pentecost. The descent of the Spirit was a supreme revelation.
Once and for ever, in the “dreadful and inscrutable mystery” of Pentecost, the
Spirit-Comforter enters the world in which He was not yet present in such manner
as now He begins to dwell and to abide. An abundant spring of living water is
disclosed on that day, here on earth, in the world which had been already
redeemed and reconciled with God by the Crucified and Risen Lord. The Kingdom
comes, for the Holy Spirit is the Kingdom (Cf. St. Gregory of Nyssa, De oratione
Dominica 3, MG, 44, c. 1150.-1160). But the “coming” of the Spirit depends upon
the “going” of the Son (John 16:7). “Another Comforter” comes down to testify of
the Son, to reveal His glory and to seal His victory (John 15:26; John 16:7;
John 14:1-31). Indeed in the Holy Spirit the Glorified Lord Himself comes back
or returns to His flock to abide with them always (John 14:18; John 14:28)...
Pentecost was the mystical consecration, the baptism of the whole Church (Acts
1:5). This fiery baptism was administered by the Lord: for He baptizes “With the
Holy Spirit and with fire” (Matthew 3:11 and Luke 3:16). He has sent the Spirit
from the Father, as a pledge in our hearts. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of
adoption, in Christ Jesus, “The power of Christ” (2 Corinthians 12:9). By the
spirit we recognize and we acknowledge that Jesus is the Lord (1 Corinthians
12:3). The work of the Spirit in believers is precisely their incorporation into
Christ, their baptism into one body (1 Corinthians 12:13), even the body of
Christ. As St. Athanasius puts it: “being given drink of the Spirit, we drink
Christ.” For the Rock was Christ (S. Athan. Alex. Epist. I ad Seraponiem, MG 26.
576). By the Spirit Christians are united with Christ, are united in Him, are
constituted into His Body. One body, that of Christ: this excellent analogy used
by St. Paul in various contexts, when depicting the mystery of Christian
existence, is at the same time the best witness to the intimate experience of
the Apostolic Church. By no means was it an accidental image: it was rather a
summary of faith and experience. With St. Paul the main emphasis was always on
the intimate union of the faithful with the Lord, on their sharing in His
fulness. As St. John Chrysostom has pointed out, commenting on (Colossians 3:4),
in all his writings St. Paul was endeavouring to prove that the believers “are
in communion with Him in all things” and “Precisely to show this union does he
speak of the Head and the body” (St. John Chrysostom, in Coloss. Hom. 7, MG, 62,
375). It is highly probable that the term was suggested by the Eucharistic
experience (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:17), and was deliberately used to suggest its
sacramental connotation. The Church of Christ is one in the Eucharist, for the
Eucharist is Christ Himself, and He sacramentally abides in the Church, which is
His Body. The Church is a body indeed, an organism, much more than a society or
a corporation. And perhaps an “organism” is the best modern rendering of the
term to soma, as used by St. Paul. Still more, the Church is the body of Christ
and His “fulness.” Body and fulness (to sóma and to pléroma) - these two terms
are correlative and closely linked together in St. Paul’s mind, one explaining
the other: “which is His body, the fulness of Him Who all in all is being
fulfilled” (Ephesians 1:23). The Church is the Body of Christ because it is His
complement. St. John Chrysostom commends the Pauline idea just in this sense.
“The Church is the complement of Christ in the same manner in which the head
completes the body and the body is completed by the head.” Christ is not alone.
“He has prepared the whole race in common to follow Him, to cling to Him, to
accompany His train.” Chrysostom insists, “Observe how he (i.e. St. Paul)
introduces Him as having need of all the members. This means that only then will
the Head be filled up, when the Body is rendered perfect, when we are all
together, co-united and knit together” (St. John Chrysostom, in Ephes. Hom. 3,
MG, 52, 29). In other words, the Church is the extension and the “fulness” of
the Holy Incarnation, or rather of the Incarnate life of the Son, “with all that
for our sakes was brought to pass, the Cross and tomb, the Resurrection the
third day, the Ascension into Heaven, the sitting on the right hand” (Liturgy of
St. John Chrysostom, Prayer of Consecration). The Incarnation is being completed
in the Church. And, in a certain sense, the Church is Christ Himself, in His
all-embracing plenitude (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:12). This identification has been
suggested and vindicated by St. Augustine: “Non solum nor Christianos factos
esse, sed Christum” [Not only to make us Christians, but Christ]. For if He is
the Head, we are the members: the whole man is He and we - totus homo, ille et
nos - Christus et Ecclesia.” And again: “For Christ is not simply in the head
and not in the body (only), but Christ is entire in the head and body” - “non
enim Christus in capite et non in corpore, sed Christus totus in capite et in
corpore” (St. Augustine in Evangelium Joannis tract, 21, 8, MG. 35, 1568); cf.
St. John Chrysostom in I Cor. Hom. 30, MG, 61, 279-283). This term totus
Christus (Augustine in Evangelium Joannis tr. ML, 38, 1622) occurs in St.
Augustine again and again, this is his basic and favourite idea, suggested
obviously by St. Paul. “When I speak of Christians in the plural, I understand
one in the One Christ. Ye are therefore many, and ye are yet one: we are many
and we are one” - “cum plures Christianos appello, in uno Christo unum
intelligo” (St. Augustine in Psalms 127:1-5;Psalms 3:1-8, ML, 37, 1679). “For
our Lord Jesus is not only in Himself, but in us also” - “Dominus enim Jesus non
solum in se, sed et in nobis” (St. Augustine in Psalms 90:1-17enarr. 1, 9, ML,
37, 1157). “One Man up to the end of the ages” - “Unus homo usque ad finem
saeculi extenditur” (St. Augustine in Psalms 85:1-13;Psalms 5:1-12, ML, 37,
1083). The main contention of all these utterances is obvious. Christians are
incorporated into Christ and Christ abides in them - this intimate union
constitutes the mystery of the Church. The Church is, as it were, the place and
the mode of the redeeming presence of the Risen Lord in the redeemed world. “The
Body of Christ is Christ Himself. The Church is Christ, as after His
Resurrection He is present with us and encounters us here on earth” (A. Nygren,
Corpus Christi, in En Bok om Kyrkan, av Svenska teologer, Lund, 1943, p. 20).
And in this sense one can say: Christ is the Church. “Ipse enim est Ecclesia,
per sacramentum corporis sui in se ... eam continens” (St. Hilary in Psalms
125:1-5;Psalms 6:1-10, ML, 9, 688). [For He himself is the Church, containing it
in himself through the sacrament of his body.] Or in the words of Karl Adam:
“Christ, the Lord, is the proper Ego of the Church” (Karl Adam, Das Wesen
Katholizisimus, 4 Ausgabe, 1927, p. 24). The Church is the unity of charismatic
life. The source of this unity is hidden in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper
and in the mystery of Pentecost. And Pentecost is continued and made permanent
in the Church by means of the Apostolic Succession. It is not merely, as it
were, the canonic skeleton of the Church. Ministry (or “hierarchy”) itself is
primarily a charismatic principle, a “ministry of the sacraments,” or “a divine
oeconomia.” Ministry is not only a canonical commission, it belongs not only to
the institutional fabric of the Church - it is rather an indispensable
constitutional or structural feature, just in so far as the Church is a body, an
organism. Ministers are not, as it were, “commissioned officers” of the
community, not only leaders or delegates of the “multitudes,” of the “people” or
“congregation” - they are acting not only in persona ecclesiae. They are acting
primarily inpersona Christi. They are “representatives” of Christ Himself, not
of believers, and in them and through them, the Head of the Body, the only High
Priest of the New Covenant, is performing, continuing and accomplishing His
eternal pastoral and priestly office. He is Himself the only true Minister of
the Church. All others are but stewards of His mysteries. They are standing for
Him, before the community - and just because the Body is one only in its Head,
is brought together and into unity by Him and in Him, the Ministry in the Church
is primarily the Ministry of unity. In the Ministry the organic unity of the
Body is not only represented or exhibited, but rather rooted, without any
prejudice to the “equality” of the believers, just as the “equality” of the
cells of an organism is not destroyed by their structural differentiation: all
cells are equal as such, and yet differentiated by their functions, and again
this differentiation serves the unity, enables this organic unity to become more
comprehensive and more intimate. The unity of every local congregation springs
from the unity in the Eucharistic meal. And it is as the celebrant of the
Eucharist that the priest is the minister and the builder of Church unity. But
there is another and higher office: to secure the universal and catholic unity
of the whole Church in space and time. This is the episcopal office and
function. On the one hand, the Bishop has an authority to ordain, and again this
is not only a jurisdictional privilege, but precisely a power of sacramental
action beyond that possessed by the priest. Thus the Bishop as “ordainer” is the
builder of Church unity on a wider scale. The Last Supper and Pentecost are
inseparably linked to one another. The Spirit Comforter descends when the Son
has been glorified in His death and resurrection. But still they are two
sacraments (or mysteries) which cannot be merged into one another. In the same
way the priesthood and the episcopate differ from one another. In the episcopacy
Pentecost becomes universal and continuous, in the undivided episcopate of the
Church (episcopatus unus of St. Cyprian) the unity in space is secured. On the
other hand, through its bishop, or rather in its bishop, every particular or
local Church is included in the catholic fulness of the Church, is linked with
the past and with all ages. In its bishop every single Church outgrows and
transcends its own limits and is organically united with the others. The
Apostolic Succession is not so much the canonical as the mystical foundation of
Church unity. It is something other than a safeguard of historical continuity or
of adminnistrative cohesion. It is an ultimate means to keep the mystical
identity of the Body through the ages. But, of course, Ministry is never
detached from the Body. It is in the Body, belongs to its structure. And
ministerial gifts are given inside the Church (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:1-31). The
Pauline conception of the Body of Christ was taken up and variously commented on
by the Fathers, both in the East and in the West, and then was rather forgotten
(See E. Mersch, S.J., Le Corps Mystique du Christ, Etudes de Theologie
Historique, 2 vols., 2nd edition, Louvain, 1936). It is high time now to return
to this experience of the early Church which may provide us with a solid ground
for a modern theological synthesis. Some other similes and metaphors were used
by St. Paul and elsewhere in the New Testament, but much to the same purpose and
effect: to stress the intimate and organic unity between Christ and those who
are His. But, among all these various images, that of the Body is the most
inclusive and impressive, is the most emphatic expression of the basic vision
(The image of the Bride and her mystical marriage with Christ, Ephesians 5:23 f,
express the intimate union. Even the image of the House built of many stones,
the corner stone being Christ, Ephesians 2:20 f; cf. 1 Peter 2:6, tends to the
same purpose: many are becoming one, and the tower appears as it were built of
one stone; cf. Hermans, Shepherd, Vis. 3, 2, 6, 8. And again “the People of God”
is to be regarded as an organic whole. There is no reason whatever to be
troubled by the variety of vocabularies used. The main idea and contention is
obviously the same in all cases). Of course, no analogy is to be pressed too far
or over-emphasized. The idea of an organism, when used of the Church, has its
own limitations. On the one hand, the Church is composed of human personalities,
which never can be regarded merely as elements or cells of the whole, because
each is in direct and immediate union with Christ and His Father-the personal is
not to be sacrificed or dissolved in the corporate, Christian “togetherness”
must not degenerate into impersonalism. The idea of the organism must be
supplemented by the idea of a symphony of personalities, in which the mystery of
the Holy Trinity is reflected (cf. John 17:21; John 17:23), and this is the core
of the conception of “catholicity” (sobornost, Cf. George Florovsky, “The
Catholicity of the Church,” above). This is the chief reason why we should
prefer a christological orientation in the theology of the Church rather than a
pneumatological (Such as in Khomiakov’s or in Moehler’s Die Einheit in der
Kirche). For, on the other hand, the Church, as a whole, has her personal centre
only in Christ, she is not an incarnation of the Holy Spirit, nor is she merely
a Spirit-being community, but precisely the Body of Christ, the Incarnate Lord.
This saves us from impersonalism without committing us to any humanistic
personification. Christ the Lord is the only Head and the only Master of the
Church. “In Him the whole structure is closely fitted together and grows into a
temple holy in the Lord; in Him you too are being built together into a
dwelling-place for God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:21-22, Bp. Challoner’s
version). The Christology of the Church does not lead us into the misty clouds
of vain speculations or dreamy mysticism. On the contrary, it secures the only
solid and positive ground for proper theological research. The doctrine of the
Church finds thereby its proper and organic place in the general scheme of the
Divine Oeconomía of salvation. For we have indeed still to search for a
comprehensive vision of the mystery of our salvation, of the salvation of the
world. One last distinction is to be made. The Church is still in statu viae and
yet it is already in statu patriae. It has, as it were, a double life, both in
heaven and on earth (Cf. St. Augustine in Evang. Joannis tract, 124, 5, ML, 35,
19f, 7). The Church is a visible historical society, and the same is the Body of
Christ. It is both the Church of the redeemed, and the Church of the miserable
sinners - both at once. On the historical level no final goal has yet been
attained. But the ultimate reality has been disclosed and revealed. This
ultimate reality is still at hand, is truly available, in spite of the
historical imperfection, though but in provisional forms. For the Church is a
sacramental society. Sacramental means no less than “eschatological.”To eschaton
does not mean primarily final, in the temporal series of events; it means rather
ultimate (decisive); and the ultimate is being realized within the stress of
historical happenings and events. What is “not of this world” is here “in this
world,” not abolishing this world, but giving to it a new meaning and a new
value, “transvaluating” the world, as it were. Surely this is still only an
anticipation, a “token” of the final consummation. Yet the Spirit abides in the
Church. This constitutes the mystery of the Church: a visible “society” of frail
men is an organism of the Divine Grace (See Khomiakov’s essay On the Church;
English translation by W. J. Birkbeck, Russia and the English Church, first
published 1895, ch. 23, pp. 193-222). The new creation.

The primary task of the historical Church is the proclamation of another world
“to come.” The Church bears witness to the New Life, disclosed and revealed in
Christ Jesus, the Lord and Saviour. This it does both by word and deed. The true
proclamation of the Gospel would be precisely the practice of this New Life: to
show faith by deeds (cf. Matthew 5:16). The Church is more than a company of
preachers, or a teaching society, or a missionary board. It has not only to
invite people, but also to introduce them into this New Life, to which it bears
witness. It is a missionary body indeed, and its mission field is the whole
world. But the aim of its missionary activity is not merely to convey to people
certain convictions or ideas, not even to impose on then a definite discipline
or a rule of life, but first of all to introduce them into the New Reality, to
convert them, to bring them through their faith and repentance to Christ
Himself, that they should be born anew in Him and into Him by water and the
Spirit. Thus the ministry of the Word is completed in the ministry of the
Sacraments. “Conversion” is a fresh start, but it is only a start, to be
followed by a long process of growth. The Church has to organize the new life of
the converted. The Church has, as it were, to exhibit the new pattern of
existence, the new mode of life, that of the “world to come.” The Church is
here, in this world, for its salvation. But just for this reason it has to
oppose and to renounce “this” world. God claims the whole man, and the Church
bears witness to this “totalitarian” claim of God revealed in Christ. The
Christian has to be a “new creation.” Therefore he cannot find a settled place
for himself within the limits of the “old world.” In this sense the Christian
attitude is, as it were, always revolutionary with regard to the “old order” of
“this world.” Being “not of this world” the Church of Christ “in this world” can
only be in permanent opposition, even if it claims only a reformation of the
existing order. In any case, the change is to be radical and total.

Historical antinomies.

Historical failures of the Church do not obscure the absolute and ultimate
character of its challenge, to which it is committed by its very eschatological
nature, and it constantly challenges itself. Historical life and the task of the
Church are an antinomy, and this antinomy can never be solved or overcome on a
historical level. It is rather a permanent hint to what is “to come” hereafter.
The antinomy is rooted in the practical alternative which the Church had to face
from the very beginning of its historical pilgrimage. Either the Church was to
be constituted as an exclusive and “totalitarian” society, endeavouring to
satisfy all requirements of the believers, both “temporal” and “spiritual,”
paying no attention to the existing order and leaving nothing to the external
world - it would have been an entire separation from the world, an ultimate
flight out of it, and a radical denial of any external authority. Or the Church
could attempt an inclusive Christianization of the world, subduing the whole of
life to Christian rule and authority, to reform and to reorganize secular life
on Christian principles, to build the Christian City. In the history of the
Church we can trace both solutions: a flight to the desert and a construction of
the Christian Empire. The first was practiced not only in monasticism of various
trends, but in many other Christian groups and denominations. The second was the
main line taken by Christians, both in the West and in the East, up to the rise
of militant secularism, but even in our days this solution has not lost its hold
on many people. But on the whole, both proved unsuccessful. One has, however, to
acknowledge the reality of their common problem and the truth of their common
purpose. Christianity is not an individualistic religion and it is not only
concerned for the “salvation of the soul.” Christianity is the Church, i.e. a
Community, the New People of God, leading its corporate life according to its
peculiar principles. And this life cannot be split into departments, some of
which might have been ruled by any other and heterogeneous principles. Spiritual
leadership of the Church can hardly be reduced to an occasional guidance given
to individuals or to groups living under conditions utterly uncongenial to the
Church. The legitimacy of these conditions must be questioned first of all. The
task of a complete re-creation or re-shaping of the whole fabric of human life
cannot or must not be avoided or declined. One cannot serve two Masters and a
double allegiance is a poor solution. Here the above-mentioned alternative
inevitably comes in. Everything else would merely be an open compromise or a
reduction of the ultimate and therefore total claims. Either Christians ought to
go out of the world, in which there is another Master besides Christ (whatever
name this other Master may bear: Caesar or Mammon or any other and in which the
rule and the goal of life are other than those set out in the Gospel - to go out
and to start a separate society. Or again Christians have to transform the outer
world, to make it the Kingdom of God as well, and introduce the principles of
the Gospel into secular legislation. There is an inner consistency in both
programmes. And therefore the separation of the two ways is inevitable.
Christians seem compelled to take different ways. The unity of the Christian
task is broken. An inner schism arises within the Church: an abnormal separation
between the monks (or the elite of the initiated) and the lay-people (including
clergy), which is far more dangerous than the alleged “clericalization” of the
Church. In the last resort, however, it is only a symptom of the ultimate
antinomy. The problem simply has no historical solution. A true solution would
transcend history, it belongs to the “age to come.” In this age, on the historic
plane, no constitutional principle can be given, but only a regulative one: a
principle of discrimination, not a principle of construction. For again each of
the two programmes is self-contradictory. There is an inherent sectarian
temptation in the first: the “catholic” and universal character of the Christian
message and purpose is here at least obscured and often deliberately denied, the
world is simply left out of sight. And all attempts at the direct
Christianization of the world, in the guise of a Christian State or Empire, have
only led to the more or less acute secularization of Christianity itself. (For a
more detailed treatment, see George Florovsky, The Antinomies of Christian
History, which will be published in the Collected Works of George Florovsky). In
our time nobody would consider it possible for everyone to be converted to a
universal monasticism or a realization of a truly Christian, and universal,
State. The Church remain “in the world,” as a heterogeneous body, and the
tension is stronger than it has ever been; the ambiguity of the situation is
painfully left by everyone in the Church. A practical program for the present
age can be deduced only from a restored understanding of the nature and essence
of the Church. And the failure of all Utopian expectations cannot obscure the
Christian hope: the King has come, the Lord Jesus, and His Kingdom is to come.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 15: 12 - FUNCTION OF TRADITION IN THE ANCIENT CHURCH
========================================================================

The Function of Tradition in the Ancient Church

“Ego vero Evangelio non crederem, ni si me catholicae Ecclesiae commoveret
auctoritas.” [Indeed, I should not have believed the Gospel, if the authority of
the Catholic Church had not moved me]. St. Augustine, contra epist. Manichaei,
I.1.

St. Vincent of Lerins and tradition

The famous dictum of St. Vincent of Lerins was charac­teristic of the attitude
of the Ancient Church in the matters of faith: “We must hold what has been
believed everywhere, always, and by all” [Commonitorium, 2]. This was at once
the criterion and the norm. The crucial emphasis was here on the permanence of
Christian teaching. St. Vincent was actually appealing to the double
“ecumenici­ty” of Christian faith - in space and in time. In fact, it was the
same great vision which had inspired St. Irenaeus in his own time: the One
Church, expanded and scattered in the whole world, and yet speaking with one
voice, holding the same faith everywhere, as it had been handed down by the
blessed Apostles and preserved by the succession of witnesses: quae est ab
apostolis, quae per successionem presbyterorum in ecclesiis custoditur. [“Which
is being preserved in the Church from the Apostles through the succession of the
presbyters.”] These two aspects of faith, or rather - the two dimensions, could
never be separated from each other. Uni­versitas and antiquitas, as well as
consensio, belonged togeth­er. Neither was an adequate criterion by itself.
“Antiquity” as such was not yet a sufficient warrant of truth, unless a
comprehensive consensus of the “ancients” could be satis­factorily demonstrated.
And consensio as such was not con­clusive, unless it could be traced back
continuously to Apos­tolic origins. Now, suggested St. Vincent, the true faith
could be recognized by a double recourse - to Scripture and Tradi­tion: duplici
modo … primum scilicet divinae legis auctoritate, tum deinde ecclesiae
catholicae traditione. [“In two ways … first clearly by the authority of the
Holy Scriptures, then by the tradition of the Catholic Church.”] This did not
imply, however, that there were two sources of Christian doctrine. Indeed, the
rule, or canon, of Scripture was “per­fect” and “self-sufficient” - ad omnia
satis superque sufficiat. [“For all things complete and more than sufficient.”]
Why then should it be supplemented by any other “authority”? Why was it
imperative to invoke also the authority of “ec­clesiastical understanding” -
ecclesiasticae intelligentiae au­ctoritas? The reason was obvious: Scriptures
were differently interpreted by individuals: ut paene quot hominess tot illinc
sententiae erui posse videantur. [“So that one might almost gain the impression
that it can yield as many different mean­ings, as there are men.”] To this
variety of “private” opinions St. Vincent opposes the “common” mind of the
Church, the mind of the Church Catholic: ut propheticae et apostolicae
interpretationis linea secundum ecclesiastici et catholici sensus normam
dirigatur. [“That the trend of the interpretation of the prophets and the
apostolic writings be directed in ac­cordance with the rule of the
ecclesiastical and Catholic meaning.”] Tradition was not, according to St.
Vincent, an independent instance, nor was it a complementary source of faith.
“Ecclesiastical understanding” could not add anything to the Scripture. But it
was the only means to ascertain and to disclose the true meaning of Scripture.
Tradition was, in fact, the authentic interpretation of Scripture. And in this
sense it was co-extensive with Scripture. Tradition was actual­ly “Scripture
rightly understood.” And Scripture was for St. Vincent the only, primary and
ultimate, canon of Christian truth (Commonitorium, cap. II, cf. cap. 28). The
hermeneutical question in the Ancient Church

At this point St. Vincent was in full agreement with the established tradition.
In the admirable phrase of St. Hilary of Poitiers, scripturae enim non in
legendo sunt, sed in intelligendo. [“For Scripture is not in the reading, but in
the understanding;” ad Constantium Aug., lib. II, cap. 9, ML X, 570; the phrase
is repeated also by St. Jerome, Dial. c. Lucifer., cap. 28, ML XXIII, 190-191].
The problem of right exegesis was still a burning issue in the Fourth century,
in the contest of the Church with the Arians, no less than it has been in the
Second century, in the struggle against Gnostics, Sabellians, and Montanists.
All parties in the dispute used to appeal to Scripture. Heretics, even Gnostics
and Manichees, used to quote Scriptural texts and passages and to invoke the
authority of the Holy Writ. Moreover, exegesis was at that time the main, and
probably the only, theological method, and the authority of the Scripture was
sovereign and supreme. The Orthodox were bound to raise the crucial
hermeneutical question: What was the principle of inter­pretation? Now, in the
Second century the term “Scriptures” denoted primarily the Old Testament and, on
the other hand, the authority of these “Scriptures” was sharply challenged, and
actually repudiated, by the teaching of Marcion. The Unity of the Bible had to
be proved and vindicated. What was the basis, and the warrant, of Christian, and
Christolo­gical, understanding of “Prophecy,” that is - of the Old Testa­ment?
It was in this historical situation that the authority of Tradition was first
invoked. Scripture belonged to the Church, and it was only in the Church, within
the community of right faith, that Scripture could be adequately understood and
correctly interpreted. Heretics, that is - those outside of the Church, had no
key to the mind of the Scripture. It was not enough just to read and to quote
Scriptural words - the true meaning, or intent, of Scripture, taken as an
integrated whole, had to be elicited. One had to grasp, as it were in advance,
the true pattern of Biblical revelation, the great design of God’s redemptive
Providence, and this could be done only by an insight of faith. It was by faith
that Christuszeugniss could be discerned in the Old Testament. It was by faith
that the unity of the tetramorph Gospel could be properly ascer­tained. But this
faith was not an arbitrary and subjective insight of individuals - it was the
faith of the Church, rooted in the Apostolic message, or kerygma, and
authenticated by it. Those outside of the Church were missing precisely this
basic and overarching message, the very heart of the Gospel. With them Scripture
was just a dead letter, or an array of disconnected passages and stories, which
they endeavored to arrange or re-arrange on their own pattern, derived from
alien sources. They had another faith. This was the main argument of Tertullian
in his passionate treatise De praescrip­tione. He would not discuss Scriptures
with heretics - they had no right to use Scriptures, as they did not belong to
them. Scriptures were the Church’s possession. Emphatically did Tertullian
insist on the priority of the “rule of faith,” regula fidei. It was the only key
to the meaning of the Scrip­ture. And this “rule” was Apostolic, was rooted in,
and derived from, the Apostolic preaching. C. H. Turner has rightly described
the meaning and the intention of this appeal or reference to the “rule of faith”
in the Early Church. “When Christians spoke of the ‘Rule of Faith’ as
‘Apostolic,’ they did not mean that the Apostles had met and formulated it …
What they meant was that the profession of belief which every catechumen recited
before his baptism did em­body in summary form the faith which the Apostles had
taught and had committed to their disciples to teach after them.” This
profession was the same everywhere, although the actual phrasing could vary from
place to place. It was always intimately related to the baptismal formula [C. H.
Turner, Apostolic Succession, in “Essays on the Early History of the Church and
the Ministry,” edited by H. B. Swete (London, 1918), pp. 101-102. See also Yves
M. J. Cougar, O.P., La Tradition et les traditions, 11. Essai Théologique
(Paris, 1963), pp. 21 ss]. Apart from this “rule” Scripture could be but
misinterpreted. Scrip­ture and Tradition were indivisibly interwined for
Tertullian. Ubi enim apparuerit esse veritatem disciplinae et fidei christianae,
illic erit veritas scripturarum et expositionum et omnium traditionum
christianarum. [“For only where the true Christian teaching and faith are
evident will the true Scriptures, the true interpretations, and all the true
Christian traditions be found;” XIX. 3]. The Apostolic Tradition of faith was
the indispensable guide in the understanding of Scripture and the ultimate
warrant of right interpretation. The Church was not an external authority, which
had to judge over the Scripture, but rather the keeper and guardian of that
Divine truth which was stored and deposited in the Holy Writ [Cf. E.
Flesseman-van-Leer, Tradition and Scripture in the Early Church (Assen, 1954),
pp. 145-185; Damien van den Eynde, Les Normes de l’Enseignment Chrétien dans la
litterature patristique des trois premiers siècles (Gembloux-Paris, 1933), pp.
197-212; J. K. Stirniman, Die Praescriptio Tertullians im Lichte des römischen
Rechts und der Théologie (Freiburg, 1949); and also the introduction and notes
of R. F. Refoulé, O.P., in the edition of De praescriptione, in the “Sources
Chrétiennes,” 46 (Paris, 1957)].

St. Irenaeus and the “Canon of Truth”

Denouncing the Gnostic mishandling of Scriptures, St. Irenaeus introduced a
picturesque simile. A skillful artist has made a beautiful image of a king,
composed of many precious jewels. Now, another man takes this mosaic image
apart, re-arranges the stones in another pattern so as to produce the image of a
dog or of a fox. Then he starts claiming that this was the original picture, by
the first master, under the pretext that the gems (the ψηφιδες) were authentic.
In fact, however, the original design had been destroyed - λυσας την υποκειμενην
του ανθρωπου ιδεαν. This is precisely what the heretics do with the Scripture.
They disregard and disrupt “the order and connection” of the Holy Writ and
“dismember the truth” - λυοντες τα μελη της αληθειας. Words, expressions, and
images -ρηματα, λεξεις παραβολαι -are genuine, indeed, but the design, the
υποθεσις (ipothesis), is arbitrary and false (adv. haeres., 1. 8. 1). St.
Irenaeus sug­gested as well another analogy. There were in circulation at that
time certain Homerocentones, composed of genuine verses of Homer, but taken at
random and out of context, and re-arranged in arbitrary manner. All particular
verses were truly Homeric, but the new story, fabricated by the means of
re-arrangement, was not Homeric at all. Yet, one could be easily deceived by the
familiar sound of the Homeric idiom (1.9.4). It is worth noticing that
Tertullian also refers to these curious centones, made of Homeric or Virgilian
verses (de praescr., XXXIX). Apparently, it was a common device in the polemical
literature of that time. Now, the point which St. Irenaeus endeavored to make is
obvious. Scripture had its own pattern or design, its internal structure and
harmony. The heretics ignore this pattern, or rather substitute their own
instead. In other words, they re-arrange the Scriptural evidence on a pattern
which is quite alien to the Scripture itself. Now, contended St. Irenaeus, those
who had kept unbending that “canon of truth” which they had received at baptism,
will have no difficulty in “restoring each expression to its appropriate place.”
Then they are able to behold the true image. The actual phrase used by St.
Irenaeus is peculiar: προσαρμοσας τω της αληθειας σωματιω (prosarmosas to tis
alithias somatio; which is clumsily rendered in the old Latin translation as
corpusculum veritatis). But the meaning of the phrase is quite clear. The
somatio is not necessarily a diminutive. It simply denotes a “corporate body.”
In the phrase of St. Irenaeus it denotes the corpus of truth, the right context,
the original design, the “true image,” the original disposition of gems and
verses [Cf. F. Kattenbusch, Das Apostolische Symbol, Bd. II (Leipzig, 1900), ss.
30 ff., and also his note in the “Zeitschrift f. neutest. Theologie,” x (1909),
ss. 331-332]. Thus, for St. Ire­naeus, the reading of Scripture must be guided
by the “rule” of faith - to which believers are committed (and into which they
are initiated) by their baptismal profession, and by which only the basic
message, or “the truth,” of the Scripture can be adequately assessed and
identified. The favorite phrase of St. Irenaeus was “the rule of truth,” κανων
της αλιθειας (kanon tis alithias), regula veritatis. Now, this “rule” was, in
fact, nothing else than the witness and preaching of the Apostles, their κηρυγμα
(kirigma) and praedicatio (or praeconium), which was “deposited” in the Church
and entrusted to her by the Apostles, and then was faithfully kept and handed
down, with complete unanimity in all places, by the succession of accredited
pastors: Those who, together with the succession of the episcopacy, have
received the firm charisma of truth [IV. 26. 2]. Whatever the direct and exact
con­notation of this pregnant phrase may be [It has been contended that charisma
veritatis was actually simply the Apostolic doctrine and the truth (of the
Divine Revelation), so that St. Irenaeus did not imply any special ministerial
endowment of the bishops. See Karl Müller, Kleine Beiträge zur alten
Kirchengeschichte, 3. DasCharisma veritatis und der Episcopat bei Irenaeus, in
“Zeitschrift f. neut. Wissenschaft,” Bd. xxiii (1924), ss. 216-222; cf. van den
Eynde, pp. 183-187; Y. M. J. Congar, O.P., La Tradition et ler traditions, Êtude
historique (Paris, 1960), pp. 97-98; Hans Freiherr von Campenhausen, Kirchliches
Amt und geistliche Vollmacht in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten (Tübingen, 1953),
ss. 185 ff.; and also-with the special emphasis on the character of “Succession”
- Einar Molland, Irenaeus of Lugdunum and the Apostolic Succession, in the
“Journal of Ecclesiastical History,” 1.1, 1950, pp. 12-28, and Le
développementDeuteronomy 1:1-46’idée de succession aposto­lique, in the “Revue
d’historie et de philosophie réligieuses,” xxxiv.i, 1954, pp. 1-29. See, on the
other hand, the critical remarks of Arnold Ehrhardt, The Apostolic Succession in
the first two centuries of the Church (London, 1953), pp. 207-231, esp.
213-214], there can be no doubt that, in the mind of St. Irenaeus, this
continuous preservation and transmission of the deposited faith was operated and
guided by the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church. The whole
conception of the Church in St. Irenaeus was at once “charismatic” and
“institutional.” And “Tradi­tion” was, in his understanding, a depositum
juvenescens, a living tradition, entrusted to the Church as a new breath of
life, just as breath was bestowed upon the first man - (que­madmodum aspiratio
plasmationis III. 24. 1). Bishops or “presbyters” were in the Church accredited
guardians and ministers of this once deposited truth. “Where, therefore, the
charismata of the Lord have been deposited (posita sunt), there is it proper to
learn the truth, namely from those who have that succession of the Church which
is from the Apostles (apud quos est ea quae est ab apostolis ecclesiae
successio), and who display a sound and blameless conduct and an unadulterated
and incorrupt speech. For these also preserve this faith of ours in one God who
created all things, and they increase that love for the Son of God, who
accomplished such marvellous dispensation for our sake, and they expound the
Scriptures to us without danger, neither blaspheming God, nor dishonoring the
patriarchs, nor despising the prophets” (IV. 26. 5). The regula fidei

Tradition was in the Early Church, first of all, an her­meneutical principle and
method. Scripture could be rightly and fully assessed and understood only in the
light and in the context of the living Apostolic Tradition, which was an
integral factor of Christian existence. It was so, of course, not because
Tradition could add anything to what has been manifested in the Scripture, but
because it provided that living context, the comprehensive perspective, in which
only the true “intention” and the total “design” of the Holy Writ, itself of
Divine Revelation, could be detected and grasped. The truth was, according to
St. Irenaeus, a “well-grounded system,” a corpus (adv. haeres. II. 27. 1 -
veritatis corpus), a “harmonious melody” (II. 38. 3). But it was precisely this
“harmony” which could be grasped only by the insight of faith. Indeed, Tradition
was not just a transmission of in­herited doctrines, in a “Judaic manner,” but
rather the con­tinuous life in the truth [Cf. Dom Odo Casel O.S.B., Benedict von
Nursia als Pneumatiker, in “Heilige Überlieferung” (Münster, 1938), ss. 100-101:
Die heilige Überlieferung ist daher in der Kirche von Anfang an nicht bloss ein
Weitergeben von Doktrinen nach spätjudischen (nachchristlicher) Art gewesen,
sondern ein lebendiges Weiterblühen des göttlichen Lebens. In a footnote Dom
Casel sends the reader back to John Adam Möhler]. It was not a fixed core or
complex of binding propositions, but rather an insight into the mean­ing and
impact of the revelatory events, of the revelation of the “God who acts.” And
this was determinative in the field of Biblical exegesis. G. L. Prestige has
well put it: “The voice of the Bible could be plainly heard only if its text
were interpreted broadly and rationally, in accordance with the apostolic creed
and the evidence of the historical practice of Christendom. It was the heretics
that relied on isolated texts, and the Catholics who paid more attention on the
whole to scriptural principles” [G. L. Prestige, Fathers and Heretics (London,
1940), p. 43]. Summarizing her careful analysis of the use of Tradition in the
Early Church, Dr. Ellen Flesseman­van-Leer has written: “Scripture without
interpretation is not Scripture at all; the moment it is used and becomes alive
it is always interpreted Scripture.” Now, Scripture must be interpreted
“according to its own basic purpose,” which is disclosed in the regula fidei.
Thus, this regula becomes, as it were, the controlling instance in the exegesis.
“Real inter­pretation of Scripture is Church preaching, is tradition”
[Flesseman, pp. 92-96. On St. Irenaeus see Flesseman, 100-144; van den Eynde,
159-187; B. Reynders, Paradosis, Le progrès de l’idée tradi­tion jusqu’ à Saint
Irénée, in the “Recherches de théologie ancienne et mediévale,” v (1933),
155-191; La polemique de Saint Irenee, ibidem, vii (1935), 5-27; Henri Holstein,
La Tradition des Apotres chez Saint Irénée, in the “Recherches de Science
réligieuse,” xxxvi (1949), 229-270; La Tradition dans l’Eglise (Paris, 1960);
André Benoit, Ecriture et Tradition chez Saint Irénée, in the “Révue d’histoire
et de philosophie réligieuses,” xL (1960), 32-43; Saint Irénée, Introduction á
l’etude de sa théologie (Paris, 1960)].

St. Athanasius and the “Scope of Faith”

The situation did not change in the Fourth century. The dispute with the Arians
was centered again in the exegetical field - at least, in its early phase. The
Arians and their sup­porters have produced an impressive array of Scriptural
texts in the defense of their doctrinal position. They wanted to restrict
theological discussion to the Biblical ground alone. Their claims had to be met
precisely on this ground, first of all. And their exegetical method, the manner
in which they handled the text, was much the same as that of the earlier
dissenters. They were operating with selected proof-texts, without much concern
for the total context of the Revelation. It was imperative for the Orthodox to
appeal to the mind of the Church, to that “Faith” which had been once delivered
and then faithfully kept. This was the main concern, and the usual method, of
St. Athanasius. The Arians quoted various passages from the Scripture to
substantiate their contention that the Saviour was a creature. In reply St.
Athanasius in­voked the “rule of faith.” This was his usual argument. “Let us,
who possess τον σκοπον της πιστεως [the scope of faith], restore the correct
meaning (ορθην την διανοιαν) of what they had wrongly interpreted” (c. Arian.
III. 35). St. Athanasius contended that the “correct” interpreta­tion of
particular texts was only possible in the total per­spective of faith. “What
they now allege from the Gospels they explain in an unsound sense, as we may
discover if we take in consideration τον σκοπον της καθ ημας τους Χριστιανοθς
πιοτεως [the scope of the faith according to us Christians], and read the
Scripture using it (τον σκοπον, tonskopon) as the rule- ωσπερ κανονι χρησαμενοι”
(III. 28) On the other hand, close attention must be given also to the
im­mediate context and setting of every particular phrase and expression, and
the exact intention of the writer must be carefully identified (I. 54). Writing
to Bishop Serapion, on the Holy Spirit, St. Athanasius contends again that
Arians ignored or missed “the scope of the Divine Scripture” (ad Serap., II. 7;
cf. ad episc. Eg., 4). The (σκοπος) skopos was, in the language of St.
Athanasius, a close equivalent of what St. Irenaeus used to denote as (υποθεσις)
ipothesis - the underlying “idea,” the true design, the intended meaning (See
Guido Müller, Lexicon Athanasianum, sub voce: id quod quis docendo, scribendo,
credendo intendit). On the other hand, the word σκοπος skopos was a habitual
term in the exegetical language of certain philosophical schools, especially in
Neo­platonism. Exegesis played a great role in the philosophical endeavor of
that time, and the question of hermeneutical principle had to be raised.
Jamblichos was, for one, quite formal at this point. One had to discover the
“main point,” or the basic theme, of the whole treatise under examination, and
to keep it all time in mind [See Karl Prächter, Richtungen und Schulen im
Neuplatonismus, in "Genethalikon" (Carl Roberts zum 8. März 1910), (Berlin,
1910). Prächter translates skopos as Zielpunkt or Grundthema (s. 128 f.). He
characterizes the method of Jamblichos as an "universalistische Exegese" (138).
Proclus, in his Commentary on Timaeus, contrasts Porphyry and Jamblichos:
Porphyry interpreted texts merikoteron, while Jamblichos did it epoptikoteron,
that is in a comprehensive or syntretic manner: in Tim. I, pp. 204, 24 ff.,
quoted by Prächter, s. 136.). St. Athanasius could well be acquainted with the
technical use of the term. It was misleading, he contended, to quote isolated
texts and passages, disregarding the total intent of the Holy Writ. It is
obviously inaccurate to interpret the term (σκοπος) skopos in the idiom of St.
Athanasius as “the general drift” of the Scripture. The “scope” of the faith, or
of the Scripture, is precisely their credal core, which is condensed in the
“rule of faith,” as it had been maintained in the Church and “transmitted from
fathers to fathers,” while the Arians had “no fathers” for their opinions (de
decr., 27). As Cardinal Newman has rightly observed, St. Athanasius regarded the
“rule of faith” as an ultimate “principle of interpretation,” opposing the
“ecclesiastical sense” (την εκκλησιαστικην διανοιαν, c. Arian. I. 44) to
“private opinions” of the heretics [Select Treatises of St. Athanasius, freely
translated by J. H. Cardinal Newman, Vol. II (Eighth impression, 1900), pp.
250-252]. Time and again, in his scrutiny of the Arian arguments, St.
Atha­nasius would summarize the basic tenets of the Christian faith, before
going into the actual re-examination of the alleged proof-texts, in order to
restore texts into their proper perspective. H. E. W. Turner has described this
exegetical manner of St. Athanasius:

Against the favorite Arian technique of pressing the grammatical meaning of a
text without regard either to the immediate context or to the wider frame of
reference in the teaching of the Bible as a whole, he urges the need to take the
general drift of the Church’s Faith as a Canon of interpretation. The Arians are
blind to the wide sweep of Biblical theology and therefore fail to take into
sufficient account the context in which their proof-texts are set. The sense of
Scripture must itself be taken as Scripture. This has been taken as a virtual
abandonment of the appeal to Scripture and its replacement by an argument from
Tradition. Certainly in less careful hands it might lead to the imposition of a
strait-jacket upon the Bible as the dogmatism of Arian and Gnostic had attempted
to do. But this was certainly not the intention of St. Athanasius himself. For
him it represents an appeal from exegesis drunk to exegesis sober, from a myopic
insistence upon the grammatical letter to the meaning of intention (σκοπος
skopos, χαρακτηρ haraktir) of the Bible” (H.E.W. Turner, The Pattern of
Christian Truth, London, 1954, pp. 193-194).

It seems, however, that Professor Turner exaggerated the danger. The argument
was still strictly scriptural, and, in principle, St. Athanasius admitted the
sufficiency of the Scripture, sacred and inspired, for the defense of truth (c.
Gentes, I). Only Scripture had to be interpreted in the con­text of the living
credal tradition, under the guidance or control of the “rule of faith.” This
“rule,” however, was in no sense an “extraneous” authority which could be
“imposed” on the Holy Writ. It was the same “Apostolic preaching,” which was
written down in the books of the New Testament, but it was, as it were, this
preaching in epitome. St. Athana­sius writes to Bishop Serapion: “Let us look at
that very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the very
beginning, which the Lord gave (εδωκεν), the Apostles preached (εκηρυξαν), and
the Fathers preserved (εφυλαξαν). Upon this the Church is founded” (ad Serap.,
I. 28). The passage is highly characteristic of St. Athanasius. The three terms
in the phrase actually coincide: (παραδοσις) paradosis [tradition] - from Christ
himself, (διδασκαλια) didaskalia [teaching] - ­by the Apostles, and (πιστις)
pistis [faith] - of the Catholic Church. And this is the foundation (θεμελιον,
themelion) of the Church - a sole and single foundation. Scripture itself seems
to be subsumed and included in this “Tradition,” coming, as it is, from the
Lord. In the concluding chapter of his first epistle to Serapion St. Athanasius
returns once more to the same point. “In accordance with the Apostolic faith
delivered to us by tradition from the Fathers, I have delivered the tradi­tion,
without inventing anything extraneous to it. What I learned, that have I
inscribed (ενεχαραξα, eneharaksa), conformably with the Holy Scriptures” (c.
33). On an occasion St. Atha­nasius denoted the Scripture itself as an Apostolic
paradosis (ad Adelph., 6). It is characteristic that in the whole discus­sion
with the Arians no single reference was made to any “traditions” - in plural.
The only term of reference was al­ways “Tradition,” - indeed, the Tradition, the
Apostolic Tra­dition, comprising the total and integral content of the
Apos­tolic “preaching,” and summarized in the “rule of faith.” The unity and
solidarity of this Tradition was the main and crucial point in the whole
argument. The purpose of exegesis and the “Rule of Worship”

The appeal to Tradition was actually an appeal to the mind of the Church. It was
assumed that the Church had the knowledge and the understanding of the truth, of
the truth and the “meaning” of the Revelation. Accordingly, the Church had both
the competence and the authority to pro­claim the Gospel and to interpret it.
This did not imply that the Church was “above” the Scripture. She stood by the
Scripture, but on the other hand, was not bound by its “letter.” The ultimate
purpose of exegesis and interpretation was to elicit the meaning and the intent
of the Holy Writ, or rather the meaning of the Revelation, of the
Heils­geschichte. The Church had to preach Christ, and not just “the Scripture.”
The use of Tradition in the Ancient Church can be adequately understood only in
the context of the actual use of the Scripture. The Word was kept alive in the
Church. It was reflected in her life and structure. Faith and Life were
organically interwined. It would be proper to recall at this point the famous
passage from the Indiculus de gratia Dei, which was mistakenly attributed to
Pope Celestine and was in fact composed by St. Prosper of Aquitania: “These are
the inviolable decrees of the Holy and Apostolic See by which our holy Fathers
slew the baneful innovation … Let us regard the sacred prayers which, in
accordance with apos­tolic tradition our priests offer uniformly in every
Catholic Church in all the world. Let the rule of worship lay down the rule of
faith.” It is true, of course, that this phrase in its immediate context was not
a formulation of a general prin­ciple, and its direct intention was limited to
one particular point: Infant Baptism as an instance pointing to the reality of
an inherited or original sin. Indeed, it was not an au­thoritative proclamation
of a Pope, but a private opinion of an individual theologian, expressed in the
context of a heated controversy [See Dom M. Capuyns, L’origine des Capitula
Pseudo-Celestiniens contre les Semipelagiens, in ‘Révue Bénédictine,’ t. 41
(1929), pp. 156-­170; especially Karl Federer, Liturgie und Glaube, Eine
theologiegeschi­chtliche Untersuchung (Freiburg in der Schweiz, 1950. Paradosis,
IV; cf. Dom B. Capelle, Autorité de la liturgie chèz les Pères, in ‘Re­cherches
de Théologie ancienne et médiévale,’ t. XXI (1954), pp. 5-22]. Yet, it was not
just an accident, and not a misunderstanding, that the phrase had been taken out
of its immediate context and slightly changed in order to express the principle:
ut legem credendi statuat lex orandi [So that the rule of worship should
establish the rule of faith]. “Faith” found its first expression precisely in
the liturgical,­ sacramental, rites and formulas - and “Creeds” first emerged as
an integral part of the rite of initiation. “Credal sum­maries of faith, whether
interrogatory or declaratory, were a by-product of the liturgy and reflected its
fixity or plasticity,” says J. N. D. Kelly [J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian
Creeds London, 1950), p. 167]. “Liturgy,” in the wide and comprehen­sive sense
of the word, was the first and initial layer in the Tradition of the Church, and
the argument from the lex orandi [Rule of worship] was persistently used in
discussion already by the end of the Second century. The Worship of the Church
was a solemn proclamation of her Faith. The baptismal invocation of the Name was
probably the earliest Trinitarian formula, as the Eucharist was the primary
witness to the mystery of Redemption, in all its fulness. The New Testament
itself came to existence, as a “Scripture,” in the Worshipping Church. And
Scripture was read first in the context of worship and meditation.

St. Basil and “Unwritten Tradition”

Already St. Irenaeus used to refer to “faith” as it had been received at
baptism. Liturgical arguments were used by Tertullian and St. Cyprian [See
Federer, op. cit., s. 59 ff.; F. De Pauw, La justification des tra­ditions non
écrites chèz Tertullien, in ‘Ephemerides Theologicae Lovani­enses,’ t. XIX, 1/2,
1942, pp. 5-46. Cf. also Georg Kretschmar, Studien zur frühchristlichen
Trinitätstheologie (Tübingen, 1956)]. St. Athanasius and the Cappa­docians used
the same argument. The full development of this argument from the liturgical
tradition we find in St. Basil. In his contest with the later Arians, concerning
the Holy Spirit, St. Basil built his major argument on the analysis of
doxologies, as they were used in the Churches. The trea­tise of St. Basil, De
Spiritu Sancto, was an occasional tract, written in the fire and heat of a
desperate struggle, and addressed to a particular historic situation. But St.
Basil was concerned here with the principles and methods of theological
investigation. In his treatise St. Basil was arguing a particular point -
indeed, the crucial point in the sound Trinitarian doctrine - the homotimia of
the Holy Ghost. His main reference was to a liturgical witness: the doxology of
a definite type (“with the Spirit”), which, as he could demon­strate, has been
widely used in the Churches. The phrase, of course, was not in the Scripture. It
was only attested by tradi­tion. But his opponents would not admit any authority
but that of the Scripture. It is in this situation that St. Basil endeavored to
prove the legitimacy of an appeal to Tradition. He wanted to show that the
omotimia (ομοτιμια) of the Spirit, that is, his Divinity, was always believed in
the Church and was a part of the Baptismal profession of faith. Indeed, as Père
Benoit Pruche has rightly observed, the omotimos (ομοτιμιος), was for St. Basil
an equivalent of the omousios (ομοουσιος) [See his introduction to the edition
of the treatise De Spiritu Sancto in ‘Sources Chrètiennes,’ (Paris, 1945), pp.
28 ss]. There was little new in this concept of Tradition, except consistency
and precision. His phrasing, however, was rather peculiar. “Of the dog­mata and
kerygmata, which are kept in the Church, we have some from the written teaching
(εκ της εγγραφου διδασκαλιας), and some we derive from the Apostolic paradosis,
which had been handed down en mistirio (εν μυστηριω). And both have the same
strength (την αυτην ισχυν) in the matters of piety” (de Spir. S., 66). At first
glance one may get the impression that St. Basil introduces here a double
authority and double standard - Scripture and Tradition. In fact he was very far
from doing so. His use of terms is peculiar. Kerygmata were for him what in the
later idiom was usually denoted as “dogmas” or “doctrines” - a formal and
authoritative teaching and ruling in the matters of faith,­ the open or public
teaching. On the other hand, dogmata were for him the total complex of
“unwritten habits” (τα αγραφα των εθνων), or, in fact, the whole structure of
liturgical and sacramental life. It must be kept in mind that the concept, and
the term itself, “dogma,” was not yet fixed by that time, it was not yet a term
with a strict and exact connotation [See the valuable study by August Deneffe,
S.J., Dogma.Wort und Begriff, in the ‘Scholastik,’ Jg. VI (1931), ss. 381-400
and 505-538]. In any case, one should not be embar­rassed by the contention of
St. Basil that dogmata were delivered or handed down, by the Apostles en
mistirio (εν μυστρηω). It would be a flagrant mistranslation if we render it as
“in secret.” The only accurate rendering is: “by the way of mysteries,” that is
- under the form of rites and (litur­gical) usages, or “habits.” In fact, it is
precisely what St. Basil says himself: τα πλειτα των μυστικων αγραφως ημιν
εμπολιτευεται [Most of the mysteries are communicated to us by an unwritten
way]. The term ta mistika (τα μυστικα) refers here, obviously, to the rites of
Baptism and Eucharist, which are, for St. Basil, of “Apostolic” origin. He
quotes at this point St. Paul’s own reference to “tradi­tions,” which the
faithful have received (ειτε δια λογου ειτε δι επιστολης 2 Thessalonians 2:15; 1
Corinthians 11:2). The doxology in question is one of these “traditions” (71;
cf. also 66) - οι τα περι τας Εκκλησιας εξαρχης διαθεσμοθετησαντες αποστολοι και
πατερες, εν τω κεκρυμμενω και αφθεγκτω το σεμνον τοις μυστηριοις εφυλασσον [The
Apostles and Fathers who from the very beginning arranged everything in the
churches, preserved the sacred character of the mysteries in silence and
secrecy]. Indeed, all instances quoted by St. Basil in this connection are of
ritual or liturgical nature: the use of the sign of the Cross in the rite of
admission of Catechumens; the orientation toward East at prayer; the habit to
keep standing at worship on Sundays; the epiclesis in the Eucharistic rite; the
blessing of water and oil, the renunciation of Satan and his pomp, the triple
immersion, in the rite of Baptism. There are many other “unwritten mysteries of
the Church,” says St. Basil: τα αγραφα της εκκλησιας μυστηρια (c. 66 and 67).
They are not mentioned in the Scripture. But they are of great authority and
significance. They are indispensable for the preserva­tion of right faith. They
are effective means of witness and communication. According to St. Basil, they
come from a “silent” and “private” tradition: απο της αδημοσιευτου και μυστικης
παραδοσεως εκ της αδημοσιευτου ταυτης και απορρητου διδασκαλιας [From the silent
and mystical tradition, from the unpublic and ineffable teaching]. This “silent”
and “mystical” tradition, “which has not been made public,” is not an esoteric
doctrine, reserved for some particular elite. The “elite” was the Church. In
fact, “tradition” to which St. Basil appeals, is the liturgical practice of the
Church. St. Basil is referring here to what is now denoted as disciplina arcani
[The discipline of secrecy]. In the fourth century this “discipline” was in wide
use, was formally imposed and advocated in the Church. It was related to the
institution of the Catechumenate and had primarily an educational and didactic
purpose. On the other hand, as St. Basil says himself, certain “traditions” had
to be kept “unwritten” in order to prevent profanation at the hands of the
infidel. This remark obviously refers to rites and usages. It may be recalled at
this point that, in the practice of the Fourth century, the Creed (and also the
Dominical Prayer) were a part of this “discipline of secrecy” and could not be
disclosed to the non-initiated. The Creed was reserved for the candidates for
Baptism, at the last stage of their instruction, after they had been solemnly
enrolled and approved. The Creed was communicated, or “traditioned,” to them by
the bishop orally and they had to recite it by memory before him: the ceremony
of traditio and redditio symboli. [Transmission and Repetition (by the
initi­ated) of the Creed]. The Catechumens were strongly urged not to divulge
the Creed to outsiders and not to commit it to writing. It had to be inscribed
in their hearts. It is enough to quote there the Procatechesis of St. Cyril of
Jerusalem, cap 12 and 17. In the West Rufinus and St. Augustine felt that it was
improper to set the Creed down on paper. For that reason Sozomen in his History
does not quote the text of the Nicene Creed, “which only the initiated and the
mystagogues have the right to recite and hear” (hist. Ecclesiastes 1.20) . It is
against this background, and in this historic context, that the argument of St.
Basil must be assessed and interpreted. St. Basil stresses strongly the
importance of the Baptismal profession of faith, which included a formal
commitment to the belief in the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (67
and 26). It was a “tradition” which had been handed down to the neophytes “in
mystery” and had to be kept “in silence.” One would be in great danger to shake
“the very foundation of the Christian faith” - το στερεωμα της Χριστον πιστεως -
if this “unwritten tradition” was set aside, ignored, or neglected (c. 25). The
only difference between dogma (δογμα) and kirigma (κηρυγμα) was in the manner of
their transmission: dogma is kept “in silence” and kerygmata are “publicized:”
το μεν γαρ σιωπαται, τα δε κηρυγματα δημοσειυονται. But their intent is
identical: they convey the same faith, if in different man­ners. Moreover, this
particular habit was not just a tradi­tion of the Fathers - such a tradition
would not have suf­ficed: uk eksarki. In fact, “the Fathers” derived their
“principles” from “the intention of the Scripture” - τω βουληματι της Γραφης
λαβοντες [Following the inten­tion of the Scripture, deriving their principles
from the scriptural witnesses]. Thus, the “unwritten tradition,” in rites and
symbols, does not actually add anything to the content of the Scriptural faith:
it only puts this faith in focus [Cf. Hermann Dörries, De Spiritu Sancto, Der
Beitrag des Basilius zum Abschluss des trinitarischen Dogmas (Göttingen, 1956);
J. A. Jung­mann, S.J., Die Stellung Christi im liturgischen Gebet, 2. Auflage
(Mün­ster i/W, 1962), ss. 155 ff., 163 ff.; Dom David Amand, L’ascese
mona­stique de Saint Basile, Editions de Maredsous (1949), pp. 75-85. The
footnotes in the critical editions of the treatise De SpirituS. by C. F. H.
Johnson (Oxford, 1892) and by Benoit Pruche, O.P. (in the ‘Sources Chrètiennes,’
Paris, 1945) are highly instructive and helpful. On disci­plina arcani see O.
Perler, s.v. Arkandisciplin, in ‘Reallexikon für Antike and Christentum,’ Bd. I
(Stuttgart, 1950), ss. 671-676,. Joachim Jeremias, Die Abendmahlsworte Jesu
(Göttingen, 1949), ss. 59 ff., 78 ff., contended that disciplina arcani could be
detected already in the formation of the text of the Gospels, and actually
existed also in Judaism; cf. the sharp criticism of this thesis by R. P. C.
Hanson, Tradition in the Early Church (London, 1962), pp. 27 ss]. St. Basil’s
appeal to “unwritten tradition” was actually an appeal to the faith of the
Church, to her sensus ca­tholicus, to the (φρονιμα εκκλησιατικον) fronima
ekklisiatikon [Ecclesias­tical mind]. He had to break the deadlock created by
the obstinate and narrow-minded pseudo-biblicism of his Arian opponents. And he
pleaded that, apart from this “un­written” rule of faith, it was impossible to
grasp the true intention and teaching of the Scripture itself. St. Basil was
strictly scriptural in his theology: Scripture was for him the supreme criterion
of doctrine (epist. 189.3). His exegesis was sober and reserved. Yet, Scripture
itself was a mystery, a mystery of Divine “economy” and of human salvation.
There was an inscrutable depth in the Scripture, since it was an “inspired”
book, a book by the Spirit. For that reason the true exegesis must be also
spiritual and prophetic. A gift of spiritual discernment was necessary for the
right understanding of the Holy Word. “For the judge of the words ought to start
with the same prepara­tion as the author … And I see that in the utterances of
the Spirit it is also impossible for everyone to undertake the scrutiny of His
word, but only for them who have the Spirit which grants the discernment”
(epist. 204). The Spirit is granted in the sacraments of the Church. Scripture
must be read in the light of faith, and also in the com­munity of the faithful.
For that reason Tradition, the tradition of faith as handed down through
generations, was for St. Basil an indispensable guide and companion in the study
and interpretation of the Holy Writ. At this point he was following in the steps
of St. Irenaeus and St. Athanasius. In the similar way Tradition, and especially
the liturgical witness, of the Church was used by St. Augustine [Cf. German
Mártil, O.D., La tradición en San Agustín a través de la controversia pelagiana
(Madrid, 1942) (originally in ‘Revista española de Teología,’ Vol. I, 1940, and
II, 1942); Wunibald Roetzer, Des heiligen Augustinus Schriften als
liturgie-geschichtliche Quelle (München, 1930); see also the studies of Federer
and Dom Capelle, as quoted above].

The Church as interpreter of Scripture

The Church had the authority to interpret the Scripture, since she was the only
authentic depository of Apostolic kerygma. This kerygma was unfailingly kept
alive in the Church, as she was endowed with the Spirit. The Church was still
teaching viva voce, commending and furthering the Word of God. And viva
voxEvangelii [the living voice of the Gospel] was indeed not just a recitation
of the words of the Scripture. It was a proclamation of the Word of God, as it
was heard and preserved in the Church, by the ever abiding power of the
quickening Spirit. Apart from the Church and her regular Ministry, “in
succession” to the Apostles, there was no true proclamation of the Gospel, no
sound preaching, no real understanding of the Word of God. And therefore it
would be in vain to look for truth elsewhere, outside of the Church, Catholic
and Apostolic. This was the common assumption of the Ancient Church, from St.
Irenaeus down to Chalcedon, and further. St. Irenaeus was quite formal at this
point. In the Church the fullness of truth has been gathered by the Apostles:
plenissime in eam contulerint omnia quae sunt veritatis [lodged in her hands
most copiously are all things per­taining to truth (adv. hoeres., III.4.1)].
Indeed, Scripture itself was the major part of this Apostolic “deposite.” So was
also the Church. Scripture and Church could not be separated, or opposed to each
other. Scripture, that is - its true understanding, was only in the Church, as
she was guided by the Spirit. Origen was stressing this unity be­tween Scripture
and Church persistently. The task of the interpreter was to disclose the word of
the Spirit: hoc observare debemus ut non nostras, cum docemus, led Sancti
Spiritus sententias proferamus [we must be careful when we teach to present not
our own interpretation but that of the Holy Spirit (in Romans 1.3.1)]. And this
is simply impossible apart from the Apostolic Tradition, kept in the Church.
Origen insisted on catholic interpretation of Scripture, as it is offered in the
Church: audiens in Ecclesia verbum Dei catholice tractari [hearing in the Church
the Word of God presented in the catholic manner (in Lev. hom., 4.5)]. Heretics,
in their exegesis, ignore precisely the true “intention” or the voluntas of the
Scripture: qui enim neque juxta voluntatem Scripturarum neque juxta fidei
veritatem profert eloquia Dei, seminat triticum et metit spinas [those who
present the words of God, not in con­junction with the intention of the
Scriptures, nor in con­junction ‘with the truth of faith, have sown wheat and
reaped thorns (in Jerem. hom., 7.3)]. The “intention” of the Holy Writ and the
“Rule of faith” are intimately cor­related and correspond to each other. This
was the position of the Fathers in the Fourth century and later, in full
agreement with the teaching of the Ancients. With his usual sharpness and
vehemence of expression, St. Jerome, this great man of Scripture, has voiced the
same view:

Marcion and Basilides and other heretics … do not possess the Gospel of God,
since they have no Holy Spirit, without which the Gospel so preached becomes
human. We do not think that Gospel consists of the words of Scripture but in its
meaning; not on the surface but in the marrow, not in the leaves of sermons but
in the root of meaning. In this case Scripture is really useful for the hearers
when it is not spoken without Christ, nor is presented without the Fathers, and
those who are preaching do not introduce it without the Spirit … It is a great
danger to speak in the Church, lest by a perverse interpretation of the Gospel
of Christ, a gospel of man is made (in Galat., I, 1. II; M. L. XXVI, c. 386).

There is the same preoccupation with the true under­standing of the Word of God
as in the days of St. Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen. St. Jerome probably was
simply paraphrasing Origen. Outside of the Church there is no “Divine Gospel,”
but only human substitutes. The true meaning of Scripture, the sensus
Scripturae, that is, the Divine message, can be detected only juxta fidei
veritatem [in conjunction with the truth of faith], under the guidance of the
rule of faith. The veritas fidei [the truth of faith] is, in this context, the
Trinitarian confession of faith. It is the same approach as in St. Basil. Again,
St. Jerome is speaking here primarily of the proclamation of the Word in the
Church: audientibus utilis est [to those who hear the Word].

St. Augustine and Catholic Authority.

In the same sense we have to interpret the well known, and justly startling,
statement of St. Augustine: Ego vero Evangelio non crederem, nisi me catholicae
Ecclesiae com­moveret auctoritas [Indeed, I should not have believed the Gospel,
if the authority of the Catholic Church had not moved me (c. epistolam
Fundamenti, v.6) ]. The phrase must be read in its context. First of all, St.
Augustine did not utter this sentence on his own behalf. He spoke of the
attitude which a simple believer had to take, when confronted with the heretical
claim for authority. In this situation it was proper for a simple believer to
appeal to the authority of the Church, from which, and in which, he had received
the Gospel itself: ipsi Evangelio catholicis praedicantibus credidi. [I believed
the Gospel itself, being instructed by catholic preachers]. The Gospel and the
preaching of the Catholica belong together. St. Augustine had no intention “to
subordinate” the Gospel to the Church. He only wanted to emphasize that “Gospel”
is actually received always in the context of Church’s catholic preaching and
simply can­not be separated from the Church. Only in this context it can be
assessed and properly understood. Indeed, the wit­ness of the Scripture is
ultimately “self-evident,” but only for the “faithful,” for those who have
achieved a certain “spiritual” maturity, - and this is only possible within the
Church. He opposed this teaching and preaching auctoritas of the Church Catholic
to the pretentious vagaries of Manichean exegesis. The Gospel did not belong to
the Manicheans. Catholicae Ecclesiae auctoritas [the authority of the Catholic
Church] was not an independent source of faith. But it was the indispensable
principle of sound in­terpretation. Actually, the sentence could be converted:
one should not believe the Church, unless one was moved by the Gospel. The
relationship is strictly reciprocal [Cf. Louis de Montadon, Bible et Eglise dans
l’Apologétique de Saint Augustin, in the “Recherches de Science réligieuse,” t.
II (1911), pp. 233-238; Pierre Battiffol, Le Catholicisme de Saint Augustin, 5th
ed. (Paris, 1929), pp. 25-27 (see the whole chapter I, L’Eglise règle de foi);
and especially A. D. R. Polman, The Word of God according to St. Augustine
(Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1961), pp. 198-208 (it is a revised translation of the
book published in Dutch in 1955 - De Theologie van Augustinus, Het Woord Gods
bij Augustinus); see also W. F. Dankbaar, Schriftgezag en Kerkgezag bij
Augustinus, in the ‘Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift,’ XI (1956-1957), ss.
37-59 (the article is written in connection with the Dutch edition of Polman’s
book)].


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 16: 13 - AUTHORITY OF THE ANCIENT COUNCILS
========================================================================

The Authority of the Ancient Councils and the Tradition of the Fathers The
councils in the early Church

The scope of this essay is limited and restricted. It is no more than an
introduction. Both subjects - the role of the Councils in the history of the
Church and the function of Tradition - have been intensively studied in recent
years. The purpose of the present essay is to offer some sug­gestions which may
prove helpful in the further scrutiny of documentary evidence and in its
theological assessment and interpretation. Indeed, the ultimate problem is
ecclesi­ological. The Church historian is inevitably also a theologian. He is
bound to bring in his personal options and commit­ments. On the other hand, it
is imperative that theologians also should be aware of that wide historical
perspective in which matters of faith and doctrine have been continuously
discussed and comprehended. Anachronistic language must be carefully avoided.
Each age must be discussed on its own terms. The student of the Ancient Church
must begin with the study of particular Councils, taken in their concrete
historical setting, against their specific existential background, without
attempting any overarching definition in advance. Indeed, it is precisely what
historians are doing. There was no “Con­ciliar theory” in the Ancient Church, no
elaborate “theology of the Councils,” and even no fixed canonical regulations.
The Councils of the Early Church, in the first three cen­turies, were occasional
meetings, convened for special pur­poses, usually in the situation of urgency,
to discuss particular items of common concern. They were events, rather than an
institution. Or, to use the phrase of the late Dom Gregory Dix, “in the
pre-Nicene times Councils were an occasional device, with no certain place in
the scheme of Church govern­ment [Dom Gregory Dix, “Jurisdiction, Episcopal and
Papal, in the Early Church,” Laudate, XVI (No. 62, June 1938), 108]. Of course,
it was commonly assumed and agreed, already at that time, that meeting and
consultation of bishops, representing or rather personifying their respective
local churches or “communities,” was a proper and normal method to manifest and
to achieve the unity and consent in matters of faith and discipline. The sense
of the Unity of the Church was strong in Early times, although it had not yet
been reflected on the organizational level. The “collegiality” of the bishops
was assumed in principle and the concept of the Episcopatus unus was already in
the process of formation. Bishops of a particular area used to meet for the
election and consecration of new bishops. Foundations had been laid for the
future Provincial or Metropolitan system. But all this was rather a spontaneous
movement. It seems that “Councils” came into existence first in Asia Minor, by
the end of the second century, in the period of intensive defense against the
spread of the “New Prophecy,” that is, of the Montanist enthusiastic explosion.
In this situation it was but natural that the main emphasis should be put on
“Apostolic Tradition,” of which bishops were guardians and witnesses in their
respective paroikiai. It was in North Africa that a kind of Conciliar system was
established in the third century. It was found that Councils were the best
device for witness­ing, articulating, and proclaiming the common mind of the
Church and the accord and unanimity of local churches. Professor Georg
Kretschmar has rightly said, in his recent study on the Councils of the Ancient
Church, that the basic concern of the Early Councils was precisely with the
Unity of the Church: “Schon von ihrem Ursprung her ist ihr eigentliches Thema
aber das Ringen um die rechte, geistliche Einheit der Kirche Gottes” [Georg
Kretschmar, “Die Konzile der Alten Kirche,” in: Die ökumen­ischen Konzile der
Christenheit, hg. v. H. J. Margull, Stuttgart (1961), p. 1]. Yet, this Unity was
based on the identity of Tradition and the unanimity in faith, rather than on
any institutional pattern. The imperial or ecumenical council

The situation changed with the Conversion of the Em­pire. Since Constantine, or
rather since Theodosius, it has been commonly assumed and acknowledged that
Church was co-extensive with Commonwealth, that is, with the Universal Empire
which has been christened. The “Conver­sion of the Empire” made the Universality
of the Church more visible than ever before. Of course, it did not add anything
to the essential and intrinsic Universality of the Christian Church. But the new
opportunity provided for its visible manifestation. It was in this situation
that the first General Council was convened, the Great Council of Nicea. It was
to become the model for the later Councils. “The new established position of the
Church necessitated ecumenical action, precisely because Christian life was now
lived in the world which was no longer organized on a basis of localism, but of
the Empire as a whole … Because the Church has come out into the world the local
churches had to learn to live no longer as self-contained units (as in practice,
though not in theory, they have largely lived in the past), but as parts of a
vast spiritual government” (Dom Gregory Dix, op.cit., p. 113). In a certain
sense the General Councils as inaugurated at Nicea may be described as “Imperial
Councils,” die Reichskonzile, and this was probably the first and original
meaning of the term “Ecumenical” as applied to the Councils (See Eduard
Schwartz, “Über die Reichskonzilien von Theodosius bis Justinian” (1921),
reprinted in his Gesammelte Schriften, IV (Berlin, 1960), pp. 111-158). It would
be out of place now to discuss at any length the vexed and controversial problem
of the nature or character of that peculiar structure which was the new
Christian Common­wealth, the theocratic Res publica Christiana, in which the
Church was strangely wedded with the Empire [Cf. my article, “Empire and Desert:
Antinomies of Christian History,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, III
(No. 2, 1957), 133-159]. For our immediate purpose it is actually irrelevant.
The Councils of the fourth century were still occasional meetings, or individual
events, and their ultimate authority was still grounded in their conformity with
the “Apostolic Tradition.” It is significant that no attempt to develop a legal
or canonical theory of “General Councils,” as a seat of ultimate authority, with
specific competence and models of procedure, was made at that time, in the
fourth century, or later, although they were de facto acknowledged as a proper
instance to deal with the questions of faith and doctrine and as an authority on
these matters. It will be no exaggeration to suggest that Councils were never
regarded as a canonical institution, but rather as occasional charismatic
events. Councils were not regarded as periodical gatherings which had to be
convened at certain fixed dates. And no Council was accepted as valid in
advance, and many Councils were actually disavowed, in spite of their formal
regularity. It is enough to mention the notorious Robber Council of 449. Indeed,
those Councils which were actually recognized as “Ecumenical,” in the sense of
their binding and infallible authority, were recognized, immediately or after a
delay, not because of their formal canonical competence, but because of their
charismatic character: under the guidance of the Holy Spirit they have witnessed
to the Truth, in conformity with the Scripture as handed down in Apostolic
Tradition [See V. V. Bolotov, Lectures on the History of the Ancient Church, III
(1913), p. 320 ff. (Russian), and his Letters to A. A. Kireev, ed. by D. N.
Jakshich (1931), pp. 31 ff. (Russian); also A. P. Dobroklonsky, “The Ecu­menical
Councils of the Orthodox Church. Their Structure,” Bogoslovlje, XI (2 & 3,
1936), 163-172 and 276-287 (Serbian.)]. There is no space now to discuss the
theory of reception. In fact, there was no theory. There was simply an insight
into the matters of faith. Hans Küng, in his recent book, Strukturen der Kirche,
has suggested a helpful avenue of approach to this very problem. Indeed, Dr.
Küng is not a historian, but his theological scheme can be fruitfully applied by
historians. Küng suggested that we should regard the Church herself as a
“Council,” an Assembly, and as a Council convened by God Himself, aus göttlicher
Berufung, and the historic Councils, that is, the Ecumenical or General
Councils, as Councils aus menschlicher Berufung, as a “representation” of the
Church, - indeed, a “true representation,” but yet no more than a representation
[Hans Küng, Strukturen der Kirche, 1962, pp. 11-74]. It is interesting to note
that a similar conception had been made already many years ago by the great
Russian Church historian, V. V. Bolotov, in his Lectures on the History of the
Ancient Church. Church is ecclesia, an assembly, which is never adjourned
[Bolotov, Lectures, I (1907), pp. 9-14]. In other words, the ultimate authority
- and the ability to discern the truth in faith - is vested in the Church which
is indeed a “Divine institution,” in the proper and strict sense of the word,
whereas no Council, and no “Conciliar institution,” is de jure Divino, except in
so far as it happens to be a true image or manifestation of the Church herself.
We may seem to be involved here in a vicious circle. We may be actually involved
in it, if we insist on formal guarantees in doctrinal matters. But, obviously,
such “guarantees” do not exist and cannot be produced, especially in advance.
Certain “Councils” were actually failures, no more than conciliabula, and did
err. And for that reason they were subsequently disavowed. The story of the
Councils in the fourth century is, in this respect, very instructive [Cf. Monald
Goemans, O.F.M., Het algemeene Concilie in de vierde eeuw (Nijmegen-Utrecht,
1945)]. The claims of the Councils were accepted or rejected in the Church not
on formal or “canonical” ground. And the verdict of the Church has been highly
selective. The Council is not above the Church; this was the attitude of the
Ancient Church. The Council is precisely a “representation.” This explains why
the Ancient Church never appealed to “Conciliar authority” in general or in
abstracto, but always to particular Councils, or rather to their “faith” and
witness. Pere Yves Congar has recently published an excellent article on the
“Primacy of the first four Ecumenical Councils,” and the evidence he has
collected is highly instructive [Primauté des quatre premiers conciles
oecuméniques,” Le Concile et les Conciles, Contribution à l’histoire de la vie
conciliaive de l’Eglise (1960), p. 75-109]. In fact, it was precisely the
normative priority of Nicea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, that is, of their dogmatic
ruling, which was felt to be a faithful and adequate expression of the perennial
commitment of faith as once delivered unto the Church. Again the stress was not
so much on “canonical” authority, but on the truth. It leads us to the most
intricate and crucial problem - what are the ultimate criteria of the Christian
Truth?

Christ: the criterion of truth

There is no easy answer to this query. Indeed, there is a very simple answer -
Christ is the Truth. The source and the criterion of the Christian Truth is the
Divine Revelation, in its twofold structure, in its two dispensations. The
source of the Truth is the Word of God. Now, this simple answer was readily
given and commonly accepted in the Ancient Church, as it may be also gratefully
accepted in the divided Christendom of our own days. Yet, this answer does not
solve the problem. In fact, it has been variously assessed and inter­preted, to
the point of most radical divergence. It only meant that the problem was
actually shifted a step further. A new question came to be asked. How was
Revelation to be under­stood? The Early Church had no doubt about the
“suffi­ciency” of the Scriptures, and never tried to go beyond, and always
claimed not to have gone beyond. But already in the Apostolic age itself the
problem of “interpretation” arose in all its challenging sharpness. What was the
guiding her­meneutical principle? At this point there was no other answer than
the appeal to the “faith of the Church,” the faith and kerygma of the Apostles,
the Apostolic paradosis. The Scrip­ture could be understood only within the
Church, as Origen strongly insisted, and as St. Irenaeus and Tertullian insisted
before him. The appeal to Tradition was actually an appeal to the mind of the
Church, her phronema. It was a method to discover and ascertain the faith as it
had been always held, from the very beginning: semper creditum. The permanence
of Christian belief was the most conspicuous sign and token of its truth: no
innovations [For further discussion of this topic see my articles: “The Function
of Tradition in the Ancient Church,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, IX
(No. 2, 1964), 181-200, and “Scripture and Tradition: An Orthodox point of
view,” Dialog, II (No. 4, 1963), 288-293. Cf. also “Revelation and
Interpretation,” in: Biblical Authority for Today, edited by Alan Richardson and
W. Schweitzer (London and Philadelphia, 1951), pp. 163-­180]. And this
permanence of the Holy Church’s faith could be appropriately demonstrated by the
witnesses from the past. It was for that reason, and for that purpose, that “the
ancients,” i palei (οι παλαιοι), were usually invoked and quoted in theological
discussions. This “argument from antiquity,” however, had to be used with
certain caution. Occasional references to old times and casual quotations from
old authors could be often ambiguous and even misleading. This was well
understood already at the time of the great Baptismal controversy in the third
century, and the question about the validity or authority of “ancient customs”
had been formally raised at that time. Already Tertullian contended that
consuetudines [customs] in the Church had to be examined in the light of truth:
Dominus noster Christus veritatem se, non consuetudinem, cognomin­avit [Our Lord
Christ designated himself, not as custom but as truth; de virginibus velandis,
I.I]. The phrase was taken up by St. Cyprian and was adopted by the Council at
Carthage in 256. In fact, “antiquity” as such might happen to be no more than an
inveterate error: nam antiquitas sine veritate vetustas erroris est [for
antiquity without truth is the age old error], in the phrase of St. Cyprian
(epist. 74.9). St. Au­gustine also used the same phrase: In Evangelio Dominus,
Ego sum, inquit, veritas. Non dixit, Ego sum consuetudo [In the Gospel the Lord
says - “I am the truth.” He did not say - I am custom; de baptismo, III. 6.9].
“Antiquity” as such was not necessarily a truth, although the Christian truth
was intrinsically an “ancient” truth, and “innovations” in the Church had to be
resisted. On the other hand, the argument “from tradition” was first used by the
heretics, by Gnostics, and it was this usage of theirs that prompted St.
Irenaeus to elaborate his own conception of Tradition - in opposition to the
false “traditions” of the heretics which were alien to the mind of the Church
[See B. Reynders, “Paradosis, Le progrès de l’idée de tradition jusqu’à Saint
Irénee,” Recherches de théologie ancienne el mediévale, V (1933), 155­-191, and
“La polemique de Saint Irénée,” ibidem, VII (1935), 5-27]. The appeal to
“antiquity” or “traditions” had to be selective and discriminative. Certain
alleged “traditions” were simply wrong and false. One had to detect and to
identify the “true Tradition,” the authentic Tradition which could be traced
back to the authority of the Apostles and be attested and confirmed by an
universal consensio of Churches. In fact, however, this consensio could not be
so easily discovered. Certain questions were still open. The main criterion of
St. Irenaeus was valid: Tradition - Apostolic and Catholic (or Universal).
Origen, in the preface to his De Principiis, tried to describe the scope of the
existing “agreement” which was to his mind binding and restrictive, and then he
quoted a series of important topics which had to be further explored. There was,
again, a considerable variety of local traditions, in language and discipline,
even within the unbroken communion in faith and insacris. It suffices to recall
at this point the Pascal controversy between Rome and the East, in which the
whole question of the au­thority of ancient habits came to the fore. One should
also recall the conflicts between Carthage and Rome, and also between Rome and
Alexandria, in the third century, and the increasing tension between Alexandria
and Antioch which came to its tragic climax, and impass, in the fifth century.
Now, in this age of the intense theological controvercy and context, all
participating groups used to appeal to tradition and “antiquity.” “Chains” of
ancient testimonies were com­piled on all sides in the dispute. These
testimonies had to be carefully scrutinized and examined on a basis more
compre­hensive that “antiquity” alone. Certain local traditions, litur­gical and
theological, were finally discarded and disavowed by the overarching authority
of an “ecumenical” consensus. A sharp confrontation of diverse theological
traditions took place already at the Council of Ephesus. The Council was
actually split in twain - the “Ecumenical” Council of St. Cyril and Rome and the
conciliabulum of the Orient. Indeed, the reconciliation was achieved, and yet
there was still a tension. The most spectacular instance of condemnation of a
theo­logical tradition, of long standing and of considerable, if rather local,
renown, was, of course, the dramatic affair of Three Chapters. At this point a
question of principle has been raised: to what extent was it fair and legitimate
to disavow the faith of those who had died in peace and in communion with the
Church? There was a violent debate on this matter, especially in the West, and
strong arguments were produced against such retrospective discrimination.
Nevertheless, the Chapters were condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council.
“Antiquity” was overruled by Ecumenical consensio, as strain­ed as it probably
was. The meaning of the appeal to the Fathers

It has been rightly observed that appeal to “antiquity” was changing its
function and character with the course of time. The Apostolic past was still at
hand, and within the reach of human memory, in the times of St. Irenaeus or
Tertullian. Indeed, St. Irenaeus had heard in his youth the oral instruction of
St. Polycarp, the immediate disciple of St. John the Divine. It was only the
third generation since Christ! The memory of the Apostolic age was still fresh.
The scope of Christian history was brief and limited. The main concern in this
early age was with the Apostolic foundations, with the initial delivery of the
kerygma. Accordingly, Tradition meant at that time, primarily, the original
“delivery” or “deposition.” The question of accurate transmission, over a bit
more than one century, was comparatively simple, es­pecially in the Churches
founded by the Apostles themselves. Full attention was given, of course, to the
lists of episco­pal succession (cf. St. Irenaeus or Hegesippus), but it was not
difficult to compile these lists. The question of “succes­sion,” however,
appeared to be much more complicated for the subsequent generations, more
removed from the Apostolic time. It was but natural, under these new conditions,
that emphasis should shift from the question of initial “Apostol­icity” to the
problem of the preservation of the “deposit.” Tradition came to mean
“transmission,” rather than “de­livery.” The question of the intermediate links,
of “succes­sion” - in the wide and comprehensive sense of the word - became
especially urgent. It was the problem of faithful witnesses. It was in this
situation that the authority of the Fathers was for the first time formally
invoked: they were witnesses of the permanence or identity of the kerygma, as
transmitted from generation to generation (Cf. P. Smulders, “Le mot et le
concept de tradition chez les Pères,” Recherches de Science religieuse, 40
(1952), 41-62, and Yves Congar, La Tradition et les traditions, Etude historique
(Paris 1960), p. 57 ff). Apostles and Fathers - these two terms were generally
and commonly coupled together in the argument from Tradition, as it was used in
the Third and Fourth centuries. It was this double reference, both to the origin
and to the unfailing and con­tinuous preservation, that warranted the
authenticity of belief. On the other hand, Scripture was formally acknow­ledged
and recognized as the ground and foundation of faith, as the Word of God and the
Writ of the Spirit. Yet, there was still the problem of right and adequate
interpretation. Scripture and Fathers were usually quoted together, that is,
kerygma and exegesis, i grafike i pateres (η γραφη και οι πατερες). The
reference, or even a direct appeal, “to the Fathers” was a distinctive and
salient note of theological research and discussion in the period of the great
General or Ecumenical Councils, beginning with that of Nicea. The term has never
been formally defined. It was used, occasionally and spo­radically, already by
early ecclesiastical writers. Often it simply denoted Christian teachers and
leaders of previous generations. It was gradually becoming a title for the
bishops, in so far as they were appointed teachers and witnesses of faith. Later
the title was applied specifically to bishops in Councils. The common element in
all these cases was the teaching office or task. “Fathers” were those who
transmitted and propagated the right doctrine, the teaching of the Apostles, who
were guides and masters in Christian instruc­tion and catechesis. In this sense
it was emphatically applied to great Christian writers. It must be kept in mind
that the main, if not also the only, manual of faith and doctrine was, in the
Ancient Church, precisely the Holy Writ. And for that reason the renowned
interpreters of Scripture were regarded as “Fathers” in an eminent sense [See,
first of all, J. Fessler, Institutiones Patrologiae, denuo recensuit, auxit,
edidit B. Jungmann, I (Innsbruck, 1890), pp. 15-57; E. Amann, “Pères Deuteronomy
1:1-46’église,” Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique, XII, cc. 1192-1215;
Basilius Steidle, O.S.B., “Heilige Vaterschaft,” Benedictinische Monatsschrift,
XIV (1932), 215-226; “Unsere Kirchenväter,” ibidem, 387-398 and 454-­466].
“Fathers” were teachers, first of all, - doctores, didaskali (διδασκαλοι). And
they were teachers in so far as they were witnesses, testes. These two functions
must be distinguished, and yet they are most intimately in­tertwined. “Teaching”
was an Apostolic task: “teach all nations.” And it was in this commission that
their “authority” was rooted: it was, in fact, the authority to bear witness.
Two major points must be made in this connection. First, the phrase “the Fathers
of the Church” has actually an obvi­ous restrictive accent: they were acting not
just as individuals, but rather as viri ecclesiastici (the favourite expression
of Origen), on behalf and in the name of the Church. They were spokesmen for the
Church, expositors of her faith, keepers of her Tradition, witnesses of truth
and faith, - magistri probabiles, in the phrase of St. Vincent. And in that was
their “authority” grounded [Cf. Basilius Steidle, Patrologia (Friburgi Brisg.,
1937), p. 9: qui saltem aliquo tempore per vinculum fidei et caritatis Ecclesiae
adhaeserunt testesque sunt veritatis catholicae]. It leads us back to the
concept of “representation.” The late G. L. Prestige has rightly observed: The
creeds of the Church grew out of the teaching of the Church: the general effect
of heresy was rather to force old creeds to be tightened up than to cause fresh
creeds to be constructed. Thus the most famous and most crucial of all creeds,
that of Nicea, was only a new edition of an existing Palestinian confession. And
a further important fact always ought to be remembered. The real intellectual
work, the vital interpretative thought, was not con­tributed by the Councils
that promulgated the creeds, but by the theological teachers who supplied and
explained the formulae which the Councils adopted. The teaching of Nicea, which
finally commended itself, represented the views of intellectual giants working
for a hundred years before and for fifty years after the actual meeting of the
Council (G. L. Prestige, Fathers and Heretics (London, 1940), p. 8. Italics are
mine).

The Fathers were true inspirers of the Councils, while being present and in
absentia, and also often after they have gone to Eternal Rest. For that reason,
and in this sense, the Coun­cils used to emphasize that they were “following the
Holy Fathers” (επομενοι τοις αγιος πατρασιν), as Chalcedon has said. Secondly,
it was precisely the consensus patrum which was authoritative and binding, and
not their private opinions or views, although even they should not be hastily
dismissed. Again, this consensus was much more than just an empirical agreement
of individuals. The true and authen­tic consensus was that which reflected the
mind of the Cath­olic and Universal Church - to ekklisiastikon fronima (το
εκκλησιοστικον φρονημα) [See Eusebius, hist. eccl., V. 28.6, quoting an
anonymous treatise, Against the heresy of Artemon, of the third century. The
attribution of this treatise to Hippolytus is doubtful]. It was that kind of
consensus to which St. Irenaeus was referring when he contended that neither a
special “ability,” nor a “deficiency” in speech of individual leaders in the
Churches could affect the identity of their witness, since the “power of
tradition” - virtus traditionis - was always and everywhere the same (adv.
haeres. I. 10.2) . The preaching of the Church is always identical: constans et
aequaliter per­severans (ibid., III. 24.1). The true consensus is that which
manifests and discloses this perennial identity of the Church’s faith -
aequaliter perseverans.

[See my article “Offenbarung, Philosophie and Theologie,” Zwischen den Zeiten,
IX (1931), pp. 463-480. - Cf. Karl Adam, Christus unser Bruder (1926), p. 116
f.: Der konservative Traditionsgeist der Kirche fliesst unmit­telbar aus ihrer
christozentrischen Grundhaltung. Von dieser Grundstellung aus wandte sich die
Kirche von jeher gegen die Tyrannie von Führerpersön­lichkeiten, von Schulen und
Richtungen. Da, wo durch diese Schulen das christliche Bewusstsein, die
überlieferte Botschaft von Christus, getrübt oder bedroht schien, da zögerte sie
nicht, selbst über ihre grössten Söhne hinwegzuschreiten, über einen Origenes,
Augustin, ja - hier und dort - selbst über einen Thomas von Aquin. Und überall
da, wo grundsätzlich nicht die Überlieferung, nicht das Feststehen auf dem Boden
der Geschichte, der urchristlichen Gegebenheit, der lebendigen fortdauernden
Gemeinschaft, sondern die eigene Spekulation and das eigene kleine Erlebnis and
das eigene arme Ich zum Träger der Christusbotschaft gemacht werden sollte, da
sprach sie umgehend ihr Anathema aus ... Die Geschichte der kirchlichen
Ver­kündigung ist nichts anderes als ein zähes Festhalten an Christus, eine
folgestrenge Durchführung des Gebotes Christi: Nur einer sei eurer Lehrer,
Christus. - Actually, this pathetic passage is almost a paraphrase of the last
chapter of the (first) Commonitorium of St. Vincent, in which he sharply
discriminates between the common and universal mind of the Church and the
privatae opiniunculae of individuals: quidquid vero, quamquis ille sanctus et
doctus, quamvis episcopus, quamvis confessor et martyr, praeter omnes aut etam
contra omnes senserit (cap. XXVII)].

The teaching authority of the Ecumenical Councils is grounded in the
infallibility of the Church. The ultimate “authority” is vested in the Church
which is for ever the Pillar and the Foundation of Truth. It is not primarily a
canonical authority, in the formal and specific sense of the term, although
canonical strictures or sanctions may be ap­pended to conciliar decisions on
matters of faith. It is a charismatic authority, grounded in the assistance of
the Spirit: for it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 17: 14 - THE LIMITS OF THE CHURCH
========================================================================

The Limits of the Church

It is very difficult to give an exact and firm definition of a ’sect’ or
’schism’ (I distinguish the theological definition from the simple canonical
description), since a sect in the Church is always something contradictory and
unnatural, a paradox and an enigma. For the Church is unity, and the whole of
her being is in this unity and union, of Christ and in Christ. ’For in one
Spirit were we all baptized into one body’ (1 Corinthians 12:13), and the
prototype of this unity is the consubstantial Trinity. The measure of this unity
is catholicity or communality (sobornost), where the impenetrability of personal
consciousness is softened - and even removed - in complete unity of thought and
soul, and the multitude of them that believe are of one heart and soul (cf. Acts
4:32). A sect, on the other hand, is separation, solitariness, the loss and
denial of communality. The sectarian spirit is the direct opposite of the Church
spirit. The question of the nature and meaning of divisions and sects in the
Church was put in all its sharpness as early as the ancient baptismal disputes
of the third century. At that time St Cyprian of Carthage developed with
fearless consistency a doctrine of the complete absence of grace in every sect,
precisely as a sect. The whole meaning and the whole logical stress of his
reasoning lay in the conviction that the sacraments are established in the
Church. That is to say, they are effected and can be effected only in the
Church, in communion and in communality. Therefore every violation of
communality and unity in itself leads immediately beyond the last barrier into
some decisive ’outside’. To St Cyprian every schism was a departure out of the
Church, out of that sanctified and holy land where alone there rises the
baptismal spring, the waters of salvation, quia una est aqua in ecclesia sancta
(Epist. lxxi, 2). The teaching of St Cyprian as to the gracelessness of sects is
only the opposite side of his teaching about unity and communality. This is not
the place or the moment to recollect and relate Cyprian’s deductions and proofs.
Each of us remembers and knows them, is bound to know them, is bound to remember
them. They have not lost their force to this day. The historical influence of
Cyprian was continuous and powerful. Strictly speaking, in its theological
premises the teaching of St Cyprian has never been disproved. Even Augustine was
not very far from Cyprian. He argued with the Donatists, not with Cyprian
himself, and did not try to refute Cyprian; indeed, his argument was more about
practical measures and conclusions. In his reasoning about the unity of the
Church, about the unity of love as a necessary and decisive condition for the
saving power of the sacraments, Augustine really only repeats Cyprian in new
words. But the practical conclusions drawn by Cyprian have not been accepted and
supported by the consciousness of the Church. One may ask how this was possible,
if his premisses have been neither disputed nor set aside. There is no need to
enter into the details of the Church’s canonical relations with sectarians and
heretics; it is an imprecise and an involved enough story. It is sufficient to
state that there are occasions when, by her very actions, the Church gives one
to understand that the sacraments of sectarians - and even of heretics - are
valid, that the sacraments can be celebrated outside the strict canonical limits
of the Church. The Church customarily receives adherents from sects - and even
from heresies - not by the way of baptism, thereby obviously meaning or
supposing that they have already been actually baptized in their sects and
heresies. In many cases the Church receives adherents even without chrism, and
sometimes also clergy in their existing orders. All the more must this be
understood and explained as recognizing the validity or reality of the
corresponding rites performed over them ’outside the Church’.

If sacraments are performed, however, it can only be by virtue of the Holy
Spirit, and canonical rules thus establish or reveal a certain mystical paradox.
In what she does the Church bears witness to the extension of her mystical
territory even beyond her canonical borders: the ’outside world’ does not begin
immediately. St Cyprian was right: The sacraments are accomplished only in the
Church. But he defined this ’in’ hastily and too narrowly. Must we not rather
argue in the opposite direction? Where the sacraments are accomplished, there is
the Church. St Cyprian started from the silent supposition that the canonical
and charismatic limits of the Church invariably coincide, and it is his unproven
equation that has not been confirmed by the communal consciousness of the
Church. As a mystical organism, as the sacramental Body of Christ, the Church
cannot be adequately described in canonical terms or categories alone. It is
impossible to state or discern the true limits of the Church simply by canonical
signs or marks. Very often the canonical boundary determines the charismatic
boundary as well, and what is bound on earth is bound by an indissoluble bond in
heaven. But not always. And still more often, not immediately. In her
sacramental, mysterious being the Church surpasses all canonical norms. For that
reason a canonical cleavage does not immediately signify mystical impoverishment
and desolation. All that Cyprian said about the unity of the Church and the
sacraments can be and must be accepted. But it is not necessary to draw with him
the final boundary around the body of the Church by means of canonical points
alone. This raises a general question and a doubt. Are these canonical rules and
acts subject to theological generalization? Is it possible to ascribe to them
theological or dogmatic grounds and motivation? Or do they rather represent only
pastoral discretion and forbearance? Ought we not to understand the canonical
mode of action as a forbearing silence concerning gracelessness rather than as a
recognition of the reality or validity of schismatic rites? And if so, is it
then quite prudent to cite or introduce canonical facts into a theological
argument? This objection is connected with the theory of what is called
’economy’ (oikonomia). In general ecclesiastical usage ’economy’ is a term of
very many meanings. In its broadest sense it embraces and signifies the whole
work of salvation (cf. Colossians 1:25; Ephesians 1:10; Ephesians 3:2; Ephesians
3:9). The Vulgate usually translates it by dispensatio. In canonical language
’economy’ has not become a technical term. It is rather a descriptive word, a
kind of general characteristic: ’economy’ is opposed to ’strictness’ (akribeia)
as a kind of relaxation of Church discipline, an exemption or exception from the
’strict rule’ ous strictum) or from the general rule. The governing motive of
’economy’ is precisely ’philanthropy’, pastoral discretion, a pedagogical
calculation - the deduction is always from practical utility. ’Economy’ is an
aspect of pedagogical rather than canonical consciousness. ’Economy’ can and
should be employed by each individual pastor in his parish, still more by a
bishop or council of bishops. For ’economy’ is pastorship and pastorship is
’economy’. In this is the whole strength and vitality of the ’economic’
principle - and also its limitations. Not every question can be asked and
answered in terms of ’economy’.

One must ask, therefore, whether it is possible to treat the question of the
baptism of sectarians and heretics as a question only of ’economy’. Certainly,
in so far as it is a question of winning lost souls for Catholic truth, of
bringing them to ’the word of truth’, then every course of action must be
’economic’; that is, pastoral, compassionate, loving. The pastor must leave the
ninety and nine and seek the lost sheep. But for this very reason the need is
all the greater for complete sincerity and directness. Not only is unequivocal
accuracy, strictness and clarity - in fact, akribeia - required in the sphere of
dogma (how otherwise can unity of mind be obtained?), but accuracy and clarity
are above all necessary also in mystical diagnosis. Precisely for this reason
the question of the rites of sectarians and heretics must be asked and answered
in terms of the strictest akribeia. For here it is not so much a quaestio iuris
as a quaestio facti, and indeed of mystical fact, of sacramental reality. It is
not a matter of ’recognition’ so much as of diagnosis; it is necessary to
identify and to discern mystical realities.

Least of all is the application of ’economy’ to such a question compatible with
the radical standpoint of St Cyprian. If beyond the canonical limits of the
Church the wilderness without grace begins immediately, if schismatics have not
been baptized and still abide in the darkness that precedes baptism, then
perfect clarity, strictness, and firmness are even more indispensable in the
acts and judgements of the Church. Here no ’forbearance’ is appropriate or even
possible; no concessions are permissible. Is it in fact conceivable that the
Church should receive sectarians or heretics into her own body not by way of
baptism simply in order thereby to make their decisive step easy? This would
certainly be a very rash and dangerous complaisance. Instead, it would be
connivance with human weakness, self-love, and lack of faith, a connivance all
the more dangerous in that it creates the appearance of a recognition by the
Church that schismatic sacraments and rites are valid, not only in the minds of
schismatics or people from outside, but in the consciousness of the majority of
people in the Church and even of its leaders.

Moreover, this mode of action is applied because it creates this appearance. If
in fact the Church were fully convinced that in the sects and heresies baptism
is not accomplished, to what end would she reunite schismatics without baptism?
Surely not in order simply to save them by this step from false shame in the
open confession that they have not been baptized. Can such a motive be
considered honorable, convincing, and of good repute? Can it benefit the
newcomers to reunite them through ambiguity and suppression of truth? To the
reasonable question whether it would not be possible by analogy to unite Jews
and Moslems to the Church ’by economy’ and without baptism Metropolitan Anthony
(Khrapovitsky) replied with complete candor: ’Ah, but all such neophytes - and
even those baptized in the name of Montanus and Priscilla - would not themselves
claim to enter the Church without immersion and the utterance of the words, ’In
the name of the Father, etc.’ Such a claim could only be advanced through a
confused understanding of the Church’s grace by those sectarians and schismatics
whose baptism, worship and hierarchical system differ little externally from
those of the Church. It would be very insulting to them, on their turning to the
Church, to have to sit on the same seat with heathens and Jews. For that reason
the Church, indulging their weakness, has not performed over them the external
act of baptism, but has given them this grace in the second sacrament’ (Faith
and Reason, 1916, 8-9, pp.887-8). From the Metropolitan Anthony’s argument
common sense would draw precisely the opposite conclusion. In order to lead weak
and unreasoning ’neophytes’ to the ’clear understanding of the Church’s grace’
which they lack, it would be all the more necessary and appropriate to perform
over them the external act of baptism, instead of giving them, and many others,
by a feigned accommodation to their ’susceptibilities’, not only an excuse but a
ground to continue deceiving themselves through the equivocal fact that their
’baptism, worship and hierarchical system differ in little externally from those
of the Church.’

One may ask who gave the Church this right not merely to change, but simply to
abolish the external act of baptism, performing it in such cases only mentally,
by implication or by intention at the celebration of the ’second sacrament’
(i.e. chrismation) over the unbaptized. Admittedly, in special and exceptional
cases the ’external act’, the ’form’, may indeed be abolished; such is the
martyr’s baptism in blood, or even the so-called baptisma flaminis. But this is
admissible only in casu necessitatis. Moreover, there can hardly be any analogy
between these cases and a systematic connivance in another’s sensitiveness and
self-deception. If ’economy’ is pastoral discretion conducive to the advantage
and salvation of human souls, then in such a case one could only speak of
’economy in reverse’. It would be a deliberate retrogression into equivocation
and obscurity for the sake of purely external success, since the internal
enchurchment of ’ineophytes’ cannot take place with such concealment. It is
scarcely possible to impute to the Church such a perverse and crafty intention.
And in any case the practical result of this ’economy’ must be considered
utterly unexpected. For in the Church herself the conviction has arisen among
the majority that sacraments are performed even among schismatics, that even in
the sects there is a valid, although forbidden, hierarchy. The true intention of
the Church in her acts and rules would appear to be too difficult to discern,
and from this point of view as well the ’economic’ explanation of these rules
cannot be regarded as convincing. The ’economic’ explanation raises even greater
difficulties when we consider its general theological premises. One can scarcely
ascribe to the Church the power and the right, as it were, to convert the
’has-not-been’ into the ’has-been’, to change the meaningless into the valid, as
Professor Diovuniotis expresses it (Church Quarterly Review, No.231 [April 1931,
p.97), `in the order of economy.’ This would give a particular sharpness to the
question whether it is possible to receive schismatic clergy ’in their existing
orders.’ In the Russian Church adherents from Roman Catholicism or from the
Nestorians, etc., are received into communion ’through recantation of heresy’,
that is, through the sacrament of repentance. Clergy are given absolution by a
bishop and thereby, the inhibition lying on a schismatic cleric is removed. One
asks whether it is conceivable that in this delivery and absolution from sin
there is also accomplished silently - and even secretly - baptism, confirmation,
ordination as deacon or priest, sometimes even consecration as bishop, without
any ’form’ or clear and distinctive ’external act’ which might enable us to
notice and consider precisely what sacraments are being performed.

Here there is a double equivocation, both from the standpoint of motive and from
the standpoint of the fact itself. Can one, in short, celebrate a sacrament by
virtue of ’intention’ alone and without some visible act? Of course not. Not
because there belongs to the ’form’ some self-sufficient or ’magic’ effect, but
precisely because in the celebration of a sacrament the ’external act’ and the
pouring-forth of grace are in substance indivisible and inseparable. Certainly,
the Church is the ’steward of grace’ and to her is given power to preserve and
teach these gifts of grace. But the power of the Church does not extend to the
very foundations of Christian existence. It is impossible to conceive that the
Church might have the right, ’in the order of economy’, to admit to the priestly
function without ordination the clergy of schismatic confessions, even of those
that have not preserved the ’apostolic succession’, while remedying not only all
defects but a complete lack of grace while granting power and recognition by
means of an unexpressed ’intention’. In such an interpretation the Church’s
whole sacramental system becomes too soft and elastic. Khomiakov, too, was not
sufficiently careful, when, in defending the new Greek practice of receiving
reunited Latins through baptism, he wrote to Palmer that ’all sacraments are
completed only in the bosom of the true Church and it matters not whether they
be completed in one form or another. Reconciliation (with the Church) renovates
the sacraments or completes them, giving a full and Orthodox meaning to the rite
that was before either insufficient or heterodox, and the repetition of the
preceding sacraments is virtually contained in the rite or fact of
reconciliation. Therefore, the visible repetition of baptism or confirmation,
though unnecessary, cannot be considered as erroneous, and establishes only a
ritual difference without any difference of opinion’ (Russia and the English
Church, ch. vi, p.62). This is impossible. The ’repetition’ of a sacrament is
not only superfluous but impermissible. If there was no sacrament and what was
previously performed was an imperfect, heretical rite, then the sacrament must
be accomplished for the first time - and with complete sincerity and candor. In
any case, the Catholic sacraments are not just ’rites’ and it is not possible to
treat the external aspect of a sacramental celebration with such disciplinary
relativism. The ’economic’ interpretation of the canons might be probable and
convincing, but only in the presence of direct and perfectly clear proofs,
whereas it is generally supported by indirect data and most often by indirect
intentions and conclusions. The ’economic’ interpretation is not the teaching of
the Church. It is only a private ’theological opinion’, very late and very
controversial, which arose in a period of theological confusion and decadence in
a hasty endeavor to dissociate oneself as sharply as possible from Roman
theology.

Roman theology admits and acknowledges that there remains in sects a valid
hierarchy and even, in a certain sense, the ’apostolic succession’, so that
under certain conditions sacraments may be accomplished - and actually are
accomplished - among schismatics and even among heretics. The basic premises of
this sacramental theology have already been established with sufficient
definition by St Augustine, and the Orthodox theologian has every reason to take
the theology of Augustine into account in his doctrinal synthesis. The first
thing to notice in Augustine is the organic way in which he relates the question
of the validity of sacraments to the doctrine of the Church. The reality of the
sacraments celebrated by schismatics signifies for Augustine the continuation of
their links with the Church. He directly affirms that in the sacraments of
sectarians the Church is active: some she engenders of herself, others she
engenders outside herself, of her maid-servant, and schismatic baptism is valid
for this very reason, that it is performed by the Church (de bapt. i, 15, 23).
What is valid in the sects is that which is in them from the Church, that which
remains with them as their portion of the sacred inner core of the Church, that
through which they are with the Church. Inquibusdam rebus nobiscurn sunt. The
unity of the Church is based on a twofold bond - the ’unity of the Spirit’ and
the ’bond of peace’ (cf. Ephesians 4:3). In sects and schisms the ’bond of
peace’ is broken and torn, but the ’unity of the Spirit’ in the sacraments is
not brought to an end. This is the unique paradox of sectarian existence: the
sect remains united with the Church in the grace of the sacraments, and this
becomes a condemnation once love and communal mutuality have withered and died.
With this is connected St Augustine’s second basic distinction, the distinction
between the ’validity’ or ’reality’ of the sacraments and their ’efficacy’. The
sacraments of schismatics are valid; that is, they genuinely are sacraments, but
they are not efficacious by virtue of schism and division. For in sects and
schisms love withers, and without love salvation is impossible. There are two
sides to salvation: the objective action of God’s grace, and man’s subjective
effort or fidelity. The holy and sanctifying Spirit still breathes in the sects,
but in the stubbornness and powerlessness of schism healing is not accomplished.
It is untrue to say that in schismatic rites nothing is accomplished, for, if
they are considered to be only empty acts and words, deprived of grace, by the
same token not only are they empty, they are converted into a profanation, a
sinister counterfeit. If the rites of schismatics are not sacraments, then they
are a blasphemous caricature, and in that case neither ’economic’ suppression of
facts nor ’economic’ glossing over of sin is possible. The sacramental rite
cannot be only a rite, empty but innocent. The sacrament is accomplished in
reality.

Nevertheless it is impossible, Augustine argues, to say that in the sects the
sacraments are of avail, are efficacious. The sacraments are not magic acts.
Indeed, the Eucharist itself may also be taken ’unto judgement and
condemnation’, but this does not refute the reality or ’validity’ of the
Eucharist. The same may be said of baptism: baptismal grace must be renewed in
unceasing effort and service, otherwise it becomes ’inefficacious’. From this
point of view St Gregory of Nyssa attacked with great energy the practice of
postponing baptism to the hour of death, or at least to advanced years, in order
to avoid pollution of the baptismal robe. He transfers the emphasis. Baptism is
not just the end of sinful existence, rather it is the beginning of everything.
Baptismal grace is not just the remission of sins, but a gift or pledge. His
name may be entered in the army list, but the honor of a soldier lies in his
service, not in his calling alone. What does baptism mean without spiritual
deeds?

Augustine wishes to say the same thing in his distinction between ’character’
and ’grace’. In any case, there rests on everyone baptized a ’sign’ or ’seal’,
even if he falls away and departs, and each will be tried concerning this ’sign’
or ’pledge’ in the Day of Judgement. The baptized are distinguished from the
unbaptized even when baptismal grace has not flowered in their works and deeds,
even when they have corrupted and wasted their whole life. That is the
ineffaceable consequence of the divine touch. This clear distinction between the
two inseparable factors of sacramental existence, divine grace and human love,
is characteristic of the whole sacramental theology of St Augustine. The
sacraments are accomplished by grace and not by love, yet man is saved in
freedom and not in compulsion, and for that reason grace somehow does not burn
with a life-giving flame outside communality and love.

One thing remains obscure. How does the activity of the Spirit continue beyond
the canonical borders of the Church? What is the validity of sacraments without
communion, of stolen garments, sacraments in the hands of usurpers? Recent Roman
theology answers that question by the doctrine of the validity of the sacraments
ex opere operato. In St Augustine this distinction does not exist, but he
understood the validity of sacraments performed outside canonical unity in the
same sense. In fact ex opere operato points to the independence of the sacrament
from the personal action of the minister. The Church performs the sacrament and,
in her, Christ the high priest. The sacraments are performed by the prayer and
activity of the Church, ex opere orantis et operantis ecclesiae. It is in this
sense that the doctrine of validity exopere operato, must be accepted. For
Augustine it was not so important that the sacraments of the schismatics are
’unlawful’ or ’illicit’ (illicita); much more important is the fact that schism
is a dissipation of love. But the love of God can overcome the failure of love
in man. In the sects themselves - and even among the heretics - the Church
continues to perform her saving and sanctifying work. It may not follow,
perhaps, that we should say that schismatics are still in the Church. In any
case this would not be precise and sounds equivocal. It would be truer to say
that the Church continues to work in the schisms in expectation of that
mysterious hour when the stubborn heart will be melted in the warmth of God’s
prevenient grace, when the will and thirst for communality and unity will
finally burst into flame. The ’validity’ of sacraments among schismatics is the
mysterious guarantee of their return to Catholic plenitude and unity. The
sacramental theology of St Augustine was not received by the Eastern Church in
antiquity nor by Byzantine theology, but not because they saw in it something
alien or superfluous. Augustine was simply not very well known in the East. In
modern times the doctrine of the sacraments has not infrequently been expounded
in the Orthodox East, and in Russia, on a Roman model, but there has not yet
been a creative appropriation of Augustine’s conception.

Contemporary Orthodox theology must express and explain the traditional
canonical practice of the Church in relation to heretics and schismatics on the
basis of those general premises which have been established by Augustine.

It is necessary to hold firmly in mind that in asserting the ’validity’ of the
sacraments and of the hierarchy itself in the sects, St Augustine in no way
relaxed or removed the boundary dividing sect and communality. This is not so
much a canonical as a spiritual boundary: communal love in the Church and
separatism and alienation in the schism. For Augustine this was the boundary of
salvation, since grace operates outside communality but does not save. (It is
appropriate to note that here, too, Augustine closely follows Cyprian, who
asserted that except in the Church even martyrdom for Christ does not avail.)
For this reason, despite all the ’reality’ and ’validity’ of a schismatic
hierarchy, it is impossible to speak in a strict sense of the retention of the
’apostolic succession’ beyond the limits of canonical communality. This question
has been investigated exhaustively and with great insight in the remarkable
article of the late C.G. Turner, ’The Apostolic Succession’, in Essays on the
Early History of the Church and the Ministry, edited by H.B. Swete (1918). From
this it follows without a doubt that the so-called ’branch’ theory is
unacceptable. This theory depicts the cleavages of the Christian world in too
complacent and comfortable a manner. The onlooker may not be able immediately to
discern the schismatic ’branches’ from the Catholic trunk. In its essence,
moreover, a schism is not just a branch. It is also the will for schism. It is
the mysterious and even enigmatic sphere beyond the canonical limits of the
Church, where the sacraments are still celebrated and where hearts often still
burn in faith, in love and in works. We must admit this, but we must remember
that the limit is real, that unity does not exist. Khomiakov, it seems, was
speaking of this when he said: ’Inasmuch as the earthly and visible Church is
not the fullness and completeness of the whole Church which the Lord has
appointed to appear at the final judgement of all creation, she acts and knows
only within her own limits; and (according to the words of Paul the Apostle to
the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 5:12) does not judge the rest of mankind, and
only looks upon those as excluded, that is to say, not belonging to her, who
have excluded themselves. The rest of mankind, whether alien from the Church, or
united to her by ties which God has not willed to reveal to her, she leaves to
the judgement of the Great Day’ (Russia and the English Church, ch. xxiii,
p.194). In the same sense Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow decided to speak of
Churches which were ’not purely true’: ’Mark you, I do not presume to call false
any Church which believes that Jesus is the Christ. The Christian Church can
only be either purely true, confessing the true and saving divine teaching
without the false admixtures and pernicious opinions of men, or not purely true,
mixing with the true and saving teaching of faith in Christ the false and
pernicious opinions of men’ ( Conversation between a Seeker and a Believer
Concerning the Orthodoxy of the Eastern Greco-Russian Church. Moscow 1831,
pp.27-29). ’You expect now that I should give judgement concerning the other
half of present Christianity,’ the Metropolitan said in the concluding
conversation, ’but I just simply look upon them; in part I see how the Head and
Lord of the Church heals the many deep wounds of the old serpent in all the
parts and limbs of his Body, applying now gentle, now strong, remedies, even
fire and iron, in order to soften hardness, to draw out poison, to clean wounds,
to separate out malignant growths, to restore spirit and life in the numbed and
half-dead members. In this way I attest my faith that, in the end, the power of
God will triumph openly over human weakness, good over evil, unity over
division, life over death’ (ibid., p.135).

These statements of Metropolitan Philaret are a beginning only. Not everything
in them is clearly and fully expressed. But the question is truly put. There are
many bonds, still not broken, whereby the schisms are held together in a certain
unity with the Church. The whole of our attention and our will must be
concentrated and directed towards removing the stubbornness of dissension. ’We
seek not conquest,’ says St Gregory of Nazianzen, ’but the return of our
brethren, whose separation from us is tearing us apart.’


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 18: 15 - SCRIPTURE & TRADITION: ORTHODOX POINT OF VIEW
========================================================================

Scripture and Tradition: An Orthodox Point of View

I. The Large Catechism of the Russian Orthodox Church opens with chapters on
"Divine Revelation" and on "Holy Tradition and Holy Scripture." The question is
asked: "In what manner is divine revelation propagated among men and preserved
in the true church?" The answer is: "In a twofold manner, first by Tradition and
then by Scripture." Now, Tradition is described in the following sentence, "The
true believers transmit to each other - and one generation to the other - by
word and example, the teaching of faith, the law of God, sacraments and holy
rites." The keeper of tradition is the church. "All true believers, united by
the sacred tradition of faith, jointly and in succession, constitute the
church," which is the "pillar and foundation of truth." Tradition as a method of
preserving divine revelation has the priority in time.

There was no Scripture before Moses. Christ himself instructed his disciples
orally by word and example, and so did the apostles in the beginning. The
Scripture was given in order to fix revelation in precise terms for future
times. Then follows the description of the biblical canon. The Old Testament
books are numbered according to the Hebrew canon, with a reference to Cyril of
Jerusalem and Athanasius. The Holy Tradition is complementary to Holy Writ in
the sense that it directs the right understanding of Scripture, the right
administration of the sacraments, and the preservation of sacred rites in the
purity of their original institution. Tradition must be kept in so far as it is
in conformity with the divine revelation and the Holy Scripture. In the later
sections of the Catechism where it speaks of the church, the infallibility of
the church is professed and acknowledged, as she is given and promised the
guidance and assistance of the Holy Spirit. It should be added that in the whole
course of the Catechism abundant references to Scripture are given, and
proof-texts are quoted. References to tradition are comparatively rare. The most
important of them are precisely in the chapter on tradition itself: a quotation
from St. Irenaeus and a lengthy passage from St. Basil’s On The Holy Spirit,
chapter 27. The Large Catechism is not a "symbolical book" in the technical
sense, as the term is used in the West. Yet, it is an authoritative exposition
of Orthodox faith, approved by the Holy Synod of the Russian Church and intended
for the general instruction of believers. It was drafted by the greatest Russian
theologian of the last century, Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow. It is safe,
therefore, to take the statements of the Catechism as the starting point of
presentation of the Orthodox conception of Scripture and Tradition, in their
essence and in their mutual relationship The term tradition is used in the
Catechism only in order to clarify the manner of propagating and preserving
divine revelation. It is the paradosis, the handing down of what God chose to
disclose and communicate to men. It is not a particular "source" of truth or
doctrine. Revelation is adequately recorded in Scripture. But Scripture is, as
it were, "stored" or "deposited" in the church. On the other hand, tradition is
equated with the mind and continuous memory of the church. And in this sense it
is the guiding principle and criterion of scriptural interpretation.
Accordingly, tradition does not and cannot add anything to Scripture, but only
elicits what is contained in Holy Writ and puts it in the right perspective. The
Scriptures "belong" to the church, are committed to her and not to individual
believers. A faithful guide is required for true exegesis. The church catholic
is that guide. Or in other words, Scripture is given and preserved in tradition.
Tradition and Scripture are inseparable.

II This approach to the problem of Scripture and tradition is itself
traditional. In fact, it was the approach of the ancient church. St. Irenaeus
and St. Basil were appropriately quoted in the Russian Catechism. The problem of
correct exegesis was a burning issue in the ancient church during the struggle
and contest with heresies. All parties in the dispute used to appeal to
Scripture. Moreover, at that time exegesis was the main, and even the only,
theological method, and the authority of Scripture was sovereign and supreme.
The orthodox leaders were bound to raise the hermeneutical question: What was
the principle of interpretation? Now, in the second century the term "Scripture"
still denoted primarily the Old Testament. It was in this same century that the
authority of the Old Testament was sharply and radically challenged, and
actually rejected, by Marcion. The unity of the Bible had to be proved and
vindicated. What was the basis and the warrant of a Christian and christological
understanding of "prophecy," that is, of the Old Testament? It was in this
historic situation that the authority of tradition was first invoked.

Scripture belonged to the church, and it was only in the church, within the
community of right faith, that Scripture could be adequately understood and
correctly interpreted. Heretics, namely, those outside of the church, had no key
to the mind of the Scripture. It was not enough simply to quote scriptural words
and texts (the "letter"). Rather, the true meaning of Scripture, taken as an
integrated whole, had to be grasped and elicited. In the admirable phrase of St.
Hilary of Poitiers, "scripturae enim non in legendo sunt, sed in intelligendo."
The phrase was also repeated by St. Jerome. One had to grasp in advance, as it
were, the true pattern of scriptural revelation, the great and comprehensive
design of God’s redemptive providence (the oeconomia), and this could be done
only by an insight of faith. It was by faith that the witness to Christ could be
discerned in the Old Testament. It was by faith that the unity of the
tetramorphic gospel could be properly ascertained.

Now, this faith was not an arbitrary and subjective insight of individuals; it
was the faith of the church, rooted in the apostolic message or kerygma and
authenticated by it. Those outside of the church, that is, outside of her living
and apostolic tradition, failed to have precisely this basic and overarching
message, the very heart of the gospel. With them Scripture was an array of
disconnected passages and stories or of proof-texts which they endeavored to
arrange and re-arrange according to their own pattern, derived from alien
sources. They had "another faith."

III This was the main method and the main argument of Tertullian in his
passionate treatise De praescriptione. He could not discuss Scriptures with
heretics, with those outside the communion of apostolic faith. For they had no
right to use the Scriptures: the Scriptures did not belong to them. They were
the possession of the church. Tertullian emphatically insisted on the priority
of the "rule of faith." It was the only key to the Scriptures, the indispensable
prerequisite of authentic biblical interpretation. And this rule was apostolic;
it was rooted in and derived from the original apostolic preaching. The New
Testament itself had to be taken in the comprehensive context of the total
apostolic preaching, which was still vividly remembered in the church. The basic
intention of this appeal to the apostolic "rule of faith" in the early church is
obvious. When Christians spoke of the "rule of faith" as apostolic, they did not
mean that the apostles had formulated it. What they meant was that the
profession of belief which every catechumen recited before his baptism did
embody in summary form the faith which the apostles had taught and had committed
to their disciples after them. This profession of faith was the same everywhere,
although the actual phrasing could vary from place to place. It was always
intimately related to the baptismal formula itself (Cf. C. H. Turner). Apart
from this "rule" the Scriptures could only be misinterpreted, contended
Tertullian and St. Irenaeus a bit earlier. The apostolic tradition of faith was
the indispensable guide in the understanding of Scripture and the ultimate
warrant of right interpretation. The church was not an external authority which
could be the judge over Scripture, but was rather the keeper and guardian of
that divine truth which has been stored and deposited in Holy Writ. The "rule of
faith," of which the early church fathers spoke, was intimately related to the
sacrament of Christian initiation. It was the "rule" to which believers are
committed (and into which they were previously initiated) by their baptismal
profession. On the other hand, this "rule" was nothing other than the "truth"
which the apostles had deposited in the church and entrusted to her, to be
continuously handed down by the succession of accredited pastors, under the
abiding guidance of the Holy Spirit. The image of the church as a "treasury of
truth" comes from St. Irenaeus. The treasure is indeed the Scripture, but also
the living faith by which the mystery of the Scripture is assessed. Tradition in
the early church was, first of all, a hermeneutical principle and method.
Scripture could be rightly and fully comprehended only in the light and in the
context of the living apostolic tradition, which was an integral factor of
Christian existence. It was so not because tradition could add anything to what
has been manifested in the Scripture, but because it provided that living
context, the comprehensive perspective, in which alone the true intention and
the total design of the Holy Writ, and especially of the divine revelation
itself, could be adequately grasped and acknowledged. The Christian truth was,
in the phrase of St. Irenaeus, a "well-grounded system," a corpus veritatis, or
a "harmonious melody." And it was precisely this harmony that could be
apprehended by faith alone. The apostolic tradition, as it was maintained and
understood in the early church, was not a fixed core or complex of binding
propositions, but rather an insight into the meaning and power of the revelatory
events, of the revelation of the "God who acts" and has acted.

IV The situation did not change in the fourth century. The dispute with the
Arians was centered again in the exegetical field, at least in its early phase.
The Arians and their supporters had produced an impressive array of scriptural
texts in defense of their doctrinal position. They wanted to restrict
theological discussion to the biblical ground alone. Their claim had to be met
precisely on this ground. Their exegetical method was much the same as that of
the earlier dissenters. They were operating with selected proof-texts, without
much concern for the total context of revelation. It was imperative for the
orthodox to appeal to the mind of the church, to that "faith" which had been
once delivered and then faithfully kept. This was the chief concern and the
usual method of the great Athanasius. In his arguments he persistently invoked
the "rule of faith," much in the same manner as it had been done by the fathers
of the second century.

Only the "rule of faith" allows the theologian to grasp the true intention of
Holy Scripture, the scopos, the genuine design and intent of the revelation. The
"scope" of the faith or the Scriptures was precisely their credal core, which
was condensed in the "rule of faith," as this had been handed down and
transmitted "from fathers to fathers." In contrast, the Arians had "no fathers"
to support their doctrinal claims. Their blasphemy was a sheer innovation
totally alien to apostolic tradition and to the overarching message of the
Bible. St. Athanasius regarded this traditional "rule of faith" as the norm and
ultimate principle of interpretation, opposing "the ecclesiastical sense" to
"the private opinions" of the heretics. Indeed, for him Scripture was an
adequate and sufficient source of doctrine, sacred and inspired. Only it had to
be properly interpreted in the context of the living credal tradition, under the
guidance and control of the "rule of faith."

Moreover, this "rule" was in no sense an extraneous authority which could be
imposed on the Holy Writ. It was, in fact, the same apostolic preaching which
had been deposited in writing in the books of the New Testament. But it was, as
it were, this preaching in epitome, Sometimes Athanasius described the Scripture
itself as an apostolic paradosis. In the whole discussion with the Arians there
is no single reference to any "traditions" in the plural. The only appeal is to
Tradition. "Let us look at that very tradition, teaching and faith of the
cathlolic church from the very beginning, which the Lord handed down, the
apostles preached and the fathers preserved. Upon this the church is
established." (St. Athanasius, ad Serap., T. 28). Thus, he teaches that
"tradition" is even more than apostolic; it is dominical coming from the Lord
Himself. The first reference to "unwritten traditions" is to be found in the
famous treatise of St. Basil, On the Holy Spirit; And, at first glance, it may
seem as if St. Basil admitted a double authority and double standard - unwritten
traditions alongside of the Scriptures. The fact is however, that he is far from
doing so. His terminology is peculiar. His main distnction is between kerygmata
and dogmata. In his phraseology, kerygmata are precisely what in the later
terminology was denoted as doctrine, that is, formal and authoritative teaching
and ruling in matters of faith or the public teaching. On the other hand,
dogmata are the total complex of "unwritten habits" - in fact, the total
structure of liturgical and sacramental life. These "habits" were handed down,
says St. Basil, en mysterio. It would be a flagrant mistranslation if we took
these words to mean "in secret." The only accurate rendering is: "by way of
mysteries." This means, under the form of rites and liturgical usages. Indeed,
all the examples which St. Basil cites in this connection are ritual and
symbolic. These rites and symbols are means of communication. In a sense they
are extra-scriptural. But their purpose is to impart to the candidates for
baptism the "rule of faith" and prepare them for their baptismal profession of
faith. St. Basil’s appeal to these "unwritten habits" was no more than an appeal
to the faith of the church, to her sensus catholicus. He had to break the
deadlock created by the obstinate and narrow-minded pseudo-biblicism of his
Arian, or Eunomian, opponents. And he pleaded that, apart from this "unwritten"
rule of faith, expressed in sacramental rites and habits, it was impossible to
grasp the true intention of the Scripture.

V To conclude this brief excursus on the ancient tradition we should mention St.
Vincent of Lerins and his famous Commonitorium. Sometimes it is asserted that
Vincent admitted the double authority of Scripture and Tradition. Actually he
held the opposite view. Indeed, the true faith could be recognized, according
toVincent, in a double manner, duplici modo, that is, by the authority of the
divine law (i.e. Scripture) and by ecclesiastical tradition. This does not
imply, however, that there are two sources of Christian doctrine. The "rule" of
Scripture was for St. Vincent "perfect and self-sufficient." Why then was it
imperative to invoke also the "authority of ecclesiastical understanding,"
(ecclesiasticae intelligentiae auctoritas)? The reason is obvious: Scripture was
variously interpreted and twisted by individual writers for their subjective
purposes. And to this confusing variety of discordant interpretations and
private opinions, St. Vincent opposes the mind of the church catholic (ut
propheticae et apostolicae interpretationis linea secundum ecclesiastici et
catholici sensus normam derigatur). Thus tradition for St. Vincent is not an
independent instance nor a complementary source of doctrine. It is no more than
Scripture being interpreted according to the catholic mind of the church, which
is the guardian of the apostolic "rule of faith." St. Vincent repeats and
summarizes the continuous attitude of the ancient church on this matter.
Scripture is an adequate source of doctrine: ad omnia satis superque sufficiat.
Tradition is the authentic guide in interpretation, providing the context and
perspective in which Scripture discloses its genuine message. The Orthodox
Church is faithfully committed to this ancient and traditional view on the
sources of Christian doctrine. Scripture is an adequate source. But only in so
far as it is read and interpreted in the church which is the guardian both of
the Holy Writ and of the total apostolic paradosis of faith, order and life.
Tradition alone allows the church to go beyond the "letter" to the very Word of
Life.

Appeared in Dialog, Vol.2, No. 4 Autumn 1963, pp.288-293.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 19: 16 - ST. GREGORY PALAMAS & TRADITION OF FATHERS
========================================================================

St. Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers Following the Fathers...

"Following THE HOLY FATHERS"... It was usual in the Ancient Church to introduce
doctrinal statements by phrases like this. The Decree of Chalcedon opens
precisely with these very words. The Seventh Ecumenical Council introduces its
decision concerning the Holy Icons in a more elaborate way: "Following the
Divinely inspired teaching of the Holy Fathers and the Tradition of the Catholic
Church." The didaskalia of the Fathers is the formal and normative term of
reference.

Now, this was much more than just an "appeal to antiquity." Indeed, the Church
always stresses the permanence of her faith through the ages, from the very
beginning. This identity, since the Apostolic times, is the most conspicuous
sign and token of right faith - always the same. Yet, "antiquity" by itself is
not an adequate proof of the true faith. Moreover, the Christian message was
obviously a striking "novelty" for the "ancient world," and, indeed, a call to
radical "renovation." The "Old" has passed away, and everything has been "made
New." On the other hand, heresies could also appeal to the past and invoke the
authority of certain "traditions." In fact, heresies were often lingering in the
past. [1] Archaic formulas can often be dangerously misleading. Vincent of
Lerins himself was fully aware of this danger. It would suffice to quote this
pathetic passage of his: "And now, what an amazing reversal of the situation!
the authors of the same opinion are adjudged to be catholics, but the followers
- heretics; the masters are absolved, the disciples are condemned; the writers
of the books will be children of the Kingdom, their followers will go to
Gehenna" (Commonitorium, cap. 6). Vincent had in mind, of course, St. Cyprian
and the Donatists. St. Cyprian himself faced the same situation. "Antiquity" as
such may happen to be just an inveterate prejudice: nam antiquitas sine veritate
vetustas erroris est (Epist. 74). It is to say - "old customs" as such do not
guarantee the truth. "Truth" is not just a "habit." The true tradition is only
the tradition of truth, traditio veritatis. This tradition, according of St.
Irenaeus, is grounded in, and secured by, that charisma veritatis certum [secure
charisma of truth], which has been "deposited" in the Church from the very
beginning and has been preserved by the uninterrupted succession of episcopal
ministry. "Tradition" in the Church is not a continuity of human memory, or a
permanence of rites and habits. It is a living tradition - depositumjuvenescens,
in the phrase of St. Irenaeus. Accordingly, it cannot be counted inter mortuas
regulas [among dead rules]. Ultimately, tradition is a continuity of the abiding
presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church, a continuity of Divine guidance and
illumination. The Church is not bound by the "letter." Rather, she is constantly
moved forth by the "Spirit." The same Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, which "spake
through the Prophets," which guided the Apostles, is still continuously guiding
the Church into the fuller comprehension and understanding of the Divine truth,
from glory to glory.

"Following the Holy Fathers"… This is not a reference to some abstract
tradition, in formulas and propositions. It is primarily an appeal to holy
witnesses. Indeed, we appeal to the Apostles, and not just to an abstract
"Apostolicity." In the similar manner do we refer to the Fathers. The witness of
the Fathers belongs, intrinsically and integrally, to the very structure of
Orthodox belief. The Church is equally committed to the kerygma of the Apostles
and to the dogma of the Fathers. We may quote at this point an admirable ancient
hymn (probably, from the pen of St. Romanus the Melode). "Preserving the kerygma
of the Apostles and the dogmas of the Fathers, the Church has sealed the one
faith and wearing the tunic of truth she shapes rightly the brocade of heavenly
theology and praises the great mystery of piety." [2] The Mind of the Fathers.
The Church is "Apostolic" indeed. But the Church is also "Patristic." She is
intrinsically "the Church of the Fathers." These two "notes" cannot be
separated. Only by being "Patristic" is the Church truly "Apostolic." The
witness of the Fathers is much more than simply a historic feature, a voice from
the past. Let us quote another hymn - from the office of the Three Hierarchs.
"By the word of knowledge you have composed the dogmas which the fishermen have
established first in simple words, in knowledge by the power of the Spirit, for
thus our simple piety had to acquire composition." There are, as it were, two
basic stages in the proclamation of the Christian faith. "Our simple faith had
to acquire composition." There was an inner urge, an inner logic, an internal
necessity, in this transition from kerygma to dogma. Indeed, the teaching of the
Fathers, and the dogma of the Church, are still the same "simple message" which
has been once delivered and deposited, once for ever, by the Apostles. But now
it is, as it were, properly and fully articulated. The Apostolic preaching is
kept alive in the Church, not only merely preserved. In this sense, the teaching
of the Fathers is a permanent category of Christian existence, a constant and
ultimate measure and criterion of right faith. Fathers are not only witnesses of
the old faith, testes antiquitatis. They are rather witnesses of the true faith,
testes veritatis. "The mind of the Fathers" is an intrinsic term of reference in
Orthodox theology, no less than the word of Holy Scripture, and indeed never
separated from it. As it has been well said, "the Catholic Church of all ages is
not merely a daughter of the Church of the Fathers - she is and remains the
Church of the Fathers." [3] The Existential Character of Patristic Theology. The
main distinctive mark of Patristic theology was its "existential" character, if
we may use this current neologism. The Fathers theologized, as St. Gregory of
Nazianzus put it, "in the manner of the Apostles, not in that of Aristotle" -
αλιευτικως, ουκ αριστοτελικως (Hom. 23. 12). Their theology was still a
"message," a kerygma. Their theology was still "kerygmatic theology," even if it
was often logically arranged and supplied with intellectual arguments. The
ultimate reference was still to the vision of faith, to spiritual knowledge and
experience. Apart from life in Christ theology carries no conviction and, if
separated from the life of faith, theology may degenerate into empty dialectics,
a vain polylogia, without any spiritual consequence. Patristic theology was
existentially rooted in the decisive commitment of faith. It was not a
self-explanatory "discipline" which could be presented argumentatively, that is
aristotelikos, without any prior spiritual engagement. In the age of theological
strife and incessant debates, the great Cappadocian Fathers formally protested
against the use of dialectics, of "Aristotelian syllogisms," and endeavoured to
refer theology back to the vision of faith. Patristic theology could be only
"preached" or "proclaimed" - preached from the pulpit, proclaimed also in the
words of prayer and in the sacred rites, and indeed manifested in the total
structure of Christian life. Theology of this kind can never be separated from
the life of prayer and from the exercise of virtue. "The climax of purity is the
beginning of theology," as St. John the Klimakos puts it: τελοσ δε αγνειας
υποθεσις θεολογιας (Scala Paradisi, grade 30). On the other hand, theology of
this type is always, as it were, "propaideutic," since its ultimate aim and
purpose is to ascertain and to acknowledge the Mystery of the Living God, and
indeed to bear witness to it, in word and deed. "Theology" is not an end in
itself. It is always but a way. Theology, and even the "dogmas," present no more
than an "intellectual contour" of the revealed truth, and a "noetic" testimony
to it. Only in the act of faith is this "contour" filled with content.
Christological formulas are fully meaningful only for those who have encountered
the Living Christ, and have received and acknowledged Him as God and Saviour,
and are dwelling by faith in Him, in His body, the Church. In this sense,
theology is never a self-explanatory discipline. It is constantly appealing to
the vision of faith. "What we have seen and have heard we announce to you."
Apart from this "announcement" theological formulas are empty and of no
consequence. For the same reason these formulas can never be taken "abstractly,"
that is, out of total context of belief. It is misleading to single out
particular statements of the Fathers and to detach them from the total
perspective in which they have been actually uttered, just as it is misleading
to manipulate with detached quotations from the Scripture. It is a dangerous
habit "to quote" the Fathers, that is, their isolated sayings and phrases,
outside of that concrete setting in which only they have their full and proper
meaning and are truly alive. "To follow" the Fathers does not mean just "to
quote" them. "To follow" the Fathers means to acquire their "mind," their
phronema. The Meaning of the “Age” of the Fathers.

Now, we have reached the crucial point. The name of "Church Fathers" is usually
restricted to the teachers of the Ancient Church. And it is currently assumed
that their authority depends upon their "antiquity," upon their comparative
nearness to the "Primitive Church," to the initial "Age" of the Church. Already
St. Jerome had to contest this idea. Indeed, there was no decrease of
"authority," and no decrease in the immediacy of spiritual competence and
knowledge, in the course of Christian history. In fact, however, this idea of
"decrease" has strongly affected our modern theological thinking. In fact, it is
too often assumed, consciously or unconsciously, that the Early Church was, as
it were, closer to the spring of truth. As an admission of our own failure and
inadequacy, as an act of humble self-criticism, such an assumption is sound and
helpful. But it is dangerous to make of it the starting point or basis of our
"theology of Church history," or even of our theology of the Church. Indeed, the
Age of the Apostles should retain its unique position. Yet, it was just a
beginning. It is widely assumed that the "Age of the Fathers" has also ended,
and accordingly it is regarded just as an ancient formation, "antiquated" in a
sense and "archaic." The limit of the "Patristic Age" is variously defined. It
is usual to regard St. John of Damascus as the "last Father" in the East, and
St. Gregory the Dialogos or Isidore of Seville as "the last" in the West. This
periodization has been justly contested in recent times. Should not, for
instance, St. Theodore of Studium, at least, be included among "the Fathers"?
Mabillon has suggested that Bernard of Clairvaux, the Doctor mellifluous, was
"the last of the Fathers, and surely not unequal to the earlier ones." [4]
Actually, it is more than a question of periodization. From the Western point of
view "the Age of the Fathers" has been succeeded, and indeed superseded, by "the
Age of the Schoolmen," which was an essential step forward. Since the rise of
Scholasticism "Patristic theology" has been antiquated, has become actually a
"past age," a kind of archaic prelude. This point of view, legitimate for the
West, has been, most unfortunately, accepted also by many in the East, blindly
and uncritically. Accordingly, one has to face the alternative. Either one has
to regret the "backwardness" of the East which never developed any
"Scholasticism" of its own. Or one should retire into the "Ancient Age," in a
more or less archeological manner, and practice what has been wittily described
recently as a "theology of repetition." The latter, in fact, is just a peculiar
form of imitative "scholasticism."

Now, it is not seldom suggested that, probably, "the Age of the Fathers" has
ended much earlier than St. John of Damascus. Very often one does not proceed
further than the Age of Justinian, or even already the Council of Chalcedon. Was
not Leontius of Byzantium already "the first of the Scholastics"?
Psychologically, this attitude is quite comprehensible, although it cannot be
theologically justified. Indeed, the Fathers of the Fourth century are much more
impressive, and their unique greatness cannot be denied. Yet, the Church
remained fully alive also after Nicea and Chalcedon. The current overemphasis on
the "first five centuries" dangerously distorts theological vision, and prevents
the right understanding of the Chalcedonian dogma itself. The decree of the
Sixth Ecumenical Council is often regarded as a kind of an "appendix" to
Chalcedon, interesting only for theological specialists, and the great figure of
St. Maximus the Confessor is almost completely ignored. Accordingly, the
theological significance of the Seventh Ecumenical Council is dangerously
obscured, and one is left to wonder, why the Feast of Orthodoxy should be
related to the commemoration of the Church’s victory over the Iconoclasts. Was
it not just a "ritualistic controversy"? We often forget that the famous formula
of the Consensus quinquesaecularis [agreement of five centuries], that is,
actually, up to Chalcedon, was a Protestant formula, and reflected a peculiar
Protestant "theology of history." It was a restrictive formula, as much as it
seemed to be too inclusive to those who wanted to be secluded in the Apostolic
Age. The point is, however, that the current Eastern formula of "the Seven
Ecumenical Councils" is hardly much better, if it tends, as it usually does, to
restrict or to limit the Church’s spiritual authority to the first eight
centuries, as if "the Golden Age" of Christianity has already passed and we are
now, probably, already in an Iron Age, much lower on the scale of spiritual
vigour and authority. Our theological thinking has been dangerously affected by
the pattern of decay, adopted for the interpretation of Christian history in the
West since the Reformation. The fullness of the Church was then interpreted in a
static manner, and the attitude to Antiquity has been accordingly distorted and
misconstrued. After all, it does not make much difference, whether we restrict
the normative authority of the Church to one century, or to five, or to eight.
There should he no restriction at all. Consequently, there is no room for any
"theology of repetition." The Church is still fully authoritative as she has
been in the ages past, since the Spirit of Truth quickens her now no less
effectively as in the ancient times. The Legacy of Byzantine Theology.

One of the immediate results of our careless periodization is that we simply
ignore the legacy of Byzantine theology. We are prepared, now more than only a
few decades ago, to admit the perennial authority of "the Fathers," especially
since the revival of Patristic studies in the West. But we still tend to limit
the scope of admission, and obviously "Byzantine theologians" are not readily
counted among the "Fathers." We are inclined to discriminate rather rigidly
between "Patristics" - in a more or less narrow sense - and "Byzantinism." We
are still inclined to regard "Byzantinism" as an inferior sequel to the
Patristic Age. We have still doubts about its normative relevance for
theological thinking. Now, Byzantine theology was much more than just a
"repetition" of Patristic theology, nor was that which was new in it of an
inferior quality in comparison with "Christian Antiquity." Indeed, Byzantine
theology was an organic continuation of the Patristic Age. Was there any break?
Has the ethos of the Eastern Orthodox Church been ever changed, at a certain
historic point or date, which, however, has never been unanimously identified,
so that the "later" development was of lesser authority and importance, if of
any? This admission seems to be silently implied in the restrictive commitment
to the Seven Ecumenical Councils. Then, St. Symeon the New Theologian and St.
Gregory Palamas are simply left out, and the great Hesychast Councils of the
fourteenth century are ignored and forgotten. What is their position and
authority in the Church?

Now, in fact, St. Symeon and St. Gregory are still authoritative masters and
inspirers of all those who, in the Orthodox Church, are striving after
perfection, and are living the life of prayer and contemplation, whether in the
surviving monastic communities, or in the solitude of the desert, and even in
the world. These faithful people are not aware of any alleged "break" between
"Patristics" and "Byzantinism." The Philokalia, this great encyclopaedia of
Eastern piety, which includes writings of many centuries, is, in our own days,
increasingly becoming the manual of guidance and instruction for all those who
are eager to practice Orthodoxy in our contemporary situation. The authority of
its compiler, St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mount, has been recently recognized and
enhanced by his formal canonization in the Church. In this sense, we are bound
to say, "the Age of the Fathers" still continues in "the Worshipping Church."
Should it not continue also in our theological pursuit and study, research and
instruction? Should we not recover "the mind of the Fathers" also in our
theological thinking and teaching? To recover it, indeed, not as an archaic
manner or pose, and not just as a venerable relic, but as an existential
attitude, as a spiritual orientation. Only in this way can our theology be
reintegrated into the fullness of our Christian existence. It is not enough to
keep a "Byzantine Liturgy," as we do, to restore Byzantine iconography and
Byzantine music, as we are still reluctant to do consistently, and to practice
certain Byzantine modes of devotion. One has to go to the very roots of this
traditional "piety," and to recover the "Patristic mind". Otherwise we may be in
danger of being inwardly split - as many in our midst actually are - between the
"traditional" forms of "piety" and a very untraditional habit of theological
thinking. It is a real danger. As "worshippers" we are still in "the tradition
of the Fathers." Should we not stand, conscientiously and avowedly, in the same
tradition also as "theologians," as witnesses and teachers of Orthodoxy? Can we
retain our integrity in any other way?

St. Gregory Palamas and Theosis.

All these preliminary considerations are highly relevant for our immediate
purpose. What is the theological legacy of St. Gregory Palamas? St. Gregory was
not a speculative theologian. He was a monk and a bishop. He was not concerned
about abstract problems of philosophy, although he was well trained in this
field too. He was concerned solely with problems of Christian existence. As a
theologian, he was simply an interpreter of the spiritual experience of the
Church. Almost all his writings, except probably his homilies, were occasional
writings. He was wrestling with the problems of his own time. And it was a
critical time, an age of controversy and anxiety. Indeed, it was also an age of
spiritual renewal.

St. Gregory was suspected of subversive innovations by his enemies in his own
time. This charge is still maintained against him in the West. In fact, however,
St. Gregory was deeply rooted in tradition. It is not difficult to trace most of
his views and motives back to the Cappadocian Fathers and to St. Maximus the
Confessor, who was, by the way, one of the most popular masters of Byzantine
thought and devotion. Indeed, St. Gregory was also intimately acquainted with
the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius. He was rooted in the tradition. Yet, in no
sense was his theology just a "theology of repetition." It was a creative
extension of ancient tradition. Its starting point was Life in Christ. Of all
themes of St. Gregory’s theology let us single out but one, the crucial one, and
the most controversial. What is the basic character of Christian existence? The
ultimate aim and purpose of human life was defined in the Patristic tradition as
θεωσις [theosis, divinization]. The term is rather offensive for the modern ear.
It cannot be adequately rendered in any modern language, nor even in Latin. Even
in Greek it is rather heavy and pretentious. Indeed, it is a daring word. The
meaning of the word is, however, simple and lucid. It was one of the crucial
terms in the Patristic vocabulary. It would suffice to quote at this point but
St. Athanasius. Γεγονεν γαρ ανθρωπος, ιν ημας εν εαυτω θεοποιηση. [He became man
in order to divinize us in Himself. (Ad Adelphium 4)]. Αυτος γαρ ενηνθρωπησεν,
ινα ημεις θεοποιηθωμεν. [He became man in order that we might be divinized (De
Incarnatione 54)]. St. Athanasius actually resumes here the favourite idea of
St. Irenaeus: qui propter immensam dilectionem suam factus est quod sumus nos,
uti nos perficeret esse quod est ipse. [Who, through his immense love became
what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself (Adv. Haeres.
V, Praefatio)]. It was the common conviction of the Greek Fathers. One can quote
at length St. Gregory of Nazianzus. St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Cyril of
Alexandria, St. Maximus, and indeed St. Symeon the New Theologian. Man ever
remains what he is, that is - creature. But he is promised and granted, in
Christ Jesus, the Word become man, an intimate sharing in what is Divine: Life
Everlasting and incorruptible. The main characteristic of theosis is, according
to the Fathers, precisely "immortality" or "incorruption." For God alone "has
immortality" - ο μονος εχων αθανασιαν (1 Timothy 6:16). But man now is admitted
into an intimate "communion" with God, through Christ and by the power of the
Holy Spirit. And this is much more than just a "moral" communion, and much more
than just a human perfection. Only the word theosis can render adequately the
uniqueness of the promise and offer. The term theosis is indeed quite
embarrassing, if we would think in "ontological" categories. Indeed, man simply
cannot "become" god. But the Fathers were thinking in "personal" terms, and the
mystery of personal communion was involved at this point. Theosis meant a
personal encounter. It is that intimate intercourse of man with God, in which
the whole of human existence is, as it were, permeated by the Divine Presence.
[5]

Yet, the problem remains: How can even this intercourse be compatible with the
Divine Transcendance? And this is the crucial point. Does man really encounter
God, in this present life on earth? Does man encounter God, truly and verily, in
his present life of prayer? Or, is there no more than an actio in distans? The
common claim of the Eastern Fathers was that in his devotional ascent man
actually encounters God and beholds His eternal Glory. Now, how is it possible,
if God "abides in the light unapproachable"? The paradox was especially sharp in
the Eastern theology, which has been always committed to the belief that God was
absolutely "incomprehensible" - ακαταληπτος - and unknowable in His nature or
essence. This conviction was powerfully expressed by the Cappadocian Fathers,
especially in their struggle against Eunomius, and also by St. John Chrysostom,
in his magnificent discourses Περι Ακαταληπτου. Thus, if God is absolutely
"unapproachable" in His essence, and accordingly His essence simply cannot be
"communicated," how can theosis be possible at all? "One insults God who seeks
to apprehend His essential being," says Chrysostom. Already in St. Athanasius we
find a clear distinction between God’s very "essence" and His powers and bounty:
Και εν πασι μεν εστι κατά την εαυτου αγαθοτητα, εξω δε των παντων παλιν εστι
κατά την ιδιαν φυσιν. [He is in everything by his love, but outside of
everything by his own nature (De Decretis II)]. The same conception was
carefully elaborated by the Cappadocians. The "essence of God" is absolutely
inaccessible to man, says St. Basil (Adv. Eunomium 1:14). We know God only in
His actions, and by His actions: "Ημεις δε εκ μεν των ενεργειων γνωριζειν
λεγομεν τον Θεον ημων, τη δε ουσια προσεγγιζειν ουχ υπισχνουμεθα αι μεν γαρ
ενεργειαι αυτου προς ημας καταβαινουσιν, η δε ουσια αυτου μενει απροσιτος." [We
say that we know our God from his energies (activities), but we do not profess
to approach his essence - for his energies descend to us, but his essence
remains inaccessible[Ημεις δε εκ μεν των ενεργειων (Epist. 234, ad
Amphilochium)]. Yet, it is a true knowledge, not just a conjecture or deduction:
αι ενεργειαι αυτου προς ημας καταβαινουσιν. In the phrase of St. John of
Damascus, these actions or "energies" of God are the true revelation of God
Himself: η θεια ελλαμψις και ενεργεια (De Fide Orth. 1: 14). It is a real
presence, and not merely a certain praesentia operativa, sicut agens adest ei in
quod agit [as the actor is present in the thing in which he acts]. This
mysterious mode of Divine Presence, in spite of the absolute transcendence of
the Divine Essence, passes all understanding. But it is no less certain for that
reason.

St. Gregory Palamas stands in an ancient tradition at this point. In His
"energies" the Unapproachable God mysteriously approaches man. And this Divine
move effects encounter: προοδος εις τα εξω, in the phrase of St. Maximus
(Scholia in De Div. Nom., 1: 5).

St. Gregory begins with the distinction between "grace" and "essence": η θεια
και θεοποιος ελλαμψις και χαρις ουκ ουσια, αλλ’ ενεργεια εστι Θεου [the Divine
and Divinizing illumination and grace is not the essence, but the energy of God;
Capita Phys., Theol., etc., 68-9]. This basic distinction was formally accepted
and elaborated at the Great Councils in Constantinople, 1341 and 1351. Those who
would deny this distinction were anathematized and excommunicated. The
anathematisms of the council of 1351 were included in the rite for the Sunday of
Orthodoxy, in the Triodion. Orthodox theologians are bound by this decision. The
essence of God is absolutely αμεθεκτη [incommunicable]. The source and the power
of human theosis is not the Divine essence, but the "Grace of God": θεοποιος
ενεργεια, ης τα μετεχοντα θεουνται, θεια τις εστι χαρις, αλλ’ ουχ η φυσις του
Θεου [the divinizing energy, by participation of which one is divinized, is a
divine grace, but in no way the essence of God; ibid. 92-3]. Charis [χαρις] is
not identical with the ousia [ουσια]. It is θεια και ακτιστος χαρις και ενεργεια
[Divine and uncreated Grace and Energy; ibid., 69]. This distinction, however,
does not imply or effect division or separation. Nor is it just an "accident,"
ουτε συμβεβηκοτος (ibid., 127). Energies "proceed" from God and manifest His own
Being. The term προιεναι [proienai, proceed] simply suggests διακρισιν
[distinction], but not a division: ει και διενηνοχε της φυσεως, ου διασπαται η
του Πνευματος χαρις [the grace of the Spirit is different from the Substance,
and yet not separated from; Theophan, p. 940].

Actually the whole teaching of St. Gregory presupposes the action of the
Personal God. God moves toward man and embraces him by His own "grace" and
action, without leaving that φος απροσιτον [light unapproachable], in which He
eternally abides. The ultimate purpose of St. Gregory’s theological teaching was
to defend the reality of Christian experience. Salvation is more than
forgiveness. It is a genuine renewal of man. And this renewal is effected not by
the discharge, or release, of certain natural energies implied in man’s own
creaturely being, but by the "energies" of God Himself, who thereby encounters
and encompasses man, and admits him into communion with Himself. In fact, the
teaching of St. Gregory affects the whole system of theology, the whole body of
Christian doctrine. It starts with the clear distinction between "nature" and
"will" of God. This distinction was also characteristic of the Eastern
tradition, at least since St. Athanasius. It may be asked at this point: Is this
distinction compatible with the "simplicity" of God? Should we not rather regard
all these distinctions as merely logical conjectures, necessary for us, but
ultimately without any ontological significance? As a matter of fact, St.
Gregory Palamas was attacked by his opponents precisely from that point of view.
God’s Being is simple, and in Him even all attributes coincide. Already St.
Augustine diverged at this point from the Eastern tradition. Under Augustinian
presuppositions the teaching of St. Gregory is unacceptable and absurd. St.
Gregory himself anticipated the width of implications of his basic distinction.
If one does not accept it, he argued, then it would be impossible to discern
clearly between the "generation" of the Son and "creation" of the world, both
being the acts of essence, and this would lead to utter confusion in the
Trinitarian doctrine. St. Gregory was quite formal at that point.

If according to the delirious opponents and those who agree with them, the
Divine energy in no way differs from the Divine essence, then the act of
creating, which belongs to the will, will in no way differ from generation
(γενναν) and procession (εκπορευειν), which belong to the essence. If to create
is no different from generation and procession, then the creatures will in no
way differ from the Begotten (γεννηματος) and the Projected (προβληματος). If
such is the case according to them, then both the Son of God and the Holy Spirit
will be no different from creatures, and the creatures will all be both the
begotten (γεννηματα) and the projected (προβληματα) of God the Father, and
creation will be deified and God will be arrayed with the creatures. For this
reason the venerable Cyril, showing the difference between God’s essence and
energy, says that to generate belongs to the Divine nature, whereas to create
belongs to His Divine energy. This he shows clearly saying, "nature and energy
are not the same." If the Divine essence in no way differs from the Divine
energy, then to beget (γενναν) and to project (εκπορευειν) will in no way differ
from creating (ποιειν). God the Father creates by the Son and in the Holy
Spirit. Thus He also begets and projects by the Son and in the Holy Spirit,
according to the opinion of the opponents and those who agree with them. (Capita
96 and 97.)

St. Gregory quotes St. Cyril of Alexandria. But St. Cyril at this point was
simply repeating St. Athanasius. St. Athanasius, in his refutation of Arianism,
formally stressed the ultimate difference between ουσια [ousia, essence] or
φυσις [physis, substance], on the one hand, and the βουλησις [boulesis, will],
on the other. God exists, and then He also acts. There is a certain "necessity"
in the Divine Being, indeed not a necessity of compulsion, and no fatum, but a
necessity of being itself. God simply is what He is. But God’s will is eminently
free. He in no sense is necessitated to do what He does. Thus γεννησις
[gennesis, generation] is always κατά φυσιν [kata physin, according to essence],
but creation is a βουλησεος εργον [bouleseos ergon, energy of the will] (Contra
Arianos III. 64-6). These two dimensions, that of being and that of acting, are
different, and must be clearly distinguished. Of course, this distinction in no
way compromises the "Divine simplicity." Yet, it is a real distinction, and not
just a logical device. St. Gregory was fully aware of the crucial importance of
this distinction. At this point he was a true successor of the great Athanasius
and of the Cappadocian hierarchs.

It has been recently suggested that the theology of St. Gregory, should be
described in modern terms as an "existentialist theology." Indeed, it differed
radically from modern conceptions which are currently denoted by this label.
Yet, in any case, St. Gregory was definitely opposed to all kinds of
"essentialist theologies" which fail to account for God’s freedom, for the
dynamism of God’s will, for the reality of Divine action. St. Gregory would
trace this trend back to Origen. It was the predicament of the Greek
impersonalist metaphysics. If there is any room for Christian metaphysics at
all, it must be a metaphysics of persons. The starting point of St. Gregory’s
theology was the history of salvation: on the larger scale, the Biblical story,
which consisted of Divine acts, culminating in the Incarnation of the Word and
His glorification through the Cross and Resurrection; on the smaller scale, the
story of the Christian man, striving after perfection, and ascending step by
step, till he encounters God in the vision of His glory. It was usual to
describe the theology of St. Irenaeus as a "theology of facts." With no lesser
justification we may describe also the theology of St. Gregory Palamas as a
"theology of facts." In our own time, we are coming more and more to the
conviction that "theology of facts" is the only sound Orthodox theology. It is
Biblical. It is Patristic. It is in complete conformity with the mind of the
Church. In this connection we may regard St. Gregory Palamas as our guide and
teacher, in our endeavour to theologize from the heart of the Church.

Endnotes.

1. It has been recently suggested that Gnostics were actually the first to
invoke formally the authority of an "Apostolic Tradition" and that it was their
usage which moved St. Irenaeus to elaborate his own conception of Tradition. D.
B. Reynders, "Paradosis: Le proges de l’idee de tradition jusqu’a Saint Irenee,"
in Recherches de Theologie ancienne et medievale, V (1933), Louvain, 155-191. In
any case, Gnostics used to refer to "tradition."

2. Paul Maas, ed.. Fruhbyzantinische Kirchenpoesie, I (Bonn, 1910), p. 24.

3. Louis Bouyer, "Le renouveau des etudes patristiques," in La Vie
Intellectuelle, XV (Fevrier 1947), 18.

4. Mabillon, Bernardi Opera, Praefatio generalis, n. 23 (Migne, P. L., CLXXXII,
c. 26).

5.Cf. M. Lot-Borodine, "La doctrine de la deification dans I’Eglise grecque
jusqu’au XI siecle," in Revue de l’histoire des religions, tome CV, Nr I
(Janvier-Fevrier 1932), 5-43; tome CVI, Nr 2/3 (Septembre-Decembre 1932),
525-74; tome CVII, Nr I (Janvier-Fevrier 1933), 8-55. From Ch. 7 ofThe Collected
Works of Georges Florovsky, Vol. I,Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox
View(Vaduz, Europa: Buchervertriebsanstalt, 1987), pp. 105-120. This classic is
now out of print.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 20: 17 - THE ASCETIC IDEAL & THE NT (PART 1)
========================================================================

The Ascetic Ideal and the New Testament Reflections on the Critique of the
Theology of the Reformation

(Part 1)

If the monastic ideal is union with God through prayer, through humility,
through obedience, through constant recognition of one’s sins, voluntary or
involuntary, through a renunciation of the values of this world, through
poverty, through chastity, through love for mankind and love for God, then is
such an ideal Christian? For some the very raising of such a question may appear
strange and foreign. But the history of Christianity, especially the new
theological attitude that obtained as a result of the Reformation, forces such a
question and demands a serious answer. If the monastic ideal is to attain a
creative spiritual freedom, if the monastic ideal realizes that freedom is
attainable only in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and if
the monastic ideal asserts that to become a slave to God is ontologically and
existentially the path to becoming free, the path in which humanity fully
becomes human precisely because the created existence of humanity is contingent
upon God, is by itself bordered on both sides by non-existence, then is such an
ideal Christian? Is such an ideal Biblical - New Testamental? Or is this
monastic ideal, as its opponents have claimed, a distortion of authentic
Christianity, a slavery to mechanical "monkish" "works righteousness"? The
Significance of the Desert When our Lord was about to begin his ministry, he
went into the desert - είς’ την έρημον. Our Lord had options but he selected -
or rather, "was lead by the Spirit," into the desert. It is obviously not a
meaningless action, not a selection of type of place without significance. And
there - in the desert - our Lord engages in spiritual combat, for he "fasted
forty days and forty nights" - νηστεύσας ήμερας τεσσαράκοντα και νύκτας·
τεσσαρακοστά ύστερον έπείνασεν. The Gospel of St. Mark adds that our Lord "was
with the wild beasts" - και ην μετά των θηρίων. Our Lord, the God-Man, was truly
God and truly man. Exclusive of our Lord’s redemptive work, unique to our Lord
alone, he calls us to follow him - και άκολονθείτω μοι. "Following" our Lord is
not exclusionary; it is not selecting certain psychologically pleasing aspects
of our Lord’s life and teachings to follow. Rather it is all-embracing. We are
to follow our Lord in every way possible. "To go into the desert" is "to follow"
our Lord. It is interesting that our Lord returns to the desert after the death
of St. John the Baptist. There is an obvious reason for this. "And hearing [of
John the Baptist’s death] Jesus departed from there in a ship to a desert place
privately" - άνεχώρησεν εκείθεν εν πλοίω εις έρημον τόπον και ιδίαν. When St.
Antony goes to the desert, he is "following" the example of our Lord - indeed,
he is "following" our Lord. This in no way diminishes the unique, salvific work
of our Lord, this in no way makes of our Lord God, the God-Man, a mere example.
But in addition to his redemptive work, which could be accomplished only by our
Lord, our Lord taught and set examples. And by "following" our Lord into the
desert, St. Antony was entering a terrain already targeted and stamped by our
Lord as a specific place for spiritual warfare. There is both specificity and
"type" in the "desert." In those geographical regions where there are no
deserts, there are places which are similar to or approach that type of place
symbolized by the "desert," It is that type of place which allows the human
heart solace, isolation. It is the type of place which puts the human heart in a
state of aloneness, a state in which to meditate, to pray, to fast, to reflect
upon one’s inner existence and one’s relationship to ultimate reality - God. And
more. It is a place where spiritual reality is intensified, a place where
spiritual life can intensify and simultaneously where the opposing forces to
spiritual life can become more dominant. It is the terrain of a battlefield but
a spiritual one. And it is our Lord, not St. Antony, who has set the precedent.
Our Lord says that "as for what is sown among thorns, this is he who hears the
word, but the cares of the world and the deceit of riches choke(s) the word, and
it becomes unfruitful" - ό δε εις τας άκανθας σπαρείς, ουτος εστίν ό τον λόγον
άκουων, και ή μέριμνα τον αίώνος· και ή απάτη τον πλουτου συμπνίγει τον λόγον,
και άκαρπος γίνεται. The desert, or a place similar, precisely cuts off the
cares or anxieties of the world and the deception, the deceit of earthly riches.
It cuts one off precisely from "this-worldliness" and precisely as such it
contains within itself a powerful spiritual reason for existing within the
spiritual paths of the Church. Not as the only path, not as the path for
everyone, but as one, fully authentic path of Christian life. The Gospel of St.
Matthew In the Gospel of St. Matthew (Matthew 5:16) it is our Lord who uses the
terminology of "good works." " Let your light so shine before men, that they may
see your good works and may glorify your Father who is in heaven" - όυτως
λαμψάτω το φως υμών έμπροσθεν των ανθρώπων, οπως ιδωσιν υμών τα καλά έργα καί
δοξάσωσιν τον πατέρα υμών τον εν τοις ουρανοίς. Contextually these "good works"
are defined in the preceding text of the Beatitudes. "Blessed are the meek, for
they shall inherit the earth" - μακάριοι oι πραείς, δη αυτοί κληρονομησουσιν την
γην. "Blessed are they who are hungering and are thirsting for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied" - μακάριοι οι πεινώντες καί διψώντες την
δικαιοσυνην, ότι αυτοί χορτασθήσοντα. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God" - μακάριοι οι καθαροί τη καρδία, δη αυτοί τον θεον οψονται. Is it
not an integral part of the monastic goal to become meek, to hunger and thirst
for righteousness, and to become pure in heart? This, of course, must be the
goal of all Christians but monasticism, which makes it an integral part of its
ascetical life, can in no way be excluded. Are not the Beatitudes more than just
rhetorical expressions? Are not the Beatitudes a part of the commandments of our
Lord? In the Gospel of St. Matthew (Matthew 5:19) our Lord expresses a deeply
meaningful thought - rather a warning. "Whoever therefore breaks one of the
least of these commandments and teaches men so, he shall be called the least in
the kingdom of heaven" - ος εάν oυν λύση μίαν των εντολών τούτων των ελαχίστων
καί διδάξη ουτως τους άνθρωπους, ελάχιστος κληθήσεται εν τη βασιλεία των
ουρανών. And it is in this context that our Lord continues to deepen the meaning
of the old law with a new, spiritual significance, a penetrating interiorization
of the "law." He does not nullify or abrogate the law but rather extends it to
its most logical and ontological limit, for he drives the spiritual meaning of
the law into the very depth of the inner existence of mankind.

"You heard that it was said to those of old... but I say to you" - ήκούσατε οτι
έρρέθη τοις αρχαίοις... εγώ δε λέγω υμιν. Now, with the deepening of the
spiritual dimension of the law, the old remains, it is the base, but its
spiritual reality is pointed to its source. "You shall not kill" becomes
inextricably connected to "anger." "But I say to you that everyone being angry
with his brother shall be liable to the judgment" - εγώ δε λέγω ύμιν οτι πας ό
οργιζόμενος τω άδελφω αυτού ένοχος εσται τη κρίσει No longer is the external act
the only focal point. Rather the source, the intent, the motive is now to be
considered as the soil from which the external act springs forth. Mankind must
now guard, protect, control, and purify the inner emotion or attitude of "anger"
and, in so doing, consider it in the same light as the external act of killing
or murder. Our Lord has reached into the innermost depth of the human heart and
has targeted the source of the external act. "You shall not commit adultery. But
I say to you that everyone who is seeing a woman lustfully, has already
committed adultery with her in his heart" - ου μοιχεύσεις. εγώ δε λέγω νμίν οτι
πας ό βλέπων γυναίκα προς το έπιθυμήσαι αυτήν ήδη έμοίχευσεν αυτήν εν τη καρδία
αυτόν. From a spiritual perspective the person who does not act externally but
lusts within is equally liable to the reality of "adultery." "You have heard
that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and you shall hate your enemy’.
But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those persecuting you so that
you may become sons of your Father in heaven" - ήκουσατε ότι έρρέθη, αγαπήσεις
τον πλησίον σου και μισήσεις τον έχθρόν σον. εγώ δε λέγω υμιν, αγαπάτε τους
έχθρόυς υμών και προσευχεσθε υπέρ των διωκόντων υμάς. The Inadequacy of the
Critique by Anders Nygren The Christian idea of love is indeed something new.
But it is not something so radically odd that the human soul cannot understand
it. It is not such a "transvaluation of all ancient values," as Anders Nygren
has claimed in his lengthy study Agape and Eros (originally published in Swedish
in 1947 as Den kristna karlekstanken genom tiderna, Eros och Agape; published in
two volumes in 1938 and 1939; two volumes published in one paperback edition by
Harper and Row in 1969). Although there are certain aspects of truth in some of
Nygren’s statements, his very premise is incorrect. Nygren reads back into the
New Testament and the early Church the basic position of Luther rather than
dealing with early Christian thought from within its own milieu. Such an
approach bears little ultimate fruit and often, as in the case of his position
in Agape andEros, distorts the original sources with presuppositions that
entered the history of Christian thought 1500 years after our Lord altered the
very nature of humanity by entering human existence as God and Man. There is
much in Luther that is interesting, perceptive, and true. However, there is also
much that does not speak the same language as early Christianity. And herein
lies the great divide in the ecumenical dialogue. For the ecumenical dialogue to
bear fruit, the very controversies that separate the churches must not be hushed
up. Rather they must be brought into the open and discussed frankly,
respectfully, and thoroughly. There is much in Luther with which Eastern
Orthodox theologians especially can relate. Monasticism, however, is one area in
which there is profound disagreement. Even Luther at first did not reject
monasticism. Luther’s Reformation was the result of his understanding of the New
Testament, an understanding which Luther himself calls "new." His theological
position had already been formed before the issue of indulgences and his posting
of his Ninety-Five Theses. Nygren, loyal to Luther’s theological vision, has a
theological reason for his position in Agape and Eros. Nygren identifies his
interpretation of Agape with the monoenergistic concept of God, a concept of God
that would be correct in and of itself, for God is the source of everything. But
once we confront the mystery of creation, the mystery of that "other" existence,
that created existence which includes mankind, we face a totally different
situation. The existential and ontological meaning of man’s created existence is
precisely that God did not have to create, that it was a free act of Divine
freedom. But - and here is the great difficulty created by an unbalanced western
Christianity on the doctrine of grace and freedom - in freely creating man God
willed to give man an inner spiritual freedom. In no sense is this a Pelagian or
Semi-Pelagian position. The balanced synergistic doctrine of the early and
Eastern Church, a doctrine misunderstood and undermined by Latin Christianity in
general from St. Augustine on - although there was always opposition to this in
the Latin Church - always understood that God initiates, accompanies, and
completes everything in the process of salvation. What it always rejected - both
spontaneously and intellectually - is the idea of irresistible grace, the idea
that man has no participating role in his salvation. Nygren identifies any
participation of man in his salvation, any movement of human will and soul
toward God, as a pagan distortion of Agape, as "Eros." And this attitude, this
theological perspective will in essence be the determining point for the
rejection of monasticism and other forms of asceticism and spirituality so
familiar to the Christian Church from its inception.

If Nygren’s position on Agape is correct, then the words of our Lord, quoted
above, would have had no basis in the hearts of the listeners for understanding.
Moreover, our Lord, in using the verbal form of Agape - αγαπάτε - uses the "old"
commandment as the basis for the giving of the new, inner dimension of the
spiritual extension of that commandment of agape, of love. If Nygren is correct,
the "old" context of agape would have been meaningless, especially as the
foundation upon which our Lord builds the new spiritual and ontological
character of agape. Nygren’s point is that "the Commandment of Love" occurs in
the Old Testament and that it is "introduced in the Gospels, not as something
new, but as quotations from the Old Testament." He is both correct and wrong.
Correct in that it is a reference taken from the Old Testament. Where else was
our Lord to turn in addressing "his people"? He is wrong in claiming that it is
nothing but a quotation from the Old Testament, precisely because our Lord uses
the Old Testament reference as a basis upon which to build. Hence, the
foundation had to be secure else the building would have been flawed and the
teaching erroneous. Indeed, Nygren himself claims that "Agape can never be
‘self-evident’." In making such a claim, Nygren has undercut any possibility for
the hearers of our Lord to understand any discourse in which our Lord uses the
term "Agape." And yet Nygren writes that "it can be shown that the Agape motif
forms the principal theme of a whole series of Parables." What is meant by this
statement is that Nygren’s specific interpretation of Agape forms the principal
theme of a whole series of Parables. If this is the case, then those hearing the
parables could not have understood them, for they certainly did not comprehend
Agape in the specificity defined by Nygren, and hence the parables - according
to the inner logic of Nygren’s position - were meaningless to the contemporaries
of our Lord, to his hearers. To be filled by the love of and for God is the
monastic ideal. In the Gospel of St. Matthew (22:34-40) our Lord is asked which
is the greatest commandment. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with all your mind [understanding]. This the
great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your
neighbor as yourself. In these two commandments hang all the law and the
prophets" - αγαπήσεις κύριον τον θεόν σου εν ολη τη καρδία σου και εν ολη τη
ψυχή σον και εν ολη τη διάνοια σον. αυτη εστίν ή μεγάλη και πρώτη εντολή,
δευτέρα δε όμοια αύτη, αγαπήσεις τον πλησίον σον ώς σεαντόν. εν ταύταις ταις
δυσίν έντολαις ολος ό νόμος κρέμαται και οι προφήται. The monastic and ascetic
ideal is to cultivate the love of the heart, the soul, and the mind for God.
Anders Nygren’s commentary on this text in his Agape and Eros is characteristic
of his general position. "It has long been recognized that the idea of Agape
represents a distinctive and original feature of Christianity. But in what
precisely does its originality and distinctiveness consist? This question has
often been answered by reference to the Commandment of Love. The double
commandment, ‘Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all they heart’ and ‘Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,’ has been taken as the natural
starting-point for the exposition of the meaning of Christian love. Yet the fact
is that if we start with the commandment, with Agape as something demanded, we
bar our own way to the understanding of the idea of Agape... If the Commandment
of Love can be said to be specifically Christian, as undoubtedly it can, the
reason is to be found, not in the commandment as such, but in the quite new
meaning that Christianity has given it... To reach an understanding of the
Christian idea of love simply by reference to the Commandment of Love is
therefore impossible; to attempt it is to move in a circle. We could never
discover the nature of Agape, love in the Christian sense, if we had nothing to
guide us but the double command... It is not the commandment that explains the
idea of Agape, but insight into the Christian conception of Agape that enables
us to grasp the Christian meaning of the commandment. We must therefore seek
another starting-point" (pp. 61-63). This is indeed an odd position for one who
comes from the tradition of sola Scriptura, for the essence of his position is
not sola Scriptura but precisely that Scripture must be interpreted - and here
the interpretation comes not from within the matrix of early Christianity but
from afar, from an interpretation that to a great extent depends on an
interpretation of Christianity that came into the history of Christian thought
approximately 1500 years after the beginning of Christian teaching, and that is
with the assumption that Nygren is following the general position of Luther. In
his analysis of certain interpretations of what constitutes the uniqueness of
Christian love and in his rejection of these interpretations as that which
determines the uniqueness of Christian love Nygren is in part correct. "This, in
fact, is the root-fault of all the interpretations we have so far considered;
they fail to recognize that Christian love rests on a quite definite, positive
basis of its own. What, then, is this basis?" Nygren approaches the essence of
the issue but neglects the important aspect of human ontology, a human ontology
created by God. "The answer to this question may be found in the text... ‘Love
your enemies’. It is true that love for one’s enemies is at variance with our
immediate natural feelings, and may therefore seem to display the negative
character suggested above; but if we consider the motive underlying it we shall
see that it is entirely positive. The Christian is commanded to love his
enemies, not because the other side teaches hatred of them, but because there is
a basis and motive for such love in the concrete, positive fact of God’s own
love for evil men. ‘He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good’. That is
why we are told: ‘Love your enemies... that ye may be children of your Father
which is in heaven’." What Nygren writes here is accurate. But it neglects the
significance of human ontology; that is, that we are commanded to love our
enemies because there is a spiritual value within the very fabric of human
nature created by God, even fallen nature, and that that spiritual value is to
be found in each and every man, however dimly we may perceive it. If we begin to
love our enemy, we will begin to perceive in that enemy characteristics, aspects
that were veiled, that were dimmed by the blindness of our hatred. We are
commanded to love our enemy not only because God loves mankind, not only because
God "maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good" but God loves mankind
because there is a value in mankind. Nygren writes (p.79) that "the suggestion
that man is by nature possessed of such an inalienable value easily gives rise
to the thought that it is this matchless value on which God’s love is set." It
is perhaps inaccurate to assert that Nygren misses the central issue that that
which is of value in man is God-created, God-given. It is more accurate to
assert that Nygren rejects completely the issue, and he does so because of his
theological doctrine of God and man. This again is part of that great divide
which separates certain churches within the ecumenical dialogue. There is a
basic and fundamental difference of vision on the nature of God and man. One
view claims its position is consistent with apostolic Christianity, consistent
with the apostolic deposit, and consistent with the teaching and life of the
early Church and of the Church in all ages. Another view begins with the
Reformation. Both views claim the support of the New Testament. Luther’s
writings on the Divine nature of love are not only interesting but valuable, not
only penetrating but in one emphasis accurate. Indeed, if one considers Luther’s
doctrine of Divine love by itself, exclusive of his other doctrines, especially
those on the nature of man, the nature of salvation, the nature of
justification, the doctrine of predestination and grace, one encounters a view
not dissimilar from that of ancient Orthodox Christianity. At times Luther can
even appear to be somewhat mystically inclined. Luther’s well-known description
of Christian love as "eine quellende Liebe" [a welling or ever-flowing love] is
by itself an Orthodox view. For Luther, as for the Fathers of the Church, this
love has no need of anything, it is not caused, it does not come into existence
because of a desired object, it is not aroused by desirable qualities of an
object. It is the nature of God. But, at the same time, it is God who created
mankind and hence the love of God for mankind, though in need of nothing and
attracted by nothing, loves mankind not because of a value in man but because
there is value in man because man is created by God. Herein lies the difference
and it is indeed a great divide when one considers the differing views on the
other subjects closely related to the nature of Divine love.

Perfection, Almsgiving, Prayer, Fasting, and Chastity In monastic and ascetical
literature from the earliest Christian times the word and idea of "perfect" are
often confronted. The monk seeks perfection, the monk wants to begin to become
established on the path that may lead to perfection. But is this the result of
monasticism? Is it the monastic and ascetical tendencies in early Christianity
which bring forth the idea of perfection, which bring forth the idea of
spiritual struggle and striving? It is our Lord, not the monks, who injects the
goal of perfection into the very fabric of early Christian thought. In the
Gospel of St. Matthew (Matthew 5:48) our Lord commands: "Be ye therefore
perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" - έσεσθε oυν ύμεις τέλειοι ως ό
πατήρ υμών ό ουράνιος τέλειος εστίν.

Traditional monastic and ascetical life has included among its activities
almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. Were these practices imposed upon an authentic
Christianity by monasticism or were they incorporated into monastic and
ascetical life from original Christianity? In the Gospel of St. Matthew it is
once again our Lord and Redeemer who has initiated almsgiving, prayer, and
fasting. Our Lord could very easily have abolished such practices. But rather
than abolish them, our Lord purifies them, gives them their correct status
within the spiritual life which is to do them but to attach no show, no
hypocrisy, no glory to the doing of them. It is proper spiritual perspective
that our Lord commands. "Take heed that you do not your righteousness before men
in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward with your Father
in heaven" - προσέχετε δε την δικαιοσύνην υμών μη ποιειν έμπροσθεν των ανθρώπων
προς το θεαθήναι αυτοις: ει δε μήγε, μισθόν ουκ έχετε παρά τω πατρί υμών τω εν
τοις ουρανοις (Matthew 6:1). "Therefore, when you do alms, sound no trumpet
before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they
may be glorified by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when
you are doing alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is
doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who is seeing in
secret will reward you" - οταν oυv ποιης έλεημοσύνην, μη σαλπίσης έμπροσθεν σον,
ώσπερ οι υποκριται ποιουσιν εν ταις σνναγωγαις και εν ταις ρυμαις, οπως
δοξασθωσιν υπό των ανθρώπων, αμήν λέγω ύμιν, άπέχουσιν τoν μισθόν αυτών, σου δε
ποιουντος έλεημοσυνην μη γνώτω ή αριστερά σον τί ποιεί ή δεξιά σου, οπως ή σου ή
ελεημοσύνη εν τω κρύπτω, και ό πατήρ σου ό βλέπων εν τω κρυπτω αυτός απόδωσει
σοι (Matthew 6:2-4). And prayer is commanded to be done in a similar manner to
ensure its spiritual nature. At this juncture our Lord instructs his followers
to use the "Lord’s Prayer," a prayer that is so simple yet so profound, a prayer
that contains within it the glorification of the name of God, a prayer that
contains within it the invoking of the coming of the kingdom of God, a prayer
that acknowledges that the will of God initiates everything and that without the
will of God man is lost - γενηθήτω το θέλημα σου. It is a prayer of humility in
that it asks for nothing beyond daily sustenance. It is a prayer of human
solidarity in forgiveness, for it asks God to forgive us only as we forgive
others, and in this a profound reality of spiritual life is portrayed, a life
that unites man with God only as man is also united with other persons, with
mankind, in forgiveness. And then there is the prayer to be protected from
temptation and, if one falls into temptation, the prayer to be delivered from
it. So short, so simple, yet so profound both personally and cosmically. Is
monasticism a distortion of authentic Christianity because the monks recite the
Lord’s Prayer at the instruction of and command of our Lord? If monasticism used
free, spontaneous prayer, then it could be faulted for not having "followed" our
Lord’s command. But that is not the case. Is monasticism a deviation because of
the frequent use of the Lord’s Prayer? Our Lord was specific: when praying, pray
this. It does not preclude other prayers but prominence and priority is to be
given to the Lord’s Prayer. Indeed, it is certainly foreign to our Lord to
restrict the frequency of prayer. The "vain repetitions," or more accurately in
the Greek, the prohibition of "do not utter empty words as the gentiles, for
they think that in their much speaking they will be heard" - this is in essence
different than our Lord’s intention - μη βατταλογήσητε ώσπερ οι εθνικοί,
δοκουσιν γαρ οτι εν τη πολυλογίω αυτών είσακουσθήσονται. And our Lord says more
on this subject, a subject considered of importance to him. In the Gospel of St.
Matthew (Matthew 9:15) our Lord makes the point that when he is taken away, then
his disciples will fast - καί τότε νηστεύσονσινται. In the Gospel of St. Matthew
(Matthew 17:21) our Lord explains to his disciples that they were unable to cast
out the devil because "this kind goes out only by prayer and fasting" - τούτο δε
το γένος ουκ εκπορεύεται ει μη εν προσευχή και νηστεία. This verse, it is true,
is not in all the ancient manuscripts. It is, however, in sufficient ancient
manuscripts and, moreover, it is contained in the Gospel of St. Mark (Mark
9:29). It is obvious that our Lord assigns a special spiritual efficacy to
prayer and fasting.

Chastity is a monastic and ascetic goal. Not only an external celibacy but an
inner chastity of thought. Is this too something imposed upon authentic,
original Christianity by a Hellenistic type of thinking or is it contained
within the original deposit of apostolic and Biblical Christianity? Again it is
our Lord who lays down the path of celibacy and chastity. In the Gospel of St.
Matthew (Matthew 19:10-12) the disciples ask our Lord whether it is expedient to
marry. "Not all men can receive this saying but those to whom it has been given.
For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who
have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves
eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to grasp it, let
him grasp it" - ου παντες χωρουσιν τον λόγον τούτον, αλλ’ οις δεδοται. είσίν γαρ
ευνούχοι οιτινες εκ κοιλίας μητρός έγεννήθησαν ούτως, και είσίν ευνούχοι οιτινες
εύνουχίσθησαν υπό των ανθρώπων, και είσίν ευνούχοι οιτινες ευνούχισαν εαυτούς
δια την βασιλείαν των ουρανών, ό δυνάμενος χωρειν χωρείτω. The monastic and
ascetical goal merely "follows" the teaching of our Lord. Original Christianity
never imposed celibacy. It was, precisely as our Lord has stated, only for those
to whom it was given, only to those who might be able to accept such a path. But
the path was an authentically Christian path of spirituality laid down by our
Lord. In early Christianity not even priests and bishops were required to be
celibate. It was a matter of choice. Later the Church thought it wise to require
celibacy of the bishops. But in Eastern Christianity celibacy has never been
required of one becoming a priest. The choice to marry or to remain celibate had
to be made before ordination. If one married before ordination, then one was
required to remain married, albeit the ancient Church witnessed exceptions to
this. If one was not married when one was ordained, then one was required to
remain celibate. The Roman Church, not the Eastern Orthodox Church, extended the
requirement of celibacy to priests and had a very difficult time attempting to
enforce it throughout the ages. One can never force forms of spirituality upon a
person and expect a spiritually fruitful result. The words of our Lord resound
with wisdom - to those to whom it is given, to those who can live in this form
of spirituality.

Poverty and Humility

Poverty is not the goal but the beginning point of monastic and ascetical life
in early Christianity. Was this a precedent established by St. Antony, a new
notion and movement never before contained within Christian thought? Again it is
our Lord who establishes the spiritual value of poverty. In the Gospel of St.
Matthew (Matthew 19:21) our Lord commands the rich man who has claimed he has
kept all the commandments: "If you will to be perfect, go, sell your possessions
and give to the poor... and come follow me" - ει θέλεις τέλειος είναι, υπάγε
πώλησαν σου τα υπάρχοντα και δός τοις - πτωχοις; και εξεις θησαυρόν εν ούρανοις;
καί δευρο ακολουθεί μοι. It was not St. Antony who established the precedent.
Rather it was St. Antony who heard the word of our Lord and put it into action,
who "did the word of the Lord." It is Christ, the God-Man who has put forth the
ideal of perfection, who has commanded us to be perfect (see also Matthew 5:48),
who has put forth the ideal of poverty as a starting-point for a certain form of
spiritual life. Elsewhere in the Gospel of St. Matthew (Matthew 13:44) Christ
makes a similar point, asserting that one sells everything in exchange for the
kingdom of heaven. "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field,
which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he
has and buys that field" - όμοια εστίν ή βασιλεία των ουρανών θησαυρώ κεκρυμμένω
εν τω άγρω, υν εύρων άνθρωπος έκρυφεν, και από της χαράς αυτού υπάγει καί πωλεί
πάντα όσα έχει καί αγοράζει τον άγρόν εκείνον.

All Christianity exalts humility. It should therefore not be a surprise if
monastic and ascetical spirituality focus on humility. In the Gospel of St.
Matthew (Matthew 18:4) our Lord proclaims that "he who therefore will humble
himself as this little child, he is greatest in the kingdom of heaven" - όστις
oυv ταπεινώσει έαντόν ως το παιδίον τούτο, ούτος εστίν ό μείζων εν τη βασιλεία
των ουρανών. Elsewhere (Matthew 23:12) our Lord says that "whoever exalts
himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted" - όστις δε
υψώσει έαυτόν ταπεινωθήσεται, και όστις ταπεινώσει έαντόν υφωθήσεται. The
emphasis on humility may appear self-evident. Behind it, however, lies a reality
of the nature of God to which few pay much attention. In the Incarnation two
very core elements of any spirituality are clearly evidenced - the love and
humility of God. The idea that humility is rooted in God may appear astonishing.
The humility of God cannot, of course, be considered in the same light as
ascetical humility, or any human form of humility. However, the human forms of
humility are derived from the very nature of God, just as the commandment to
love is rooted in God’s love for mankind. God’s humility is precisely that being
God he desires, he wills to be in communion with everything and everything is
inferior to God. This has great theological significance, for it reveals the
value of all created things, a value willed by God. There is even a parallel
here with the saints who loved animals and flowers. And from this idea, an idea
intrinsically derived from the Incarnation and kenosis of God the Son, one can
clearly see the real Divine origin in action of Christ’s teaching about
"others." In the very notion of a vertical spirituality a concern for others is
presupposed. And while one is ascending to God - an abomination for Nygren - his
fellow man must be included in the dimensions of spirituality. Through the
Incarnation all forms of human existence are sanctified. Through the Incarnation
both the love and the humility of God are made known. And man is to love God and
fellow mankind because love contains absolute, positive value, a value derived
because love is the very nature of God. And man is to experience humility, to
become inflamed by humility precisely because humility belongs also to God and
hence its value is derived from God. But to become filled innerly with love and
humility is not easy. It demands not a mere acknowledgement of the fact that God
is love and humility is Divine. Rather, it demands the complete purification of
our inner nature by God. And this is the struggle, the spiritual warfare that
must be waged to enter and maintain the reality of love and humility. The path
of monasticism and asceticism is an authentic path, a path also ordained by our
Lord. The Writings by St. Paul and the Interpretation of the Reformation The
writings by or attributed to St. Paul form a critical point in the entire great
divide between the churches of the Reformation and the Orthodox and Roman
Catholic Church. The Epistle to the Romans is one of the most important
references of this controversy. This epistle and the Epistleto the Galatians
formed the base from which Luther developed his doctrine of faith and
justification, a doctrine that he himself characterized in his preface to his
Latin writings as a totally new understanding of Scripture. These two works
continue to be the main reference points for contemporary theologians from the
tradition of the Reformation. It was from this new understanding of the
Scriptures that the rejection of monasticism obtained in the Reformation. In
general it is not an exaggeration to claim that this thought considers St. Paul
as the only one who understood the Christian message. Moreover, it is not St.
Paul by himself nor St. Paul from the entire corpus of his works, but rather
Luther’s understanding of St. Paul. From this perspective the authentic
interpreters of our Lord’s teaching and redemptive work are St. Paul, as
understood by Luther; then Marcion, then St. Augustine, and then Luther. Marcion
was condemned by the entire early Church. St. Augustine indeed does anticipate
Luther in certain views but not at all on the doctrine of justification and
Luther’s specific understanding of faith. It is more St. Augustine’s doctrine of
predestination, irresistible grace, and his doctrine of the total depravity of
man contained in his "novel" - to quote St. Vincent of Lerins - doctrine of
original sin that influenced Luther, who himself was an Augustinian monk. The
rejection of monasticism ultimately followed from the emphasis placed upon
salvation as a free gift of God. Such a position is completely accurate but its
specific understanding was entirely contrary to that of the early Church. That
salvation was the free gift of God and that man was justified by faith was never
a problem for early Christianity. But from Luther’s perspective and emphasis any
type of "works," especially that of the monks in their ascetical struggle, was
considered to contradict the free nature of grace and the free gift of
salvation. If one was indeed justified by faith, then - so went the line of
Luther’s thought - man is not justified by "works." For Luther "justification by
faith" meant an extrinsic justification, a justification totally independent
from any inner change within the depths of the spiritual life of a person. For
Luther "to justify" - δικαιουν - meant to declare one righteous or just, not "to
make" righteous or just - it is an appeal to an extrinsic justice which in
reality is a spiritual fiction. Luther has created a legalism far more serious
than the legalism he detected in the Roman Catholic thought and practice of his
time. Moreover, Luther’s legalistic doctrine of extrinsic justification is
spiritually serious, for it is a legal transaction which in reality does not and
can not exist. Nowhere was the emphasis on "works" so strong, thought Luther, as
in monasticism. Hence, monasticism had to be rejected and rejected it was. But
Luther read too much into St. Paul’s emphasis on faith, on justification by
faith, and on the free gift of the grace of salvation. St. Paul is directly in
controversy with Judaism, especially in his Epistle to the Romans. It is the
"works of the law," the law as defined by and interpreted by and practiced by
Judaism in the time of St. Paul. Our Lord has the same reaction to the
externalization and mechanical understanding of the "law." Indeed, the very text
of the Epistle to the Romans reveals in every passage that St. Paul is comparing
the external law of Judaism with the newness of the spiritual understanding of
the law, with the newness of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ through the
Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord. God has become Man. God has
entered human history and indeed the newness is radical. But to misunderstand
St. Paul’s critique of "works," to think that St. Paul is speaking of the
"works" commanded by our Lord rather than the Judaic understanding of the works
of the "law" is a misreading of a fundamental nature. It is true, however, that
Luther had a point in considering the specific direction in which the Roman
Catholic merit-system had gone as a reference point similar to the Judaic legal
system. As a result of Luther’s background, as a result of his theological
milieu, whenever he read anything in St. Paul about "works," he immediately
thought of his own experience as a monk and the system of merit and indulgences
in which he had been raised.

It must be strongly emphasized that Luther does indeed protect one aspect of
salvation, the very cause and source of redemption and grace. But he neglects
the other side, the aspect of man’s participation in this free gift of Divine
initiative and grace. Luther fears any resurgence of the Roman Catholic system
of merit and indulgences, he fears any tendency which will constitute a truly
Pelagian attitude, any tendency that will allow man to believe that he - man -
is the cause, the source, or the main spring of salvation. And here Luther is
correct. Nygren’s Agape-Eros distinction is correct in this context, for any
spirituality that omits Agape and concentrates only on Eros, on man’s striving
to win God’s influence, is fundamentally non-Christian. But the issue is not
that simple. Both extremes are false. God has freely willed a synergistic path
of redemption in which man must spiritually participate. God is the actor, the
cause, the initiator, the one who completes all redemptive activity. But man is
the one who must spiritually respond to the free gift of grace. And in this
response there is an authentic place for the spiritually of monasticism and
asceticism, one which has absolutely nothing to do his the "works of the law,"
or with the system of merit and indulgences.

Continued in Part 2


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 21: 17A - THE ASCETIC IDEAL & THE NT (PART 2)
========================================================================

The Ascetic Ideal and the New Testament Reflections on the Critique of the
Theology of the Reformation

(Part 2)

Romans In his Epistle to the Romans St. Paul writes in the very introduction
(Romans 1:4-5) that through Jesus Christ "we have received grace and apostleship
to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name" - δι ου έλάβομεν
χάριν και αποστολήν ύπακοήν πίστεως... υπέρ του ονόματος αυτόυ. The notion of
"obedience of faith" has a meaning for St. Paul. It is much more than a simple
acknowledgement or recognition of a faith placed within one by God. Rather, it
is a richly spiritual notion, one that contains within it a full spirituality of
activity on the part of man - not that the activity will win the grace of God
but precisely that the spiritual activity is the response to the grace of God,
performed with the grace of God, in order to be filled by the grace of God. And
it will be an on-going spiritual "work," one which can never be slackened, and
one totally foreign from the "works" of the Judaic law.

St. Paul writes (Romans 2:6) that God "will render to each according to his
works" - ος αποδώσει έκάστω κατά τα έργα αυτού. If St. Paul was so concerned
about the word "works," if he feared that the Christian readers of his letter
might interpret "works" in some totally different way from what he intended, he
certainly could have been more cautious. But St. Paul clearly distinguishes
between the "works" of the Judaic law and the "works" of the Holy Spirit
required of all Christians. Hence, it is difficult to confuse these two
perspectives and it is significant that the early Church never confused them,
for they understood what St. Paul wrote. If anything - despite the lucidity of
St. Paul’s thought - there were tendencies at times to fall not into Luther’s
one-sided interpretation but rather to fall somewhat spontaneously into an
Eros-type of striving.

It is the "doers of the law" who will be justified" - οι ποιηται νόμου
δικαιωθήσονται (Romans 2:13). The notion of "doers" implies action, activity.
Elsewhere in the same epistle (Romans 5:2) St. Paul writes that through our Lord
Jesus Christ "we have had access [by faith] into this grace in which we stand" -
την προσαγωγήν έσχήκαμεν (τη πίστει) εις την χάριν ταύτην εν η έστήκαμεν. The
very idea of "access into grace" - προσαγωγήν εις την χάριν - is dynamic and
implies spiritual activity on the part of mankind.

After the lengthy proclamation of the grace of God, the impotence of the "works
of the law" in comparison with the "works" of the new reality of the Spirit, St.
Paul resorts to the traditional spiritual exhortation (Romans 6:12 f). "Let not
sin therefore reign in your mortal body in order to obey its lusts. Nor yield
your members to sin as weapons of unrighteousness" - μη ουν βασιλευέτω ή αμαρτία
εν τω θνητω υμών σώματι εις το υπακούειν ταις επιθυμίας αυτού, μηδέ παριστάυετε
τα μέλη υμών οπλα αδικίας τη αμαρτία. The exhortation presupposes that man has
some type of spiritual activity and control over his inner existence. The very
use of the word "weapon" invokes the idea of battle, of spiritual warfare, the
very nature of the monastic "ordeal." In the same chapter (Romans 6:17) St. Paul
writes: "But grace to God that you who were slaves of sin obeyed out of the
heart a form of teaching which was delivered to you" - χαρις δε τω θεώ οτι ήτε
δούλοι της αμαρτίας υπηκούσατε δε εκ καρδίας εις ον παρεδόθητε τύπον διδαχής. In
the second chapter of the Epistle to the Romans (Romans 2:15) St. Paul writes
about the universal aspect of the "law" that is "written in the hearts" of
mankind, a thought with profound theological implications - οιτινες ενδείκνυνται
το έργον του νόμου γραπτόν εν ταις καρδίαις αυτών. In using the image of the
"heart," St. Paul is emphasizing the deepest aspect of the interior life of
mankind, for such was the use of the image of the "heart" among Hebrews. When he
writes that they obeyed "out of the heart," St. Paul is attributing some type of
spiritual activity to the "obedience" which springs from the "heart." And to
what have they become obedient? To a form or standard of teaching or doctrine
delivered to them - this is precisely the apostolic deposit, the body of early
Christian teaching to which they have responded and have become obedient. And in
so doing, they have become "enslaved to righteousness," the righteousness of the
new law, of the life of the Spirit - έλευθερωθέντες δε από της αμαρτίας
έδουλωθητε τη δικαιοσύνη (Romans 6:18). And the "fruit" of becoming "enslaved to
God" is precisely sanctification which leads to life eternal - δουλωθέντες δε τω
θεώ, έχετε τον καρπόν υμών εις άγιασμόν, το δε τέλος ζωήν αίωνιον (Romans 6:22).
Throughout is a process, throughout is a dynamic spiritual activity on the part
of man. St. Paul becomes more explicit about the distinction between the old and
the new law (Romans 7:6). "But now we are discharged from the law, having died
in that which held us captive, so as to serve in newness of spirit and not in
oldness of letter" - νυνί δε κατηργήθημεν από του νόμου, άποθανόντες εν ω
κατειχόμεθα, ώστε δουλεύειν εν καινότητι πνεύματος και ου παλαιότητι γράμματος.

St. Paul writes that we "are children of God, and if children, also heirs, heirs
on the one hand of God, co-heirs on the other hand, of Christ" (Romans 8:17).
But all this has a condition, has a proviso, for there is the all important "if
indeed" - ειπερ. "If we co-suffer in order that we may be glorified" - έσμέν
τέκνα θεού. ει δε τέκνα, και κληρονόμοι, κληρονόμοι μεν θεού, συγκληρονόμοι δε
Χρίστου, ειπερ συμπάσχομεν ίνα και συνδοξασθώμεν. Our glorification, according
to St. Paul, is contingent upon a mighty "if" and that "if" leads us to the
spiritual reality, the spiritual reality of "co-suffering." The very use of the
word "co-suffer" - συμπάσχομεν - presupposes the reality of the idea of
"co-suffering" and both presuppose an active, dynamic spiritual action or
activity on the part of the one who co-suffers, else there is no meaning to the
"co." In the Epistle to the Romans (Romans 12:1) St. Paul uses language that
would be meaningless if man were merely a passive object in the redemptive
process, if justification by faith was an action that took place only on the
Divine level. "I appeal to you therefore, brethren, through the compassions of
God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and well-pleasing to God,
which is your reasonable service" - παρακαλώ ουν υμάς, αδελφοί, δια των
οίκτιρμών τον θεού, παραστήσαι τα σώματα υμών θυσίαν ζώσαν άγιαν ευαρεστον τω
θεώ, την λογικήν λατρείαν υμών. St. Paul is asking the Christian to present, a
reality which presupposes and requires human activity. But not only "to present"
but "to present" the body as a living sacrifice, as holy, and as acceptable or
well-pleasing to God. And this St. Paul considers our "reasonable service" or
our "spiritual worship." The language and the idea speak for themselves. Using
the imperative, St. Paul commands us: "Be not conformed to this age but be
transformed by the renewing of the mind in order to prove [that you may prove]
what [is] that good and well-pleasing and perfect will of God" - και μη
συσχηματίζεσθε τω αιώνι τούτω, άλλα μεταμορφουσθε τη ανακοινώσει του νοός, εις
το δοκιμάζειν υμάς τι το θέλημα του θεού, το αγαθόν και εύάρεστον και τέλειον.
Taken by itself and out of context this language could be misinterpreted as
Pelagian, for here it is man who is transforming the mind, man who is commanded
to activate the spiritual life. Such an interpretation is, of course, incorrect
but it reveals what one can do to the totality of the theological thought of St.
Paul if one does not understand the balance, if one does not understand that his
view is profoundly synergistic. Synergism does not mean that two energies are
equal. Rather it means that there are two wills - one, the will of God which
precedes, accompanies, and completes all that is good, positive, spiritual and
redemptive, one that has willed that man have a spiritual will, a spiritual
participation in the redemptive process; the other is the will of man which must
respond, cooperate, "co-suffer." In Romans 12:9 St. Paul exhorts us to "cleave
to the good" - κολλώμενοι τω άγαθω - and in Romans 12:12 he exhorts us "to be
steadfastly continuing in prayer - τη προσευχη προσκαρτερουντες. Such a position
certainly does not exclude monastic and ascetical spirituality but rather
presupposes it.

I and II Corinthians

Celibacy is a part of the monastic life and it too has its source in the
teachings of the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 7:1-11 St. Paul encourages both
marriage and celibacy - both are forms of Christian spirituality, and St. Paul
has much to say about marriage in his other epistles. But his point is that
celibacy is a form of spirituality for some, and it therefore cannot be excluded
from the forms of spirituality within the Church. In 1 Corinthians 7:7 St. Paul
writes that he would like all to be like him - θέλω δε πάντας ανθρώπους ειναι ώς
και έμαντόν. But he realizes that each person has his own gift from God - αλλά
έκαστος ίδιον έχει χάρισμα εκ θεου, ό μεν ουτως, ό δε όυτως. "I say therefore to
the unmarried men and to the widows, it is good for them if they remain as I.
But if they do not exercise self-control, let them marry" - λέγω δε τοις -
άγαμοις και ταις χήραις, καλόν αυτοίς εάν μείνωσιν ώς κάγώ, ει δε ουκ
έγκρατεύονται, γαμησάτωσαν. In 1 Corinthians 7:37-38 St. Paul summarizes: "the
one who has decided in his own heart to keep himself virgin, he will do well.
So, therefore, both the one marrying his betrothed [virgin], does well, and the
one not marrying will do better" - και τούτο κέκρικεν εν τη ιδία καρδία, τηρειν
την εαυτόν παρθένον, καλώς ποιήσει, ώστε και ό γαμίζων την εαυτόν παρθένον καλώς
ποιεί, και ό μη γαμιζων κρεισσον ποιήσει. The monastic practice of celibacy is
precisely not excluded by the New Testament. Rather, it is even encouraged both
by our Lord and by St. Paul - and without jeopardy to the married state. The
decision cannot be forced. Rather, it must come from the heart. And, indeed, it
is not for everyone. The comparison of the spiritual life to that of running a
race and to that of warfare is throughout the New Testament. Without diminishing
his basis of theological vision - that it is God who initiates everything - St.
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 in a manner, which, if taken by itself,
would indeed appear Pelagian, would indeed appear as though all the essence of
salvation depends upon man. But in the total context of his theology there is no
contradiction, for there are always two wills in the process of redemption - the
Divine, which initiates; and the human, which responds and is, in the very
response active in that grace which it has received. "Do you not know that the
ones running in a race all run indeed. But one receives the prize? So run in
order that you may obtain. And everyone struggling exercises self-control in all
things. Indeed, those do so therefore in order that they may receive a
corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible one. I, therefore, so run as not
unclearly. Thus I box not as one beating the air. But I treat severely my body
and lead it as a slave, lest having proclaimed to others, I myself may become
disqualified." Ουκ οιδατε οτι οι εν σταδιω τρεχοντες παντες μεν τρεχουσιν εις δε
λαμβανει το βραβειον ουτως τρεχετε ινα καταλαβητε. πας δε ο αγωνιζομενος παντα
εγκρατευεται εκεινοι μεν ουν ινα φθαρτον στεφανον λαβωσιν ημεις δε αφθαρτον. εγω
τοινυν ουτως τρεχω ως ουκ αδηλως ουτως πυκτευω ως ουκ αερα δερων: αλλα υπωπιαζω
μου το σωμα και δουλαγωγω μη πως αλλοις κηρυξας αυτος αδοκιμος γενωμαι. In this
text we encounter the race - the spiritual race - and the prize; we encounter
the grammatical and the thought structure of "in order that you may obtain," a
structure which implies contingency and not certainty. We encounter the race as
a spiritual struggle in which "self-control in everything" must be exercised.
And then St. Paul describes his own spiritual battle - he treats his body
severely, leads it as though it were a slave, and to what end? So that he will
not become disapproved. The entire passage is very monastic and ascetic in its
content. Despite St. Paul’s certainty of the objective reality of redemption
which has come through Christ as a Divine gift, he does not consider his own
spiritual destiny to be included in that objective redemption which is now here
unless he participates in it - and until the end of the race. In 1 Corinthians
10:12 he warns us: "Let the one who thinks he stands, let him look lest he
falls" - ώστε ό δοκών έστάναι βλεπέτω μη πέση. In 1 Corinthians 11:28 he writes:
"Let a man prove or examine himself..." - δοκιμαζέτω δε άνθρωπος έαντόν. In the
latter context the "proving" or "examining" is in the most serious of contexts,
for it is spoken in connection with the Holy Eucharist, which is spoken of so
objectively that if one "eats this bread" or "drinks this cup" "of the Lord"
"unworthily," that person "shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord"
and shall "bring damnation to himself - for that reason, continues St. Paul,
some are weak, sickly, and some have died. But our focus here is on
self-examination, on those who think they stand. This again is an integral
aspect of the monastic and ascetical life; that is, a constant examination of
one’s spiritual life. In 2 Corinthians 13:5 St. Paul again stresses
self-examination: "Examine yourselves, if you are in the faith. Prove
yourselves" - εαυτούς πειράζετε ει έστέ εν τη πίστει, εαυτούς δοκιμάστε. In 1
Corinthians 15:1-2 St. Paul introduces a significant "if and "also." "I make
known to you, brothers, the Gospel which I preached to you, which you also
received, in which you also stand, through which you also are saved, "you hold
fast to that which I preached to you" - γνωρίζω δε ύμιν, αδελφοί, το εύαγγέλιον
ο εύηγγελισάμην ύμιν, ο και παραλάβετε, εν ω και έστήκατε, δι ου και σώζεσθε,
τίνι λόγω εύηγγελισάμην ύμιν ει κατέχετε. In 1 Corinthians 14:15 St. Paul speaks
of praying with both spirit and mind, a thought that weaves its way through
monastic and ascetical literature. The use of the mind in prayer finds its
fullest expression in the controversial use of the "mind" in the thought of
Evagrius Ponticus. The text, even within its general context in the chapter, is
clear. "I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray also with the mind; I will
sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the mind" - προσεύχομαι τω
πνεύματι, προσεύχομαι δε και τω voι, ψάλω τω πνεύματι, ψάλω δε και τω voι.

St. Paul’s hymn to love, to Agape, fills the entirety of 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.
Despite later interpretations of the use of the word "faith" in this chapter,
specifically the interpretations that entered Christian thought with the
Reformation, there was no misunderstanding of this "hymn to love" in the early
Church - indeed, in the history of Christian thought until the Reformation it
was understand quite directly. It is only through a convoluted exegetical method
imposed by a specific - and new - theological understanding that this great
"hymn to love" had to be understood by distinguishing different meanings
attached to the word "faith." Though one speaks with the tongues of men and of
angels, though one has the gift of prophecy, though one understands all
mysteries, though one understands all knowledge, though one has all faith "to
remove mountains," though one bestows all one’s goods to feed the poor, though
one gives one’s body to be burned - though one has all this, but not love, one
is "nothing," one "becomes as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal," one
"profits" not at all - εαν ταις γλωσσαις των ανθρωπων λαλω και των αγγελων,
αγαπην δε μη εχω, γεγονα χαλκος ηχων η κυμβαλον αλαλαζον. καν εχω προφητειαν και
ειδω τα μυστηρια παντα και πασαν την γνωσιν, καν εχω πασαν την πιστιν ωστε ορη
μεθιστανειν, αγαπην δε μη εχω ουθεν ειμι. καν ψωμισω παντα τα υπαρχοντα μου, καν
παραδω το σωμα μου ινα καυχησωμαι, αγαπην δε μη εχω, ουδεν ωφελουμαι. St. Paul
is quite explicit on what love is. "Love suffers long, love is kind, love is not
jealous, does not vaunt itself, is not puffed up, does not act unseemly, does
not seek its own things, is not provoked, does not reckon evil, does not rejoice
over wrong, but rejoices with the truth. Love covers all things, believes all
things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never falls. But prophecies -
they will be abolished; tongues - they will cease; knowledge - it will be
abolished... And now remains faith, hope, love, these three. But the greatest of
these is love." - η αγαπη μακροθυμει χρηστευεται η αγαπη ου ζηλοι η αγαπη ου
περπερευεται ου φυσιουται. ουκ ασχημονει ου ζητει τα εαυτης ου παροξυνεται ου
λογιζεται το κακον. ου χαιρει επι τη αδικια συγχαιρει δε τη αληθεια. παντα
στεγει παντα πιστευει παντα ελπιζει παντα υπομενει. η αγαπη ουδεποτε εκπιπτει
ειτε δε προφητειαι καταργηθησονται ειτε γλωσσαι παυσονται ειτε γνωσις
καταργηθησεται. εκ μερους γαρ γινωσκομεν και εκ μερους προφητευομεν. οταν δε
ελθη το τελειον τοτε το εκ μερους καταργηθησεται. οτε ημην νηπιος ως νηπιος
ελαλουν ως νηπιος εφρονουν ως νηπιος ελογιζομην οτε δε γεγονα ανηρ κατηργηκα τα
του νηπιου. βλεπομεν γαρ αρτι δι εσοπτρου εν αινιγματι τοτε δε προσωπον προς
προσωπον αρτι γινωσκω εκ μερους τοτε δε επιγνωσομαι καθως και επεγνωσθην. νυνι
δε μενει πιστις ελπις αγαπη τα τρια ταυτα μειζων δε τουτων η αγαπη. The goal of
monastic and ascetical struggle, of the "ordeal," is love - to love God, to love
mankind, to love all created things, to be penetrated by God’s love, to
participate in love, which is God and flows from God, and to enter a union with
God, with love. Often monastic literature will speak of "achieving" this love,
as though it is the work of man. But that it not the total context of love in
monastic literature, not even in those texts which appear as though everything
were nothing but a striving on the part of man in the "ordeal." This language is
spoken because it is spontaneous with spiritual nature. This language is spoken
because it runs parallel with that assumed knowledge - that God is the source of
everything. And yet St. Paul himself often uses language which could come
directly from monastic statements. True, both would be taken out of their total
context, but it is true that the two languages are spoken - the language
referring to God as the source, as the initiator, to the grace of God, to the
gift of all spirituality; and the language which concentrates on man’s activity,
on man’s response to the love and redemptive work of God in Jesus Christ and
through the Holy Spirit. When one line of thought is being used, it in no way
denies the other line of thought. Rather, it is precisely the opposite, for
monastic and ascetical literature can only speak about man’s activity if it is
presupposed that God has accomplished the redemptive activity in and through our
Lord, that God is working in man through the Holy Spirit. Else, all that is
written is without meaning, temporarily and ultimately. St. Paul’s command in 1
Corinthians 14:1 to "pursue love and eagerly desire the spiritual things" is
responded to directly by monastic and ascetical spirituality - διώκετε την
άγάπην, ζηλουτε δε τα πνευματικά In 2 Corinthians 2:9 St. Paul writes in the
very same spirit that an abbot might employ with his novices: "For to this end
indeed I wrote - in order that I might know your proof, if you are obedient in
all things" - εις τούτο γαρ και έγραφα, ίνα γνω την δοκιμήν υμών, ει εις πάντα
υπήκοοι έστε. Obedience is an important theme and reality in the monastic and
ascetic "ordeal" and that very theme of obedience is mentioned often throughout
the New Testament.

Monastic and ascetical literature will often use the terms "fragrance" and
"aroma" and again the source is the New Testament. In 2 Corinthians 2:14-15 St.
Paul writes: "manifesting through us the fragrance of his knowledge in every
place. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and
among those perishing, to the latter an aroma from death unto death, to the
former an aroma from life unto life" - και την οσμην της γνωσεως αυτου
φανερουντι δι ημων εν παντι τοπω οτι χριστου ευωδια εσμεν τω θεω εν τοις
σωζομενοις και εν τοις απολλυμενοις οις μεν οσμη εκ θανατου εις θανατον, οις δε
οσμη εκ ζωης εις ζωην. In 2 Corinthians 3:18 St. Paul uses an expression which
is often found in ascetical literature - "from glory to glory." "But we all,
with face having been unveiled, beholding in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are
being changed into the same icon from glory to glory, even as from the Spirit of
the Lord" - ημεις δε παντες ανακεκαλυμμενω προσωπω την δοξαν κυριου
κατοπτριζομενοι την αυτην εικονα μεταμορφουμεθα απο δοξης εις δοξαν, καθαπερ απο
κυριου πνευματος. The Greek verbal structure throughout the New Testament cannot
be stressed enough, for it conveys a dynamic activity that is seldom found in
other languages and in translations. In this text the emphasis is on the process
of "we are being changed." Elsewhere emphasis is often on "we are being saved" -
rather than "we are changed" and "we are saved." When the objective nature of
redemption is the focus, then the Greek verbal structure uses "we are saved."
But mainly, when the process is the focus, the dynamism is expressed by the
verbal structure of "we are being saved." In this text it is significant that
the objective nature is expressed by "having been unveiled," while the on-going
process of our participation in the spiritual process of salvation is expressed
by "we are being changed." Here is expressed the dynamism of synergy. In 2
Corinthians 4:16 St. Paul again emphasizes the dynamism and process of the
spiritual reality in man. "Our inner [life] is being renewed day by day" - ό έσω
ημών άνακαινουται ήμερα και ήμερα. The monastic life attempts to respond to such
a text by the daily regulation of prayer, meditation, self-examination, and
worship - precisely to attempt to "renew" daily "our inner" spiritual life. In 2
Corinthians 10:15 the dynamic aspect of growth is stressed and precisely in
reference to "faith" and "rule." "But having hope as your faith is growing to be
magnified unto abundance among you according to our rule" - ελπίδα δε έχοντες
αυξανομένης της πίστεως υμών εν ύμιν μεγαλυνθηναι κατά τον κανόνα ημών εις
περισσείαν. In 2 Corinthians 4:12 St. Paul again places the inner depth of man’s
spiritual life in the "heart," something which Eastern monasticism will develop
even in its life of prayer - εν καρδία. The entire fifth chapter of
IICorinthians is an exceptionally important text. Here, as elsewhere, St. Paul
uses language which, when used by others, distresses sorely many scholars
working from the Reformation perspective - he uses the notion of "pleasing God,"
something which some scholars find indicative of man’s solicitation to "win"
God’s favor. But when St. Paul uses such language it passes in silence, it
passes without objection - precisely because St. Paul has established his
position that God is the source of everything. But monastic and ascetical
literature also presuppose that God initiates and is the source of everything.
But it is in the very nature of daily spiritual life in monasticism and in
ascetical spirituality to focus on man’s activity. It is precisely focus, not a
theological position. "We therefore are ambitious [to make it our goal], whether
being at home or being away from home, to be well-pleasing to him. For it is
necessary for all of us to be manifested before the tribunal of Christ in order
that each one may receive something good or something worthless, according to
what one has practiced through the body. Knowing, therefore, the fear of the
Lord, we persuade men" - διο και φιλοτιμουμεθα, ειτε ενδημουντες ειτε
εκδημουντες, ευαρεστοι αυτω ειναι. τους γαρ παντας ημας φανερωθηναι δει
εμπροσθεν του βηματος του χριστου, ινα κομισηται εκαστος τα δια του σωματος προς
α επραξεν ειτε αγαθον ειτε φαυλον. In 2 Corinthians 11:15 St. Paul writes that
one’s "end will be according to [one’s] works" - ων το τέλος έσται κατά τα έργα
αυτών. Also this is not the only time that the New Testament uses the word
"practice," a word which becomes systematized in monasticism. After a profound
exposition on the initiative of God in the redemptive work of Christ (2
Corinthians 5:14-20), in which St. Paul writes that "all things are of God, who,
having reconciled us to himself through Christ" - τα δε πάντα εκ του θεον τον
καταλλάξαντος ημάς έαυτω δια Χριστον, St. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:21 :
"Be reconciled to God" - καταλλάγητε τω θεώ. Moreover, he not only uses the
imperative form but also precedes this with "we beg on behalf of Christ" -
δεόμεθα υπέρ Χρίστου. His language here becomes meaningless unless there is
spiritual activity on the part of man. And what is more, St. Paul uses a very
interesting structure in relationship to the "righteousness of God," for he
writes that the redemptive work of Christ was accomplished "in order that we
might become the righteousness of God in him" - ίνα ημείς γενώμεθα δικαιοσύνη
θεου εν αντω. Here the significance is on "we might become" rather than "we are"
or "we have become." Implicit is a synergistic dynamism. This is further
stressed in 2 Corinthians 6:1 :"And working together [with him] we entreat you
not to receive the grace of God to no purpose" - συνεργονντες δε και
παρακαλουμεν μη είς κενόν την χάριν του θεου δέξασθαι υμάς: And St. Paul then
quotes from Isaiah 49:8 in which it is said that God "hears" and "helps" -
έπήκουσά σου και... έβοήθησά σοι. In 2 Corinthians 6:4-10 St. Paul writes what
could be a guide to monastic spiritual life. "In everything commending ourselves
as ministers of God - in much endurance, in afflictions, in necessities, in
distresses, in stripes, in prisons, in tumults, in labors, in vigils, in
fasting, in purity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in kindness, in a holy
spirit, in unfeigned love, in a word of truth, in power of God - through the
weapons of righteousness on the right and left hand, through glory and dishonor,
through evil report and good report... as dying, and behold, we live... as being
grieved but always rejoicing, as poor but enrichening many, as having nothing
yet possessing all things" - εν αγνοτητι, εν γνωσει, εν μακροθυμια, εν
χρηστοτητι, εν πνευματι αγιω, εν αγαπη ανυποκριτω, εν λογω αληθειας, εν δυναμει
θεου: δια των οπλων της δικαιοσυνης των δεξιων και αριστερων, δια δοξης και
ατιμιας, δια δυσφημιας και ευφημιας: ως πλανοι και αληθεις, ως αγνοουμενοι και
επιγινωσκομενοι, ως αποθνησκοντες και ιδου ζωμεν, ως παιδευομενοι και μη
θανατουμενοι, ως λυπουμενοι αει δε χαιροντες, ως πτωχοι πολλους δε πλουτιζοντες.
The vigils, the fasting, the purity, the gnosis or knowledge - these are to be
reflected in monastic and ascetical life. Moreover, St. Paul again uses the
image of warfare and refers to the "weapons of righteousness." The language used
by St. Paul in this passage can only have significance if man participates
synergistically in the redemptive process. If the doctrine of "righteousness" in
the thought of St. Paul has only a one-sided meaning - that is, the
"righteousness of God," which is, of course, the source of all righteousness -
then why the talk of "weapons of righteousness" placed in the very hands, both
right and left, of man? If man is solely "reckoned righteous" by the "vicarious
sacrifice" of our Lord Jesus Christ, why the need to speak of "weapons of
righteousness," unless there is a second aspect of the redemptive process which
ontologically includes man’s spiritual participation? In 2 Corinthians 10:3-6
St. Paul continues with the reference to "warfare" and again stresses
"obedience." "For though walking in the flesh, we wage war not according to the
flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly but [have] the power of
God to overthrow strongholds, overthrowing reasoning and every high thing rising
up against the knowledge of God and taking captive every design unto the
obedience of Christ" - εν σαρκι γαρ περιπατουντες ου κατα σαρκα στρατευομεθα τα
γαρ οπλα της στρατειας ημων ου σαρκικα αλλα δυνατα τω θεω προς καθαιρεσιν
οχυρωματων λογισμους καθαιρουντες και παν υψωμα επαιρομενον κατα της γνωσεως του
θεου και αιχμαλωτιζοντες παν νοημα εις την υπακοην του χριστου. St. Paul writes
in 2 Corinthians 7:1 about cleansing, about "perfecting holiness," and about the
"fear of God." After referring to our having "these promises," he exhorts: "Let
us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and of spirit, perfecting
holiness in the fear of God" - καθαρίσωμεν εαυτόυς από παντός μολυσμου σαρκός
και πνεύματος, έπιτελουντες άγιωσύνην εν φόβω θεού. This exhortation is
precisely what monastic and ascetical life attempts to implement. In 2
Corinthians 13:9 St. Paul writes: "We pray also for you restoration" - τούτο και
εύχόμεθα, την υμών κατάρτισιν. In order for one to be "restored," one would have
to have been at a certain level previously. The text bears witness to the
dynamic nature of faith, of spiritual life in Christ, of the rising and falling
away, and then the restoration. In 2 Corinthians 7:10 St. Paul speaks in terms
quite similar to those found in monastic and ascetical literature, for he speaks
of "grief which works "repentance" which leads to "salvation." "For grief, in
accordance with God, works repentance unto unregrettable salvation" - ή γαρ κατά
θεόν λύπη μετάνοιαν εις σωτηρίαν άμεταμέλητον εργάζεται. St. Paul contrasts this
"Godly grief with the "grief of the world which works out death" - ή δε τον
κόσμου λύπη θάνατον κατεργάζεται. The theme of "sorrow" and "grief over one’s
sin - precisely "grief in accordance with God" or "Godly grief - is a constant
in monastic spiritual life.

St. Paul ends the text proper of II Corinthians with a final exhortation.
"Restore yourselves, admonish yourselves, think the same, become at peace, and
the God of love and of peace will be with you" - καταρτιζεσθε, παρακαλείσθε, το
αυτό φρονείτε, ειρηνεύετε, και ό θεός της αγάπης και ειρήνης έσται μεθ’ υμών.
Here the emphasis is again on "restoration." St. Paul’s sequence of language -
if taken by itself and out of context - could be easily misinterpreted as man
causing God’s action, for he writes "become at peace and." It is precisely that
"and" that introduces the activity of God. God "will be with you," if you
achieve peace - this is how this text could well be interpreted if we did not
possess the body of St. Paul’s works. What could have happened to the thought of
St. Paul is what usually happens to the thought expressed in monastic and
ascetical literature.

Galatians

Along with the Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians is the
other work from the corpus of St. Paul most often quoted by the theologians of
the Lutheran and Calvinistic Reformation and those theologians who have followed
in those theological traditions. They were also the two works most quoted by St.
Augustine to support his doctrine of irresistible grace and predestination. But
one encounters the same problem in Galatians - that is, that there is a second
line of thought which, by itself, could be interpreted in a Pelagian sense. The
point here is, of course, that both views are one-sided, that the thought of St.
Paul is far richer than any one-sided interpretation allows for, far more
realistic both with the glory of God and with the tragedy of man’s experience in
evil, corruption, and death. But St. Paul not only extols the glory of God, the
power and initiative of grace but also the joyfulness of an objective redemption
in which each person must participate in order for the redemption of man to be
completed. In the first chapter of Galatians St. Paul in Galatians 1:10 uses
language which implies the seeking of favor with God. "For now do I persuade men
or God? Or do I seek to please men?" - αρτι γαρ ανθρώπους πείθω ή τον θεόν; ή
ζητώ άνθρωποις άρέσκειν? At one point, in Galatians 4:9, St. Paul catches
himself falling into the very understandable usage of human language: "But now
knowing God, or rather, being known by God" - νυν δε γνόντες θεόν, μάλλον δε
γνωσθεντες υπό θεού. Imprecision of language occurs even with St. Paul. The
second chapter of Galatians provides an illumination of the central
controversial issue in the theology of St. Paul. In context St. Paul is
addressing the hypocrisy of St. Peter in Antioch, for St. Peter ate with the
Gentiles until those from the "circumcision" party arrived from Jerusalem. At
that time St. Peter withdrew from the Gentiles, "fearing those of the
circumcision" - φοβούμενος τους έκπεριτομής. St. Paul challenges St. Peter face
to face. Again the whole controversy is between the "works of the law" and the
"works of the Spirit," between the laws of Judaism and the spiritual laws of
Christ as a direct result of his Divine redemptive work. It is, therefore, in
this context that St. Paul brings the doctrine of justification into discussion.
In Galatians 2:16 St. Paul writes: "And knowing that a man is not justified out
of works of the law but through faith of Christ Jesus, even we believed in
Christ Jesus in order that we might be justified out of faith of Christ and not
out of the works of the law because out of works of the law all flesh will not
be justified" - είδότες δε οτι ου δικαιούται άνθρωπος έξ έργων νόμου εάν μη δια
πίστεως Χριστου Ιησού, και ημείς εις Χριστόν Ιήσουν έπιστεύσαμεν, ίνα
δικαιωθωμεν εκ πίστεως Χρίστου και ουκ έξ έργων νόμου, οτι έξ εργων νόμου ου
δικαιωθήσεται πάσα σάρξ. In the Greek construction used by St. Paul a dynamism
still exists, for we believed "in order that we might be justified" and "out of
faith." This latter expression contains breadth, expansion of spiritual life
generating from faith. It is a rich expression and its fullness and dynamism
must not be diminished by a reductionist interpretation. And the very use of "in
order" has implications theologically, as does the construction "that we might
be justified." St. Paul could very well have written that we have believed and
are hence justified. But that is not what he has written. The objective reality
of redemption, the objective reality of mankind being justified by Christ is one
thing. The subjective reality of each person participating in this already
accomplished redemptive work of justification, of being really "right" with God
is another dimension, a dimension which requires and addresses the entire
spiritual composition of man. In the very next text St. Paul writes "if seeking
to be justified in Christ" - ει δε ζητουντες δικαιωθηναι εν Χριστώ. In Galatians
5:5 he can write "for we in the Spirit eagerly expect the hope of righteousness"
- ημείς γαρ πνεύματι εκ πίστεως ελπίδα δικαιοσύνης άπεκδεχόμεθα. What is the
ontological meaning of "the hope of righteousness" if "righteousness" is
"imputed" to us as though a legal transaction, and if it is the "passive
righteousness" of God which "justifies" us? No, St. Paul’s vision is far deeper.
The "hope of righteousness" is precisely our hope to share in that objective
"righteousness of God" which is now freely given by God in and through Christ.
But we "hope" because there is "work" for us to do in order to take hold of and
participate in that righteousness eternally. God creates in his freedom. God
created man with this image of freedom. Christ accepts the Cross in freedom.
Freedom is the foundation of creation and redemption. And man’s freedom, however
weakened, can still be inspired by the free gift of Grace. And in this freedom
man must, as St. Paul writes in his Epistle to thePhp 2:12, "work out your own
salvation with fear and trembling" - μετά φόβου και τρόμου την εαυτών σωτηρίαν
κατεργάζεσθε. It cannot be denied that monastic and ascetical spirituality took
this seriously. In Galatians 5:1 St. Paul writes that "Christ freed us for
freedom. Therefore stand firm" - τη ελευθερία ημάς Χριστός ήλευθέρωσεν. The
total theological significance of all that took place in the coming of Christ,
in the Incarnation of the God-Man, in his life, his teachings, his death, his
resurrection, his establishment of the Church and the mystical sacramental life
in the Church, his Ascension, his sending of the Holy Spirit, and his Second
Coming and Judgment - all this has radically altered the old law of works, and
the meaning was clear to the early Church. It is true that what St. Paul says
about the "works of the law" can be applied to any form of Christianity that
deviates from the precision of the balance, that deviates from the authentic
"works of the Spirit," replacing them by a mechanical and mechanistic attitude.
And in Galatians 3:27 St. Paul immediately connects "justification by faith"
with the mystical sacrament of baptism. "For you are all sons of God through the
faith in Christ Jesus, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ, have put
on Christ" - παντες γαρ υιοί θεού έστε δια της πίστεως εν Χριστώ Ιησού - όσοι
γαρ εις Χριστόν έβαπτίσθητε, Χριστόν ένεδυσασθε. Within this context what is the
distinction between the "justification by faith" and "by faith" being "baptized
into Christ," and, hence, having "put on Christ"?

St. Paul is addressing Christians, those who have been baptized, those who have
accepted the faith. Despite all his language about "justification by faith,"
about "putting on Christ" through baptism, about the objective aspect of
redemption having been accomplished, St. Paul still can write in Galatians 4:19
that he "travails in birth until Christ is formed" in them - ώδίνω μέχρις oυ
μορφωθη Χριστός εν υμιν. What can this mean except that the redemptive process
for man is one of struggle, one of rising and falling, one of continual
spiritual dynamism? In 5:7 he writes that they "were running well" and asks "who
hindered you?" - έτρεχετε καλώς, τις υμάς ένέκοψεν, invoking again the image of
a race. In Galatians 5:14 St. Paul repeats Christ’s commandment of love, a
thought not foreign to St. Paul, especially when one considers his "Hymn to Love
[Agape] in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13. "For the whole law has been summed up in one
expression: you shall love your neighbor as yourself - ό γαρ πας νόμος εν ένί
λόγω πεπλήρωται, εν τω αγαπήσεις τον πλησίον σον ώς σεαντόν. He then
distinguishes the "works of the Spirit" from the "works of the flesh,"
explicitly linking the latter with the old law. And then he again exhorts and
commands from the realism of spiritual life (Galatians 5:25). "If we live in the
Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit" - ει ζώμεν πνεύματι, πνεύματη και
στοιχώμεν. What is the meaning of such an exhortation? It has a meaning based on
realism only if the "living in the Spirit" refers to the entirety of the
objective work of the redemptive work of Christ now accomplished and available
to mankind, a redemption which surrounds them by the life of the Church in which
they live but a redemption in which they must actively participate, in which
they must "walk" if they are to obtain and receive the final work of redemption,
the union of man and God in love, in goodness, in truth. The "walk" is an
obvious expression of activity, of movement toward a goal. In Galatians 6:2 St.
Paul links the commandment of love and the "walking " in the Spirit with "the
law of Christ." "And thus you will fulfill the law of Christ" - real ούτως
αναπληρώσετε τον νόμον του Χριστου. The very language of "the law of Christ" and
the "fulfilling" of that law" is theologically significant, for "the law of
Christ" refers to everything communicated to the Church through Christ. The
monastic and ascetical life is precisely such an attempt to fulfill this "law of
Christ." His concluding thought in Galatians is: "Peace and mercy upon those
many who will walk by this rule" - και οσοι τω κανόνι τούτω στοιχήσουσιν, ειρήνη
έπ’ αυτούς και έλεος. The "new creation" about which St. Paul speaks is both an
already accomplished redemptive reality and, for us as individuals with
spiritual freedom, the "new creation" - καινή κτίσις - is a reality which must
be "formed," a reality which can come about only through process, when the
subjective reality of each person is "formed" into the objective reality of the
"new creation" wrought by our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephesians In Ephesians 1:14 St. Paul uses extremely interesting language in
relationship to our "salvation" in Christ "in whom we believed and thereafter
were sealed with the Holy Spirit "who is an earnest of our inheritance unto
redemption of the possession" - ός εστίν άρραβών της κληρονομιάς ημών, εις
άπολυτρωσιν της περιποιήσεως. The meaning here is clear: the seal of the Holy
Spirit is the "deposit" toward an inheritance of which we take possession when
we acquire it. It is a dynamic text. That possession of such an inheritance
requires that we walk in "good works" in clear in Ephesians 2:10 :"For we are a
product of him, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God previously
prepared in order that we might walk in them" - αυτόυ γαρ έσμεν ποίημα,
κτισθέντες εν Χριστώ Ιησου έπη έργοις αγαθοίς, οις προητοίμασεν ό Θεος ίνα εν
αυτοίς περιπατήσωμεν. In Ephesians 6:11 St. Paul again uses the image of warfare
and of putting on the "whole armor of God" - ένδύσασθε την πανοπλίαν του θεου.
The "walk" is evoked again in Ephesians 5:8 and Ephesians 5:15. "Walk as
children of the light" - ως τέκνα φωτός περιπατείτε. "See, therefore, that you
walk carefully" - βλέπετε oυν ακριβώς πώς περιπατείτε. In Ephesians 5:9 he
writes that "the fruit of the light [is] in all goodness and righteousness and
truth" - ό γαρ καρπός του φωτός εν πάση αγαθωσυνη και δικαιοσύνη και άληθεία. It
is the "walking in the light" that produces "the fruit" which is all goodness,
righteousness and truth" and this is described as "proving what is well-pleasing
to the Lord" - δοκιμάζοντες τι έστιν ευάρεστον. In Ephesians 5:14 St. Paul
quotes from what was probably a hymn of the early Church, a text which has the
ring of a monastic motif to it. "Rise, sleeping one" - έγειρε, ό καθεύδων. And
to what purpose ought one to rise? In Ephesians 5:1 he commands us to "be
therefore imitators of God" - γίνεσθε oυv μιμητοί τον θεον. In Ephesians 4:23
St. Paul writes that we are "to be renewed in the spirit of your mind" -
άνανεουσθαι δε τω πνεύματι τον νοός - and "to put on the new man" - και
έδύσασθαι τον καινόν άνθρωπον. He begs us in Ephesians 4:1 "to walk worthily of
the calling with which you were called" - άξίως περί πzατησαι της κλησεως ης
έκλήθητε. In Ephesians 4:15 he exhorts that "we may grow into him [Christ] in
all respects" - αύξήσωμεν εις αυτόν τα πάντα. In Ephesians 6:18 St. Paul
stresses the importance of prayer. "By means of all prayer and petition, praying
at every time" - δια πάσης προσευχής και δεησεως, προσευχόμενοι εν παντί καιρώ.
All these are aspects of the monastic and ascetical life.

Philippians The Epistle to the Philippians contains many expressions that
directly relate to an active spiritual life. In Php 1:25 he speaks of "advance
and joy of the faith" - προκοπήν και χαράν της πίστεως. In Php 1:27 he speaks of
"conducting" oneself "worthily of the Gospel" - μόνον άξέως του ευαγγελίου του
Χρίστου πολιτεύεσθε. "Stand in one spirit, with one soul striving together in
the faith of the Gospel" - στήκετε εν ένι πνεύματι, μια ψυχή συναθλουντες τη
πίστει του ευαγγελίου. Here is the "striving" so disliked by Nygren. For St.
Paul we are required not only to believe but also to suffer. In Php 1:29 he
writes: "ου μόνον το εις αυτόν πιστεύειν, άλλα και το υπέρ αυτού πάσχειν." And
he refers to this as a "struggle," an "ordeal" - αγώνα. In Php 2:16 he speaks of
the possibility of "running and laboring in vain" - ότι ουκ εις κενόν έδραμον
ουδέ εις κενόν έκοπίασα. In Php 3:8 St. Paul speaks of "gaining Christ" - ίνα
Χριστόν κερδήσω - and this within the context of the "righteousness of the law"
as opposed to the "righteousness based on faith" - δικαιοσύνην έπι τη πίστει.Php
3:11-16 is one of the more interesting texts. "If somehow I may attain to the
resurrection out of the dead. Not that I received already or already have been
perfected, but I follow if indeed I may lay hold, in as much as I was laid hold
of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, not yet do I reckon myself to have laid hold. But
one thing [I do], forgetting on one hand the things behind, and stretching
forward on the other hand to the things which are ahead, I follow the mark for
the prize of the heavenly calling of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, as many as
[are] perfect, let us think this... Nevertheless, to what we arrived, let us
walk by the same" - ει πως καταντησω εις την εξαναστασιν των νεκρων. ουχ οτι ηδη
ελαβον η ηδη τετελειωμαι διωκω δε ει και καταλαβω εφ ω και κατεληφθην υπο του
χριστου ιησου. αδελφοι εγω εμαυτον ου λογιζομαι κατειληφεναι εν δε τα μεν οπισω
επιλανθανομενος τοις δε εμπροσθεν επεκτεινομενος. κατα σκοπον διωκω επι το
βραβειον της ανω κλησεως του θεου εν χριστω ιησου. οσοι ουν τελειοι τουτο
φρονωμεν και ει τι ετερως φρονειτε και τουτο ο θεος υμιν αποκαλυψει. πλην εις ο
εφθασαμεν τω αυτω στοιχειν κανονι το αυτο φρονειν. Here St. Paul speaks both of
laying hold of Christ and being "laid hold of by Christ." The synergistic
activity is obvious and realistic. All the language in the passage indicates and
underscores the activity of God and the activity of man, of the objective
reality of an achieved redemption and man’s process of "laying hold," of
"stretching forward" to the ultimate goal, a goal unachievable if man does not
become spiritually active. The Greek verbal structures of "I may attain" and "I
may lay hold of are not without meaning. In Php 4:8-9 St. Paul speaks
universally as he does in Romans 1:1-32. "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever
things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovable, whatsoever things are well-spoken of, if there be
any virtue, and if there be any praise, consider these things" - όσα εστίν
αληθή, οσα σεμνά, όσα δίκαια, όσα αγνά, όσα προσφιλή, οσα εύφημα, ει τις αρετή
και ει τις έπαινος, ταύτα λογίζεσθε. These qualities - the true, the just, the
pure, the lovable - are not qualities which have been revolutionized by the new
creation wrought by the Incarnation of the God-Man, they have not come into
existence nor been revolutionized by Christian thought. Rather, they are within
the very texture of human nature and existence, things that every conscience
knows spontaneously. What Christianity has done, however, is to break forth a
new path for mankind to participate in the true, the just, the pure in a new way
and with a new power through Christ. They now no longer exist as ideals, as the
absolute, but are existentially and ontologically accessible to human nature
through redemption. St. Paul speaks almost a Platonic language here, and yet it
is thoroughly Christian.

Colossians In St. Paul’s Epistle to theColossians 1:22-23; Colossians 1:29 the
realism of synergy is depicted. "But now he reconciled in the body of his flesh
through his death to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before
him, if indeed you continue in the faith having been founded and steadfast and
not being moved away from the hope of the Gospel which you heard" - νυνι δε
αποκατηλλαξεν εν τω σωματι της σαρκος αυτου δια του θανατου, παραστησαι υμας
αγιους και αμωμους και ανεγκλητους κατενωπιον αυτου, ει γε επιμενετε τη πιστει
τεθεμελιωμενοι και εδραιοι και μη μετακινουμενοι απο της ελπιδος του ευαγγελιου
ου ηκουσατε. The objective reconciliation now exists but in order to participate
in it one must be found holy, blameless, and irreproachable, and this is all
contingent upon the significant "if - "if indeed you continue in the faith." In
Colossians 1:29 we encounter the ideas of "maturity," "labor," and "struggle" or
"ordeal." "In order that we may present every man mature in Christ, for which
also I labor struggling according to his energy energizing in me in power" -
ιναπαραστήσωμεν πάντα άνθρωπον τέλειον εν Χριστφ, εις ο και κοπιω αγωνιζόμενος
κατά την ένέργειαν αυτόυ την ένεργονμένην εν έμοι εν δυνάμει.Colossians 1:10
expresses the same idea of "worth," of "pleasing" God, of "bearing fruit in
every good work," and of "increasing in the knowledge of God" - περιπατησαι
άξίως του κυρίου εις πάσαν άρεσκέίαν, εν παντί έργω άγαθω καρποφορουντες και
αυξανόμενοι τη έπιγνωσει του θεου. But the very power comes from the might of
the glory of God. "With all power dynamized according to the might of his glory"
- εν πάση δυνάμει δυναμούμενοι κατά το κράτος της δόξης αυτόυ.Colossians 2:6-7
expresses also the two spiritual wills and activities in the process of
redemption. "As therefore you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, and
being confirmed in the faith as you were taught" - ως ουν παρελάβετε τον Χριστόν
Ιησουν τον κύριον, εν αύτω περιπατείτε, έρριζωμένοι και έποικοδομούμενοι εν αύτω
και βεβαιούμενοι τη πίστει καθώς έδιδάχθητε. The depth of the idea of synergy is
found not only in co-dying and co-suffering with Christ but also in
co-resurrection with him. In Colossians 3:1 St. Paul writes: "If therefore you
were co-raised with Christ, seek the things above" - ει ουν συνηγέρθητε τω
Χριστώ, τα άνω ζητείτε. St. Paul continues the use of many imperative
exhortations in chapter 3. "Put to death therefore your members on earth:
fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness which is
idolatry" (5). "Put away now all things..." - νυνι δε άπόθεσθε και νμεις τα
πάντα (8). And then the command (Colossians 4:2) to continue in prayer and vigil
- τη προσευχη προσκαρτερείτε, γρηγορονντες.

I and II Thessalonians In I Thessalonians St. Paul continues this second aspect
of the redemptive process by referring to the "work of faith" (1 Thessalonians
1:3), by expressing concern that "labor may be in vain" (1 Thessalonians 3:5),
by exhortating "if you stand in the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 3:8), by exhortating
that the "breastplate of faith and love" be put on (1 Thessalonians 5:8), and by
commanding to test everything, to hold fast to what is good, to abstain from
every form of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22). In 1 Thessalonians 3:10 St. Paul
writes: "Praying exceedingly night and day... to adjust the shortcomings of your
faith" - νυκτος και ήμερας υπερεκπερισσου δεόμενοι... και καταρτίσαι τα
υστερήματα της πίστεως υμών. Why the need to adjust the shortcomings of faith,
if faith "alone" is the sole criterion of salvation, as is held by certain
schools of theology rooted in the tradition of the Reformation? In 1
Thessalonians 4:4-5 St. Paul writes interestingly. "For this is the will of God:
your sanctification... that each one of you know how to possess his vessel in
sanctification and honor" - τουτο γαρ εστίν θέλημα του θεού, ό αγιασμός υμών...
ειδέναι έκαστον υμών το εαυτού σκευος κτάσθαι εν άγιασμώ και τιμή. The goal here
of the spiritual life in Christ is sanctification and the significant text is to
"know how to possess" this "vessel." Such language expresses the dynamism of a
synergistic process of redemption. In 1 Thessalonians 5:9 St. Paul uses the
expression "unto the obtaining of salvation" - εις περιποίησιν σωτηρίας. In 2
Thessalonians 2:14 St. Paul uses the expression "unto obtaining of the glory of
our Lord" - εις περιποίησιν δόξης του κυρίιου ημών. In 2 Thessalonians 1:11 St.
Paul prays that they may be deemed worthy of the calling and that they may
fulfill every "good pleasure of goodness and work of faith in power" - ινα υμας
αξιωση της κλησεως ο θεος ημων και πληρωση πασαν ευδοκιαν αγαθωσυνης και εργον
πιστεως εν δυναμει.

I and II Timothy In 1 Timothy 1:5-6 we read: "Now the end of the charge is love
out of a pure heart and a good conscience and unpretended faith, from which
things some, missing aim, turned aside" - το δε τέλος της παραγγελίας εστίν
αγάπη εκ καθαράς καρδίας και συνειδήσεως αγαθής και νίστεως ανυπόκριτου, ων
τινες άστοχήσαντες έξετράπησαν. In 1 Timothy 1:18-19 the image of warfare is
again used. "This charge I commit to you, child Timothy... in order that you
might war by them the good warfare, having faith and a good conscience, which
some, thrusting away, have made shipwreck concerning the faith" - ταυτην την
παραγγελιαν παρατιθεμαι σοι, τεκνον τιμοθεε, κατα τας προαγουσας επι σε
προφητειας, ινα στρατευη εν αυταις την καλην στρατειαν, εχων πιστιν και αγαθην
συνειδησιν, ην τινες απωσαμενοι περι την πιστιν εναυαγησαν.1 Timothy 2:1-4 has
the same intensity of spiritual activity found in monastic and ascetical
literature: "I exhort, therefore, first of all, that petitions, prayers,
intercessions, and Eucharist’s be made on behalf of all men, on behalf of kings
and all those in high positions, in order that we may lead a peaceable and quiet
life in all piety and seriousness. This is good and acceptable before God our
Savior, who wishes all men to be saved and to come to a full knowledge of truth"
- παρακαλω ουν πρωτον παντων ποιεισθαι δεησεις, προσευχας, εντευξεις,
ευχαριστιας, υπερ παντων ανθρωπω,ν υπερ βασιλεων και παντων των εν υπεροχη
οντων, ινα ηρεμον και ησυχιον βιον διαγωμεν εν παση ευσεβεια και σεμνοτητι.
τουτο καλον και αποδεκτον ενωπιον του σωτηρος ημων θεου ος παντας ανθρωπους
θελει σωθηναι και εις επιγνωσιν αληθειας ελθειν. The same emphasis continues in
1 Timothy 4:7-10, especially the expressions "exercise yourself - γύμναζε δε
σεαυτόν, and "for unto this we labor and struggle" - εις τούτο γαρ κοπιώμεν και
άγωνιζόμεθα.1 Timothy 6:11-12 again stresses the "struggle," that "laying hold"
of that which has been objectively accomplished in redemption. "Struggle the
good struggle of the faith, lay hold on eternal life" - αγωνίσου τον καλόν αγώνα
της πίστεως, έπιλαβου της αιωνίου ζωής. And in the verse preceding this one is
commanded "to pursue righteousness, piety, faith, love, endurance, meekness" -
δίωκε δέ δικαιοσύνην, εύσέβειαν, πίστιν, άγάπην, ύπομονήν, πραυπαθίαιν. What
spiritual meaning can the "pursuit of righteousness" have unless it in fact
indicates that, although the "righteousness of God" is established in Christ
Jesus, we still must actively struggle in spiritual warfare in order to "lay
hold on" this "righteousness"? Already in 1 Timothy 5:9 it is clear that
"widows" of a certain age had a special place within the spiritual life of the
Church. "Let a widow be enrolled" - χήρακαταλεγέσυω. Enrolled into what? It is
obviously a special activity within the spiritual life of the Church to which
widows were enrolled, already a special form of spiritual activity in the
earliest life of the Church. In 2 Timothy 1:6 both the objective reality of the
gift of redemption and the subjective, individual work necessary to "lay hold
on" this redemptive work are clearly apparent. "I remind you to fan the flame of
the gift of God, which is in you" - άναμιμνήσκω σε άναζωπυρείν το χάρισμα του
θεού, ο εστίν εν σοι. The synergy of redemption is spoken of in 2 Timothy
2:11-12 with the all-significant "if." "For if we co-died with him, we shall
also co-live with him; if we endure, we shall also co-reign with him" - ει γαρ
συναπεθάνομεν, και συζήσομεν,ει υπομένομεν, και συμβασιλεύσομεν. In 2 Timothy
2:21 sanctification is contingent upon self-purification. "If, therefore, anyone
purifies himself... he will be a vessel unto honor, having been sanctified" -
εάν ουν τις έκκαθάρη εαυτόν... έσται σκεύος εις τιμήν, ήγιασμένον. In 2 Timothy
2:22 again we are exhorted to "flee youthful lusts" and "to pursue
righteousness, faith, love, peace" and the "calling on the Lord" must be done
"out of a pure heart" - τάς δε νεωτερικάς επιθυμίας φεύγε, δίωκε δε δικαιοσύνης
πίστιν, αγάπην, είρήνην μετά των επικαλουμένων τον κύριον εκ καθαρας καρδίας. In
2 Timothy 4:7 the path of salvation is presented again as a struggle. "I have
struggled the good struggle, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith"
- τον καλόν αγώνα ήγώνισμαι, τον δρόμον τετέλεκα, την πίστιν τετήρηκα.

Hebrews The Epistle to the Hebrews is rich in its thought on both aspects of
redemption - on the work of God, and on the spiritual struggle on the part of
man. In Hebrews 3:14 the language is striking. "For we have become sharers of
Christ, if indeed we hold fast the beginning of the foundation until the end" -
μέτοχοι γαρ του Χρίστου γεγόναμεν, έάνπερ την αρχήν της υποστάσεως μέχρι τέλους
βεβαίαν κατάσχωμεν. In Hebrews 4:1 the idea is similar. "Let us fear, therefore,
lest a promise being left to enter into his rest, any of you seems to have come
short" - φοβηθώμεν ουν μήποτε καταλειπομένης επαγγελίας είσελθειν εις την
κατάπαυσιν αυτού δοκη τις έξ υμών υστερηκέναι. The idea of "entering this rest"
is continued in Hebrews 4:11. "Let us be eager, therefore, to enter into that
rest, lest anyone falls in the same example of disobedience" - σπουδάσωμεν ουν
είσελθειν εις-έκείνην την κατάπαυσιν, ίνα μη εν τω αύτω τις υποδείγματι πέση της
απείθειας. In Hebrews 6:1 "the beginning" of the process is spoken of,
accompanied by the exhortation: "let us be borne on to maturity" - επί την
τελειότητα φερώμεθα. In Hebrews 6:11 one must show eagerness to the "full
assurance of the hope unto the end" - ένδείκνυσθαι σπουδήν προς την πληροφορίαν
τής ελπίδος άχρι τέλους. The same exhortations of "let us" are found throughout
Hebrews. In Hebrews 10:22-23 it is: "Let us approach with a true heart" and "Let
us hold fast the confession of our hope unyieldingly" - προσερχώμεθα μετά
αληθινής καρδίας... κατέχωμεν την όμολογίαν της έλπίδος άκλινη. In Hebrews 11:1
a definition of faith is preferred. "Now faith is the foundation of things being
hoped, the proof of things not being seen" - εστίν δε πίστις έλπιζομένων
υπόστασις, πραγμάτων έλεγχος ου βλεπομένων. This definition of faith is often
dismissed too readily. It is, a deep idea, especially when considered in its
original Greek structure. Faith is the "foundation," the "reality" upon which
the "hope" of the Christian faith is built. And in its reality it contains the
very proof, the evidence of the heavenly kingdom. The entire eleventh chapter
reveals that "faith" was active under the "old law," although the faith of and
in Christ is Of deeper ontological significance precisely because it is the
foundation into a new reality not available under the "old law." After a lengthy
exposition of examples of "faith" under the "old law," the Epistle to the
Hebrews in Hebrews 12:1 engages in an exhortation that concerns the very
spiritual activity of the new faith. "Putting away every hindrance and the most
besetting sin, let us run through endurance the struggle set before us" - ογκον
αποθεμένοι πάντα και την εύπερίστατον όμαρτίαν, δι υπομονής τρέχωμεν τον
προκείμενον ήμιν αγώνα. The reality of "discipline" is stressed in Hebrews,
especially in Hebrews 12:7 : "Endure unto disciple" - εις παιδείαν υπομένετε.
And that one can "fail from the grace of God" is clear from Hebrews 12:15 -
υστερών από της χάριτος του θεού.

Continued in Part 3


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 22: 17B - THE ASCETIC IDEAL & THE NT (PART 3)
========================================================================

The Ascetic Ideal and the New Testament Reflections on the Critique of the
Theology of the Reformation

(Part 3)

I and II Peter In 1 Peter 1:9 it is not the beginning of faith or faith in
general which results in salvation but it is precisely the "end of faith" which
"obtains" salvation - κομιζόμενοι το τέλος της πίστεως σωτηρίαν ψυχών.
Purification and obedience are dominant themes in I Peter. "Having purified your
souls in the obedience of truth unto an unpretended brotherly love, love one
another earnestly from the heart (1 Peter 1:22) - τας ψυχας υμων ηγνικοτες εν τη
υπακοη της αληθειας εις φιλαδελφιαν ανυποκριτον, εκ καρδιας αλληλους αγαπησατε
εκτενως. The process of growth in the spiritual life is stressed in 1 Peter 2:2
: "in order that... you may grow into salvation" - ίνα... αύξηθήτε εις σωτηρίαν.
The "war" between lust and the soul is spoken of in 1 Peter 2:11 :"I exhort you
as sojourners and aliens to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the
soul" - παρακαλω ως παροικους και παρεπιδημους απεχεσθαι των σαρκικων επιθυμιων,
αιτινες στρατευονται κατα της ψυχης. In 2 Peter 1:4 a profound theological
thought is expressed. The promises which God has given are great and precious;
corruption is in the world because of lust; and man can not only escape the
corruption but also become partakers or participators in the Divine nature, an
idea which is developed in early Christian and in Eastern Orthodox theological
thought, an idea which lays the foundation for the doctrine of theosis, of
divinization. "He has given to us precious and very great promises in order that
through these you might become partakers of the Divine nature, escaping from the
corruption that is in the world by lust" - τα τιμια και μεγιστα ημιν επαγγελματα
δεδωρηται, ινα δια τουτων γενησθε θειας κοινωνοι φυσεως, αποφυγοντες της εν τω
κοσμω εν επιθυμια φθορας. Precisely because of this we are instructed in the
following verses to supplement our faith, and then the dynamic spiritual process
of growth is presented. "And for this very reason bringing in all diligence,
supply in your faith virtue, and in virtue [supply] knowledge, and in knowledge
[supply] self-control, and in self-control [supply] endurance, and in endurance
[supply] piety, and in piety [supply] brotherly love, and in brotherly love
[supply] love" - και αυτο τουτο δε σπουδην πασαν παρεισενεγκαντες επιχορηγησατε
εν τη πιστει υμων την αρετην, εν δε τη αρετη την γνωσιν, εν δε τη γνωσει την
εγκρατειαν, εν δε τη εγκρατεια την υπομονην εν δε τη υπομονη την ευσεβειαν, εν
δε τη ευσεβεια την φιλαδελφιαν, εν δε τη φιλαδελφια την αγαπην. In 2 Peter 1:10
there is mention of one’s "calling" and "election." And yet in the very same
text one is exhorted to be "diligent" precisely to make this "calling and
election" firm. "Be diligent to make your calling and election firm" -
σπουδάσατε βεβαίαν υμών την κλήσιν και έκλογήν ποιεισθαι. And in 2 Peter 2:20-22
the falling away from the "way of righteousness" is not only possible, but it
actually takes place, and it is worse than had one not known the "way of
righteousness" at all. And the texts speaks about those who had a "full
knowledge of the Lord." "For if, having escaped the defilements of the world by
a full knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, these persons again have
been defeated, having been entangled, the last things have become to them worse
than the first. For it was better for them not to have fully known the way of
righteousness than, fully knowing, to turn from the holy commandment delivered
to them. It has happened to them" - ει γαρ αποφυγοντες τα μιασματα του κοσμου εν
επιγνωσει του κυριου και σωτηρος ιησου χριστου τουτοις δε παλιν εμπλακεντες
ηττωνται, γεγονεν αυτοις τα εσχατα χειρονα των πρωτων. κρειττον γαρ ην αυτοις μη
επεγνωκεναι την οδον της δικαιοσυνης η επιγνουσιν υποστρεψαι εκ της παραδοθεισης
αυτοις αγιας εντολης. συμβεβηκεν αυτοις… The Epistles of St. John In the three
Epistles of St. John we encounter the same language, the same reality of the two
aspects of redemption. The same "ifs" are there, the same emphasis of
purification (see 1 John 3:3), the same language about "pleasing God," and the
same emphasis on "keeping the commandment" and "not sinning." There is an
organic link between loving God and keeping his commandments - the full range of
the commandments of Christ. The Epistle of St. James and Luther’s Evaluation

Luther’s attitude toward the Epistle of St. James is well-known. In fact, Luther
positioned not only James at the end of the German Bible but also Hebrews, Jude,
and Revelation. And his criterion was that they lacked evangelical "purity." He
was not the first to do so. His colleague at Wittenberg, upon whom Luther later
turned, Carlstadt, had distinguished among the books of the New Testament - and
the Old Testament - before Luther took his own action. As early as 1520
Carlstadt divided the entirety of Scripture into three categories: libri summae
dignitatis, in which Carstadt included the Pentateuch as well as the Gospels;
libri secundae dignitatis, in which he included the Prophets and fifteen
epistles; and libri tertiae dignitatis.

Luther rejected the Epistle of St. James theologically but of necessity retained
it in the German Bible, even if as a kind of appendix. The ending of Luther’s
Preface to his edition of the German Bible, which was omitted in later editions,
reads in the German of his time: "Summa, Sanct Johannis Evangel, und seine erste
Epistel, Sanct Paulus Epistel, sonderlich die zu den Romern, Galatern, Ephesern,
und Sanct Peters erste Epistel. Das sind die Bucher, die der Christum zeigen,
und alles lehren, das dir zu wissen noth und selig ist ob du sohon kein ander
Buch noch Lehre nummer sehest and horist. Darumb ist Sanct Jakobs Epistel ein
recht strohern Epistel, gegen sie, denn sie doch kein evangelisch Art an ihr
hat" - "for that reason St. James’ Epistle is a thoroughly straw epistle, for it
has indeed no evangelical merit to it." Luther rejected it theologically
"because it gives righteousness to works in outright contradiction to Paul and
all other Scriptures... because, while undertaking to teach Christian people, it
does not once mention the passion, the resurrection, the Spirit of Christ; it
names Christ twice, but teaches nothing about him; it calls the law a law of
liberty, while Paul calls it a law of bondage, of wrath, of death and of sin."

Luther even added the word "alone" - allein - in Romans 3:28 before "through
faith" - durch den Glauben - precisely to counter the words in James 2:24 :"You
see that a man is justified by works and not by faith only" - οράτε ότι εξ έργων
δικαιούται άνθρωπος και ουκ εκ πίστεως μόνον. What is more is that Luther became
very aggressive and arrogant in his response to the criticism that he had added
"alone" to the Biblical text. "If your papist makes much useless fuss about the
word sola, allein, tell him at once: Doctor Martin Luther will have it so and
says: Papist and donkey are one thing; sic volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione
voluntas. For we do not want to be pupils and followers of the Papists, but
their masters and judges." Luther continues in a bantering manner in an attempt
to imitate St. Paul in the latter’s response to his opponents. "Are they
doctors? So am I. Are they learned? So am I. Are they preachers? So am I. Are
they theologians? So am I. Are they philosophers? So am I. Are they writers of
books? So am I. And I shall further boast: I can expound Psalms and Prophets;
which they cannot. I can translate; which they cannot... Therefore the word
allein shall remain in my New Testament, and though all pope-donkeys should get
furious and foolish, they shall not get the word out." In some German editions
the word "allein" was printed in larger type! Some critics of Luther’s
translation have accused him of deliberately translating inaccurately to support
his theological view. As early as 1523 Dr. Emser, an opponent of Luther, claimed
that Luther’s translation contained "a thousand grammatical and fourteen hundred
heretical errors." This is exaggerated but the fact does remain that there are
numerous errors in Luther’s translation.

Indeed, the entire Reformation in its attitude towards the New Testament is
directly in opposition to the thought on this subject of St. Augustine, who was
highly esteemed in many respects by the Reformation theologians and from whom
they took the basis for some of the theological visions, especially
predestination, original sin, and irresistible grace for Luther and Calvin. On
this subject, as on some many others, there is no common ground between Luther
and Calvin on the one hand and St. Augustine on the other. St. Augustine wrote:
"I should not believe the Gospel except as moved by the authority of the Church"
- ego evangelio non crederem, nisime moveret ecclesiae auctoritas. It should be
pointed out that Calvin did not take objection to the Epistle of St. James.

Luther was so caught up in the abstraction of a passive righteousness, so
infuriated by his experience as a monk in practicing what he would refer to as
"righteousness of works," so caught up in attempting to create a specific
meaning to one line of the thought of St. Paul that he misses the very
foundation from which the theological thought of St. James comes forth - and
that is the initiative and will of God. Luther’s criticism that St. James does
not mention the passion, the resurrection, and the Spirit of Christ is inane,
for his readers knew the apostolic deposit - there was no need to mention the
very basis and essence of the living faith which was known to those reading the
epistle. Such a criticism by Luther reveals the enormous lack of a sense for the
historical life of the early Church, for the Church was in existence and it is
from the Church and to the Church that the epistles are written. Historically,
the Church existed before any texts of the "new covenant" were written. The
Church existed on the oral tradition received from the apostles, as is clearly
revealed from the pages of the New Testament itself. The very foundation of the
theological vision of St. James is the will of God. In James 1:17-18 St. James
writes: "Every good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down
from the Father of lights, with whom change has no place, no turning, no shadow.
Having willed, he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind
of firstfruits of his creatures" -πασα δοσις αγαθη και παν δωρημα τελειον ανωθεν
εστιν, καταβαινον απο του πατρος των φωτων, παρ ω ουκ ενι παραλλαγη η τροπης
αποσκιασμα. βουληθεις απεκυησεν ημας λογω αληθειας εις το ειναι ημας απαρχην
τινα των αυτου κτισματων. In James 4:15 St. James writes: "You are instead to
say: if the Lord wills, we will both live and will do this or that" - αντί του
λέγειν υμάς εάν ό κύριος θέληση, και ζήσομεν και ποιήσομεν τοντο ή εκείνο.

One theologically weak text in the Epistle ofSt. James is in James 4:8 : "Draw
near to God and he will draw near to you "Taken by itself it has a Pelagian ring
to it. And in monastic and ascetical literature one often encounters such
expressions. But the meaning in both this epistle and in monastic and ascetical
literature must be understood within their total context. Once the synergism of
the redemptive process takes place in the human heart, then the existential
reciprocity of grace and response is so dynamic that one can, as it were, use
such expressions, precisely because it is assumed that God has initiated and
that grace is always at work in the human heart, in all the depths of the
interior of man as well as in external life. The text in the Epistle of St.
James must be understood within the context of James 1:18 and James 4:15.
Moreover, it is to be noted that this text is preceded by "Be subject,
therefore, to God" - υποτάγητε ουν τω Θεω. In being "subject to God," a
relationship is already in place, a relationship which presupposes the
initiative of God and the response of man. The Epistle of St. James contains
many expressions that will be used in monastic and ascetical life. Temptation
(James 1:14), the passions (James 4:1), purifying, cleansing, humbling oneself
(4), and "be distressed and mourn and weep" (James 4:9) - ταλαιπωρήσατε και
πενθήσατε και κλαύσατε. The excoriating words against the rich (James 5:1-6)
undergird the monastic vow of poverty. The Life of the Early Church The life of
the early Church as described in the Acts of the Apostles is so clear that no
analysis or presentation of texts is necessary to demonstrate that the
essentials exist for a form of spirituality similar to that of monastic and
ascetical Christianity. Mention should also be made of the life of St. John the
Baptist. "It is on solid grounds that a student of monastic origins like Dom
Germain Morin upheld his apparent paradox: it is not so much the monastic life
which was a novelty at the end of the third century and the beginning of the
fourth, but rather the life of adaptation to the world led by the mass of
Christians at the time when the persecutions ceased. The monks actually did
nothing but preserve intact, in the midst of altered circumstances, the ideal of
the Christian life of early days... And there is another continuous chain from
the apostles to the solitaries and then to the cenobites, whose ideal, less
novel than it seems, spread so quickly from the Egyptian deserts at the end of
the third century. This chain is constituted by the men and women who lived in
continence, ascetics and virgins, who never ceased to be held in honor in the
ancient Church."

*** *** *** From the Collected Works of Georges Florovsky, Vol. X, the Byzantine
Ascetic and Spiritual Fathers (Vaduz, Europa: Buchervertriebsanstalt, 1987), pp.
17-59. This same chapter is duplicated in Vol. XIII on pp. 102-133. This chapter
is copyrighted, though the book is out of print.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 23: 18 - THE "IMMORTALITY" OF THE SOUL
========================================================================

The “Immortality” of the Soul

Introduction.

Are Christians, as Christians, necessarily committed to the belief in the
Immortality of the human soul? And what does Immortality actually mean in the
Christian universe of discourse? These questions are by no means just rhetorical
ones. Etienne Gilson, in his Gifford lectures, felt himself compelled to make
the following startling statement: “On the whole,” he said, “Christianity
without an Immortality of the soul is not altogether inconceivable, the proof is
that it has been so conceived. What is, on the contrary, absolutely
inconceivable, is Christianity without a Resurrection of Man.” The striking
feature of the early history of the Christian doctrine of Man was that many of
the leading writers of the second century seem to have emphatically denied the
(natural) immortality of the soul. And this does not seem to be an exceptional
or extravagant opinion of certain writers only, but rather the common teaching
of the age. Nor was this conviction completely abandoned in a later age. Bishop
Anders Nygren, in his famous book, Den kristna karlekstanken genom tiderna,
praises the Apologists of the second century precisely for this courageous
statement and sees in it an expression of the true Evangelical spirit. The main
emphasis was then, as in Nygren’s opinion it should ever be, rather on the
“Resurrection of the body” than on the “Immortality of the soul.” An Anglican
erudite of the 17th century, Henry Dodwell (1641-1711, one-time Camden
“Praelector” of History in the University of Oxford), published in London a
curious book, under a rather bewildering title: An Epistolary Discourse,
proving, from the Scriptures and the First Fathers, that the Soul is a Principle
naturally Mortal; but immortalized actually by the Pleasure of God, to
Punishment; or to Reward, by its Union with the Divine Baptismal Spirit. Wherein
is proved, that None have the Power of giving this Divine Immortalizing Spirit,
since the Apostles, but only the Bishops (1706).

Dodwell’s argument was often confused and involved. The main value of the book,
however, was in its immense erudition. Dodwell, probably for the first time,
collected an enormous mass of information on the early Christian doctrine of
Man, even if he could not use it properly himself. And he was quite right in his
contention that Christianity was not concerned with a natural “Immortality,” but
rather with the soul’s supernatural Communion with God, “Who only hath
immortality” (1 Timothy 6:16). No wonder that Dodwell’s book provoked a violent
controversy. A formal charge of heresy was brought against the author. Yet, he
found some fervent supporters. And an anonymous writer, “a Presbyter of the
Church of England,” published two books on the subject, presenting a careful
study of the Patristic evidence that “the Holy Spirit (was) the Author of
Immortality, or Immortality (was) a Peculiar Grace of the Gospel, (and) no
Natural Ingredient of the soul,” and that “Immortality (was) preternatural to
Human Souls, the Gift of Jesus Christ, collated by the Holy Spirit in Baptism.”
What was of special interest in that controversy was that Dodwell’s thesis was
opposed chiefly by the “liberals” of that day, and his greatest literary
opponent was the famous Samuel Clarke, of St. James, Westminster, a follower of
Newton and a correspondent of Leibniz, notorious for his unorthodox beliefs and
ideas, a typical man of the age of Latitudinarianism and Enlightenment. It was
an unusual sight: “Immortality” contested by an “Orthodox” and defended by a
Latitudinarian. In fact, it was rather what one should have expected. The belief
in a natural Immortality was one of the few basic “dogmas” of the enlightened
Deism of that time. A man of the Enlightenment could easily dismiss the
doctrines of Revelation, but could not afford any doubt on the “truth” of
Reason. Gilson suggested that “what is known under the name of the “Moralist”
doctrine of the 17th century was originally a return to the position of the
Early Fathers and not, as seems to be usually believed, a manifestation of a
libertine spirit.” As a general statement, it is untenable. The whole situation
in the 17th century was much more complex and mixed up than Gilson apparently
surmised. Yet, in the case of Dodwell (and some others) Gilson’s guess is fully
vindicated. There was an obvious “return to the positions of the First Fathers.”
The Soul as “Creature.”

St. Justin, in his Dialogue with Trypho, tells the story of his conversion. In
his quest for truth he went first to Philosophers, and for a time was fully
satisfied with the teaching of Platonists. “The perception of incorporeal things
quite overwhelmed me, and the Platonic theory of ideas added wing to my mind.”
Then he met a Christian teacher, an elderly and respectable man. Among the
questions raised in the course of their conversation was that of the nature of
the soul. We should not call the soul immortal, contended the Christian. “For,
if it were, we would certainly have to call it unbegotten also,” i athanatosesti
ke agennitos. This was, of course, the thesis of the Platonists. Now, God alone
is “unbegotten” and immortal, and it is for that very reason that He is Divine.
The world, on the other hand, is “begotten,” and the souls make part of it.
“Perhaps, there was a time when they were not in existence.” And therefore they
are not immortal, “since the world has appeared to us to be begotten.” The soul
is not life by itself, but only “partakes” of life. God alone is life, the soul
can but have life. “For the power to live is not an attribute of the soul, as it
is of God.” Moreover, God gives life to souls, “as He pleases.” All created
things “have the nature of decay, and are such as may be blotted out and cease
to exist.” Creatures as such are “corruptible” (Dial. 5 and 6). The main
classical proofs of immortality, derived from Phaedo and Phaedrus, are disavowed
and declined, and their basic presuppositions openly rejected. As Professor A.
E. Taylor pointed out, “to the Greek mind athanasia or aftharsia regularly
signified much the same things as “divinity” and included the conception of
ingenerability as well as of indestructibility. To say “the soul is immortal”
would be for a Greek the same as to say “it is uncreated,” i.e., eternal and
“divine.” Everything that had a beginning was bound to have an end. In other
words, for a Greek, “immortality” of the soul would immediately imply its
“eternity,” i.e., an eternal “pre-existence.” Only that which had no beginning
could last for ever. Christians could not comply with this “philosophical”
assumption, as they believed in Creation, and therefore they had to deny
“immortality” (in the Greek meaning of the word). The soul is not an independent
or self-governing being, but precisely a creature, and its very existence it
owes to God, the Creator. Accordingly, it cannot be “immortal” by nature, i.e.,
by itself, but only by “God’s pleasure,” i.e., by grace. The “philosophical”
argument for (natural) “immortality” was based on the “necessity” of existence.
On the contrary, to say that the world is created is to emphasize, first of all,
its radical contingency, and precisely - contingency in the order of existence.
In other words, a created world is a world which might not have existed at all.
That is to say that the world is, utterly and entirely, ab alio, and in no sense
a se.” As Gilson puts it, “there are some beings that are radically different
from God at least in this that, unlike Him, they might not have existed, and
still may, at a certain time, cease to exist.” “May cease,” however, does not
mean necessarily “will [actually] cease.” St. Justin was not a “conditionalist,”
and his name has been invoked by the defenders of a “conditional immortality”
quite in vain. “I do not say, indeed, that all souls die.” The whole argument
was polemical, and its purpose was to stress belief in Creation. We find the
same reasoning in other writings of the second century. St. Theophilus of
Antioch insisted on the “neutral” character of Man. “By nature,” Man is neither
“immortal” nor “mortal,” but rather “capable of both,” dektikon amfoteron. “For
if God had made him immortal from the beginning, He would have made him God.” If
Man from the beginning had chosen things immortal, in obedience to God’s
commandments, he would have been rewarded with immortality and have become God,
“an adoptive God,” deus assumptus,Theos anadihthis (Ad Autolycum II, 24 and 27).
Tatian went even further. “The soul is not in itself immortal, O Greeks, but
mortal. Yet it is possible for it not to die” (Oratio ad Graecos, 13). The
thought of the early Apologists was not free from contradictions, nor was it
always accurately expressed. But the main contention was always clear: the
problem of human immortality had to be faced in the context of the doctrine of
Creation. One may say also: not as a metaphysical problem only, but as a
religious one, first of all. “Immortality” is not an attribute of the soul, but
something that ultimately depends upon man’s actual relationship with God, his
Master and Creator. Not only the ultimate destiny of Man can be achieved only in
Communion with God, but even Man’s existence itself and his “survival” or
endurance depend upon God’s will. St. Irenaeus continued the same tradition. In
his struggle against the Gnostics he had a special motive to emphasize the
creaturely character of the soul. It does not come from “another world,” exempt
from corruption; it belongs precisely to this created world. It has been
contended, says St. Irenaeus, that in order to stay in existence souls had to be
“unbegotten” (sed oportere eas aut innascibiles esse ut sint immortales), for
otherwise they would have to die with the body (vel si generationis initium
acceperint, cum corpore mori). He declines this argument. As creatures, the
souls “endure as long as God wills them to endure” (perseverant autem quoadusque
eas Deus et esse, et perseverare voluerit). Perseverantia here obviously
corresponds to the Greek: diamoni. St. Irenaeus uses almost the same phrases as
St. Justin. The soul is not life by itself; it partakes of life, by the grant of
God (sic et anima quidem non est vita, participatur autem a Deo sibi praestitam
vitam). God alone is Life and the only Giver of Life (Adversus haereses II,
34.). Even Clement of Alexandria, in spite of his Platonism, would occasionally
recall that the soul was not immortal “by nature” (Adumbrationes in I Petri 1:9:
hinc apparet quoniam non est naturaliter anima incorruptibilis, sed gartia Dei
... perficitur incorruptibilis). St. Athanasius would demonstrate the
immortality of the soul by arguments which can be traced back to Plato (Adv.
Gentes, 33), and yet he insisted very strongly that everything created is “by
nature” unstable and exposed to destruction (ibidem, 41; fysin revstinusan ke
dialyomeni). Even St. Augustine was aware of the necessity to qualify the
immortality of the soul: Anima hominis immortalis est secundum quendam modum
suum; non enim omni modo sicut Deus (Epist. VFF, ad Hieronymum). “According to
the mutability of this life, it may be said to be mortal.” (In Jo., tr. 23, 9;
cf. De Trinitate, 19.15, and De Civ. Dei, 19.3: mortalis in quantum mutabilis).
St. John of Damascus says that even Angels are immortal not by nature, but only
by grace (De fide orth. II, 3; u fysi allahariti), and proves it more or less in
the same way as the Apologists (Dial. c. Manich., 21). We find the same emphatic
statement in the “synodical” letter of St. Sophronius, the Patriarch of
Jerusalem (634), which was read and favorably received at the Sixth Ecumenical
Council (681). In the latter part of his letter Sophronius condemns the errors
of the Origenists, the pre-existence of the soul and apokatastasis, and states
plainly that “intellectual beings” (ta noita), though they do not die (thniski
de udemos), nevertheless “are not immortal by nature,” but only by the grace of
God (Mansi, XI, 490-492; Migne, 87.3, 3181). It may be added that even in the
17th century this early tradition was not forgotten in the East, and we have an
interesting contemporary record of a dispute between two Greek bishops of Crete
exactly on this question: whether the soul was immortal “by nature” or “by
grace.” We may conclude: When we discuss the problem of Immortality from a
Christian point of view, we must keep in mind the creaturely nature of the soul.
The very existence of the soul is contingent, i.e., as it were, “conditional.”
It is conditioned by the creative fiat of God. Yet, a given existence, i.e., an
existence which is not necessarily implied in the “essence,” is not necessarily
a transient one. The creative fiat is a free but ultimate act of God. God has
created the world simply for existence: ektise gar is toine ta panda (Wis 1:14).
There is no provision for revoking this creative decree. The sting of the
antinomy is exactly here: the world has a contingent beginning, yet no end. It
stands by the immutable will of God.

Man is Mortal.

In current thinking nowadays, the “immortality of the soul” is usually
overemphasized to such an extent that the basic “mortality of man” is almost
overlooked. Only in the recent “existentialist” philosophies are we again
strongly reminded that man’s existence stands intrinsically sub specie mortis.
Death is a catastrophe for man. It is his “last (or rather, ultimate)
enemy,”eshatos ehthros (1 Corinthians 15:26). “Immortality” is obviously a
negative term; it is correlative with the term “death.” And here again we find
Christianity in an open and radical conflict with “Hellenism,” with Platonism
first of all. W. H. V. Reade, in his recent book, The Christian Challenge to
Philosophy, very aptly confronts two quotations: “And the Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us” (John 1:14) and “Plotinus, the philosopher of our time, was
like one ashamed of being in the flesh” (Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, I). Reade
then proceeds: “When the message of Christmas Day and Porphyry’s brief summary
of his master’s creed are thus brought into direct comparison, it should be
plain enough that they are totally incompatible: that no Christian can possibly
be a Platonist, nor any Platonist a Christian; and of this elementary fact the
Platonists, to do them justice, were perfectly aware.” I would only add that,
unfortunately, Christians did not seem to be aware “of this elementary fact.”
Through centuries, down to our own age, Platonism has been the favorite
philosophy of Christian wise men. It is not our purpose now to explain how it
could and did happen. But this unfortunate misunderstanding (not to say more)
has resulted in an utter confusion in modern thinking about death and
immortality. We may still use the old definition of death: it is a separation of
soul from body, psyhihorismos apothomatos (Nemesius, De natura hominis, 2; he
quotes Chrysippus). For a Greek it was a liberation, a “return” to the native
sphere of spirits. For a Christian it was the catastrophe, a frustration of
human existence. The Greek doctrine of Immortality could never solve the
Christian problem. The only adequate solution has been offered by the message of
Christ’s Resurrection and by the promise of the General Resurrection of the
dead. If we turn again to Christian antiquity, we find this point clearly made
at an early date. St. Justin was quite emphatic on the point. People “who say
there is no resurrection of the dead, and that their souls, when they die, are
taken to heaven are not Christian at all” (Dial. 80). The unknown author of the
treatise On Resurrection (traditionally ascribed to St. Justin) states the
problem very accurately. “For what is man but a reasonable animal composed of
body and soul? Is the soul by itself man? No, but the soul of man. Would the
body be called man? No, but it is called the body of man. If neither of these is
by itself man, but that which is made up of the two together is called man, and
God has called man to life and resurrection, He has called not a part, but the
whole, which is the soul and the body” (De resurr. 8). Athenagoras of Athens
develops the same argument in his admirable treatise On the Resurrection of the
Dead. Man was created by God for a definite purpose, for perpetual existence.
Now, “God gave independent being and life neither to the nature of the soul by
itself, nor to the nature of the body separately, but rather to men, composed of
soul and body, so that with these same parts of which they are composed, when
they are born and live, they should attain after the termination of this life
their common end; soul and body compose in man one living entity.” There would
no longer be a man, Athenagoras argues, if the completeness of this structure
were broken, for then the identity of the individual would be broken also. The
stability of the body, its continuity in its proper nature, must correspond to
the immortality of the soul. “The entity which receives intellect and reason is
man, and not the soul alone. Consequently man must for ever remain composed of
soul and body.” Otherwise there would be no man, but only parts of man. “And
this is impossible, if there is no resurrection. For if there is no
resurrection, the nature of men as men would not continue” (15). The basic
presupposition of the whole argument is that the body intrinsically belongs to
the fullness of human existence. And therefore man, as man, would cease to
exist, if the soul had to remain for ever “disembodied.” It is precisely the
opposite of what the Platonists contended. The Greeks dreamt rather of a
complete and ultimate disincarnation. An embodiment was just the bondage of the
soul. For Christians, on the other hand, death was not a normal end of human
existence. Man’s death is abnormal, is a failure. The death of man is “the wages
of sin” (Romans 6:23). It is a loss and corruption. And since the Fall the
mystery of life is displaced by the mystery of death. Mysterious as the “union”
of soul and body indeed is, the immediate consciousness of man witnesses to the
organic wholeness of his psycho-physical structure. Anima autem et spiritus pars
hominis esse possunt, homo autem nequaquam, said St. Irenaeus (Adv. haereses V,
6.1). A body without a soul is but a corpse, and a soul without body is a ghost.
Man is not a ghost without body, and corpse is not a part of man. Man is not a
“bodiless demon,” simply confined in the prison of the body. That is why the
“separation” of soul and body is the death of man himself, the discontinuation
of his existence, of his existence as a man. Consequently death and the
corruption of the body are a sort of fading away of the “image of God” in man. A
dead man is not fully human. St. John of Damascus, in one of his glorious
anthems in the Burial Service, says of this: “I weep and I lament, when I
contemplate death, and see our beauty, fashioned after the image of God, lying
in the grave disfigured, dishonored, bereft of form.” St. John speaks not of
man’s body, but of man himself. “Our beauty in the image of God” is not the
body, but man. He is indeed an “image of the unfathomable glory of God,” even
when “wounded by sin.” And in death it is disclosed that man, this “reasonable
statue” fashioned by God, to use the phrase of St. Methodius (De resurrectione
I, 34.4: toagalma to logikon), is but a corpse. “Man is but dry bones, a stench
and the food of worms.” One may speak of man as being “one hypostasis in two
natures,” and not only of, but precisely in two natures. And in death this one
human hypostasis is broken up. And there is no man any more. And therefore man
longs for “the redemption of his body” (Romans 8:23; tin apolitrosin tu somatos
imon). As St. Paul says elsewhere, “not for that we would be unclothed, but that
we would be clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life” (2
Corinthians 5:4). The sting of death is precisely in that it is “the wages of
sin,” i.e., the consequence of a distorted relationship with God. It is not only
a natural imperfection, nor is it just a metaphysical deadlock. Man’s mortality
reflects man’s estrangement from God, Who is the only Giver of Life. And, in
this estrangement from God, Man simply cannot “endure” as man, cannot stay fully
human. The status of mortality is essentially “subhuman.” To stress human
mortality does not mean to offer a “naturalistic” interpretation of human
tragedy, but, on the contrary, it means to trace the human predicament to its
ultimate religious root. The strength of Patristic theology was precisely in its
interest in human mortality, and accordingly in the message of the Resurrection.
The misery of sinful existence was by no means underestimated, but it was
interpreted not only in ethical or moralistic categories, but in theological
ones. The burden of sin consisted not only in self-accusations of human
conscience, not only in the consciousness of guilt, but in an utter
disintegration of the whole fabric of human nature. The fallen man was no man
any more, he was existentially “degraded.” And the sign of this “degradation”
was Man’s mortality, Man’s death. In separation from God human nature becomes
unsettled, goes out of tune, as it were. The very structure of man becomes
unstable. The “union” of the soul and the body becomes insecure. The soul loses
its vital power, is no more able to quicken the body. The body is turned into
the tomb and prison of the soul. And physical death becomes inevitable. The body
and the soul are no longer, as it were, secured or adjusted to each other. The
transgression of the Divine commandment “reinstated man in the state of nature,”
as St. Athanasius puts it, - is to katafysin epestrepsen. “That as he was made
out of nothing, so also in his very existence he suffered in due time
corruption, according to all justice.” For, being made out of nothing, the
creature also exists over an abyss of nothingness, ever ready to fall into it
(De incarnatione, 4 and 5). “For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on
the ground, which cannot be gathered up again” (2 Samuel 14:14). “The state of
nature,” of which St. Athanasius speaks, is the cyclical motion of Cosmos, in
which fallen man is hopelessly entangled, and this entanglement signifies man’s
degradation. He loses his privileged position in the order of Creation. But this
metaphysical catastrophe is just a manifestation of the broken relationship with
God.

“I am the Resurrection, and the Life.”

The Incarnation of the Word was an absolute manifestation of God. And above all
it was a revelation of Life. Christ is the Word of Life, o Logos tis zois (1
John 1:1). The Incarnation itself was, in a sense, the quickening of man, as it
were the resurrection of human nature. In the Incarnation human nature was not
merely anointed with a superabundant overflowing of Grace, but was assumed into
an intimate and “hypostatical” unity with Divinity itself. In that lifting up of
human nature into an everlasting communion with the Divine Life, the Fathers of
the early Church unanimously saw the very essence of salvation. “That is saved
which is united with God,” says St. Gregory of Nazianzus. And what was not so
united could not be saved at all (Epist. 101, ad Cledonium). This was the
fundamental motive in the whole of early theology, in St. Irenaeus, St.
Athanasius, the Cappadocians, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Maximus the
Confessor. Yet, the climax of the Incarnate Life was the Cross, the death of the
Incarnate Lord. Life has been revealed in full through death. This is the
paradoxical mystery of the Christian faith: life through death, life from the
grave and out of the grave, the Mystery of the life-bearing grave. And
Christians are born again to real and everlasting life only through their
baptismal death and burial in Christ; they are regenerated with Christ in the
baptismal font (cf. Romans 6:3-5). Such is the invariable law of true life.
“That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die” (1 Corinthians 15:36).
Salvation was completed on Golgotha, not on Tabor, and the Cross of Jesus was
spoken of even on Tabor (cf. Luke 9:31). Christ had to die, in order to bestow
an abundant life upon the whole of mankind. It was not the necessity of this
world. This was, as it were, the necessity of Love Divine, a necessity of a
Divine order. And we fail to comprehend the mystery. Why had the true life to be
revealed through the death of One, Who was Himself “the Resurrection and the
Life"? The only answer is that Salvation had to be a victory over death and
man’s mortality. The ultimate enemy of man was precisely death. Redemption was
not just the forgiveness of sins, nor was it man’s reconciliation with God. It
was the deliverance from sin and death. “Penitence does not deliver from the
state of nature (into which man has relapsed through sin), it only discontinues
the sin,” says St. Athanasius. For man not only sinned but “fell into
corruption.” Now, the mercy of God could not permit “that creatures once made
rational, and having partaken of the Word, should go to ruin and turn again to
non-existence by the way of corruption.” Consequently the Word of God descended
and became man, assumed our body, “that, whereas man turned towards corruption,
He might turn them again towards incorruption, and quicken them from death by
the appropriation of his body and by the grace of the Resurrection, banishing
death from them like a straw from the fire.” (De incarnatione, 6-8). Thus,
according to St. Athanasius, the Word became flesh in order to abolish
“corruption” in human nature. However, death is vanquished, not by the
appearance of Life in the mortal body, but rather by the voluntary death of the
Incarnate Life. The Word became incarnate on account of death in flesh, St.
Athanasius emphasizes. “In order to accept death He had a body” (c. 44). Or, to
quote Tertullian, forma moriendi causa nascendi est (De carne Christi, 6). The
ultimate reason for Christ’s death must be seen in the mortality of Man. Christ
suffered death, but passed through it and overcame mortality and corruption. He
quickened death itself. “By death He destroyed death.” The death of Christ is
therefore, as it were, an extension of the Incarnation. The death on the Cross
was effective, not as the death of an Innocent One, but as the death of the
Incarnate Lord. “We needed an Incarnate God, God put to death, that we might
live,” to use a bold and startling phrase of St. Gregory of Nazianzus (Orat. 45,
in S. Pascha, 28; edeithimen Theusarkomenu ke nekrumenu). It was not a man that
died on the Cross. In Christ there is no human hypostasis. His personality was
Divine, yet incarnate. “For He who suffered was not common man, but God made
man, and fighting the contest of endurance,” says St. Cyril of Jerusalem
(Catech. 13, 6). It may be properly said that God died on the Cross, but in His
own humanity (which was, however, “consubstantial” with ours). This was the
voluntary death of One Who was Himself Life Eternal. A human death indeed, death
"according to humanity,” and yet death within the hypostasis of the Word, of the
Incarnate Word. And thence a resurrecting death. “I have a baptism to be
baptized with” (Luke 12:50). It was the death on the Cross, and the shedding of
blood, - “the baptism of martyrdom and blood, with which Christ Himself also was
baptized,” as St. Gregory of Nazianzus suggested (Orat. 37, 17). The death on
the Cross as a baptism of blood, this is the very essence of the redeeming
mystery of the Cross. Baptism is a cleansing. And the Baptism of the Cross was,
as it were, the cleansing of the human nature, which was travelling the path of
restoration in the Hypostasis of the Incarnate Word. This was, as it were, a
washing of human nature in the outpoured sacrificial blood of the Divine Lamb,
and first of all a washing of the body: not only a washing away of sins, but a
washing away of human infirmities and of mortality itself. It was the cleansing
in preparation for the coming resurrection: a cleansing of all human nature, a
cleansing of all humanity in the person of its new and mystical First-born, in
the “Last Adam.” This was the baptism by blood of the whole Church, and indeed
of the whole world. “A purification not for a small part of man’s world, not for
a short time, but for the whole Universe and through eternity,” to quote St.
Gregory of Nazianzus once more (Orat. 45, 13). The Lord died on the Cross. This
was a true death. Yet not wholly like ours, simply because this was the death of
the Incarnate Word, death within the indivisible Hypostasis of the Word made
man, the death of the “enhypostatized” humanity. This does not alter the
ontological character of death, but changes its meaning. The “Hypostatic Union”
was not broken or destroyed by death, and therefore the soul and the body,
though separated from each other, remained still united through the Divinity of
the Word, from which neither was ever estranged. This was an “incorrupt death,”
and therefore “corruption” and “mortality” were overcome in it, and in it begins
the resurrection. The very death of the Incarnate reveals the resurrection of
human nature (St. John of Damascus, De fide orth., 3.27; cf. homil. in Magn.
Saиbat., 29). “Today we keep the feast, for our Lord is nailed upon the Cross,”
in the sharp phrase of St. John Chrysostom (In crucem et latronem, hom. 1). The
death on the Cross is a Victory over death not only because it was followed by
the Resurrection. It is itself the victory. The Resurrection only reveals and
sets forth the victory achieved on the Cross. It is already accomplished in the
very falling asleep of the God-man. “Thou diest and quickenest me.” As St.
Gregory of Nazianzus puts it: “He lays down His life, but He has the power to
take it again; and the veil is rent, for the mysterious doors of Heaven are
opened; the rocks are cleft, the dead arise. He dies, but He gives life, and by
His death destroys death. He is buried, but He rises again. He goes down into
Hades, but He brings up the souls” (Orat. 41). This mystery of the resurrecting
Cross is commemorated especially on Good Saturday. It is the day of the Descent
into-Hell (Hades). And the Descent into Hades is already the Resurrection of the
dead. By the very fact of His death Christ joins the company of the departed. It
is the new extension of the Incarnation. Hades is just the darkness and shadow
of death, rather a place of mortal anguish than a place of penal torments, a
dark “sheol,” a place of hopeless disembodiment and disincarnation, which was
only scantily and dimly fore-illuminated by the slanting rays of the
not-yet-risen Sun, by the hope and expectation yet unfulfilled. It was, as it
were, a kind of ontological infirmity of the soul, which, in the separation of
death, had lost the faculty of being the true entelechia of its own body, the
helplessness of fallen and wounded nature. Not a “place” at all, but rather a
spiritual state: “the spirits in prison” (1 Peter 3:19). It was into this
prison, into this “Hell,” that the Lord and Savior descended. Amid the darkness
of pale death shone the unquenchable light of Life, the Life Divine. The
“Descent into Hell” is the manifestation of Life amid the hopelessness of mortal
dissolution, it is victory over death. “It was not from any natural weakness of
the Word that dwelt in it that the body had died, but in order that in it death
might be done away by the power of the Savior,” says St. Athanasius (De inc.
26). Good Saturday is more than Easter-Eve. It is the “Blessed Sabbath,”
“Sanctum Sabbatum,” - requies Sabbati magni, in the phrase of St. Ambrose. “This
is the Blessed Sabbath, this is the day of rest, whereon the Only-Begotten Son
of God has rested from all His deeds” (Anthem, Vespers of Good Saturday,
according to the Eastern rite). “I am the first and the last: I Am He that
liveth, and was dead: and behold, I am alive for evermore. Amen. And I have the
keys of death and of Hades” (Revelation 1:17-18). The Christian “hope of
immortality” is rooted in and secured by this victory of Christ, and not by any
“natural” endowment. And it means also that this hope is rooted in a historical
event, i.e., in a historical self-revelation of God, and not in any static
disposition or constitution of human nature. The Last Adam.

The reality of death is not yet abolished, but its powerlessness has been
revealed. “It is true, we still die as before,” says St. John Chrysostom, “but
we do not remain in death, and this is not to die. The power and very reality of
death is just this, that a dead man has no possibility of returning to life; but
if after death he is to be quickened and moreover to be given a better life,
then this is no longer death, but a falling sleep” (In Hebr., hom. 17, 2; u
thanatos tutoestin, allakimisis). Or in the phrase of St. Athanasius, “like seed
cast on the earth, we do not perish when we die, but having been sown, we rise”
(De inc., 21). This was a healing and renewal of human “nature,” and therefore
all will rise, all will be raised and restored to the fullness of their natural
being, yet transformed. From henceforth every disembodiment is but temporary.
The dark vale of Hades is abolished by the power of the life-giving Cross. In
the first Adam the inherent potentiality of death by disobedience was disclosed
and actualized. In the second Adam the potentiality of immortality by purity and
obedience was sublimated and actualized into the impossibility of death. This
parallel was drawn already by St. Irenaeus. Apart from the hope of the General
Resurrection, belief in Christ would be vain and to no purpose. “But now is
Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruit of them that slept” (1
Corinthians 15:20). The Resurrection of Christ is a new beginning. It is a “new
creation,” i kenikrisis. One may say even, an eschatological beginning, an
ultimate step in the history of Salvation. And yet, we have to make a dear
distinction between the healing of nature and the healing of the will. “Nature”
is healed and restored with a certain compulsion, by the mighty power of God’s
omnipotent and invincible grace. The wholeness is as it were, “forced” upon
human nature. For in Christ all human nature (the “seed of Adam”) is fully and
completely cured from unwholeness and mortality. This restoration will be
actualized and revealed to its full extent in due time, in the General
Resurrection, in the resurrection of all, both of the righteous and the wicked.
And no one, so far as nature is concerned, can escape Christ’s kingly rule, or
alienate himself from the invincible power of the resurrection. But the will of
man cannot be cured in the same invincible manner. The will of man must turn
itself to God. There must be a free and spontaneous response of love and
adoration, a “free conversion.” The will of man can be cured only in the
“mystery of freedom.” Only by this free effort does man enter into that new and
eternal life which is revealed in Christ Jesus. A spiritual regeneration can be
wrought only in perfect freedom, in an obedience of love, by a self-consecration
and self-dedication to God, in Christ. This distinction was made with great
insistence by Nicolas Cabasilas in his remarkable treatise on The Life in
Christ. Resurrection is a “rectification of nature” (i anastasis physeosestin
epanorthosis) and this God grants freely. But the Kingdom of Heaven, and the
beatific vision, and union with Christ, presuppose the desire (trofiestin tis
theliseos), and therefore are available only for those who have longed for them,
and loved, and desired. And immortality will be given to all, just as all can
enjoy Divine providence. It does not depend upon our will whether we shall rise
after death or not, just as it is not by our will that we are born. The death
and resurrection of Christ bring immortality and incorruption to all in the same
manner, because all have the same nature as the Man Christ Jesus. But nobody can
be compelled to desire. Thus Resurrection is a gift common to all, but the
blessedness will be given only to some (De vita in Christo II, 86-96). And
again, the path of life is the path of renunciation, of mortification, of
self-sacrifice and self-oblation. One has to die to oneself in order to live in
Christ. Each one must personally and freely associate himself with Christ, the
Lord, the Savior, and the Redeemer, in the confession of faith, in the choice of
love, in the mystical oath of allegiance. He who does not die with Christ cannot
live with Him. “Unless of our own free choice we accept to die unto His passion,
His life is not in us” (St. Ignatius, Magnes, 5; the phraseology is Pauline).
This is no mere ascetical or moral rule, no mere discipline. This is the
ontological law of spiritual existence, even the law of life itself. For only in
communion with God and through life in Christ does the restoration of human
wholeness gain meaning. To those in total darkness, who have deliberately
confined themselves “outside God,” the Resurrection itself must seem rather
unnecessary and unmotivated. But it will come, as a “resurrection to judgment”
(John 5:29 (anastasis tis kriseos). And in this will be completed the tragedy of
human freedom. Here indeed we are on the threshold of the inconceivable and
incomprehensible. The apokatastasis of nature does not abolish free will, and
the will must be moved from within by love. St. Gregory of Nyssa had not a clear
understanding of this. He anticipated a kind of universal conversion of souls in
the after-life, when the Truth of God will be revealed and manifested with some
ultimate and compelling evidence. Just at this point the limitations of the
Hellenistic mind are obvious. Evidence seemed to it to be the decisive reason or
motive for the will, as if “sin” were merely “ignorance.” The Hellenistic mind
had to pass through its long and hard experience of asceticism, of ascetical
self-examination and self-control, in order to free itself from this
intellectualistic naiveté and illusion, and discover a dark abyss in the fallen
soul. Only in St. Maximus, after some centuries of ascetic preparation, do we
find a new, remodeled and deepened interpretation of the apokatastasis. St.
Maximus did not believe in the inevitable conversion of obstinate souls. He
taught an apokatastasis of nature, i.e., a restitution of all beings to an
integrity of nature, of a universal manifestation of the Divine Life, which will
be evident to every one. But those who have deliberately spent their lives on
earth in fleshly desires, “against nature,” will be unable to enjoy this eternal
bliss. The Light is the Word, that illuminates the natural minds of the
faithful; but as a burning fire of the judgment (ti kavsi tis kriseos), He
punishes those who, through love of the flesh, cling to the nocturnal darkness
of this life. The distinction is between an epignosis, and a methesis.
“Acknowledgment” is not the same as “Participation.” God will be in all indeed,
but only in the Saints will He be present “with grace” (diatin harin) ; in the
reprobate He will be present “without grace” (paratin harin). And the wicked
will be estranged from God by their lack of a resolute purpose of good.” We have
here the same duality of nature and will. In the resurrection the whole of
creation will be restored, i.e., brought to perfection and ultimate stability.
But sin and evil are rooted in the will. The Hellenistic mind concluded
therefrom that evil is unstable and by itself must disappear inevitably. For
nothing can be perpetual, unless it be rooted in a Divine decree. The Christian
inference is exactly the opposite. There is the inertia and obstinacy of the
will, and this obstinacy may remain uncured even in the “universal Restoration.”
God never does any violence to man, and communion with God cannot be forced upon
the obstinate. In the phrase of St. Maximus, “the Spirit does not produce an
undesired resolve but it transforms a chosen purpose into theosis” (Quaest. ad
Thalass., 6). We live in a changed world: it has been changed by Christ’s
redeeming Resurrection. Life has been given, and it will prevail. The Incarnate
Lord is in very truth the Second Adam and in Him the new humanity has been
inaugurated. Not only an ultimate “survival” is assured, but also the
fulfillment of God’s creative purpose. Man is made“immortal.” He cannot commit
an ultimate “metaphysical suicide” and strike himself out of existence. Yet even
the victory of Christ does not force “Eternal Life” upon the “closed” beings. As
St. Augustine says, for the creature “being is not the same thing as living” (De
Genesi ad litt. I, 5).

“And Life Everlasting.”

There is an inevitable tension in the Christian conception between “the given”
and “the expected.” Christians look “for the Life of the world to come,” but
they are no less aware of the, Life that had already come: “for the Life was
manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that
eternal Life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us” (1 John
1:2). This is not only a tension in time, - between the past, and the present,
and the future. It is a tension between destiny and decision. Or perhaps one may
say: Life Eternal is offered to Man, but he has to receive it. For individuals,
fulfillment of “destiny” depends upon the “decision of faith,” which is not an
“acknowledgment” only, but a willing “participation.” The Christian life is
initiated with a new birth, by water and the Spirit. And first, “repentance” is
required, i metania, an inner change, intimate and resolute. The Mystery of
Baptism.

The symbolism of Holy Baptism is complex and manifold. But above all it is a
symbolism of death and resurrection, of Christ’s death and resurrection (Romans
6:3-4). It is a sacramental resurrection with Christ, by the participation in
His death, a rising up with Him and in Him to a new and eternal life (Colossians
2:12; Php 3:10). Christians are corresurrected with Christ precisely through
burial: “forifwe be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him” (2 Timothy
2:11). Christ is the Second Adam, but men must be born anew and be incorporated
into Him, in order to partake of that new life which is His. St. Paul spoke of a
“likeness” unto the death of Christ (Romans 6:5, simfyti … to omiomati tu
thanatu avtu). But-this “likeness” means much more than a resemblance. It is
more than a mere sign or recollection. The meaning of this likeness for St. Paul
himself was that in each of us Christ can and must be “formed” (Galatians 4:19).
Christ is the Head, all believers are His members, and His life is actualized in
them. This is the mystery of the Whole Christ, - totus Christus, Caput et
Corpus. All are called and every one is capable of believing, and of being
quickened by faith and baptism so as to live in Him. Baptism is therefore a
“regeneration,” an anagenesis, a new, spiritual and charismatic birth. As
Cabasilas says, Baptism is the cause of a beatific life in Christ, not merely of
life (De vita in Christo II, 95). St. Cyril of Jerusalem in a lucid manner
explains the true reality of all baptismal symbolism. It is true, he says, that
in the baptismal font we die (and are buried) only “in imitation,” only, as it
were, “symbolically,” diasymvolu, and we do not rise from a real grave. And yet,
“if the imitation is in an image, the salvation is in very truth.” For Christ
was really crucified and buried, and actually rose from the grave. The Greek
word is ondos. It is even stronger than simply alithos, “in very truth.” It
emphasizes the ultimate meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection. It was a new
achievement. Hence He gave us the chance, by “imitative” sharing of His Passion
(ti mimisi … kinonisandes), to acquire salvation “in reality.” It is not only an
“imitation,” but a “similitude,” to omioma. “Christ was crucified and buried in
reality, but to you it is given to be crucified, buried, and raised with Him in
similitude.” In other words, in baptism man descends “sacramentally” into the
darkness of death, and yet with the Risen Lord he rises again and crosses over
from death to life. “And the image is completed all upon you, for you are an
image of Christ,” concludes St. Cyril. In other words, all are held together by
and in Christ; hence the very possibility of a sacramental “resemblance”
(Mystag. 2.4-5, 7; 3.1). St. Gregory of Nyssa dwells on the same point. There
are two aspects in baptism. Baptism is a birth and a death. Natural birth is the
beginning of a mortal existence, which begins and ends in corruption. Another, a
new birth, had to be discovered, which would initiate into everlasting life. In
baptism “the presence of a Divine power transforms what is born with a
corruptible nature into a state of incorruption” (Orat. cat., 33). It is
transformed through following and imitating; and thus what was foreshown by the
Lord is realized. Only by following after Christ can one pass through the
labyrinth of life and come out of it. “For I call the inescapable guard of
death, in which sorrowing mankind is imprisoned, a labyrinth.” Christ escaped
from this after the three days of death. In the baptismal font “the imitation of
all that He has done is accomplished.” Death is “represented” in the element of
water. And as Christ rose again to life, so also the newly-baptized, united with
Him in bodily nature,” does “imitate the resurrection on the third day.” This is
just an “imitation,” mimisis, and not “identity.” In baptism man is not actually
raised, but only freed from natural evil and the inescapability of death. In him
the “continuity of vice” is cut off. He is not resurrected for he does not die,
but remains still in this life. Baptism only foreshadows the resurrection; in
baptism one anticipates the grace of the final resurrection. Baptism is the
start, arhi, and the resurrection is the end and consummation, peras; and all
that takes place in the great Resurrection already has its beginnings and causes
in baptism. One may say, baptism is an “Homiomatic resurrection” (Orat. cat.,
35). It must be pointed out that St. Gregory specially emphasized the need of
keeping and holding fast the baptismal grace. For in baptism it is not nature
only, but the will as well, that is transformed and transfigured, remaining free
throughout. And if the soul is not cleansed and purified in the free exercise of
will, baptism proves to be fruitless. The transfiguration is not actualized, the
new life is not yet consummated. This does not subordinate baptismal grace to
human license; Grace does indeed descend. Yet it can never be forced upon any
one who is free and made in the image of God: it must be responded to and
corroborated by the synergism of love and will. Grace does not quicken and
enliven the closed and obstinate souls, the really “dead souls.” Response and
Colossians6 peration are required (c. 40). That is just because baptism is a
sacramental dying with Christ, a participation in His voluntary death, in His
sacrificial love; and this can be accomplished only in freedom. Thus in baptism
the death of Christ on the Cross is reflected or portrayed as in a living and
sacramental image. Baptism is at once a death and a birth, a burial and a “bath
of regeneration,” lutron tis palingenesias: “a time of death and a time of
birth,” to quote St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Mystag. II, 4). The Mystery of
Communion.

The same is true of all sacraments. All sacraments are instituted just in order
to enable the faithful “to participate” in Christ’s redeeming death and to gain
thereby the grace of His resurrection. In sacraments the uniqueness and
universality of Christ’s victory and sacrifice are brought forward and
emphasized. This was the main idea of Nicolas Cabasilas in his treatise On the
Life in Christ, in which the whole sacramental doctrine of the Eastern Church
was admirably summarized. “We are baptized just in order to die by His death and
to rise by His resurrection. We are anointed with the chrism that we may partake
of His kingly anointment of deification (theosis). And when we are fed with the
most sacred Bread and do drink the most Divine Cup, we do partake of the same
flesh and the same blood our Lord has assumed, and so we are united with Him,
Who was for us incarnate, and died, and rose again ... Baptism is a birth, and
Chrism is the cause of acts and movements, and the Bread of life and the Cup of
thanksgivings, are the true food and the true drink” (De vita II, 3,4,6, etc.).
In the whole sacramental life of the Church the Cross and the Resurrection are
“imitated” and reflected in manifold symbols. All that symbolism is realistic.
The symbols do not merely remind us of something in the past, something which
has passed away. That which took place “in the past” was a beginning of “the
Everlasting.” Under all these sacred “symbols,” and in them, the ultimate
Reality is in very truth disclosed and conveyed. This hieratic symbolism
culminates in the august Mystery of the Holy Altar. The Eucharist is the heart
of the Church, the Sacrament of Redemption in an eminent sense. It is more than
an "imitation,” or mere “commemoration. It is Reality itself, at once veiled and
disclosed in the Sacrament. It is “the perfect and ultimate Sacrament” (to
televteon mystirion), as Cabasilas says, “and one cannot go further, and there
is nothing to be added.” It is the “limit of life,” zois to peras. “After the
Eucharist there is nothing more to long for, but we have to stay here and learn
how we can preserve this treasure up to the end” (De vita IV, i,4,15). The
Eucharist is the Last Supper itself, enacted, as it were, again and again, and
yet not repeated. For every new celebration does not only “represent,” but truly
is the same “Mystical Supper” which was celebrated for the first time (and for
ever) by the Divine High Priest Himself, as a voluntary anticipation and
initiation of the Sacrifice of the Cross. And the true Celebrant of each
Eucharist is always Christ Himself. St. John Chrysostom was quite emphatic on
this point. “Believe, therefore, that even now, it is that Supper, at which He
Himself sat down. For this one is in no respect different from that one” (In
Matt., hom. 50,3). “He that then did these things at that Supper, this same now
also works them. We hold the rank of ministers. He who sanctifieth and changeth
them is the Same. This table is the same as that, and hath nothing less. For it
is not that Christ wrought that, and man this, but He doth this too. This is
that Upper Chamber, where they were then” (Ibid., hom. 82,5). All this is of
primary importance. The Last Supper was an offering of the sacrifice, of the
sacrifice of the Cross. The offering is still continued. Christ is still acting
as the High Priest in His Church. The Mystery is all the same, and the Priest is
the same, and the Table is one. To quote Cabasilas once more: “In offering and
sacrificing Himself once for all, He did not cease from His Priesthood, but He
exercises this perpetual ministry for us, in which He is our advocate with God
for ever” (Explan. div. liturg., c. 23). And the resurrecting power and
significance of Christ’s death are in the Eucharist made manifest in full. It is
“the medicine of immortality and an antidote that we should not die but live for
ever in Jesus Christ,” to quote the famous phrase of St. Ignatius (Ephes., 20.2:
farmakon athanasias, antidotos tu mi apothanin, allazin en IisuHristo). It is
“the heavenly Bread and the Cup of life.” This tremendous Sacrament is for the
faithful the very “Betrothal of the Life Eternal,” just because Christ’s death
itself was the Victory and the Resurrection. In the Eucharist the beginning and
the end are linked together: the memories of the Gospel and the prophecies of
the Revelation. It is a sacramentum futuri because it is an anamnesisof the
Cross. The Eucharist is a sacramental anticipation, a foretaste of the
Resurrection, an “image of the Resurrection” (o typos tis anastaseos, - the
phrase is from the consecration prayer of St. Basil). It is but an “image,” not
because it is a mere sign, but because the history of Salvation is still going
on, and one has to look forward, “to look for the life of the age to come.”

Conclusion.

Christians, as Christians, are not committed to any philosophical doctrine of
immortality. But they are committed to the belief in the General Resurrection.
Man is a creature. His very existence is the grant of God. His very existence is
contingent. He exists by the grace of God. But God created Man for existence,
i.e., for an eternal destiny. This destiny can be achieved and consummated only
in communion with God. A broken communion frustrates human existence, and yet
Man does not cease to exist. Man’s death and mortality is the sign of the broken
communion, the sign of Man’s isolation, of his estrangement from the source and
the goal of his existence. And yet the creative fiat continues to operate. In
the Incarnation communion is restored. Life is manifested afresh in the shadow
of death. The Incarnate is the Life and the Resurrection. The Incarnate is the
Conqueror of death and Hades. And He is the First-fruit of the New Creation, the
First-fruit of all those who slept. The physical death of men is not just an
irrelevant “natural phenomenon,” but rather an ominous sign of the original
tragedy. An “immortality” of disembodied "souls” would not solve the human
problem. And “immortality” in a Godless world, an “immortality” without God or
“outside God,” would be an eternal doom. Christians, as Christians, aspire to
something greater than a “natural” immortality. They aspire to an everlasting
communion with God, or, to use the startling phrase of the early Fathers, to a
theosis. There is nothing “naturalistic” or pantheistic about the term. Theosis
means no more than an intimate communion of human persons with the Living God.
To be with God means to dwell in Him and to share His perfection. “Then the Son
of God became the son of man, that man also might become the son of God” (St.
Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. III, 10.2). In Him man is forever united with God. In Him
we have Life Eternal. “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the
glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as
by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18). And, at the close, for the
whole creation the “Blessed Sabbath,” the very “Day of rest,” the mysterious
“Seventh day of creation,” will be inaugurated, in the General Resurrection and
in “the World to come.”


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 24: 19 - THE DARKNESS OF NIGHT
========================================================================

The Darkness of Night “Evil Is among Us” The Existence of Evil as a Paradox

In a world that is created by God, whose laws and purposes are established by
Divine wisdom and goodness, how is it possible that evil exists? For evil is
precisely that which opposes itself to God and resists Him, perverting His
designs and repudiating His ordinances. Evil is, furthermore, that which is not
created by God. And since the Divine will establishes the reasons for everything
which exists (and this Sovereign will alone establishes “sufficient reasons”),
one can assert that evil, as evil, exists despite a lack of reasons, exists
without a single reason for its existence. As St. Gregory of Nyssa stated, it is
“an unsown herb, without seed and without root.” One could say: phaenomenon
omnino non fundatum. It is God alone Who establishes the foundations of the
world. Certainly there are always and everywhere causes and reasons for evil.
But the causality of evil is deeply peculiar. The causes and reasons of evil are
always an absurdity, more or less veiled. This strange causality is not included
in the ideal “chain” of God’s universal causality; it splits and disfigures it.
It is a causality rivaling that of the Creator, coming, as it were, from a
destroyer of the world. And this destructive power - whence does it come? For
all real power belongs to God alone. One wonders whether the existence of evil
is compatible with the existence of God. Never­theless, this illegitimate power
is not at all an anemic phantom. It is a real force, a violent energy. The
op­position of evil to God is very active. The Good is seriously restricted and
oppressed by the revolt of evil. God himself is engaged in a struggle with these
powers of darkness. And in this struggle there are very real losses, a perpetual
diminution of the Good. Evil is an ontological danger. Universal harmony, willed
and established by God, is truly decomposed. The world is fallen. The entire
world is sur­rounded by a dismal twilight of nothingness. No longer is it that
world conceived and created by God. There are morbid innovations, new existences
- existences which are false, but real. Evil adds something to what is created
by God, it has a “miraculous” force of imitating creation - indeed, evil is
pro­ductive in its destructions. In the fallen world there is an
incomprehensible surplus, a surplus which has entered ex­istence against the
will of God. In a certain sense, the world is stolen from its Master and
Creator. It is more than an intellectual paradox; it is rather a scandal, a
terrible tempta­tion for faith, because, above all, this destruction of
existence by evil is in a large measure irreparable. The lofty “univer­salist”
hope is prohibited us by the direct witness of Holy Scripture and by the
explicit teaching of the Church. There will be exterior darkness for “the sons
of perdition” in the world to come! In the case of perseverance in evil, all the
devastations and perversions produced by it will preserve themselves forever in
the paradoxical eternity of hell. Hell is a sinister testimony to the staggering
power of evil. In the final reckoning of this historical struggle between Divine
Goodness and evil, all the ravages produced among unre­pentant beings will only
be acknowledged by the simple, final decree of condemnation. The perverse split,
introduced into the world of God by an act of usurped power, seems to be
eternal. The unity of the world is compromised forever. Evil seems to have
eternal conquests. The obstinacy of evil, its resolved impenitence, is never
covered by the omnipotence of God’s compassion. We are now already in the realm
of the full mystery. The Existence of Evil as a Mystery

God has his response to the world of evil. “The ancient law of human freedom,”
as St. Irenaeus states, is still respected by God, who has granted from the
beginning this dignity to spiritual beings. Any coercion or compulsion by Divine
Grace is excluded from possibility. God has in fact responded authoritatively to
evil, once for all, through his Beloved Son, who came here upon the earth to
bear the sins of the world and the sins of all humanity. God’s absolute response
to evil was the Cross of Jesus, the sufferings of the Servant of God, the Death
of the Incarnate Son. A Russian preacher of the 19th century stated once, “Evil
begins on earth, but it disquiets heaven, and causes the Son of God to descend
to earth.” Evil causes God himself to suffer, and he accepts this suffering to
the end. And the glory of eternal life shines forth victoriously from the tomb
of God Incarnate. The Passion of Jesus was a triumph, a decisive victory. But it
is a triumph of Divine Love which calls and accepts without any coercion. From
this time on, the existence of evil is given to us only within this framework of
the Co-Suffering Love of God. And the Love, and even the sublime majesty of God,
are also revealed to us in the enigmatic framework of evil and sin ... Felix
culpa quae tantum et talem meruit habere Redemptorem. One defines evil as
nothingness. Certainly evil never exists by itself but only inside of Goodness.
Evil is a pure negation, a privation or a mutilation. Undoubtedly evil is a
lack, a defect, defectus. But the structure of evil is rather antinomic. Evil is
a void of nothingness; but it is a void which exists, swallowing and devouring
beings. Evil is a power­lessness; it never creates--but its destructive energy
is enormous. Evil never ascends; it always descends--but the very debase­ment of
being which it produces is frightening. Nevertheless, there is an illusory
grandeur even in this baseness of evil. Occasionally there is something of
genius in sin and in evil. Evil is chaotic; it is a separation, a decomposition
constantly in progress, a disorganization of the entire structure of being. But
evil is also, without doubt, vigorously organized. Everything in this sad domain
of deception and illusion is amphibolic and ambiguous. Undoubtedly, evil only
lives through the Good which it deforms, but it also adapts it to its needs. But
this deformed “Universe” is a reality which asserts itself. Actually, the
problem of evil is not at all a purely philosophical problem, and that is why it
can never be resolved on the neutral plane of a theory of being. It is no longer
a purely ethical problem, and on the plane of natural morality one can never
surmount the correlativity of good and evil. The problem of evil only takes on
its proper character on the religious plane. The meaning of evil is a radical
opposition to God, a revolt, a disobedience, a resistance. The unique source of
evil, in the strict sense of the term, is sin, the opposition to God and the
tragic separation from Him. Speculation about the freedom of choice is always
barren and ambiguous. Freedom of choice, the libertas minor of St. Augustine and
the “gnomic will” of St. Maximos the Confessor, is a disfigured freedom, a
freedom diminished and impoverished, a freedom as it exists after the fall,
among fallen beings. The duality of purpose, the two correlative directions, do
not belong to the essence of the primordial freedom of innocent beings. It must
be restored to penitent sinners through asceticism and Grace. Original sin was
not just an erroneous choice, not just an option for the wrong direc­tion, but
rather a refusal to ascend toward God, a desertion from the service of God.
Actually, choice as such was not at all possible for the first sinner because
evil did not yet exist as an ideal pos­sibility. If, however, it was a choice,
it was not a choice between good and evil but only a choice between God and
himself, between service and sloth. And it is precisely in this sense that St.
Athanasius interpreted the fall and original sin in his work, Contra Gentes. The
vocation of primordial man, innate in his very nature, was to love God with
filial devotion and to serve him in the world of which man was designated to be
prophet, priest, and king. It was an appeal from the paternal love of God to the
filial love of man. Undoubtedly, to follow God involved a total surrender to
Divine arms. This was not yet a sacrifice. Innocent man had nothing to
sacrifice, for everything he possessed came from the Grace of God. (Here, there
is something more profound than a voluptuous attachment to the world.) It was
rather a tragedy of a misguided love. According to St. Athanasius, the human
fall consists precisely in the fact that man limits himself to himself, that man
becomes, as it were, in love with himself. Through this concentration on
himself, man separated himself from God, and broke the spiritual and free
contact he had with God. It was a kind of delirium, a self-erotic obsession, a
spiritual narcissism. And through this, man isolated himself from God and soon
became aware of his involvement in the external cosmic flow. One can say it was
a de-spiritualization of human existence. All the rest - the death and
decomposition of the human structure - came as a result. In any case, the fall
was first realized in the realm of the spirit, just as it already had been in
the angelic world. The meaning of original sin is the same everywhere -
self-eroticism, pride, and vanity. All the rest is only a pro­jection of this
spiritual catastrophe into the different areas of the human structure. Evil
comes from above, not from below; from the created spirit and not from matter.
It is more pro­found than a false choice of direction, more profound even than a
choice between an inferior and a superior good. Rather, it was the infidelity of
love, the insane separation from the Only One Who is worthy of affection and
love. This infidelity is the main source of the negative character of evil. It
was a primordial negation and it was fatal. It is necessary to take precaution
and not identify the infirmity of fallen nature with the inherent imperfection
of all created nature. There is nothing morbid or sinister in the “natural
imperfection” of created nature except what is penetrated “’from above” after
the consummated fall. In pre-fallen nature, one can perhaps speak of lack and
flaws. But in the fallen world there is something more - perver­sion, revolt,
vertiginous blasphemy, violence. It is the domain of usurpation. The dark tide
of this perverted love envelops all creatures and the entire cosmos. Behind all
the negations of evil one always discerns something quasi­positive, an initial
licentiousness, the egoistic arbitrariness of finite personalities. The fallen
world is de-centralized, or rather, it is oriented around an imaginary or
fictitious center. One could say perhaps that the circle (with a unique center)
is deformed, becoming an ellipse with two points of reference - God and
anti-God. Being, in any case, is dynamically divided in two. There are now two
tendencies intersecting and crossing each other, both remaining essentially
different. One could say there are two worlds within one: there are the Two
Cities of St. Augustine. Evil, beginning with a practical atheism, puts itself
in the place of God, resulting in a theoretical atheism and consequently, in a
resolved deification of itself. In this dualized world true freedom does not
exist. Freedom of choice is only a remote and pale reflection of real freedom.
Evil is created by personal agents. Evil, in the strict sense of this word,
exists only in persons or in their creations and their acts. Physical and cosmic
evil also originates from these personal acts. And that is why evil can have
power, why it can be active. For evil is a perverse personal activity. But this
activity inevitably spreads itself to the impersonal. Evil de-personalizes
personality itself. Complete de-personaliza­tion, however, can never be
achieved; there is a potential limit which can never be attained. But the
tendency and the aspiration of evil toward this limit of total disintegration is
energetically accentuated everywhere. Even demons never cease being individuals.
It is the intrinsic form of their existence which cannot be lost. But, since
personality is the “image of God” in spiritual beings, personal character can
only be preserved in a constant conversation with God. Separated from God,
personality vanishes; it is stricken with spiritual sterility. The isolated
personality, which encloses itself within itself, often loses itself. In the
state of sin there is always tension between the two internal solicitations: the
“I,” and something impersonal, represented by the instincts, or rather by
passions. Passions are the place, the seat of evil in the human person. The
“passions,” according to the Fathers and Greek masters of spirituality are
active; they entrap. The person possessed by passions is passive; he suffers
constraint. Passions are always impersonal; they are a con­centration of cosmic
energies which make the human person its prisoner, its slave. They are blind and
they blind those whom they possess. The impassioned man, “the man of passions,”
does not act on his own, but rather, is acted upon: fata trahunt. He often loses
even the consciousness of being a free agent. He doubts the existence and the
possibility of freedom in general. He adopts rather the “necessarionist” concept
of reality [the expression of Charles Renouvier]. And, as a consequence, he
loses his personality, his personal identity. He becomes chaotic, with multiple
faces, or rather - ­masks. The “man of passions” is not at all free, although he
can give an impression of activity and energy. He is nothing more than a “ball”
of impersonal influences. He is hypnotized by these influences which have a real
power over him. Arbitrariness is not freedom. Or, perhaps, it is an imaginary
freedom, which actually engenders servitude. In the spiritual life we begin
precisely with a struggle against passions. “Impassability” is the main goal of
spiritual ascent. In general, the “impassability” of the Greeks is poorly
understood and interpreted. It is not an indifference, nor a cold insensibility
of the heart. On the contrary, it is an active state, a state of spiritual
activity, which is acquired only after struggles and ordeals. It is rather an
independence from passions. Each person’s own “I” is finally regained, freed
from a fatal bondage. But one can regain one­self only in God. True
“impassability” is achieved only in an encounter with the Living God. The path
which leads there is the path of obedience, even of servitude to God, but this
servitude engenders true freedom, a concrete freedom, the real freedom of the
adopted sons of God. In evil, the human personality is absorbed by the
impersonal milieu, even though the sinner may pretend to be free. In God, the
personality is restored and reintegrated in the Holy Spirit, although a severe
discipline is imposed on the individual. Evil is revealed to us in the world at
first under the aspect of suffering and sorrow. The world is empty, cold, and
indifferent (cf. “the indifferent nature” in Pushkin). It is a non­-responding
wasteland. We all suffer because of evil. Evil, sown everywhere in the world,
causes us to suffer. And the contemplation of this universal suffering brings us
sometimes to the brink of despair. Universal suffering was not discovered for
the first time by Schopenhauer. It had already been attested to by St. Paul
(Romans 8:20-22), who gives us a very clear explication: evil is introduced in
the creature by sin. All creation suffers. There is a cosmic suffer­ing. The
entire world is poisoned by evil and malevolent energies, and the entire world
suffers because of it. The intricate problem of Theodicy was first inspired by
these facts of suffering. It was one of the primary questions of Dostoevsky. The
world is hard, cruel, and pitiless. And the world is terrible and frightening:
terror antiquus. There is chaos in the world; there are subterranean storms, an
elemental disorder. Man feels himself frail and lost in this inhospitable world.
But evil encounters us not only externally, in an exterior milieu, but also
internally, in our own existence. We also are sick - we ourselves - and we
suffer because of it. Again there is an unexpected dis­covery - not only do we
suffer from evil, but we do evil. And sometimes one is delighted with evil and
unhappiness. One is sometimes enraptured by the Fleurs du mal. One some­times
dreams of an “ideal of Sodom.” The abyss - it has a sinister appeal. Sometimes
one loves ambiguous choices. One can be enchanted by them. It is easier to do
evil than to do good. Everyone can discover in himself this “subterranean”
darkness, the subconscious full of malignant seeds, full of cruelty and deceit.
Alas - the analyses of Dostoevsky (and of many others) are not morbid dreams of
a pessimist who looks at life through a black glass. It is a truthful revelation
of the sad reality of our existential situation. One could find the same
revelations in the ancient teachers of Christian spirituality. There is a
delirium, a spiritual fever, a libido at the core of “this world,” at the core
of our existence. One cannot ask an insane or maniacal person for reasons. He
does not have reasons for his folly. He has lost his reason; he is insane.
Origen was very close to the correct solution when he attributed the origin of
evil, in the world of spirits, either to boredom and idleness [desidia et
laboristaedium in servando bono], or to a satiety of Divine contemplation and
love [De princ. II, 9-2; and 8-3]. Now, in any case, with regard to us, we find
in our heart and intelligence many revivals of the same paroxysms of delirium,
the same ab­surdities. Libido is not the same thing as carnal concupiscence. It
is a broader term. It is synonymous with self-eroticism, originating from sin.
Evil in man is an ignorance and an insensibility; it is the blindness of reason
and the hardness of the heart. Man seals himself up, encloses himself in
him­self, isolates and separates himself. But evil is multi-form and chaotic.
There are contrasting forms in evil: the aggres­sive form - der Wille zur Macht,
sadism; and the solipsistic form - indifference, “the cold heart.” Evil is
divided within itself: it is a discord and a disharmony, inordinatio. Evil is
ambiguous, wavering, variable. It does not have its own stable character. The
seat of evil in man is in the depths of his heart, and not only on the empirical
plane. Nature itself is affected; nature itself is no longer pure. And it is
rather dynamic, a dynamic or functional perversion which is not yet consolidated
in a metaphysical transformation. The exis­tence of evil is a parasitical
existence; evil lives because of the Good, ex ratione boni. The elements are the
same in the original world and in the fallen world. But the principle of
organization is changed. And although dynamic, the perver­sion is inconvertible.
He who has descended voluntarily into the abyss of evil cannot reascend from
there by himself. His energies are exhausted. Without doubt, even in the
demoniac depths, the creature remains the work of God and the traits of Divine
design are never effaced. The image of God, obscured by the infidelity of sin,
is nevertheless preserved intact, and that is why there is always, even in the
abyss, an ontological receptacle for Divine appeal, for the Grace of God. This
is true even for those who obstinately shut themselves off from the appeal of
the Cross, who have always rendered themselves incapable of receiving the
vivify­ing gifts of this Divine Love, the gifts of the Paraclete. Metaphysical
identity is not destroyed even among the demons. Demons are still, according to
a phrase by St. Gregory of Nyssa, angels by nature, and angelic dignity is not
completely abolished in them. But perhaps we could say that this image of God in
man is paralyzed in a certain sense, and rendered ineffective after the
separation from the One who should always be reflected in this image, in this
living and personal mirror. It is not enough to begin again the ascent to God -
it is necessary to have the living co-operation of God himself, who restores the
circulation of spiritual life in a dead man, enslaved in and paralyzed by sin
and evil. The paradox of evil resides precisely in this split of human existence
and in the entire cosmic structure; it resides in the dynamic splitting of life
in two, a split which resulted from the separation from God. It is as though
there were two souls within each person. Good and evil are strangely mixed. But
no synthesis is possible. “Natural” Good is too weak to resist evil. And evil
exists only through the Good. Human unity is seriously compromised, if not lost.
The Grace of God alone can sur­mount this human impasse. Formal analysis of evil
is not enough. The existence of evil is a reality on the religious plane. And
only through spiritual effort can one understand and resolve this paradox,
surmount this scandal, and penetrate the mystery of Good and Evil.

Translated from the French byRichard Haugh


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 25: 20 - THE SACRAMENT OF PENTECOST
========================================================================

The Sacrament of Pentecost The Church is one. This does not merely mean that
there is only one Church, but that the Church is a unity. In it mankind is
translated into a new plane of existence so that it may perfect itself in unity
in the image of the life of the Trinity. The Church is one in the Holy Spirit
and the Spirit "construes" it into the complete and perfect Body of Christ. The
Church is predominantly one in the fellowship of the sacraments. Putting it in
another way, the Church is one in Pentecost, which was the day of the mysterious
foundation and consecration of the Church when all the prophecies about her were
fulfilled. In that "terrible and unknown celebration" the Spirit-Comforter
descends and enters the world in which He was never present before in the same
way as He now begins to dwell. Now He enters the world to abide in it and to
become the all-powerful source of transfiguration and deification. The bestowal
and the descent of the Spirit was a unique and unrepeatable Relevation. On that
day, in a moment, an inexhaustible source of living water and Life Eternal was
disclosed here on earth.

Pentecost, therefore, is the fullness and the source of all sacraments and
sacramental actions, the one and inexhaustible spring of all of the mysterious
and spiritual life of the Church. To abide or to live in the Church implies a
participation in Pentecost.

Moreover, Pentecost becomes eternal in the Apostolic Succession; that is, in the
uninterruptibility of hierarchical ordinations in which every part of the Church
is at every moment organically united with the primary source. The lines of
power proceed from the Upper Room. Apostolic Succession is not merely, as it
were, the canonical skeleton of the Church. Generally speaking, the hierarchy is
primarily a charismatic principle; that is - a "ministry of the sacraments," or
"a divine economy." And in this capacity precisely the hierarchy is an organ of
the Catholic unity of the Church. It is the unity of grace. It is to the Church
what the circulation of the blood is to the human body. Apostolic Succession is
not so much the canonical as the mystical foundation of Church unity. It is
associated with the divine rather than with the human side of the Church.
Historically the Church remains actually one in its priesthood. It is precisely
by this Apostolic uninterruptibility of successive ordinations that the whole
Church is bound into a unity of the body from a unity of the Spirit. And there
is only one way and one approach: to draw near and to drink from the one spring
of life, once revealed. The peculiar function of bishops is to be the organ of
Apostolic Succession. The bishop differs from the priest in his power to ordain,
and in this alone. Nor is this only a canonical privilege and only a power of
jurisdiction. It is a power of sacramental action beyond that possessed by the
priest. In the celebration of the Eucharist the bishop has no precedence over
the priest and can never have it, for the priest has full power to celebrate,
every priest being primarily appointed for the purpose of offering the
Eucharistic Sacrifice. It is as the celebrator of the divine Eucharist that the
priest is the minister and the builder of Church unity. The unity of the Body of
Christ springs from unity in the Eucharistic meal. But in addition to this the
bishop has his own particular duty in the building up of Church unity, not as
the offerer of the Bloodless Sacrifice but as the ordainer. The Last Supper and
Pentecost are inseparably bound up with one another. The Comforter descends when
the Son has been glorified in His death on the Cross. But still they are two
sacraments which cannot be merged the one into the other. The same applies to
the two degrees in orders: the bishop is above the priest and it is through the
episcopate that Pentecost becomes universal and eternal. Moreover every
particular Church through its bishop, or, to put it more exactly, in its bishop,
is included in the Catholic fullness of the Church as a whole. Through its
bishop it is linked up with the past and with antiquity. Through its bishop it
forms a part of the living organism of the Body of the Church Universal. For
every bishop is ordained by many bishops in the name of the undivided
episcopate. In its bishop every single Church outgrows and transcends its own
limits, and comes into contact with and merges into other Churches, not in the
order of brotherly love and remembrance alone, but in the unity of mysterious
and gracious life.

Every local Church therefore finds its center and its unity in the bishop, not
so much because he is its local head and pastor, but because through him it is
included in the mysterious "sobornost" ["catholicity"] of the Church-body for
all times.

"We affirm that the order of bishops is so necessary for the Church that without
it the Church is not a Church and a Christian is not a Christian, and that they
cannot be even so called. For the bishop is a successor of the Apostles through
the laying on of hands and invocation of the Holy Spirit, having successively
received the power bestowed from God to loose and to bind. He is a living image
of God on earth, and owing to the divine activity and power of the Holy Spirit
is the abundant source of all the sacraments of the Church Universal through
which salvation is obtained. We consider that a bishop is as essential to a
Church as breath is to man and the sun to the world" (the Epistle of the Eastern
Patriarchs to the Bishops of Great Britain, 1723, par. 10). On the Day of
Pentecost the Spirit descends not only on the Apostles, but also on those who
were present with them; not only on the Twelve but on the entire multitude
(compare Chrysostom’s Discourses and his interpretation of Acts). This means
that the Spirit descended on the whole of the Primitive Church then present in
Jerusalem. But though the Spirit is one, the gifts and ministrations in the
Church are very varied, so that while in the sacrament of Pentecost the Spirit
descends on all, it is on the Twelve alone that He bestows the power and the
rank of priesthood promised to them by Our Lord in the days of His flesh. The
distinctive features of priesthood do not become blurred in the all-embracing
fullness of Pentecost. But the simultaneity of this Catholic outpouring of the
Spirit on the entire Church witnesses to the fact that priesthood was founded
within the sobornost of the Church.

It is with this that the direct prohibition of ordination in a "general" or
"abstract" sense (viz., without a definite appointment to a Church or a
congregation) is directly associated (4 Oecum., rule 6). Secret ordination is
also prohibited. It must always be public and open, in the Church itself, before
the people and with the people. Moreover, a participation of the "people" in the
ordination itself is required, and not only as reverent spectators who follow
the prayers. The binding "aksios" or "amen" is not merely an accompaniment, but
also a witness, and an acceptance. The power to ordain is bestowed on bishops
and on bishops alone. But it is given to them within the Church as to the
pastors of a definite flock. And they can and should realize this power only in
the sobornost of the Church and in agreement with the entire Body - namely, the
priests and the people - and not in a "general" or "abstract" way. This means
that the bishop should abide in the Church, and the Church in the bishop. The
ancient stipulation that a bishop should be ordained by two or three bishops is
especially significant (Apost. 1). The implication of this requirement is quite
obvious (cf. Matthew 18:16, "that at the mouth of two witnesses or three every
word may be established"). But to what do the bishops who ordain witness? In the
ordination of a bishop no separate bishop can act for himself as a bishop of a
definite and particular local Church for as such he remains an outsider so far
as any other diocese or bishopric is concerned. He acts as a representative of
the sobornost of the co-bishops, as a member and sharer of this sobornost. In
addition to this it is implied that these bishops belong to a particular diocese
and as ruling bishops are not separated and indeed are inseparable from their
flocks. Every co-ordainer acts in the name of Catholic sobornost and fullness
(cf. 1 Oecum., rule 4: "it is most seemly for a bishop to be appointed by all
the bishops of that region; but if this happens to be inconvenient either for
some special reason or owing to the distance, let at least three of them
assemble in one place, and let those who are absent signify their acquiescence
in writing, and then let them proceed with ordination").

Again, these are not only canonical, or administrative, or disciplinary
measures. One feels that there is a mystical depth in them. No realization or
extension of Apostolic Succession is otherwise possible, apart from the
unbreakable sobornost of the whole Church. Apostolic Succession can never be
severed or divorced from the organic context of the life of the entire Church,
although it has its own divine root. In the Roman rite one bishop alone ordains,
but the presence of "witnesses" or "assistants" is required, who thus confirm
the fullness and the sobornost of the sacramental act. The main point lies here
in the co-operation of the whole Church, even though it may be taken for granted
and represented symbolically. Under normal conditions of Church life Apostolic
Succession should never become reduced to an abstract enumeration of successive
ordainers. In ancient times Apostolic Succession usually implied first of all a
succession to a definite cathedra, again in a particular local sobornost.
Apostolic Succession does not represent a self-sufficient chain or order of
bishops. It is an organ and a system of Church oneness. Moreover, not only "holy
orders" [ordo], but also the "priestly power" [jurisdictio] are congruent in
grace. "Jurisdiction" signifies the concreteness of the bishop’s power and
dignity, and it stands precisely for sobornost, viz. - organic unity with a
particular body of Church people. Therefore, apart from "jurisdiction," that is
in the mere self-sufficiency of the episcopal rank, the power to ordain cannot
be practiced. If such an "abstract" ordination cannot be recognized as "valid"
[valida], it is, nevertheless, not only "illegal" [illicita], but also
mystically defective. For every rupture of canonical bonds simultaneously
implies a certain loss of grace, namely - isolation, estrangement, neglect,
mystical forgetfulness, limitation of Church outlook, and decrease of love. For
Apostolic Succession has been established for the sake of unity and sobornost,
and must never become the vehicle of exclusiveness and division. The
Apostolicity of the Church is not exhausted by the uninterruptibility of this
priestly succession from the Apostles. Apostolic Succession must not be severed
from Apostolic Tradition, and in fact never can be. Apostolic Tradition is not
only a historical reminiscence, nor does faithfulness to Tradition mean simply
an obstinate insistence on what is ancient, still less does it demand an archaic
adaptation of the present to the manners or standards of the past. Tradition is
not Church archeology but spiritual life. It is the memory of the Church. It is,
firstly, an uninterrupted current of spiritual life proceeding from the Upper
Room. Nor is faithfulness to Apostolic Tradition faithfulness to antiquity
alone, but a living link with all the fullness of Church life. Faithfulness to
Tradition is similarly a participation in Pentecost, and Tradition represents a
fullfilment of Pentecost - "Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come. He
shall guide you unto all truth" (John 16:13). Generally speaking, Tradition is
not so much a safeguarding and conservative principle, as a progressive and
educible one - the beginning of life, renewal, and growth. Apostolic times are
not only an external example for imitation or repetition, but an eternally
renewed spring or experience and life in grace. Tradition is the power to teach,
confess, witness, and proclaim out of the depth of the experience of the Church,
which remains always the same and unimpaired. And this "power to teach"
[potestas magisterii] is included in Apostolic Succession and based on it. The
power to teach is conferred precisely on the episcopate - it is the most
apostolic "power." But this "power" is a function of the Catholic fullness of
the Church. "De omnium fidelium ore pendeamus, quia in omnem fidelem Spiritus
Dei spirat." The hierarchy in its teaching capacity represents, as it were, the
lips of the Church. This does not mean that the hierarchy acquires its teaching
credentials from the people of the Church, for it has them from the Holy Spirit,
as an "anointing of truth" [charisma veritatis certum], according to the
expression of St. Irenaeus of Lyons, in the sacrament of ordination. But this is
the right or power to express and witness to the faith and experience of the
Church. The hierarchy teaches as an organ of the Church. Therefore it is limited
by the "consent of the Church" [e consensu ecclesiae], and again not so much in
the order of canonics as of spiritual life and evidence. To the hierarchy alone
is given the right to teach and witness in the Church. But the hierarchy is not
a self-sufficient and complete "teaching body" in the Church. The hierarchy then
only teaches in a Catholic way when it truly holds and contains the Church
within itself. Every local Church has the right to a "teaching voice" only in
the person of its bishop, which, however, does not exclude the right to freedom
of opinion. On the other hand the bishop also has the "power to teach" only
within the Church, only within the actual sobornost of his people and flock. The
bishop receives this power and ability to teach, not from his flock, but from
Christ Himself, in Whose ministry of teaching he participates through the grace
of Apostolic Succession. But the power to be, as it were, the heart of his
people is conferred on him, and therefore the people also have a right and duty
to witness, to consent, and to refuse consent, in the search for full unanimity
and the fullness of sobornost. The power to teach is therefore based on a
two-fold continuity. Firstly, the uninterruptibility of spiritual life in the
Church as the "fullness of Him that filleth all in all" (Ephesians 1:23). All
the meaning and grandeur of the Christian life lies in the acquiring of the
Spirit. We enter into communion with the Spirit in the sacraments, and we must
strive to be filled with the Spirit in prayer and action. This constitutes the
mystery of our inner life. But even in this it is assumed that we belong to the
Church and are part of its very texture. Each individual way of life is also
included in sobornost, and this means that it is conditioned and limited by
Apostolic Succession. Secondly, a universal communion for all time or a union in
the sacraments is only possible through the uninterruptibility of priestly
succession. The historical development of the Church, its organic integrity in
revealing the fundamental "depositum fidei" are alike based on Apostolic
Succession. The Catholic fullness of the teaching of the Church is only possible
for us through Apostolic Succession which supersedes the historical relativity
of separate epochs, and which also acts as a check for an inner differentiation
between what is varying and what is permanent. The freedom of theological
investigation and opinion finds support and a foundation for itself in this
hierarchical "anointing of the truth." It is precisely Apostolic Succession
which allows us in our theology to rise above and beyond the spirit of our times
and enter into the fullness of truth.

Generally speaking, the efficacy and the reality of the sacraments does not
depend on the faith of those who partake of them. For the sacraments are
accomplished by the power of God, and not of man, and the frailty and
imperfection of an individual priest is made good by the mysterious
participation of the entire Church in his actions - the Church which has
appointed him and authorized him to fulfil the "ministry of the Sacraments."
However, in spite of this, it is hardly possible to isolate completely the
objectively-gracious moment of the sacraments. For example, how can Apostolic
Succession be preserved when Apostolic Tradition has been broken together with
the continuity of the spiritual life? In any case an injury to faith cannot but
be reflected in one way or another in the hierarchy of such communities in which
the Apostolic "deposit of faith" has not been safeguarded, and where the
fullness of Tradition has been diminished by breaches in historical continuity.
Especially does this apply to cases where the injury affects the basic motives
of the "succession" itself, when Eucharistic faith becomes dimmed, and when the
idea of priesthood becomes vague.

One might add that in such cases the empirical link with the fullness of Church
life both past and present is usually severed, and the community becomes
self-contained and isolated, so that an empirical separation or schism takes
place. Such a will to isolation and, as it were, solitude cannot but affect that
ministry of the Church the whole meaning of which lies in the preservation and
expression of unity. Again this is not only a question of legality or
"jurisdiction." Not so much canonically as mystically every priest acts on
behalf of and in the name of the whole Church - and only thus is his Divine
ministry full of mystical value. The Eucharist is one and undivided and can only
be celebrated within the mystical limits of the Catholic Church. How can a
"dissenter" celebrate the Eucharist?

Still more equivocal is the continuity of the Apostolic Succession in schismatic
bodies, particularly if it has been continued, or even "re-established"
precisely for the sake of making the separation permanent. How can the
hierarchical chain persist in division, when its very raison d’être is unity?
And how can schismatic hierarchs act on behalf of and in the name of the
Catholic Church? Yet Church life in practice witnesses to the fact that this is
possible, and that the life in grace in schismatical bodies is not extinguished
and exhausted, at any rate, to be sure, not immediately. However, we cannot
think it possible that it should go on unimpaired, precisely for the reason that
one cannot sharply isolate different aspects of the organic whole of Church
life. Human and historical isolation, even if they do not altogether lead to the
severing of Apostolic Succession, must at any rate weaken it mystically. For the
unity in grace can only come to be revealed in the "mystery of freedom," and
only through a return to Catholic fullness and communion can every separated
hierarchical body recover its full mystical significance. Simultaneously with
this return there is the acceptance of the Apostolic "deposit of faith" in all
its completeness. Apostolic Succession is only strengthened by faithfulness to
and fulfillment of Apostolic Tradition. In their inseparability lies the
fullness of Pentecost.

Consensus Ecclesiae

Nov. 24, 1934 Two explanatory notes to Professor Florovsky’s article on "The
Sacrament of Pentecost."

1."To the hierarchy alone is given the right to teach and witness in the
Church." This does not mean that the clergy and laity are merely destined to an
unconditional and formal obedience to the episcopate. It does not similarly
imply that "the right to teach" is conferred on the bishops apart from the
people. On the contrary, there should be no room for exclusiveness in the
Church. In this way the sharp contrast which exists in the Roman Church between
the "teaching" and the "learning" Church is relinquished. It is more correct to
speak of the co-ordination between all the strata, or elements, within the
Church. I emphasize again "the bishop also has the "power to teach" only within
the Church, only within the actual sobornost of his people and flock." Everyone
in the Church is called not only to obedience but also to understanding.
Precisely in questions of faith and dogma everyone is constrained by personal
responsibility. It is preferable not to speak of "responsibility" - the term is
too formal - it is better to say that everyone should dwell in truth. The flock
must not only listen but also acquiesce. It is not authority that decides so
much as an inner evidence of spiritual life. Within the boundaries of unbroken
sobornost there exists an allocation of activities and tasks. At any rate,
everyone is called to be a living example and witness to his faith and trust, to
teach and help everyone. This is not the question at issue. Nor is it even one
of theological research, which formally cannot be delimited by any position in
the Church. The question is one of the right of dogmatic witness on behalf of
the Church.

Again, the power of the hierarchy does not assume that truth, as it were, is
revealed automatically to the bishop, by force of his ordination and dignity, or
that he can discover it without consultation and communion with that Church
outside of which he loses all "power," generally speaking. However, only to him,
and to him alone, is given the right to speak in a Catholic way. It is not only
a canonical privilege or right. It is bound up with the fact that the bishop as
such is a mystical center of his flock, which unites in him in the oneness of
sacramental fellowship. The fact that not infrequently bishops are not
sufficiently good theologians does not contradict this statement. In such a case
they are forced to find support in other priests who are more learned than they.
This has been the case from the most ancient times: we have merely to recall
Eusebius of Caesarea, whose chief councillor was Basil the Great. This is no
greater contradiction than the simple fact that there do exist unworthy bishops
and even unworthy Christians, generally speaking. Even laymen can and must
study, discuss, preach, write, and argue; they can similarly disagree with
bishops. But to witness on behalf of the Church is given only to the bishop. One
can also put it thus: the right of an opinion and of advice is given to all, but
the "power to teach" is bestowed on the hierarchy alone - of course, in the
unbreakableness of soborny fellowship. The scarcity of learned bishops in the
Orthodox Church in recent times is to be greatly regretted, but it is in no way
linked with this main postulate. As regards "lay theologians" in Russia, it can
be hardly said that they have the power to teach on behalf of the whole Church -
which does not in any way limit their great historical significance. For the
voice of laymen must be heard in the Orthodox choir. The leader of the choir,
however, can only be a bishop. There are various gifts, and all gifts are
necessary. Only one, however, is appointed shepherd and the staff is entrusted
to him. "And the sheep follow Him: for they know His voice" (John 10:4).

II. The disunity within the Christian world implies, of course, its mystical
weakness, and here nothing is clear. I would only like to emphasize one point.
The very fact of division in the Church is a paradox and an antinomy. A falling
away from the Church is more comprehensible than division in the Church, while
the very efficacy of the sacraments in schism [raskol] does not in itself do
away with the undoubted fact that even the spirit of division is an unhealthy
symptom. It is not easy to develop this point of view, for it is precisely a
paradox. However, I think that the West separated itself from the East, and that
the guilt of the West is greater. All the history of Roman deviations witnesses
to this, and they continue to burden the Anglican Church as well. However, this
brings us to a new and very complicated theme, namely, that of the division of
the Churches, and it will be wiser to return to it separately on another
occasion.

"The Sacrament of Pentecost" originally appeared in theJournal of the Fellowship
of St. Alban and St. Sergius, No. 23 (London, 1954; p. 29-35). Reprinted by
permission of the author. "Consensus Ecclesiae" appeared in No. 24 of the same.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 26: 21 - THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN REVELATION
========================================================================

The Work of the Holy Spirit in Revelation. From "The Christian East" Journal
Vol. XIII No. 2 (pages 49-64) 1932 "Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today
and for ever" (Hebrews 13:8)

It is always the first definitions which are the most difficult. Here we have
nothing to which we can refer, nothing from which we can draw deductions. We
must not prove, but show; we must look and see. And just now I am very keenly
conscious of the difficulty of speaking of initial principles.

Revelation is a primordial fact, the initial gift of Christianity, of Christian
life and faith. "But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the
Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God... The things of God
knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God" (1 Corinthians 2:10-11). And again: "No
man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost" (1 Corinthians 12:3).
In our usual conception of Revelation there is a certain heterogeneity, even a
certain ambiguity. And the first thing we have to do is to find out in what this
heterogeneity consists, and how we are to set it aside. In a certain sense the
whole world is the Revelation of God. The creation of the world is a revelation,
"a manifestation of God," in "conceivable images." The whole world testifies of
God, of His Wisdom, Mercy and Love. This is generally named: "Revelation through
Nature." This is Revelation in matter, so-to-say, the Revelation which is
immanent in the very nature and essence of things; which is inscribed and
implanted there. Above all, it exists in the nature of man himself; man, who was
created and made in God’s image and likeness. This is the "Law of God" "Written
in the hearts of men" (Romans 2:15). But strictly speaking this is not
Revelation in the direct meaning of the word. It is better to speak here not of
Revelation, but of God’s manifestation. In Nature, visible and invisible, God is
manifested, not revealed. In Nature and in the human soul we find only "certain
traces of God," "vestigia Dei naturalia." But, so far, this is no theophany.
This is only a testimony (Testmonium) of God; and from it the human mind may
conclude or presuppose God’s existence; may become conscious of God; may divine
God in His works. This gives birth to "seeking after God," to religious longing,
to religious needs, still unclear and wavering: "That they should seek the Lord,
if haply they might feel after Him and find Him, though He be not far from every
one of us" (Acts 17:27). But so far this is not yet knowledge of God, it is not
seeing or knowing. Strictly speaking Revelation is not the fundamental essence
of every religious life. Even more, we have a right to say that Revelation is,
in general, not religion, but it is greater than religion. It is something
different, something apart from religion. It is not the manifestation of God in
his creation, in the beings created by Him, but a direct vision of God granted
to man. God is manifested in all and always. Here we stand before a certain
continuity, the continuity of Divine Omnipresence of Him "who is omnipotent and
omnipresent." But not everywhere and not to all is this vision of God granted.
There is no continuity in theophanies. Here we are in a realm of rupture and
interruptions, of interruptions in the continuous stream of the world’s natural
order, though this too is established by Divine command and by Divine
Providence, by the Providence of the Omnipotent Creator. This is the realm of
the supernatural, and only the "supernatural" is the Revelation of God in the
real meaning of the word. In the "Religion of Nature" man recognizes and divines
God; seeks after Him and reaches out for Him, for "He be not far from every one
of us." But this is only the path of man towards God. Revelation is the path of
God towards man. This is above nature, supernatural, this is something new and
different, something greater than that force of movement and life which has been
implanted in every created being by the pre-eternal and creative "Fiat."

Or, in other words, in Nature God is manifested as the Creator of vitality, the
Giver of existence and of life. But in the supernatural, in what is above
nature, God in His transcendence appears and is revealed as He who spake; "Who
at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the Fathers by
the Prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son" (Hebrews
1:1-2). God is revealed in the Word, and only God’s word is Revelation in its
direct and exact meaning. Revelation is the Divine Voice, the Voice of God,
speaking to man. Man hears this Voice, listens to it, accepts it, and
understands the Divine Word. For God speaks so that man should hear Him. God
created man in His image and likeness that man should listen for His Voice and
Word, should hear it, and, even more, that he should treasure it, remember it,
and keep it. When we speak of Revelation, we have in mind just the Word of God
that has been heard by us. Some heard it direct, without any intermediary; these
were the great initiated and prophets. Others heard of it through the mediation
of those who were commanded by God and by the power and aid of the Holy Ghost to
repeat what they had heard and seen themselves. The Holy Scriptures are the
written record of the Revelation they heard, and it was God who gave them the
Strength, through the outpouring of His Holy Ghost, to bear and write down His
words. The sacred mystery of Divine inspiration cannot be completely fathomed by
us. We cannot fully understand in what manner "God’s Holy men" heard the Word of
their God and how they repeated it in the words of their own tongue. But even in
their transmission it was the Voice of God, the Voice of the Holy Ghost, that
was heard, and the feeble human voice, the voice of flesh and blood, had no part
in it. Therein lies the miracle and mystery of the Bible that it is the Word of
God, the Word of the Spirit, who "spake by the prophets," and yet it is the Word
of the Spirit in a human tongue. And whatever the manner in which we understand
the Divine inspiration of Scripture, one thing is important. The scriptures
transmit and preserve for us the Divine Voice in the tongue of man. The
scriptures transmit and preserve for us the Divine Word such as it had been
heard, such as it sounded in the receptive soul of man. The mystery of Divine
inspiration is not only that God spoke to man, but also that man was listening
to God and heard him. God descends to man, shows his Face to man; speaks to him.
And man sees God, is lost in the vision of God, and describes what he has seen
and heard, bearing witness to what has been revealed to him. Therein lies the
significance of the Old Testament Divine visions, of the Old Testament
Revelations. In them there is a certain essential anthropomorphism, and this not
so much because of the weakness of human understanding, or from a sense of
"adaptability," but as a foretaste of the coming incarnation. It is already in
the Old Testament that the Divine Word becomes human, is incarnated in the human
tongue. And there is another point of great importance. If we want the Divine
Word to ring clear, the human tongue must not lose its natural qualities. It
must not leave off being human. What is human is not suppressed or swept away by
Divine inspiration; it is only transfigured. The supernatural does not go
counter to what is natural.

Therefore, it is that God chooses to speak in the human tongue, that through
Divine inspiration, through the Breath of the Spirit of Omniscience and Wisdom,
human nature should be completed, fulfilled. The human tongue does not weaken or
belittle the absoluteness of Revelation; it does not limit the power of God’s
Word. The Word of God may be exactly and strictly expressed in the language of
man, who is created in the image and likeness of God; in the image of God’s
Word, as was taught by some of the Fathers of the Church. The Word of God does
not grow dim because it sounds and is pronounced in the tongue of man. On the
contrary, the human word becomes transfigured, transubstantiated, because God
deigned to speak in the human tongue. The Divine Spirit breathes in the organism
of human speech, in the substance of human words. And therefore the tongue of
man acquires force and firmness. It becomes possible for the word of man to
speak of God. Theology becomes possible.

Strictly speaking theology grows possible only through Revelation. It is the
answering speech of man to God, as man’s witness of God who had spoken to him;
whose voice he had heard and remembered, and whose words he had kept and was
repeating. So-called "natural theology" is no theology in the true sense of the
word. It is rather a philosophy, a word about the "Unknown God," towards whom
the restless human soul reaches out but has not yet found; frequently it loses
its way in its search. This is the "Word about a God who has not yet revealed
Himself; about whom man can so far say nothing, unless it be that his soul
panteth for Him and longeth for Him as the hart panteth for the spring of
water." And it is only through Revelation that true theology becomes possible.
For the first time in answer to Revelation true prayer is poured out in words of
testimony, words of adoration, of thanksgiving and of petition. Again it is an
answer to the Word of God. In Sacred Scripture we are, first of all, struck by
the intimate relation of God to man and of man to God. In Scripture we see not
only God, but man as well. It is the Revelation of God, but it is also a
revelation concerning man. God reveals Himself to man, appears before him,
becomes visible to him, speaks with him, so as to reveal to man the hidden
meaning of his existence, to show him the path and meaning of human life. In
Scripture we see God coming to reveal Himself to man, and we see man meeting God
and not only listening to His Words, but answering them. In Scripture we not
only hear the Voice of God, but also the voice of man answering Him - in words
of prayer, thanksgiving, adoration, sorrow, and contrition. God wants, and
expects, and demands this answer. It is for this that He speaks with man. He
expects man to answer Him. He is waiting for man to talk with Him. And He draws
up His covenant with man.

Revelation is the history of this covenant. Recorded Revelation - Sacred
Scripture - is, first of all, history. Law and prophets, psalms and prophecies
are included and woven into the living historical web.

Scripture is history, the history of the world created by God, and the history
of man who is called to be the priest, the prophet, and the king of this world.
Scripture begins with the creation of the world and is brought up to the eve of
the new creation: "Behold I make all things new" (Revelation 21:5). Between
these two extreme points, that of the first creative, "Let there be," and that
of the latest prophecy, the living web of Sacred Scripture dynamically unfolds
itself. Revelation is not only a system of Divine words, but, above all, the
system of Divine works. This is the reason of the extension of time in Sacred
Scripture. We might say that Revelation was the path of God in history. And the
culminating point is reached when God enters history for all time; when the Word
is incarnated, when God-Man is revealed.

Revelation is also the book of human fate. First of all, it is the book which
narrates the fall and the salvation of man. It speaks of the first created
paradise, of Adam’s expulsion from it as a consequence of his sin; of the first
promise of salvation, the so-called "First Gospel" (Genesis 3:15). It speaks of
the path fallen man had to tread upon earth, of the new promises, and, at last,
of the chosen "Father of all the faithful," Abraham, and of the covenant made
with him. It is from here that the actual Old Testament begins. The Old
Testament is the sacred history of Israel, the history of that unique people,
the people chosen by God, with whom God concluded his covenant. Here the most
important thing is the fact of election; the separation of Israel, the setting
Israel apart from all other peoples. Israel is the grace-given, sacred oasis in
the history of fallen mankind. Only with one people on earth did God conclude a
covenant and give it His own law, Divinely inscribed on tables of stone. God
establishes in the midst of this people a true priesthood, even though only a
temporal and prophetic one. He raises from among it the prophets, who speak
words inspired by the Spirit of God. Before Christ it was in Israel alone that
there existed a true priesthood and not only an idolatrous one. Therefore it was
only there that true Divine service was performed. Here alone was sacrifice,
pleasing in God’s eyes, offered. Here alone was there a true temple of God, the
only temple of the sort in all the world. It was a sacred center for all the
world - an oasis granted by the Grace of God, in the midst of a sinful,
unredeemed world. It is from here that sanctification begins. "The cloud filled
the house of the Lord" (1 Kings 8:10). This election and separation of Israel is
easily understood and explained from an historical standpoint, from the
historical mission of Israel. Israel is the first-fruit of mankind. Its
historical mission leads to the birth in its midst of the world’s Savior. In it
was to be accomplished the last limit of the final Revelation of God, the
incarnation of the Word. It was because of this that the legislation of Mount
Sinai was granted to this people; because of this the prophets spoke. The Sacred
meaning of the Old Testament is that it is the history of the ancestors of our
Savior, and therefore it is by mentioning them that the Gospels begin their
narrative: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, time son of David, the
son of Abraham," (Matthew 1:1). "For salvation is of the Jews" (John 4:22). The
Old Testament is the period of the Messianic expectation, the time of covenants
and prophecies. It is not only the prophets that prophesy. Events also become
prophecies. The Old Testament history, as a whole, is a kind of fore given
image, an historical symbol, a looking forward towards approaching events. St.
Augustine said: "The New Testament is contained within the Old and the Old is
revealed in the New. In VetereTestamentoNovumlatet, inNovo Testamento Vetus
patet; and the Messianic tense expectation culminates in the appearance of the
God-Man: "But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made
of a woman" (Galatians 4:4). The time of expectation is passed; the promise has
been accomplished; the Lord has come. He has come to abide and remain with those
who believe in Him: "Always, even unto the end of the world" (Matthew 28:20).
The Old Testament history is finishing - the history of flesh and blood. The
history of the Spirit is beginning - the Kingdom of Truth and Grace is opened
(John 1:17). And yet the law is not destroyed, but fulfilled (Matthew 5:17), and
the prophecies have been accomplished and did not prove vain. The Old Testament
was fulfilled, revealed, and completed in the New, in Novo patet. And therefore
the books of the Hebrews are still sacred for Christians. Not only, because
once, in olden times, God spoke to Israel, but also because now, too, the Word
of God is to be heard in the Bible, and now through this eternal, eternally
living book, God’s Revelation continues coining down to us. It is therein that
the mystery of the Bible consists; this is the mystery of the inspired,
transfigured, transubstantiated word. This does not mean that time Bible is used
in the Church as a book of parables, as a book of historical examples and cases,
a collection of texts or theological instances (Loci Theologici). No, the Bible
remains history, and it is just as a book of sacred history that it preserves
all its power. The law is already set aside and is replaced by something higher.
The temple exists no more in Jerusalem and the House of Israel is empty (Luke
13:35). Prophecy has been accomplished.

However, in sacred history events not only take place and pass away, but they
are accomplished and fulfilled, they are completed. The Past does not mean
"passed" or "was," but, above all, has been fulfilled. Fulfillment is the
fundamental essence of Revelation. That which has become sacred remains Holy for
always and without change. It has the seal, the sign, and the blessing of the
Holy Ghost. For even to the present moment the Spirit breathes in the words once
inspired by it. The Old Testament is, above all, a book for us. The New
Testament is more than a book. In the Old Testament we see most clearly the
meaning of the Revelation as of a Word. Therefore we witness to the Spirit "that
spake in times past unto the Fathers by the Prophets" (Hebrews 1:2). In the New
Testament God hath spoken to us by his Son, and we are bound not only to hear,
but to see, too.

We admit that the Old Testament is a difficult book. And, as time runs on, it
grows no easier. Perhaps, on the contrary, it is more difficult for us to read
it than it was for our ancestors. This is not the time or place to ask and
discuss the question concerning the "historical authenticity" of the Old
Testament. There is no time here to unravel the complex and difficult problem of
the so-called "Higher Criticism." It would involve us in giving too much time to
it in this paper. But all these critical investigations do not touch upon the
fundamental principle of Revelation; do not deflect from its Divine inspiration.
Scientific criticism cannot prove the sacred value of the Bible; cannot refute
it. Divine inspiration is not a category of autonomous science. The reason of
man, left to itself, cannot feel inspiration. Divine inspiration presupposes a
certain rupture in the natural order. We need a special method of seeing to be
able to recognize it. This in no wise means that faith and reason cannot be
united, and that reason knows no religious truths and postulates; that religious
truth, the truth of Revelation, is not obligatory or convincing for reason. On
the contrary! But to achieve this, reason itself must be transfigured. Out of a
world of two dimensions we must pass over into one of three; we must feel depth.
Herein lies the nucleus of the theological question of Higher Criticism. To be
able to feel the breath of the Spirit in Sacred Scripture, we must "strive after
the Spirit," we must possess spiritual intuition and insight. We must learn to
discern profanum et sacrum; we must know and feel what is profanum and what is
sacrum; we must admit and know that there is a sacrum, quite apart from
profanum. And this transfiguration of our consciousness can he accomplished only
in the Church, in its spiritual charismatic completeness. Revelation has been
granted to the Church not to individuals. In the Old Testament also "God’s
Words" were entrusted not to individuals, but to God’s people (Romans 3:2).
Revelation has been given only to the Church, and only in the Church is it
accessible to us; i.e., it can be accessible only in the fullness of spiritual
life. Outside the Church, for outsiders, it becomes unclear, unconvincing. This
unclearness is the nether side of our inattention, of our absence of intuition.
The apex of Revelation is in the Gospels. For the fullness of Revelation - is
Christ. The New Testament is also, first of all, history - the Gospel history of
the incarnated Word and of the beginning of the history of the Church, which is
now expecting its apocalyptic fulfillment. The basis of the New Testament is
facts, events, realities, commandments, teaching, and words. Here the basis is
Christ and the Church, His Body. "The fullness of Him that filleth all in all"
(Ephesians 1:23). The Gospel is history. Historical events are the subject and
source of Christian faith and Christian hope. From the beginning, from the very
day of Pentecost, when the Apostle Peter as an eye-witness, ("Whereof we are all
witnesses," Acts 2:32), witnessed to the fulfillment of salvation, apostolic
preaching had an historical character. But again it is a sacred history. The
Apostles always speak of concrete historical facts and events. They bring
vividly before the consciousness of their hearers the image of Christ, they make
it live anew, and they show who He was. The uniqueness, the marvel of this
historical Figure consists in the fact that He who became visible, whom we saw,
was the Son of God, the Savior of the world. Therefore it is that human limits,
belonging to a world of two dimensions, cannot encompass this Image. It
transcends them; and within historical boundaries we see what is
super-historical, what is above the earth. But the boundaries are not
obliterated, not wiped away, not dimmed; in the sacred Image historical features
are still visible. Therein lies the meaning and importance of apostolic
preaching that it is a narrative, a narrative of what the Apostles themselves
heard and saw, of what was fulfilled and accomplished, hic et nunc. "Which we
have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our
hands have handled" (1 John 1:1). But what happened was unheard of: "The Word
was made flesh" (John 1:14). Therefore this narrative is more than merely a
narrative; it relates not only something that took place, but something that was
realized and completed. Through historical vision we catch sight of what is
visible only to the eyes of faith, what only the few saw and recognized during
the lifetime of the Savior; what even the Apostles saw and recognized fully only
later, after His resurrection, when He had opened their understanding that they
might understand "The mysteries of the Kingdom" (Luke 24:45). The Gospel is a
narrative and an image, but it is the narrative about God-Man. And just because
it is a narrative and an historical witness there is a certain reserve in it.
The scope of faith is more than reminiscence. Faith grows living, in creative
recognition of what it has seen and heard in communion with Christ. The Gospels
give us a unique, integral image, an image both Divine and human - the image of
God become man. For those whose capacity of perception is not fine enough this
image often appears as two separate images, just as it did to those who saw Him
in the flesh, as long as their hearts had not been enlightened by faith. The
Evangelists and the Apostles were no chroniclers. It was not their mission to
relate all that had been done by Jesus, day by day, year by year. They described
His image and related His works, so as to give us His image; an historical, yet
a Divine image. The Gospels may be called "An historical icon," an icon in words
not in lines and colors, yet a picture of His face. Or, to be more exact, the
Gospels are not one, but four icons, a four-fold icon of God-Man. And this icon
has been delineated by the power of the Spirit. The gospels are the records of
the apostolic "good tidings," and the preaching of the Apostles was contained
not "in the doubtful words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit
and of power" (1 Corinthians 2:4), in the numerous separate reminiscences the
figure of Jesus grows living and the sensitive heart recognizes in Jesus of
Nazareth, crucified and risen, the Savior of the world and the God-Man. The
earthly plan of the Gospel is always mysteriously transparent, and through the
historical evidence we see the glimmering of Divine reality. It is true that not
all see this, just as not all saw it then; and not "flesh and blood," but the
Father which is in heaven hath revealed that He was the Son of the living God
(Matthew 16:16-17). In the mysterious blending of the double features the Face
of God-Man has been drawn, seen, and recognized. For thus it was described by
the Evangelists. The whole of the New Testament throbs with historical
fulfillment of what has been and is accomplished. But this is no historically
isolated earthly stream of events, of "natural events." The narrative of what
took place is a realistic narrative. It was, it happened, this meeting of the
sky and the earth, of God and man. The meeting and the union: "And the Word was
made flesh" (John 1:14) "And yet no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by
the Holy Ghost" (1 Corinthians 12:3). It means that revelation becomes clearly
heard by us in all its fullness only in spiritual experience. Therefore the
Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, has been sent down to us that He "Will guide you
into all truth" (John 16:13), that He should "bring all things to your
remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you’ (John 14:26). And to the present
day, "The same anointing teacheth, you all things" (1 John 2:27). The Gospels
are written within the Church. They are the records of the apostolic "good
tidings," of the apostolic preaching, and the strength of this preaching built
up the Church: "Go ye, therefore, and teach." The Gospels are the records of
Church experience and faith, records of what is visible in the experience of the
Church. It is the living Image of Christ which the Church has contemplated from
the beginning; and it is only within the Church that this Image is fully and
wholly accessible. St. Athanasius the Great says: "It is the direct and living
meeting with Christ, into whom all the faithful are clothed in the sacrament of
Holy Baptism; we are satisfied by the Spirit; we drink Christ."

Divine Revelation is preserved in the Church. It is protected arid strengthened
by the words of Scripture; it is protected, but not exhausted. The words of
Scripture do not exhaust the whole fullness of Revelation; do not exhaust the
whole fullness of Christian experience and of the charismatic reminiscence of
the Church. The experience of the Church is wider than its direct testimony.
Therefore those who abide in the Church know infinitely more and quite otherwise
than "outsiders." For those who abide within the Church, the testimony of the
Spirit makes the Scriptures a clearer, a fuller thing; this testimony once more
lives in their own personal experience. And this is why we must not speak of the
"self-sufficing quality" of Scripture. For Scripture is not only preserved by
the power of human memory; it is also protected by the power of Grace in the
charismatic life of the Church. In the Church, Revelation becomes an inner
spiritual experience. The Church in itself is already a Revelation_ From the Day
of Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost entered the world to abide in it, Revelation
has become an uninterrupted continuity. The fiery baptism of the created world
was accomplished. It was represented by the twelve Apostles and those that were
with them, as the chosen first-fruit (Matthew 3:2). At any rate the Scriptures
demand that they should he expounded and explained. And a true explanation will
be one that proceeds from the realities described in the Scriptures. It must be
no outward, but an inward explanation, growing out of the depth of spiritual
experience. And here we do not so much speak of the personal spiritual intuition
of every separate expounder, as, above all, of the living of the fullness of the
spiritual experience of the Church itself. For in this experience the Scriptures
become vivified by the same Spirit who had once inspired them. When the Church
expounds Scripture it bears witness to that of which the Scriptures testify. But
frequently new words are used. Revelation is received in the silence of faith,
the silence of contemplation - such is the first silently receptive moment of
theology. And in this receptive silence of contemplation the whole fullness of
Truth is contained and given. But Truth must still be expressed and pronounced.
Because man is called not only to receive Truth attentively, but also to witness
of it. Silencium mysticum does not exhaust the complete calling of man. He is
called to creative activity, above all, to the building up of his own self.
God’s Word must become evident in the reality of human thought; God’s Word must
give birth to human thought. This is the creative or positive moment of the
knowledge of God. Divine reality revealed in the experience of the Church may be
described in manifold ways. Either in images and symbols, in religious poetry
and religious art - such was the language of the Old Testament prophets; thus
frequently spoke the Evangelists, thus preached the Apostles, and thus the
Church is still preaching in the songs and hymns of its Divine service, in the
symbolic meaning of its rites. This is the tongue of preaching or witnessing; it
is the tongue of charismatic theology. Or, Divine reality may be described in
the conceptions of the mind, in research. This is the language of dogma, of
dogmatic theology. "Preaching" and "Dogma" are the two ways in which the Church
bears witness to Truth, to that inner Revelation which is still continuing in
the Church by the power of the Spirit abiding in it (cp. St. Basil the Great
concerning the Holy Ghost) This Revelation, this deepening and growing into "The
Knowledge of Truth," is the life of the Church: "Till we all come in the unity
of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13)

Dogma is thought witnessing to Revelation, to what it has seen, to what was
revealed to it, to the visible and the contemplated in the Catholic experience
of the Church. And this witness is expressed in definitions and conceptions.
Dogma is the sentence of experience, the mental vision, true contemplation. We
may name it the "logical image," the "logical icon" of Divine reality. And, at
the same time, dogma is a definition. Therefore it is that both the logical form
of dogma, that "inner word" which is fixed and made definite in outward
expression, and the outward choice of words, which are so important in dogma.

Dogma is no new Revelation; dogma is only a witness, a witness of the mind, such
as is worthy of the experienced and recognized Divine Revelation, a Revelation
granted and revealed in the charismatic experience of faith, of the mysteries of
life eternal, such as has been shown by the Holy Ghost. All dogma is revealed by
experience, in true contact with "things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). This is the
source of dogmatic decisive authority and of the unchangeableness of Truth,
revealed and preserved from the beginning. Dogmas are not developed or changed.
They are inviolable, even in their outward choice of words. Perhaps it may sound
paradoxical, but it is still true to say that dogma can arise, can be
established and expressed, but they cannot be developed. A dogma once
established is an eternal inviolable "rule of faith" and the measure of it. Of
course this does not mean that something new, some "new truth" is being
revealed; but it does mean that such a truth is being expressed and pronounced.
In its dogmatic witness the Church is expressing and pronouncing truths
preserved within its fold. And its aim is to find and establish the exact words,
which should truly express the experience of the Church. These words must be
able to transmit the "vision of the mind," which is being revealed to the
faithful spirit in experience and contemplation. There is a pre-dogmatic period
of Church consciousness; then the language chosen is one of images and symbols.
But after this comes the time for bearing dogmatic witness. For truth of faith
is truth of reason as well, and thought must enter "into the knowledge of
truth." In doing this it becomes creatively transfigured, the very realm of
thought becomes transfigured, sanctified, and renewed. When Divine Truth is
pronounced and expressed in the human tongue, the very words are transfigured,
and the fact that the Truths of Revelation are imparted in logical images and
conceptions witnesses to the transfiguration of word and thought, words become
sacred. The words of dogmatic definitions, frequently taken from the habitual
philosophic vocabulary, are no more simple, casual words, which might have been
and still may be replaced by some others. No, they have grown to be eternal,
irreplaceable words. This signifies that in the adequate expression of a Divine
Truth certain words, i.e., definite conceptions and ideas, or a definite train
of thought have been eternalized and stabilized. This means that eternal and
absolute ideas are being sought; therefore the Truth of Revelation may be and is
adequately expressed in them. This Truth of Revelation has been positively
granted, and not only postulated. Not something to be sought, but something
given. However incommensurable our present knowledge "in part" is to the
promised knowledge that is to be "face to face," - still, now as always, it is
full and perfect. Truth is being revealed in Catholic experience and is being
expressed in dogmatic definitions. The dogmas of the Fathers repeat in
categories of thought the unchangeable contents of "apostolic preaching," they
express "in words of reason dogmas which once were narrated in simple words by
fishermen, who had received wisdom thereto by the power of the Spirit." By the
power of the Spirit. In the dogmatic definitions of the Church we again feel the
life-giving power of the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Wisdom. Dogmas are
pronounced not by the arbitrary desire of man, but by the inspiration of the
Spirit. Usually this was done during the Ecumenical Councils, but sometimes also
through the silent reception of "ecclesiœ sparsœ." And again; dogmas do not
exhaust the experience of the Church; just as Revelation is not exhausted in the
words or the "letter" of Scripture. In dogmatic definitions the Truth of
experience is only determined and protected, but not exhausted. The experience
and faith of the Church are fuller and wider than its dogmatic word. There is
much to which the Church witnesses even to the present day in images, symbols,
and similes, in symbolic theology. Probably this will exist to the end of time,
i.e., to the last passing over from here to the beyond (see St. Gregory the
Theologian). From the very beginning the Church was given the fullness of Truth.
But it is only gradually and "in part" that this fullness is being expressed. In
general all our knowledge here, is always a knowledge "in part." The exhaustive
fullness will be revealed only in the beyond, in the Second Advent, in the
"meeting with Our Lord." From here proceeds the dogmatic incompleteness of the
Church’s witness; this is also caused by the Church being "in a state of
pilgrimage," "in via"; that it is still being "completed and maketh increase"
(Ephesians 4:16). The human spirit and reason are still "increasing." The
historical aims of the knowledge of God, of understanding Revelation, are still
facing us. There is much that is still to be accomplished. However the
incompleteness and the inexhaustibleness of our knowledge here does not weaken
its truth, its finality, the impossibility of replacing it; does not deprive it
of the finality which has been attained. Within the limits of Church experience
there are many mysteries for us to contemplate, mysteries for which no dogmatic
words have been found so far. Here there is scope for "theological opinions" and
research. There can also exist freedom in the understanding of established
dogmas. Of course there is no room here for subjective arbitrary mental choice.
Theology must always remain vital, intuitive; it must be nourished by the
experience of faith, and must not be split up into autonomous isolated dialectic
conceptions. Once more we want to remind you that the dogmas of faith are the
truths of experience and of life - therefore they can he unfolded through no
logical synthesis and analysis, but only through spiritual life, through actual
participation in the fullness of Church experience. A lawful "theological
opinion" can he attained not through any logical deduction, but only through
direct vision, and this again can only be attained through strenuous prayerful
effort, through a striving after the Spirit, through personal spiritual growth,
through living communion with the constant Catholic experience of the Church.

Theology can be realized only through a Catholic transfiguration of those who
are striving to attain knowledge. Catholicity is a victory over all manner of
separatism. Catholicity strives against all kinds of individual isolation,
against the self-assertion of exclusiveness and isolation. Catholicity is a
certain attitude of consciousness, the measure and limit of spiritual growth. In
this Catholic transfiguration, personality grows complete and receives the
faculty and strength of feeling and expressing the consciousness and life of the
whole. And those, who, in striving to attain Catholic development, have gained
this power, accept it as a gift of the Spirit. We name those who express the
experience and consciousness of the Church, "Fathers and Teachers of the
Church"; because from them we hear not only their own personal professions, but
also the witness of the Church. It is out of Catholic fullness that they speak.
In their words we feel the breath of the Spirit. The fullness of Revelation is
assimilated by the Church in the measure of its spiritual growth. And this
gradualness in the profession of faith is connected with the dynamic growth of
Church existence, with the process of vital salvation, sanctification, and
transfiguration. Perhaps it is not by chance that it is just those dogmatic
definitions which treat of the building up of the "new creation" and of the
final fate of the Church, which have not yet been expressed. Because this has
not yet been fulfilled in time, because we are still seeing its fulfillment: and
therefore we know not all about it, and can speak of it only in prophecies and
symbols. In those dogmas which have already been established, that which
pertains to the future is but partially visible. We possess no categorical
definitions concerning the abiding of the Holy Spirit in the world, the action
of the Holy Spirit in it; not of the life of the saints and sinners beyond the
tomb, nor of much else that is awaiting its accomplishment. Here the Church
often limits itself to dogmatic negation, i.e., it witnesses in an authoritative
manner to what we are not allowed and must not think. And this witness proceeds
from the depth of that experience which has not yet been and cannot be
expressed. But the Church does not hasten to establish in dogmatic formulae
positive theological opinions of the future. And this not because it does not
know, but because the time has not yet come for it to pronounce itself. The
Church witnesses in a categorical manner to that which is ever present, to that
which does not belong to time (as for instance the dogma of the Holy Trinity);
or to that which has already been revealed, seen, and accomplished (the dogma of
the Person of Our Savior). And in the dogma of Christ the first things defined
were those which pertained to the past, in so far as they belonged to time
(Incarnation, reality of the sufferings and death on the cross, Resurrection,
Ascension); or again it witnesses to that which was revealed direct by Our
Savior himself (the Second Advent, universal resurrection, the Day of Judgment).
Of all else the Church prefers to bear testimony in symbols and similes, but
liturgically; as when it establishes the solemn festivals of Ascension and
Transfiguration; or that of the Life-giving Cross. Here the Church testifies to
much that has not yet found its final dogmatic expression; to much that is bound
up with the sanctification, i.e., the perfection of the world; a sanctification
that is being, but has not yet been, accomplished. The mystery of the Ascension
of Our Lord can be fully revealed only at the Second Advent "When He shall so
come in like manner, as ye have seen Him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11). For only
then, and in the resurrection of all, will the created body be fully
re-established and become incorruptible. The mystery of the Lord’s
Transfiguration is also closely connected with this. We catch but a glimpse of
it in the witness of the Light of Mount Tabor, given by the Byzantine Councils
of the XIV century. There is no doubt that much has been given us only as
foreknowledge. However, this does not mean that we have the right to form
whatever opinion we like concerning the truths that have not been expressed; or
that here there is nothing obligatory for us. The realm of foreknowledge is no
"doubtful realm" (Dubitum) in which unlimited "freedom" is permitted us (In
dubiis libertas). The absence of "dogmatic" definitions does not indicate
absence of knowledge, and does not authorize complete reserve from all judgment.
For that which has not been given in dogma has been given us in an experience,
which is the source of the dogmatic definitions of the Church. It has also often
been given in written recorded Revelation, which is not exhausted in dogmatic
expressions, and which is full of mystery and prophecies. Not all that is known
and revealed is proclaimed dogmatically by the Church, but all is given in the
dialectic experience of the Church, which indissolubly abides with its head,
Jesus Christ, and is unchangeably enlightened and inspired by the Life-giving
Spirit.

Father Sergius Bulgakov expressed himself very adequately when he said: "He who
has once met Christ, His Savior, on his own personal path, and has felt His
Divinity, has, in that very moment, accepted all fundamental Christian dogmas -
Virgin Birth, incarnation, Second Glorious Advent, the Coming of the Comforter,
the Holy Trinity." (S. Bulgakov: "The Undying Light."1917, p.57). To this I want
to add: "Or else he has not yet met Christ, or, at any rate, has not recognized
him." "The Spirit abideth with us now, and, in the striving after the Spirit,
the path towards the fullness of the knowledge of God is opened to us." (St.
Gregory the Theologian).

God speaks to man through His Spirit; and only in the measure in which man
abides in the Spirit does he hear and understand this voice: ’The wind bloweth
where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it
cometh and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (1 John
3:8). There are no isolated paths of spiritual life. Since the Day of Pentecost
the Spirit abideth in the Church, where God hath ordained "the action of the
Spirit"("Omnem operationem Spiritus," as St. Ireneus of Lyons said). Here, by
the power of the Spirit, is every soul quickened. Here the Word of God rings and
is heard - all the words pronounced since the beginning. Here is the fullness
and the path of knowledge. The striving after the Spirit, the prayer for the
granting of the Spirit, is the path in which we can glorify God. Through the
Breath of the Spirit God’s Revelation will be eternally vivified and will be
built up into the living organism of the one and undivided Truth The Church
teaches us to pray:

"Our Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, Omnipresent and All-fulfilling,
Treasure of all Good, and Giver of Life, come and abide in us, cleanse us from
all evil, and save, O All-merciful, our souls."


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 27: 22 - THE GOSPEL OF RESURRECTION
========================================================================

The Gospel of Resurrection

(I Cor. 15) Published by The Student Christian Association of Greece, Athens,
1951

Death is a catastrophe for man; this is the basic principle of the whole of
Christian anthropology. Man is an amphibious being, both spiritual and
corporeal, and so he was created by God. Body belongs organically to the unity
of human existence. And this was perhaps the most striking novelty in the
original Christian message. The preaching of the Resurrection as well as the
preaching of the Cross was foolishness and a stumbling-block to Gentiles. St.
Paul had already been called a "babbler" by the Athenian philosophers just
"because he proclaimed to them Jesus and the resurrection" (Acts XVII:18, cf.
v.32). The Greek mind was always rather disgusted by the body. The attitude of
an average Greek in early Christian times was strongly influenced by Platonic or
Orphic ideas, and it was a common opinion that the body was a kind of a
"prison", in which the fallen soul was incarcerated and confined. The Greeks
dreamt rather of a complete and final disincarnation. And the Christian belief
in a coming Resurrection could only confuse and frighten the Gentile mind. It
meant simply that the prison will be everlasting, that the imprisonment will be
renewed again and for ever. The expectation of a bodily resurrection would befit
rather an earthworm suggested Celsus, and he jeered in the name of common sense.
He nicknamed Christians a "philosomaton genos", a "flesh-loving crew" (ap.
Origen, Contra Celsum, V:14 and VII:36). The great Plotinus was of the same
opinion. "The true awakening is the true resurrection from the body, not with
the body. For resurrection with the body would be simply a passage from one
sleep to another, to some other dwelling. The only true awakening is an escape
from all bodies, since they are by nature opposite to the nature of the soul.
Both the origin, and the life and the decay of bodies show that they do not
correspond to the nature of the souls" (Plotinus, Ennead. III: 6:6). With all
Greek philosophers the fear of impurity was much stronger than the dread of sin.
Indeed, sin to them just meant impurity. This "lower nature", body and flesh, a
corporeal and gross substance, was utterly resented as the source and vehicle of
evil. Evil comes from pollution, not from the perversion of the will. One must
be liberated and cleansed front this filth. And at this point Christianity
brings a new conception of the body as well. From the very beginning Docetism
was rejected as the most destructive of temptations, a sort of dark anti-gospel,
proceeding from the Anti-Christ (1 John 4:2-3). And St. Paul emphatically
preaches "the redemption of our body" (Romans 8:23). And again: "not for that we
would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed, that what is mortal may he
swallowed up by life" (2 Corinthians 5:4). This is just an antithesis to
Plotinus’ thesis…

St. John Chrysostom commented: "He deals a death-blow here to those who
depreciate the physical nature and revile our flesh. It is not flesh, as he
would say, that we put off from ourselves, but corruption. the body is one
thing, corruption is another. Nor is the body corruption, nor corruption the
body. True, the body is corrupt, but it is not corruption. The body dies, but it
is not death. The body is the work of God, but death and corruption entered in
by sin. Therefore, he says, I would put off from myself that strange thing which
is not proper to me. And that strange thing is not the body, but corruption. The
future life shatters and abolishes not the body, but that which clings to it,
corruption and death" (De resurr. mortuorum, 6). St. Chrysostom, no doubt, gives
here the common feeling of the Church. "We must also wait for the spring of the
body", as a Latin apologist of the 2nd century put it, "expectandum nobis etiam
et corporis ver est" (Minutius Felix, Octavius, 34). One Russian writer,
speaking of the catacombs, aptly recalls these words. "There are no words which
could better render the impression of jubilant serenity, the feeling of rest and
unbound peacefulness of the early Christian burial place. Here the body lies,
like wheat under the winter shroud, awaiting, anticipating and foretelling the
otherworldly eternal Spring" (V. Ern, Letters on Christian Rome, 1913). This was
the simile used by St. Paul. "So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is
sown in corruption: it is raised in incorruption" (1 Corinthians 15:42). The
earth, as it were, is sown with human ashes in order that it may bring forth
fruit, by the power of God, on the Great Day. "Like seed cast on the earth, we
do not perish when we die, but having been sown, we rise" (St. Athanasius, De
Incarnatione, 21). Each grave is already the shrine of incorruption. The
resurrection, however, is no mere return or repetition. The Christian dogma of
the General Resurrection is not that eternal return which was professed by the
Stoics. The resurrection is the true renewal, the transfiguration, the
reformation of the whole creation. Not just a return of what had passed away,
but a heightening, a fulfillment of something better and more perfect. "And that
which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body which shall be, but bare grain… It
is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body" (1 Corinthians 15:37, 1
Corinthians 15:44). A profound change will take place. And yet the individual
identity will be preserved. St. Paul’s distinction between the "natural" body
("soma physikon") and the "spiritual" body ("soma pneumatikon") obviously calls
for a further interpretation. And probably we have to collate it with another
distinction he makes in Php 3:21 : the body "of our humiliation and the body of
His glory"... Yet the mystery passes our knowledge and imagination. "It has not
yet appeared what we shall be" (1 John 3:2). But as it is, Christ has risen from
the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Corinthians
15:20). The great "three days of death", triduum mortis, were the mysterious
days of the Resurrection. As it is explained in the Synaxarion of that day. "on
Great and Holy Saturday do we celebrate the divine - bodily burial of Our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ and His descent into Hades, by which, being called from
corruption, our race passed to life eternal. This was not merely the eve of
salvation. It was already the very day of salvation. "This is the blessed
Sabbath, this is the day of rest, whereon the only Begotten Son of God has,
rested from all His deeds" (Matins of Good Saturday). In His flesh the Lord is
resting in the grave, and His flesh is not abandoned by his Divinity. "Though
Thy Temple was destroyed in the hour of the Passion, yet even then one was the
Hypostasis of Thy Divinity and Thy flesh" (Matins of Good Saturday, Canon, 6th
Song of Solomon 1:1-17 st troparion; the canon is by Cosmas of Maioum). The
Lord’s flesh does not therefore suffer corruption, for it abides in the very
bosom of the Life, in the Hypostasis of the Word, Who is Life. And in this
incorruption the Body has been transfigured into a state of glory. The body of
humiliation has been buried, and the body of the glory rose from the grave. In
the death of Jesus the powerlessness of death over Him was revealed. In the
fullness of His human nature Our Lord was mortal. And He actually died. Yet
death did not hold Him. "It was not possible that He should be holden of it"
(Acts 2:24) As St. John Chrysostom puts it, "death itself in holding Him pangs
as in travail, and was sore beset..., and He so rose as never to die" (in Acta,
hom. VII; cf. the Consecration - Prayer in the Liturgy of St. Basil). He is Life
Everlasting, and by the very fact of His death He destroys death. His very
descent into Hades, into the realm of death, is the mighty manifestation of
Life. By the descent into Hades He, as it were, quickens death itself. In the
first Adam the inherent potentiality of death by disobedience and fall was
actualized and disclosed. In the second Adam the potentiality of immortality by
obedience was sublimated and actualized into the impossibility of death "for as
in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Corinthians
15:2). The whole fabric of human nature in Christ proved to be stable and
strong. The disembodiment of the soul was not consummated into a rupture. Even
in common death of man, as St. Gregory of Nyssa pointed out, the separation of
soul and body is never absolute: a certain connection is still there. In the
death of Christ this connection proved to be not only a "connection of
knowledge": His soul never ceased to be the "vital power" of the body. Thus this
death in all its reality, as a true separation and disembodiment, was rather
like a sleep. "Then was man’s death shown to be but a sleep" as St. John of
Damascus says (Office for the Burial of a Priest, Stikhira idiomela by St. John
of Damascus). The reality of death is not yet abolished, but its powerlessness
is revealed. The Lord really and truly died. But in His death in an eminent
measure the "dynamis of the resurrection" was manifest, which is latent in every
death. To His death the glorious simile of the corn of wheat can be applied to
its full extent (John 12:24). In the body of the Incarnate One the interim
between death and resurrection is foreshortened. "It is sown in dishonor: it is
raised in glory: it is sown in weakness: it is raised in power; it is sown a
natural body: it is raised a spiritual body" (1 Corinthians 15:43-44). In the
death of the Incarnate One this mysterious growth of the seed was consummated in
three days: Triduum mortis. "He suffered not the temple of His body to remain
long dead, but just having shown it dead by the contact of death, straightway
raised it in the third day, and raised with it also the sigh of victory over
death, that is, the incorruption and impassibility manifested in the body". In
these words St. Athanasius brings forward the victorious and resurrecting
character of the death of Christ (De Incarnatione, 26). In this mysterious
"triduum mortis", the body of Our Lord has been transfigured into a body of
glory, and has been clothed in power and light. The seed matures. And the Lord
rises from the dead, as a Bridegroom comes forth from the chamber. This was
accomplished by the power of God, as also the General Resurrection will in the
last day be accomplished by the power of God. And in the Resurrection the
Incarnation is completed and consummated a victorious manifestation of Life
within human nature, a grafting of immortality into the human composition. The
Resurrection of Christ was a victory not over His death only, but over death in
general. "We celebrate the death of death, the downfall of Hades, and the
beginning of a life new and everlasting" (Easter Canon 2nd Song of Solomon
2:1-17 nd troparion). In His resurrection the whole of humanity, all human
nature, is co-resurrected with Him: "the human race is clothed in incorruption".
Co-resurrected - not indeed in the sense that all are actually raised from the
grave: men do still die. But the hopelessness of dying is abolished: death is
rendered powerless. St. Paul is quite emphatic on this point. "But if there be
no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen… For if the dead rise not,
then is not Christ risen" (1 Corinthians 15:13, 1 Corinthians 15:15). St. Paul
obviously meant to say that the Resurrection of Christ would become meaningless
if it were not a universal accomplishment, if the whole Body were not implicitly
"pre-resurrected" with the Head. And faith in Christ itself would lose any sense
and become empty and vain: there would be nothing to believe in. "And if Christ
be not risen, your faith is vain" (1 Corinthians 15:17). Apart from the hope of
the General Resurrection, belief in Christ itself would be vain and to no
purpose; it would only be vainglory. "But now is Christ risen"… and herein lies
the victory of Life. "It is true, we still die as before, says St. John
Chrysostom, but we do not remain in death; and this is not to die... The power
and very reality of death is just this, that a dead man has no possibility of
returning to life… But if after death he is to be quickened and moreover to be
given a better life, then this is no longer death, but a falling asleep" (In
Hebrews, hom. XVII,2). The same conception is found in St. Athanasius. The
"condemnation of death" is abolished. "Corruption ceasing and being put away by
the grace of Resurrection, we are henceforth dissolved for a time only,
according to our bodies’ mortal nature; like seeds cast into the earth, we do
not perish, but sown in the earth we shall rise again, death being brought to
nought by the grace of the Saviour" (De Incarnatione, 21). All will rise. From
henceforth every disembodiment is but temporary. The dark vale of Hades is
abolished by the power of the life-giving Cross.

St. Gregory of Nyssa strongly stresses time organic interdependence of the Cross
and the Resurrection. He makes two points especially: the unity of the Divine
Hypostasis, in which the soul and body of Christ are linked together even in
their mortal separation and the utter sinlessness of Christ. And then he
proceeds: "When our nature following its proper course, had even in Him been
advanced to the separation of soul and body, He knitted together again the
disconnected elements, cementing them together, as it were, with a cement of His
Divine power, and recombining what was severed in a union never to be broken.
And this is the Resurrection, namely the return, after they have been dissolved,
of those elements that have been before linked together, into an indissoluble
union through a mutual incorporation; in order that thus the primal grace which
invested humanity might be recalled, and we restored to the everlasting life,
when the vice that has been mixed up with our kind has evaporated through our
dissolution… For as the principle of death took its rise in one person and
passed on in succession through the whole of human kind, in like manner the
principle of the Resurrection extends from one person to the whole of humanity…
For when, in that concrete humanity which He had taken to Himself, the soul
after the dissolution returned to the body, then this uniting of the several
portions passes, as by a new principle, in equal force upon the whole human
race. This then is the mystery of God’s plan with regard to His death and His
resurrection from the dead" (Orat. cat. 16). In other words, Christ’s
resurrection is a restoration of the fullness and wholeness of human existence,
a re-creation of the whole human race, a "new creation". St. Gregory follows
here faithfully in the steps of St. Paul. There is the same contrast and
parallelism of the two Adams. The General Resurrection is the consummation of
the Resurrection of Our Lord, the consummation of His victory over death and
corruption. And beyond the historical time there will be the future Kingdom,
"the life of the age to come". Then, at the close, for the whole creation the
"Blessed Sabbath", the very "day of rest", the mysterious "Seventh day of
Creation", will be inaugurated for ever. The expected is as yet inconceivable.
But the pledge is given. Christ is risen.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 28: 23 - THE EVER-VIRGIN MOTHER OF GOD
========================================================================

The Ever-Virgin Mother of God The writer is fully aware of the inadequacy of his
exposition. This is not a theological essay in the strict sense. It is only an
occasional address written down in haste some time after it had been improvised.
The only contention of the author was to suggest the way in which the subject
should be approached and to open the discussion. The main concern in the paper
was to prove that Mariology belongs to the very body of Christian doctrine or,
if we allow the phrase, to that essential minimum of doctrinal agreement outside
which no true unity of faith could even be claimed.

G. F. The whole dogmatic teaching about our Lady can be condensed into these two
names of hers: the Mother of God (Theotokos) and the Ever-Virgin (aiparthenos).
Both names have the formal authority of the Church Universal, an ecumenical
authority indeed. The Virgin Birth is plainly attested in the New Testament and
has been an integral part of the Catholic tradition ever since. "Incarnate by
the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary" (or "Born of the Virgin Mary") is a credal
phrase. It is not merely a statement of the historical fact. It is precisely a
credal statement, a solemn profession of faith. The term "Ever-Virgin" was
formally endorsed by the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553). And Theotokos is more
than a name or an honorific title. It is rather a doctrinal definition-in one
word. It has been a touchstone of the true faith and a distinctive mark of
Orthodoxy even before the Council of Ephesus (432).

Already St. Gregory of Nazianzus warns Cledonius: "if one does not acknowledge
Mary as Theotokos, he is estranged from God". As a matter of fact, the name was
widely used by the Fathers of the fourth century and possibly even, in the third
(by Origen, for instance, if we can trust Socrates, Hist. Eccl., VII, 32, and
the texts preserved in catenas, e.g. In Lucam Hom. 6 and 7, ed. Rauer, 44. 10
and 50. 9). It was already traditional when it was contested and repudiated by
Nestorius and his group. The word does not occur in Scripture, just as the term
omousios (consubstantial) does not occur. But surely, neither at Nicaea nor at
Ephesus was the Church innovating or imposing a new article of faith. An
"unscriptural" word was chosen and used, precisely to voice and to safeguard the
traditional belief and common conviction of ages. It is true, of course, that
the Third Ecumenical Council was concerned primarily with the Christological
dogma and did not formulate any special Mariological doctrine. But precisely for
that very reason it was truly remarkable that a Mariological term should have
been selected and put forward as the ultimate test of Christological orthodoxy,
to be used, as it were, as a doctrinal shibboleth in the Christological
discussion. It was really a key-word to the whole of Christology. "This name,"
says St. John of Damascus, "contains the whole mystery of the Incarnation". The
motive and the purpose of such a choice are obvious. The Christological doctrine
can never be accurately and adequately stated unless a very definite teaching
about the Mother of Christ has been included. In fact, all the Mariological
doubts and errors of modern times depend in the last resort precisely upon an
utter Christological confusion. They reveal a hopeless "conflict in
Christology."

There is no room for the Mother of God in a "reduced Christology." Protestant
theologians simply have nothing to say about her. Yet to ignore the Mother means
to misinterpret the Son. On the other hand, the person of the Blessed Virgin can
be properly understood and rightly described only in a Christological setting
and context. Mariology is to be but a chapter in the treatise on the
Incarnation, never to be extended into an independent "treatise." Not, of
course, an optional or occasional chapter, not an appendix. It belongs to the
very body of doctrine. The Mystery of the Incarnation includes the Mother of the
Incarnate. Sometimes, however, this Christological perspective has been obscured
by a devotional exaggeration, by an unbalanced pietism. Piety must always be
guided and checked by dogma. Again, there must be a Mariological chapter in the
treatise on the Church. But the doctrine of the Church itself is but an
"extended Christology," the doctrine of the "total Christ," totus Christus,
caput et corpus. The name Theotokos stresses the fact that the Child whom Mary
bore was not a "simple man," not a human person, but the only-begotten Son of
God, "One of the Holy Trinity," yet Incarnate. This is obviously the
corner-stone of the Orthodox faith. Let us recall the formula of Chalcedon:
"Following, then, the holy Fathers, we confess one and the same Son, our Lord
Jesus Christ before the ages begotten of the Father as to Godhead, but in the
last days, for us and for our salvation, the selfsame, born of Mary, the Virgin
Mother of God, as to Manhood" [the translation is by Dr. Bright]. The whole
emphasis is on the absolute identity of the Person: the Same, the Self-same,
unus idemque in St. Leo. This implies a twofold generation of the divine Word
(but emphaticably not a double Sonship; that would be precisely the Nestorian
perversion). There is but one Son: the One born of the Virgin Mary is in the
fullest possible sense the Son of God. As St. John of Damascus says, the Holy
Virgin did not bear "a common man, but the true God," yet "not naked, but
incarnate." The Same, who from all eternity is born of the Father, "in these
last days" was born of the Virgin, "without any change". There is here no
confusion of natures. The "second" is just the Incarnation. No new person came
into being when the Son of Mary was conceived and born, but the Eternal Son of
God was made man. This constitutes the mystery of the divine Motherhood of the
Virgin Mary. For indeed Motherhood is a personal relation, a relation between
persons. Now, the Son of Mary was in very truth a divine Person. The name
Theotokos is an inevitable sequel to the name Theanthropos, the God-Man. Both
stand and fall together. The doctrine of the Hypostatic Union implies and
demands the conception of the divine Motherhood. Most unfortunately, the mystery
of the Incarnation has been treated in modern times too often in an utterly
abstract manner, as if it were but a metaphysical problem or even a dialectical
riddle. One indulges too easily in the dialectics of the Finite and the
Infinite, of the Temporal and the Eternal, etc., as if they were but terms of a
logical or metaphysical relation. One is then in danger of overlooking and
missing the very point: the Incarnation was precisely a mighty deed of the
Living God, his most personal intervention into the creaturely existence,
indeed, the "coming down" of a divine Person, of God in person. Again, there is
a subtle but real docetic flavor in many recent attempts to re-state the
traditional faith in modern terms. There is a tendency to overemphasize the
divine initiative in the Incarnation to such an extent that the historic life of
the Incarnate itself fades out into "the Incognito of the Son of God." The
direct identity of the Jesus of history and the Son of God is explicitly denied.
The whole impact of Incarnation is reduced to symbols: the Incarnate Lord is
understood rather as an exponent of some august principle or idea (be it the
Wrath of God or Love, Anger or Merry, judgement or Forgiveness), than as a
living Person. In both cases the personal implications of the Incarnation are
overlooked or neglected, I mean, our adoption into true sonship of God in the
Incarnate Lord. Now, something very real and ultimate happened with men and to
men when the Word of God "was made flesh and dwelt among us," or rather, "took
his abode in our midst," a very pictorial turn indeed: eskinosen en imin (John
1:14).

"But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman"
(Galatians 3:4). This is a scriptural statement of the same mystery with which
the Fathers were wrestling at Chalcedon. Now, what is the full meaning and
purpose of this phrase: "born of woman?" Motherhood, in general, is by no means
exhausted by the mere fact of a physical procreation. It would be lamentable
blindness if we ignored its spiritual aspect. In fact, procreation itself
establishes an intimate spiritual relation between the mother and the child.
This relation is unique and reciprocal, and its essence is affection or love.
Are we entitled to ignore this implication of the fact that our Lord was "born
of the Virgin Mary?" Surely, no docetic reduction is permissible in this case,
just as it must be avoided anywhere else in Christology. Jesus was (and is) the
Eternal God, and yet Incarnate, and Mary was His Mother in the fullest sense.
Otherwise the Incarnation would not have been genuine. But this means precisely
that for the Incarnate Lord there is one particular human person to whom he is
in a very special relation, ó in precise terms, one for whom he is not only the
Lord and Saviour, but a Son. On the other hand, Mary was the true mother of her
Child ó the truth of her human maternity is of no less relevance and importance
than the mystery of her divine motherhood. But the Child was divine. Yet the
spiritual implications of her motherhood could not be diminished by the
exceptional character of the case, nor could Jesus fail to be truly human in his
filial response to the motherly affection of the one of whom he was born. This
is not a vain speculation. It would be impertinent indeed to intrude upon the
sacred field of this unparalleled intimacy between the Mother and the divine
Child. But it would be even more impertinent to ignore the mystery. In any case,
it would have been a very impoverished idea if we regarded the Virgin Mother
merely as a physical instrument of our Lord’s taking flesh. Moreover, such a
misinterpretation is formally excluded by the explicit teaching of the Church,
attested from the earliest date: she was not just a "channel" through which the
Heavenly Lord has come, but truly the mother of whom he took his humanity. St.
John of Damascus precisely in these very words summarizes the Catholic teaching:
he did not come "as through a pipe," but has assumed of her (eks avtis), a human
nature consubstantial to ours (De Fide Orth., 3, 12).

Mary "has found favor with God" (Luke 1:30). She was chosen and ordained to
serve in the Mystery of the Incarnation. And by this eternal election or
predestination she was in a sense set apart and given an unique privilege and
position in the whole of mankind, nay in the whole of creation. She was given a
transcendent rank, as it were. She was at once a representative of the human
race, and set apart. There is an antinomy here, implied in the divine election.
She was set apart. She was put into a unique and unparalleled relation to God,
to the Holy Trinity, even before the Incarnation, as the prospective Mother of
the Incarnate Lord, just because it was not an ordinary historical happening,
but an eventful consummation of the eternal decree of God. She has a unique
position even in the divine plan of salvation. Through the Incarnation human
nature was to be restored again into the fellowship with God which had been
destroyed and abrogated by the Fall. The sacred Humanity of Jesus was to be the
bridge over the abyss of sin. Now, this humanity was to be taken of the Virgin
Mary. The Incarnation itself was a new beginning in the destiny of man, a
beginning of the new humanity. In the Incarnation the "new man" was born, the
"Last Adam;" he was truly human, but he was more than a man: "The second man is
the Lord from heaven" (1 Corinthians 15:47). As the Mother of this "Second Man,"
Mary herself was participating in the mystery of the redeeming re-creation of
the world. Surely, she is to be counted among the redeemed. She was most
obviously in need of salvation. Her Son is her Redeemer and Saviour, just as he
is the Redeemer of the world. Yet, she is the only human being for whom the
Redeemer of the world is also a son, her own child whom she truly bore. Jesus
indeed was born "not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God" (John 1:13; this verse is related both to the Incarnation and to baptismal
regeneration), and yet he is "the fruit of the womb" of Mary. His supernatural
birth is the pattern and the font of the new existence, of the new and spiritual
birth of all believers, which is nothing else than a participation in his sacred
humanity, an adoption into the sonship of God in the "second man," in the "last
Adam." The Mother of the "second man" necessarily had her own and peculiar way
into the new life. It is not too much to say that for her the Redemption was, in
a sense, anticipated in the fact of the Incarnation itself, ó and anticipated in
a peculiar and personal manner. "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the
power of the Highest shall overshadow thee" (Luke 1:35). This was a true
"theophanic presence" in the fullness of grace and of the Spirit. The "shadow"
is exactly a theophanic symbol. And Mary was truly "full of grace," gratia
plena, keharitomeni. The Annunciation was for her, as it were, an anticipated
Pentecost. We are compelled to risk this daring parallelism by the inscrutable
logic of the divine election. For indeed we cannot regard the Incarnation merely
as a metaphysical miracle which would be unrelated to the personal destiny and
existence of the persons involved. Man is never dealt with by God as if he was
but a tool in the hands of a master. For man is a living person. By no means
could it be merely an "instrumental" grace, when the Virgin was "overshadowed"
with the power of the Highest. The unique position of the Virgin Mary is
obviously not her own achievement, nor simply a "reward" for her "merits," nor
even perhaps was the fullness of grace given to her in a "prevision" of her
merits and virtue. It was supremely the free gift of God, in the strictest sense
ó gyatia gratis data. It was an absolute and eternal election, although not
unconditional for it was conditioned by and related to the mystery of the
Incarnation. Mary holds her unique position and has a "category of her own" not
as a mere Virgin, but as the Virgin-Mother, parthenomitir, as the predestined
Mother of the Lord. Her function in the Incarnation is twofold. On the one hand,
she secures the continuity of the human race. Her Son is, in virtue of his
"second nativity," the Son of David, the Son of Abraham and of all the
"forefathers" (this is emphasized by the genealogies of Jesus, in both
versions). In the phrase of St. Irenaeus, he "recapitulated in himself the long
roll of humanity" longam hominum expositionem in se ipso recapitulavit),
"gathered up in himself all nations, dispersed as they were even from Adam" (3,
22, 3) and "took upon himself the old way of creation" (4, 23, 4). But, on the
other hand, he "exhibited a new sort of generation" (5, 1, 3). He was the New
Adam. This was the most drastic break in the continuity, the true reversal of
the previous process. And this "reversal" begins precisely with the Incarnation,
with the Nativity of the "Second Man." St. Irenaeus speaks of a recirculation
from Mary to Eve (3, 22, 4). As the Mother of the New Man Mary has her
anticipated share in this very newness. Of course, Jesus the Christ is the only
Lord and Saviour. But Mary is his mother. She is the morning star that announces
the sunrise, the rise of the true Sol salutis: astir emfenon tonIlion. She is
"the dawn of the mystic day," (both phrases are from the). And in a certain
sense even the Nativity of our Lady itself belongs to the mystery of salvation.
"Thy birth, O Mother of God and Virgin, hath declared joy to all the universe
for from thee arose the Sun of Righteousness, Christ our God" (Troparion of the
Feast of the Nativity of our Lady). Christian thought moves always in the
dimension of personalities, not in the realm of general ideas. It apprehends the
mystery of the Incarnation as a mystery of the Mother and the Child. This is the
ultimate safeguard against any abstract docetism. It is a safeguard of the
evangelical concreteness. The traditional icon of the Blessed Virgin, in the
Eastern tradition, is precisely an icon of the Incarnation: the Virgin is always
with the Babe. And surely no icon, i.e. no image of the Incarnation, is ever
possible without the Virgin Mother.

Again, the Annunciation is "the beginning of our salvation and the revelation of
the mystery which is from eternity: the Son of God becometh the Son of the
Virgin, and Gabriel proclaimeth good tidings of grace" (Troparion of the Feast
of the Annunciation). The divine will has been declared and proclaimed by the
archangel. But the Virgin was not silent. She responded to the divine call,
responded in humility and faith. "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me
according to thy word." Divine will is accepted and responded to. And this human
response is highly relevant at this point. The obedience of Mary counterbalances
the disobedience of Eve. In this sense the Virgin Mary is the Second Eve, as her
Son is the Second Adam. This parallel was drawn quite early. The earliest
witness is St. Justin and in St. Irenaeus we find already an elaborate
conception, organically connected with his basic idea of the recapitulation. "As
Eve by the speech of an angel was seduced, so as to flee God, transgressing his
word, so also Mary received the good tidings by means of the angel’s speech, so
as to bear God within her, being obedient to his word. And, though the one has
disobeyed God, yet the other was drawn to obey God; that of the virgin Eve the
Virgin Mary might become the advocate. And, as by a virgin the human race had
been bound to death, by a virgin it is saved, the balance being preserved, a
virgin’s disobedience by a virgin’s obedience" (5, 19, 1). And again: "And so
the knot of Eve’s disobedience received its unloosing through the obedience of
Mary; for what Eve, a virgin, bound by incredulity, that Mary, a virgin,
unloosed by faith" (3, 22, 34 translation by Cardinal Newman). This conception
was traditional, especially in the catechetical teaching, both in the East and
in the West. "It is a great sacrament [magnum sacramentum] that, whereas through
woman death became our portion, so life was born to us by woman," says St.
Augustine (De Agone Christ., 24, in another place he is simply quoting
Irenaeus). "Death by Eve, life by Mary," declares St. Jerome (Epist. 22: mors
per Evam, vita per Mariam).

Let me quote also an admirable and concise passage from one of the sermons of
the Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow (1782-1867). He was preaching on the day of
the Annunciation. "During the days of the creation of the world, when God
uttered his living and mighty words: "Let there be," the Creator’s words brought
creatures into existence. But on the day, unique in the existence of the world,
when Holy Mary uttered her humble and obedient Let it be, I would hardly dare to
express what took place then ó the word of the creature caused the Creator to
descend into the world. God uttered his word here also: You "will conceive in
your womb and bear a son . . . he will be great . . . and he will reign over the
house of Jacob for ever." But again that which is divine and incomprehensible
occurs-the word of God itself defers its action, allowing itself to be delayed
by the word of Mary: How can this be? Her humble Let it be was necessary for the
realization of God’s mighty Let it be. What secret power is thus contained in
these simple words: "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me
according to your will" ó that it produces an effect so extraordinary? This
marvelous power is Mary’s pure and perfect self-dedication to God, a dedication
of her will, of her thought, of her soul, of her entire being, of all her
faculties, of all her actions, of all her hopes and expectations." [Choix de
Sermons et Discours de S. Em. Mgr. Philarete, Metropolite de Moscow, traduits
par A. Serpinet (Paris, 1866, T. 1, p. 187); the translation is by Dr. R.
Haugh]. The Incarnation was indeed a sovereign act of God, but it was a
revelation not only of his omnipotent might, but above all of his fatherly love
and compassion. There was implied an appeal to human freedom once more, as an
appeal to freedom was implied in the act of creation itself, namely in the
creation of rational beings. The initiative was of course divine. Yet, as the
means of salvation chosen by God was to be an assumption of true human nature by
a divine Person, man had to have his active share in the mystery. Mary was
voicing this obedient response of man to the redeeming decree of the love
divine, and so she was representative of the whole race. She exemplified in her
person, as it were, the whole of humanity. This obedient and joyful acceptance
of the redeeming purpose of God, so beautifully expressed in the Magnificat, was
an act of freedom. Indeed, it was freedom of obedience, not of initiative and
yet a true freedom, freedom of love and adoration, of humility and trust ó and
freedom of co-operation (cf. St. Irenaeus, Adv. Haeres., 3, 21, 8: "Mary
cooperating with the economy") ó this is just what human freedom means. The
grace of God can never be simply superadded, mechanically as it were. It has to
be received in a free obedience and submission.

Mary was chosen and elected to become the Mother of the Incarnate Lord. We must
assume that she was fit for that awful office, that she was prepared for her
exceptional calling-prepared by God. Can we properly define the nature and
character of this preparation? We are facing here the crucial antinomy (to which
we have alluded above). The Blessed Virgin was representative of the race, i.e.
of the fallen human race, of the "old Adam." But she was also the second Eve;
with her begins the "new generation." She was set apart by the eternal counsel
of God, but this "setting apart" was not to destroy her essential solidarity
with the rest of mankind. Can we solve this antinomical mystery in any logical
scheme? The Roman Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception, of the Virgin
Mary is a noble attempt to suggest such a solution. But this solution is valid
only in the context of a particular and highly inadequate doctrine of original
sin and does not hold outside this particular setting. Strictly speaking, this
"dogma" is an unnecessary complication, and an unfortunate terminology only
obscures the undisputable truth of the Catholic belief. The "privileges" of the
divine Motherhood do not depend upon a "freedom from original sin." The fullness
of grace was truly bestowed upon the Blessed Virgin and her personal purity was
preserved by the perpetual assistance of the Spirit. But this was not an
abolition of the sin. The sin was destroyed only on the tree of the Cross, and
no "exemption" was possible, since it was simply the common and general
condition of the whole of human existence. It was not destroyed even by the
Incarnation itself, although the Incarnation was the true inauguration of the
New Creation. The Incarnation was but the basis and the starting-point of the
redemptive work of our Lord. And the "Second Man" himself enters into his full
glory through the gate of death. Redemption is a complex act, and we have to
distinguish most carefully its moments, although they are supremely integrated
in the unique and eternal counsel of God. Being integrated in the eternal plan,
in the temporal display they are reflected in each ether and the final
consummation is already prefigured and anticipated in all the earlier stages.
There was a real progress in the history of the Redemption. Mary had the grace
of the Incarnation, as the Mother of the Incarnate, but this was not yet the
complete grace, since the Redemption had not yet been accomplished. Yet, her
personal purity was possible even in an unredeemed world, or rather in a world
that was in process of Redemption. The true theological issue is that of the
divine election. The Mother and the Child are inseparably linked in the unique
decree of the Incarnation. As an event, the Incarnation is just the
turning-point of history, ó and the turning-point is inevitably antinomical: it
belongs at once to the Old and to the New. The rest is silence. We have to stand
in awe and trembling on the threshold of the mystery. The intimate experience of
the Mother of the Lord is hidden from us. And nobody was ever able to share this
unique experience, by the very nature of the case. It is the mystery of the
person. This accounts for the dogmatic reticence of the Church in Mariological
doctrine. The Church speaks of her rather in the language of devotional poetry,
in the language of antinomical metaphors and images. There is no need, and no
reason, to assume that the Blessed Virgin realized at once all the fullness and
all the implications of the unique privilege bestowed upon her by the grace of
God. There is no need, and no reason, to interpret the "fulness" of grace in a
literal sense as including all possible perfections and the whole variety of
particular spiritual gifts. It was a fullness for her, she was full of grace.
And yet it was a "specialized" fullness, the grace of the Mother of God, of the
Virgin Mother, of the "Unwedded Spouse. Indeed, she had her own spiritual way,
her own growth in grace. The full meaning of the mystery of salvation was
apprehended by her gradually. And she had her own share in the sacrifice of the
Cross: "Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also" (Luke 2:35). The
full light shone forth only in the Resurrection. Up to that point Jesus himself
was not yet glorified. And after the Ascension we find the Blessed Virgin among
the Twelve, in the center of the growing Church. One point is beyond any doubt.
The Blessed Virgin had been always impressed, if this word is suitable here, by
the angelic salutation and announcement and by the startling mystery of the
virgin birth. How could she not be impressed? Again, the mystery of her
experience is hidden from us. But can we really avoid this pious guesswork
without betraying the mystery itself? "But Mary kept all these things, and
pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19). Her inner life had to be concentrated
on this crucial event of her story. For indeed the mystery of the Incarnation
was for her also the mystery of her own personal existence. Her existential
situation was unique and peculiar. She had to be adequate to the unprecedented
dignity of this situation. This is perhaps the very essence of her particular
dignity, which is described as her "Ever-Virginity." She is the Virgin. Now
virginity is not simply a bodily status or a physical feature as such. Above all
it is a spiritual and inner attitude, and apart from that a bodily status would
be altogether meaningless. The title of Ever-Virgin means surely much more than
merely a "physiological" statement. It does not refer only to the Virgin Birth.
It does not imply only an exclusion of any later marital intercourse (which
would be utterly inconceivable if we really believe in the Virgin Birth and in
the Divinity of Jesus). It excludes first of all any "erotic" involvement, any
sensual and selfish desires or passions, any dissipation of the heart and mind.
The bodily integrity or incorruption is but an outward sign of the internal
purity. The main point is precisely the purity of the heart, that indispensable
condition of "seeing God." This is the freedom from passions, the true apathia,
which has been commonly described as the essence of the spiritual life. Freedom
from passions and "desires," epithimia imperviability to evil thoughts, as St.
John of Damascus puts it. Her soul was governed by God only, it was supremely
attached to him. All her desire was directed towards things worthy of desire and
affection (St. John says: tetammeni, attracted, gravitating). She had no
passion, thymon. She ever preserved virginity in mind, and soul, and body
(Homil. 1, in Nativitatem B.V Mariae 9 and 5, Migne, Ser. Gr. XCVI, 676 A and
668 C). It was an undisturbed orientation of the whole personal life towards
God, a complete self-dedication. To be truly a "handmaid of the Lord" means
precisely to be ever-virgin, and not to have any fleshly preoccupations.
Spiritual virginity is sinlessness, but not yet "perfection," and not freedom
from temptations. But even our Lord himself was in a sense liable to temptations
and was actually tempted by Satan in the wilderness. Our Lady perhaps had her
temptations too, but has overcome them in her steady faithfulness to God’s
calling. Even an ordinary motherly love culminates in a spiritual identification
with the child, which implies so often sacrifice and self-denial. Nothing less
can be assumed in the case of Mary; her Child was to be great and to be called
the "Son of the Highest" (Luke 1:32). Obviously, he was one who "should have
come," the Messiah (Luke 7:19). This is openly professed by Mary in the
Magnificat, a song of Messianic praise and thanksgiving. Mary could not fail to
realize all this, if only dimly for a time and gradually, as she pondered all
the glorious promises in her heart. This was the only conceivable way for her.
She had to be absorbed by this single thought, in an obedient faithfulness to
the Lord who "hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden" and "hath done for
her great things." This is precisely the way in which St. Paul described the
state and the privilege of virginity: "the unmarried woman, and the virgin,
thinks about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy in body and in spirit"
(1 Corinthians 7:34). The climax of this virginal aspiration is the holiness of
the Virgin Mother all-pure and undefiled.

Cardinal Newman in his admirable "Letter addressed to the Rev. E. B. Pusey,
D.D., on occasion of his Eirenicon" (1865) says very aptly: "Theology is
occupied with supernatural matters, and is ever running into mysteries, which
reason can neither explain nor adjust. Its lines of thought come to an abrupt
termination, and to pursue them or to complete them is to plunge down the abyss.
St. Augustine warns us that, if we attempt to find and to tie together the ends
of lines which run into infinity, we shall only succeed in contradicting
ourselves" (Difficulties felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching, 5th ed., page
430). It is widely agreed that the ultimate considerations which determine a
true estimate of all particular points of the Christian tradition are doctrinal.
No purely historical arguments, whether from antiquity or from silence, are ever
decisive. They are subject to a further theological scrutiny and revision in the
perspective of the total Christian faith, taken as a whole. The ultimate
question is simply this: does one really keep the faith of the Bible and of the
Church, does one accept and recite the Catholic Creed exactly in that sense in
which it had been drafted and supposed to be taken and understood, does one
really believe in the truth of the Incarnation?

Let me quote Newman once more. "I say then," he proceeds, "when once we have
mastered the idea, that Mary bore, suckled, and handled the Eternal in the form
of a child, what limit is conceivable to the rush and flood of thoughts which
such a doctrine involves? What awe and surprise must attend upon the knowledge,
that a creature has been brought so close to the Divine Essence?" (op. cit.,
page 431). Fortunately, a Catholic theologian is not left alone with logic and
erudition. He is led by the faith; credo ut intelligam. Faith illuminates the
reason. And erudition, the memory of the past, is quickened in the continuous
experience of the Church. A Catholic theologian is guided by the teaching
authority of the Church, by its living tradition. But above all, he himself
lives in the Church, which is the Body of Christ. The mystery of the Incarnation
is still, as it were, continuously enacted in the Church, and its "implications"
are revealed and disclosed in devotional experience and in sacramental
participation. In the Communion of Saints, which is the true Church Universal
and Catholic, the mystery of the New Humanity is disclosed as a new existential
situation. And in this perspective and living context of the Mystical Body of
Christ the person of the Blessed Virgin Mother appears in full light and full
glory. The Church now contemplates her in the state of perfection. She is now
seen as inseparably united with her Son, who "sitteth on the right hand of God
the Father Almighty." For her the final consummation of life has already come-in
an anticipation. "Thou art passed over into Life, who art the Mother of Life,"
acknowledges the Church, "Neither grave nor death had power over the Mother of
God... for the Mother of Life hath been brought into Life by him who dwelt in
her ever-virgin womb" (Troparion and Kontakion for the feast of the Assumption
of the Virgin Mary).

Again, it is not so much a heavenly reward for her purity and virtue, as an
"implication" of her sublime office, of her being the Mother of God, the
Theotokos. The Church Triumphant is above all the worshipping Church, her
existence is a living participation in Christ’s office of intercession and his
redeeming love. Incorporation into Christ, which is the essence of the Church
and of the whole Christian existence, is first of all an incorporation into his
sacrificial love for mankind. And here there is a special place for her who is
united with the Redeemer in the unique intimacy of motherly affection and
devotion. The Mother of God is truly the common mother of all living, of the
whole Christian race, born or reborn in the Spirit and truth. An affectionate
identification with the child, which is the spiritual essence of motherhood, is
here consummated in its ultimate perfection. The Church does not dogmatize much
about these mysteries of her own existence. For the mystery of Mary is precisely
the mystery of the Church. Mater Ecclesia and Virgo Alater, both are birthgivers
of the New Life. And both are orantes. The Church invites the faithful and helps
them to grow spiritually into these mysteries of faith which are as well the
mysteries of their own existence and spiritual destiny. In the Church they learn
to contemplate and to adore the living Christ together with the whole assembly
and Church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven (Hebrews 12:23). And in
this glorious assembly they discern the eminent person of the Virgin Mother of
the Lord and Redeemer, full of grace and love, of charity and compassion "More
honorable than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim, who without spot
didst bear the Eternal Word." In the light of this contemplation and in the
spirit of faith the theologian must fulfill his office of interpreting to
believers and to those who seek the truth the overwhelming mystery of the
Incarnation. This mystery is still symbolized, as it was in the age of the
Fathers, by a single and glorious name: Mary Theotokos, the Mother of God
Incarnate. The Ever-Virgin Mother of -God" originally appeared in The Mother of
God, edited by E. L. Mascall (London: Dacre Press, 1949), pp. 51-63. Reprinted
by permission.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 29: 24 - ON THE VENERATION OF THE SAINTS
========================================================================

On the Veneration of the Saints

CHRIST HAS CONQUERED THE WORLD. This victory is further unveiled and fulfilled
in the fact that He built His Church. In Christ and through Christ the unity of
mankind was brought about truly for the first time, for those who believed in
His Name become the Body of Christ. And through uniting with Christ they unite
likewise with each other in a most sincere concord of love. In this great unity
all empirical distinctions and barriers are done away with: differences of birth
in the flesh are effaced within the unity of a spiritual birth. The Church is a
new people filled with grace, which does not coincide with any physical
boundaries or any earthly nation-neither Greeks nor Jews, and a struggle of
faith, through the "Mystery of water," through a union with Christ in the
"Mysterious font," through the "grace of becoming sons" ; i.e. "sons of God" for
Whom were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth." In Holy
Christening the one to be enlightened leaves "this world" and forsakes its
vanity, as if freeing himself and stepping out of the natural order of things;
from the order of "flesh and blood" one enters an order of grace. All inherited
ties and all ties of blood are severed. But man is not left solitary or alone.
For according to the expression of the Apostle "by one Spirit are we all
baptized," neither Scythians nor Barbarians-and this nation does not spring
through a relationship of blood but through freedom into one Body. The whole
meaning of Holy Christening consists in the fact that it is a mysterious
acceptance into the Church, into the City of God, into the Kingdom of Grace.
Through Christening the believer becomes a member of the Church, enters the "one
Church of angels and men," becomes a "co-citizen of the saints and ever with
God," according to the mysterious and solemn words of St. Paul-one comes "to
mount Zion, and to the city of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an
innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and Church of the
firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the
spirits of just men made perfect." And in this great throng he is united unto
Christ. For, "unus Christianus-nullus Christianus."* ["one Christian-no
Christian." Webmaster] The essence of the Church is in its unity, for the Church
is the Mansion of the One Spirit. This is not an external and empirical unity or
catholicity. The Ecumenical character of the Church is not something external,
quantitative, spacial, not even any geographical quality, and does not at all
depend on the universal dispersal of believers. The visible unity of the Church
is merely a result but not a foundation for the catholicity of the Church.
Geographical "universality" is a derivative and not an essential necessity. The
catholicity of the Church was not diminished in the first ages of Christianity
when communities of the faithful were scattered like small islands, almost lost
in the immense world of unbelief and resistance. It is likewise not diminished
now when the majority of mankind is not with Christ. "Though a town or even a
province fall away from the Ecumenical Church," says Metropolitan Philaret, "the
Ecumenical Church will always remain a complete and incorruptible body."
Likewise the Church will remain Ecumenical in the "last days" when it will be
compressed into the "little flock," when the mystery of "retreat" will be
revealed and when faith will hardly be found on earth. For the Church is
Catholic according to its nature.

If one seeks for external definitions, then perhaps the Ecumenical nature of the
Church is best expressed by the feature of its "all-timeness" (of its running
through all times). For believers of all ages and all generations, who are alive
now, who lived, and who will be born, belong to it in the same way. They all
form one body, and through the same prayer are united into one before the one
throne of the Lord of Glory. The experience of this unity through all times is
revealed and sealed in the whole cycle of Divine worship. In the Church time is
mysteriously overcome. The outpouring of grace seems to stop time, to stop the
run of minutes and seasons, to overcome even the general order of
consecutiveness and the disconnectedness of those things which took place at
different times. In a unity with Christ through grace, in the gift of communion
with the One different epochs and generations become our Spirit, men of living
contemporaries. Christ reigns equally in the Church among the departed and among
the living, for God is not God of the dead but of the living. The Church is a
Kingdom not of this world but an eternal Kingdom, for it has an eternal
King-Christ. The Church is a kind of mysterious image of eternity and a
foretaste of the Resurrection of all. For Christ the Head of the Body is "the
life and the resurrection" of His servants and brothers. The measure of births
has not yet been filled and the stream of time still flows. The Church is still
in its historical wanderings but even now time has no power and no strength in
it. It is as if the Apocalyptic moment is forestalled-when there shall be no
more time and all time shall cease. Earthly death, the separation of the soul
from the body, does not sever the tie between those who have faith, does not
part and does not separate co-members in Christ, does not exclude the deceased
from the limits and composition of the Church. In the prayer for the departed
and in the order for burial we pray Christ "our immortal King and God" to send
the souls of the departed to the habitations of the holy, "to the abodes of the
righteous," "to the bosom of Abraham," where all the righteous are at rest. And
with special expressiveness in these parting prayers we remember and call on the
hosts of the righteous, and on the Mother of God, and on the powers of heaven,
and on the holy martyrs and on all the saints as on our heavenly co-citizens in
the Church. With powerful emphasis the all-timely and catholic consciousness of
the Church is disclosed in the order of burial. The faithful who attain to a
genuine union with Christ Himself in their struggle and in the saving
"mysteries" cannot be parted from Him even by death. "Blessed are they who die
in the Lord-their souls shall abide with the blessed." And the prayers for the
departed are a witness and measure of the catholic consciousness of the Church.

Reverently the Church watches for any signs of grace which witness and confirm
the earthly struggle of the departed. By an inner sight the Church recognizes
both the righteous living and departed, and the feeling of the Church is sealed
by the witness of the priesthood of the Church. In this recognition of its
brothers and members who have "attained to perfection" consists the mystical
essence of that which in the Christian West is termed the "canonization of
saints," and which is understood by the Orthodox East as their glorification,
magnification and blessedness. And firstly it is a glorification of God
"Wonderous is the Lord in His saints." "God’s saints," said St. John of
Damascus, "reigned over and mastered their passions and kept uninjured the
likeness unto the image of God, according to which they were created; they of
their own free will united themselves with God and received Him into the
habitation of their heart, and having thus received Him in communion, through
grace, they became in their very nature like unto Him." In them God rests-they
became " the treasures and the pure habitations of God." In this the mystery was
accomplished. For as the ancient fathers said-the Son of God became man so that
men could be deified, so that sons of men should become sons of God. And in the
righteous who attain to love this measure of growth and "likening" unto Christ
is fulfilled. "The Saints in their lifetime already were filled with the Holy
Spirit," continues St. John of Damascus, "and when they died the grace of the
Holy Spirit was still present with their souls and with their bodies in the
graves, and with their images and with their holy ikons not because of their
nature but because of grace and its activity... the saints are alive and with
daring they stand before the Lord; they are not dead ... the death of saints is
more like falling asleep than death," for they "abide in the hand of God"; that
is, in life and in light... and 11 after He Who is Life itself and the source of
life was ranked among the dead, we consider no more as dead those who depart
with a hope of resurrection and with faith in Him." And it is not only to get
help and intercession that the Holy Spirit teaches every believer to pray to the
glorified saints but also because this calling on them, through communion in
prayer, deepens the consciousness of the catholic unity of the Church. In our
invocation of the saints our measure of Christian love is exhibited, a living
feeling of unanimity and of the power of Church unity is expressed; and,
conversely, doubt or inability to feel the intercession of grace and the
intervention of saints on our behalf before God witnesses not only to a
weakening of love and of the brotherly and Church ties and relationships but
also to a decrease in the fulness of faith in the Ecumenical value and power of
the Incarnation and Resurrection.

One of the most mysterious anticipations of the Orthodox Church is the
contemplation of the "Protecting Veil of the Mother of God," of Her constant
standing in prayer for the world, surrounded by all the saints, before the
throne of ’God. "Today the Virgin stands in the Church and with hosts of saints
invisibly prays to God for us all; angels and high priests worship; apostles and
prophets embrace each other-it is for us that the Mother of God prays unto the
Eternal God!" Thus the Church remembers the vision which was once seen by St.
Andrew, the fool for Christ’s sake. And that which was then visibly revealed
remains now and will stand for all ages. The "Contemplation of the Protecting
Veil" of the Mother of God is a vision of the celestial Church, a vision of the
unbreakable and ever-existent unity of the heavenly and the earthly Church. Arid
it is also a foreseeing that all existence beyond the grave, of the righteous
and the saints, is one untiring prayer, one ceaseless intercession and
mediation. For love is the "union of all perfection." And the blessedness of the
righteous is an abiding in love. The Great Eastern saint St. Isaac the Syrian,
with incomparable daring, bore witness to the all-embracing power which crowns a
Christian’s struggles. According to his words this struggle for God acquires
fulness and completeness and attains its aim in purity-and purity is "a heart
which is merciful to every created being." And what is a heart that has its
mercy? asks the saint, and answers: "A burning of the heart for all creation for
men, birds, beasts, demons and all creatures. And from remembrance of them and
contemplation of them such a man’s eyes shed tears: because of a great and
strong compassion which possesses his heart and its great constancy, he is
overwhelmed with tender pity and he cannot bear, or hear of, or see any harm or
any even small sorrow which creatures suffer. And therefore he prays hourly with
tears for the dumb animals, and for the enemies of Truth and for those who harm
him that they should be guarded and that they should be shown mercy; and also
for all the reptiles he prays, from this great compassion which is constantly
aroused in his heart in likeness to God." And if even on earth so fiery is the
prayer of saints, even with a more fiery flame it burns "there" in the "embrace
of the Father" on the bosom of Divine Love, close to God, Whose Name is Love,
Whose care about the World is Love. And in the Church Triumphant prayers for the
whole Catholic Church do not cease. As St. Cyprian said-Christian prayer is for
all the world; everyone prays not only for himself but for all people, for all
form one, and so we pray not with a particular individual prayer but with one
common to all, with one soul in all. The whole deed of prayer must be determined
by an ecumenical consciousness and unanimous love, which includes likewise those
whose names are known to God alone. It is not characteristic of a Christian to
feel himself alone and separated from all, for he is saved only in the unity of
the Church. And the crown of all prayer is that flaming love which was expressed
in the prayer of Moses: "Forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray Thee,
out of Thy book which Thou hast written... " The center of Church worship is
Eucharistic worship. Here the whole Church is united also. Here a sacrifice is
made and prayers are offered "for all and for all things," here the whole Church
is remembered the militant and the triumphant. In the mystery-action of the
Liturgy "the powers of heaven invisibly celebrate with us," they are present and
celebrate with the celebrating priest. And unto great saints it was granted
sometimes by God’s grace to contemplate in visible form that which is hidden
from the sight of the sinful-the co-celebration of the angels. Thus it is known
that St. Seraphim of Sarov on one occasion was granted to see the triumphant
entrance of the Lord of Glory surrounded by hosts of angels. Such an entrance of
the Lord of Glory is often represented in ikon form on the walls of the holy
Altar, and not only as a symbol but likewise as an indication that invisibly all
this actually takes place. And all the ikon decoration of the Church generally
speaks of the mysterious unity, of the actual presence of the saints with us.
"We picture Christ, the King and the Lord, without separating Him from His army,
for, the Army of the Lord are the saints"-said St. John of Damascus. Holy ikons
are not only images of remembrance, "images of the past and of righteousness,"
not only pictures, but are actually sacred things with which, as the fathers
explained, the Lord is "present" and by grace is "in communion 11 with them.
There exists some mysterious objective tic between the "image" and the
"Prototype," between the likeness and the one who is represented, which is
specially marked in miracle-working ikons which show God’s power. "A venerating
worship" of holy ikons clearly expresses the idea of the Church’s conception of
the past: it is not only a remembrance directed to something gone, but a vision
by grace of something fixed in eternity, a vision of something mysterious, a
presence by grace of those who are dead and parted from us, "a joyful vision of
a unity of all creation."

All creation has a Head in Christ. And through His Incarnation the Son of God,
according to the wonderful expression of St. Irenaeus of Lyons, "again commenced
a long row of human beings." The Church is the spiritual posterity of the Second
Adam and in its history His redemptive work is fulfilled and completed, while
His love blossoms and flames in it. The Church is a fulfillment of Christ and
His Body. According to the bold words of St. John Chrysostom, "only then is the
Fulfiller the Head when a perfect body shall be formed." There is some
mysterious movement-which started from the awe-filled day of Pentecost, when in
the face of the first chosen few it was as if all creation received a fiery
christening by the Spirit towards that last aim, when in all its glory the New
Jerusalem shall appear and the Bridal Feast of the Lamb shall begin. In the
stretch of ages the guests and the chosen are being collected. The people of the
eternal Kingdom are being assembled. The Kingdom is being selected and set aside
beyond the limits of time. The fulfillment shall be accomplished in the last
resurrection-then the complete fulness and glory and the whole meaning of Church
catholicity shall be revealed. From Creation and Redemption, Vol. III of the
Collected Works of Georges Florovsky (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Co.),
1976, pp. 201.208.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 30: 25 - FAITH & CULTURE
========================================================================

Faith and Culture

We are living in a changed and changing world. This cannot be denied even by
those in our midst who may be unwilling or unprepared to change themselves, who
want to linger in the age that is rapidly passing away. But nobody can evade the
discomfort of belonging to a world in transition. If we accept the traditional
classification of historical epochs into "organic" and "critical," there is no
doubt that our present age is a critical age, an age of crisis, an age of
unresolved tensions. One hears so often in our days about the "End of Our Time,"
about the "Decline of the West," about "Civilization on Trial," and the like. It
is even suggested sometimes that probably we are now passing through the "Great
Divide," through the greatest change in the history of our civilization, which
is much greater and more radical than the change from Antiquity to the Middle
Ages, or from the Middle Ages to the Modern Times. If it is true at all, as it
was contended by Hegel, that "history is judgment" (Die Weltgeschichte ist
Weltgericht), there are some fateful epochs, when history not only judges, but,
as it were, sentences itself to doom. We are persistently reminded by experts
and prophets that civilizations rise and decay, and there is no special reason
to expect that our own civilization should escape this common fate. If there is
any historical future at all, it may well happen that this future is reserved
for another civilization, and probably for one which will be quite different
from ours.

It is quite usual in our days, and indeed quite fashionable, to say that we are
already dwelling in a "Post-Christian world" - whatever the exact meaning of
this pretentious phrase may actually be - in a world which, subconsciously or
deliberately, "retreated" or seceded from Christianity. "We live in the ruins of
civilizations, hopes, systems, and souls." Not only do we find ourselves at the
cross-roads, at which the right way seems to be uncertain, but many of us would
also question whether there is any safe road at all, and any prospect of getting
on. Does not indeed our civilization find itself in an impasse out of which
there is no exit, except at the cost of explosion? Now, what is the root of the
trouble? What is the primary or ultimate cause of this imminent and appalling
collapse? Is it just "the failure of nerve," as it is sometimes suggested, or
rather a "sickness to death," a disease of the spirit, the loss of faith? There
is no common agreement on this point. Yet, there seems to be considerable
agreement that our cultural world has been somehow disoriented and
decentralized, spiritually and intellectually disoriented and disorganized, so
that no over-arching principle has been left which can keep the shifting
elements together. As Christians, we can be more emphatic and precise. We would
contend that it is precisely the modern Retreat from Christianity, at whatever
exact historical date we may discern its starting point, that lies at the bottom
of our present crisis. Our age is, first of all, an age of unbelief, and for
that reason an age of uncertainty, confusion, and despair. There are so many in
our time who have no hope precisely because they lost all faith.

We should not make such statements too easily, however, and have to caution
ourselves at least on two points. First, the causes and motives of this obvious
"retreat" were complex and manifold, and the guilt cannot be shifted exclusively
onto those who have retreated. In Christian humility, the faithful should not
exonerate themselves unconditionally, and should not dispense too summarily with
the responsibility for the failures of others. If our culture, which we used,
rather complacently, to regard as Christian, disintegrates and falls to pieces,
it only shows that the seed of corruption was already there. Secondly, we should
not regard all beliefs as constructive by themselves, and should not welcome
every faith as an antidote against doubt and disruption. It may be perfectly
true, as sociologists contend, that cultures disintegrate when there is no
inspiring incentive, no commanding conviction. But it is the content of faith
that is decisive, at least from the Christian point of view. The chief danger in
our days is that there are too many conflicting "beliefs." The major tension is
not so much between "belief" and "un-belief" as precisely between rival beliefs.
Too many "strange Gospels" are preached, and each of them claims total obedience
and faithful submission; even science poses sometimes as religion. It may be
true that the modern crisis can be formally traced back to the loss of
convictions. It would be disastrous, however, if people rallied around a false
banner and pledged allegiance to a wrong faith. The real root of the modern
tragedy does not lie only in the fact that people lost convictions, but that
they deserted Christ.

Now, when we speak of a "crisis of culture," what do we actually mean? The word
"culture" is used in various senses, and there is no commonly accepted
definition. On the one hand, "culture" is a specific attitude or orientation of
individuals and of human groups, by which we distinguish the "civilized" society
from the "primitive." It is at once a system of aims and concerns, and a system
of habits. On the other hand, "culture" is a system of values, produced and
accumulated in the creative process of history, and tending to obtain a
semi-independent existence, i.e. independent of that creative endeavor which
originated or discovered these values." The values are manifold and divers, and
probably they are never fully integrated into one coherent whole - polite
manners and mores, political and social institutions, industry and sanitation,
ethics, art and science, and so on. Thus, when we speak of the crisis of
culture, we usually imply a dis-integration in one of these two different, if
related, systems, or rather in both of them. It may happen that some of the
accepted or alleged values are discredited and compromised, i.e. cease to
function and no longer appeal to men. Or, again, it happens sometimes that
"civilized man" themselves degenerate or even disappear altogether, that
cultural habits become unstable, and men lose interest in or concern for these
habits, or are simply tired of them. Then an urge for "primitivism" may emerge,
if still within the framework of a lingering civilization. A civilization
declines when that creative impulse which originally brought it into existence
loses its power and spontaneity. Then the question arises, whether "culture" is
relevant to the fulfillment of man’s personality, or is no more than an external
garb which may be needed on occasions, but which does not organically belong to
the essence of human existence. It obviously does not belong to human nature,
and we normally clearly distinguish between "nature" and "culture," implying
that "culture" is man’s "artificial" creation which he superimposes on "nature,"
although it seems that in fact we do not know human nature apart from culture,
from some kind of culture at least. It may be contended that "culture" is not
actually "artificial," that it is rather an extension of human nature, an
extension by which human nature achieves its maturity and completion, so that an
"under-cultural" existence is in fact a "sub-human" mode of existence. Is it not
true that a "civilized" man is more human than a "primitive" or "natural" man?
It is precisely at this point that our major difficulty sets in.

It may be perfectly true, as I personally believe is the case, that our
contemporary culture or civilization is "on trial." But should Christians, as
Christians, be concerned with this cultural crisis at all? If it is true, as we
have just admitted, that the collapse or decline of culture is rooted in the
loss of faith, in an "apostasy" or "retreat," should not Christians be
concerned, primarily if not exclusively, with the reconstruction of belief or a
reconversion of the world, and not with the salvaging of a sinking civilization?
If we are really passing in our days an "apocalyptic" test, should we not
concentrate all our efforts on Evangelism, on the proclamation of the Gospel to
an oblivious generation, on the preaching of penitence and conversion ? The main
question seems to be, whether the crisis can be resolved if we simply oppose to
an outworn and disrupted civilization a new one, or whether, in order to
overcome the crisis, we must go beyond civilization, to the very roots of human
existence. Now, if we have ultimately to go beyond, would not this move make
culture unnecessary and superfluous? Does one need "culture," and should one be
interested in it, when he encounters the Living God, Him Who alone is to be
worshipped and glorified? Is not then all "civilization" ultimately but a subtle
and refined sort of idolatry, a care and trouble for "many things," for too many
things, while there is but one "good part," which shall never be taken away, but
will continue in the "beyond," unto ages of ages? Should not, in fact, those who
have found the "precious pearl" go straight away and sell their other goods? And
would it not be precisely an unfaithfulness and disloyalty to hide and keep
these other possessions ? Should we not simply surrender all "human values,"
into the hands of God. This questioning was for centuries the major temptation
of many sincere and devout souls. All these questions are intensively asked and
discussed again in our own days. We say: temptation. But is it fair to use this
disqualifying word? Is it not rather an inescapable postulate of that integral
self-renunciation, which is the first pre-requisite and foundation of Christian
obedience? In fact, doubts about culture and its values arise and emerge not
only in the days of great historical trials and crises. They arise so often also
in the periods of peace and prosperity, when one may find himself in danger of
being enslaved and seduced by human achievements, by the glories and triumphs of
civilization. They arise so often in the process of intimate and personal search
for God. Radical self-renunciation may lead devout people into wilderness, into
the caves of the earth and the deserts, out of the "civilized world," and
culture would appear to them as vanity, and vanity of vanities, even if it is
alleged that this culture has been christened, in shape if not in essence. Would
it be right to arrest these devout brethren in their resolute search of
perfection, and to retain them in the world, to compel them to share in the
building or reparation of what for them is nothing else than a Tower of Babel?
Are we prepared to disavow St. Anthony of Egypt or St. Francis of Assisi and to
urge them to stay in the world? Is not God radically above and beyond all
culture? Does "culture" after all possess any intrinsic value of its own? Is it
service or play, obedience or distraction, vanity, luxury and pride, i.e.
ultimately a trap for souls? It seems obvious that "culture" is not, and by its
very nature cannot be, an ultimate end or an ultimate value, and should not be
regarded as an ultimate goal or destiny of man, nor probably even as an
indispensable component of true humanity. A "primitive" can be saved no less
than a "civilized." As St. Ambrose put it, God did not choose to save His people
by clever arguments. Moreover, "culture" is not an unconditional good; rather it
is a sphere of unavoidable ambiguity and involvement. It tends to degenerate
into "civilization," if we may accept Oswald Spengler’s distinction between
these two terms - and man may be desperately enslaved in it, as the modern man
is supposed to be. "Culture" is human achievement, is man’s own deliberate
creation, but an accomplished "civilization" is so often inimical to human
creativity. Many in our days, and indeed at all times, are painfully aware of
this tyranny of "cultural routine," of the bondage of civilization. It can be
argued, as it has been more than once, that in "civilization" man is, as it
were, "estranged" from himself, estranged and detached from the very roots of
his existence, from his very "self," or from "nature," or from God. This
alienation of man can be described and defined in a number of ways and manners,
both in a religious and anti-religious mood. But in all cases "culture" would
appear not only to be in predicament, but to be predicament itself.

Different answers were given to these searching questions in the course of
Christian history, and the problem still remains unsolved. It has been recently
suggested that the whole question about "Christ and Culture" is "an enduring
problem," which probably does not admit of any final decision. It is to say that
different answers will appeal to different types or groups of people, believers
alike and "unbelievers," and again different answers will seem convincing at
different times. The variety of answers seems to have a double meaning. On the
one hand, it points to the variety of historical and human situations, in which
different solutions would naturally impose. Questions are differently put and
assessed at a time of peace or at a time of crisis. But on the other hand,
disagreement is precisely what we should expect in the "Divided Christendom." It
would be idle to ignore the depth of this division in Christendom. The meaning
of the Gospel itself is discordantly assessed in various denominations. And in
the debate about "Christ and Culture" we encounter the same tension between the
"Catholic" and the "Evangelical" trends which is at the bottom of the "Christian
Schism" at large. If we are really and sincerely concerned with "Christian
Unity," we should look for an ultimate solution of this basic tension. In fact,
our attitude to "culture" is not a practical option, but a theological decision,
first of all and last of all. The recent growth of historical and cultural
pessimism, of what Germans call Kulturpessimismus and Geschichtspessimismus, not
only reflects the factual involvements and confusion of our epoch, but also
reveals a peculiar shift in theological and philosophical opinions. Doubts about
culture have an obvious theological significance and spring from the very depth
of man’s faith. One should not dismiss any sincere challenge too easily and
self-complacently, without sympathy and understanding. Yet, without imposing a
uniform solution, for which our age seems not to be ripe, one cannot avoid
discarding certain suggested solutions as inadequate, as erroneous and
misleading. The modern opposition, or indifference, of Christians to "culture"
takes various shapes and moulds. It would be impossible to attempt now a
comprehensive survey of all actual shades of opinion. We must confine ourselves
to a tentative list of those which seem to be most vocal and relevant in our own
situation. There are a variety of motives, and a variety of conclusions. Two
special motives seem to concur in a very usual contempt of the world by many
Christians, in all traditions. On the one hand, the world is passing, and
history itself seems so insignificant "in the perspective of eternity," or when
related to the ultimate destiny of man. All historical values are perishable, as
they are also relative and uncertain. Culture, also, is perishable and of no
significance in the perspective of an imminent end. On the other hand, the whole
world seems to be so insignificant in comparison with the unfathomable Glory of
God, as it has been revealed in the mystery of our Redemption. At certain times,
and in certain historical situations, the mystery of Redemption seems to obscure
the mystery of Creation, and Redemption is construed rather as a dismissal of
the fallen world than as its healing and recovery. The radical opposition
between Christianity and Culture, as it is presented by certain Christian
thinkers, is more inspired by certain theological and philosophical
presuppositions than by an actual analysis of culture itself. There is an
increasing eschatological feeling in our days, at least in certain quarters.
There is also an increasing devaluation of man in the contemporary thought,
philosophical and theological, partly in reaction to the excess of
self-confidence of the previous age. There is a re-discovery of human
"nothingness," of the essential precariousness and insecurity of his existence,
both physical and spiritual. The world seems to be inimical and empty, and man
feels himself lost in the flux of accidents and failures. If there is still any
hope of "salvation," it is constructed rather in the terms of "escape" and
"endurance" than in those of "recovery" or "reparation." What can one hope for
in history?

We can distinguish several types of this "pessimistic" attitude. The labels I am
going to use are but tentative and provisional.

First of all, we must emphasize the persistence of the Pietist or Revivalist
motive in the modern devaluation of culture. Men believe that they have met
their Lord and Redeemer in their personal and private experience, and that they
were saved by His mercy and their own response to it in faith and obedience.
Nothing else is therefore needed. The life of the world, and in the world, seems
then to be but a sinful entanglement, out of which men are glad, and probably
proud, to have been released. The only thing they have to say about this world
is to expose its vanity and perversion and to prophesy doom and condemnation,
the coming wrath and judgment of God. People of this type may be of different
temper, sometimes wild and aggressive, sometimes mild and sentimental. In all
cases, however, they cannot see any positive meaning in the continuing process
of culture, and are indifferent to all values of civilization, especially to
those which cannot be vindicated from the utilitarian point of view. People of
this type would preach the virtue of simplicity, in opposition to the complexity
of cultural involvement. They may choose to retire into the privacy of solitary
existence or of stoic "indifference" or they may prefer a kind of common life,
in closed companies of those who have understood the futility and
purposelessness of the whole historical toil and endeavor. One may describe this
attitude as "sectarian," and indeed there is a deliberate attempt to evade any
share in common history. But this "sectarian" approach can be found among the
people of various cultural and religious traditions. There are many who want to
"retire from the world," at least psychologically, more for security than for
"the unseen warfare." There is, in this attitude, a paradoxical mixture of
penitence and self-satisfaction, of humility and pride. There is also a
deliberate disregard of, or indifference to, doctrine, and inability to think
out consistently the doctrinal implications of this "isolationist" attitude. In
fact, this is a radical reduction of Christianity, at least a subjective
reduction, in which it becomes no more than a private religion of individuals.
The only problem with which this type of people is concerned is the problem of
individual "salvation."

Secondly, there is a "Puritan" type of opposition. There is a similar
"reduction" of belief, usually openly admitted. In practice, it is an active
type, without any desire to evade history. Only history is accepted rather as
"service" and "obedience," and not as a creative opportunity. There is the same
concentration on the problem of one’s "salvation." The basic contention is that
man, this miserable sinner, can be forgiven, if and when he accepts the
forgiveness which is offered to him by Christ and in Christ, but even in this
case he remains precisely what he is, a frail and unprofitable creature, and is
not essentially changed or re-newed. Even as a forgiven person, he continues as
a lost creature, and his life cannot have any constructive value. This may not
lead necessarily to an actual withdrawal from culture or denial of history, but
it makes of history a kind of servitude, which must be carried on and endured,
and should not be evaded, but endured rather as a training of character and
testing in patience, than as a realm of creativeness. Nothing is to be achieved
in history. But man should use every opportunity to prove his loyalty and
obedience and to strengthen character by this service of fidelity, this bondage
in duty. There is a strong "utilitarian" emphasis in this attitude, if it is a
"transcendental utility," an utter concern with "salvation." Everything that
does not directly serve this purpose should be discarded, and no room is
permitted for any "disinterested creativity," e.g. for art or "belles-lettres."

Thirdly, there is an Existentialist type of opposition. Its basic motive is in
the protest against man’s enslavement in civilization, which only screens from
him the ultimate predicament of his existence, and obscures the hopelessness of
his entanglement. It would be unfair to deny the relative truth of the
contemporary Existentialist movement, the truth of reaction; and probably the
modern man of culture needed this sharp and pityless warning. In all its forms,
religious and areligious, Existentialism exposes the nothingness of man, of the
real man as he is and knows himself. For those among the Existentialists who
failed to encounter God or who indulge in the atheistic denial, this
"nothingness" is just the last truth about man and his destiny. Only man should
find this truth out for himself. But many Existentialists have found God, or, as
they would put it themselves, have been found by Him, challenged by Him, in His
undivided wrath and mercy. But, paradoxically enough, they would persist in
believing that man is still but "nothing," in spite of the redeeming love and
concern of Creator for His lost and stray creatures. In their conception,
"creatureliness" of man inextricably condemns him to be but "nothing," at least
in his own eyes, in spite of the mysterious fact that for God His creatures are
obviously much more than "nothing," since the redeeming love of God moved Him,
for the sake of man, to the tremendous Sacrifice of the Cross. Existentialism
seems to be right in its criticism of human complacency, and even helpful in its
unwelcome detection of man’s pettiness. But it is always blind to the complexity
of the Divine Wisdom. An Existentialist is always a lonely and solitary being,
inextricably involved and engaged in the scrutiny of his predicament. His terms
of reference are always: the ALL of God and the Nothing of man. And, even in the
case when his analysis begins with a concrete situation, namely his personal
one, it continues somehow in abstracto: in the last resort he will not speak of
a living person, but rather about man as man, for ultimately all men stand under
the same and universal detection of their ultimate irrelevance. Whatever the
psychological and historical explanation of the recent rise of Existentialism
may be, on the whole it is no more than a symptom of cultural disintegration and
despair. And finally, we should not ignore the resistance or indifference of the
"Plain Man." He may live rather quietly in the world of culture, and even enjoy
it, but he would wonder what culture can "add" to religion, except by the way of
decoration, or as a tribute of reverence and gratitude, i.e. especially in the
form of art. But as a rule, the "plain man" is cautiously suspicious about the
use of reason in the matters of faith and accordingly will dispense with the
understanding of beliefs. What religious value can be in a distinterested study
of any subject, which has no immediate practical application and cannot be used
in the discharge of charity? The "plain man" will have not doubts about the
value or utility of culture in the economy of temporal life, but he will
hesitate to acknowledge its positive relevance in the spiritual dimension,
except insofar as it may affect or exhibit the moral integrity of man. He will
find no religious justification for the human urge to know and create. Is not
all culture ultimately but vanity, a frail and perishable thing indeed? And is
not the deepest root of human pride and arrogance precisely in the claims and
ambition of reason? The "plain man" usually prefers "simplicity" in religion,
and takes no interest in what he labels as "theological speculation," including
therein very often almost all doctrines and dogmas of the Church. What is
involved in this attitude is again a one-sided (and defective) concept of man
and of the relevance of man’s actual life in history to his "eternal destiny,"
i.e. to the ultimate purpose of God. There is a tendency to stress the
"otherworldliness" of the "Life Eternal" to such an extent that human
personality is in danger of being rent in twain. Is History in its entirety just
a training ground for souls and characters, or is something more intended in
God’s design? Is the "last judgment" just a test in loyalty, or also a
"recapitulation" of the Creation?

It is here that we are touching upon the deepest cause of the enduring confusion
in the discussion about "Faith and Culture." The deepest theological issues are
involved in this discussion, and no solution can ever be reached unless the
theological character of the discussion is clearly acknowledged and understood.
We need a theology of culture, even for our "practical" decisions. No real
decision can be made in the dark. The dogma of Creation, with everything that it
implies, was dangerously obscured in the consciousness of modern Christians, and
the concept of Providence, i.e. of the perennial concern of the Creator with the
destiny of His Creation, was actually reduced to something utterly sentimental
and subjective. Accordingly, "History" was conceived as an enigmatic interim
between the Mighty Deeds of God, for which it was difficult to assign any proper
substance. This was connected again with an inadequate conception of Man. The
emphasis has been shifted from the fulfillment of God’s design for man to the
release of Man out of the consequences of his "original" failure. And,
accordingly, the whole doctrine of the Last Things has been dangerously reduced
and has come to be treated in the categories of forensical justice or of
sentimental love. The "Modern Man" fails to appreciate and to assess the
conviction of early Christians, derived from the Scripture, that Man was created
by God for a creative purpose and was to act in the world as its king, priest,
and prophet. The fall or failure of man did not abolish this purpose or design,
and man was redeemed in order to be re-instated in his original rank and to
resume his role and function in the Creation. And only by doing this can he
become what he was designed to be, not only in the sense that he should display
obedience, but also in order to accomplish the task which was appointed by God
in his creative design precisely as the task of man. As much as "History" is but
a poor anticipation of the "Age to come," it is nevertheless its actual
anticipation, and the cultural process in history is related to the ultimate
consummation, if in a manner and in a sense which we cannot adequately decipher
now. One must be careful not to exaggerate "the human achievement," but one
should also be careful not to minimize the creative vocation of man, The destiny
of human culture is not irrelevant to the ultimate destiny of man.

All this may seem to be but a daring speculation, much beyond our warrant and
competence. But the fact remains: Christians as Christians were building culture
for centuries, and many of them not only with a sense of vocation, and not only
as in duty bound, but with the firm conviction that this was the will of God. A
brief retrospect of the Christian endeavour in culture may help us to see the
problem in a more concrete manner, in its full complexity, but also in all its
inevitability. As a matter of fact, Christianity entered the world precisely at
one of the most critical periods of history, at the time of a momentous crisis
of culture. And the crisis was finally solved by the creation of Christian
Culture, as unstable and ambiguous as this culture proved to be, in its turn,
and in the course of its realization.

*** *** *** As a matter of fact, the question of the relationship between
Christianity and Culture is never discussed in abstracto, just in this
generalized form, or, in any case, it should not be so discussed. The culture
about which one speaks is always a particular culture. The concept of "Culture"
with which one operates is always situation-conditioned, i.e. derived from the
actual experience one has, in his own particular culture, which one may cherish
or abhor, or else it is an imaginary concept, "another culture," an ideal, about
which one dreams and speculates. Even when the question is put in general terms,
concrete impressions or wants can be always detected. When "Culture" is resisted
or denied by Christians, it is always a definite historical formation which is
taken to be representative of the idea. In our own days it would be the
mechanized or "Capitalistic" civilization, inwardly secularized and therefore
estranged from any religion. In the ancient times it was the pagan Graeco-Roman
civilization. The starting point in both cases is the immediate impression of
clash and conflict, and of practical incompatibility of divergent structures,
which diverge basically in spirit or inspiration. The early Christians were
facing a particular civilization, that of the Roman and Hellenistic world. It
was about this civilization that they spoke, it was about this concrete "system
of values" that they were critical and uneasy. This civilization, moreover, was
itself changing and unstable at that time, and was, in fact, involved in a
desperate struggle and crisis. The situation was complex and confused. The
modern historian cannot escape antinomy in his interpretation of this early
Christian epoch, and one cannot expect more coherence in the interpretation
given by the contemporaries. It is obvious that this Hellenistic civilization
was in a certain sense ripe or prepared for "conversion," and can even be
regarded itself, again in a certain sense, as a kind of the Praeparatio
Evangelica, and the contemporaries were aware of this situation. Already St.
Paul had suggested this, and the Apologists of the second century and early
Alexandrinians did not hesitate to refer to Socrates and Heraclitus, and indeed
Plato, as forerunners of Christianity. On the other hand, they were aware, no
less than we are now, of a radical tension between this culture and their
message, and the opponents were conscious of this tension, also. The Ancient
World resisted conversion, because it meant a radical change and break with its
tradition in many respects. We can see now both the tension and continuity
between "the Classical" and "the Christian." Contemporaries, of course, could
not see it in the same perspective as we do, because they could not anticipate
the future. If they were critical of "culture," they meant precisely the culture
of their own time, and this culture was both alien and inimical to the Gospel.
What Tertullian had to say about culture should be interpreted in a concrete
historical setting first of all, and should not be immediately construed into
absolute pronouncements. Was he not right in his insistence on the radical
tension and divergence between "Jerusalem" and Athens: quid Athenae
Hierosolymis? "What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is
there between the Academy and the Church? . . . Our instruction comes from the
Porch of Solomon, who had himself taught that ‘the Lord should be sought in
simplicity of heart’ . . . We want no curious disputation after possessing
Christ Jesus, no inquisition after enjoying the Gospel. With our faith, we
desire no further belief. For this is our palmary faith, that there is nothing
which we ought to believe besides" (de prescription, 7). "What is there in
common between the philosopher and the Christian, the pupil of Hellas and the
pupil of Heaven, the worker for reputation and for salvation, the manufacturer
of words and of deeds" (Apologeticus, 46). Yet, Tertullian himself could not
avoid "inquisition" and "disputation," and did not hesitate to use the wisdom of
the Greeks in the defense of the Christian faith. He indicts the culture of his
time, and a specific philosophy of life, which, in its very structure, was
opposed to faith. He was afraid of an easy syncretism and contamination, which
was an actual threat and danger in his time, and could not anticipate that inner
transformation of the Hellenic mind which was to be effected in the centuries to
come, just as he could not imagine that Caesars could become Christian.

One should not forget that the attitude of Origen was actually much the same,
although he is regarded as one of the "Hellenizers" of Christianity. He also was
aware of the tension and was suspicious of the vain speculation, in which he
took little interest, and for him the riches of the pagans were exactly "the
riches of sinners" (in Psalms 36:1-12, III. 6). St. Augustine also was of that
opinion. Was not Science for him just a vain curiosity which only distracts mind
from its true purpose, which is not to number the stars and to seek out the
hidden things of nature, but to know and to love God ? Again, St. Augustine was
repudiating Astrology, which nobody would regard as "science" in our days, but
which in his days was inseparable from true Astronomy. The cautious or even
negative attitude of early Christians toward philosophy, toward art, including
both painting and music, and especially toward the art of rhetorics, can be
fully understood only in the concrete historical context. The whole structure of
the existing culture was determined and permeated by a wrong and false faith.
One has to admit that certain historical forms of culture are incompatible with
the Christian attitude toward life, and therefore must be rejected or avoided.
But this does not yet pre-judge the further question, whether a Christian
culture is possible and desirable. In our own days, one may, or rather should,
be sharply critical of our contemporary civilization, and even be inclined to
welcome its collapse, but this does not prove that civilization as such should
be damned and cursed, and that Christians should return to barbarism or
primitivism. As a matter of fact, Christianity accepted the challenge of the
Hellenistic and Roman culture, and ultimately a Christian Civilization emerged.
It is true that this rise of Christian Culture has been strongly censured in
modern times as an "acute Hellenization" of Christianity, in which the purity
and simplicity of the Evangelical or Biblical faith is alleged to have been
lost. Many in our own days are quite "iconoclastic" with regard to culture en
bloc, or at least to certain fields of culture, such as "Philosophy" (equated
with "sophistics") or Art, repudiated as a subtle idolatry, in the name of
Christian faith. But, on the other hand, we have to face the age-long
accumulation of genuine human values in the cultural process, undertaken and
carried in the spirit of Christian obedience and dedication to the truth of God.

What is important in this case is that the Ancient Culture proved to be plastic
enough to admit of an inner "transfiguration." Or, in other words, Christians
proved that it was possible to re-orient the cultural process, without lapsing
into a pre-cultural state, to re-shape the cultural fabric in a new spirit. The
same process which has been variously described as a "Hellenization of
Christianity" can be construed rather as a "Christianization of Hellenism."
Hellenism was, as it were, dissected by the Sword of the Spirit, was polarized
and divided, and a "Christian Hellenism" was created. Of course, "Hellenism" was
ambiguous and, as it were, double-faced. And certain of the Hellenistic revivals
in the history of the European thought and life have been rather pagan revivals,
calling for caution and strictures. It is enough to mention the ambiguities of
the Renaissance, and in later times just Goethe or Nietzsche. But it would be
unfair to ignore the existence of another Hellenism, already initiated in the
Age of the Fathers, both Greek and Latin, and creatively continued through the
Middle Ages and the Modern times. What is really decisive in this connection is
that "Hellenism" has been really changed. One can be too quick in discovering
"Hellenic accretions" in the fabric of Christian life, and at the same time
quite negligent and oblivious of the facts of this "transfiguration."

One striking example may suffice for our present purpose. It has been recently
brought to mind that Christianity in fact achieved a radical change in the
philosophical interpretation of Time. For the ancient Greek Philosophers, Time
was just "a movable image of eternity," i.e. a cyclical and recurrent motion,
which had to return upon itself, without ever moving "forward," as no
"forward-motion" is possible on the circle. It was an astronomical time,
determined by "the revolution of the celestial spheres" (let us remember the
title of the famous work of Copernicus, who was still under the sway of ancient
astronomy: De Revolutionibus Orbium Celestium), and human history accordingly
was subordinate to this basic principle of rotation and iteration. Our modern
concept of the linear time, with a sense of direction or vectoriality, with the
possibility of progression and achievement of new things, has been derived from
the Bible and from the Biblical conception of history, moving from Creation to
Consummation, in a unique, irreversible and unrepeatable motion, guided or
supervised by the constant Providence of the living God. The circular time of
the Greeks has been exploded, as St. Augustine rejoicingly exclaims. History for
the first time could be conceived as a meaningful and purposeful process,
leading to a goal, and not as a perennial rotation, leading nowhere. The very
concept of Progress has been elaborated by Christians. This is to say,
Christianity was not passive in its intercourse with that inherited culture
which it endeavoured to redeem, but very active. It is not too much to say that
the human mind was reborn and remade in the school of Christian faith, without
any repudiation of its just claims and fashions. It is true that this process of
Christianization of mind has never been completed, and inner tension continues
even within the Christian "Universe of discourse." No culture can ever be final
and definitive. It is more than a system, it is a process, and it can be
preserved and continued only by a constant spiritual effort, not just by inertia
or inheritance. The true solution of the perennial problem of relationship
between Christianity and Culture lies in the effort to convert "the natural
mind" to the right faith, and not in the denial of cultural tasks. Cultural
concerns are an integral part of actual human existence and, for that reason,
cannot be excluded from the Christian historical endeavour.

Christianity entered the historical scene as a Society or Community, as a new
social order or even a new social dimension, i.e. as the Church. Early
Christians had a strong corporate feeling. They felt themselves to be a "chosen
race," a "holy nation," a "peculiar people," i.e. precisely a New Society, a
"New Polis," a City of God. Now, there was another City in existence, a
Universal and strictly totalitarian City indeed, the Roman Empire, which felt
itself to be simply the Empire. It claimed to be the City, comprehensive and
unique. It claimed the whole man for its service, just as the Church claimed the
whole man for the service of God. No division of competence and authority could
be admitted, since the Roman State could not admit autonomy of the "religious
sphere," and religious allegiance was regarded as an aspect of the political
creed and an integral part of the civic obedience. For that reason a conflict
was unavoidable, a conflict of the two Cities. Early Christians felt themselves,
as it were, extraterritorial, just outside of the existing social order, simply
because the Church was for them an order itself. They dwelt in their cities as
"sojourners" or "strangers," and for them "every foreign land was fatherland,
and every fatherland foreign," as the author of the "Epistle to Diognetus," a
remarkable document of the second century, stated it (c. 5). On the other hand,
Christians did not retire from the existing society; they could be found
"everywhere," as Tertullian insisted, in all walks of life, in all social
groups, in all nations. But they were spiritually detached, spiritually
segregated. As Origen put it, in every city Christians had another system of
allegiance of their own, or, in literal translation, "another system of
fatherland" (c. Cels. VIII. 75). Christians did stay in the world and were
prepared to perform their daily duties faithfully, but they could not pledge
their full allegiance to the polity of this world, to the earthly City, for
their citizenship was elsewhere, i.e. "in heaven."

Yet, this detachment from "the world" could be but provisional, as Christianity,
by its very nature, was a missionary religion and aimed at a universal
conversion. The subtle distinction "in the world, but not of the world," could
not settle the basic problem, for "the world" itself had to be redeemed and
could not be endured in its un-reformed state. The final problem was exactly
this: could the two "societies" co-exist, and on what terms? Could Christian
allegiance be somehow divided or duplicated, or a "double citizenship" accepted
as a normative principle? Various answers were given in the course of history,
and the issue is still a burning and embarrassing one. One may still wonder
whether "spiritual segregation" is not actually the only consistent Christian
answer, and any other solution inevitably an entangling compromise. The Church
is here, in "this world," for its salvation. The Church has, as it were, to
exhibit in history a new pattern of existence, a new mode of life, that of the
"world to come." And for that reason the Church has to oppose and to renounce
"this" world. She cannot, so to speak, find a settled place for herself within
the limits of this "old world." She is compelled to be "in this world" in
permanent opposition, even if she claims but a reformation or renewal of the
world. The situation in which the Church finds herself in this world is
inextricably antinomical. Either the Church is to be constituted as an exclusive
society, endeavouring to satisfy all requirements of the believers, both
"temporal" and "spiritual," paying no attention to the existing order and
leaving nothing to the external world - this would mean an entire separation
from the world, an ultimate flight out of it, and a radical denial of any
external authority. Or the Church could attempt an inclusive "Christianization"
of the world, subduing the whole of life to Christian rule and authority,
endeavor to reform and to reorganize secular life on Christian principles, to
build the Christian City. In the history of the Church we can trace both
solutions: a flight into desert and a construction of the Christian Empire. The
first was practiced not only in monasticism of various trends, but also in many
other Christian groups or "sects." The second was the main line taken by
Christians, both in the West and in the East, up to the rise of militant
secularism in Europe and elsewhere, and even at present this solution has not
lost its hold on many people.

Historically speaking, both solutions proved to be inadequate and unsuccessful.
On the other hand, one has to acknowledge the urgency of their common problem
and the truth of their common purpose. Christianity is not an individualistic
religion and is not concerned only with the salvation of individuals.
Christianity is the Church, i.e. a Community, leading its corporate life
according to its peculiar principles. Spiritual leadership of the Church can
hardly be reduced to an occasional guidance given to individuals or to groups
living under conditions utterly uncongenial to the Church. The legitimacy of
those conditions should be questioned first of all. Nor can human life be split
into departments, some of which might have been ruled by some independent
principles, i.e. independent of the Church. One cannot serve two Masters, and a
double allegiance is a poor solution. The problem is no easier in a Christian
society. With Constantino the Empire, as it were, capitulated; Caesar himself
was converted - the Empire was now offering to the Church not only peace, but
cooperation. This could be interpreted as a victory of the Christian cause. But
for many Christians at that time this new turn of affairs was an unexpected
surprise and rather a blow. Many leaders of the Church were rather reluctant to
accept the Imperial offer. But it was difficult to decline it. The whole Church
could not escape into Desert, nor could she desert the world. The new Christian
Society came into existence, which was at once both "Church" and "Empire," and
its ideology was "theocratical." This theocratical idea could be developed in
two versions, different, but correlated. Theocratical authority could be
exercised by the Church directly, i.e. through the hierarchical Ministry of the
Church. Or the State could be invested with a theocratical authority, and its
officers commissioned to establish and propagate the Christian order. In both
cases the unity of Christian society was strongly emphasized, and two orders
were distinguished inside of this unique structure: an ecclesiastical in the
strict sense and a temporal, i.e. the Church and the State, with the basic
assumption that imperium was also a Divine gift, in a sense co-ordinated with
sacerdotium, and subordinate to the ultimate authority of the Faith. The theory
seemed to be reasonable and well balanced, but in practice it led to an age-long
tension and strife within the theocratical structure and ultimately to its
disruption. The modern conception of the two "separated" spheres, that of the
Church and that of the State, lacks both theoretical and practical consistency.
In fact, we are still facing the same dilemma or the same antinomy. Either
Christians ought to go out of the world, in which there is another master
besides Christ (whatever name this master may bear: Caesar or Mammon or any
other), and start a separate society. Or again they have to transform the outer
world and rebuild it according to the law of the Gospel. What is important,
however, is that even those who go out cannot dispense with the main problem:
they still have to build up a "society" and cannot therefore dispense with this
basic element of social culture. "Anarchism" is in any case excluded by the
Gospel. Nor does Monasticism mean or imply a denunciation of culture.
Monasteries were, for a long time, precisely the most powerful centers of
cultural activity, both in the West and in the East. The practical problem is
therefore reduced to the question of a sound and faithful orientation in a
concrete historical situation.

Christians are not committed to the denial of culture as such. But they are to
be critical of any existing cultural situation and measure it by the measure of
Christ. For Christians are also the Sons of Eternity, i.e. prospective citizens
of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Yet problems and needs of "this age" in no case and
in no sense can be dismissed or disregarded, since Christians are called to work
and service precisely "in this world" and "in this age." Only all these needs
and problems and aims must be viewed in that new and wider perspective which is
disclosed by the Christian Revelation and illumined by its light.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 31: 26 - ANTINOMIES: EMPIRE AND DESERT
========================================================================

Antinomies of Christian History:

Empire and Desert

Christianity entered history as a new social order, or rather a new social
dimension. From the very beginning Christianity was not primarily a "doctrine,"
but exactly a "community." There was not only a "Message" to be proclaimed and
delivered, and "Good News" to be declared. There was precisely a New Community,
distinct and peculiar, in the process of growth and formation, to which members
were called and recruited. Indeed, "fellowship" (komoma) was the basic category
of Christian existence. Primitive Christians felt themselves to be closely knit
and bound together in a unity which radically transcended all human boundaries -
of race, of culture, of social rank, and indeed the whole dimension of "this
world." They were brethren to each other, members of "One Body," even of the
"Body of Christ." This glorious phrase of St. Paul admirably summarizes the
common experience of the faithful. In spite of the radical novelty of Christian
experience, basic categories of interpretation were taken over from the Old
Testament, of which the New Covenant was conceived to be the fulfilment and
consummation. Christians were indeed "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy
nation, a people set apart" (1 Peter 2:9). They were the New Israel, the "Little
Flock," that is, that faithful "Remnant" to which it was God’s good pleasure to
give the Kingdom (Luke 12:32). Scattered sheep had to be brought together into
"one fold," and assembled. The Church was exactly this "Assembly," ekklesta tou
Theou, - a permanent Assembly of the new "Chosen People" of God, never to be
adjourned. In "this world" Christians could be but pilgrims and strangers. Their
true "citizenship," politeuma, was "in heaven" (Php 3:20). The Church herself
was peregrinating through this world (paroikousa). "The Christian fellowship was
a bit of extra-territorial jurisdiction on earth of the world above" (Frank
Gavin). The Church was an "outpost of heaven" on the earth, or a "colony of
heaven." It may be true that this attitude of radical detachment had originally
an "apocalyptic" connotation, and was inspired by the expectation of an imminent
parousia. Yet, even as an enduring historical society, the Church was bound to
be detached from the world. An ethos of "spiritual segregation" was inherent in
the very fabric of the Christian faith, as it was inherent in the faith of
Ancient Israel. The Church herself was "a city," a polis, a new and peculiar
"polity." In their baptismal profession Christians had "to renounce" this world,
with all its vanity, and pride, and pomp, - but also with all its natural ties,
even family ties, and to take a solemn oath of allegiance to Christ the King,
the only true King on earth and in heaven, to Whom all "authority" has been
given. By this baptismal commitment Christians were radically separated from
"this world." In this world they had no "permanent city." They were "citizens"
of the "City to come," of which God Himself was builder and maker (Hebrews
13:14; cf. Hebrews 11:10). The Early Christians were often suspected and accused
of civic indifference, and even of morbid "misanthropy," odium generis humani, -
which should be probably contrasted with the alleged "philanthropy" of the Roman
Empire. The charge was not without substance. In his famous reply to Celsus,
Origen was ready to admit the charge. Yet, what else could Christians have done,
he asked. In every city, he explained, "we have another system of allegiance,"
allo systema tes patridos (Contra Celsum, VIII. 75). Along with the civil
community there was in every city another community, the local Church. And she
was for Christians their true home, or their "fatherland," and not their actual
"native city." The anonymous writer of the admirable "Letter to Diognetus,"
written probably in the early years of the second century, elaborated this point
with an elegant precision. Christians do not dwell in the cities of their own,
nor do they differ from the rest of men in speech and customs. "Yet, while they
dwell in the cities of Greeks and Barbarians, as the lot of each is cast, the
structure of their own polity is peculiar and paradoxical.. . . Every foreign
land is a fatherland to them, and every fatherland is a foreign land.... Their
conversation is on the earth, but their citizenship is in heaven." There was no
passion in this attitude, no hostility, and no actual retirement from daily
life. But there was a strong note of spiritual estrangement: "and every
fatherland is a foreign land." It was coupled, however, with an acute sense of
responsibility. Christians were confined in the world, "kept" there as in a
prison; but they also "kept the world together," just as the soul holds the body
together. Moreover, this was precisely the task allotted to Christians by God,
"which it is unlawful to decline" (Ad Diognetum, 5, 6). Christians might stay in
their native cities, and faithfully perform their daily duties. But they were
unable to give their full allegiance to any polity of this world, because their
true commitment was elsewhere. They were socially committed and engaged in the
Church, and not in the world. "For us nothing is more alien than public
affairs," declared Tertullian: nee ulla magis res aliena quam publica
(Apologeticum, 38.3). "I have withdrawn myself from the society," he said on
another occasion: secessi de populo (De Pallia, 5). Christians were in this
sense "outside society," voluntary outcasts and outlaws, - outside of the social
order of this world.

It would be utterly misleading to interpret the tension between Christians and
the Roman Empire as a conflict or clash between the Church and the State.
Indeed, the Christian Church was more than "a church," just as ancient Israel
was at once a "church" and a "nation." Christians also were a nation, a
"peculiar people," the People of God, tertium genus, neither Jew nor Greek. The
Church was not just a "gathered community," or a voluntary association, for
"religious" purposes alone. She was, and claimed to be, a distinct and
autonomous "society," a distinct polity." On the other hand, the Roman Empire
was, and claimed to be, much more than just "a state." Since the Augustan
reconstruction, in any case, Rome claimed to be just the City, a permanent and
"eternal" City, Urbs aeterna, and an ultimate City also. In a sense, it claimed
for itself an "eschatological dimension." It posed as an ultimate solution of
the human problem. It was a Universal Commonwealth, "a single Cosmopolis of the
inhabited earth," the Oikoumene. Rome was offering "Peace," the Pax Romana, and
"Justice" to all men and all nations under its rule and sway. It claimed to be
the final embodiment of "Humanity," of all human values and achievements. "The
Empire was, in effect, a politico-ecclesiastical institution. It was a ‘church*
as well as a ‘state’; if it had not been both, it would have been alien from the
ideas of the Ancient World" (Sir Ernest Barker). In the ancient society - in the
ancient polis, in Hellenistic monarchies, in the Roman republic - "religious"
convictions were regarded as an integral part of the political creed. "Religion"
was an integral part of the "political" structure. No division of competence and
"authority" could ever be admitted, and accordingly no division of loyalty or
allegiance. The State was omnicompetent, and accordingly the allegiance had to
be complete and unconditional. Loyalty to the State was itself a kind of
religious devotion, in whatever particular form it might have been prescribed or
imposed. In the Roman Empire it was the Cult of Caesars. The whole structure of
the Empire was indivisibly "political" and "religious." The main purpose of the
Imperial rule was usually defined as "Philanthropy," and often even as
"Salvation." Accordingly, the Emperors were described as "Saviours." In
retrospect all these claims may seem to be but Utopian delusions and wishful
dreams, vain and futile, which they were indeed. Yet, these dreams were dreamt
by the best people of that time - it is enough to mention Vergil. And the
Utopian dream of the "Eternal Rome" survived the collapse of the actual Empire
and dominated the political thinking of Europe for centuries. Paradoxically,
this dream was often cherished even by those, who, by the logic of their faith,
should have been better protected against its deceiving charm and thrill. In
fact, the vision of an abiding or "Eternal Rome" dominated also the Christian
thought in the Middle Ages, both in the East, and in the West.

There was nothing anarchical in the attitude of Early Christians toward the
Roman Empire. The "divine" origin of the State and of its authority was formally
acknowledged already by St. Paul, and he himself had no difficulty in appealing
to the protection of Roman magistrates and of Roman law. The positive value and
function of the State were commonly admitted in the Christian circles. Even the
violent invective in the book of Revelation was no exception. What was denounced
there was iniquity and injustice of the actual Rome, but not the principle of
political order. Christians could, in full sincerity and in good faith, protest
their political innocence in the Roman courts and plead their loyalty to the
Empire. In fact, Early Christians were devoutedly praying for the State, for
peace and order, and even for Caesars themselves. One finds a high appraisal of
the Roman Empire even in those Christian writers of that time, who were
notorious for their resistance, as Origen and Tertullian. The theological
"justification" of the Empire originated already in the period of persecutions.
Yet, Christian loyalty was, of necessity, a restricted loyalty. Of course,
Christianity was in no sense a seditious plot, and Christians never intended to
overthrow the existing order, although they did believe that it had ultimately
to wither away. From the Roman point of view, however, Christians could not fail
to appear seditious, not because they were in any sense mixed in politics, but
precisely because they were not. Their political "indifference" was irritating
to the Romans. They kept themselves away from the concerns of the Commonwealth,
at a critical time of its struggle for existence. Not only did they claim
"religious freedom" for themselves. They also claimed supreme authority for the
Church. Although the Kingdom of God was emphatically "not of this world," it
seemed to be a threat to the omnicompetent Kingdom of Man. The Church was, in a
sense, a kind of "Resistance Movement" in the Empire. And Christians were
"conscientious objectors." They were bound to resist any attempt at their
"integration" into the fabric of the Empire. As Christopher Dawson has aptly
said, "Christianity was the only remaining power in the world which could not be
absorbed in the gigantic mechanism of the new servile state." Christians were
not a political faction. Yet, their religious allegiance had an immediate
"political" connotation. It has been well observed that monotheism itself was a
"political problem" in the ancient world (Eric Peterson). Christians were bound
to claim "autonomy" for themselves and for the Church. And this was precisely
what the Empire could neither concede, nor even understand. Thus, the clash was
inevitable, although it could be delayed. The Church was a challenge to the
Empire, and the Empire was a stumbling block for the Christians. The Age of
Constantine is commonly regarded as a turning point of Christian history. After
a protracted struggle with the Church, the Roman Empire at last capitulated. The
Caesar himself was converted, and humbly applied for admission into the Church.
Religious freedom was formally promulgated, and was emphatically extended to
Christians. The confiscated property was restored to Christian communities.
Those Christians who suffered disability and deportation in the years of
persecution were now ordered back, and were received with honors. In fact,
Constantine was offering to the Church not only peace and freedom, but also
protection and close cooperation. Indeed, he was urging the Church and her
leaders to join with him in the "Renovation" of the Empire. This new turn of
Imperial policy and tactics was received by Christians with appreciation, but
not without some embarrassment and surprise. Christian response to the new
situation was by no means unanimous. There were many among Christian leaders who
were quite prepared to welcome unreservedly the conversion of Emperor and the
prospective conversion of the Empire. But there were not a few who were
apprehensive of the Imperial move. To be sure, one could but rejoice in the
cessation of hostilities and in that freedom of public worship which now has
been legally secured. But the major problem has not yet been solved, and it was
a problem of extreme complexity. Indeed, it was a highly paradoxical problem.

Already Tertullian was asking certain awkward questions, although in his own
time they were no more than rhetorical questions. Could Caesars accept Christ,
and believe in Him? Now, Caesars obviously belonged to "the world." They were an
integral part of the "secular" fabric, necessarii saeculo. Could then a
Christian be Caesar, that is, belong at once to two conflicting orders, the
Church and the World? (Apolo-geticum, 21.24). In the time of Constantine this
concept of the "Christian Caesar" was still a riddle and a puzzle, despite the
eloquent effort of Eusebius of Caesarea to elaborate the idea of the "Christian
Empire." For many Christians there was an inner contradiction in the concept
itself. Caesars were necessarily committed to the cause of "this world." But the
Church was not of this world. The office of Caesars was intrinsically "secular."
Was there really any room for Emperors, as Emperors, in the structure of
Christian Community? It has been recently suggested that probably Constantine
himself was rather uneasy and uncertain precisely at this very point. It seems
that one of the reasons for which he was delaying his own baptism, till his very
last days, was precisely his dim feeling that it was inconvenient to be
"Christian" and "Caesar" at the same time. Constantine’s personal conversion
constituted no problem. But as Emperor he was committed. He had to carry the
burden of his exalted position in the Empire. He was still a "Divine Caesar." As
Emperor, he was heavily involved in the traditions of the Empire, as much as he
actually endeavored to disentangle himself. The transfer of the Imperial
residence to a new City, away from the memories of the old pagan Rome, was a
spectacular symbol of this noble effort. Yet, the Empire itself was still much
the same as before, with its autocratic ethos and habits, with all its pagan
practices, including the adoration and apotheosis of Caesars. We have good
reasons to trust Constantine’s personal sincerity. No doubt, he was deeply
convinced that Christianity was the only power which could quicken the sick body
of the Empire and supply a new principle of cohesion in the time of social
disintegration. But obviously he was unable to abdicate his sovereign authority,
or to renounce the world. Indeed, Constantine was firmly convinced that, by
Divine Providence, he was entrusted with a high and holy mission, that he was
chosen to reestablish the Empire, and to reestablish it on a Christian
foundation. This conviction, more than any particular political theory, was the
decisive factor in his policy, and in his actual mode of ruling. The situation
was intensely ambiguous. Had the Church to accept the Imperial offer and to
assume the new task? Was it a welcome opportunity, or rather a dangerous
compromise? In fact, the experience of close cooperation with the Empire has not
been altogether happy and encouraging for Christians, even in the days of
Constantine himself. The Empire did not appear to be an easy or comfortable ally
and partner for the Church. Under Constantine’s successors all inconveniences of
"cooperation" became quite evident, even if we ignore the abortive attempt of
Julian to reinstate Paganism. The leaders of the Church were compelled, time and
again, to challenge the persistent attempts of Caesars to exercise their supreme
authority also in religious matters. The rise of monasticism in the fourth
century was no accident. It was rather an attempt to escape the Imperial
problem, and to build an "autonomous" Christian Society outside of the
boundaries of the Empire, "outside the camp." On the other hand, the Church
could not evade her responsibility for the world, or surrender her missionary
task. Indeed, the Church was concerned not only with individuals, but also with
society, even with the whole of mankind. Even kingdoms of this world had to be
brought ultimately into obedience to Christ. Nor was the Empire prepared to
leave the Church alone, or to dispense with her help and service. The Church was
already a strong institution, strong by her faith and discipline, and spread
everywhere, even to the remote corners of the inhabited earth. Thus, the Church
was forced finally into alliance with the Empire, by the double pressure of her
own missionary vocation and of the traditional logic of Empire. By the end of
the fourth century Christianity was ultimately established as the official
religion of the Roman Empire. Under Theodosius the Great, the Roman Empire
formally committed itself to the Christian cause. Paganism was legally disavowed
and proscribed. "Heresy" was also outlawed. The State formally engaged in the
maintenance of the Orthodox Faith. The basic presupposition of the new
arrangement was the Unity of the Christian Commonwealth. There was but One and
comprehensive Christian Society, which was at once a Church and a State. In this
one society there were different orders or "powers," clearly distinguished but
closely correlated, - "spiritual" and "temporal," "ecclesiastical" and
"political." But the "Society" itself was intrinsically One. This idea was by no
means a new one. Ancient Israel was at once a Kingdom and a Church. The Roman
Empire has always been a "politico-ecclesiastical institution," and it also
retained this double character after it had been "christened." In the Christian
Commonwealth "Churchman-ship" and "Citizenship" were not only "co-extensive,"
but simply identical. Only Christians could be citizens. And all citizens were
obliged to be Orthodox in belief and behavior. The Christian Commonwealth was
conceived as a single "theocratic" structure. Moreover, the Roman Empire always
regarded itself as a "Universal Kingdom," as the only legitimate Kingdom, the
only "Empire." As there was but One Church, the Church Universal, so there could
be but One Kingdom, the Ecumenical Empire. The Church and the Kingdom were in
effect but One Society, indivisible and undivided, One Civitas - Respublica
Christiana. "The One Commonwealth of all mankind, conceived partly as an Empire
- the surviving image of ancient Rome, but mainly and generally as a Church, is
the essential society of that long period of human history which we call by the
name of the Middle Ages. It was a fact, and not merely an idea; and yet it was
also an idea, and not altogether a fact" (Sir Ernest Barker). It was a momentous
and magnificent achievement, a glorious vision, an ambitious claim. But it was
also an ominous and ambiguous achievement. In fact, the two orders, "spiritual"
and "temporal," could never be truly integrated into one system. Old tensions
continued inside of the "One Society," and the balance of "powers" in the
Christian Commonwealth has been always unstable and insecure. It would be an
anachronism to describe this internal tension between "powers" in the Medieval
Commonwealth as a conflict or competition between the Church and the State,
conceived as two distinct societies, with appropriate spheres of competence and
jurisdiction. In the Middle Ages, Church and State, as two distinct societies,
simply did not exist. The conflict was between the two "powers" in the same
society, and precisely for that very reason it was so vigorous and acute. In
this respect there was no basic difference between the Christian East and the
Christian West, as different as the actual course of events has been in these
two areas of the Christian Commonwealth. The major problem was the same, in the
East and in the West - the problem of a "Christian Society," of a "Holy Empire."
It was but natural that this problem should assume special urgency and dimension
precisely in the East. In the East "the Holy Empire" was a formidable reality,
"a tangible fact in an actual world," in the phrase of James Bryce, while in the
West it was rather an idea, or just a claim. Since Constantine the heart of the
Empire was at Constantinople, and no longer in the old City of Rome. The story
of Byzantium was an immediate continuation of Roman history. In the West, Roman
order disintegrated at an early date. In the East, it survived for centuries.
Even in Oriental garb, Byzantium continued to be "the Kingdom of the Romans," up
to its very end. The main problem of Byzantium was precisely the problem of "the
Eternal Rome." The whole weight of the Empire was felt there much more than ever
in the West. It is highly significant, however, that all "Byzantine problems"
reappear in the West, with the same urgency and the same ambiguity, as soon as
"Empire" had been reconstituted there, under Charlemagne and his successors.
Indeed, Charlemagne regarded himself as a lawful successor to Constantine and
Justinian. His claims and policy in religious matters were almost identical with
those of the Byzantine Caesars.

It has been often contended that in Byzantium the Church had surrendered her
"freedom" into the hands of Caesars. The Byzantine system has been derogatorily
labelled as a "Caesaropapism," with the assumption that Emperor was the actual
ruler of the Church, even if he was never formally acknowledged to be her head.
It has been said not once that in Byzantium the Church simply ceased to exist,
that is, to exist as an "independent institution," and was practically reduced
to the status of a "liturgical department of the Empire." The evidence quoted in
support of these charges, at first glance, may seem to be abundant and
overwhelming. But it does not stand a closer examination. The charge of
"Caesaropapism" is still maintained in certain quarters. It has been
emphatically rejected by many competent students of Byzantium as a sheer
misunderstanding, as a biased anachronism. Emperors were indeed rulers in the
Christian Society, also in religious matters, but never rulers over the Church.
The story of Byzantium was an adventure in Christian politics. It was an
unsuccessful and probably an unfortunate experiment. Yet it should be judged on
its own terms.

Justinian has clearly stated that basic principle of the Byzantine political
system in the preface to his Sixth Novel, dated March 16, 535:

There are two major gifts which God has given unto men of His supernal clemency,
the priesthood and the imperial authority - hierosyne and basileia; sacerdotium
and imperium. Of these, the former is concerned with things divine; the latter
presides over the human affairs and takes care of them. Proceeding from the same
source, both adorn human life. Nothing is of greater concern for the emperors as
the dignity of the priesthood, so that priests may in their turn pray to God for
them. Now, if one is in every respect blameless and filled with confidence
toward God, and the other does rightly and properly maintain in order the
commonwealth entrusted to it, there will be a certain fair harmony established,
which will furnish whatsoever may be needful for mankind. We therefore are
highly concerned for the true doctrines inspired by God and for the dignity of
priests. We are convinced that, if they maintain their dignity, great benefits
will be bestowed by God on us, and we shall firmly hold whatever we now possess,
and in addition shall acquire those things which we have not yet secured. A
happy ending always crowns those things which were undertaken in a proper
manner, acceptable to God. This is the case, when sacred canons are carefully
observed, which the glorious Apostles, the venerable eye-witnesses and ministers
of the Divine World, have handed down to us, and the holy Fathers have kept and
explained. This was at once a summary, and a program.

Justinian did not speak of State, or of Church. He spoke of two ministries, or
of two agencies, which were established in the Christian Commonwealth. They were
appointed by the same Divine authority and for the same ultimate purpose. As a
"Divine gift," the Imperial power, imperium, was "independent" from the
Priesthood, sacerdotium. Yet it was "dependent" upon, and "subordinate" to, that
purpose for which it had been Divinely established. This purpose was the
faithful maintenance and promotion of the Christian truth. Thus, if "the Empire"
as such was not subordinate to the Hierarchy, it was nevertheless subordinate to
the Church, which was a Divinely appointed custodian of the Christian truth. In
other words, the Imperial power was "legitimate" only within the Church. In any
case, it was essentially subordinate to the Christian Faith, was bound by the
precepts of the Apostles and Fathers, and in this respect "limited" by them. The
legal status of the Emperor in the Commonwealth depended upon his good standing
in the Church, under her doctrinal and canonical discipline. Imperium was at
once an authority, and a service. And the terms of this service were set in
rules and regulations of the Church. In his coronation oath, the Emperor had to
profess the Orthodox faith and to take a vow of obedience to the decrees of the
ecclesiastical Councils. This was no mere formality. "Orthodoxy was, as it were,
the super-nationality of Byzantium, the basic element of the life of the State
and people" (I. I. Sokolov). The place of Emperor in the Byzantine system was
high and exalted. He was surrounded with a halo of theocratical splendor. The
court ceremonial was rich and elaborate, and it was distinctively a religious
ceremonial, a ritual, almost a kind of "Imperial liturgy." Yet, Emperor was no
more than a layman. He had a certain position in the Church, and a very
prominent and high position. But it was a lay position. There was, as it were, a
special office in the Church reserved for a layman. Emperors did not belong to
the regular hierarchy of the Church. They were in no sense "ministers of Word
and sacraments." Some special "priestly" character might be conceded to them,
and indeed has been often claimed and asserted. In any case, it was a very
specific "Royal priesthood," clearly distinguishable from the "Ministerial
priesthood" of the clergy. Certainly, the Emperor was a high dignitary in the
Church, but in a very special sense, which it is not easy to define exactly.
Whatever the original meaning of the rite of Imperial Coronation might have been
- and it seems that originally it was definitely a strictly "secular" ceremony,
in which even the Patriarch acted as a civil servant - gradually it developed
into a sacred rite, a sacramentale, if not a regular "sacrament," especially
since it was combined with the rite of "anointment," a distinctively
ecclesiastical rite, conferred by the Church. The rites of Imperial Coronation
convey a thoroughly "consecrational" conception of the "temporal power."
Probably, this "theocratical" emphasis was even stronger in the West than in
Byzantium. It is specifically significant that the rite included a solemn oath
to obey faithfully all rules of the Church, and above all to keep inviolate the
Orthodox faith, in conformity with the Holy Scripture and the ordinances of the
Councils. The crux of the problem is in the claim of the "temporal" rulers, and
in their endeavor, "to be Christian" and to perform accordingly certain
Christian duties in their own right, as their own assignment. This claim implied
a conviction that basically "the secular" itself was, in a certain sense,
"sacred." In a Christian society nothing can be simply "secular." It may be
argued that this claim was often insincere, no more than a disguise for worldly
motives and concerns. Yet it is obvious that in many instances - and one should
emphasize, in all major and crucial instances - this claim was utterly sincere.
Both Justinian and Charlemagne - to quote but the most spectacular cases - were
deeply sincere in their endeavor to be "Christian rulers" and to promote the
cause of Christ, as much as their actual policies were open to criticism. It was
commonly conceded that the Emperor’s duty was "to defend" the Faith and the
Church, by all available means at his disposal, including even "the sword," but
probably first of all by appropriate legislation. A tension would arise every
time when Emperors displayed their concern for matters religious, as many
Byzantine Emperors, and most of all Justinian, actually did on many occasions.
In principle, this was not beyond their lawful competence. Neither "the purity
of the Faith," nor "the strictness of the Canons," is a purely "clerical
concern." Emperors should care for the "right belief" of the people. Nor could
they be prohibited to hold theological convictions. If the right of formal
decision in the matters of faith and discipline belonged to the Priesthood - and
this right was never contested or abrogated - the right of being concerned about
doctrinal issues could never be denied even to laymen, nor the right to voice
their religious convictions, especially in the periods of doctrinal strife or
confusion. Obviously, Emperors could raise their voice more powerfully and
impressively than anybody else, and use their "power" (potestas) in order to
enforce those convictions which they might, in full honesty, believe to be
Orthodox. Yet even in this case Emperors would have to act through appropriate
channels. They would have to impose their will, or their mind, upon the
hierarchy of the Church, which they actually attempted to do not once, using
sometimes violence, threat, and other objectionable methods. The legal or
canonical form had to be observed in any case. To act in religious matters
without the consent and concurrence of the Priesthood was obviously ultra vires
of the Imperial power, beyond its lawful competence. Flagrant abuses by
Byzantine Caesars should not be ignored. On the other hand, it is obvious that
in no case were Emperors successful when they attempted to go against the Faith
of the Church. The Church in Byzantium was strong enough to resist the Imperial
pressure. Emperors failed to impose upon the Church a compromise with Arians, a
premature reconciliation with the Monophysites, Iconoclasm, and, at a later
date, an ambiguous "reunion" with Rome:

Nothing could be more false than the charge of Caesaropapism which is generally
brought against the Byzantine Church - the accusation that the Church rendered
servile obedience to the orders of the Emperor even in the religious sphere. It
is true that the Emperor always concerned himself with ecclesiastical affairs;
he endeavored to maintain or to impose unity in dogma, but his claims were by no
means always submissively recognized. Indeed, the Byzantines became accustomed
to the idea that organized opposition to the Imperial will in religious matters
was normal and legitimate. . . . Without any suspicion of paradox the religious
history of Byzantium could be represented as a conflict between the Church and
the State, a conflict from which the Church emerged unquestionably the victor.
(Henry Gregoire).

It can be argued that, in the course of time, the actual influence and the
prestige of the Church in Byzantium were steadily growing. In this connection,
the Epanagoge, a constitutional document of the late ninth century, is
especially significant and instructive. It was apparently no more than a draft,
which has never been officially promulgated. The draft was prepared probably by
Photius, the famous Patriarch. Certain portions of the document were
incorporated in the later legal compilations and received wide circulation. In
any case, the document reflected the current conception of the normal
relationship between the Emperor and the hierarchy, prevailing at that time. The
main principle was still the same as in Justinian. But now it was elaborated
with greater emphasis and precision. The Commonwealth, politeia, is composed of
several parts and members. Of these the most important, and the most necessary,
are the Emperor and the Patriarch. There is an obvious parallelism between the
two powers. The peace and prosperity of the people depend upon the accord and
unanimity between the Imperial power and the Priesthood. The Emperor is the
supreme ruler. Yet, the purpose of the Imperial rule is Beneficence, euergesia.
It is an old idea, inherited from Hellenistic political philosophy. In his rule
the Emperor must enforce justice. The Emperor must be well instructed in the
doctrines of faith and piety. He must defend and promote the teachings of the
Scripture and of the Councils. His main task is to secure peace and happiness
for the soul and the body of his subjects. The place of the Patriarch is no less
exalted. "The Patriarch is a living and animate image of Christ." In all his
words and deeds he must exhibit truth. He must be crucified to the world, and
live in Christ. To the infidel he must appeal by the holiness of his life. In
the believers he must strengthen piety and honesty of life. He must endeavor to
bring back the heretics into the fold of the true Church. He must be just and
impartial to all men. Before the Emperor he must speak without shame in the
defense of the right faith. To the Patriarch alone is given the authority to
interpret the rules of the Fathers, and to rule about their lawful application.
Of course, this was an idealized picture. The actual reality was much darker and
more ambiguous. The Emperors were always able to influence the election of the
Patriarchs and to arrange, by various devices, for the deposition of the
unsuitable occupants of the throne. On the other hand, the Patriarchs also had
ample resources in their eventual resistance to the Imperial power, of which
suspension and excommunication were not the least significant. Nevertheless, the
ideal pattern, as depicted in the Epanagoge and elsewhere, has never been
forgotten. "The really significant theory was that of the Epanagoge: Patriarch
and Emperor, as allies not rivals, both essential for the prosperity of the East
Roman polity - both parts of a single organism" (Norman H. Baynes). The theory
of a "dual government" in the single Commonwealth was commonly accepted in the
Middle Ages, both in the East and in the West. The theory had various and
divergent versions. It was the common background of both competing parties in
the West, the Curialist and the Imperialist, the Papacy and the Holy Empire. The
Church has been victorious in her struggle with the Empire in the West. But it
was a precarious victory. The meaning of Canossa was ambiguous. The theocratic
claims of the Empire were defeated. But, in the long run, this only led to the
acute "secularization" of the temporal power in Western Society. A purely
"secular" Society emerged, for the first time in Christian history. Accordingly,
the "spiritual" Society, the Church, has been thorougly "clericalized." Tensions
did not diminish, nor were they calmed or tamed. But the "theocratic" mission of
the Church was sorely reduced and compromised. The Unity of the Christian
Commonwealth was broken. In the East, the Church won no spectacular victories
over the Empire. The impact of the Imperial power on Ecclesiastical affairs has
been ponderous, and often detrimental. Yet, in spite of all Imperial abuses and
failures, the Byzantine Commonwealth retained to the very end its Christian and
"consecrational" character. Religion and polity were never divorced or separated
from each other. Byzantium collapsed as a Christian Kingdom, under the burden of
its tremendous claim.

Monasticism was, to a great extent, an attempt to evade the Imperial problem.
The period of the bitter struggle between the Church and the Empire, under the
Arianizing Caesars of the fourth century, was also the period of Monastic
expansion. It was a kind of a new and impressive "Exodus." And the Empire always
regarded this "Exodus," the flight into Desert, as a threat to its claims and to
its very existence, from the times of St. Athanasius to the cruel persecution of
monks by the Iconoclastic Emperors. It is often suggested that people were
leaving "the world" simply to escape the burden of social life, with its duties
and labors. It is difficult to see in what sense life in the wilderness could be
"easy" and "leisurely." It was, indeed, a strenuous life, with its own burdens
and dangers. It is true that in the West at that time the Roman order was
falling to pieces, was sorely endangered, and partly destroyed by barbarian
invasions, and apocalyptic fears and apprehensions might have crept into many
hearts, an expectation of an imminent end of history.

Yet, we do not find many traces of this apocalyptic dread in the writings of the
Desert Fathers. Their motives for desertion were quite different. In the East,
where the Monastic Movement originated, the Christian Empire was in the process
of growth. In spite of all its ambiguities and shortcomings, it was still an
impressive sight. After so many decades of suffering and persecution, "this
World" seemed to have been opened for the Christian conquest. The prospect of
success was rather bright. Those who fled into the wilderness did not share
these expectations. They had no trust in the "christened Empire." They rather
distrusted the whole scheme altogether. They were leaving the earthly Kingdom,
as much as it might have been actually "christened," in order to build the true
Kingdom of Christ in the new land of promise, "outside the gates," in the
Desert. They fled not so much from the world’s disasters, as from the "worldly
cares," from the involvement with the world, even under the banner of Christ,
from the prosperity and wrong security of the world. Nor was the Monastic
endeavor a search for "extraordinary" or "superrogatory" deeds and exploits. The
main ascetical emphasis, at least at the early stage of development, was not on
taking "special" or "exceptional" vows, but rather on accomplishing those common
and essential vows, which every Christian had to take at his baptism.
Monasticism meant first of all a "renunciation," a total renunciation of "this
world," with all its lust and pomp. And all Christians were bound to renounce
"the world" and to pledge an undivided loyalty to the only Lord, Christ Jesus.
Indeed, every Christian was actually taking this oath of undivided allegiance at
his Christian initiation. It is highly significant that the rite of Monastic
profession, when it was finally established, was made precisely on the pattern
of the baptismal rite, and the Monastic profession came to be regarded as a kind
of "second baptism." If there was a search for "perfection" in the Monastic
endeavor, "perfection" itself was not regarded as something "peculiar" and
optional, but rather as a normal and obligatory way of life. If it was a
"rigorism," this rigorism could claim for itself the authority of the Gospel.

It is also significant that, from the very beginning, the main emphasis in the
Monastic oath was placed precisely on "social" renunciation. The novice had to
disown the world, to become a stranger and pilgrim, a foreigner in the world, in
all earthly cities, just as the Church herself was but a "stranger" in the
earthly City, paroikousa on earth. Obviously, this was but a confirmation of the
common baptismal vows. Indeed, ail Christians were supposed to disown the world,
and to dwell in this world as strangers. This did not necessarily imply a
contempt for the world. The precept could also be construed as a call to its
reform and salvation. St. Basil the Great, the first legislator of Eastern
Monasticism, was desperately concerned with the problem of social
reconstruction. He watched with grave apprehension the process of social
disintegration, which was so conspicuously advanced in his time. His call to the
formation of monastic communities was, in effect, an attempt to rekindle the
spirit of mutuality in a world which seemed to have lost any force of cohesion
and any sense of social responsibility. Now, Christians had to set a model of
the new society, in order to counterbalance the disruptive tendencies of the
age. St. Basil was strong in his conviction that man was essentially a social or
"political" being, not a solitary one - zoon koinonikon. He could have learned
this both from the Scripture and from Aristotle. But the present society was
built on a wrong foundation. Consequently, one had first of all to retire or
withdraw from it. According to St. Basil, a monk had to be "home-less" in the
world, aoikos, his only home being the Church. He had to go out, or to be taken
out, of all existing social structures - family, city, Empire. He had to disown
all orders of the world, to sever all social ties and commitments. He had to
start afresh. The later custom or rule to change the name in taking the habit
was a spectacular symbol of this radical break with the previous life. But monks
leave the society of this world in order to join another society, or rather to
actualize in full their membership in another community, which is the Church.
The prevailing form of Monasticism was "coenobitical," the life in common. The
solitary life might be praised as an exception for a few peculiar persons, but
it was firmly discouraged as a common rule. The main emphasis was on obedience,
on the submission of will. "Community" was always regarded as a normal and more
adequate manner of ascetical life. A monastery was a corporation, "a body," a
small Church. Even hermits did dwell usually together, in special colonies,
under the direction of a common spiritual leader or guide. This communal
character of Monasticism was strongly re-emphasized by St. Theodore of Studium,
the great reformer of Byzantine Monasticism (759-826). St. Theodore insisted
that there was no commandment of solitary life in the Gospel. Our Lord Himself
lived in a "community" with His disciples. Christians are not independent
individuals, but brethren, members of the Body of Christ. Moreover, only in
community could Christian virtues of charity and obedience be properly developed
and exercised. Thus, monks were leaving the world in order to build, on the
virginal soil of the Desert, a New Society, to organize there, on the
Evangelical pattern, the true Christian Community. Early Monasticism was not an
ecclesiastical institution. It was precisely a spontaneous movement, a drive.
And it was distinctively a lay movement. The taking of Holy Orders was
definitely discouraged, except by order of the superiors, and even abbots were
often laymen. In early times, secular priests from the vicinity were invited to
conduct services for the community, or else the neighboring Church was attended
on Sundays. The monastic state was clearly distinguished from the clerical.
"Priesthood" was a dignity and an authority, and as such was regarded as hardly
compatible with the life of obedience and penitence, which was the core and the
heart of monastic existence. Certain concessions were made, however, time and
again, but rather reluctantly. On the whole, in the East Monasticism has
preserved its lay character till the present day. In the communities of Mount
Athos, this last remnant of the old monastic regime, only a few are in the Holy
Orders, and most do not seek them, as a rule. This is highly significant.
Monasticism cut across the basic distinction between clergy and laity in the
Church. It was a peculiar order in its own right-Monasteries were at once
worshipping communities and working teams. Monasticism created a special
"theology of labor," even of manual labor in particular. Labor was by no means a
secondary or subsidiary element of monastic life. It belonged to its very
essence. "Idleness" was regarded as a primary and grievous vice, spiritually
destructive. Man was created for work. But work should not be selfish. One had
to work for common purpose and benefit, and especially to be able to help the
needy. As St. Basil stated it, "in labor the purpose set before everyone, is the
support of the needy, not one’s own necessity" (Regulae Justus tractatae, 42).
Labor was to be, as it were, an expression of social solidarity, as well as a
basis of social service and charity. From St. Basil this principle was taken
over by St. Benedict. But already St. Pachomius, the first promoter of
coenobitical Monasticism in Egypt, was preaching "the Gospel of continued work"
(to use the able phrase of the late Bishop Kenneth Kirk). His coenobium at
Tabennisi was at once a settlement, a college, and a working camp. On the other
hand, this working community was, in principle, a "non-acquisitive society." One
of the main monastic vows was the complete denial of all possessions, not only a
promise of poverty. There was no room whatsoever for any kind of "private
property" in the life of a coenobitical monk. And this rule was sometimes
enforced with rigidity. Monks should not have even private desires. The spirit
of "ownership" was strongly repudiated as an ultimate seed of corruption in
human life. St. John Chrysostom regarded "private property" as the root of all
social ills. The cold distinction between "mine" and "thine" was, in his
opinion, quite incompatible with the pattern of loving brotherhood, set forth in
the Gospel. He could have added at this point also the authority of Cicero:
nulla autem privata natura. Indeed, for St. John, "property" was man’s wicked
invention, not of God’s’ design. He was prepared to force upon the whole world
the rigid monastic discipline of "non-possession" and obedience, for the sake of
the world’s relief. In his opinion, separate monasteries should exist now, in
order that one day the whole world might become like a monastery. As it has been
well said recently, "Monasticism was an instinctive reaction of the Christian
spirit against that fallacious reconciliation with the present age which the
conversion of the Empire might seem to have justified" (Pere Louis Bouyer). It
was a vigorous reminder of the radical "otherworldliness" of the Christian
Church. It was also a mighty challenge to the Christian Empire, then in the
process of construction. This challenge could not go without a rejoinder. The
Emperors, and especially Justinian, made a desperate effort to integrate the
Monastic Movement into the general structure of their Christian Empire.
Considerable concessions had to be made. Monasteries, as a rule, were exempt
from taxation and granted various immunities. In practice, these privileges only
led ultimately to an acute secularization of Monasticism. But originally they
meant a recognition, quite unwillingly granted, of a certain Monastic
"extra-territoriality." On the other hand, many monasteries were canonically
exempt from the jurisdiction of the local bishops. During the Iconoclastic
controversy, the independence of Monasticism was conspicuously manifested in
Byzantium. Up to the end of Byzantium, Monasticism continued as a peculiar
social order, in perpetual tension and competition with the Empire.

Obviously, actual Monasticism was never up to its own principles and claims. But
its historical significance lies precisely in its principles. As in the pagan
Empire the Church herself was a kind of "Resistance Movement," Aionasticism was
a permanent "Resistance Movement" in the Christian Society. In the New Testament
the world "Church," ekklesia, has been used in two different senses. On the one
hand, it denoted the One Church, the Church Catholic and Universal, the one
great Community of all believers, united "in Christ." It was a theological and
dogmatic use of the term. On the other hand, the term, used in the plural,
denoted local Christian communities, or Christian congregations in particular
places. It was a descriptive use of the word. Each local community, or Church,
was in a sense self-sufficient and independent. It was the basic unit or element
of the whole ecclesiastical structure. It was precisely the Church in a
particular locality, the Church "peregrinating," paroikousa, in this or that
particular city. It had, within itself, the fullness of the sacramental life. It
had its own ministry. It can be asserted with great assurance that in the early
second century, at least, each local community was headed by its own Bishop,
episcopos. He was the main, and probably exclusive, minister of all sacraments
in his Church, for his flock. His rights in his own community were commonly
recognized, and the equality of all local Bishops was acknowledged. This is
still the basic principle of Catholic canon law. The unity of all local
communities was also commonly acknowledged, as an article of faith. All local
Churches, as scattered and dispersed as they actually were in the world, like
islands in a stormy sea, were essentially One Church Catholic, mia ekklesia
catholike. It was, first of all, the "unity of faith" and the "unity of
sacraments," testified by mutual acknowledgement and recognition, in the bond of
love. Local communities were in a standing intercourse, according to the
circumstances. The Oneness of the Church was strongly felt in this primitive
period, and was formally professed in manifold ways: "One Lord, one faith, one
baptism, one God and Father of all" (Ephes. 4:5-6). But external organization
was loose. In the early years of the Church, contacts were maintained by travels
and supervision of the Apostles. In the subapostolic age they were maintained by
occasional visits of the Bishops, by correspondence, and in other similar ways.
By the end of the second century, under the pressure of common concerns, the
custom of having "Synods," that is, the gatherings of Bishops, developed. But
"Synods," that is, councils, were still but occasional meetings, except probably
for North Africa, for special purpose, and in a restricted area. They did not
yet develop into a permanent institution. Only in the third century did the
process of consolidation advance, and led to the formation of "ecclesiastical
provinces," in which several local Churches in a particular area were
coordinated, under the presidency of the Bishop in the capital of the province.
The emerging organizations seem to have followed the administrative divisions of
the Empire, which was practically the only natural procedure. The local
"autonomy" was still firmly preserved and safeguarded. The chief Bishop of the
province, the Metropolitan, was no more than a president of the episcopal body
of the province and chairman of the synods, and had some executive authority and
a right of supervision only on behalf of all Bishops. He was not authorized to
interfere with the regular administration of particular local episcopal
districts, which came to be known as "dioceses." Although in principle the
equality of all Bishops has been strongly maintained, certain particular sees
came to prominence: Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus, to mention but the most
important. The new situation obtained in the fourth century. On the one hand, it
was a century of Synods. Most of these Synods, or Councils, were extraordinary
meetings, convened for particular purposes, to discuss some urgent matters of
common concern. Most of these Councils dealt with the matters of faith and
doctrine. The aim was to achieve unanimity and agreement on principal points,
and to enforce a certain measure of uniformity in order and administration. On
the other hand, the Church had now to face a new problem. The tacit assumption
of the basic identity between the Church and the Empire demanded a further
development of administrative pattern. The provincial system, already in
existence, was formally accepted and enforced. And a further centralization was
envisaged. As the Commonwealth was one and indivisible, a certain parallelism
had to be established between the organization of the Empire and the
administrative structure of the Church. Gradually, a theory of five
Patriarchates, a pentarchy, was promoted. Five principal episcopal sees were
suggested, as centers of administrative centralization: Rome, Constantinople,
Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. An independent status was conceded to the
Church of Cyprus, in consideration of its Apostolic origin and ancient glory.
What was more important, the Synod system was formally enforced. The Council of
Nicea ruled that Provincial Synods should be regularly held twice in the course
of the year (Canon 5). According to the established custom, their competence
included, first, all matters of faith and of common concern, and, secondly,
those controversial matters which might emerge in the province, and also appeals
from the local congregations. It does not seem that the system did work well or
smoothly. The Council of Chalcedon observed that Synods were not regularly held,
which led to the neglect of important business and disorder, and reconfirmed the
earlier rule (Canon 19). And still the system did not work. Justinian had to
concede that Synods might meet but once each year (Novel 137.4). The Council in
Trullo (691-692), which codified all earlier canonical legislation, also ruled
that meetings should be held yearly, and the absentees should be brotherly
admonished (Canon 8). And finally, the Second Council of Nicea confirmed that
all Bishops of the province should meet yearly, to discuss "canonical and
evangelical matters" and to deal with "questions" of canonical character. The
aim of the system was obvious. It was an attempt to create a "higher" instance
in administration, above the episcopal office, in order to achieve more
uniformity and cohesion. Yet, the principle of episcopal authority in local
communities was still firmly upheld. Only, by that time, a Bishop was no longer
the head of a single local community, but "a diocesan," that is, a head of a
certain district, composed of several communities which were committed to the
immediate charge of priests, or presbyters. Only acting Bishops, that is, those
who were actually in office, had jurisdiction, and the authority to function as
Bishops, although the retired Bishops were keeping their rank and honor. Nobody
could be consecrated as a Bishop, or ordained as a priest, except to a definite
"title," that is, for a particular flock. There was no ministry "at large." The
logic of the single Christian Commonwealth seemed to imply one further step. The
Imperial power was centered in one Emperor. Was it not logical that the
Priesthood, the Hierarchy, should also have one Head? This has been actually
claimed, if for completely different reasons, by the Popes of Rome. The actual
basis of the "Roman claims" was in the Primacy of St. Peter and in the Apostolic
privileges of his See. But, in the context of the Commonwealth-idea, these
claims were inevitably understood as claims for the Primacy in the Empire. The
"primacy of honor" was readily conceded to the Bishop of Rome, with the emphasis
on the fact that Rome was the ancient capital of the Empire. But now, with the
transfer of the capital to the New City of Constantine, which has become a "New
Rome," the privileges of the Bishop of Constantinople also had to be
safeguarded. Accordingly, the Second Ecumenical Council (Constantinople 381)
accorded to the Bishop of Constantinople "the privilege of honor," ta presbeia
tes times, after the Bishop of Rome, with an open reference to the fact that
"Constantinople was the New Rome" (Canon 3). This put the Bishop of
Constantinople above that of Alexandria in the list of ecclesiastical
precedence, to the great anger and offence of the latter. In this connection it
was strongly urged that this exaltation of the Constantinopolitan See violated
the prerogatives of the "Apostolic Sees," that is, those founded by the
Apostles, of which Alexandria was one of the most renowned, as the See of St.
Mark. Nevertheless, the Council of Chalcedon reconfirmed the decision of 381.
Privileges of Rome were grounded in that it was the Capital City. For the same
reason it seemed to be fair that the See of the New Rome, the residence of the
Emperor and of the Senate, should have similar privileges (Canon 28). This
decision provoked violent indignation in Rome, and the 28th Canon of Chalcedon
was repudiated by the Roman Church. It was inevitable, however, that the
prestige and influence of the Constantinopolitan Bishop should grow. In the
Christian Commonwealth it was but natural for the Bishop of the Imperial City to
be in the center of the ecclesiastical administration. By the time of the
Council of Chalcedon, there was in Constantinople, along with the Bishop, a
consultative body of resident Bishops, synodos endemousa, acting as a kind of
permanent "Council." It was also logical that, in the course of time, the Bishop
of Constantinople should assume the title of an "Ecumenical Patriarch," whatever
exact meaning might have been originally connected with the name. The first
Bishop who actually assumed the title was John the Faster (582-593), and this
again could not fail to provoke the protest from Rome. St. Gregory the Great,
the Pope, accused the Patriarch of pride and arrogance. There was no personal
arrogance, - the Patriarch was a severe and humble ascetic, "the Faster" - there
was but the logic of the Christian Empire. Political catastrophes in the East,
that is, the Persian invasion and Arab conquest, together with the secession of
Monophysites and Nestorians in Syria and Egypt, reduced the role of the ancient
great Sees in those areas, and this accelerated the rise of the
Constantinopolitan See. At least de facto, the Patriarch has become the chief
Bishop of the Church in the Eastern Empire. It is significant that the Epanagoge
spoke plainly of the Patriarch, meaning of course the Patriarch of
Constantinople. He was the opposite number to the Emperor. By that time the
political unity of the Christian Commonwealth had been already broken. Byzantium
had actually become precisely an Eastern Empire. And another, and rival, Empire
has been founded in the West, under Charlemagne. After a period of indecision,
the See of Rome finally took the side of Charlemagne. On the other hand, the
missionary expansion among the Slavs in the ninth and tenth centuries greatly
enlarged the area of the Constantinopolitan jurisdiction.

It is commonly admitted that "Roman Unity," the Pax Romana, facilitated the
missionary expansion of the Church, which only in rare cases went beyond the
boundaries of the Empire, the limes Romanus. It is also obvious that the
empirical unity of the Church had been so speedily realized precisely because
the Empire was one, at least in principle and in theory. Those countries which
were outside of the Empire were also but loosely fit in the institutional unity
of the Church. The factual identity of the main ecclesiastical organization with
the Empire created considerable difficulty for those Churches which were beyond
the Imperial border. The most conspicuous example is the Church in Persia, which
was compelled to withdraw from the unity with the West already in 410 and
constitute itself into an independent unit, precisely because the Church in the
West was too closely connected with the Roman Empire, an enemy of Persia. The
split was caused by non-theological factors, and was limited to the level of
administration. Thus, "Roman Unity" was at once a great advantage and a handicap
for the Church’s mission.

Now, it can be reasonably contended that in the period before Constantine the
Church did not evolve any organization which could have enabled her to act
authoritatively on a really "ecumenical" scale. The first truly "ecumenical"
action was the Council in Nicea, in 325, the First Ecumenical Council. Councils
were already in the tradition of the Church. But Nicea was the first Council of
the whole Church, and it became the pattern on which all subsequent Ecumenical
Councils were held. For the first time the voice of the whole Church was heard.
The membership of the Council, however, was hardly ecumenical, in the sense of
actual representation. There were but four Bishops from the West, and the Roman
Bishop was represented by two presbyters. Few missionary Bishops from the East
were present. The majority of Bishops present came from Egypt, Syria, and Asia
Minor. The same is true of all subsequent Ecumenical Councils, recognized in the
Eastern Orthodox Church, up to the Second Council of Nicea, 787. Strangely
enough, we do not find in our primary sources any regulations concerning the
organization of the Ecumenical Councils. It does not seem that there were any
fixed rules or patterns. In the canonical sources there is no single mention of
the Ecumenical Council, as a permanent institution, which should be periodically
convened, according to some authoritative scheme. The Ecumenical Councils were
not an integral part of the Church’s constitution, nor of her basic
administrative structure. In this respect they differed substantially from those
provincial and local Councils which were supposed to meet yearly, to transact
current matters and to exercise the function of unifying supervision. The
authority of the Ecumenical Councils was high, ultimate, and binding. But
Councils themselves were rather occasional and extraordinary gatherings. This
explains why no Ecumenical Councils were held since 787. In the East there was a
widely spread conviction that no further Councils should be held, beyond the
sacred number "Seven." There was no theory of the Ecumenical Councils in Eastern
theology, or in the canon law of the East. Seven Councils were, as it were, the
seven gifts of God, as there were seven gifts of the Spirit, or seven
Sacraments. The ecumenical authority of those Seven Councils was of a
"super-canonical" character. The Eastern Church, at least, did not know any
"conciliar theory" of administration, except on a local level. Such a theory was
elaborated in the West, in the late Middle Ages, during the so called "Conciliar
Movement" in the Western Church, in the struggle with the growing Papal
centralization. It has no connection with the organization of the Ancient
Church, especially in the East.

It is well known that Emperors were taking an active part in the Ecumenical
Councils, and sometimes participated in the conciliar deliberations, as, for
example, Constantine at Nicea. Councils were usually convened by Imperial
decrees, and their decisions were confirmed by the Imperial approval, by which
they were given the legally binding authority in the Empire. In certain cases,
the initiative was taken by the Emperor, as it was with the Fifth Ecumenical
Council, at Constantinople, 553, at which the pressure and violence of the
Emperor, the great Justinian himself, was so conspicuous and distressing. These
are the facts which are usually quoted as proof of the Byzantine Caesaropapism.
Whatever influence the Emperors might have had on the Councils, and however real
their pressure might have been, the Councils were definitely gatherings of
Bishops, and only they had the authority to vote. The Imperial pressure was a
fact, and not a right. The active role of the Emperors in the convocation of the
Council, and their great concern in the matter, are completely understandable in
the context of an indivisible Christian Commonwealth. It is obviously true that
Ecumenical Councils were in a certain sense "Imperial Councils," die
Reicbskonzilien, the Councils of the Empire. But we should not forget that the
Empire itself was an Oikoumene. If "ecumenical" meant just "Imperial,"
"Imperial" meant no less than "Universal." The Empire, by conviction, always
acted in behalf of the whole of mankind, as gratuitous as this assumption might
have been. Attempts were made, by modern scholars, to construe the Ecumenical
Councils as an Imperial institution, and, in particular, to draw a parallel
between them and the Senate. This suggestion is hardly tenable. First of all, if
the Senate was an institution, the Councils were just occasional events.
Secondly, the Emperor’s position at the Council was radically different from his
position in the Senate. The vote belonged solely to the Bishops. Decisions were
"acclaimed" in their name. The Emperor was an obedient son of the Church and was
bound by the voice and will of the hierarchy. The number of Bishops present was,
in a sense, irrelevant. They were expected to reveal the common mind of the
Church, to testify to her "tradition." Moreover, decisions had to be unanimous:
no majority vote was permissible in matters of eternal truth. If no unanimity
could be achieved, the Council would be disrupted, and this disruption would
reveal the existence of a schism in the Church. In any case, Bishops in the
Council did not act as officials of the Empire, but precisely as "Angels of the
Churches," by the authority of the Church, and by the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit. Above all, as Edward Schwartz, the greatest modern authority on the
history of the Councils, has aptly said, "the Emperor was a mortal, the Church
was not." The Church is not of this world, as her Lord, Christ, was also not of
the world. But He was in this world, having "humbled" Himself to the condition
of that world which He came to save and to redeem. The Church also had to pass
through a process of the historical kenosis, in the exercise of her redemptive
mission in the world. Her purpose was not only to redeem men out of this world,
but also to redeem the world itself. In particular, since man was essentially a
"social being," the Church had to wrestle with the task of the "redemption of
society." She was herself a society, a new pattern of social relationship, in
the unity of faith and in the bond of peace. The task proved to be exceedingly
arduous and ambiguous. It would be idle to pretend that it has been ever
completed. The "Holy Empire" of the Middle Ages was an obvious failure, both in
its Western and its Eastern forms. It was at once an Utopia and a compromise.
The "old world" was still continuing under the Christian guise. Yet it did not
continue unchanged. The impact of the Christian faith was conspicuous and
profound in all walks of life. The faith of the Middle Ages was a courageous
faith, and the hope was impatient. People really did believe that "this world"
could be "christened" and converted, not only that it was "forgiven." There was
a firm belief in the possibility of an ultimate renewal of the entire historical
existence. In this conviction all historical tasks have been undertaken. There
was always a double danger involved in the endeavor: to mistake partial
achievements for ultimate ones, or to be satisfied with relative achievements,
since the ultimate goal was not attainable. It is here that the spirit of
compromise is rooted. On the whole, the only ultimate authority which has been
commonly accepted at this time was that of the Christian truth, in whatever
manner this truth might have been expounded and specified. The myth of "the dark
Middle Ages" has been dispelled by an impartial study of the past. There was
even a shift in the opposite direction. Already Romantics started preaching a
"return to the Middle Ages, precisely as an "Age of faith." They were impressed
by the spiritual unity of the Medieval world, in striking contrast with the
"anarchy" and "confusion" of Modern times. Obviously, the Medieval world was
also a "world of tensions." Yet, tensions seemed to be overarched by certain
crucial convictions, or coordinated in the common obedience to the supreme
authority of God. The sore shortcomings of the Medieval settlement should not be
ignored or concealed. But the nobility of the task also should not be
overlooked. The aim of Medieval man was to build a truly Christian Society. The
urgency of this aim has been recently rediscovered and recognized. Whatever may
be said about the failures and abuses of the Medieval period, its guiding
principle has been vindicated. The idea of a Christian Commonwealth is now again
taken quite seriously, as much as it is still enveloped in fog and doubt, and in
whatever particular manner it may be phrased in our own days. In this
perspective, the Byzantine politico-ecclesiastical experiment also appears in a
new light. It was an earnest attempt to solve a real problem. The experiment
probably should not be reenacted, nor, indeed, can it be actually repeated in
the changed situation. But lessons of the past should not be forgotten or
unlearned. The Byzantine experiment was not just a "provincial," an "Eastern"
experiment. It had an "ecumenical" significance. And much in the Western legacy
is actually "Byzantine," both good and bad. For obvious reasons, Monasticism
could never become a common way of life. It could be, of necessity, but a way
for the few, for the elect, for those who might have chosen it. An emphasis on
the free decision was implied. One can be born into a Christian Society, one can
be but re-born into Monasticism, by an act of choice. The impact of Monasticism
was much wider than its own ranks, nor did the monks always abstain from a
direct historical action, at least by the way of criticism and admonition.
Monasticism was an attempt to fulfil the Christian obligation, to organize human
life exclusively on a Christian basis, in opposition to "the world." The
failures of historical Monasticism must be admitted and duly acknowledged. They
were constantly exposed and denounced by the Monastic leaders themselves, and
drastic reforms have been periodically undertaken. Monastic "degeneration" has
been a favorite theme of many modern historians. And again, in recent times "the
call of the Desert" has assumed a new urgency and thrill, not only attracting
those who are tired of the world and are dreaming of "escape" or "refuge," but
also awakening those who are zealous to enforce a "renewal" upon a world,
confused by fear and despair. Monasticism attracts now not only as a school of
contemplation, but also as a school of obedience, as a social experiment, as an
experiment in common life.

Here lies the modern thrill of the cloister. In the context of this new
experience, the legacy of Eastern and Byzantine Monasticism is being readily and
gratefully received and reassessed by an increasing number of fervent Christians
in the West and elsewhere. The Church, which establishes herself in the world,
is always exposed to the temptation of an excessive adjustment to the
environment, to what is usually described as "worldliness." The Church which
separates herself from the world, in feeling her own radical "otherworldliness,"
is exposed to an opposite danger, to the danger of excessive detachment. But
there is also a third danger, which was probably the major danger of Christian
history. It is the danger of double standards. This danger has been precipitated
by the rise of Monasticism. Monasticism was not meant originally to be just a
way for the few. It was conceived rather as a consequent application of common
and general Christian vows. It served as a powerful challenge and reminder in
the midst of all historical compromises. Yet a worse compromise has been
invented, when Monasticism had been reinterpreted as an exceptional way. Not
only was the Christian Society sorely rent asunder and split into the groups of
"religious" and "secular," but the Christian ideal itself was split in twain
and, as it were, "polarized," by a subtle distinction between "essential" and
"secondary," between "binding" and "optional," between "precept" and "advice."
In fact, all Christian "precepts" are but calls and advices, to be embraced in
free obedience, and all "advices" are binding. The spirit of compromise creeps
into Christian action when the "second best" is formally permitted and even
encouraged. This "compromise" may be practically unavoidable, but it should be
frankly acknowledged as a compromise. A multiplicity of the manners of Christian
living, of course, should be admitted. What should not be admitted is their
grading in the scale of "perfection." Indeed, "perfection" is not an advice, but
a precept, which can never be dispensed with. One of the greatest merits of
Byzantium was that it could never admit in principle the duality of standards in
Christian life.

Byzantium had failed, grievously failed, to establish an unambiguous and
adequate relationship between the Church and the larger Commonwealth. It did not
succeed in unlocking the gate of the Paradise Lost. Yet nobody else has
succeeded, either. The gate is still locked. The Byzantine key was not a right
one. So were all other keys, too. And probably there is no earthly or historical
key for that ultimate lock. There is but an eschatological key, the true "Key of
David." Yet Byzantium was for centuries wrestling, with fervent commitment and
dedication, with a real problem. And in our own days, when we are wrestling with
the same problem, we may get some more light for ourselves through an impartial
study of the Eastern experiment, both in its hope and in its failure.

"Empire and Desert" appeared in The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, Vol. Ill,
No. 2 (1957), pp. 133-159.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 32: 27 - CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILIZATION
========================================================================

Christianity and Civilization A new epoch commences in the life of the Church
with the beginning of the IV-th century. The Empire accepts christening in the
person of the "isapostolic" Caesar. The Church emerges from its forced seclusion
and receives the seeking world under its sacred vaults. But the World brings
with it its fears, its doubts and its temptations. There were both pride and
despair paradoxically intermingled. The Church was called on to quench the
despair and to humble the pride. The IV-th century was in many respects more of
an epilogue than of a dawn. It was rather a finale of an outworn history than a
true beginning. Yet, a new civilization emerges often out of the ashes.

During the Nicene age for the majority the time was out of joint, and a peculiar
cultural disharmony prevailed. Two worlds had come into collision and stood
opposed to one another: Hellenism and Christianity. Modern historians are
tempted to underestimate the pain of tension and the depth of conflict. The
Church did not deny the culture in principle. Christian culture was already in
the process of formation. And in a sense Christianity had already made its
contribution to the treasury of the Hellenistic civilization. The school of
Alexandria had a considerable impact on the contemporary experiments in the
field of philosophy. But Hellenism was not prepared to concede anything to the
Church. The attitudes of Clement of Alexandria and Origen, on one side, and of
Celsus and Porphyrius, on the other, were typical and instructive. The external
struggle was not the most important feature of the conflict. The inner struggle
was much more difficult and tragic: every follower of the Hellenic tradition was
called at that time to live through and overcome an inner discord.

Civilization meant precisely Hellenism, with all its pagan memories, mental
habits, and esthetical charms. The "dead gods" of Hellenism were still
worshipped in numerous temples, and pagan traditions were still cherished by a
significant number of intellectuals. To go to a school meant at that time
precisely to go to a pagan school and to study pagan writers and poets. Julian
the Apostate was not just an out-of-date dreamer, who attempted an impossible
restoration of the dead ideals, but a representative of a cultural resistance
which was not yet broken from inside. The ancient world was reborn and
transfigured in a desperate struggle. The whole of the inner life of the
Hellenistic men had to undergo a drastic revaluation. The process was slow and
dramatic, and finally resolved in the birth of a new civilization, which we may
describe as Byzantine. One has to realize that there was but one Christian
civilization for centuries, the same for the East and the West, and this
civilization was born and made in the East. A specifically Western civilization
came much later.

Rome itself was quite Byzantine even in the VIII-th century. The Byzantine epoch
starts if not with Constantine himself, in any case with Theodosius, and reaches
its climax under Justinian. His was the time when a Christian culture was
conscientiously and deliberately being built and completed as a system. The new
culture was a great synthesis in which all the creative traditions and moves of
the past were merged and integrated. It was a "New Hellenism," but a Hellenism
drastically christened and, as it were, "churchified." It is still usual to
suspect the Christian quality of this new synthesis. Was it not just an "acute
Hellenization" of the "Biblical Christianity," in which the whole novelty of the
Revelation had been diluted and dissolved? Was not this new synthesis simply a
disguised Paganism ? This was precisely the considered opinion of Adolf Harnack.
Now, in the light of an unbiased historical study, we can protest most strongly
against this simplification. Was not that which the XlX-th century historians
used to describe as an "Hellenization of Christianity" rather a Conversion of
Hellenism? And why should Hellenism not have been converted? The Christian
reception of Hellenism was not just a servile absorption of an undigested
heathen heritage. It was rather a conversion of the Hellenic mind and heart.

What really had happened was this. Hellenism was mightily dissected with the
sword of Christian Revelation, and was utterly polarized thereby. The closed
horizon has been exploded. One should describe Origen and Augustine as
"Hellenists." But obviously it was another type of Hellenism than that of
Plotinus or Julian. Among the decrees of Julian, Christians most loathed the one
which prohibited Christians to teach arts and science. This was in fact a
belated attempt to expel Christians from the making of civilization, to protect
the ancient culture from Christian influence and impact. For the Cappadocian
Fathers this was the main issue. And St. Gregory of Nazianzus in his sermons
against Julian dwelt at length on this topic. St. Basil felt himself compelled
to write an address "To young men, on how they might derive benefit from
Hellenic literature." Two centuries later, Justinian debarred non-Christians
from all teaching and educational activities, and closed down the pagan schools.
There was, in this measure, no hostility to "Hellenism." This was no break in
tradition. Traditions are kept and even cherished, but they are drawn into the
process of Christian re-interpretation. This comprises the essence of Byzantine
culture. It was an acceptance of the postulates of culture and their
transvaluation. The magnificent Temple of Holy Wisdom, of the Eternal Word, the
great church of Sophia in Constantinople, will ever stand as a living symbol of
this cultural achievement. The history of Christian culture was by no means an
idyll. It was enacted in struggle and dialectical conflict. Already the IV-th
century was a time of tragic contradictions. The Empire became Christian. The
chance of transfiguring the whole of human creativity was given. And yet, it was
precisely from this Christened Empire that the flight commences, the flight into
the desert. It is true that individuals used to leave cities even before, in the
time of the persecutions, to dwell or wander in deserts and holes of the earth.
The ascetical ideal has been for a long time in the process of formation, and
Origen, for one, was a great master of spiritual life. Yet, a movement begins
only after Constantine. It would be utterly unfair to suspect that people were
leaving "the world" simply because it became difficult and exacting to bear its
burden, in search for an "easy life." It is difficult to see in what sense the
life in the desert could be "easy." It is true also that in the West at that
time the Empire was falling to pieces and sorely endangered by Barbarian
invasion, and apocalyptic fears and anticipations might have been alive there,
an expectation of a speedy end of history. In the East at that time the
Christian Empire was in the process of construction. In spite of all the
perplexities and dangers of life, here one might have been tempted rather with a
historical optimism, with a dream of a realized City of God on earth. And many,
in fact, succumbed to this allurement. If nevertheless, there were so many in
the East who did prefer to "emigrate" into the Desert, we have all reasons to
believe that they fled not so much from worldly troubles, as from the "worldly
cares," implied even in a Christian civilization. St. John Chrysostom was very
emphatic in his warnings against the dangers of "prosperity." For him "security
was the greatest of all persecutions," much worse than the bloodiest
persecutions from outside. For him the real danger for true piety began
precisely with the external victory of the Church, when it became possible for a
Christian to "settle down" in this world, with a considerable measure of
security and even comfort, and to forget that he had no abiding City in this
world and had to be a stranger and pilgrim on earth. The meaning of monasticism
did not consist primarily in taking severe vows. Monastic vows were but a
re-emphasis of the Baptismal vows. There was no special "monastic" ideal at that
early age. The early monks wanted simply to realize in full the common Christian
ideal which was, in principle, set before every single believer. It was assumed
that this realization was almost impossible within the existing fabric of
society and life, even if it is disguised as a Christian Empire. Monastic flight
in the IV-th century was first of all a withdrawal from the Empire, Ascetic
renunciation implies first of all a complete disowning of the world, i.e. of the
order of this world, of all social ties. A monk should be "homeless," aoikos, in
the phrase of St. Basil. Asceticism, as a rule, does not require detachment from
the Cosmos. And the God-created beauty of nature is much more vividly
apprehended in the desert than on the market-place of a busy city.

Monasteries were in picturesque environments and the cosmic beauty can be
strongly felt in hagiographical literature. The seat of evil is not in nature
but in man’s heart, or the world of evil spirits. The Christian fight is not
against flesh and blood, but "against spiritual wickedness in high places"
(Ephes. 6:12). It is only in the wilderness that one can realize in full one’s
allegiance to the only Heavenly King, the Christ, loyalty to Whom may be
seriously compromised by claims laid on a citizen by his man-made city.

Monasticism was never anti-social. It was an attempt to build up another City. A
monastery is, in a sense, an "extraterritorial colony" in this world of vanity.
Even hermits did dwell usually in groups and colonies, and were united under the
common direction of a spiritual father. But it was the "coenobia" that was
regarded as the most adequate embodiment of the ascetical ideal. Monastic
community is itself a social organization, a "body," a small Church. A monk left
the world in order to build a new society, a new communal life. This was, in any
case, the intention of St. Basil. St. Theodore of Studium, one of the most
influential leaders of later Byzantine monasticism, was even more rigid and
emphatic in this respect. The Empire, already since Justinian, was very anxious
to domesticate monasticism, to reintegrate it into the general political and
social order. Success v/as but partial, and led to a decay. In any case,
monasteries always remain, in a sense, heterogeneous inclusions and are never
fully integrated into the imperial order of life. One may suggest that
Monasticism, historically speaking, was an attempt to escape the building up of
the Christian Empire. Origen contended in his time that Christians could not
participate in the general civic life, because they had a "polis" of their own,
because in every city they had their own "order of life," to allo systema
patridos (C. Cels. VIII. 75). They lived "contrary to the order" of the worldly
city (antipoliteuomenoi). In a "Christianized" city this antithesis was not
removed. Also monasticism is something "other," a kind of "anti-city,"
anti-polis, for it is basically "another" city. Essentially it always remains
outside of the worldly system, and often asserts its "extraterritoriality" even
with regard to the general ecclesiastical system, claiming some kind of
independence upon the local or territorial jurisdiction. Monasticism is, in
principle, an exodus from the world, an exit from the natural social order, a
renunciation of family, social status, and even citizenship. But it is not just
an exit out, but also a transition to another social plane and dimension. In
this social "otherworldliness" consists the main peculiarity of monasticism as a
movement, as well as its historical significance. Ascetical virtues can be
practiced by laymen also, and by those who stay in the world. What is peculiar
of monasticism is its social structure. The Christian world was polarized.
Christian history unfolds in an antithesis between the Empire and the Desert.
This tension culminates in a violent explosion in the Iconoclastic controversy.
The fact that monasticism evades and denies the conception of the Christian
Empire does not imply that it opposes culture. The case is very complex. And
first of all, monasticism succeeded, much more than the Empire ever did, to
preserve the true ideal of culture in its purity and freedom. In any case,
spiritual creativity was richly nourished from the depths of the spiritual life.
"Christian holiness synthesizes within itself all the fundamental and ultimate
aspirations of the entire ancient Philosophy," aptly remarked one Russian
scholar. "Starting in Ionia and Magna Graecia, the main stream of great Hellenic
speculation flows through Athens to Alexandria and from thence to the Thebaide.
Cliffs, deserts, and caves become new centers of the theurgic wisdom." Monastic
contribution to the general learning was very large in the Middle Ages, both in
the East and in the West.

Monasteries were great centers of learning. We should not overlook another
aspect of the matter. Monasticism in itself was a remarkable phenomenon of
culture. It is not by chance that ascetic endeavour has been persistently
described as "Philosophy," the "love of wisdom," in the writings of the
Patristic age. It was not by accident that the great traditions of Alexandrinian
theology were revived and blossomed especially in the monastic quarters. It was
not by chance likewise that in the Cappadocians of the IV-th century ascetic and
cultural endeavours were so organically intertwined. Later on, too, St. Maximus
the Confessor built his magnificent theological synthesis precisely on the basis
of his ascetical experience. Finally, it was by no accident that in the
Iconoclastic period monks occurred to be the defenders of art, safeguarding the
freedom of religious art from the oppression of the State, from "enlightened"
oppression and utilitarian simplification.

All this is closely linked with the very essence of asceticism. Ascesis does not
bind creativity, it liberates it, because it asserts it as an aim in itself.
Above all - creativity of one’s self. Creativity is ultimately saved from all
sorts of utilitarianism only through an ascetical re-interpretation. Ascesis
does not consist of prohibitions. It is activity, a "working out" of one’s very
self. It is dynamic. It contains the urge of infinity, an eternal appeal, an
unquenchable move forward. The reason for this restlessness is double. The task
is infinite because the pattern of perfection is infinite, God’s perfection. No
achievement can ever be adequate to the goal. The task is creative because
something essentially new is to be brought in existence. Man makes up his own
self in his absolute dedication to God. He becomes himself only in this creative
process. There is an inherent antinomy in true ascesis. It begins with humility,
renunciation, obedience. Creative freedom is impossible without this initial
self-renunciation. It is the law of spiritual life: the seed is not quickened
unless it dies. Renunciation implies an overcoming of one’s limitations and
partiality, an absolute surrender to the Truth. It does not mean: first
renunciation, and then freedom. Humility itself is freedom. Ascetic renunciation
unfetters the spirit, releases the soul. Without freedom all mortifications will
be in vain. On the other hand, through the ascetic trial the very vision of the
world is changed and renewed.

True vision is available only to those who have no selfish concerns. True
asceticism is inspired not by contempt, but by the urge of transformation. The
world must be re-instated to its original beauty, from which it fell into sin.
It is because of this that asceticism leads to action. The work of Redemption is
done by God indeed, but man is called to co-operate in this redemptive
endeavour. For Redemption consists precisely in the Redemption of Freedom. Sin
is slavery, and "Jerusalem which is above is free." This interpretation of the
ascetical endeavour will appear unexpected and strange. It is certainly
incomplete. The world of ascesis is complicated, because it is a realm of
freedom. There are many roads, some of which may end in blind alleys.
Historically, of course, asceticism does not always lead to creativity. One
ought, however, to distinguish clearly between an indifference to creative
tasks, and their non-acceptance. New and various problems of culture are
disclosed through the ascetic training, a new hierarchy of values and aims is
revealed. Hence the apparent indifference of asceticism to many historic tasks.
This brings us back to the conflict between the Empire and the Desert. We may
well say: between History and the Apocalypse. It is the basic question of the
significance and value of the whole historical endeavour. Christian goal, in any
case, transcends history, as it transcends culture. But Man was created to
inherit eternity.

One may describe asceticism as an "eschatology of transfiguration." Ascetic
"maximalism" is primarily inspired by an awareness of the end of history. It
would be more accurate to say: conviction, not an actual expectation. The
calculation of times and dates is irrelevant, as it is dangerous and misleading
indeed. What is important is a consistent use of "eschatological measures" in
the estimation of all things and events. It is unfair to suppose that nothing on
earth can stand this "eschatological" testing. Not everything should fade away.
No doubt, there is no room for politics or economics in the ultimate Kingdom of
Heaven. But, obviously, there are many values in this life which will not be
abrogated in "the age to come." First comes Love. It is not accidental that
monasticism takes persistently the form of a community. It is an organization of
mutual care and help. Any work of mercy, or even a burning of the heart for
somebody else’s suffering or need, cannot be regarded as insignificant in the
eschatological dimension. Is it too much to suggest that all creative charity is
eternal? Are not some abiding values disclosed also in the field of knowledge?
Nothing can be said with an ultimate certainty. And yet it seems we have some
criterion of discrimination. Human personality, in any case, transcends history.

Personality bears history within itself. I would cease to be Myself if my
concrete, i.e. historical, experience is simply subtracted. History therefore
will not fade away completely even in the "age to come," if the concreteness of
human life is to be preserved. Of course, we never can draw the definite line
between those earthly things which may have an "eschatological extension" and
those which have to die out on the eschatological threshold - in actual life
they are inextricably interwoven. Distinction depends on spiritual discernment,
on a sort of spiritual clairvoyance. On one hand, obviously, but "one thing is
needful." On the other hand, the "World to come" is undoubtedly a world of
Eternal Memory, and not of eternal oblivion. There is the "good part" which
"shall not be taken away." And Martha shares it also, not only Mary. All that is
susceptible to transfiguration will be transfigured. Now, this
"transfiguration," in a sense, begins already on this side of the eschatological
cleavage. "Eschatological treasures" are to be collected even in this life.
Otherwise this life is frustrated. Some real anticipation of the Ultimate is
already available. Otherwise the victory of Christ has been in vain. "New
Creation" is already initiated. Christian History is more than a prophetical
symbol, sign or hint. We always have some dim feeling about things which have
not, and cannot have, any "eternal dimension," and we style them therefore as
"vain" and "futile." Our diagnosis is very fallible indeed. Yet, some diagnosis
is unavoidable. Christianity is essentially historical. History is a sacred
process. On the other hand, Christianity pronounces a judgement on history, and
is in itself a move into what is "beyond history." For that reason, Christian
attitude to history and culture is bound to be antinomical. Christians should
not be absorbed in history. But they have no escape into a sort of "natural
state." They have to transcend history for the sake of that "which cannot be
contained by earthly shores." Yet, Eschatology itself is always a Consummation.

Vladimir Soloviev pointed out the tragic inconsistency of Byzantine culture.
"Byzantium was devout in its faith and impious in its life." Of course, this is
a vivid image, and not an accurate description. We may admit, however, that some
valid truth is emphasized by this phrase. The idea of a "churchified" Empire was
a failure. The Empire fell to pieces in bloody conflicts, degenerated in fraud,
ambiguity and violence. But the Desert was more successful. It will remain for
ever to witness to the creative effort of the Early Church, with its Byzantine
theology, devotion and art. Perhaps it will become the most vital and sacred
page in the mysterious book of human destiny, which is continuously being
written. The epilogue of Byzantium is likewise emphatic, and there is the same
polarity: the fall of the Empire after an ambiguous political Union with Rome
(at Florence), which was, however, never accepted by the people. And, on the
very eve of the fall of "corrupt Byzantium," the glorious flowering of mystical
contemplation on Mount Athos and the Renaissance in art in Philosophy which was
to nourish the Western Renaissance too. The fall of the Empire and the
Fulfillment of the Desert.

"Christianity and Civilization" appeared in St. Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly,
Vol. I, No. 1 (1952), pp. 13-20.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 33: 28 - THE SOCIAL PROBLEM IN THE ORTHODOX CHURCH
========================================================================

The Social Problem in the Eastern Orthodox Church

Christianity is essentially a social religion. There is an old Latin saying:
unus Christianus nullus Christianus. Nobody can be truly Christian as a solitary
and isolated being. Christianity is not primarily a doctrine or a discipline
that individuals might adopt for their personal use and guidance. Christianity
is exactly a community, i.e., the church. In this respect there is an obvious
continuity between the Old and the New dispensations. Christians are "the New
Israel." The whole phraseology of Scripture is highly instructive: the Covenant,
the Kingdom, the Church, "a holy Nation, a peculiar People." The abstract term
"Christianity" is obviously of a late date. From the very beginning Christianity
was socially minded. The whole fabric of Christian existence is social and
corporate. All Christian sacraments are intrinsically "social sacraments," i.e.,
sacraments of incorporation. Christian worship is also a corporate worship,
"publica et communis oratio," in the phrase of St. Cyprian. To build up the
Church of Christ means, therefore, to build up a new society and, by
implication, to re-build human society on a new basis. There was always a strong
emphasis on unanimity and life in common. One of the earliest names for
Christians was simply "Brethren." The church was and was to be a creaturely
image of the divine pattern. Three Persons, yet One God. Accordingly, in the
church, many are to be integrated into one Body.

All this is, of course, the common heritage of the whole church. Yet, probably,
this corporate emphasis has been particularly strong in the Eastern tradition
and does still constitute the distinctive ethos of the Eastern Orthodox church.
It is not to suggest that all social aspirations of Christianity had been really
actualized in the empirical life of the Christian East. Ideals are never fully
realized; the church is still in via, and we have to admit the sore failure of
the East to become and to stay truly Christian. Yet, ideals must not be
overlooked. They are both the guiding principle and the driving power of human
life. There was always a clear vision of the corporate nature of Christianity in
the East. There is still, as it has been for centuries, a strong social instinct
in the Eastern church in spite of all historical involvements and drawbacks. And
possibly this is the main contribution which the Eastern church can make to the
contemporary conversation on social issues. The early church was not just a
voluntary association for "religious" purposes. It was rather the New Society,
even the New Humanity, a polis or politeuma, the true City of God, in the
process of construction. And each local community was fully aware of its
membership in an inclusive and universal whole. The church was conceived as an
independent and self-supporting social order, as a new social dimension, a
peculiar systema patridos, as Origen put it. Early Christians felt themselves,
in the last resort, quite outside of the existing social order, simply because
for them the church itself was an "order," an extra-territorial "colony of
Heaven" on earth (Php 3:20, Moffatt’s translation). Nor was this attitude fully
abandoned even later when the empire, as it were, came to terms with the church.
The early Christian attitude was continued in the monastic movement, which grew
rapidly precisely in the period of an alleged reconciliation with the world. Of
course, monasticism was a complex phenomenon, but its main stream was always
socially minded. It was not so much a flight from the world as it was an
endeavor to build up a new world on a new basis. A monastery was a community, a
"little church" - not only a worshipping community, but a working community as
well. Great stress was laid on work, and idleness was regarded as the grievous
vice. But it had to be a work for common purpose and benefit. It was true
already of the early Pachomian communities in Egypt. St. Pachomius was preaching
"the gospel of continued work." It is well said of him: "The general appearance
and life of a Pachomian monastery cannot have been very different from that of a
well-regulated college, city, or camp" (Bp. Kirk, The Vision of God). The great
legislator of Eastern monasticism, St. Basil of Caesarea in Cappadocia
(c.330-379), was deeply concerned with the problem of social reconstruction. He
watched with a grave apprehension the process of social disintegration, which
was so spectacular in his day. Thus his call to formation of monastic
communities was an attempt to rekindle the spirit of mutuality in a world which
seemed to have lost any sense of social responsibility and cohesion. In his
conception, man was essentially a "gregarious animal" (koinomkon zoori),
"neither savage nor a lover of solitude." He cannot accomplish his purpose in
life, he cannot be truly human, unless he dwells in a community. Monasticism,
therefore, was not a higher level of perfection, for the few, but an earnest
attempt to give a proper human dimension to man’s life. Christians had to set a
model of a new society in order to counterbalance those disintegrating forces
which were operative in the decaying world. True cohesion in society can be
achieved only by an identity of purpose, by a subordination of all individual
concerns to the common cause and interest. In a sense, it was a Socialist
experiment of a peculiar kind, on a voluntary basis. Obedience itself had to be
founded on love and mutual affection, on a free realization of brotherly love.
The whole emphasis was on the corporate nature of man. Individualism is
therefore self-destructive. As startling as it may appear, the same
"coenobitical" pattern was at that time regarded as obligatory for all
Christians, "even though they be married." Could the whole Christian society be
built up as a kind of a "monastery"? St. John Chrysostom, the great bishop of
the imperial city of Constantinople (c.350-407), did not hesitate to answer this
question in the affirmative. It did not mean that all should go into the
wilderness. On the contrary, Christians had to rebuild the existing society on a
"coenobitical" pattern. Chrysostom was quite certain that all social evils were
rooted in the acquisitive appetite of man, in his selfish desire to possess
goods for his exclusive benefit. Now, there was but one lawful owner of all
goods and possessions in the world, namely, the Lord Almighty. Men are but his
ministers and servants, and they have to use God’s gifts solely for God’s
purposes, i.e., ultimately for common needs. Chrysostom’s conception of property
was strictly functional: possession is justified only by its proper use. To be
sure, Chrysostom was not a social or economic reformer, and his practical
suggestions may seem rather inconclusive and even naive. But he was one of the
greatest Christian prophets of social equality and justice. There was nothing
sentimental in his appeal to charity. Christian charity, in fact, is not just a
caritative emotion. Christians should be not just moved by the other people’s
suffering, need, and misery. They have to understand that social misery is the
continued agony of Christ, suffering still in the person of his members.
Chrysostom’s ethical zeal and pathos were rooted in his clear vision of the Body
of Christ.

One may contend that in practice very little came out of this vigorous social
preaching. But one has to understand that the greatest limitation imposed upon
the Christian preaching of social virtue was rooted in the conviction that the
church could act only by persuasion, and never by violence and compulsion. Of
course, no church could ever stand the temptation to call in the assistance of
some worldly power, be it the state or public opinion, or any other form of
social pressure. But in no case did the results justify the original break of
freedom. The proof is that even now we have not moved very far in the
realization of Christian standards. The church is ultimately concerned with the
change of human hearts and minds, and not primarily with the change of an
external order, as important as all social improvements may be. The early church
made an attempt to realize a higher social standard within its own ranks. The
success was but relative; the standards themselves had to be lowered. Yet, it
was not a reconciliation with the existing injustice; it was rather an
acknowledgment of an inherent antinomy. Could the church use, in the human
struggle for survival, any other weapon than the word of truth and mercy? In any
case, some basic principles were established, and boldly formulated, which are
relevant to any historical situation.

It was, first of all, the recognition of an ultimate equality of all men. This
egalitarian spirit is deeply implanted in the Eastern Orthodox soul. There is no
room for any social or racial discrimination within the body of the Eastern
church, in spite of its elaborate hierarchical structure. One can easily detect
at the bottom of this feeling precisely the early Christian conception of the
church as of an "order" by itself.

Second, it is assumed that the church has to deal primarily with the needy and
underprivileged, with all those who are destitute and heavy laden, with the
repentant sinners, precisely with the repentant publicans and not with
self-righteous Pharisees. The Christ of the Eastern tradition is precisely the
humiliated Christ, yet glorified exactly by his humiliation, by condescendence
of his compassionate love. This emphasis on an existential compassion in the
Eastern tradition sometimes seems exaggerated to Western observers - almost
morbid. But it is just an implication of the basic feeling that the church is in
the world rather as a hospital for the sick than as a hostel for the perfect.
This feeling had always a very immediate impact on the whole social thinking in
the East. The main emphasis was on a direct service to the poor and the needy,
and not on elaborate schemes for an ideal society. Immediate human relationship
is more important than any perfect scheme. The social problem was treated always
as an ethical problem; but ethics was founded in dogma, in the dogma of
Incarnation and Redemption through the Cross. One finds all these motives
strongly stressed both in the popular preaching and, in the traditional
devotional texts, read and repeated in all Orthodox churches again and again. On
the whole, the church is always with the humble and meek, and not with the
mighty and proud. All this might be often neglected but it was never denied,
even by those who were practically betraying the tradition. And third, there is
that inherited social instinct which makes of the church rather a spiritual
home, than an authoritarian institution. One has to begin with a remote
historical background if one wants to grasp the intimate spirit of the Eastern
church. One of the most distinctive marks of this church is its
"traditionalism." The term can be easily misunderstood and misinterpreted. In
fact, tradition means continuity, and not stagnation. It is not a static
principle. The ethos of the Eastern church is still the same as in the early
centuries. But is not the existential situation of a Christian ever the same in
spite of all radical and drastic changes in his historical situation ?

There was no important movement of social Christianity in modern Russia. Yet,
the impact of Christian principles on the whole life was not negligible: it was
the same traditional emphasis on mercy and compassion and on human dignity which
is never destroyed, even by sin or crime. But the greatest contribution to the
social problem was made in the field of religious thought. "Social Christianity"
was the basic and favorite theme of the whole religious thinking in Russia in
the course of the last century, and the same thought colored also the whole
literature of the same period. Various writers would insist that the true
vocation of Russia was in the field of religion, and precisely in the field of
social Christianity. Dostoevsky would go so far as to suggest that the Orthodox
church was precisely "our Russian socialism." He wanted to say that it was the
church that could inspire and enforce an ultimate realization of social justice
in the spirit of brotherly love and mutuality. For him, Christianity could be
fully realized only in the field of social action. All elements were given in
the traditional piety: the feeling of common responsibility, the spirit of
mutuality, humility, and compassion. "The church as a social ideal"; this was
Dostoevski’s basic idea, as Vladimir Solovyev put it in his admirable addresses
on Dostoevsky. The same was Solovyev’s leading vision. The key words were in
both cases the same: freedom and brotherhood.

It was the Slavophile school that brought the social aspect of Christianity to
the fore in the nineteenth century. The name is misleading. The "slavic idea"
was by no means the starting point or the strongest point of this influential
movement of ideas. The main point was, however, this: did not the West
overemphasize the importance of the individual? and did not the East, and
particularly the Slavic East, pay more attention to the social and corporate
aspect of human life? There was much of Utopian exaggeration in this
historiosophy, and yet this social emphasis was completely justified. And the
best spokesmen of the school knew quite well that this Eastern feeling for
social and communal values was due, not to the Slavic national character, but
precisely to the tradition of the early church. It was one of the greatest
leaders of the movement. A. S. Khomyakov (1804-1860), who elaborated a
theological basis of social Christianity in his brief but inspiring pamphlet:
The Church Is One (it has been re-published in English translation, London,
S.P.C.K., 1948). His main emphasis was again on the spirit of love and freedom
that make the church one fellowship knit together by faith and charity.
Spiritual fellowship in the church must be inevitably extended to the whole
field of social relations. Society itself should be rebuilt as a fellowship.
"Our law is not a law of bondage or of hireling service, laboring for wages, but
a law of the adoption of sons, and of love which is free. We know that when any
one of us falls he falls alone; but no one is saved alone." It is precisely what
St. Basil suggested: nobody can achieve his purpose in solitude and isolation.
No true faith is available in isolation, either, since the crucial fact a
Christian should believe is precisely the all-embracing love of God in Christ,
who is the head of the Body. The essence of Christianity, therefore, is the free
unanimity of many, which integrates them into unity. This short essay of
Khomyakov, in fact, meant a radical reorientation of the whole theological and
religious thought in Russia. On the one hand, it was a return to the early
tradition; on the other, it was a call to practice. Khomyakov’s ideas were the
starting point of Solovyev, although later on Solovyev moved in another
direction and was seduced by a Romanizing conception of "Christian politics"
without, however, abandoning the crucial conception of the church as the social
ideal. All his life Solovyev firmly believed in the social mission of
Christianity and of the church. Later on, Nicolas Berdyaev wrote a book on
Khomyakov in which he stressed the social implications of Khomyakov’s conception
of the church. It is interesting to observe that all the three writers just
quoted were laymen, yet all of them were loyal, in the main, to Tradition, even
if on some particular points they would diverge from it. Their influence, in any
case, was not confined to the laity. The whole complex of social problems was
brought to the fore by the catastrophe of the Russian Revolution. Historical
failures of Christians in the social field must be admitted and recognized. And
still the basic conviction remains unshaken: the faith of the church provides a
solid ground for social action, and only in the Christian, spirit can one expect
to build afresh a new order in which both human personality and social order
would be secured. At this point an urgent question imposes: why then was there
so little social action in the East and the whole richness of social ideas left
without an adequate embodiment? There is no easy answer to this question. One
point, however, should be made in advance. The church is never a unique worker
in the social field. It may be allowed a free hand in the field of social
philanthropy, almost under any regime, except of course totalitarian tyranny.
And, in fact, the church was usually the pioneer, even in the organization of
medical service. In Russia, in any case, the first hospitals and orphanages were
organized by the church, as early as the fifteenth century, if not earlier; and,
what is also instructive, precisely in connection with the "coenobitical"
monasteries, just as it was in the times of St. Basil and St. Chrysostom. The
work was taken over by the state only in the second half of the eighteenth
century, but a memory of the past survived in the name of the "God-pleasing
institutions," which was in common use even a century ago. The whole situation
changes, however, when we come to the foundations of the social order. Christian
and secular criteria do not necessarily coincide, and many conflicts do not
admit of an easy solution. The strictures of the early and mediaeval church on
usury can be, surely, completely justified from an integral ethical point of
view. Yet, economically, they were a serious handicap to progress. The early
church was unusually severe on trade in general, and not without reason. There
were nevertheless some pertinent reasons on the other side as well. The same is
true of the whole industrial (and "capitalistic") development. On many issues a
conflict between the Christian and the "national" approaches seems to be
unavoidable. What chance has the church to enforce its point of view, except by
preaching and admonishing? The state is never very favorable to the criticism
coming from the church unless the state itself is avowedly Christian. The same
is true of the economic society. The Eastern church, as a rule, was reluctant to
interfere in a political manner. Nor should we forget that for several centuries
the major churches in the Near East were under Moslem rule and therefore no room
was left for any independent social action, except by the way of charity. And
when the liberation came in the course of the nineteenth century, the new states
were built on a Western, bourgeois pattern and were not ready to follow a
Christian lead. In Russia the field of a prospective influence of the church was
similarly narrowed since the state assumed, under a Western influence also, all
characteristics of a "Polizei-Staat" and started claiming the supremacy over the
church itself. The church was comparatively free only within its own ranks.
There was there little room for constructive action, and yet the spirit was
alive and the vision of social problems was never obscured. But there was still
another major problem: should the church commit itself to any particular social
or economic program? Should the church take part in a political struggle? The
Eastern answer would be rather in the negative, but by no means will it mean an
attitude of indifference.

There is no room for any social action of the churches "behind the Iron
Curtain." Of course, this curtain is made not of iron or any other material
stuff, but rather of principles. And the main principle of the new totalitarian
regime is precisely the complete separation of the church from the whole field
of political, social, and economic activities. The church is compelled to retire
into "its own sphere," which is, in addition, very strictly circumscribed. The
only activity permitted is worship. All educational and missionary activities
are prohibited, although the actual policy may vary from country to country and
from year to year. On the whole, an absolute sovereignty of the state is taken
for granted. In these countries there is but one authority, that of the state or
of the party.

Now, in principle, the church can find its way under all circumstances and in
every concrete situation. The major danger is, however, elsewhere, namely, in a
wrong interpretation of the "other-worldly" character of the church. It is very
instructive to compare two recent documents emanating from the Orthodox
churches, and both more or less of an informal character. The first is a book,
recently published on behalf of the "Christian Union of Professional Men of
Greece," Towards a Christian Civilization (Athens, 1950). It is an outspoken and
courageous call to Christian action on all fields of civilization. It is an
admirable sketch of an active and "guiding" Christianity, and of a
"contemporanized" Christianity. Christians have to pass a judgment on all areas
of life, and first of all on their own failure to grapple efficiently with a
hopeless situation. There is a free and creative spirit breathing through the
pages of this book. It is a true call to Christian action. Christians are
called; not only authorities or clergy. It is assumed that Christianity has an
authority in the social sphere. This manifesto has an informal and private
character. It is the voice of Christians, of the body of the church. The other
document comes from the Soviet Union. It is a report on the whole Ecumenical
problem, prepared by Fr. Razoumovsky, a priest in Moscow, for the conference of
several Orthodox churches in Moscow, which took place in July, 1948. It is
included in the minutes of the conference, now published in Russian (Vol. II,
Moscow, 1949). We are concerned now with the concluding section of this report.
The main point made in the report is an utter separation of the field of the
church and the state: "the soul" and "the body." A phrase of the Oxford report
of 1937 is quoted: "For a Christian there is no higher authority than God" and a
characteristic qualification is added: "yes, but only in the realm of the soul
and spirit, but not in the material sphere, there is a complete sovereignty of
the state, responsible before God" (p. 177). It is a strange remark indeed when
we recall that the state in question is a Godless state. But the thought is
quite clear: Christian principles have no application "in the material sphere."
Moreover, we are informed on the next pages that principles of justice,
equality, freedom are not Christian. They belong to an independent secular
sphere exempt even from a moral judgment of the church. The church simply has
nothing to do with the whole area of social and kindred problems. One particular
point is stressed: it is admitted that Christ had sent his apostles "to teach,"
but they have to teach "nations" only, not the "rulers" (p. 177). Further,
Christ suggested that his followers should avoid an immediate contact with evil.
"If social injustice is evil - because the world lies in the evil - it is
already a sign that it does not belong to our sphere" (p. 191). This enigmatic
phrase has to mean apparently that Christians should not fight evil, but only do
good. It is also suggested that social improvements and economic security are of
a dubious value from a moral point of view: "would there be any room for the
sacrificial love, which is commanded by Christ." Hence no need to overcome greed
or envy (p. 189). The main tenor of the document is obvious: the church retires
from the world, in which she has nothing to do; she has no social mission at all
and has to avoid any "contact" with the world, because it is "in the evil." Have
we to forget its misery and suffering? No, but all this belongs solely to the
competence of the state, and the church resigns its responsibility for "the
material sphere."

Possibly it is just that amount of "religious freedom" which is conceded to
churches by an atheistic state and possibly it is in full accordance with the
Godless principles. But can the church accept a "reconciliation" or "toleration"
at this cost without betraying the gospel of righteousness and its own age-long
tradition? Such "otherworldliness" of the church has for it no warrant in the
historical experience of the Eastern church. Of course it is not in the
tradition of St. Basil and St. Chrysostom. There is no need to add that in fact
there is no real separation between the spheres of competence simply because the
church in the Soviet Union indulges, time and again, in pronouncements of an
openly political or social nature, when, of course, it is invited to do so by
the state. The church is indeed "not of this world," but it has nevertheless an
obvious and important mission "in this world" precisely because it lies "in the
evil." In any case, one cannot avoid at least a diagnosis. It was commonly
believed for centuries that the main Christian vocation was precisely an
administration of charity and justice. The church was, both in the East and in
the West, a supreme teacher of all ethical values. All ethical values of our
present civilization can be traced back to Christian sources, and above all back
to the gospel of Christ. Again, the church is a society which claims the whole
man for God’s service and offers cure and healing to the whole man, and not only
to his "soul." If the church, as an institution, cannot adopt the way of an open
social action, Christians cannot dispense with their civic duties for theirs is
an enormous contribution to make "in the material sphere," exactly as
Christians.

"The Social Problem in the Eastern Orthodox Church" appeared in The Journal of
Religious Thought, Vol. VIII, No. 1 (Autumn/Winter, 1950-51), PP- 41-51.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 34: 29 - A CRITICISM OF LACK OF CONCERN FOR DOCTRINE
========================================================================

A Criticism of the Lack of Concern for Doctrine Among Russian Orthodox Believers
The late Metropolitan Eulogius was discussing the recent religious revival among
Russians, both at home and in exile, during the early years of Russian
emigration. The fact was obvious: there was an awakening. The reasons were
obvious, also: the shock of tragic events, insecurity and uncertainty, suffering
and fear. But exactly what was it that attracted Russians to the Church? The
dogmas, the Orthodox doctrine? Yes, said the Metropolitan, so it was in the
past, and especially in Byzantium among the Greeks, but not in Russia. There was
a time when even lay people were deeply interested in questions of faith. But
Russians, the Metropolitan contended, with the exception of the few educated
theologians, have not yet reached the point at which they would be concerned
with the problems of abstract theological thought, and in fact they are not
interested in them at all. It may be, the Metropolitan conceded, that the Church
has failed to develop an interest in theology among believers. But, in his
opinion, the true reason for this lack of interest among the Russians was that
they neither cherish, nor understand the theoretical aspect of the realization
or embodiment of the Church’s ideals in the lives of men. Above all, they
cherish the ritual aspect of religion, the beauty of services, ikons, melodies,
and the like. The Metropolitan proceeded to explain the emotional and
educational value of the rites. He added, however, that all this ritual may be
little understood, and that people do not really know what truth is witnessed or
symbolized in the rites. Yet, he contended, rites themselves are so touching and
moving, exalting and inspiring, regardless of their meaning.

Whether this is a fair description of the Russian approach to Christianity is
open to doubt. But the attitude described by the late Metropolitan is typical of
certain elements in the Russian Church. It is persistently asserted by various
writers that Russians learn Christianity not from the Gospel but from the Lives
of Saints. It is also asserted that for the Orthodox in general, Christianity is
not "Doctrine" but "Life." The Orthodox are concerned not with "dogmatic
systems" but with "living." They comprehend the truth not through the mediation
of intellectual understanding, but through the mediation of "the heart" and in
an aesthetical manner. One should look for Orthodox teaching not in systems but
in images, rites and ikons. It is even asserted that in the Orthodox East there
is "no theory of Christianity," but that instead there are saints, ikons, poetry
and so on. No Orthodox, and no Catholic, would deny the basic importance of
sacred rites and the life of sanctity. What is embarrassing in the statements
which we have just quoted is their exclusiveness, their emphasis on not-but. One
should ask why "doctrinal systems" and "intellectual understanding" are so
carefully restricted, so contemptuously devaluated and almost altogether
eliminated. The balance seems to be broken. In any case, this over-emphasis on
the "artistic" aspect of the ritual is not in agreement with the actual
tradition of Orthodox art itself. And if one can be instructed by Orthodox
hymnography and ikons, it is precisely because a very definite "theory of
Christianity" is embodied and expressed there. "Theory" means above all
"contemplation;" it is an insight and a vision, a poetic insight and an
intellectual vision. According to Orthodox spiritual tradition, the Nous is the
ruling power of the inner life, "to hegemonikon." Traditional Eastern Orthodox
hymnography, inherited by Russians from the Greeks, is not just lyrics; it is
marked not by emotion, but by sobriety. It is high poetry, indeed, but it is
"metaphysical poetry," or rather "theological poetry," and does not hesitate to
sometimes use elaborate theological terminology. Indeed, some of the greatest
hymns of the Eastern Church are simply paraphrases of dogmatic definitions: a
Son, who was born before ages of the Father without mother, and who hath in no
way undergone either a change, or intermingling, or division, but hath preserved
in their entirety the peculiarities of each nature (Dogmatic Theotokion, in the
3rd tone.) This is precisely the definition of the Council of Chalcedon, and it
requires theological understanding. It was aptly said that Orthodox Ikons are
"dogmatic monuments" (V. V. Bolotov.) They witness the same truth which is
defined in doctrine, and according to the Seventh Ecumenical Council, they must
be controlled by sound doctrine. In brief, there is no room for this
disjunction: not -but. Of course, dogmas must be lived and not assessed by
abstract thinking alone, but for that very reason it is misleading to urge not
doctrine but life. This habit of division and disjunction only distorts the
"life" itself. One cannot separate "spirituality" and "theology" in St. John of
Damascus, or in St. Gregory of Nazianzus. One misses the very center of the
spirituality of Father John of Kronstadt when it is deliberately "abstracted"
from his theological vision. Holiness in the Orthodox tradition is always
interpreted "theologically," and not in the categories of aesthetic emotion or
exaltation, but in the categories of spiritual sobriety, in faithfulness to
truth.

It is really embarrassing that there is so little concern for "dogmatic
systems," as well as for the Doctrine of the Church, in various circles and
quarters of the Orthodox society of our day, and that "devotion" is so often
forcefully divorced from "faith." There is too much concern with "the vessels"
and too little concern with the Treasure, which alone makes the vessel precious.
Symbols and rites are vehicles of the truth, and if they fail to convey the
truth, they simply cease to function. Unfortunately, it is often suggested that
"interest in doctrines" is something rather archaic and is a Greek attitude
rather than a Russian one (again, not-but). There is but one Orthodox Tradition
of faith, and it transcends all national barriers. The feast of Orthodoxy, which
we still faithfully celebrate on the first Sunday in Lent, is precisely a
theological feast. The Legacy of Fathers is the core of our Orthodox tradition,
and it is a theological legacy. The Doctrine of Fathers is the spring of
Orthodoxy in life. One is fully justified in contending that our modern
confusion in life comes directly from the contemporary neglect of "sound
teaching," from the lack of "sound learning" in matters of faith.

Orthodoxy stands by its faithfulness to the Seven Ecumenical Councils. It is so
often forgotten that the Councils were engaged precisely in the formulation of
Christian Doctrine, in the elaboration of "dogmatic systems." Is it a step
forward that now we are not moved or impressed by the dogmatic teachings of
those great men who gave their entire lives to the establishment of the Right
Faith, of Orthodoxy? We praise the Three Hierarchs, who were above all the
ecumenical teachers, the teachers of the right faith, but we are strangely
indifferent to their perennial contribution to the life of the Church:
namely-their teaching, their theology, their interpretation of the Christian
truth "in the words of reason." And do we not need, as a matter of first
priority, for our intellect to be illuminated by the "Light of Reason" in the
present days of intellectual confusion? Without a sober guidance, without the
stable element of sound doctrine, our feelings would but err and our hearts
would be blinded.

One should accept the present revival of religion, the awakening of the heart,
as a gift of Grace, as a token of Divine Mercy, but also as a stem summons and
invitation to study and understanding, to the Knowledge of Truth which embraces
our Eternal Life. There is an unfortunate prejudice, one which does not stem
from Orthodox sources, that "doctrines" are abstract and "theology" is
intellectualism. Our Lord and Redeemer is the Logos, and He illumines all men;
and the Holy Spirit, the Giver of Life, is the Spirit of Truth. "Emotions" are
human moods, but the truth is Divine.

Let us adorn the vessels, but not forget that vessels are of clay. Yet in them
an Eternal Treasure is hidden: the Word of Life. From The Collected Works of
Georges Florovsky, ed. Richard S. Haugh (Belmont, MA: Nordland), Vol. XIII,
Ecumenism I: A Doctrinal Approach, pp. 168-170.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 35: 30 - THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH & THE OLD TESTAMENT
========================================================================

The Fathers of the Church and the Old Testament The famous phrase of St.
Augustine can be taken as typical of the whole Patristic attitude towards the
Old Dispensation. Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet. Vetus Testamentum in Novo
patet. The New Testament is an accomplishment or a consummation of the Old.
Christ Jesus is the Messiah spoken of by the prophets. In Him all promises and
expectations are fulfilled. The Law and the Gospel belong together. And nobody
can claim to be a true follower of Moses unless he believes that Jesus is the
Lord. Anyone who does not recognize in Jesus the Messiah, the Anointed of the
Lord, does thereby betray the Old Dispensation itself. Only the Church of Christ
keeps now the right key to the Scriptures, the true key to the prophecies of
old. Because all these prophecies are fulfilled in Christ.

St. Justin rejects the suggestion that the Old Testament is a link holding
together the Church and the Synagogue. For him quite the opposite is true. All
Jewish claims must be formally rejected. The Old Testament no longer belongs to
the Jews. It belongs to the Church alone. And the Church of Christ is therefore
the only true Israel of God. The Israel of old was but an undeveloped Church.
The word "Scriptures" itself in early Christian use meant first of all just the
Old Testament and in this sense obviously this word is used in the Creed:
"according to the Scriptures," i.e. according to the prophecies and promises of
the Old Dispensation. The Unity of the Bible. The Old Testament is copiously
quoted by all early writers. And even to the Gentiles the message of salvation
was always presented in the context of the Old Testament. This was an argument
from antiquity. The Old Covenant was not destroyed by Christ, but renewed and
accomplished. In this sense Christianity was not a new religion, but rather the
oldest. The new Christian "Scriptures" were simply incorporated into the
inherited Hebrew Bible, as its organic completion. And only the whole Bible,
both Testaments together, was regarded as an adequate record of Christian
Revelation. There was no break between the two Testaments, but a unity of Divine
economy. And the first task of Christian theology was to show and to explain in
what way the Old Dispensation was the preparation and the anticipation of this
final Revelation of God in Jesus Christ. The Christian message was not merely a
proclamation of some doctrines, but first of all a record of mighty acts and
deeds of God through the ages. It was a history of Divine guidance, culminating
in the person of Christ Jesus whom God has sent to redeem His people. God has
chosen Israel for His inheritance, to be His people, to be the keeper of His
truth, and to this Chosen People alone the Divine Word was entrusted. And now
the Church receives this sacred heritage. The Old Testament as a whole was
regarded as a Christian prophecy, as an "evangelical preparation." Very early
some special selections of the Old Testament texts were compiled for the use of
Christian missionaries. The Testimonia of St. Cyprian is one of the best
specimens of the kind. And St. Justin in his Dialogue with Trypho made an
attempt to prove the truth of Christianity from the Old Testament alone. The
Marcionite attempt to break the New Testament away from its Old Testament roots
was vigorously resisted and condemned by the Great Church. The unity of both
Testaments was strongly emphasized, the inner agreement of both was stressed.
There was always some danger of reading too much of Christian doctrine into the
writings of the Old Testament. And historical perspective was sometimes
dangerously obscured. But still there was a great truth in all these exegetical
endeavors. It was a strong feeling of the Divine guidance through the ages. The
Old Testament as Allegory. The history of Old Testament interpretation in the
Early Church is one of the most thrilling but embarrassing chapters in the
history of Christian doctrine. With the Greek Old Testament the Church inherited
also some exegetical traditions. Philo, this Hellenized Jew from Alexandria, was
the best exponent of this pre-Christian endeavor to commend the Old Testament to
the Gentile world. He adopted for this task a very peculiar method, a method of
allegory. Philo himself had no understanding of history whatever. Messianic
motives were completely overlooked or ignored in his philosophy of the Bible.
For him the Bible was just a system of the Divine Philosophy, not so much a
sacred history. Historical events as such were of no interest and of no
importance for him. The Bible was for him just a single book, in which be failed
to discern any historical perspective or progress. It was treated by him rather
as a collection of glorious parables and didactic stories intended to convey and
to illustrate certain philosophical and ethical ideas. In such an extreme form
this allegorical method was never accepted by the Church. One has however to
recognize a strong influence of Philo on all exegetical essays of the first
centuries. St. Justin made a large use of Philo. Pseudo-Barnabas (early 2nd
century) once went so far as to deny the historical character of the Old
Testament altogether. Philonic traditions were taken up by the Christian school
of Alexandria. And even later St. Ambrose was closely following Philo in his
commentaries and could be justly described as Philo latinus. This allegorical
exegesis was ambiguous and misleading.

It took a long time before the balance was established or restored. And still
one must not overlook the positive contribution of this method. The best
exponent of allegorical exegesis in the Church was Origen and his influence was
enormous. One may be shocked sometimes by his exegetical daring and licence. He
used indeed to read too much of his own into the sacred text. But it would be a
grave mistake to describe him as a philosopher. He was first of all and
throughout a Biblical scholar, certainly in the style of his own age. He spent
days and nights over the Bible. His main purpose was just to base all doctrine
and all theology on a Biblical ground. He was responsible to a great extent for
the strength of the Biblical spirit in the entire patristic theology. He did
much more for an average believer; he made the Bible accessible to him. He
steadily introduced the Old Testament into his preaching. He helped the average
Christian to read and to use the Old Testament for their edification. He always
stressed the unity of the Bible, bringing both Testaments into a closer
relation. And he made a new attempt to build the whole doctrine of God on a
Biblical basis.

Origen’s limitations are obvious. But his positive contribution was much
greater. And it was he who by his example taught Christian theologians to go
back always for their inspiration to the sacred text of Scriptures. His line was
followed by most of the Fathers. But he met strong opposition at once. There is
no room to dwell at length on the controversy between the two exegetical schools
in the Early Church. The main features are commonly known. The Antiochene school
stood for "history," Alexandrinians rather for "contemplation." And surely both
elements had to be brought together in a balanced synthesis.

History or Preaching. The main Alexandrinian presumption was that, as being
Divinely inspired, the Scriptures must carry in them some universal message, for
all nations and ages. Their purpose was just to exhibit this message, to
discover and to preach all these riches of Divine wisdom which have been
providentially stored in the Bible. Beneath the letter of the Holy Writ there
are some other lessons to be learned only by the advanced. Behind all human
records of manifold revelations of God one can discern the Revelation, to
apprehend the very Word of God in all its eternal splendor.

It was assumed that even when God was speaking under some special circumstances
there was always something in His word that passes all historical limitations.
One has to distinguish very carefully between a direct prophecy and what one
might describe as an application. Many of the Old Testament narratives can be
most instructive for a believer even when no deliberate "prefiguration" of
Christian truth has been intended by the sacred writers themselves. The main
presupposition was that God meant the Holy Writ to be the eternal guide for the
whole of mankind. And therefore an application or a standing re-interpretation
of the Old Testament was authorized. The Antiochene exegesis had a special
concern for the direct meaning of the old prophecies and stories. The chief
exponent of this "historical" exegesis was Theodore of Mopsuestia, known in the
East simply as "the Interpreter." And although his authority was gravely
compromised by his condemnation for his erroneous doctrines, his influence on
the Christian exegesis of the Old Testament was still very considerable. This
"historical" exegesis was often in danger of missing the universal meaning of
Divine Revelation by overemphasis of the local and national aspects of the Old
Testament. And even more, to lose the sacred perspective, to deal with the Old
Testament history as if it were merely the history of one single people among
the nations of the earth and not a history of the only true Covenant of God. St.
John Chrysostom has combined the best elements of both schools in his exegetical
endeavor. He was an Antiochene scholar himself, but he was in many respects a
follower of Origen as well. Allegories may be misleading. But one has not to
overlook the "typical" meaning of events themselves. Old Testament institutions
and personalities were also the "types" or "figures" of the things to come.
History was prophetic itself. Events themselves do prophesy, they did and do
point out to something else, beyond themselves. The Early Fathers can hardly be
described as "fundamentalists." They were always after the Divine truth, after
the Divine message itself, which is often rather concealed under the cover of
the letter. The belief in Inspiration could rather discourage the fundamentalist
tendency. The Divine truth cannot be reduced to the letter even of Holy Writ.
One of the best specimens of Patristic exegesis was the Hexaemeron of St. Basil,
who has succeeded in bringing forward the religious truth of the Biblical
narrative of the creation with real balance and sound moderation. The Old
Testament and Christian Worship. The Patristic attitude towards the Old
Testament was reflected in the history of Christian worship. The Jewish roots of
Christian Liturgy are obvious. But the whole system of Christian public worship
was linked closely to the practice of the Synagogue as well. The Psalms were
inherited from the Jews, and they became a pattern of the whole Christian
hymnography in the early Church. The Psalms form the skeleton of Christian
offices until now. They were the basis of all devotional literature in old days.
The student of public worship in the Eastern Orthodox Church would be impressed
by the amount of Old Testament references, hints and images, in all offices and
hymns. The unity of the two Testaments is stressed throughout. Biblical motives
are superabundant. Many hymns are but variations on the pattern of the Old
Testament songs, from the song of Moses at the crossing of the Red Sea up to the
song of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. On great festivals numerous
lessons from the Old Testament are appointed and actually read to stress that
Christian perfection was but a consummation of what was pre-figured and
foreshadowed, or even directly predicted of old. And especially in the offices
of Holy Week this Old Testament preparation is particularly emphasized. The
whole worship is based upon this conviction that the true Covenant was always
one, that there was a complete agreement between the Prophets and the Apostles.
And all this system was established just in the later Patristic age.

One of the most striking examples of this devotional Biblicism is the glorious
Great Canon of St. Andreas of Crete, read at the Great Compline in Lent. It is a
strong exhortation, an appeal for repentance, composed with a real poetical
inspiration and based upon the Bible. The whole series of Old Testament sinners,
both penitent and impenitent, is remembered. One can be almost lost in this
continuous stream of names and examples. One is emphatically reminded that all
this Old Testament story belongs to one as a Christian. One is invited to think
over again and again this wonderful story of Divine guidance and human obstinacy
and failures. The Old Testament is kept as a great treasure. One has to mention
as well the influence which the Song ofSongs had on the development of Christian
mysticism. Origen’s commentary on this book was in St. Jerome’s opinion his best
composition, in which he surpassed himself. And St. Gregory of Nyssa’s mystical
commentary on the Song of Songs is a rich mine of a genuine Christian
inspiration. The Old Testament as the Word of God.

It has been more than once suggested that in the Greek Fathers the primitive
Christian message was hellenized too much. One has to be very cautious with all
such utterances. In any case it is the Fathers who have kept all the treasures
of the Old Testament and made them the indispensable heritage of the Church,
both in worship and in theology. The only thing they never did is this: they
never kept fast to the Jewish limitations. The Holy Writ for them was an eternal
and universal Revelation. It is addressed to all mankind now simply because it
was addressed to all nations by God Himself even when the Divine Word was
delivered by the prophets to the Chosen People alone. It means that one cannot
measure the depth of Divine Revelation with the measure of some past time only,
however sacred those times may be. It is not enough to be sure that the ancient
Hebrews understood and interpreted the Scriptures in a certain way. This
interpretation can never be final. New light has been thrown on the old
revelations by Him Who came just to accomplish and to fulfill the Law and the
Prophets. The Scriptures are not merely historical documents. They are really
the Word of God, the Divine message to all generations. And Christ Jesus is the
Alpha and Omega of the Scriptures, both the climax and the knot of the Bible.
This is the standing message of the Fathers to the Church Universal about the
Old Dispensation.


========================================================================
Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/florovsky-fr-georges-following-the-holy-fathers-an-anthology-of-theological-arti/
========================================================================