Πατριαρχική Θεία Λειτουργία στον Μητροπολιτικό Ιερό Ναό της Υπαπαντής στη Καλαμάτα

Saint Hippolytus of Rome: Reading with the Fathers

Wisdom has built her house; she has set up her seven pillars.  She has slaughtered her beasts, she has mixed her wine, and she has also set her table.  She has sent out her maids to call from the highest places in the town, "Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!" To him who is without sense she says, "Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. –Proverbs 9

Christ, he means, the wisdom and power of God the Father, hath built His house, i.e., His nature in the flesh derived from the Virgin, even as he (John) hath said before time, “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” As likewise the wise prophet testifies:  Wisdom that was before the world, and is the source of life, the infinite “Wisdom of God, hath built her house” by a mother who knew no man,—to wit, as He assumed the temple of the body. “And hath raised her seven pillars;” that is, the fragrant grace of the all-holy Spirit, as Isaiah says: “And the seven spirits of God shall rest upon Him.” But others say that the seven pillars are the seven divine orders which sustain the creation by His holy and inspired teaching; to wit, the prophets, the apostles, the martyrs, the hierarchs, the hermits, the saints, and the righteous. And the phrase, “She hath killed her beasts,” denotes the prophets and martyrs who in every city and country are slain like sheep every day by the unbelieving, in behalf of the truth, and cry aloud, “For thy sake we are killed all the day long, we were counted as sheep for the slaughter.” And again, “She hath mingled her wine” in the bowl, by which is meant, that the Savior, uniting his Godhead, like pure wine, with the flesh in the Virgin, was born of her at once God and man without confusion of the one in the other. “And she hath furnished her table:” that denotes the promised knowledge of the Holy Trinity; it also refers to His honored and undefiled body and blood, which day by day are administered and offered sacrificially at the spiritual divine table, as a memorial of that first and ever-memorable table of the spiritual divine supper. And again, “She hath sent forth her servants:” Wisdom, that is to say, has done so—Christ, to wit—summoning them with lofty announcement. “Whoso is simple, Let him turn to me,” she says, alluding manifestly to the holy apostles, who traversed the whole world, and called the nations to the knowledge of Him in truth, with their lofty and divine preaching. And again, “And to those that want understanding she said”—that is, to those who have not yet obtained the power of the Holy Ghost—“Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled for you;” by which is meant, that He gave His divine flesh and honored blood to us, to eat and to drink it for the remission of sins.

 -Saint Hippolytus of Rome

THE PEARL: SEVEN HYMNS ON THE FAITH

St. Ephraim of Syria
Translated by J.B. Morris

HYMN I

** 1. **

On a certain day a pearl did I take up, my brethren;
I saw in it mysteries pertaining to the Kingdom;
Semblances and types of the Majesty;
It became a fountain, and I drank out of it mysteries of the Son.

I put it, my brethren, upon the palm of my hand,
That I might examine it:
I went to look at it on one side,
And it proved faces on all sides.
I found out that the Son was incomprehensible,
Since He is wholly Light.

In its brightness I beheld the Bright One Who cannot be clouded,
And in its pureness a great mystery,
Even the Body of Our Lord which is well-refined:
In its undivideness I saw the Truth
Which is undivided.

It was so that I saw there its pure conception,
The Church, and the Son within her.
The cloud was the likeness of her that bare Him,
And her type the heaven,
Since there shone forth from her His gracious Shining.

I saw therein his Trophies, and His victories, and His crowns.
I saw His helpful and overflowing graces,
And His hidden things with His revealed things.

** 2. **

It was greater to me than the ark,
For I was astounded thereat:
I saw therein folds without shadow to them
Because it was a daughter of light,
Types vocal without tongues,
Utterances of mystery without lips,
A silent harp that without voice gave out melodies.

The trumpet falters and the thunder mutters;
Be not thou daring then;
Leave things hidden, take things revealed.
Thou hast seen in the clear sky a second shower;
The clefts of thine ears,
As from the clouds,
They are filled with interpretations.

And as that manna which alone filled the people,
In the place of pleasant meats,
With its pleasantnesses,
So does this pearl fill me in the place of books,
And the reading thereof,
And the explanations thereof.

And when I asked if there were yet other mysteries,
It had no mouth for me that I might hear from,
Neither any ears wherewith it might hear me.
O Thou thing without senses, whence I have gained new senses!

** 3. **

It answered me and said,
"The daughter of the sea am I, the illimitable sea!
And from that sea whence I came up it is
That there is a mighty treasury of mysteries in my bosom!
Search thou out the sea, but search not out the Lord of the sea!

"I have seen the divers who came down after me, when astounded,
So that from the midst of the sea they returned to the dry ground;
For a few moments they sustained it not.
Who would linger and be searching on into the depths of the Godhead?

"The waves of the Son are full of blessing,
And with mischiefs too.
Have ye not seen, then, the waves of the sea,
Which if a ship should struggle with them would break her to pieces,
And if she yield herself to them, and rebel not against them,
Then she is preserved?
In the sea all the Egyptians were choked, though they scrutinized it not,
And, without prying, the Hebrews too were overcome upon the dry land,
And how shall ye be kept alive?
And the men of Sodom were licked up by the fire,
And how shall ye prevail?

"At these uproars the fish in the sea were moved,
And Leviathan also.
Have ye then a heart of stone
That ye read these things and run into these errors?
O great fear that justice also should be so long silent!

** 4. **

"Searching is mingled with thanksgiving,
And whether of the two will prevail?
From the tongue
The incense of praise riseth
Along with the fume of disputation
And unto which shall we hearken?
Prayer and prying from one mouth,
And which shall we listen to?

"For three days was Jonah a neighbour in the sea:
The living things that were in the sea were affrighted,
Saying, 'Who shall flee from God?
Jonah fled,
And ye are obstinate at your scrutiny of Him!'"

(For the Complete text and source: http://www.voskrese.info/spl/pearl.html)

Fr. Sophrony on Contemplation

Contemplation

What is the essence of Christian contemplation? How does it arise and where does it lead? Who or what is contemplated, and in what manner?

As I was taught, true contemplation begins the moment we become aware of sin in us. The Old Testament understood sin as the breach of the moral and religious precepts of the Law of Moses. The New Testament transferred the concept of sin to the inward man. To apprehend sin in oneself is a spiritual act, impossible without grace, without the drawing near to us of Divine Light. The initial effect of the approach of this mysterious Light is that we see where we stand ‘spiritually’ at the particular moment. The first manifestations of this Uncreated Light do not allow us to experience it as light. It shines in a secret way, illuminating the black darkness of our inner world to disclose a spectacle that is far from joyous for us in our normal state of fallen being. We feel a burning sensation. This is the beginning of real contemplation- which has nothing in common with intellectual or philosophical contemplation. We become accurately conscious of sin as a sundering from the ontological source of our being. Our spirit is eternal but now we see ourselves as prisoners of death. With death waiting at the end, another thousand years of life would seem but a deceptive flash.

Sin is not the infringement of the ethical standards of human society or of any legal injunction. Sin cuts us off from the God of Love made manifest to us as Light in Whom there is no darkness at all (cf. 1 John 1.5). To behold one’s pitiful reality is a heavenly gift, one of the greatest. It means that we have already to a certain extent penetrated into the divine sphere, and have begun to contemplate- existentially, not philosophically- man as he is in God’s idea of him before the creation of the world.

The horror of seeing oneself as one is acts as a consuming fire. The more thoroughly the fire performs its purifying work, the more agonising our spiritual pain. Yet, inexplicably, the unseen Light gives us a sense of divine presence within us: a strange secret presence that draws us to itself, to a state of contemplation which we know is genuine because our heart begins to throb day and night with prayer. It cannot be too often repeated that divine action has a twofold movement: one, which seems to us the first, plunges us into darkness and suffering. The other lifts us into the lofty spheres of the divine world. The range of our inner being expands and grows. But when the downward movement prevails, the cry is forced from us: ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God’ (Heb. 10.31).

To begin with, we do not understand what is happening. Everything is new. We only later, and gradually, come to comprehend God’s gift to us. Christ said to Peter: ‘What I do thou knowest not now; but shalt know hereafter’ (John 13.7). Impressed by the world revealed to her, which the heart did not yet know, the soul is both attracted and afraid. How can we describe the dread of losing God Who has so unexpectedly entered and enriched our life? Dismay at the thought of returning to the dark pit in which we existed until God’s coming to us stimulates a desire to cleanse ourselves from all that could hinder the Spirit of God from taking up His abode in us for all eternity. This dismay is so immense that it brings total repentance.

Repentance does not come readily to carnal man; and none of us fathoms the problem of sin which is only disclosed to us through Christ and the Holy Spirit. The coming of the Holy Spirit is an event of supreme importance. Fallen man meets with God all-Holy. The notion of sin is possible only where God is regarded as Absolute Hypostasis. And, likewise, repentance for sin is possible and appropriate only where there is a personal relationship. Encounter with a Personal God- that is what the event signifies. The sinful man experiences at one and the same time fear and exultation. It is new birth from on High. An exquisite flower unfolds within us: the hypostasis-persona. Like the Kingdom of God the persona ‘cometh not with observation’ (Luke 17.20). The process whereby the human spirit enters into the domain of divine eternity differs with each one of us.

The soul comes to know herself first and foremost face to Face with God. And the fact that such prayer is the gift of God praying in us shows that the persona is born from on High and so is not subject to the laws of Nature. The persona transcends earthly bounds and moves in other spheres. It cannot be accounted for. It is singular and unique.

Absolute Being is Hypostatic; and man, the image of the Absolute, is hypostatic. God is Spirit, and man-hypostasis is spirit; yet spirit which is not unconnected, abstract, but given concrete expression by the corporal body. Just as the Divine Logos took on Himself human flesh and thereby showed that God is not a fantasy of man’s imagination, born of ignorant fear of unknown phenomena, but actual reality. So, too, the human hypostasis is actually real. The Divine Spirit embraces all that exists. Man as hypostasis is a principle uniting the plurality of cosmic being; capable of containing the fulness of divine and human life.

The persona does not determine himself by opposition. His is an attitude of love. Love is the most profound content of his being, the noblest expression of his essence. In this love lies likeness to God, Who is Love. Per se the persona is excellence surpassing all other cosmic values. Rejoicing in the freedom that he has discovered, man contemplates the divine world.

Scientific and philosophical knowledge may be formulated but the persona is beyond definition and therefore incognisable from without, unless he himself reveals himself. Since God is a Secret God, so man has secret depths. He is neither the author of existence nor the end. God, not man, is the Alpha and Omega. Man’s godlike quality lies in the mode of his being. Likeness in being is the likeness of which the Scriptures tell.


O Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit;
Most High God, King and Creator of all eternity,
Who hast honoured us with Thy Divine image,
and didst describe in the visible form of our nature
the likeness of Thine invisible Being:
Enable us to find mercy and grace in Thy sight
that we may glorify Thee in the undying day of Thy
kingdom,
with all Thy Saints throughout the ages.


When our spirit contemplates in itself the ‘image and likeness’ of God, it is confronted with the infinite grandeur of man, and not a few of us- the majority, perhaps- are filled with dread at our audacity.

In the Divine Being the Hypostasis constitutes the innermost esoteric principle of Being. Similarly, in the human being the hypostasis is the most intrinsic fundamental. Persona is ‘the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible…which is in the sight of God of great price’ (1 Peter 3.4) - the most precious kernel of man’s whole being, manifested in his capacity for self-knowledge and self-determination; in his possession of creative energy; in his talent for cognition not only of the created world but also of the Divine world. Consumed with love, man feels himself joined with his beloved God. Through this union he knows God, and thus love and cognition merge into a single act.

God reveals Himself, mainly through the heart, as Love and Light. In this light man contemplates the Gospel precepts as the reflection on earth of celestial Eternity, and the Glory of Christ as of the only-begotten of the Father- the glory the disciples saw on Mount Tabor. The personal revelation makes the general revelation of the New Testament spiritually familiar.

This personal revelation may be granted suddenly. But though suddenly received man can only assimilate it by degrees, after long ascetic struggle. From the first instant the vital content of the revelation is clear and the soul feels no impulse to explain in rational concepts the grace experienced. But as a matter of course she aspires to ever deeper knowledge.

The divine nature of this personal vision is startlingly authentic, though words may fail to convey it. Yet the knowledge it offers has an objective sui generis character which we repeatedly observe down the centuries in the lives of many individuals largely identical in their experience and self-determining. ‘Where two or three are gathered together’ (Matt. 18.20)- there we have objectivity. ‘There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved’ (Acts 4.12), Peter declared categorically to the Sanhedrin. John spoke of ‘that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life’ (1 John 1.1). And Paul who said that at present we know only ‘in part’ (1 Cor. 13.12), nevertheless decrees that ‘if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed’ even though he be ‘an angel from heaven’ (Gal. 1.8,9).

As love, the hypostasis requires other hypostases. We see this from the revelation of the Holy Trinity. It is the same in the case of man. Having created Adam, ‘the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone’ (Gen. 2.18). But can created being meet with the Creator? When the human persona stands before Him Who named Himself ‘I AM THAT I AM’ (Exos. 3.14), his spirit, his whole being not only glories but agonises over his own littleness, his ignorance, his wrong-doing. Suffering in his lot from the moment of his spiritual birth. Conscious that the process of transforming our whole earthly being is still far from complete, the spirit wearies.

Christian faith is the result of the presence within us of the Holy Spirit, and the soul knows Him. The Holy Spirit convinces the soul that she will not die; that death will not possess her. But the body, as the material instrument of the soul, is subject to decay.

Only sin can stifle the Divine breath within us. God Who is Holy does not blend with the darkness of sin. When we seek to justify a sinful action we ipso facto sever our alliance with God. God does not constrain us but neither can He be coerced. He retires, leaving us bereft of His luminous presence. Of course, man cannot altogether avoid sinning; but he can avoid the consequences of sin- separation from God- through repentance. With repentance and the consequent increase of grace within us, the reality of the Divine World preponderates over the visible cosmos. We contemplate the FIRST REALITY.

O Father, Son, and Spirit;
Triune Godhead, One Being in three Persons;
Light unapproachable, Mystery most secret:
Lift our minds to contemplation of Thine unfathomable judgements
and fill our hearts with the light of Thy Divine love,
that we may serve Thee in spirit and truth
even unto our last breath.
We pray Thee, hear and have mercy.

Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov (2001) (2nd ed.) His Life is Mine. Chapter 5: Contemplation. New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

The Soteriology of St. Gregory Nazianzus

Fr. George Florovsky (Volume VII — The Eastern Fathers of the Fourth Century)

Human Life and Union with God through the Single Person of the God-Man.
Gregory sees the meaning and goal of human life in "deification," in actual union with the Divinity. This is possible because "that which is dominant" in man has been made in the image of God. More importantly, it is possible through the "humanity of God." From this point of view a clear dogma of the completeness of the two natures united in the Hypostasis and Person of the God-man is vitally important for Gregory's doctrine of salvation. Gregory's teaching is similar to that of Athanasius, but while Athanasius opposes the heresies of the Arians by stressing the absoluteness of the Divinity within the God-man, Gregory in writing against Apollinarius emphasizes Christ's humanity. The basic principle of his soteriology is that if human nature has not been fully assumed by Christ, it can be neither healed nor saved by Him. As part of his polemic against the Apollinarians he advances the doctrine of the "substantial" union "of two natures" within the single person of the God-man.
Christ was born, the laws of nature were breached, and the lower world became full. "I proclaim the glory of this day. He Who is incorporeal has become incarnate, the Word has been firmly fixed, the Invisible has become visible, the Impalpable can now be touched, Timelessness has begun, and the Son of God has become the Son of man." The birth of Christ is a theophany and "God is made manifest in being born." God has not only become manifest, for the incarnation is a true "assumption" of human nature. "He assumes my flesh in order to save His image and to make the flesh immortal," Gregory writes. "Each mystery of Christ causes me great rejoicing, and the greatest joy is my perfection, that I am made perfect, given new life, and that I return to the First Adam." This is a "new and wonderful commingling."
"When man failed to become god, God made Himself a man to do me honor," Gregory writes. "God was uncompound from the beginning. He became united with human nature, and then He was nailed to the cross by the hands of His murderers. This is our teaching about God, Who has become one with us." Christ is God incarnate, and not a defied man. In Christ "human nature is completely joined with the whole Divinity, not in the way that a prophet, divinely inspired, is in communion with God Himself, with something divine, but in essence, so that God has humanity in the way that the sun has rays." In Christ humanity is "anointed" not merely by an action of God but by His presence. At the same time God has completely assumed human nature. "In brief, Gregory says in conclusion, "our Savior is both one and the other." He then qualifies himself: "But He is not only one plus the other, for both of them are commingled so that God has become man and man has been deified." Gregory chooses words which emphasize the intimacy and completeness of this union in which the components nevertheless retain their individuality.

The Two Natures of Christ, the God-Man.
In the eclectic language of Hellenism κρασις, ουγκρασισ, and μιξισ, all of which designate “commingling,” stand in opposition to ουγχυσις, which implies absorption, and παραθεισις, which indicates a mechanical union or juxtaposition. According to Alexander Aphrodisias, the author of a well-known commentary on Aristotle, κρασις signifies the “complete and mutual union of two or more bodies in such a way that each retains its own essence and substantial properties." He uses the image of fire and iron as an example, and this image was adopted by the patristic writers as a symbol of the unity of natures in the God-man. Later the use of this term was altered. "Commingling" was also the most exact term from the vocabulary of philosophy to express the orthodox conception of the unconfused unity of the two, at least until it was tainted by the heretical usage of the Monophysites. In "commingling" the doubleness is maintained and the unity is also recognized. It signifies "one" and "two" at the same time, and this is precisely the mystery of the Person of Christ. He is not two, but "one from two."
Gregory clearly distinguishes the "two natures" of Christ. One nature is "subject to suffering" and the other is "immutable and above suffering." This is the main thrust of his exegetical polemic against the Arians. "There was a time when He who is now despised by you was superior to you. Now He is a man, but once His nature was not compound. He remains that which He has always been, and He has assumed that which He previously did not have." Gregory examines the evidence of this double nature contained in the Gospel by considering the "mystery of the names," the mystery of the double names and the double symbols, the manger and the star. All names and all symbols, however, refer to one and the same, "One God from both."
"He was a mortal, but also God; He was from the tribe of David, but He was also the Creator of Adam; He had a body, but was incorporeal; He was borne by the Virgin, but could not be contained; the cradle held Him, but the Magi were led to Him by the star. As a man He struggled, but He cannot be overcome and He defeated the tempter three times. As a mortal He was subject to sleep, but as God He tamed the seas. He was tired by His journeys, but He gave strength to the weak. He prayed, but who is it who hears the prayers of those who are perishing? He was a Victim, but also the High Priest. He is a Priest, but He is God." He is One Person, One God-man, One Christ, One Son, and "not two sons," which is the false teaching of Apollinarius. His two natures have been joined in essence and have penetrated each other. Gregory is the first to use the word κρασις to express the unity of the two natures in the God-man. “His natures and His names have been commingled and therefore they each are transformed into the other."
The Divinity remains immortal and humanity is "deified." The unity of the two natures in the person of Christ is based on the principle that "that which is strongest is victorious." By "deification" Gregory does not imply that human nature is transformed or that it undergoes transsubstantiation. What he means is that it is in complete communion and interpenetration with the Divinity. In the God-man human nature has been deified at its very source, for God Himself has become human. By virtue of this "commingling" each name is now applicable to the other.
Gregory devotes a great deal of attention to the suffering and death of God, since through this he confesses the unity of natures in the Person of the God-man. For this reason he insists on the name "Bearer of God": "Anyone who does not recognize that Mary is the Bearer of God is estranged from the Divinity." The reason for this is that deification is possible for us only through the humanity of the Word and its consubstantiality with us. In the Word humanity is deified through commingling with God.

The Crucifixion and Salvation.
Humanity is saved through union with God. However, the Incarnation alone does not accomplish salvation. Gregory stresses that the Crucifixion is vital for redemption. The death on the cross is a manifestation of the greatest good and the greatest gift of God, "the suffering of God, the Lamb, who is slaughtered for our sins." The Crucifixion is a sacrifice, "the purification not of a small part of the universe and not for a short time, but of the whole world forever." Gregory emphasizes that the Savior's death is a sacrifice, and he compares this sacrifice to the sacrifice in the Old Testament through which it was foretold. The Crucifixion is a sacrificial offering and Christ is the true Lamb, the High Priest, and the Conciliator. His death is a sacrifice and a ransom, λυτρον.
Christ takes upon Himself all the sins of humanity, and it is for this reason that He suffers. "He has made Himself one of us," and "He is the Head of our body." He is not merely a substitute for us. Gregory tries to express the intimacy of the Savior's assumption of our sins through such neologisms as αυτοαμαρτια, the “very principle of sin." He who is without sin is not defiled by assuming sin. The God-man ascends the cross of His own will. He carries our sins with Him so that they are crucified too. Gregory glorifies "the cross and nails, by which I am released from sin."

Gregory and the Notion of "Ransom."
For Gregory the full significance of the Crucifixion is not expressed by the concepts of sacrifice and retribution alone. "There is one more question and dogma, neglected by many other people, but in my opinion worth examining," he declares in his oration on Easter. "To whom has this blood which is shed for us been offered, and why? I mean the blood of our great and glorious God, the High Priest and Sacrifice. We were in the power of the evil one, sold under sin, and buying ourselves injury with our wickedness. Since a ransom is paid only to him who holds in bondage, I ask to whom this ransom was offered and for what cause? If it is to the evil one, then this is an outrage! If the robber receives a ransom not only from God, but a ransom that is God Himself, then he has such an immense payment for his tormenting that it would have been right for him to have left us alone. But if it is paid to the Father, then in the first place I ask how? And next, why was the blood of His Only-Begotten Son pleasing to the Father, who would not accept even Isaac when he was offered by his father, but changed the sacrifice and put a ram in the place of the human victim? Is it therefore not evident that the Father accepts this sacrifice not because He asks for it or demands it, but because man must be sanctified by the humanity of God, and so that He might deliver us Himself, and overcome the tormentor, and draw us to Himself through the mediation of the son, who arranges this to honor His Father, whom He obeys in all things." It may seem that Gregory gives no direct answer to this question, but he does in fact respond, although only briefly: "Let the rest be respected in silence."

The Cross as Rebirth and Purification.
The Cross is victorious over Satan and hell but it is not a ransom. The Cross is a gracious sacrifice and it is not a payment to God. The Cross is made necessary by human nature, not by the Divinity. The root of this necessity is man's sin and the degeneration of the body. Through Adam's fall the flesh was weighted down and became a corpse which burdened the soul, but the flesh is purified and relieved of its burden through the blood shed on the Cross. In one passage Gregory refers to the Crucifixion as a baptism "by blood and suffering." Elsewhere he speaks about the two kinds of purification which are Christ's gift to us: "We are purified by the eternal Spirit who purges the earlier damage in us which we received from the flesh, and we are also purified by our blood (for I call the blood which Christ my God has shed our own), which expiates our original weaknesses and redeems the world." The Crucifixion is a rebirth, and therefore baptism has a part in it. We die with Christ and are buried with Him, and we arise from the grave and through the grave. "It is necessary for me to suffer this redeeming change, so that just as good can lead to grief, so from grief our good arises."
At the Crucifixion the original purity of human nature was restored. "We needed God to become flesh and die in order to give us life. There were many miracles at that time. God was crucified and the sun darkened and again shone forth, for it was fitting for creatures to suffer with their Creator. The veil was torn, and blood and water were shed from His side: one because He was a man; the other because He was above man. The earth trembled and rocks were sundered for the sake of the Rock. The dead arose as a pledge of the final resurrection of all men, and there were miracles at the sepulcher. But not one of these is equal to the miracle of my salvation. A few drops of blood renewed the whole world and did for all men what rennet does for milk by drawing us together and binding us into a unity."

Death as Resurrection.
Christ accepted everything proper to man, "everything which is filled with death," and by dying He destroyed death. Death is Resurrection, and this is the mystery of the Cross. Therefore, on Easter Gregory speaks about the suffering of God. "On this day Christ was summoned from the dead. He turned aside the sting of death, destroyed the dark chambers of hell, and gave freedom to all souls. On this day He arose from the tomb and showed Himself to the people for whose sakes He was born, died, and arose, so that we, renewed and redeemed from death, could rejoice with You in the Resurrection."
For the whole of humanity Christ as a man is a "leaven for the mixture." The salvation and "deification" given in Christ are given to everyone who is united with Him in the holy sacraments and through the effort of striving towards Him. For Gregory, all the ages of history have foretold the coming of Christ. He sees the Old Testament and the Passover under the law as an "indistinct prototype of a prototype." "This is what I dare to say." But the Easter we celebrate now is also incomplete. It also is only a prototype. "Soon our participation will be more absolute and more complete, and the Word will drink new wine with us in the Kingdom of the Father, teaching us and revealing to us what He now shows us only partially. What is this drink and this food? For us it is to learn and for Him it is to teach and to communicate His word to His pupils, for teaching is also food for him who gives nourishment." First of all He will teach us about the Trinity. In the Father's Kingdom we will hear the voice of rejoicing and we will see the "vision of glory," the "most complete and most perfect radiance of the Trinity, which will no longer hide itself from intellects which are bound and distracted by the senses. There the intellect will be able to perceive and contemplate the Trinity completely, and It will illuminate our souls with the light of the Divinity." This is similar to Origen's conception of the afterlife, although Origen considers that the just will learn the secrets of the cosmos, not that they will contemplate the Trinity.

The Fate of the Unrepentant.
Gregory has written little that deals with eschatology. He frequently speaks of man's call to "deification," and preaches the necessity of ascetic discipline. He summons sinners to repentance but mentions the fate of the unrepentant only in passing. Their greatest punishment will be rejection by God, and this will be a torment and a "shame to the conscience" that will have no end. For just men God is light but for the unjust He is fire, and "this most terrible fire is eternal for the wicked." Possibly Gregory admits that purification can be achieved after death because he writes that sinners "may there be baptized by fire. This is the last baptism, the most difficult and prolonged, which eats up matter as if it were hay and consumes the weight of each sin." It is probable that he had in mind only the fate of unrepentant Christians because he also writes: "I know a fire which is not purifying, but avenging. The Lord sends it down like rain on every sinner, adding to it brimstone and storms. It was prepared for the devil and his angels and for everyone who does not submit to the Lord, and it burns up the enemies around Him." However, Gregory adds that "some may prefer to think that this fire is more merciful and worthy of Him who punishes." Gregory does not agree with the extreme position of the Origenists.

Metropolitan John Zizioulas: Three Basic Ecclesiological Principles

 The first basic ecclesiological principle, which we insisted on, is that the Church is the recapitulation of the Mystery of Providence, in other words, She is the finale, the objective of entire Providence, and not simply an objective that is to be realized sometime in the future. And this Mystery of Providence, which is recapitulated in the Church, is rooted within the very love of God. The volition, the “love of God and Father”, is that which moves the mystery of Providence, and subsequently, the Mystery of the Church.

 «The grace of Jesus Christ», the Son of God, which is needed for composing that body which will realize, which will incorporate that recapitulation of the Mystery of Providence, is the second leg –so to speak- of the basis of Ecclesiology.

The third leg is the communion of the Holy Spirit, in other words, that the Holy Spirit, with His presence in this Mystery of Providence, makes possible the communion of the created with the Uncreated, as well as between the participant beings. 

Thus, Ecclesiology has its basis in the Triadic life of God, which is summarized –as I stressed earlier- so beautifully in the words of the Apostle Paul, with which he closes his second Epistle to Corinthians:  “The love of God and Father, the grace of Jesus Christ (i.e., the ‘vacating’ of the Son becomes grace – a free gift by God), and the communion of the Holy Spirit (which implies, as I have already underlined, the transcendence of the limitations of beings).  Beings place boundaries around themselves, so that they can discern each other.  The created needs to be discerned from the Uncreated, because these two cannot remain indiscernible.  Person A demarcates himself opposite person B; everything is demarcated so that they can comprise individual hypostases, however, woe betide, if those boundaries are not overcome, in order to create a society of beings and a communion between the created and the Uncreated. And this is precisely the job of the Holy Spirit. This is why the Holy Spirit is linked par excellence to society.

This is the Triadic basis upon which Ecclesiology is built, and this basis must always exist in our thoughts, when we talk about the structure of the Church, its specific form of organization as we shall see further along.

The second basic ecclesiological principle that we defined, and which must also influence the organization of the Church, is that the Being of the Church resides in the Kingdom of God. That is where the true Being of the Church is; not in that which the Church is presently, in History, but in that eschatological form which is to be revealed.  Her true identity therefore is there; the Church is by Her nature the community of the Time to come, or in other words, the Kingdom of God, and Her organization must necessarily reflect that eschatological hypostasis of Hers.

The third basic ecclesiological principle is that the historical Being of the Church, (i.e., the way the Church is at present, within History, and not how She will be in the future), is determined by that which we have named “virtual ontology”. In other words, the Church as She is within History, is a virtual image of the Kingdom of God, and, as History evolves, She provides a fixed point of reference, which is the Kingdom of God. In other words, She pre-portrays the Kingdom that is to come; She establishes it within the course of History – the consequence of which is a conflicting with that flow of History.  The Kingdom - and the Church that portrays it – are in conflict with the flow of History.  The Church is constantly in a situation, not of identifying with History, but on the contrary, in a crisis situation with History. That is also why the Church cannot, by nature, ever find Her expression amongst secular, historical realities with which She will more or less always find Herself in a certain dialectic situation, regardless how many times She encounters them; She will always be in a conflicting relationship with them. Consequently, the Church cannot be transformed into a State; She cannot be expressed by a political party. She cannot coincide with a particular social structure or organization. And not only can She not coincide, but this also means She is in constant friction with History.  The Church remains forever a stranger within History; She does not find Herself, Her home, within History.  She always seeks the End Times, and is a stranger and a sojourner here. It is very important to remember that since the beginning, the Church was called “a sojourner in the world”, which is why we call Her “foreigner”: in Clement’s first epistle, and even in the epistles of the New Testament, She is mentioned as the “Church, the existing or sojourning one” in a city.  We need to see this fact through this prism; i.e., that the Church is a stranger and one who is just passing through History, as Paul had said. The Church can never be identified – and never should be – with Historical realities, because She is the image of the eschatological community; hence the reason that the fourth ecclesiological principle has equally a lot to do (as we shall see) with the organization of the Church, because that is where the image of the End Times is expressed; the way in which the Church materializes this image in Herself is only through the Sacraments of the Church, and especially in the Divine Eucharist.  This is the par excellence image of the End Times, and consequently, the organization of the Church  ( if it is as we previously mentioned, and is expressed as the true Being of the Church should be expressed ) must be rooted in the structure of the divine Eucharist, where we have the structure of the Kingdom, the structure of the eschatological community.

Responding to Jeff Bethke

When I began watching this video I could not help but reflect on several contemporary trends in Orthodox theology.  The first to come to mind was Fr. John Romanides' teachings on what he referred to as the "neurobiological sickness of religion and its cure". (http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.02.en.the_cure_of_the_neurobiological_sickness_of_rel.01.htm) 

Some of what this young man said certainly resonated with Fr. John's message but overall his message is little different then the early reformers, the difference being that his message is clothed in 21^st century dress.  I have three quotes to respond to what this young man has said:

1) Christ’s Body the Church

What is all this, dear friends? No! We live in common and we see in common. Why do you think of yourself as an individual and not as a member of Christ? Is the faith and experience of others foreign to us? What did we say before? “It is said that God dwells in darkness”. And the mystic, the heavenly author, goes on to say concerning the Apostle Paul, and this is surely true, that he saw Christ: “And, indeed, the divine Paul is said to have known God”.
What does this mean? It means that the saints say, the Scriptures mention time and again, the Fathers confirm, Paul confesses and the experience of the mystical life proclaims that God dwells in darkness and in light. If you have not seen Him, not recognized him, what does that matter? Are you the touchstone of truth? No. Which is why the experience of the Church has told it, tells it and writes it. And, since you have heard it – which is precisely why it has greater significance – your senses are not deceiving you. Elder Aimilianos

2) The Danger of “Spirituality” Without Dogma

 Nevertheless, let the idealist reject religion and be a freelance follower of Jesus Christ. How will he know that he is following Christ and not just his own reflection? He might favor “spirituality” over “religion,” but spirituality is slippery. The young man in the video was clearly attracted to a Jesus Christ who was a young, table-turning radical. His Jesus was impatient with the religious establishment and on the side of the sinners and revolutionaries. His Jesus was the quintessential outsider—the rebel with a cause—a punk who all those rich hypocrites excluded and persecuted. In other words, he was just like the young man in the video.

We all fall into the trap of making Christ in our own image, so it is understandable, and if understandable, forgivable. This, however, is the main justification not only for religion, but also for a dogmatic religion. A dogmatic religion corrects our tendency to make Jesus in our own image. Fr. Dwight Longenecker

(http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2012/01/the-jesus-and-religion-video This is a Catholic response but I feel that the sentiment here expressed by Fr. Dwight is quite pertinent).

3) Communion & Salvation

We now come to the crucial point of our homily: in what manner can the Church cure man in practice?

First of all, we need to clarify a misunderstanding that is broadly prevalent.  The Church does not cure so much with what She has, but rather, with what She is.  This detail is extremely important. As a rule, we all seek the means for salvation inside the Church, but salvation lies in the very event called "Church", and our incorporation in Her.  The difference is huge, and it has a practical significance, in regard to therapy.

The Church has spiritual fathers and the mystery (sacrament) of Confession (which should more correctly be called Repentance).  Much emphasis and significance has been placed on this element, when it comes to therapy.  The perfect spiritual father-confessor and a perfect method of confession etc. are sought out, but what is overlooked is that it is not the spiritual father who heals.  He might be tired during the hour of confession, or, he may not have the appropriate knowledge: quite usual things.  Therapy will not occur during the hour of the Mystery, quite simply because the Mystery has man's incorporation in the Church as its objective, and only in there will therapy occur, slowly and in the long term.  How will that happen?

The Church is a therapeutic clinic, because She provides man the potential to transit from the state of an "individual" to that of a "person". What is the difference?  And how does that occur in the Church?

"Individual" is an arithmetical notion, which springs from one's isolation from other individuals - which simply is what it is, because it is not something else.  Deep down, "individual" is a negative notion.  When man exists and acts as an individual, he fences himself off psychologically; he "excises" himself from others. This is a pathological condition, which constitutes a host of morbid phenomena and perhaps is the very source of all sicknesses - it is that which Maximos calls "self-love".  "Individual" does not only comprise a problem of a moral or psychological nature; it also has ontological dimensions.  It is linked to death, which is the par excellence "feeder" and simultaneously disintegrator of the individual; death is that which highlights individualism, by separating it finally from other individuals (each one of us dies individually), and eventually disintegrating it, into decomposition and nonexistence.  Individualism is a carrier of sickness or sicknesses, precisely because deep inside it lurks the fear of death - the ontological nihilism - if this bizarre albeit true contradiction may be permitted.  The same applies, for the body. If, like Maximos, they link self-love to the body, it is not because the body is evil, but because it expresses par excellence the fortress of individualism where lurks the potential for excising ourselves from the others and where death eventually sets its sights and succeeds.  Individualism is the first pathological stage that man goes through,  when he is need of therapy.

The second stage is that of communion. For man to be cured of individualism, he needs to move on, to his relationship with others, with any form whatsoever, even if a negative one: to get angry, to beat or even kill someone.  What is usually known as "defusing" is a form of transcending individualism - a form of "therapy" according to psychiatry.  This is not about the notion of "person"; it is however a form of relationship and communion which appears as therapy, without actually being.

The stage that the Church aspires to bring mankind is beyond this stage, and to the stage of "person".

The Church borrows the notion of "person" from Her faith in the Trinitarian God and, after taking it through Christology and Pneumatology, applies it inside the Church. In the Holy Trinity, "person" is a positive notion - an affirmative notion - and not a negative one.  The three Persons of the Trinity differ between each other, not because they are isolated and excised from each other, but on the contrary, because they are joined together inseparably. The more inseparable the unity, the more it will give birth - produce - otherness.  This fact secures ontological completeness and stability, absence of death, and true life. The "other" not only is not an enemy, but is the confirmation of my own identity and uniqueness: it is the You that makes me a "Me" and without which, the "Me" is nonexistent and inconceivable.

And something more.  In the Holy Trinity personal otherness and uniqueness are not justified psychologically, but ontologically. The characteristics that distinguish between the three Persons are only ontological:  each Person is what It is, and nothing else.  The person is not judged by its characteristics, but by the simple affirmation of its identity as a unique and irreplaceable being.  The person is not a personality - that is, a coordinate of characteristics (height, beauty or ugliness, virtue or malice, genius or stupidity etc.); the person is free of characteristics and is not judged by them.

This perception regarding the person is passed into the Church in the form of God's love and freedom towards the world, the way it was expressed "in Christ", with His love towards enemies and sinners.  The Church is the place in which man is not judged by his characteristics (that is what forgiveness means, which he receives with Baptism and Repentance), but by the fact that he is who he is.  Forgiveness and acceptance of someone as a person, as a unique and irreplaceable identity, within the community of the Church, is the quintessence of ecclesiastic therapeutics.   The Church heals, not with the things She says, but by that which She is: a community of love, a love that is not a sentiment (so that we might seek it in the inner self and the disposition of the individual), but a relationship, which demands coexistence and acceptance within a specific community - a community of love, without exclusivity and conditions.  The Church heals, by being such a community, in which the incorporated person becomes freely addicted to loving and being loved; where, in the words of Saint Maximos, «perfect love does not split the one nature of humans... but, forever aiming at it, loves all people equally...  That is why our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, in displaying His love for us, suffered for all of humanity... » (chapters on love, I, 72).

The practical and relentless question however, is: Is the Church a community of love, a place where one passes from "self-love" to "brotherly love"? From sickness to healing?  To the degree that the answer is affirmative, one can refer to the Church as a therapeutic clinic.  Otherwise, She is a pharmacy, which provides people with analgesics, without transforming them from individuals to persons.  Because the term "persons" has the prerequisite of "relationship", and "relationship" entails "community"; otherwise, they continue to be isolated individuals with an "illusion of sanctity". Extra ecclesiam nulla salus (there is no salvation outside of the Church) — not because that is where the means for salvation exist, but because in there is where the Trinitarian mystery of the inter-embracing of persons is manifested.

Most people in The Orthodox Church have, to a large degree, lost the awareness of "community", and if today they speak of a "therapeutic clinic", they probably mean it as a pharmacy. But the Church continues to be the true Ark of Salvation, because She has preserved unadulterated not only the faith in the Personal Trinitarian God and the Christ of all-encompassing love, of the Cross and of the Resurrection, but also because She continues to be the genuine eucharistic ("thanksgiving") community, in which are offered those loving relationships that can heal man, by transforming him from an individual to a person. It is this faith, this synaxis and community that we must preserve genuine and active, if we want to regard the Church as a therapeutic clinic.

Going over what I tried to say, I feel that I must point out the following:

For the Church and theology, therapy is not a psychological or moral matter, but an ontological one.  The aim of therapy is not to provide relief for the symptoms of man's sickness, but to ensure his rebirth, by transferring him from the space of self-love where passions are born, into the space of brotherly love, where true therapy through love is found.  This passage from the one space to the other is painful, because it has the Cross as a prerequisite, or, in the words of Saint Maximos, the experiencing of the pain that coexists with pleasure. It is a passage that must be guided with care and philanthropy, «so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather, be healed» (Hebr.12:13).

In this attempt, the Church and theology can provide, not so much the technique, the specialization, but rather the faith in the personal God, from which springs the faith in man as a person, an image and a likeness of God; also the love of Christ which has no boundaries and exclusivities, and the Church, as a eucharistic (thanksgiving) community which actualizes that love, as a personal existence and relationship.  The battles against passions and their riddance do not constitute an end in itself for the Church. They aspire to the surfacing of the true person from within them, to the re-joining of fragmented nature, and for man to rediscover his proper relationship with God, with other people and with material nature.  Health, for us, is the proper relationship of man with these three factors (God, fellow-man and nature), which comprise the definition of the human being.  "Sickness" is the upsetting of this triple and three-dimensional relationship.  Perhaps this is what hugely differentiates theology from psychiatry - or perhaps not; you will be the judge.  What is certain, is that both the Church and medical science must coincide in this basic discovery, should a dialogue develop between them.

Metropolitan John zizioulas (From the Minutes of a Meeting on «Theology and Psychiatrics in Dialogue» Minutes published by the Apostoliki Diakonia pages 141-156, (extract) Source: http://www.pemptousia.com/

Revelation as the Central Theme in the Theology of St. Maximus the Confessor

Fr. George Florovsky (Byzantine Fathers of the 6th to 8th Centuries)


St. Maximus’ whole system can be understood most easily from the idea of Revelation. This is that proto-fact to which any theological reflection goes back. God is revealed — here is the beginning of the world’s coming into being. The whole world is a revelation of God, and everything in the world is mysterious and therefore symbolic. The whole world is grounded in God’s thought and will. Therefore, cognition of the world is a disclosure pf this symbolism, a perception of Divine will and thought which !s inscribed in the world.

Further, the world is a revelation of the Logos. The Logos is the God of revelation. God the Logos is revealed in the world. This revelation is completed and fulfilled in the Incarnation. For St. Maximus, the Incarnation is the focus of the world’s existence — and not only in the plan of redemption but also in the primordial plan for the creation of the world. The Incarnation is willed along with creation itself, but not merely in foreknowledge of the fall. God created the world and is revealed in order to become a Man in this world.

Man is created so that God may become man and through the Incarnation man is deified. "He who founded the existence — origin, "genesis" — of all creation, visible and invisible, by a single act of his will, ineffably had, before all ages and any beginning of the created world, good counsel, a decision, that he himself should inalterably unite with human nature through a true unity of hypostases. And he inalterably united human nature with himself — so that he himself should become a man, as he himself knows, and so that he should make man a god through union with himself."

New Development of the Logos Doctrine and the Doctrine of the Knowledge of God
The doctrine of the Logos, which had been shunted into the background in fourth century theology, again becomes widely developed in St. Maximus. In him the ancient tradition of the second and third centuries again comes to life. This tradition had, of course, never ceased in Alexandrian tradition — see St. Athanasius On the Incarnation, and St. Cyril of Alexandria, especially his interpretation of the Gospel of St. John. St. Maximus to some extent repeats Origen — more in his problems than in his answers. But the Logos doctrine has now been entirely freed from the ancient ambiguity, an ambiguity which was unavoidable before a precise definition of the Trinitarian mystery.

In any case, it is the idea of Revelation which defines the whole plan of St. Maximus’ reflections, as it did for the Apologists and the Alexandrians of the third century. However, all the originality and power of St. Maximus’ new Logos doctrine lies in the fact that his conception of Revelation is developed within Christological perspectives. St. Maximus is coming from Origen, as it were, but overcomes Origen and Origenism. It is not that Christology is included in the doctrine of Revelation, but that the mystery of Revelation is discernible in Christology. It is not that Christ’s person demands explanation, but that everything is explained in Christ’s person — the person of the God-Man.

In his theological thoughts St. Maximus sides with the Areopagiticum. In the doctrine of the knowledge of God he virtually repeats Evagrius. In his unlimited essence, in the ever-plentiful fulness of his existence, God is inaccessible to man and to all creation. The created mind only has access to knowledge of the fact that God exists — and exists as the First Cause of everything which has been created. And knowledge of God’s essence is totally inaccessible. "We believe that he exists, but in no way do we dare to investigate what his nature is, as does the demonic mind’ — fruitlessly, of course.

Created reason is worthy to bear witness to God only in denials, thereby confessing the complete inapplicability of any logical categories and concepts to Divine existence. For God is above everything, above any complexity and plurality. However, knowledge of God in his exalted existence is possible — not in the concepts of reason, but in supra-mental perception, in ecstasy.

Apophatic denial is itself at the same time renunciation — renunciation and the silencing of thought, renunciation and its liberation from the categorical stricture of discursive cognition. In other words, it is the emanation or frenzy of thought — ecstasy. The whole sense of apophatic theology is that it recalls this ecstatic experience — mystical theology.

As with Pseudo-Dionysius, apophatic theology for St. Maximus is not dialectic. This "not" is above dialectic antitheses and even higher than antinomies. This "not" demands total silence, and calls for the self-overcoming of thoughts which utter and are uttered. At the same time, it is a call to cognize God, but not as Creator, and not in those of his perfections which are revealed in deeds and in creation.

First of all, it is possible and necessary to cognize God "from the magnitude of his deeds." This is still preliminary knowledge. And the limit and goal of knowledge of God is to see God — so that in "ordeal" and in creative upsurge, through abnegation and love, the mind soars in the ever-peaceful darkness of Divine Mystery where it meets God face to face and lives in him. This is a kind of "return" of the mind — επιστροφή. God appears in the world, in certain cognizable forms, so that he can reveal himself to man; and man comes out to meet him, comes out of the world to find God as he is outside of the world. This is possible but only in ecstasy. In other words, through exceeding the measure of nature — "supra-naturally." By nature the created mind does not have the power to cognize God directly. However, this is given to the created mind from on high. "The soul can never break free to knowledge of God if God himself, by his blessed condescension towards the created mind, does not touch it and raise it to himself. And man’s mind could never manage to raise high enough to perceive any Divine illumination if God himself did not enrapture it — as much as the human mind can be enraptured — and did not enlighten it with Divine rays."

However, the Holy Spirit never works outside of man’s cognitive powers. Nor does the Holy Spirit abolish man’s cog -nitive powers or swallow them up with his activity. Rather, the Holy Spirit elevates them. Ecstasy is possible only through "ordeal." The path towards knowledge of God is a ladder which extends its summit into the Divine darkness, into a "formless and aimless place."

It is necessary to gradually forget about everything. One must forget about all creation. One must abstract oneself from everything created, even as something created by God. One must extinguish one’s love for creation, even though it was indeed created by God. In the "mystery of love" the mind becomes blind to everything besides God. "When the mind ascends to God through the attraction of love, it perceives neither itself nor anything which exists. Illumined by a measureless Divine light, it is insensible to everything created, just as a sensual glance does not notice the stars because of the sun’s radiance. Blessed is the man who continuously delights in Divine beauty while passing all creation by."

This is renunciation, not merely distraction. And it is the transformation of the cognizer himself. Ecstasy is a direct meeting with God, and therefore knowledge of his essence. At the same time it is the deification of the mind, the transformation of the very element of thought. The Holy Spirit envelops the whole soul, and, as it were, transfigures or "transposes" it. This is a state of beneficial adoption, and the soul is brought to the unity of the Father’s hidden existence.

In pure hearts God inscribes his letters through the Spirit as he once did on Moses’ tablets. Christ’s mind settles in saints — "not by deprivation of our own mental force, and not by personally or in essence moving to its place, but by illuminating the force of our mind with his quality and by bringing its activity into a oneness with himself — (see below on becoming like Christ and Christ’s mystical settling into human souls). "The illumined one manages to recline with the Bridegroom, the Logos, in the treasure house of mysteries." This is the highest and the last stage. The limit and goal of deification in the Incarnation of the Logos and in that knowledge which the human mind preserved in Christ by virtue of hvpostatic union. But it is also a return to the first, to the beginning. In this life few are permitted to reach these mysterious heights: great saints and seers, Moses on Mount Sinai, the Apostles on the Mount of Transfiguration — Tabor, St. Paul when he was carried away to the third heaven. The completeness of knowledge of God will be realized and will become accessible only beyond the bounds of this world, in the future age. However, it is precisely in ecstasy that the justification for the cognizing "ordeal" lies.

The way to ecstasy is "pure prayer" — here St. Maximus follows Evagrius Ponticus. This, first of all, is the perfect self-discipline and nakedness of the spirit — its being bared of any thought, of all mental images in general. Such nakedness is a grace and a gift. "The grace of prayer joins our souls with God, and by this joining it separates it from all thoughts. And by living with God it becomes God-like." The mind’s nakedness means rising higher than any images and a corresponding transformation of the mind itself, which also attains simplicity, uniformity, and formlessness. "And when in prayer you have a mind estranged from matter and images, know that you have attained the same measure of apatheia and perfect love.” The moving force of the “ordeal” is indeed love — αγάπη. “Love is such a disposition of the soul when it prefers nothing which exists to the knowledge of God. and he who has a predilection for anything earthly cannot enter this condition of love.” St. Maximus often speaks of the highest stages of love as Divine Eros — ό θείος έρως.

Apophatic theology only testifies to these ineffable mysteries of holy frenzy and love. In this sense all apophatic expressions are symbolic through and through. Moreover, knowledge of God is always a continuous and endless path where the end always means the beginning, and where everything is for the time being only partly in a mirror or in divination.

However, the basic mystery of "mystical theology" is revealed to everyone and for all, for it is the primary dogma of the Christian faith. This is the mystery of Trinity and all the pathos of knowledge of God is in the comprehension of this mystery. For it is a knowledge of God in his own essence. This mystery is uttered and told in words, but it must be comprehended in experience as the mystery of perfect unity — here St. Maximus follows the Cappadocians, especially St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and also Evagrius Ponticus. In other words, it must be comprehended through the experience of deification, through life in God, through the appearance of the Trinity in the cognizing soul itself. And once again, this will be allowed only sometime in that last deification — with the perfect revelation of the Trinity.

The mystery of the Trinity is a mystery of the inner Divine Life. It is God outside of Revelation, Deus Absconditus. However, it is recognized only through Revelation, through theophany, through the appearance and descent of the Logos into the world. God the Trinity is cognized in the Logos and through the Logos. Through the Logos the whole world is mysteriously permeated by the rays of the Trinity. One can recognize the inseparable actions of the Three Hypostases in everything. Everything is and lives intelligently. In Divine Existence we contemplate the Wisdom which was born without beginning and the Life which is imparted eternally. Thus the Divine Unity is revealed as the Trinity — the Tri-Hypostatic monad; the "unlimited uniting of the Three Unlimited Ones."

It is not "one in another," and not "one and another," and not "one above another" — but the Trinity is also at once a Unity. God is entirely the Trinity without blending. This removes both the limitedness of Hellenic polytheism, and the aridity of Judaic monotheism which gravitates towards a kind of atheism. Neither the Hellene nor the Jew knows about Jesus Christ. This means that contradictions in doctrines about God are eliminated through Christ — in the revelation of the Trinity.

It is especially necessary to note that St. Maximus taught about the Spirit’s procession from the Father "through the Son." This is nothing more than a confirmation of the ineffable — but irreversible — order of hypostases in the perfect consubstantiality of the Trinitarian existence. It is very curious that St. Maximus had to speak out on the Western filioque — in a letter to the Cypriot presbyter Marinus, which is preserved only in fragments which one read in in the Florentine Cathedral. Reassuring the Easterners, St. Maximus explained that "the Westerners do not represent the Son as the cause of the Spirit, for they know that the Father is the single cause of the Son and the Spirit — the former through birth; the latter by procession. They merely show that the Holy Spirit proceeds through the Son in order to signify affinity and insepar — ability of essence." Here St. Maximus is completely within the compass of the ancient Eastern tradition.

The mystery of Trinity is beyond knowledge. At the same time, it contains the buttress of knowledge. Everything in the world is a mystery of God and a symbol — a symbol of the Logos, for it is Revelation of the Logos. The whole world is a Revelation — a kind of book of the unwritten Revelation. Or, in another simile, the whole world is the attire of the Logos. In the variety and beauty of sensual phenomena, the Logos plays with man, as it were, to fascinate and attract him so that he raises the curtain and begins to see the spiritual sense under the external and visible images.

God the Logos is God of Revelation, Deus Revelatus, and everything that is said about the Godhead in his relation with the world is said first of all about God the Logos. The Divine Logos is the beginning and the end goals for the world — αρχή καί τέλος — its creative and preservative force, the limit of all created strivings and "movements." And the world exists and stands precisely through this communion with the Divine Logos, through the Divine energies, through a kind of participation in the Divine perfections. At the same time it is moving towards God, towards God the Logos. The whole world is in motion, is striving. God is above movement. It is not he who is moving, but the created and roused world which he created which moves towards him. Here the thought is similar to that found in the Corpus Areopagiticum.

The problem of knowledge is to see and recognize in the world its first-created foundations, to identify the world as a great system of God’s deeds, wills, and prototypes. The mind must leave the perceptible plane, must liberate itself from the conventionalities of external, empirical cognition, and rise to contemplation, to "natural contemplation” — φυσική θεωρία — that is, to contemplation of “nature” in its last Divine definitions and foundations. For St. Maximus "contemplation" is precisely this search for the Divine Logos of existence, the contemplation of the Logos in creation as Creator and Founder. Again this is possible only through "ordeal." Only a transformed mind can see everything in the Logos and begin to see the light of the Logos everywhere. The Sun of Truth begins to shine in the purified mind, and for the latter everything looks different.

It is not becoming for man to insolently avoid these indirect paths of knowledge and willfully force his way to the Unap — proachable and Uncontainable. Spiritual life has its gradualness. "Contemplation" is the highest stage in spiritual coming-into-existence, in spiritual birth and growth. It is the penultimate — and unavoidable — stage on the very threshold of mysterious frenzy which enraptures the soul in the transsubstantiated darkness of the Trinnitanan reality. And conversely Revelation is a kind of step down from the "natural mystery" of the Godhead, from the fullness of the Divine Trinity to the heterogeneity and multitudi — nousness of creation. Following St. Gregory and Pseudo-Dionysius, St. Maximus speaks of a charitable effusion or imparting of Good — a Neoplatonic image (see Origen on the Logos as "One and Many").

The path of Revelation and the path of knowledge correspond to one another. It is a single path, but it leads in two directions — apocalypsis and gnosis; descent and ascent. And knowledge is man’s reply, man’s response. Cognition of nature as God’s creation has its own special religious significance. In contemplation the soul is pacified — but contemplation itself is possible through apatheia. A new motive is creatively introduced into the harmony of the cosmos.

The world is creatural that is, it was created and came into being, it was created by the will of God. The will of — God is God’s very relationship to the world in general, the point of contact and meeting. For St. Maximus, will always signifies a relationship to "something else." Properly speaking, God wills only about the world. One must not speak of an intra-Trinitarian will, for God’s will is always the indivisible will of the Holy Trinity.

According to St. Maximus the world’s createdness means first of all limitedness and finiteness — limited, because definite. The world is not without beginning, but begins. St. Maximus resol -utely objects to the conjecture about the world’s eternity, or its "co-eternity" with God — έ£ άϊδίον. Here he hardly had in mind only Proclus — see, for example, John Philoponus1 book On the Eternity of the World Against Proclus. St. Maximus, one must think, had Origen in mind as well. "Do not ask: How is it that, being eternally Good, God creates now? How and why is it so recent! Do not look into this."

This is a direct challenge to Origen’s quandaries: how can one imagine Divine nature to be "inactive and idle?" Is it possible to think that goodness at one time did not do good, and that Omnipotence had nothing? And does God really "becom" the Creator and begin to create? St. Maximus makes a strict distinction between God’s will about the world and the actual existence of the world. This will, of course, is from eternity — God’s eternal counsel. In no way, however, does this signify the eternity of the world itself — of the "nature" of the world. "The Creator drew out knowledge of everything which exists, which knowledge had preexisted in him from eternity, and realized it when he willed’’ The origin of the world is the realization of God’s eternal plan for it. In other words, it is the creation of the created substratum itself. "We say that he is not only the Creator of quality, but also of qualitized nature. It is for this reason that creations do not coexist with God from eternity."

St. Maximus emphasizes the limitedness of creatures and, on the contrary, he recalls God’s limitlessness. "For the unstudied wisdom of the limitless essence is inaccessible to human understanding." The world is "something else," but it holds together with its ideal connections. These connections are the "actions" or the "energies" of the Logos. In them God touches the world, and the world comes into contact with the Godhead. St. Maximus usually speaks of Divine "logoi or words” — λόγοι. This is a very complex, polysemantic, and rich concept which goes back to the early theology of the Apologists and is continued by the Cappadocians, Evagrius Ponticus, and others — λόγοι σπερματικοί — in the Greek East, and St. Augustine continues the idea of Tertullian in the Latin West — rationes seminales. These are first of all Divine thoughts and desires, the pre-determinations of God’s will — προορισμοί — the “eternal thoughts of the eternal Mind" in which he creates or invents the world and cognizes the world. Like some creative rays, the "logoi" radiate from the Divine center and again gather in it. God the Logos is a kind of mysterious circle of forces and thoughts, as in the thought of Clement of Alexandria. And secondly, they are prototypes of things, "paradigms." In addition, they are dynamic prototypes. The "logos" of something is not only its "truth" or "sense," and not only its "law" or "definition" (oros), but primarily its forming principle. St. Maximus distinguishes the "logos of nature" or law, the "logos of providence" and the "logos of judgment” — λόγος της κρίσεως. Thus the fate of all things and everything is taken in, from their origin to the resolution of the world process.

In ontology St. Maximus is close to St. Gregory of Nyssa. For him the perceptible world is immaterial in its qualitative foundations. It is a kind of mysterious "compression" — or even "condensation" — of the spiritual world. Everything in the world is spiritual in its depths. One can recognize the fabric of the Logos everywhere. There are two planes in the world: the spiritual or that which is comprehended by the mind — τα νοητά, and the perceptible or corporeal. There is a strict and precise correspondence between them. The perceptible world is not a passing phantom, the disintegration or disparagement of reality, but belongs to the fullness and integrity of reality. It is an image, a “type” — τύπος — or symbol of the spiritual world. In essence, the world is united and one, "for the whole spiritual world is mysteriously and symbolically — "in symbolic eidos” — reflected in the perceptible world — τυπόυμενος φαίνεται — for those who know how to see. The perceptible world by its foundations — τοΐς λόγοις — is entirely contained in the world which is comprehended by the mind — ένυπάρχων. Our world consists of that world, its logoi. And that world consists of ours, which has images — τοις τύποις?"

The connection or link between the two worlds is unbreakable and non-blending. St. Maximus defines it as an "identity through hypostases." "The world comprehended by the mind is found in the perceptible world, as the spirit is in the body, while the perceptible world is joined with the world comprehended by the mind like the body is joined with the soul. Both worlds comprise a single world, as a single man is comprised of a soul and a body."

By itself the "material essence" — that is, matter — is the beginning of "non-existence" — μη ον. However, it is entirely permeated with “spiritual logoi" and phenomena which are well reinforced in the comprehension of the mind, in "noumena." To that extent the whole material world is in communion with the Logos, and only through this communion does it quit non-existence. The reality comprehended by the mind exists outside of time. This does not, however, mean “in eternity” but rather “in the ages” — εν αίώνι. The reality comprehended by the mind is not without beginning, but “originates existence in the ages” — εν αΐώνι. It begins to be, originates, starts, comes into existence from non-existence, but it is not put an end to through destruction. God the Creator grants it indestructibility. In this lies the "non-finiteness" and "timelessness" of mind-comprehended existence — that is, the fact that it cannot be captured in time. However, εν αιώνι in no way ever means aei. St. Maximus defines it thus: "Eon is time without movement, and time is eon measured by movement." For all that, their mutual correspondence and commensurability — "symmetricalness," writes St. Maximus — is not removed. The genuine eternity of the Godhead is non-commensurate with the eons. Here, any "how" or "when" is unquestionably inapplicable.

At the top of the created ladder stands the angelic world — the world of pure spirits. St. Maximus speaks of the angelic world in the same way as does the Corpus Areopagiticum, and he does not say very much. It is not the angelic world which is the focus of creation, precisely because the angels are incorporeal — only the fallen spirits are drawn into matter by virtue of their impious lust and passion.

Only man, who actually closes both worlds in himself — the spiritual, "incorporeal" world and the material world — can be the focus of creation. This thought is developed from St. Gregory of Nyssa. In his doctrine about man St Maximus expresses the symbolic motif with special force. By virtue of his bi-unity man is primarily a symbolic being. The principle of mutual symbolic reflection of some parts of the world into others is very characteristic of St. Maximus’ whole system. Essentially, it is nothing more than the principle of harmony and concord we see in Pseudo-Dionysius. In St. Maximus1 thought, however, it is greater than dynamism. Concord is given and assigned. The world is harmonious, but it must be even more harmonious and self-disciplined. This is the task of man, who has been placed at the center point of creation. This is the content of the created process. Potentially the whole world is reflected and, as it were, inscribed in created reason — here is based the possibility for knowledge, for cognition in general.

By itself, however, human reason can cognize nothing. The possibility of cognition is realized only in an efficacious relationship with the external world. St. Maximus always lays stress on man’s connection with his surroundings because he sees in man a microcosm, the middle and focus of created existence in general.

Man’s goal lies in embracing the whole world, in union — ένωσις, and in uniting it in himself, in re-uniting it with the Logos which has contained from eternity the life-giving foundations of all kinds of existence. Man must unite everything in himself and through himself unite with God. He has been called to this from his creation, and in this summons is the mystery of God-Manhood.

Man is created as a microcosm — "a small world in a great one." The mystery of creation is revealed in man. At the same time it is man who is a living image of the Logos in creation. Man is an image of God and in him are mysteriously concentrated all the Divine forces and energies which are revealed in the world. He himself must become a "mental world." By his very arrangement man is called to deification and to a process whereby the deification of all creation is accomplished precisely in him. For the sake of this, the created world was "thought up" and created.

First of all, man is summoned to unite. He must take away and extinguish in himself all "divisions of created nature" — "divisions" — διαιρέσεις, not "differences,” the foundation of which are in the Logos. Here the influence is from Philo’s doctrine of λόγος-το μευς. In himself man must overcome the division of sexes, for in his destiny he is one — "united man." In this respect St. Maximus is reminiscent entirely of St. Gregory of Nyssa and, together with St. Gregory, he rejects the Origenist supposition about the pre-existence of souls. Man was never "incorporeal” — άσαρκος or ασώματος, although by its nature the soul does not depend on the body — and is therefore imperishable — and the soul possesses a capability for cognition of God which is equal to that of the angels.

But man is not a soul inserted in a body — he is not composed of soul and body. The soul arises and is born along with the body. From the beginning man was created as he is now — perhaps "in foreknowledge" of the fall, as in the thought of St. Gregory of Nyssa and in Nemesius of Emesa’s On Human Nature [περι φύσεως άνθρώπου]. Nemesius’ book, incidentally, was often quoted as St. Gregory of Nyssa’s πepί κατασκευήw ανθρώπου. Nemesius’ work was heavily used by St. John of Damascus and by Latin medieval theologians, especially by Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas.

Without sin, however, the lower would be subordinated to the higher. Sin destroyed this possible and originally intended symphony and harmony. Disharmony began — and in it is all the poignancy of the fall — for it is a direct antithesis to man’s calling. Man had to unite the whole world in himself, and direct the whole totality of his powers to God. Through a realization of a genuine hierarchy and coordination of the cosmic forces, man should have turned the whole world into an integral and united organism. Then inundating streams of grace would have poured forth over the world, and God would have appeared entirely in everything, giving creation immutable and eternal bliss.

It is this goal which was not fulfilled. The fall broke the chain of existence — into the world came death, which disunites and decays. This did not alter the plan and structure of the world. The tasks remained the same. Unrealized through the creation of the first man, it is settled by Divine force, through the "renewal of nature," in the New Adam, in the Incarnation of the Logos.

It is characteristic of St. Maximus that he judges the Old Adam by the New Adam. He judges the "beginning" by the "end" — "teleologically," as he himself observes. He judges and divines man’s calling by the completeness of the God-Man. For human nature was predestined to it from the beginning, according to God’s original plan and original will. In this sense, man is mainly a Revelation of God. This is the created likeness of the Logos. This points out the Incarnation of the Logos beforehand as the fulfillment of God’s eternal counsel on the world. And in the image of Christ are combined the fullness of the Godhead and the fullness of creation. According to St. Maximus the Incarnation of the Logos enters into God’s original will in the creation of the world. God’s wisdom distinguishes creatures, while Divine Love ioins them together, and to God. The Logos becomes flesh, becomes man, and creation ascends to a likeness of God.

"Incarnation" and "deification" — σάρκωσiw και θέωσιw — are two linked movements. In a certain sense the Logos is always becoming incarnate, and in everything, for everything in the world is a reflection of the Logos, especially in man, who was placed on the edge of the world as the receiver of God’s grace. The Incarnation of the Logos crowns God’s descent into the world, and creates the possibility for the opposite movement. God becomes a man, becomes incarnate, through his love for man. And man becomes God through grace, is deified through his love for God.

In love originates the "beautiful inter-revolution" — καλή άντιστροφή. Christ the God-Man is the beginning and the end of all oikonomia — the center and the focus of all ages and all kinds of existence. Divine oikonomia is independent of human freedom, of its choices and concord, for it is God’s initial creative plan. And it would have been realized even apart from the fall. "The Logos became flesh" not merely for redemption. In actual history God’s supervision is realized in a fallen and dissolute world, and the God-Man proves to be the Redeemer, the Sacrificial Lamb.

The history which has come about is the history of a fallen world which has been restored from the fall, which has been healed of evil and sin. But the mystery of the God-Man, the mystery of Divine Love is wider and deeper than redemptive mercy. The whole Revelation is the Incarnation of God, and the Incarnation of the Logos. In this sense the whole Revelation is anthropomorphic. This relates directly to the Scriptures. They are all written about him — about Christ the God-Man, not only about the Logos. Therefore, a direct and literal understanding of the Scriptures is insufficient and even wrong. For history itself is only a symbol which appears and covers spiritual reality. The same also applies to the liturgy, where every action is a mystery, which symbolically signifies and realizes definite events in the invisible "mind-comprehended" plan. Therefore, understanding the Scriptures literally and directly is like murdering Christ, who resides under the letter of the Scriptures. And it is belated Judaism — indeed, the "letter" of the Law is abolished with the arrival of truth and grace. Literalism in exegesis is Judaistic insensitivity to the Incarnation. For, on the whole, the Scriptures are a kind of Incarnation of the Logos. This is the "sense, the force of all meaning and images of the Scriptures, and the cognition of visible and invisible creatures." The wise fathers who were anointed by the Spirit learn directly from the Logos. From the Logos also come the spiritual illuminations of the ancient patriarchs and all the saints. Thus St. Maximus partly revives the ancient idea of the "seeds of the Logos."

St. Maximus’ whole doctrine about the knowledge of God is essentially Christocentric. First, the whole problem of knowledge is to recognize the realized God-Man as the basic theme of created existence and life. Second, knowledge itself is possible only because God the Logos descends in certain cognitive images, as a forewarning of his pre-willed Incarnation. Man is created in God’s image, and therefore the truth is in man’s image.