COLLECTED LECTURES of Archpriest John Garcia

 

CONTENTS:   Forward   |   Prologue   |   From East to West  (June 2004)  |   Prophets  (October 1999)  |  Synergy and Revelation  (February 2000)  |   St. Paul’s Theology  (October 2000) |   Song of Songs (Asma asmatwn)  (October 2001)  |   Joyful Light (Φώς ιλαρόν)  (October 2001) |   Johannine Scriptures   |   Uncreated Light  (February 2004) |   Foundations of Theology  (June 2004)

 

 

Forward

 

The COLLECTED LECTURES first appeared in print in Catalonian under the title Miscel· lania.  A second edition came out in the fall of 2001.  The contents of both editions were identical with some exceptions.   In an effort to round out the cycle of Old Testament themes which began with “Prophets,” the second edition enhances the collection with three additional titles: “Song of Songs  (Asma asmatwn)”, “From East to West”, and “Foundations of Theology” presented in 2004 at the annual conference in Barcelona.

 

 

Prologue to the First Edition

 

The reader should find five lectures contained herein.  Or better yet, “chats” (as Father John likes to call them).  Each one of these “chats” was delivered at the Barcelona School of Orthodox Theology, sometime between 1999 and 2003.  Their contents include prophetology, pauline theology and the johannine scriptures.

 

Special attention has been paid to echoing the voice of the “oral tradition.”  Wishing to faithfully transmit the inflection of what was said, we have not attempted to fit their contents to a more formal or academic register.  This would undoubtedly betray the spirit of those sessions at the Barcelona School.

 

Though the themes examined herein may at first glance appear unrelated, one underlying thread unifies them: the practical needs of the School.  In other words, each “chat” explores concrete needs, which flowed from the very breath of the participants who, week after week, every Thursday evening gathered for vespers and discussion.  The narrative, thus, attempts to mark the process of ripening and the flavor of the fruits gathered by those whose work is reflected in the School and in this edition.  For this reason, our collection opens by examining revelation, its history and the history of revelation in history.  We are talking about the realness of the Word of God dawning on the creation and the Wordful apprehension which gives birth to God’s People.  As prototypes of this active listening, suffice it to recall how the elder Simeon and the prophetess Anna received Emmanuel in the temple on fortieth day of purification after our Lord’s nativity.  This reception is theandric synergy, the foundation of theology and orthodox praxis.  Once received, the Word inspires the transmission of kerygma or message:  St. Paul, for instance, was compelled to teach a newfound freedom in the living and lived experience in Christ.  Other sojourners along the Way would surely witness to the same light.  Some would call it the joyful light.  Others would compose vesperal hymns.  There is the testimony received from St. John.  And, from the Theologian, we would receive the beloved disciple’s epistles and gospel ― sign posts along our path.  Finally, we would deign to speak of uncreated light, divine energies, the godly teachings of St. Gregory Palamas.  It is Palamas, patron saint of our School of Orthodox Theology, whose protection we must now invoke because these COLLECTED LECTURES compel us to an active listening of revelation, the attitude which permeates our every endeavor at the Barcelona School of Orthodox Theology.

 

In a quote taken from one of the lectures contained herein, more than 30 years of research conducted by the Barcelona School may best be summed as follows:

 

‘The good news (godspell) is not legislation.  It is not ideology (which is another way of saying: subject to structured ideas and philosophical, scientific or historical proofs).  For this very reason, it will always lack the empirical evidence implicit in 2+2=4, the pythagorean theorem, the existence of the city of Barcelona.  As a matter of fact, our theology converges on, spirals around mystic experience as in a double helix formation.  Reason is eventually unraveled and defused in the depths of a mysterious world where no understanding is sufficient to say: ‘This is how…’  However, one will undoubtedly conclude: ‘It is so.’  Dogmatic, moral, catechetical, and theological formulae are no more valid than any other proven statement of fact.  Some empirical facts are undeniable even if they remain imperceptible to reason or to the human spirit.  They are undeniable even when they have been imposed by instinct.  They remain undeniable even when natural reason is unable to conjure up, not one, but no proofs at all.  And here, I am making a direct reference to the incarnation, the eucharist, the resurrection…  What good are theology, apologetics and the other subjects which we study at this School and in others like it?  Basically, academic discipline sums up the compendium of our natural understandings.  It coordinates, subordinates, and harmonizes our understandings without obliterating the darkness implicit in this transcendental truth: “and the Word was made flesh” (kai o LogoV sarx egeneto).’

 

 

―Father Deacon Josep L. Moya

25 May 2004

 

 

From East to West

Nowadays, we bandy the term “orthodox” about.  Whether unwittingly or wantingly, by using this term and in some antinomical sense, one may imply “catholic” as well.  In another context, one might suggest the use of the terms Eastern and Western, as a better choice of words.  Nonetheless, there are those who distort them.  Altogether appropriating such terms, they taint their meaning with covert insinuations.  And finally, they employ them as antinomical synonyms for factions: on the one hand, Greek-Slavic-Byzantine and on the other, Latin. 

 

In the discourse of proper edification: “orthodoxy” = right-faithful, while “catholicism” = universal.

 

Scratching beyond the surface and by means of a descriptive, nominalist and conceptual theology, a first reading of these terms might glean us other meanings: “right praise” and communion (oikumene-koinonia).  By means of a deeper reflection stemming from the theologian's praxis, we may discover “economy” and “theandric fullness.”

 

What is christianity, though?  It is neither Eastern nor Western.  Neither is it Greek nor Latin.  In the most profound sense of “economy of salvation,” “God praying himself in us,” and “theandric synergy,”   christianity is by nature a two-way movement of “yesses” deep within the “place of our liberty.”  Let us label these: praise (doxa) and communion (oikumene-koinonia).  They are instilled in us humans.  Lasting the all-embracing moment from Jesus Christ’s resurrection until the parousia, they utterly contain space in time (chronos).  And, in a general, all-inclusive way, they represent covenant (bereshit), as beginning (a)rx$=) until the end of days (te/loj ko/smou).  With the hindsight of an Adam which has not been fully made-spirit by the indwelling of our perpetual Pentecost ― by holiness itself ― space-time becomes mere continuum.  Yet, space-time is undoubtedly localized somewhere within the space of the Kingdom and trinitarian time (kairos).

 

Christianity holds on to one definitive, central, and mystical moment of tension (epektasis).  Both initial and final, it is expressed as paschal greeting: Christ is risen! Truly he is risen!  (CristoV anesti!  AliqoV anesti!)  The key concept (kerygma) is completely transmitted in this greeting.  As transmission, it is a message passed on as good news[1] (eu)aggeli/on).

 

Kerygma is poured forth unto the crucible of the “Age to Come”: the Church.  The Church’s immediate imperative is announcement of kerygma to the ends of the universe.  What is kerygma?  Who and what is the “Age to Come” we call Church?  Kerygma punctuates that Christ is risen, that in him we are made godly, and that his Church is the “Age to Come”.  Where trinitarian experience is communicated, communed, announced and shared, there is where we will find the Church.  For this reason, the sole head of the Mystical Body is Christ.  And the Holy Ghost is the sole minister of holiness.  In an analogy borrowed from the godly fathers who preceded us in the faith, the Spirit and Son are like both arms of the Eternal Father.  In their embrace, the only possible institution of the “Age to Come” becomes trinitarian.  This is the only type of institution the great Philanthrope, Christ, the Lover of mankind, intended for us.

 

Our humanity is enhypostatized to Jesus Christ’s own human nature.  This enhypostatization is the dynamic trait of our praxis.  Enhypostatization is the characteristic, fundamental trait of what we do.  It is the means and goal of everything we call christianity: the living and lived experience in Christ.  It is Christ in us through the Holy Ghost.  It is holiness.  Why qualify it, then, as orthodox christianity?  What is the point of using watered-down terms such as catholic christianity?  What about Greek or Slavic christianity?  And what exactly are Eastern and Western christians?

 

Should the experience differ based on any of these qualifiers?  Yes, on some personal level, it probably can.  For each human hypostasis, of course the experience can vary.  And yet, no.  The experience itself remains unchanged at the qualitative level.  This is because there is but one holiness.

 

Could the quality of the living and lived experience in Christ differ from East to West?  No, the synergy is the same.  The interchange is always one and the same operation of God in man, and the operations of men in God.  The experiences in se are not different.

 

At this point in our discussion, let us put aside practical, pneumatological and metahistorical jargon.  Let us turn the focus of our attention to formal, chronological and historical fact.  The foundation of kerygma is the event-horizon where, from age to age, tradition has constantly returned for nourishment: the apostles, the apostolic fathers, the apologetes, the martyrs, the godly fathers of the Church.  Let us speak of all of them now, on through the first millenium.

 

From the start, kerygma underwent philosophical scrutiny in a paramount effort to understand it in light of human reason.  This scrutiny was parenthetical to kerygma but had significant effects on it.  Gospel revelation became subject to multiple receptions, altogether alien in some cases to the legacy handed down by the apostles and the godly fathers of the Church.  In the heart of the “Age to Come,” differences converged, particularly during the councils of Nicea and Constantinople.  The problem revolved around different understandings of christology and pneumatology.  In spite of ecumenical dialogue and a hard-fought agreement, once the dust had finally settled, reflection on the marian mysteries got underway, almost immediately.  At issue was what to call Mary: God-bearer (theotokos) or christ-bearer (christokos)?  This intermission simply facilitated a change in cast: exit the arians, Alexander, Athanasios, Osios and the cappadocians; usher in Nestorios and Cyril.  At this point, it became altogether evident:.  The council of Ephesus must be inequivocably bound up in both Nicea and Constantinople.  The person of Mary as Mother of God was acclaimed by all as a blessing cup of divine-human antinomy.  Subsequently, the council of Chalcedon, taking it one qualitative step further, reaffirmed: “Truly one Man-Logos (AnqropoV-LogoV) without confusion, admixture, absorption or division.”  Theologically, this had real implications for the “Age to Come.”  Christology, pneumatology and ecclesiology collided in one, sole experience: a renewing and on-going Pentecost until the parousia.

 

The second council at Constantinople would, years later, reiterate this re-awakening in the Church.

 

Profoundly rooted in receptio in ecclesia of every truth which had until then been proclaimed in the spirit of conciliarity, the next council “Quinisext in Trullo” precisely defined the modus operandi.  Hence, the inner workings of holiness, or discipline ecclesiæ, can be no other than a reflection of the Holy Ghost resting upon his earthly assembly of the saints.

 

Sadly, some portions of the “Age to come” would not receive the consensum patrum.  Other portions would never even get news of it.  Around the year 681, the rise of iconoclasm distinguished itself for its atrocities: debates, persecutions, atrocities, division.  In the end, the triumph of orthodoxy was imposed.  Justice, economy and communion (oikumene-koinonia) won out.  It was the “triumphant age” through the action of the Holy Ghost.  And it seemed to represent the triumph of tradition.  This was a short-lived victory however, given the sad events of the year 1054.  The “Age to Come” would suffer the loss of communion (koinonia) which may still be felt even today.  In spite of this loss, unity was never been compromised, however.  You see, dear ones, there is but one Bride of Christ.  Loss of communion (koinonia) has wreaked its havoc upon us, though.  As a result, it has taught us how to endure disunion, estrangement, love-loss, and inevitably even open, out-and-out hostility.

  

How much can we water down the experience of the God-man (Anthropos-Logos)?  How far must we fall in order to justify the scalpel which cuts away from the Body of Christ?  Lord, have mercy!  Lord, have mercy!  Lord, have mercy!  And then, one Humberto Cardinal da Silva Candida, a prince of the Church no less, would dare slap a bull of excommunication upon the holy altar of Hagia Sophia, severing himself from his Byzantine brothers:

 

Roma locuta, causa finita

Quid sicut nos? [2]

 

In so doing, this accursed Nahash,[3] the very stench of satan’s brimstone, did spoil philanthropy among men of goodwill, gnawing away at the bonds of peace bestowed upon us by the Lord himself, Jesus Christ who instructed us in this way: “It is peace I give you!”  This unholy prelate squandered away the love of mankind for God, tarnishing the brilliance of theandric experience by imprisoning it in juridical categories alien to kerygma and the tradition of the godly fathers.

 

Did his villainy affect the living and lived experience in Christ, though?  It did not.  Did it hinder the quality of pneumatological experience?  It did not.  Whether for historical, heretical, juridical, or disciplinary reasons, many are definitely the excuses for not re-establishing communion (koinonia) through love: I.e., the Bulgarian controversy, the Serbian question, the filioque, differences in ecclesiastical practice, claims of primacy.  

 

Let us move on, however.  Let us zoom in on the events of Leo IX’s and Gregory VIII’s lives and the times of St. Photios and Michael Cerularios, the period between 1054 and 1204.  The “Age to Come” was beseiged by the fourth crusade, the fall of Constantinople, the regime called a Latin constantinopolitan empire, and the a posteriori appointments and dictatorships of the so-called Latin patriarchs.  All of these are the result of a loss of trinitarian experience in that “place of its revelation in fullness.”  Here we see how, at the expense of truth, what was nothing more than a juridical, ecclesial institution managed to enslave the “Church as experience of Christ” for the sake of usurping Christ himself!

 

The immediate result: No more synods or ecumenical councils could be convened.  No synodal or conciliar agreement could be reached.  Reduced to this, a portion of the Flock would be governed by decree.  The consequences have repercussions for us even today.  A thousand years later, the current affairs of this portion, with some exceptions, may best be described as a state of spiritual coma.

 

In the meantime, another portion of the Flock did not go unscathed.  We are referring here to the Greek cismatics (as we are called in the Eternal City, that former capital of by-gone empires of whom only the ashes remain).  While preserving the brand of the tradition of the apostolic Church, we must lick at the wounds of our predicament, which is displeasing to God and blemishes the countenance of his Bride.

 

Do not fret, though!  The timely and profitable outpouring of the life-giving Spirit of God came upon us all at once in the fullness of time for the benefit of humankind.  Many other peoples, among these the Slavs, were baptized.  They increased in age and stature and progressed in holiness, in a most extraordinary fashion, in secret, isolated from Constantinople, blossoming into the notion of the third and final Rome.

 

So, where exactly should this mythic Rome be located today?  In Rome?  In Constantinople?  In Moscow?  In fact, isn’t the imperial capital today actually located somewhere else altogether?

 

Back to our narrative, in the West, in the ego-worshipping frenzy of his quest for power, the bishop of Rome donned a triple tiara which symbolized his temporal, spiritual and moral authority.  This triple crown was an unconscious reminder and no less than a satanic substitution of the true icon of the Triune God in his Church.  Remember, it is the Bridegroom who takes on a Bride; the members of the wedding party rejoice for him, but they do not try to replace him.  In an effort to justify the pope’s affrontery, the gospel text was deliberately taken out of context.  What had been super petrum no longer implied super petram but instead per Petrum.

 

Excesses wreaked their havoc and brought about the upheaval of the Reformation and its counterpart, the Counter-Reformation.  The seamless garment of Christ was ripped asunder.  By smothering the faith under a juridical patina, the council of Trent proved an utter failure in its attempts at uniformity and homogeneity.  The ecclesial institution became entrenched in its unjustifiable policies.  Shameful indeed are the unilateral promulgations of marian neo-dogmas and the nonsense disguised as papal infallibility.  On the other hand, might the “reformation” of the Greek East have consisted of “protecting” the tradition of the godly fathers and the praxis of the first centuries intact until the present day?[4]  In the most human sense, the East was not exempted from the trials and tribulations at play in the very heart of its own ecclesial institution.  The East closed in on itself.  So cut off was it, that it came to forget altogether about the other.  It refrained from taking decisions and convening universal councils.  These types of watering down and, in some cases and moments, the complete loss of “ecclesial common sense,” loss of the indwelling particular to the communion (oikumene-koinonia) experience, is nothing other than a defect of holiness in man who in his folly, either consciously or unconsciously, pretends to instruct God, and even substitute God.  This behavior repeats itself, once and again.  It hinders the advent of the parousia.  The Lover of mankind issues his philanthropic call, yet the beloved tarries.  Amin.

 

Weak approximations, fruit of a too often sterile ecumenism, are no substitute for committed and dedicated christians taking ownership:  Ownership alive with the fragrant spirit of absolute penance, free from the spirit of pride, conceit and self-importance.  Ownership expressed by the most ardent supplication made possible by the Holy Ghost, that he alone may minister to us that which our spirit most desires: life in Christ.  That in this living and lived experience each of us may be remade as one, holy (godly), catholic and apostolic.  One in the one Church of Christ.  Godly through the Holy Ghost, in Christ who alone is holy.  Catholic through communion.  Apostolic as icons of everything the apostles proclaimed through their martyrdom, or definitive witness.

     

 

Prophets

 

Last year, while examining mariology, we touched upon parallel subjects: patristics, Old and New Testament scripture, church history, and spirituality.  Following a similar game-plan, this year we will focus on prophetology.  Yet, this subject should prove to be to be inextricably bound up in last year’s mariology coursework.  Thus, the Mother of God is the fulfillment of holiness.  The prophets, as mouthpieces of God, announce holiness in his name. 

 

The study of prophetism goes beyond the texts officially designated as holy scripture.  This is because the phenomenon we call prophetism reached beyond the geographical confines of Israel, a fact not lost on the other neighboring peoples of Israel’s cultural milieu.  Furthermore, Israel’s prophetism is much more far-reaching in time: thus, we can not understand the prophet if we are unclear about what revelation is.  The first chapter of Genesis is a description of the moment revelation began.  Revelation continued on through the New Testament, as we glean from the transfiguration accounts or Jesus’ sermon in the synagogue.  For salvation history, the phenomenon of the prophets is one of the cornerstones of revelation.

 

Orthodox tradition, as far as the understanding and the experience of revelation is concerned, has its starting point and is rooted in biblical and patristic sources and the life of the Church.  Our theology is by nature biblical, liturgical and patristic.

 

For a general overview, as far as revelation is concerned, we must refer to the Old Testament.  We must (re)turn to those “moments of tension” which make up the history of revelation.  In the most remote of these periods, revelation revolved around theophanies and omens.  Examples of this are the historical “moment” of revelation called Genesis; the theophany at Mambre; the annunciation of Isaac; the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; the covenants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  This is why the high priest concealed two instruments for divination in his efod: the urim and the tumim which aided him in summoning oracles and channeling the will of God.  Dreams and their interpretation were crucial at this moment in revelation.

 

The covenant on Sinai would become, however, a key turning point in the history of revelation.  While reaching into the past, at the same time, it became the fulfillment and the perfecting of everything before it.  Little by little, the specters and oracles were distilled into sayings (debarim) and these sayings are grouped together to form a code (torah).

 

The term prophetism refers to yet another turning point, a new era in the history of revelation.  In this new era, the word absolutely takes on its own protagonism.  The book of Deuteronomy witnesses to a moment in revelation characterized by pure ordinance, the commandments of Moses, the law of Sinai.  This gives way to decrees wrapped up in liturgical rubrics, promises and threats useful for inspiring esteem and respect for the law (torah).  Simultaneously, Deuteronomy encompasses other moments in revelation.  These we will recognize as Judges, Samuel, Kings; and we will label them the historical literature.  Each of these moments reminds the people of Israel of its achievements and failures.  This literature would prove indicative of the spiritual state in which Israel found itself with respect to the covenant.  The prophecy of Nathan[5] brought the theology of covenant (berith) to a close.  After this, revelation began to reflect upon the theology of promise, a theology of the future, of the age to come.

 

It was during the moment in revelation history called the exile that the living word of the prophets (debarim ha nabiim) began to take on written form.  Let us flashback to the image of Ezekiel (in chapter 2) ripping up the scroll of parchment and eating it, in an effort to take in every nuance of its teaching so as to digest it before proceeding to preach its contents.  Second Isaiah (Cc. 40-55) represents another key moment in which the dynamic sense of God’s Word (dabar) most emphasized its simultaneously cosmic and historic significance.

 

Next, the wisdom literature represents yet another turning point.  With deep roots in the Persian and Hellenic periods, Israel’s experience gained greater prominence at this time.  The experiences of Job, Ecclesiasticus, Ecclesiastes, and Wisdom complement the Proverbs.  During this period, the lived experience of communities dispersed throughout Greece, Egypt, Babylon and Phoenicia was compiled and assimilated by Israel.  At this point, Israel takes ownership of these experiences, makes them part of its own human experience.  And this lived experience becomes useful to God in revealing man himself to man.  In Greece, this revelation would eventually become philosophy.

 

Compiled over many generations, the book of Psalms marked the period in the history of revelation most notorious for man’s response to God.

 

The slow process of fixing the text may well represent another turning point.  This moment may best be characterized by the following qualities: timelessness, eternity, indispensability, and solidity.  Yet, care must be taken to avoid losing some of the dynamism revelation exhibited during the era of the prophets.  Up-dating and applying the Word of God to each new situation which arises in salvation history requires a contant rereading of tradition, intelligent discernment and above all godly insight in the light of the Holy Ghost.  In every case, the orthodox approach to understanding the holy scripture is always its reading in the Church, which as the godly fathers tell us, is a guarantee against losing its dynamism.

 

By transitioning from the Old Testament to New, we embark upon the ultimate turning point in revelation with its own complexity, wealth and tonality, far superior than the Old Testament’s.  The epistle to the Hebrews, for example, begins thus:  “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:1-3).  Christ is the pinnacle, the fullness of revelation.  For this purpose, the New Testament introduces a series of new terms which refer to this economy, this “new moment” in revelation:

 

'apoka/luyij,  epi/faneia, kh/rugma, h( marturi/a, eu)aggeli/on,   didaskali/a,  epi/stasij, h( gnw=sij, musth/rion, o( lo/goj, h( a)lh/qeia .

 

The Hebrew terms dabar / debarim are replaced by their Greek equivalents o( lo/goj  /  oi( logoi.  The synoptic tradition reflects the moment of preaching, the proclamation of the gospel, teaching, revealing.  Christ as rabbi preaches and teaches (hrussei=n kai\ didaskalei=n).  The tradition consists of kerygma and didaskalia : announcement (kerygma) because it proclaims the dynamic attributes of the Word of God; learning (didaskalia) because it bundles the noetic attributes of the Word of God.  In the Acts of Apostles, Christ entrusts the mission to go forth preaching and teaching.  The apostles are witnesses of his resurrection.  The moment of revelation is an apostolic activity.  St. Paul adds to two more new terms:  mystery, musth/rion (mysterion) and gospel, eu)aggeli/on (evangelion).  He speaks of healing, h( swthri/a (sotiria), a divine plan revealed to us in the good news (godspell).  In St. John, we come across the equation:

Jesus Christ = only begotten Son of the Father = Logos.

St. John’s gospel prologue is the “grand feast of the Logos.”  He too contributes new termology: witness, h( marturi/a (martyria) used three times and to witness,  marturei=n (martyrein) used thirty-three times.  For St. John, speaking is an act of giving witness.  For him, revelation is the Word of God made flesh and made possible by the flesh.

 

In the subsequent era of the godly fathers of the Church, there are further moments:  the Didache, St. Clement of Rome, St. Polycarp, Papies, St. Ignatios of Antioch, St. Justin martyr, St. Athanasios, Theofilos of Antioch, the epistle to Diognetos, St. Irenæus of Lyon; the alexandrian fathers: Origen and Sts. Clement, Athanasios, and Cyril; the cappadocian fathers: Sts. Basil the Great, Gregory Nazienzen, Gregory of Nyssa, and John Chrysostom; the Western fathers: Tertullian, St. Cyprian, and the Venerable Agustine.

 

These, then, are the moments of tension (epektasis) which are the cornerstones of time (chronos); this is the history of revelation.  They are our roots and exemplify the importance and weight of the Word of God present among his people.  Having examined the etymology of the term dabar, we discover that it is pregnant with meaning, both in its terminological use and parameters.  The word (dabar) is that which issues forth from the mouth (Num 30:13); that which flows from the lips of man (Jer. 17: 16).  The word (dabar) begins in the heart, though.  It expresses or externalizes what has been uttered already in the heart (Gen. 17:7) or it manifests what fills the heart (Ps. 14:1).  It is not simply the discourse of abstract ideas; it is loaded with meaning.  It holds noetic content which is a result of the heart focusing on an object, the upwelling of the thought harbored therein.  At the same time, dabar refers to the attitude of the speaker, that which rising from the very soul fertilizes the spoken word, conceiving it as the chosen word.  What we mean is that dabar is the bodily gesture which expresses the content of the heart, in search of the wholeness which originates in the soul which has created it.  If the word belongs to a strong-willed speaker, it will express a greater reality than the same word uttered by a weak-willed speaker.   The speaker puts a bit of himself in the listener.  For this reason, the spoken word makes real; it is a prolongation of the heart’s energy.  That is why we must ‘apprehend’ the Word of God.  For this particular reason, both the Old Testament and contemporary mosaism coincide in repeating “Listen, O Israel!” (Shema Israel).  This phrase marks the starting point of judaism.  For the People of God, the Word implies a double meaning of noetic and dynamic value.  On the one hand, it expresses thought, intention, planning, and decision; being intelligible discourse, it sheds light on the sense of events, gives names to objects (a name is the intelligible reality it designates).  On the other hand, the word is an active force, a potential which fulfills what it means, it makes real everything the speaker thinks and decides in his heart.  It is the word of desire, promise, or intimidation because its effect endures through the process it sets in motion.  Its efficaciousness is greater depending on the strength of will which engenders it.  Or better yet, depending on the depth of the well from which it springs.  Now, if such is the case with mere humanity, do consider the will of God in creation: this is the unconditional love of God, or even the unlimited hatred of the evil one.  The word conceives, releases energy which leaves its speaker; witness to its efficacy results in the changes of name which typify a new beginning, a new vocation (Gen. 17:5), as well as blessings and curses.  The word’s realism is witness to by the fact that dabar refers to, not only the word but the holder of the word, the reality or event from which it originates.  The word is a driving force with dynamism rooted in the speaker’s own dynamism; without differentiating itself from the speaker, it is a mode (modus) of his existence and action: this is why the word reveals, no one speaks without revealing something.

 

The word of tradition is the noetic and dynamic Word of God, spoken truth and healing action.  It created the universe.  It reveals the Creator’s will to humankind.  The Word of God is the ineffable action of the One who utters it.  For this reason, we who are God’s creatures and distinct from his essence, can by his revelation and divine grace partake in him.  This is the pillar of St. Gregory Palamas’ distinction ― the very same Gregory Palamas and patron saint of our Barcelona School of Orthodox Theology who said:  God, while being absolutely incomprehensible, may be completely “apprehended”[6].

 

 

Synergy and Revelation

The mysterious intercourse of God and man

 

We began this academic year exploring the prophets and the depths of prophetism, focusing on these themes in their natural context: revelation.  The prophets of the seventh and eighth centuries marched past our review stand.  We studied their peculiarities and affinities, their messages and advice for Judah and Israel, their omens for other nations, their condemnation of the corruption prevalent in the religious, political and social arenas of their time, their proclamation of justice of God, their foreshadowing of God’s infinite mercy (tiferet).  We also listened to their warnings about the severity of Israel’s forthcoming punishment and tribulation.  And yet, they did not neglect to call us to repentence and penance.  They predicted the destruction of Jerusalem but also its restoration; the love of God for the holy men and women who justified the continuity of the covenant (berith) between God and his people; and Isaiah’s prophesy of the definitive messianic event: Emmanuel.

 

The dabar-debarim binome must be the focal point and groundworks of revelation unfolding in time (chronos), or history of humanity, without losing the theandric synergy suggested by the convergence of divine time (kairos) upon profane time (chronos).  Its end result is intercourse, the moment of evangelisms, the annunciation of the archangel Gabriel to Mary, the consent and predisposition of Mary ―― these represent the dawn of a new testament, a new covenant, a new bond.

 

Endeavoring to understand certain lacunas of revelation within the context of the theophanies in each one of their respective historical circumstances may imply for orthodox theological study either a series of bewildering and puzzling episodes or a (re)turn to the basic and transcendent roots of revelation.  Here, we are not just referring to a laundry list of trivial pursuits, I.e. during the era of the levitical theocracy, utensils for divination, namely the urim and the tumim, were concealed within the high priest’s garment (efod). We mean an understanding based on this data that the sayings of the prophets (debarim) likewise contained the divine Word (dabar) in some way.

 

Let us examine three particular types of lacunas: the space/time of revelation, Israel’s peculiarities, and the inner workings of revelation.

 

The space/time of revelation

 

Let us focus on Israel’s idea of time.  Contrary to its neighbors, it is the only people to conceive of time in linear terms.  This meant that time had a beginning, a past, a present, and a future.  What’s more, each of these was oriented towards an event horizon: the One who as alpha and omega passes over and returns, accomplishing the working of divine time (kairos) within profane time (chronos).    

 

The moment and the place of revelation were no longer limited to the chronological and geographic, to a state, to a “holy city” which aspires to be the most fitting, or kairiwthroV (kairiotyros).  The distance covered is the opening of the heart and the reception of the time called passover (pascha).  Viewed from this side of the New Testament, the law (torah), the writings (ketubim), and the prophets (nebiim) are oriented towards that event horizon called the crown of dogma by the Church and best exemplified in the Mary, the Mother of God: the experience of the Holy Ghost.

 

Israel’s idiosyncresies

 

Another lacuna in tradition’s understanding of revelation has been Israel’s idiosyncracies.  Why did God reveal himself to Israel?  Why not to some other peoples?  The Old Testament lays the groundwork for the notion of Israel as God’s chose people.  Building on this, St. Paul distills the new dimension of the New Testament Israel which he likewise styles the people of God.  In the period just prior to Nicea, Origen refers to the christian community in Adversum Celsum as a closed elite and as the successor to the people of Israel.  St. Paul disqualifies this notion, pointing out that there are no foreigners nor natives, no elites, there is only equality before God, where each is joined to the other by the bonds of mutual love.  It is in this understanding, in light of the New Testament and the contemplation of the incarnation and Mary, that we may approach the vision and the understanding that Israel did not receive a privilege above and beyond other nations.  Yet, because of its place in history, it found itself suddenly at the crossroads of divine time and divine space.

 

According to Genesis, the Holy Ghost flutters upon all nations from the very moment of creation.  How each peoples responds to the breath of the Spirit varies.  In the case of the ancient hindus, just after their mythological period, the response formulated was a psychological intent at ecological adaptation.  This type of response did not consider time as something to be borne.  Of course, this marks quite a distance from Israel’s approach to time.  Time is cyclical in India: a fundamental difference in theological maturity, in active listening to the Holy Ghost, and in response to God.  Thus, in response to certain syncretist tendencies which hope to equate christian prayer and the transcendental meditation of hindu philosophy, we must distinguish by saying that our brand of meditation is deeply penitential, but not psychological.

 

Turning our attention to the hellenized, Greek world, we will notice that their response was intellectual.  With the exception of Socrates (who introduced aspects of morality into his discourse), the focus of Greek mythology was on mathematical abstractions, ideas and the manipulation of complex syllogisms.  Thus, Greek gods behaved like men, or worse even.

 

In ancient Egypt, we return to the cyclical notion of time, characterized by the passage from world of the living to the world of the dead.  This dark world is a place where one’s possessions and belongs are deeded over so that the departed soul may be wanting in nothing.  During one brief period, we must take note of how the pharoah Akhenaton, who by replacing the cult of Amon, is thwarted in his attempt to introduce the monotheistic nuances of his conception of Athon.

 

Israel, however, is infused with the breath of the Spirit.  Its response is not psychological.  Nor does it conceive of a cyclical time (or eternal becoming).  Its response is not polytheistic, nor speculative in the realm of ideas.  It is anchored in praxis, in service.  What sort of a people renounces the comforts of Egypt to embark upon a quest through the wilderness?  And having received the law, builds a temple for it?  And in the confines of this temple, serves and responds to God through the transactions carried out between the levites and the people?  And fulfills its role as the mouthpiece of God unto the nations?  Christ takes flesh in order to serve within the parameters of this very type of Old Testament, ethical monotheism.  And Christ teaches: serve others as he himself has come to serve.  The Church exists to serve the world.  Thus, we were created for the exercise of the prophetic, royal and priestly service, the pilgrimage, which instructs and baptizes the nations.  We are Israel then, yet not an ethnic Israel.  We are prophets who speak out against all type of corruption.  The covenant is maintained for the sake of his godly ones; the true Israel is assembly of the godly.  Listen to God and be infused in thine hearts with his Word (dabar)!  By calling ourselves the people of God, we mean that we are that portion of the just ones pleasing to God.  We must renounce any and all elitisms, any and all notions contrary to service in perfect imitation of Christ.  Isaiah’s hymn of the suffering servant highlights the role of God’s holy ones, of christians in the Church.  To gain membership in this circle, we can not dispense with the experience of holiness: that praxis given us by the Holy Ghost.  Remember how tradition teaches that the four magi (not three) followed the Star to that cave of the incarnation.  Be assured!  The Star in question is the Holy Ghost guiding them.  In much the same way, Christ shocks the pharisees by associating with tax collectors, samaritans, gentiles, misfits, blasphemers and sinners.  He instructs us to go out and baptize, precisely because he has sheep from other flocks.  The incarnation was the definitive epiphany, or revelation, to all peoples not just to a certain few who happened to be there.  He availed himself of those who strove to be just, ordaining them to the role of older brothers called to preach, teach and baptize; as icons of the perfect servant, they are co-redeemers and aides, but not his surrogates.  Thus, the key for any peoples who fancies itself the chosen people is locked away in this “word-paradigm”:  service.   

 

The Inner-Workings of Revelation

 

Having clearly spelled out the time-space of revelation and the persons for whom it is intended, let us turn to the how of revelation.  Does God reveal himself suddenly?  Does revelation require theophanies, visions, grandiose pronouncements, sybils and oracles, trances and mediums, possessions?  Or can it happen in other ways?  In light of kerygma, the answer is clear.  For this, we must search the gospel of St. Luke (2: 22-38).  This account, proclaimed in the liturgical context of the feast of the meeting of the Lord in the temple[7], is particularly revealing and describes the inner workings, or the how, of God’s revelation to his people: in ordinary ways.  Without omitting the possibility that in the depths of our hearts, in that place of intimacy between God and man, other extraordinary forms of revelation may be had.  Such experiences, however, can never be supernatural: only God is the All-Supernatural, and the experience of God unfolds in our hearts.

 

So, the gospel proclaimed at the Divine Liturgy on the feast of the meeting of the Lord in the temple, begins:

 

“And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord; (as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord;) and to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.  And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him.  And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ.  And he came by the Spirit into the temple…”

 

From this account, would you say that the elder is possessed somehow?  Is he someone who suddenly achieves some sort of enlightenment?  Is he some sort of buddha?  A medium, perhaps?  Justice, hope and piety do not holiness make.  Thus, we are referring to a progressive revelation which requires a progressive holiness.  Furthermore, by this we mean: revelation + holiness ; holiness + revelation.  God goes out to meet man; man goes to meet God.  What is at issue here is the anthropology of our godly fathers: synergy between the Creator and the created.  This is God’s love of humankind, his divine philanthropy, and his image engraved in our hearts.  What we are talking about here, dear ones, is the practice of our (re)turn to this likeness.

 

“…and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law, then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.”

 

What is the catalyst?  What inspires Simeon’s song?  What does Simeon see?  He bears witness to the arrival of jewish parents who come to present their firstborn son, to offer him as a gift in the ritual of purification.  He acknowledges the life of the child and the attitude of the parents who offer to God what they have received only from God.  In their midst, Simeon recognizes the messiah.  At no time does God compromise Simeon’s intelligence; God sustains Simeon’s capacity to discern.  Who reveals?  The Holy Ghost, obviously.  Who receives revelation?  Adam, obviously.  Why does God reveal himself?  Because of his love for mankind (philanthropy).  Why does Adam take on the revelation?  Because of his love for God.  God reveals himself through man and in so doing, makes man holy.  God makes man a full partaker in the midst of his uncreated energies.   This is how man becomes “God in man.”[8]

 

“And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him.   And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

 

Simeon’s words were doubtlessly awe-inspiring for Joseph and Mary, the parents.  Even though she knew from the angel about Emmanuel, Mary seemed to marvel at the meaning of Simeon’s words.  Joseph had been forewarned by the angel as well.  Yet, in the realm of profane time (chronos), even the parents “lost” that knowledge.  Let us recall now that in certain prayers for intelligence, we ask for the clear vision to see or recognize that we are already in the economy of God with us (emmanuel).   

 

“…And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity; and she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.  And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.”

 

So, the prophetess Ana was there, as well.  What brand of prophesy did she specialize in?  Obviously, it was the prophecy of service.  She is the perfect icon of the servant of God.  She witnessed or prophesied through her service.  She had become liturgical through and through.  She had become (within the limits imposed by time prior to the resurrection) what each of us aspires to be.  She had become liturgy, itself.  She is the perfect icon of christian perfection.  Simeon the godly, infused with the Holy Ghost, and Ana the liturgist were both present.  Both were clearly beholden onto a scene from the good news.  And so, they proclaimed the beginnings of passover (pascha) to a lesser degree, but not unlike what we do when we say: Christ is risen!

 

It is not in vain that in the ancient West, the feast of the holy meeting of the Lord was called the Candelmas, the feast of light.  And it was custom to bless green candles at that time.

 

Glory to Thee, Christ our God, glory to Thee!

 

O Lord, make haste to help me for I have placed my trust in Thee!

  

 

St. Paul’s Theology

This term, we will be delving into the theology of St. Paul.  While considered by some as problematic (which is another way of saying that it is a touchy subject) because it is difficult to compartmentalize its subject matter systematically, pauline theology springs forth directly from the apostle’s Life, missionary exploits, voyages and such.  Therefore, it is more so an accounting of the fruits of his praxis, than the end result of the proper discourse of philosophical reasoning.

 

And yet, on a morphological and descriptive level, the New Testament consists of a biographical account of Christ contained in the gospels, followed by the biography of St. Paul contained in the Acts of the Apostles and those epistles attributed to him.  Thus, Paul represents the second half of the New Testament; he is half the New Testament.  His very preeminence within the New Testament canon is proof of the importance of pauline theology.

 

Before continuing on, we must emphasize that our theological tradition holds that the good news (gospel), its transmission, and its message (kerygma) do not constitute a philosophy of ideas or practices.  Nor is it law or custom.  It is neither a theoretical nor a cosmological system.  It does not constitute a school of thought, nor some kind of lifestyle or social movement.

 

The gospel is not an impersonal law as was the judaism of the pharisees; it does not impose “from above,” as does islam.  This type of legislation, code or morality is a death sentence whose only purpose is to maintain discipline.  To quote St. Paul, regardless of the intellectual conviction we may espouse as to its legitimacy, the law is no more than a “dead letter.”  You see, the personal conviction we call obligation proceeds from an interior wellspring, more intimate and warmer than the asepsis of the law.  It originates in the backstage of our very being.  It is vivified through contact with the experience of another reality which envelopes us.  This reality is the beginning and end of our existence and our reason for being.  And thus, it is a reality which is not external to our very self.  It transfigures us by faith, hope and love.  In other words, through the immanent, interior and personal impulses natural to us, this reality represents the true measure of humanity: our freedom.

 

The good news (godspell) is not legislation.  It is not ideology (which is another way of saying: subject to structured ideas and philosophical, scientific or historical proofs).  For this very reason, it will always lack the empirical evidence implicit in 2+2=4, the pythagorean theorem, the existence of the city of Barcelona.  As a matter of fact, our theology converges on, spirals around mystic experience as in a double helix formation.  Reason is eventually unraveled and defused in the depths of a mysterious world where no understanding is sufficient to say: ‘This is how…’  However, one will undoubtedly conclude: ‘It is so.’  Dogmatic, moral, catechetical, and theological formulae are no more valid than any other proven statement of fact.  Some empirical facts are undeniable even if they remain imperceptible to reason or to the human spirit.  They are undeniable even when they have been imposed by instinct.  They remain undeniable even when natural reason is unable to conjure up, not one, but no proofs at all.  And here, I am making a direct reference to the incarnation, the eucharist, the resurrection…  What good are theology, apologetics and the other subjects which we study at this School and in others like it?  Basically, academic discipline sums up the compendium of our natural understandings.  It coordinates, subordinates, and harmonizes our understandings without obliterating the darkness implicit in this transcendental truth: “and the Word was made flesh” (kai o LogoV sarx egeneto).

 

Having said this, let us put it in the context of the academic coursework examined last year.  Let us remember that the prophets announced this very truth.  In this way, God’s doing for the benefit of man is revealed: facere et docere.  It is not difficult to understand, then, that the single most important event which marks the first rung in the reception by man of this experience is: auditus et fides = Shema, Israel!

 

God’s revelation (facere et docere) coupled to humanity’s listening (auditus et fides) is the birthplace of the theandric indwelling espoused by the church fathers.  It is the foundation of the apophatic tradition.  Synergetic doing is therefore intercourse-love: God’s philanthropy and man’s conversion.

 

Where am I going with all this?  Well, point in fact, St. Paul was, first and foremost, a CONVERT.  His conversion is indicative for us.  Given the quality and the depth of the soil in which it was grounded: in the bedrock of the incarnation; at ground-zero of divine life and human life, the meeting of both[9]; in the mystical experience of Christ which is the indwelling of the Holy Ghost.  His conversion marks our share in the uncreated light which is holiness.

 

The intercourse of love as a christical experience is basically the LIFE IN CHRIST which impelled St. Paul to exclaim with conviction:  “nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”[10]

 

According to St. Paul, our faith presupposes praxis, that dynamic doing oriented by God’s grace and our free will.  Praxis is the driving force proceeding from our hypostasis which changes us into christians.  To become christian is therefore to become person if we are to remain consistent to the terminology coined by the cappadocian fathers, because personhood (hypostasis) is not merely a mask (prosopon) as we know from Greek philosophy.

 

St. Paul has been labeled in many ways: the harbinger of insightful love; a standard-bearer of freedom; a proponent of humility; a doctor of nations; the founder of catholicism; the mouth-piece of the world to come; the apostle to the unbelieving.

 

Yet, St. Paul is foremost the perfect icon of all of us.  He is the icon of a converted humanity which lives in Christ and, as a result, as Church.    That is why, among some New Testament exegetes, he is known as the first after the One. 

  

 

Song of Songs

(Asma asmatwn)

From the Talmud, we know the Old Testament was written in Lason ‘Ibrit.  According to Isaiah, this language, which he calls Sephat Keni-an, was one of the many dialects spoken throughout Canaan.  The prologue of Ecclesiasticus coins the Greek term ebraisti (hebraisti) for the language which the rabbis would centuries later term Lason ha-Qodesh, or the godly word.   So then, the indwelling in us of the text of holy scripture, and of the Old Testament in particular, presents certain challenges.  The very language of scripture is permeated with standard connotations and even allows for the expression of some lyric and poetic license.  As a matter of fact, the style itself of some prophetic writings (nabiim) speaks to us.  Here I am referring to the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel which have been compiled from more than one stylistically-distinct fragment of different books.  The oracles of Joel, Nahum and Avvakum may well be called the pinnacles of Hebrew poetry.  Two years ago in this School, we examined the prophets (nabiim).  Pushing off from this promontory and employing quotes from the Law (torah) and the historical literature, this year we will focus instead on the writings (ketubiim).   Sandwiched between the historical literature and the prophets, the writings (ketubiim) make up the third part of both the masoretic and the septuagint (LXX) canons.  This part of the canon is referred to by some as didactic literature because of its content; for others, for its form and style, it is poetical literature; and finally, due to the recurring theme prevalent throughout the collection, an overwhelming majority knows them as the wisdom literature.

 

Let us refer to one each by its Hebrew name: Iob (Job), Tehillim (Psalms), Mishe le Salomon (Proverbs), Qohelet (Ecclesiastes), Shir ha-shirim (Song of Songs), Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Hocmah le-Salomon (Wisdom of Solomon).

 

While most of the collection may resemble poesy, let us remember that this type of poetic genre is not the exclusive property of the Old Testament.  The New Testament as well is littered with fragments of this type:  I.e., the canticle of Mary (Magnificat); the song of Anna; the canticle of Simeon (Nunc dimittis).  We will also take note of this style reflected in the works of some of the fathers who, in much the same way as the prophets, composed their oracles employing metered verse, so that the faithful might repeat and learn their contents in song: I.e., St. Ephrem the Syrian’s Homilies, Teachings and Prayers.  Today, our liturgy books (Menaion, Synaxarion) are riddled with this style of poesy, not to mention the many other services and offices proper of the Theotokos and of the saints, the seasonal solemnity of the greater feast days, Ie., Paraklesis and Akathistos services, hymns and canons…

 

This term, we will attempt a brief approximation to the enormous field of wisdom literature.  Let us focus on one collection in particular, called the Song of Songs (shir ha-shirim).  In the purest sense of literary genre, this collection is the crown jewel of sophisticated lyricism.  It is the rosetta stone of the Lason ‘Ibrit language.  Nonetheless, because of the many unresolved questions it generates, its exegesis has always proved problematic for hermeneutics.

 

In a general sense, we will be looking at an Old Testament text from the wisdom literature collection, whose authorship is traditionally attributed to Solomon.  The oldest, surviving Hebrew manuscript dates from the 3^rd century B.C., which makes it one of the oldest Hebrew manuscripts.  Its formal content consists of metered verses grouped into a bundling of small poems.  Discretion, be advised now.  There are many unresolved questions as to its authorship; its dating; its formal structure; its intended readership; the social milieu from which it flows; and particularly the mar tenebrossum discussionis is the various jigsaw pieces that make up its context.  Yes, let us be discreet.  Even when these are exactly the kinds of questions which biblical science strives to punctuate.  Resembling a dialogue between a Bridegroom and his Bride burning for each other’s love and mutual possession of the other, these small poems sing of human erotic love, resembling the cornerstones of an enormous edifice.

 

In a strict sense, the text does not contribute any theological, theophanic, prophetic, historical or religious content.

 

How then should we approach a preliminary exegesis?  Are there any short cuts which might bring us face to face with the text?

 

Ever since the 16^th century, exegetical tendencies may best be characterized by the fidelity of reformed christians, and of protestantism in general, to a traditional, judeo-christian, allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs.  Rooted in the research of Castalion (1547) and a renewed interest for the teachings of 5^th century exegete, Theodoret of Mopsuesta, the tendency was to consider the Songs mere odes of human love, strictu sensu.  This traditional type of allegory would be meticulously and methodically cultivated by the likes of Cornelius and A. Lapide during the mid-reformation (17^th and 18^th centuries).  Yet, new developments in the field of exegetcal studies would in turn give rise to newer tendencies.  On the hand, within the context of tridentine Roman influences, Bussuet and Dom Calmet would identify a double entendre locked away in the symbolisms of the text. They would particularly focus on the imagery of Solomon’s nuptials, advancing their conception of the ascent of the person towards God.  Others, such as Panigadola (1691), would identify in the Song a drama narrating the love affair between an anonymous shepherd and the Sulamite shephardess.  In 1771, Jacobi conjures a poetic, love triangle between Solomon, the Sulamite woman and this anonymous shepherd.  This is the same “pastoral” thesis advanced by Renan.

 

In the 20^th century, we arrive full-circle at a re-hashing of the same tendencies: the traditional, allegorical thesis and Solomon’s nuptials to Sapientia (Rossenmüller, 19^th century);  Jacobi’s “pastoral” thesis;  Pouget & Queston’s  (1956) and Kamtachov’s enhancements plus their vision of the sacrament of matrimony, its undissolvability, marital fidelity, monogamy and the typilogical union of God and Israel.

 

On the other hand, Yoüon (1909) proposes that the Song represents stages in the covenant (berith) between God and his people beginning with their departure from Egypt up until the messianic events.  Holding that it was a description of biblical doctrine on God the Bridegroom of Israel, Ricciotti (1928) transforms the poetic imagery in little more than mere literary trappings.  D. Buzy (1950) proposes that the Song imagery does not contribute any symbolic content, being a mere contrivance to endow the poesy with an amorous setting.  As you see, the Song of Songs is indeed the high point of Hebrew poesy.

 

According to the naturalist theories of Budde (1898), building on the research of then-Prussian consul in Damascus, Wetzestein, the Song describes a bedouin wedding rite practiced in the Lebanese region of Trans-Cisjordania.  This is because the Song seems to faithfully encapsulate elements of that milieu and some of the same age-old dialogued hymns.  In 1907, Zapletal agrees with these findings, siding with Theodoret of Mopsuestia (5^th century A.D.).  Miller (1927), nonetheless considers the vision of the perfect marital union as a typological prefiguring of the bond between God and man.

 

Kartachov, on his part, suggests a compound theory, composed of both of these last two elements.  And finally, A. Meek (1922) and Wittekind (1927) publish research based on archeological findings.  Inspired by a cuneiform text containing an ode to the god Tammouz, they assert that the Song is a liturgical text in honor of the deity of fertility and vegetation.

 

Having cited the various relevant authorities, we discover that their opinions are multiple, parallel and, at times, divergent.  Curiously enough, neither the symbolist, nor the naturalist, nor the archeological theories offer anything by the way of exegetically deciphering the true sense of Shir ha-shirim.  Naturalist theories are incapable of overcoming the symbolisms detectable throughout the work.  Symbolist theories must contend with the fact that a fortiori the rabbinical doctors have interpreted and ascribed symbolic, and even allegorical, overtones and contents to the imagery of erotic love only recently in the Song’s long career.  With this in mind, our theology must seek out an exegetical vision rooted in pragmatism, in the strictly traditional sense, the economic sense, in search of sensus receptus.  The economic sensus, tradition, revelation, its roots and updating must be the axis which permits the reception of the text in ecclesiam.  The a priori for an orthodox reading of holy scripture is personal experience (per experientia in persona).

 

The christian roots of exegesis of the Song date back to the patristic era.  Hippolytus of Rome, Origen, and St. Gregory of Nyssa saw reflected in its imagery the union of Christ and Mary.  This vision and reception generally continues through the byzantine medieval period after the great schism of the West.  From the 13^th century on, the medieval period in the Latin West makes constant reference to this mariological interpretation (I.e.,  Bernard of Clairevaux).  In the Iberian peninsula, the Song was very influential  (I.e. the blessed Ramon Llull and John of the Cross).  Since the 5^th century A.D., Theodoret of Mopsuesta’s theory has asserted that the Song of Songs merely narrates the expression of erotic love, a position that does not necessarily deviate from the exegetical tendencies of the antiochian school.

 

Let us keep in mind that the Lason ‘Ibrit text exhibits the scars of its roots, of its reception by Israel.  This reception is pregnant with elements taken from its culture, revelation, theology, praxis and its aramaic, hellenic and parsic origins.

 

What do the Hebrew roots of the Song (shir ha-shirim) contribute to its contemporary exegesis?  It lacks references to the Law (torah), covenant (berith), or the sayings of the prophets (debariim ha nabiim), to the great events in Israel’s history.  This may call into question, even among some rabbis, its divine inspiration.  At any rate, the text was certainly one of the five scrolls (megillot) which were traditionally read publicly in the synagogue over the course of the year in many Jewish communities.

 

Another interesting fact is that the Jammia synod, while it resisted additions to the biblical canon, simply ruled to maintain it.  In the first century, Rabbi Aqiba, a mystical and religious personality aligned with the cabbalist movement of the haggadic school, was one of its most ardent supporters. 

 

What can we glean from the cabbalist reception of the Song’s Hebrew text?  The book was composed of nine chapters, the longest of which was the last.  The Hebrew followed a strict meter consisting of 9-letter words, 9-syllable verses and 9-word lines.  The first verse of chapter one begins with 4 words: Shir ha-shirim asher le-Sholomon.  The term shir is an allusion to king David, while the other three represent the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob).   Each of these words begins with the letter shin, forming a sort of foursquare.  This foursquare symbolizes the four directions of the infinite universe upon which races the heavenly chariot of the Most High and his mystery .  It reveals the very icon of Ezekiel’s chariot.  It is what is called the ma’aseh merkabah account, the L’minda of the heavens and earth, upon which the king of glory makes his dwelling.  The term sholomon is the icon of the One who rests upon the chariot of peace (merkabah ha Sholomon) because the letter shin of Sholomon refers to the icon of melek-tsadéh: Melek-shalom (king of peace).

 

The term asher and the letter shin are contained in the term bereshit.  Both refer to the sameness and coinherence of the workings of the chariot (ma’aseh merkabah) in the workings of creation (ma’aseh bereshit), according to the rabbinical interpretation of the haggadic school.  Thus the first verse shir ha-shirim expresses the same truth revealed in the book of Genesis (sepher bereshit).  In this way, the special synergy between God and his creation may be made visible, particularly by those, who having received peace from the king of glory, have not refused it: as many as have known and witnessed to the peace.

 

Creative doing, reciprocal synergy, kingship, holiness, prophetism = God’s love, man’s love.

 

This rabbinical approximation, in line with the mindset of the church fathers, clearly spells out for us the obligation of those who approach the text: a reading within the global context of scripture and firmly rooted in tradition and ascetic tension (podvig, hesychia).

 

This interpretative approximation with its pertinent overtones rests upon the typical, traditional sense attributed to the text by the rabbis and the church fathers.  Nevertheless, true apprehension of the text is not exempt from its incorporation and active participation; apprehension demands it.  It requires updating here and now.  This is the incarnation of the word.  It constitutes synergy, on the reader’s part, as well as on the part of God’s people.  We are set adrift on the “open waters” of theandric experience.  We become characters in a great spiritual odyssey, as understood by this exposition and the typological interpretation developed herein.  We are grafted onto the context of the mainstream of divine economy within the enclosure of revelation and salvation history.  It is an odyssey which is easily recognizable in the biblical-historical context summoned up in:

 

A CENTRAL THEME:  God’s nuptials with Israel as the heralded prefiguring of Christ’s nuptials with the Church.

 

REAL IMPLICATIONS:   The scriptural groundworks on which the Song (shir ha-shirim) rests are theological and biblical.  It does not constitute some scanty expression, but is the expression proceeding from the final climax we call union in Christ.  This climax is the point of a progressive revelation in the general context of the bible, having a marked interdependence and correlation to mosaic law (torah), the writings (nabiim) and covenant (berith), both old and new.  It is the theologic moment of creation (bereshit bara) until the theologic moment of the parousia, in its entirety.

 

Let us summarize the dynamic of a progressive revelation as a series of different stages.  Each may be prophetically ordered until its culmination in the final climax, in this way:

 

i.)            The Lord weds Israel (Hos. 2:18; Ez. 16:8)

ii.)          Israel is unfaithful (Hos. 2:7; Jer. 2:3, 6, 13; Ez. 16:23)

iii.)        God repudiates Israel’s adultery (Hos. 2; Jer. 3)

iv.)        God’s ire is not irreversible because he still loves her. (Hos. 2:8, 9, 11-13; Ez. 16: 35-41; and chapter 23)

v.)          God wants to reestablish the union (Hos. 2, Jer. 3)

vi.)        God knows that the faithless people longs for reconciliation (Hos. 2:9; Jer. 3:1 y 4 y 5)

vii.)      The possibility of forgiveness is sensed (Jer. 3)

viii.)    The faithless people senses its inability to achieve reconciliation on its own terms (Jer. 31:19; Is. 63:15 – 64:11)

ix.)        The need for God’s power and mercy  (Hos. 11:8-9)

x.)          God alone operates reconciliation and re-establishes the rights of his people (Hos. 2: 16-25; Jer. 31:20-40; Is. chapters 51, 54, 60, 61, and 62)

xi.)        The blossoming of rapture in the desert (Hos. 2:16-17 and 21-32)          

xii.)      The bridegroom and his bride possess each other forever

 

In the context of the Song (shir ha-shirim), we have witnessed the flowering of the biblical paradise (pardes) scattered to the four winds.  The Song of Songs (shir ha-shirim) is one small bouquet of its foliage, plucked from here and there, wherever it blossoms.  In the Song, we recognize the synthesis of theandric union, the axis upon which created reality revolves.

 

And so, here ends of our meager approximation of the Song of Songs, shir ha-shirim, or asma asmatwn, its text, its context, its objective, the uses of this Old Testament book taken from among the wisdom literature, the reasons for its continued presence and continuity within the masoretic and christian canons until the present day.

 

In this day and age, dear ones, the Bride waits, as in the Song, sighing and panting; she languishes during long periods, longing for the culmination of her desires: union worked by God with his forceful and loving vigor.  God transforms the desire and surrender of his people, touched by human impotence, into the driving force of its definitive conversion, in other words its holiness, life in Christ, pneumatization.

 

At the same time, we might agree that the Song of Songs (shir ha-shirim) is perhaps a prototype of St. John Klimakos’ ladder, an assumption unto the Most High, the ascent onto Thabor, the road up to Mt. Carmel.  It is definitely a prototype of the ascent to Sinai and of the ascension of Abraham and Isaac up to the mount of sacrifice.  It is Jacob’s holy ladder.  We see in each and every one of these ascensions and ascents the one and only ascension which matters to us and which passes over us at the christian pascha: the mount of calvary, the place of the skull, the burial place of Adam, the foothold of death, the wellspring of the resurrection, the key to life without end.

 

The tensions (epektasis) of courtship, the meeting of the Beloved, the mutual attraction, their breaths, becoming ever more the hell to which the blessed Siluan alluded to: angst and trepidation.  Indeed, herein lies the bliss of enhypostatization, the infinite joy of mutual embrace, the coming of the Kingdom.  Come, Lord Jesus!  Tarry not, return to your beloved.  Amin.

  

 

Joyful Light

(Φώς ιλαρόν)

 

The first moment of the liturgical day dawns with the last glimmers of daylight.  In this twilight, the christian community becomes liturgical.  It consciously becomes liturgy through psalmody and prayerful listening of psalm 103: the cosmic psalm[11].  In this psalm, we bless the work of creation, inebriated as we are by this real showcase of divine glory, marveled as we are by God’s efficient doing.

 

Chanting psalmody and listening, we take part in synergic, theanthropic-anthropotheandric doing.  We are consciously and freely made partakers of the mystery of divine-human dialogue.

 

At the entrance rite of the vespers service, the hymn of joyful light or Φώς ιλαρόν (phos hilaron) punctuates the glory of the Father.  His glory is holiness.  And Jesus Christ as the Deified-Saint[12] is our holiness.  We confess in hymn the meetness of praising Christ with godly song through the Holy Ghost; blessing them both who are magnified in the Father by means of this creation, we glorify them as one.

 

Both, the lived experience we call chanting and prayerful listening, as well as the indwelling in us of joy through the light of Christ the only-begotten of the holy trinity are an endowment of the believer with full communion in a creation which is the work of the glory of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost.  We are endowed with uncreated grace.  We share in the creation ex nihilo amidst the uncreated energies which issue forth as external processions (perichoresis ad extra), the economies of the Second and Third Persons (hypostases) who proceed from the Father.

 

The vesperal hymn extols the life-giving doing of God.  It praises the glory of God as holy, calling God himself saint.  Hence, those voices joined in praise to the cosmic hymn of praise unto the All-holy are in turn deified themselves.

 

For orthodox believers, God’s holiness is manifest.  The Old Testament is full of allusions to this fact; Israel refers to God as holy one.  In Isaiah’s vision, the angelic theophany is expressed as “holy, holy, holy.”  Our ecphonesis repeat at the conclusion of the ektenia: “all-holy and lover of mankind.”  Blessed is the Lord our God!  (AgioV o KurioV o qeoV  umon.)  (Свиати Господи Вож наш.)  And the vesperal strophe:  Holy are you, O Lord, teach me your commandments…

 

We deduce from all this that, in much the same way as the human artist finds herself represented in her work which somehow bears the seal of her authorship, the doing of God, creation itself, mirrors and manifests the sanctity of his glory.

 

What is holiness?  It is a share in divinity.  It is partaking of the glory of God as it is manifested through his creation.  It is God in his energies which are wholly “partakable.”  This is the understanding we have from palamite teaching.  It is the foundation and pillar of orthodoxy.

 

The mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, all somehow manifest God to us.  They share in the glory of God in man, who names them and categorizes them as we know from the Genesis account.  This is how man becomes the lord of creation by nature.  (The angels will remain forever separated from all this.)  That creation which, along with the godly voices, glorifies the Son of God encompasses the entire cosmos which praises God in its quietude.

 

Whose are these hallowed voices which, at every moment, celebrate the “meetness” of God?  They are none other than voices of the other half of creation which is touched by holiness.  We are referring to here to the visible and the invisible.

 

The first seven words of the first chapter of Genesis (Sepher bereshit) bear witness to this.  Specifically the sixth and seventh words preceded by the article te: bereshit bara elohim te ha-shamaim va te ha eretz.  Both the rabbinical and patristic exegesis agree that the combination shamaim-eretz refers to the entire creation, the angels and humanity.

 

Angels are perfectly godly.  Each of them grazes the outer limits of the perfection which is possible for creation because, sophianically-speaking, only God is the holy one (Bulgakoff).  The hallowing of the angels and of all creatures depends on having a share in the holiness of God.  To become holy, creatures must be endowed with godliness.  They must be ready to receive holiness.  They depend on the process used to achieve it.  The holiness of a creature does not depend solely on its proximity to God, the heights to which it attains, the level of heaven which is his (and which he may not surpass on his own merit).  It depends on his freedom.  To this freedom a degree of holiness has been conferred, not as justification but as a quality of the created being.  The angels were created to fill the outermost limits of creation.  We dare not get any closer to God’s essence than his “secondary lights,” or “mirrors of divine light,” without being consumed upon approach.

 

Angels do not possess a nature.  Their lives are a partaking in divinity.  They are “created gods.”  Divine essence belongs solely to the trinity.  The life of the trinity is the source of life in each created person (hypostasis), as wells as in the angels, by our participation in it by grace.  The angelic mode (modus) of holiness differs from other intelligent beings’ holiness.  Thus, angels may be called natural “sons of God.”  But, we may not theologically affirm that angels are created beings (hypostases) because we would be unable to call grace what is supernatural.  This results in a confusion of “essence-nature” and “gift of grace.”  This is why the angels’ natural holiness cannot increase.  The incarnation of the trinity’s second hypostasis does not affect the essence of the angels.

 

Kai\ o( Lo/goj sa\rc e)ge/neto kai\ e)skh/nwsen e)n h(mi=n.[13]

 

Compare this excerpt from the first chapter of St. John’s gospel with the first verse of Genesis (Sepher bereshit).  Ontologically-speaking, the incarnation assumes the “existence” and “distinction” between divine and human nature.  We know also that human nature, whilst created, possesses its own being[14].  This is why, at the council of Chalcedon, the Church must distinguish between two natures of Christ which are inseparable and without confusion.

 

Holiness in the human being is made possible by grace.  This is the human mode (modus) of holiness.  Yes, angels are godly, in other words they possess life in God.  Yet, their holiness is a function of their angelic essence.  This is why the evil one was not smitten down by death.  His fall resulted in his spiritual death as a modus vivendi.  However, since he had never possessed life as his own, he never experienced anything like the cessation of life at his fall.

 

Before the fall, man’s life in God, man’s holiness, was a potential: posse non morire[15].  It was not yet immortality: non posse morire[16].  Nonetheless, the fall almost implied non posse non morire[17].  Life in God would only be renewed in man through the resurrection of Christ.  Human nature possesses its own potential for holiness and receives holiness by grace.  The angels, on the other hand, are made godly not in virtue of their potential, but as an act of creation by nature.  This is holiness in humanity; holiness in the angels; the holiness of the entire creation to its very core.

 

Any resistance, whether active or passive, whether conscious or unconscious, as a result of a willful act or through omission, constitutes alienation.  It results in a distancing of one’s self from the divine life we call holiness.

 

The holiness of creation, its realization in man in particular, is an “achievable utopia.”  Yet, it is not evolutionary; it is a matter of grace.

 

Having said all this, the gospels tell us that Christ invites us to be holy.  Dear ones, this means the same as we are invited to be saints.  Hallowed  like our heavenly Father is holy.  It is his hallowed name we bless.  To him do we ask that his Kingdom come.

 

We also know that the royal, prophetic and priestly people who has been transformed into Church has a foretaste of godliness: the sacraments; the rhythm of prayer in the liturgical cycle, day in day out, service after service, liturgy upon liturgy; those moments so vividly lived and mystically experienced which make up the process of indwelling of the Holy Ghost, the process of inhypostasizing one’s self to the body of Christ.  It is St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians who calls us members of this body.  In Romans, he calls us saints.  And elsewhere in his epistles, we are called the people of God.

 

This is the people of God which weeps by the waters of Babylon and sighs to return to the Father’s house.  This is why we praise the God of the spirits and of all flesh, morning and night, at every moment and everywhere ― that we may be granted a share of his glory ― his holiness.  And beholding the great wonder of Christ made-flesh, we join the angels in saying:  “Glory to God in heaven and on earth!”  That is why on the night of all nights, at the dawn of dawns, we exclaim in joy: “Christ is risen!”   

 

Because of our slow, difficult, torturous and agonizing apprehension of the will to do spiritual combat, we begin each liturgical day by reciting the cosmic psalm.  Updating in ourselves the knowledge of the holiness communicated to us as the glory of God.  And at the edge of that precipice which our hearts, not our intellects, perceives intuitively, we entone:

 

O Joyful Light of the holy glory of the immortal, heavenly, holy blessed Father, O Jesus Christ.  Having come to the setting of the sun, having beheld the evening light, we hymn the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, God.  Meet it is at all times to hymn Thee with reverend voices, O Son of God, Giver of Life, wherefore the whole world doth glorify Thee.[18]

 

Often times, focused as we are on the more solemn liturgical events, the great feasts, the Divine Liturgy with its many differences of canonical and traditional expression, on the celebration of the sacraments, for those of us who are distracted from vigilance, routine sets in.  This is the first symptom of weakness in spiritual combat.  With waning zeal, we stop savoring the experience of God concealed in the brief prayers, tropars, hymns and katavasia, in the very amin of the invitatory and closing prayers of each service, sometimes even the thrice-holy hymn, the doxologies and theotokia which, in the strictest sense of the term, are pregnant with dogma.

 

Having briefly examined a miniscule portion of the vespers service, our theological analysis has unveiled the importance of participating in the “official” prayer of the Church, in the practice of the canonical hours, as a means for the hollowing of time (chronos) for the updating in us of our immersion in the Kingdom of God (kairos).

 

Here concludes this glimpse at the cosmic psalm (103) and, more specifically, the lamp-lighting hymn: O Joyful Light  (phos hilaron).

  

 

Johannine Scriptures

Some time ago, we opened the academic year of our school of orthodox theology with an exegetical study in light of mystical contemplation.  We presented the lamp-lighting hymn titled O Joy Light (Свете Тихий) (Φώς ιλαρόν).  From the text itself in use today in the daily vespers service, we identified and distinguished between the One who is hymned and those reverend ones who voice his praise.  In other words, we applied the hermeneutics which allowed us to deepen our understandings of full reception of this trinitarian doxology sung by the angels in the company of man, dazzled as they are by the exclamation:  “O Joyful Light of the holy glory of the immortal, heavenly, holy blessed Father, O Jesus Christ.”  We approached the uppermost reaches of the theology of light.  And for an instant (thanks to the research carried out last academic year), we deigned to taste the sweetness ― apophatic apprehension ― and the glorious radiance of the palamite experience.  Uncreated light.  Uncreated grace.  Basing our narration on a brief exegesis of the first two chapters of Genesis (Sepher bereshit ha Moshe) juxtaposed against a painstaking reading of the prologue of the fourth gospel, the gospel according to St. John the Theologian (Άγιος Ιωάννης ο Θεολόγος).

 

This deepening understanding of the theology of light inevitably leads us back to the johannine writings.  We are referring here to the three epistles attributed or inspired by St. John, the fourth gospel, and even the canonical book of Revelations.  These are the tools which will allow us to delve into the orthodox ascetic tradition which invites us to share in the personal and community work which is manifest in Adam-Eve.  It is an inseparable, two-way doing wherein governs the Holy Ghost.  This work represents a dynamic; a mysterious, profound and intimate tropism of divine indwelling; a mysticism of bilateral and synergetic doing; life-giving theanthropism which is somehow a response to the deification of man (anthropotheosis).  This dynamic consists of man “losing himself” (kenosis) because of God’s “losing himself” (kenosis).  Human kenosis responding to divine kenosis.  In other words, it is the THEORIA of PRAXIS which ultimately results in the PRAXIS of THEORIA.  We are talking about a fundamental antinomy constructed from two, well-established terms within the known lexicon of philosophy.   So, in the tradition of the church fathers dating back to desert fathers: Anthony and Pachomios, Makarios; on through the cappadocians, the antiochians, the syrians, and the alexandrians, particularly the great Dionysios the pseudo-aeropaghite, John of Damascus, Gregory Palamas and Maximos the confessor, to name but a few of our elder brothers in the faith who have preceded us in the fullness of human entelecheia: holiness.  A real entelecheia attainable with God’s help by all orthodox christians, if this they so will.

 

Why search the johannine writings?  Well, because of the contrast they offer vis-à-vis the synoptics.  For the vertical perspective, speaking theologically, it provides perspective ― less historical.  It is exempt from any distinct pretension as a biographical narration of Jesus’ life.  Might we even dare to call it more mystical?  Perhaps its use of certain linguistic turns of phrase and reiterative terminology distinguishes the johannine literature from the synoptics.  Nonetheless, its particular repetition of the term light, Φώς (phos), twenty-four times to be exact, makes it quite clear that the johannine canon is at the heart of the task we have set for ourselves here.

 

At first glance, the Theologian’s choice of words may seem, technically-speaking, lackluster at best.  His lexicon consists of only 1011 words: Matthew’s lexicon, on the other hand, consists of 1691 words; Mark’s of 1345; and Luke’s of 2065.  And yet, St. John’s account does not suffer from a lack of transcendence.  Nor is it trivial or bland.  This is because the vocabulary used in the johannine writings, and in the fourth gospel in particular, witnesses to the author’s truly remarkable originality.  Stylistically though, it is definitely less concrete and descriptive, than say St. Mark’s gospel, and has much less literary sophistication than St. Luke’s account.

 

For comparison’s sake alone, let look at some of that reiterative terminology, by ennumerating just how many times it appears in each of the synoptics:  

 

 

 

In all fairness, we should also point out that certain terms, which abound in the synoptics, are scarcely found in John, I.e., the people, o( lao\j (3); the kingdom, h( basilei/a; and demon, daimo/nion (6 times each).  From the perspective of present-day hermeneutics, the language used by John is the same language of the septuagint (LXX), contemporary with Claudius Josephus as well as with the hermetics and Philo.  Some of its idiomatic expressions resemble the style of the Qumram texts.

 

The term Φώς or light, we already said, appears some twenty-four times in John.  It is punctuated by other like terms, such as the verbs to appear fainw (used two times) and to shead light upon something, fwti/zein (used once).  These usages assist us in placing the theology of light within the context of our tradition, in the context of the johannine canon.

 

“In him was life, and the life was the light of men”  (Jn. 1:4).  No other pre-existing light existed.  It is life itself.  It makes itself known and felt because it is knowable (posse essere).

 

Light-life precedes the darkness: “And the light shineth in darkness…” (Jn. 1:5).  The relation here light-life is in juxtaposition to the darkness-death.

 

Light irradiates.  It illuminates.  It is knowable.  It is “life-giving radiance” which announces divine will.  It is the divine plan.  And so, St. John says:

 

“He came unto his own, and his own received him not” (Jn. 1:11).  Men did not choose life.  They refused to receive illumination.  Hence, reception of light implies apprehension of understanding.  This is the current state of affairs of the world today.

 

St. John the baptizer reminds us: he (the baptizer) was not the light.  He was a witness to the light.  He harbored the memory of the light and searched it out.  By means of his penitential baptism, he invites us to await the One who is light itself.  It is this One who will kindle in us the Holy Ghost.  This new baptism in the Church, in holiness, (Praise God!) in the passion of true light which sets alight every man and woman who enters this world.[19]

 

Light-life is the theological equivalent of truth.  It is a required experience.  It is the necessary condition for the blossoming unto fullness of human and angelic creatures that have been grafted unto the mystical body of Christ, unto his Church.  It is also the place of reception, of incorporation, communion and experience of the holy trinity.  It is the only transcendent reality as compared to the shadows of death, of the dubious twilight, the false life, the false shimmer of this world, the flesh and the demon whose aims are the failure of the trinitarian plan, of the parousia, of the light of the world, of the truth, of the light, of the way who is none other than one who revealed himself using these very words.

 

And so, we draw to a close our first approximation to the johannine writings: the cornerstones of our tradition.  Not only do they offer us insights into the roots of our faith, they highlight the dynamic beginnings in man which empower him to live a life of ascesis which puts him on the road toward pneumatization.

 

Maranatha!  Come, Lord.  Tarry not.  Amin, amin, amin.

  

 

Uncreated Light

The doctrine of light as echoed by the church fathers (particularly the cappadocian fathers, Maximos the Confessor, Gregory Palamas and the so-called palamite councils) is witnessed to in the scriptural tradition.  The scriptures are its theological foundation.  The doctrine of light is firmly anchored firstly in biblical sources taken from the old and new covenants and then, in the mystical experience of asceticism.  Asceticism is the experience of the theologian’s praxis.  From the onset, Moses’ book of Genesis (Sepher Bereshit ha Moshe) refers to these two pillars in the following way:  "In the beginning, God created Heavens and Earth" (Gen 1: 1). [20]

From patristic and rabbinical exegesis, we learn that the term bere’sheyth (“in the beginning”) refers to the creative moment of tension[21] initiated by God.  Coupled with the word bara’ (“to create”), the phrase means the efficient doing of God, who creates ex nihilo, “from nothing.”[22]   Creation is not a product of emanation.  In other words, God does not create by taking from himself.   He is not re-creating — as from some “primordial stew.”  Thus, the word bara’ could only be conjugated by God in the bosom of divine time (kairos) — and in all of the creation.  Bara’  is in itself both spiritual and material.

" And the earth was without form, and void; — chaos and randomness — and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.  And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.  And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."[23]

 

Regardless of our particular opinion on the Mashe bere’sheyth account, exegetical reflection will highlight certain key elements: the divine world; divine darkness; God in his godhead; the pre-existence of the divine world; God’s creative doing ex nihilo; the immanence-permanence of the Spirit of God (ruach elohim) moving over the waters; the lasting effects of God’s doing in the chaos-randomness-darkness (a direct reference to the presence of his doing in the creation); illumination as the vivification of created matter through divine doing-energy; the participative, synergetic fusion of doing-energy; the immanence of the uncreated Spirit of God (ruach elohim) onto created reality.

Parenthetically, let us examine the Genesis 2:1-7 account using typological exegesis.  Here again, we come across parallel created elements: heavens (shamaym) and earth, (‘eretz); deserts and voids as well, and also “there went up a mist (we ur) from the earth (‘eretz), and watered the whole face of the ground (‘adamah).”[24]   The mist (we ur) moving over the face of the earth (‘eretz) permeates and vivifies, energizes and impregnates the soil (‘adamah).  It is this very red, living earth (‘adamah) from which God will take clay.  Further on in the same account:

" And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."[25]

Then "the LORD God planted a garden in the east."[26]   Once again, divine neshamah penetrates.  The Holy Ghost is absolutely indispensable in order to become alive (nephesh) and gain entry into the God’s garden ― paradusoV  (paradisos) as the prophet Isaiah calls it in the septuagint (LXX).  In the new covenant, the gospel of John expressed the same theme in this way: “In him was life and the life was the light of men”[27] (en aut%= zwh\ hn, kai\ h( zwh\ hn to\ fwj tw=n a)nqrw/pwn).  In the Logos ―― the Word who is God, who pre-exists along with God, and in whom life abides ―— life is the light of men.  The biblical sources, as witnesses to by the patristic tradition, are the first building block of the theology of light, as we have examined above.   Simultaneously, the second building block is a personal praxis of light, the pre-dawn light of the monastics, Thabor’s light, and the light of the resurrection.

Orthodox mysticism (that is true theology, or the theologian’s praxis) is experienced in an incomprehensible and arrational awareness of God in his Godhead, in which, because of revelation, we distinguish therein a perichoresis ad intra: one triune Godhead; three hypostases: Father, Son, Holy Ghost.[28]  A perichoresis which we dare to qualify as agapic, that is an indwelling of love, of communion, descriptive of divine intimacy.[29]  And yet, we may actively contemplate too and enter into synergy with God’s life-giving, immanent, everlasting, and energizing doing.  This doing has permanence, sustains the entire creation, and is especially discernible in man.  Becoming and being thence synergy, we participate in God’s doing.

The cappadocian fathers were the first to discern[30] the way of the theologian’s praxis, presenting it as a basic antinomy for a theology of light, expressed as: 

(C1)  God is totally inaccessible and unattainable in his essence.  

(C2)  God is totally communicable in his energies.   

St. Basil of Caesarea explains it in this way: “By affirming that we know God in his energies, we do not imply access to his essence.  For even if these were to descend upon us, his essence would remain inaccessible.”  Our union with the divine person (hypostasis) is then real participation in his divine energies.  Thus, the actual groundwork of holiness (or theosis or illumination) becomes God, proceeding from his very godhead without the need of creating energy (light, force, grace).

The absolute, inestimable realities of the created and uncreated, of God and the creation, of God and man may only be surpassed by God himself.  Theology (mysticism, the theologian’s praxis) discerns the distinctions: God; his immanent and everlasting creative doing in creation; and the creation.  In other words, we are referring to three critical distinctions:

 

(D1)  The nature or essence of God; three hypostases with ad intra and ad extra personal perichoreses: Father, Son and Holy Ghost;

(D2)  God’s energies, light, grace as a natural ad extra perichoresis.

(D3)  The creation.

 

The energies are inseparable from the nature.  Nature is inseparable from the hypostases.  The energies are not a relation between God and the creation.  Yet, God inseminates, vivifies, illuminates, and energizes the creation, nunc et semper.  He leads it and man, if man so chooses, toward fullness (entelechaeia) made possible by providence.

St. Maximos teaches that: “God created us to be partakers in divine nature, thus entering into eternity, becoming icons of him, deified by that grace which creates and fashions all existent beings and which channels everything that does not exist into existence.”  The energies implicitly sustain creation.  They prolong God’s everlasting creative doing.    His enduring and persistent doing remains in the bosom of the creation, generally speaking, and, in particular, in man.  It cleaves unto created energies, ‘knowing’ them in the biblical sense, synergizing with them.  This synergetic analogy describes a kind of union (modus unionis) and a kind (modus) of co-inherence of two natures, one divine and the other human, in the sole person (hypostasis) of the christ, Jesus Christ.  He is the means of human holiness (modus sanctificationis) by synergy, the means (modus) of transfiguration of the cosmos and its ascension through deified humanity.  Let us venture to say that, by the uncreated light (the uncreated divine energies), created being becomes uncreated being.

By means of the orthodox theologian’s praxis, we have come to know that the light (energy, uncreated grace) of God sustains, illuminates, vivifies and deifies mankind ontologically.  It makes man real, transfiguring him into a new creature, just and holy in himself by grace.  In keeping with (C1) and (C2): while the essence of God remains radically transcendent, God’s divine operations (grace, energies, light…) become immanent and therefore communicable. 

Let us not attempt to formulate simple mental-intellectual abstractions for we are not dealing with pseudo-mystical banality.  This is, as psalm 103 reminds us, a matter of life-or-death.  Wherefore the breath of life is there is life; if God removes his breath from us, there remains its absence.[31]   This is the sign of the divine-human agape; the royal banquet; permanence in the garden of God (gan-bi ‘eden), as opposed to the desert and the chaos-darkness; the Song of Songs (Shir-ha Shirim)[32];  the mystical wedding.[33]  It is bere’sheyth bara; the shared communion as knowledge between man and God, and ultimately, genuine theology.  And herein lies the foundation of the means (modus) of sacramental presence.

Man synergizes with God, entering into genuine, living, and experiential communion through the divine operations.  In other words, we partake of real manifestations of God in the world, in the creation.  So, those who taste of divine operations in the eucharistic mystery completely receive God, whole and entire.  This is no attempt at supplying substantial union (pantheism).[34]  Nor are we talking about hypostatic union (Jesus Christ being the sole case of this).  This is not symbolic communion (reformed church).  It is not transubstantial communion (thomism).  It is, instead, eminently synergetic, energizing, luminescent, and pleasurable:  God wholly present in his energies, light, and grace.

This is the theologian’s praxis, as taught to us by St. Gregory Palamas and palamism, centered on perfectly orthodox mysticism (of divine darkness, of the divine cloud, the wellspring of his light).

By participation, the Holy Ghost translates us from knowledge at the human plane to divine knowledge.  We have seen proof of this in St. John’s theognosis describing the co-inherence (inhabitatio) of the Word in us and our innermost illumination in the Holy Ghost.

Our mystical experience bares what is veiled innermost intimacy in a perceivable external irradiation.  Thus saint’s halos, Thabor’s light, and the light of the resurrection[35] may only be experienced and invisibly seen by physical yet simultaneously ‘transfigured’ eyes which have been filled by the Holy Ghost.[36]  According to St. Gregory Palamas, the Lord’s transfiguration was simultaneously his apostles’ transfiguration as well.  As a result, the three disciples present that day shared the opportunity, the real and efficient capacity, to gaze upon the glory of the Lord veiled in the reality of Jesus’ “losing himself” (kenosis).  This light (or glory) of God, is grace: God wholly present in energy.  It is awareness (the theologian’s praxis, vision) as face-to-face encounter, authentic and real, with the mystery of the Eighth Day of Creation: a perfect state of theosis (vivification, illumination, perfect and complete energization).

In the West, Thomas Aquinas, Barlaam[37] and the entire gamut of nominalist philosophers, Occam et al., reject St. Gregory Palamas’ doctrine.  And thus, they deny the distinction between divine essence and divine operations (energies, grace, light, force...).  From their philosophical standpoint, arguments based in reason alone are valid, while inherence, experience, mystical intuition, the theologian’s praxis are merely sources of error.  Nonetheless, these erudite scholars somehow allowed for enlightenment, immanent grace, conservation of energy as materializations of God.  Aquinas’ exaltation of reason as the sole instrument for “understanding” God was an outright rejection of the venerable Augustine of Hippo’s thesis on knowledge by divine illumination and mystical intuition.[38]

Their logical concepts of God must adequately express his being.  From basic concepts of being, the attributes of God were analytically deduced: simplicity and unity.  As for being, ontological principles were applied to God, rejecting any antinomy on the grounds that, de facto, they contradicted the panalogic.  The panalogical notion of God became their means of communion with divine being.

According to St. Gregory Palamas, however, divine essence is real.  It is the radically transcendental sine qua non of the creation and of man.  It strictly constrains us to antinomical, yet non-contradictory, statements about the total inaccesibility and inexhaustability of God in his godhead, in his essence, and in his immanence in the world.  As his immanence becomes light (grace, energies), God continues being ever-present in it.  As such, his presence is never a fraction of God.  God manifests himself, revealing himself without reduction to his essence which is not in becoming, is not exteriorized, nor does it leave his very intimacy.   The energies (grace, light) are uncreated yet accessible to his creation and his creatures.  They are held in common by the three hypostases of the most holy trinity.  In much the same way as hypostatic distinctions do not constitute or construct a composite God, the energies do not pose any danger to divine unity, divine indivisibility and divine simplicity

Blessed Augustine of Hippo coined the term simpliciter multiplex,[39]  to express that God is beyond, pre-exists being, and is never subject to logical perception because, by scholasticism’s very definition, God is above and beyond all rational concepts.

God’s simplicity is thoroughly alien to our rational understandings of simplicity.  In fact, simplicity, in a rational context, is unknown, ontologically speaking.

Thus, dogmatic statements will invariably always be metalogical and antinomical, yet never contradictory. 

The differences examined just above explain the sharp divergence between the typical cataphatic discourse of thomism and the apophatic approach of orthodox theology (or the theologian’s praxis).

In spite of the biblical evidence cited herein, thomism asserts that the light (grace, energies) is a transcendent but created reality and fixes conditions which allow for the veritable forensic-juridical imputation of justification.

On the contrary, the light (grace, energy) of God is not the created bounty of God — it is God’s uncreated gift.  Two superimposed creations do not co-exist then, layered one upon the other, whereby one could identify two separate dimensions: one “natural” and another “supernatural.”  In the creation, everything is natural.  A natural, dual motion exists: synergy, generally speaking, between the created energies of creation and the uncreated energies of God, and synergy between man’s created energies and the uncreated divine energies, in particular.  This brokers, if God so pleases, our sanctification, the pneumatization of the creation and of man.

Man is born carrying around certain “baggage” if not in the ‘image’ at least in the ‘likeness.’  Let us call this “baggage”: the fall of man.  Created energies in man do not produce their effect on him in his normal state, the state in which he was created.  Awareness of the philanthropic and merciful bounty of the gift of self is granted us by God through his energies (light, revelation, grace).  The theologian’s praxis, thus, searches out the unknowable God and encounters God who communicates.

St. Gregory Palamas teaches that divine nature, while it must be considered incommunicable, in a certain, concrete sense is communicable.  Hence, we arrive full-circle at our participation in divine nature without compromising the simultaneous total transcendence of God’s essence.  Both (C1) and (C2) must be affirmed simultaneously, while conserving the antinomy as a matter of faith, piety and tradition.

In God, we discern divine essence and the natural energies (or operations of divinity) by means of which God makes himself communicable in the creation and in his creature.

Uncreated energies (operations) are what we call light (grace).  Herein lies the foundation for the orthodox tradition on grace.  According to tradition (orthodox mysticism, the theologian’s praxis), illumination (or life-giving and deifying divine grace) is not the essence of God.  In any case, divine grace are the energies (or operations) of God.  St. Gregory Palamas (in his philosophical and theological works) maintains that it is possible to remain within the confines of tradition, right faith and piety, and profess that the divine nature is communicable in God’s operations (or energies).  This distinction is discernment between essence and energies, which does not introduce any sense of composition in God, in divine being.  Palamas further explains: “God acts without suffering in the operation.” (op. cit.)   Thus, sentences (i) through (iv)

 

(i).    Essence/Energy

(ii).   Essence/Grace

(iii).  Essence/Light

(iv).  Essence/Operation

 

do not represent divided parts of God[40], even if they infer two “modes” of existence in God, in this way:

 

(P1)  God in his nature is transcendent and unknowable essence.

(P2)  God outside of his nature manifests himself as: energies, light, grace, uncreated light, divine operation.

 

Hence, divine being remains totally inaccessible essentially, becoming communicable entirely by his energies.

A sound and thorough reading of St. Gregory Palamas will demonstrate that any theology wishing to remain faithful to tradition, scripture, and piety itself, must concede that: (P1) is true.  (P2) is true.  (P1) and (P2) are true simultaneously together.

Dogmatic theology, in the true sense of the term, releases us from the limitations of reason.  It expands and extends the heights and depth of our intellect within the space-time of divine logic.  It allows us to brush up against what logic is incapable of understanding:

Harmony = Conciliation of opposites

According to the status quo of human logic, which is created and therefore limited, the creation is tainted, guilty, perverted.  Rather harsh words, indeed, for the creation suffers from the illusion of opposites.  And yet, through dogma, we are re-made to transcend just such a limiting and perverting illusion.  St. Gregory Palamas writes: “…by beholding the countenance of genuine reality, our intellect interacts with grace, uncreated and divine light, in other words, with God who giving himself as light or energy makes us luminescent in his light.  Divine energies interpenetrate our created energies granting us entry into his Kingdom” (Against Akindynos).  So, we refer to God as light, not because of his essence, but according to his energies.

The orthodox tradition approaches the question in this way through prayer:

“We entreat Thee, Almighty Father, O God who veilest Thineself entire within our very countenances.  Grant Thou to our souls, during this healthful fast, ascent unto Thine Holy Mountain.  May we behold, as far as we are able, the light of Thine pre-eternal glory.  May we endure, without falling into surliness, the yoke of Thy cross.  Grant Thou, that we may be ushered into the pure and shining joy which is Thine on the ultrabright night of the Resurrection of Thine own Son, our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, in whom Thou art well-pleased and through whom, in Thy Holy Ghost, all glory, honor and worship are Thine unto the ages of the ages, amin.” 

(Saturday of the Uncreated Light)

  

 

Foundations of Theology

 

When speaking about the foundations of theology, let us not use descriptive referential principles of faith and their conceptual-formal understanding.  These are the exclusive realm of the ETHOS of faith.  Let us focus, instead, on experience.  Let us experience the pillars which sustain the mystery of created reality and advance the corollary: Created reality is the intercourse of the human being in the cosmos — between the human being and God who is.

St. Irenæus of Lyon commands: “Take ownership of the symbol of faith by experiencing it yourself.”

How should we interpret St. Irenæus?  What do his words mean to us?  This pronouncement bears heavily upon us, in our day and age.  It is particularly relevant and applicable to us, given the theodesic focus of certain works on theology and their merely cognitive perspectives.  Most human beings as passive co-synergetic elements and as believers have been persuaded to live a misconception.  They consider conceptual knowledge a real experience.  They cling to a grocery list of referential principles of faith, their development and their applications.  They cleave to what is merely ethos.  As far as these believers are concerned, only conceptual understanding accesses real experience of intellectual or emotional knowledge, of what we traditionally call theanthropic synergy: a co-dynamism between God and the human being.

Conceptual understanding inevitably bundles pertinent sensibilities and intuitions.  So, in the unlikely event that this conceptual understanding were possible, our intellective discourse and fulfillment of its ethos involves not only justification by faith or by good works, but much more awaiting our discovery.  Obviously, this would result in a better and greater rapprochement to God and neighbor.  However, this is a notion which can not be readily supported by praxis.

By and large, catechisms and moral epitomes have contributed nothing to the improvement of human behavior.  For a closer look at the symbol of faith, its essential statements and its derivative ethos, let us now revisit some of the chronological events of the first millenium.   During this thousand-year period, the oral tradition of the apostles had been handed down through the apostolic fathers.  Yet, that tradition was constantly assailed in the jumble of influences from hellenistic and roman gnosticism.  In A.D. 325, a peace was brokered between the ecclesiasts of the day whose conflicts challenged the pax constantiniana.  The byzantine emperor intervened by summoning the feuding sides to a general council, the first council of Nicea.

At Nicea, doctrinal statements affirming the co-eternal equality of Christ and the Father before the ages triumphed over the arian’s assertions of a “created Logos.”  Thus, the language coming out of the second ecumenical council Constantinople I constitutes the joint effort of alexandrians and cappadocians.  Great personages took part, the likes of Ss. Alexander, Athanasios the Great, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazienzen, as well as Nicholas, Spiridon, and Osios of Cordoba, among others.  They dared express the co-eternal, co-equal, and co-divine nature common to each of the three divine persons (hypostases).  In so doing, their language guarded against jeopardizing the monarchy of the Father who is the source from which the other Two proceed: the one begotten through filiation and the other breathed forth through spiration[41].  Thus, the first paradigm of the creed we profess today, the very same creed we are obliged to profess until the parousia, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Symbol: its essential point of reference is belief in one God Father, Son and Holy Ghost: one godhead in three hypostases.  What implications does such a confession, such an untenable faith, have for the human intellect?  If to believe is to live, to feel, are we capable of experiencing what we do not understand?  Under these circumstances, can we ever take ownership of our symbol of faith?

For obvious reasons, the positivistic and definitive theological approach of cataphatic discourse is not possible here.  On the other hand, apophatic discourse, the so-called negation theology employing “what it is not” statements, can not bring our reason any closer.  Even when this discourse offers the observer an opportunity to examine without categorizing and without relegating the object of our observations to the limitations of our capacity to elucidate upon them, the essence of God-Trinity remains out of reach.  God remains stupidly known.

Behold Christ and you will have seen the Father.  And as such, Christ himself instructed us to call out our Father, “Abba”.  At Pentecost, Christ directs the Paraclete who issues forth from the Father, o ParaklitoV, moving outward over us.[42]   Thus, experience becomes knowledge of Christ, Emmanuel (“God with us”).  Our experience and knowledge work our incorporation — our conscious and voluntary participation — our “amin.”  In this sense, the economy of salvation is steered by Christ, and the Holy Ghost is its sole minister.

How is such participation (incorporation) possible?   Are we not searching out the uncontainable who is transcendent and humanly-speaking irrational?  Out of Chalcedon came a necessary formula describing the reality of the incarnation of the second person (hypostasis) of the most holy trinity.  This doctrinal statement suggested a duality in the sole person Jesus Christ by speaking of two natures: dual natures complemented by a duality of energies as defined later at Constantinople II.  This formula was the definitive break, at the doctrinal level, with the Nestorian controversy which ensued after the third ecumenical council at Ephesus with regards to the “Mary the Mother of God” paradigm and the Nestorios-Cyril dilemma: THEOTOKOS v. CHRISTOKOS.

For the first time in the history of the Church, a doctrinal statement relegated a considerable portion of christendom to virtual exclusion from the fullness of OIKUMENE - KOINONIA by defining two natures and two energies, without admixture, absorption, superposition or confusion.

We share with the New Adam, Jesus the Christ, a nature held in common, our humanity.  This is the result of his “in hypostasis.”  Moreover, inhypostatization is possible for each and every one of us.  Through our incorporation in the renewed human nature vivified in the resurrection of Jesus the Christ, we become integral members in the very same human nature which is held in common.  Incorporation and permanence is made possible by our conscious and voluntary “updating”: by the “amin” of our baptism, chrismation and eucharist, the mysteries of our christian initiation through which we participate in the divine nature of the Christ.

Our participation is only possible without admixture, absorption, superposition or confusion.

This is, according to St. Gregory Palamas, the third stage of mystical union.  It is union by participation in the divine energies through grace — KOINONIA.

Like the angels, with them, and yet remarkably unlike them, our human nature is bathed in Christ.  It is luminescent in hypostatic light.  It is vivified by the uncreated divine energies which fill all created reality since the first day of time.  Thence, our laver in uncreated grace, the indwelling (inhabitatio) of the Holy Ghost, our hallowing is a taste of the fullness we confess in the symbol of faith.  It makes no difference if we are capable by rational awareness to comprehend that lived reality.

Rational man alone can not take ownership of the experience of the essences of the faith.  Nor can his nature.  God, however, through his uncreated energies snatches up his godly ones and hallows them, transfiguring them into the entelecheia for which they were created.

The Father’s voice upon the Jordan and on the mount of the transfiguration; the Holy Ghost in the “form of a dove” and in “the tongues of fire”; Christ’s sayings, teaching and miracles; holiness as the Holy Ghost indwelling Christ’s Church; each and every one is a revelation.  Each is a sort of a “PHANY” or revelation given in the period we call the new covenant and before, from Moses unto Zechariah.  Each represents the touchstone through which we are made aware that the God-experience in us is arrational.  These revelations confirm for us that the empirical method of the church fathers and ascetics who preceded us in the faith constitutes the only valid tradition.  Their method prefigures a THEORIA which, curiously enough, is essentially PRAXIS.  And yet, that very same PRAXIS unavoidably may lead to spiritual sterility when it is limited to the simplicity of pure logical reasoning divorced from the “experience of the heart,” in other words by KOINONIA with others and all together with God.

Let us not fall prey, dear ones, to the tendency to encapsulate God in aristotelian categories of logic.

We have our profession of faith and our experience: of the Triune, of the divine motherhood of Mary, of two natures in Christ.  They are an encounter of these realities in ourselves — they indwell (inhabitatio) us.  This indwelling is acquisition of godliness (theosis).  It is the only possible Way by which we become what is essential christianity — the living Christ in our midst.

Our actions are for nigh if we are incapable of conceiving the divine child.  If we do not grow him in our midst, if we do not “update” the mysteries we have been gifted; if we do not vanquish the temptations of the world, of the devil and of our flesh; if we do not go forth to life teaching the gospel of the Christ, proclaiming it, baptizing.  Nay!  Our very lives will have been in vain.  We will pass from the possibility of Being to the total impossibility of being: this is spiritual death.

Whatever becomes death passes to oblivion; Christ alone shall not pass.  He is beginning and end (a)rx$= kai\ te/loj).  He is truth.  He is way.  He is life.

Hence, holy tradition has endowed us with serious of descriptions.  These descriptions are foundational references.  They come down to us in the form of arrational dichotomies, or dogmatic statements.  Their purpose is our movement from reason unto life; they are meant for us not to surpass but to “more-than-surpass” them.  They are simultaneously information and raw material for our labors.  As many are wont to remark, the experience of faith is not merely blind belief in the unseen.  It is the very act of knowing in the biblical sense.  Our experience of faith sits atop the tripod of praxis, the light of the Holy Ghost, and the guidance of holy tradition.  And faith is an experience founded on full communion in the Mystical Body of the Christ, as St. Paul points out and the church fathers confirm.  Here, “Increase and multiply!” takes on its most profound meaning until it arrives at that paroxysm which is its end: “Love one another even as I have loved thee.”

Church institutions, in the strictest sense of the word; princes of the Church; theologians and theologies; christians unimpregnated by the outpouring of the Holy Ghost; individuals, devoid of holiness which is the life of the Christ; consumers, from whose midst Christ and the Holy Ghost, those two arms of the Father, have been driven out: all these are illusory.  They are no substitute for the experience of the wedding banquet of the Lamb and the Church, the Bridegroom and the Bride. 

The Song of Songs (Shir-ha Shirim) describes what is non-conceptual understanding.  Understanding is transfigured in the godly and spiritual practice of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Symbol: the wedding night.

Mind, wisdom and holiness are gifts of the Holy Ghost.  He takes flesh in our midst.[43]  He alone brings discernment where our reason and intellect fail to comprehend or define.

God’s gifts in us are inexhaustible bounty.  They contribute to the completeness in man of his entelecheia.  They are his AMIN.  This entails participation of the will, of freedom in the theological and orthodox sense of the word.  This freedom is the mainstream of the entire creation.  As co-participants, as both sovereigns and servants simultaneously, we bring all things to the footstool of the PANTOCRATOR, to the feet of the LAMB on the day of the PAROUSIA.

The seat of the orthodox mindset and freedom is the heart.  In most cases, reason and intellect can not manifestly exceed the confines of the brain, hence their corollary limitations.  They are scarcely capable of reaching horizontal, two-dimensional, superficial perceptions of transcendent reality.  Nonetheless, the “hearing of the heart” is the practice of inner quietude (hesychia or podvig) over a long time — a period in which the person remains silent in order to actually hear.  It is here where the unmistakable voice of the Holy Ghost resounding in our “inner temple” may be heard.  He speaks to the “heart of the person,” that temple which is his tabernacle, the Mt. Thabor par excellence of intimacy with our closest friends.  It is here where human being and being God lead the heart towards the Great Church which no wall contains, because the “Temple is God.”  Moreover, let us foreshadow here the creation of the new heavens and the new earth from the last lines of St. John’s apocalypse.  As for christians of “just praise,” whose vocation it is to be the salt “of the earth” and the heralds of the good news and of the resurrection, it is necessary to “update” our memory and our consciences.  Let us not water down the inheritance of traditional references handed down to us from the fathers.  Conceptual and intellectual understanding of doctrinal statements, of biblical studies, and of liturgical practice merely resembles rigor mortis with its ensuing blackening of our “discernment of spirits.”  Moral, dogmatic, and formal sciences unaided by a contrite spirit, a spirit of patience, humility and love; without the constant work of ascending along the ladder of divine ascent, without a renunciation of power, without personal integrity in all things and by everyone, without the spirit of prudence: consequently, lead to the paralysis of “spiritual comma.”  This sort of death feeds atavistic fears, the absence of a relationship with God.  It encourages the soul to compensate for the lack of faith, for a life devoid of God, by means of expiatory rites and superstition.

The seal of true freedom, the understanding of the entelecheia which is ours because we are created, is a self-demanding attitude.  An attitude which fosters the on-going acquisition of the Comforter and Giver of Life, at the personal and community level.  This is a universal movement, by every member of humanity; it is the urgent need expressed via the urbi et orbi of godliness.

Our communion in Jesus Christ is communion with our brethren.  We experience for ourselves the “updating”[44] Pentecost.   We become Church.  We become communion; we are the liturgical communion and thanksgiving, eucaristia (eucharistia).  The insurmountable wall of irrational antinomies becomes here the footstool which lifts the being toward God through participation in uncreated grace.  Dogmatic concepts become life.  They become experience.  And they even manage to “more-than-surpass” the apparent rational contradiction.  As such, we represent souls boarding a tremendous ship which will brings us after its journey to safe harbor.  It is Noah’s ark.  It is the apostle’s vessel with Christ at the helm.  It is the icon from St. Nikodemos the hagiorite’s Rudder, Phdalion (pidalion).  As a matter of fact, this very icon sums up everything we have been expounding herein until now.  “Living the dogmas means ‘more-than-surpassing’ them.”  As a result, this inexhaustible going-beyond would seem to be the task of “every theologian” in the process of pneumatization; going-beyond will inevitably mean our godliness.  Due to our biological, physiological and chemical makeup, we are obliged to gain understandings of material things and abstractions, by means of our intellectual faculties.  This is intellectual understanding.  It has the potential of evolving into sophianic knowledge, true knowledge, through the indwelling (inhabitatio) of transfiguring uncreated grace which makes us “feel good”, much as Peter, James and John did when they ascend unto Thabor with him who is the fulfillment of the Law (torah) and the prophets (nebiim).  They became theologians through participation.  They had no intellectual understanding of Christ.  They merely had an experience which afterward became difficult to explain logically and intellectually.  The difference lies here, in the event itself.

Intellectual understanding in the strict sense of concepts and terminologies is the capacity for speculation through ideas.  It is an attempt to intellectualize, to delimit, to define the upwelling of pertinent feelings excited by the cognitive process.  These are not the inexhaustible bounty of theological knowledge.  This type of understanding and with it, even the most sophisticated philosophical speculation, are incapable of “more-than-surpassing” their own limits.  Only the indwelling of holiness, or godliness, makes one a true scholar of the scriptural, liturgical, historical, dogmatic sciences, etc, granting that person virtual wings.  The beginning of knowledge for the theologian may only be true wisdom.  The beginnings of wisdom is the fear of God (Prov. 9:10).  Theologically-speaking, “knowledge” is synonymous with “communion”.

False theology changes itself.  It conceals itself, stealthfully and slyly, as Nahash in paradise.  It promises a knowledge which will make a god out of man.  It does this by means of formal, stylistic, historical, and archaeological criticisms of the scriptural contexts of both covenants; by means of moral and psychological reflection, historical and liturgical revisionism, innovative updating; by a long grocery list of “isms.”   Lacking the “salt and leaven” that imbues with the grace that is the way of union with God, they flow ultimately onto the plateau of spiritual sterility.  So, in the words of one of the church fathers:

“A theologian is one who prays.”

True theology is active listening.  It is communion.  It is co-incorporation in the economy of Jesus Christ.  Partaking in the Mystical Body of Christ guided by the Holy Ghost becomes a share in that one, eternal, unceasing divine liturgy celebrated by God himself since the dawn of the first day of creation.

 

 

 

  

 TRANSLATOR'S NOTES 

 

 

 

 

Published on internet: 22 November 2007