Fr. John Romanides
Neurobiological Clinic
This Pauline Church is like a neurobiological clinic. But its understanding of the malady of human personality is much more sophisticated than anything now known in modern medicine. In order to see this reality we must look through Paul into the Biblical understanding of human normality and abnormality.
The normal human being is he who has been led into all the Truth by the Spirit of Truth, i.e. into vision of Christ in his Father’s glory (John 17). It is because the apostles and prophets are glorified in Christ that the people believe that God has sent his Son and that they too can be cured by selfless love (ibid.). Humans who do not see the uncreated glory of God are not normal. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). In other words the only human who was born normal is the Lord of Glory who by choice assumed the blameless passions (i.e. hunger, thirst, weariness, sleep, fear of death, etc.), although by nature the source of glory which abolishes them.
The other side of this coin is that God does not reveal his glory to everyone because he does not wish to harm those not prepared for such a vision. The surprise of the Old Testament prophets that they have seen God and yet live and the people’s request that Moses ask God to cease showing his glory which had become unbearable is clear in this respect.
The concern of the Apostolic Church was not to reflect and speculate about God in Himself since He remains a mystery to the intellect even when He reveals His glory in Christ to those who participate in the mystery of his Son’s Cross by their glorification. Their only concern was each individual’s cure in Christ which is brought about by the purification and illumination of the heart and glorification in this life (1 Cor. 12:26) for service to society. “…Those whom he has justified, he has also glorified” (Rom. 8:30) means that illumination and glorification are interdependent in this life, yet not identical.
The sickness of human personality consists of the weakening of the heart’s communion with the glory of God (Rom. 3:23), by its being swamped by the thoughts of the environment (Rom. 1:21,24, 2:5). In such a state one imagines God to be in the image of one’s sick self or even of animals (Rom. 1:22). The inner person (eso anthropos) suffers spiritual death “because of which[ 115 ] all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12) by becoming enslaved to the instinct to self-preservation which deforms love by its bondage to the self-centered search for security and happiness.
The cure of this sickness begins by the purification of the heart of all thoughts (Rom. 2:29), both good and bad, and their restriction to the intellect. In order to do this one’s spirit dissipated in the brain must spin itself by prayer into a ball of light and return to the heart. One thus becomes free from slavery to everything in the environment, e.g. to self indulgence, wealth, property and even to one’s parents and relatives (Math. 10:37; Luke 14:26). The purpose of this is not to attain to Stoic indifference or lack of love, but to allow the heart to accept the prayers and psalms that the Holy Spirit transfers there from the intellect and energizes unceasingly while the intellect is occupied with daily activities and while asleep. It is thus that sick love begins its cure.
This is the context of St. Paul’s repeated reference to the Holy Spirit praying in the heart. The Holy Spirit as such advocates on behalf of all humans “with sighs not spoken” (Rom. 4:26). But he transfers the prayers and psalms of the intellect to the human spirit in the heart when it is purified of all thoughts, both good and bad. At this point one’s own spirit empowered by the Holy Spirit does nothing else but pray and recite psalms unceasingly while the intellect engages in its normal daily activities liberated from happiness seeking selfishness. Thus one prays with one’s spirit in the heart unceasingly and one prays with the intellect at given times. This is what Paul means when he writes, “I will pray with the spirit, but I will also pray with the intellect. I will recite psalms with the spirit, but I will also recite psalms with the intellect” (1 Cor.14:15).
Paul has just told us that praying by means of tongues other than one’s own includes Old Testament psalms. He is, therefore, not speaking about incomprehensible audible prayers since the psalms were familiar to all. Paul is speaking about the prayers of one’s spirit in the heart which are audible only to those with this same charisma of “kinds of tongues.” Those who did not yet have this gift could not hear the prayers and psalms in the hearts of those who did have this gift.
The Corinthians in the state of illumination had introduced the innovation of conducting corporate worship in the heart in the presence of the “private individuals” who had not yet received this gift of “kinds of tongues.” This made it impossible for these “private individuals” to be edified and say their “amen” at the proper times simply because they could not hear.
Paul states clearly that “no one hears” (1 Cor. 14,2). “if I come to you speaking by tongues, what will I benefit you if I do not speak to you.?” (ibid. 14:6-7). “For if the trumpet gives an unmanifested sound, who will prepare for battle? Thus also you, if you do not give a well shaped word by means of the tongue, how will that which is spoken be known?…This many may happen to be the kinds of sounds in the world, and none are soundless. For if I do not know the force of the sound, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me.” (1 Cor. 14:8-11). Those without the gift of “kinds of tongues” must hear the “force of the sound” of the prayers and psalms to react with their “amen” (ibid. 14:11,16). One must not pray and recite psalms with “unmanifested sound” in the presence of those without this gift of tongues (ibid. 14:10,11). “For you give thanks well, but the other is not edified” (ibid. 14:17).
When Paul says, “he who prophesies is greater than him who speaks in tongues, except if he interprets that the church may receive edification,” (1 Cor. 14:5) he means that he who speaks only in tongues must learn to translate the psalms and prayers in his heart into psalms and prayers of his intellect to be recited audibly. When he thus learns to pray and recite psalms simultaneously with his spirit and his intellect he may then participate in corporate thanksgiving for the benefit of the “private individuals” who will know when to say their Amen. “Thus let him who speaks in tongues pray that he may translate. For if I pray in tongue, my spirit prays, but my intellect is without fruit. So what is (the situation)? I will pray with the spirit, but I will also pray with the intellect. I will recite psalms with the spirit, but I will also recite psalms with the intellect. For if you bless with the spirit, how will he who occupies the place of the private individual say the Amen to your thanksgiving? Because he does not know what you say. You give thanks well, but the other is not edified. I thank God in tongue more than all of you, but in church I prefer to speak five words with my intellect, so that I may instruct others, rather than ten thousand words in tongue.” (1 Cor. 14:13-19).
Paul never says that one interprets what another is saying in tongues. One interprets what he himself is saying in tongues. In each case where Paul relates “speaking in tongues” to “translation” it is always the one who has the gift of tongues who translates himself in order to be heard audibly for the benefit of the “private individuals.” It is within this context that Paul directs that “if one speaks in tongues, he should be grouped in twos or the most threes, and let one translate. If there is not a translator, let him keep quiet in church, let him speak to himself and to God” (1 Cor. 14:27-28). The interpreter is clearly he who has the gift of translating his own prayers of his own spirit in his own heart to his own intellect that they may become audible for the edification of others. Otherwise he must keep quite and restrict himself to praying in tongues which others are also doing but also audibly. Paul thus deprives those with only the gift of kinds of tongues of their majority power to impose their innovation of corporate prayers by only tongues in the presence of the “private individuals.”
Paul is speaking about psalms and prayers not recited by one’s own tongue, but heard coming from the heart. This illumination of the heart neutralizes enslavement to the instinct to self-preservation and begins the transformation of possessive love into selfless love. This is the gift of faith to the inner person which is one’s justification, reconciliation, adoption, peace, hope and vivification.
These unceasing prayers and psalms in the heart (Eph. 5:18-20), otherwise called “kinds of tongues” (1 Cor. 12:28), transform the private individual into a temple of the Holy Spirit and member of the Body of Christ. They are the beginning of one’s liberation from bondage to the environment, not by retreat from it, but by controlling it, not exploitatively, but by selfless love. It is thus that, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has liberated me from the law of sin and death…If one does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. If Christ is in you, then the body is dead to sin, whereas the Spirit is life unto justice…” (Rom. 8:2ff.).
As love is being cured by perfection one receives the higher charismata listed by Paul in 1 Cor. 12:28 which are consummated in glorification. Paul states that, “if one is glorified, all members rejoice” (1 Cor. 12:26) in order to explain why prophets are second to the apostles and before all other members of the body of Christ. To be justified by the prayers and psalms of the Holy Spirit in the heart is to see Christ “in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor. 13:12). Glorification is the coming of “the Perfect” (1 Cor. 13:10) by seeing Christ “face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12). In saying, “I know now in part” (ibid.) Paul is referring to his current state of illumination or justification. By his next phrase, “but then I will be known as I was known” (ibid.), Paul is saying that he will be glorified as he had been glorified. In the state of illumination one is a child. Once glorified one returns to illumination a man (1 Cor. 13:11).
During glorification, which is revelation, prayer in the heart (tongues), knowledge and prophecy, together with faith and hope, are abolished since replaced by Christ himself. Only love does not fall away (1 Cor. 13:8-11). During revelation words and concepts about and to God (prayers) are abolished. After glorification one returns to illumination. Knowledge, prophecy, tongues, faith and hope return to join love which had not fallen away. Those words and concepts used in prayer and teaching by one glorified to lead others to glorification are inspired and to be abolished in glorification.
It is this vision of the resurrected Christ in glory which Paul had and which puts apostles and prophets at the head (1 Cor. 12:28) and foundation (Eph. 2:20) of the Church. This foundation includes women prophets (Acts 2:17, 21:9; 1 Cor. 11:5) and is the context of Paul’s statement that in Christ there is neither male nor female (Gal. 3:28).
Glorification is not a miracle, but the normal final stage of the transformation of selfish love into selfless love. Both Paul and John clearly consider vision of Christ in glory in this life as necessary for the perfection of love and service to society (John 14:21-24, 16:22, 17:24; 1 Cor. 13:1013; Eph. 3:3-6). The appearances of the resurrected Christ in glory were not and are not miracles to astound observers into believing in his Godhead. The miracle was the crucifixion of the Lord of Glory, not his resurrection. The resurrected Christ appears only for the perfection of love, even in the case of Paul who had reached the threshold of glorification (Gal. 1:14ff.) not knowing the lord of Glory he was about to see had been born, crucified and resurrected. In 1 Cor. 15: 1-11 are the glorifications which complete Paul’s treatment of spiritual gifts began in 1 Cor. 12:1.
All subsequently glorified in history are equal to the apostles in their participation in Pentecost because they too have been guided into all the Truth (Acts 10.47-11:18). All the Truth is the resurrected and ascended Christ who returned in the uncreated tongues of fire of Pentecost to dwell with His Father in the faithful who have become temples of His Spirit advocating in their hearts. He thus made the Church His body against which the gates of death can no longer prevail.
Glorification is both the soul’s and body’s participation in immortality and incorruption for the perfection of love. This may be of short or long duration. After an initial loss of orientation one goes about one’s daily work seeing everything saturated by the glory of God which is neither light nor darkness, nor similar to anything created. The passions, which had been neutralized and made blameless by illumination, are abolished. During glorification one does not eat, drink, sleep, or fatigue and one is not effected by heat or cold. These phenomena in the lives of saints (prophets) both before and after the incarnation of the Lord of Glory are not miracles but the restoration of humans to normality. It is within this context that one places such sayings of Christ to the living, but sick, that “I came that they have life (in illumination) and that they have it (in glorification) abundantly” (John 10:10). The gospel of John, and especially 14-16, is a detailed description of the cure of illumination and John 17 is Christ’s prayer for the cure of glorification.
Gerontologists have concluded that the aging process is a sickness and are looking into whether death itself is also a sickness. In this respect both the glorified and their relics should prove of interest since many hundreds of them remain with their bodies and cells intact for centuries in an intermediary state between corruption and incorruption. One of the oldest examples is St. Spyridon on the Island of Corfu who was a Father of the First Ecumenical Council in 325. There are 120 in Kiev alone.
This is the context of Paul’s statement that, “even this creation will also be liberated from bondage to corruption unto the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). It is clear from the context that “the freedom of the glory ” is here freedom from mortality and corruption. But even those whose inner person has been adopted by illumination and who have tasted of physical immortality and incorruption during and limited to the period of their glorification await “the adoption, the liberation of our body” (Rom. 8:23). “The dead will be raised incorruptible and we will be changed…this corruptible will put on incorruption and this mortal will put on immortality…” (1 Cor. 15:53,54). One knows this not by speculation on Biblical texts, but from the experience of glorification, i.e. from “the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” The experience of glorification and not only Biblical texts is the basis of the Church’s belief in the physical resurrection of the biological part of the person.
-Fr. John Romanides
[http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.02.en.the_cure_of_the_neurobiological_sickness_of_rel.04.htm#s32c]
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Part One
The Rudiments of Orthodox Anthropology and Theology
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1. WHAT IS THE HUMAN NOUS ?
The chief concern of the Orthodox Church is the healing of the human soul. The Church has always considered the soul as the part of the human being that needs healing because She has seen from Hebrew tradition, from Christ Himself, and from the Apostles that in the region of the physical heart there functions something that the Fathers called the nous. In other words, the Fathers took the traditional term nous, which means both intellect (dianoia) and speech or reason (logos), and gave it a different meaning. They used nous to refer to this noetic energy that functions in the heart of every spiritually healthy person. We do not know when this change in meaning took place, because we know that some Fathers used the same word nous to refer to reason as well as to this noetic energy that descends and functions
in the region of the heart.
So from this perspective, noetic activity is an activity essential to the soul. It functions in the brain as the reason; it simultaneously functions in the heart as the nous. In other words, the same organ, the nous, prays ceaselessly in the heart and simultaneously thinks about mathematical problems, for example, or anything else in the brain.
We should point out that there is a difference in terminology between St. Paul and the Fathers. What St. Paul calls the nous is the same as what the Fathers call dianoia. When the Apostle Paul says, “I will pray with the spirit,”1 he means what the Fathers mean when they say, “I will pray with the nous.” And when he says, “I will pray with the nous,” he means “I will pray with the intellect (dianoia).” When the Fathers use the word nous, the Apostle Paul uses the word ‘spirit.’ When he says “I will pray with the nous, I will pray with the spirit” or when he says “I will chant with the nous, I will chant with the spirit,” and when he says “the Spirit of God bears witness to our spirit,”2 he uses the word ‘spirit’ to mean what the Fathers refer to as the nous. And by the word nous, he means the intellect or reason.
In his phrase, “the Spirit of God bears witness to our spirit,” St. Paul speaks about two spirits: the Spirit of God and the human spirit. By some strange turn of events, what St. Paul meant by the human spirit later reappeared during the time of St. Makarios the Egyptian with the name nous, and only the words logos and dianoia continued to refer to man’s rational ability. This is how the nous came to be identified with spirit, that is, with the heart, since according to St. Paul, the heart is the place of man’s spirit. 3
Thus, for the Apostle Paul reasonable or logical worship takes place by means of the nous (i.e., the reason or the intellect) while noetic prayer occurs through the spirit and is spiritual prayer or prayer of the heart.4 So when the Apostle Paul says, “I prefer to say five words with my nous in order to instruct others rather than a thousand with my tongue,”5 he means that he prefers to say five words, in other words to speak a bit, for the instruction of others rather than pray noetically. Some monks interpret what St. Paul says here as a reference to the Prayer of Jesus, which consists of five words,6 but at this point the Apostle is speaking here about the words he used in instructing others.7 For how can catechism take place with noetic prayer, since noetic prayer is a person’s inward prayer, and others around him do not hear anything? Catechism, however, takes place with teaching and worship that are cogent and reasonable. We teach and speak by using the reason, which is the usual way that people communicate with each other.8
Those who have noetic prayer in their hearts do, however, communicate with one another. In other words, they have the ability to sit together, and communicate with each other noetically, without speaking. That is, they are able to communicate spiritually. Of course, this also occurs even when such people are far apart. They also have the gifts of clairvoyance and foreknowledge. Through clairvoyance, they can sense both other people’s sins and thoughts (logismoi), while foreknowledge enables them to see and talk about subjects, deeds, and events in the future. Such charismatic people really do exist. If you go to them for confession, they know everything that you have done in your life before you open your mouth to tell them.
2. WHO IS MENTALLY ILL ACCORDING TO THE CHURCH FATHERS?
Everyone is mentally ill according to the Patristic meaning of mental illness. You do not have to be schizophrenic in order to be mentally ill. The definition of mental illness from a Patristic point of view is that people are mentally ill when the noetic energy they have inside them is not functioning properly. In other words, being mentally ill means your nous is full of thoughts9, not only bad thoughts, but good thoughts as well.10
Anyone who has thoughts in his heart, whether they are good thoughts or bad, is mentally ill from the Patristic perspective. It makes no difference whether these thoughts are moral, extremely moral, immoral, or anything else. In other words, according to the Church Fathers, anyone whose soul has not been purified from the passions and who has not reached the state of illumination through the grace of the Holy Spirit is mentally ill, but not in the psychiatric sense. For a psychiatrist, being mentally ill is something else. It means suffering from psychosis or being schizophrenic. For Orthodoxy, however, if you have not been purified of the passions and have not reached a state of illumination, are you normal or abnormal? That is the question.
Who is considered a normal Orthodox Christian in the Patristic tradition? If you want to see this dearly, read the service of Holy Baptism, read the service of Holy Chrism that is held at the Patriarchate of Constantinople on Holy Thursday, read the service for the consecration of Church sanctuaries. There you will see what it means to be a temple of the Holy Spirit. There you will see who is illumined.
In all of the Church services as well as the ascetic tradition of the Church, mainly three spiritual states are mentioned: the state in which the soul and body have been purified from the passions, the state in which the human nous has been illumined by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the state in which the human soul and body experience theosis.11 For the most part, however, they speak about purification and illumination, since the Church services are expressions of reasonable worship.12 So, who is the normal Orthodox Christian? Can someone who has been baptized but not purified be considered normal? What about someone who has not yet been illumined? Or is it someone who has been purified and illumined? Naturally, someone in the last category is a normal Orthodox Christian.
So, what makes normal Orthodox Christians different from the rest of the Orthodox? Is it dogma? Of course not! Take the Orthodox in general. They all share the same dogma, the same tradition, and the same common worship. A Church sanctuary, for example, might hold three hundred Orthodox Christians. Of that number, however, only five are in a state of illumination, while the rest of them are not. The rest of them have not even the slightest idea what purification is. So this raises the question: How many among them are normal Orthodox Christians? Unfortunately, out of the three hundred only five are.
All the same, purification and illumination are specific conditions of healing that experienced and illumined spiritual fathers can recognize. So we have here clearly medical criteria. Or maybe you are not convinced that these criteria are strictly medical? Consider the fact that the nous is a physiological human organ that everyone has. It is not only Greeks and Orthodox that have a nous So do Muslims, Buddhists, and everyone else. So all human beings have the same need for purification and illumination. And there is only one therapeutic treatment. Or do you think there are many therapeutic treatments for this illness? And is it really an illness or not?
3. ON THE DEVIATION OF WESTERN CHRISTENDOM FROM THE ORTHODOX ETHOS
Present-day Orthodox are hard pressed to respond to these issues, because they have become so far removed from this tradition today that they no longer think of the Orthodox Christian way of life in the context of sickness and healing. They do not consider Orthodoxy to be a curative course of treatment, even though all the prayers are perfectly clear on this point. After all, Who is Christ for Orthodox Christians? Is He not repeatedly invoked in the prayers and hymns of the Church as “the Physician of our souls and bodies”?
Now if you search through the Roman Catholic or Protestants tradition, you will not find the word ‘doctor’ used for Christ anywhere. Only in the Orthodox tradition is Christ called ‘the doctor.’ But why has this tradition died out among the Roman Catholics and Protestants? Why are they so surprised when we speak to them about a curative course of treatment? The reason is that the need for purification and illumination – the need for an inner change – is no longer a part of these peoples’ theology. For them, the one who changes is not man, but God! For them, man does not change. For them, the only thing man does is that he becomes a ‘good’ boy. And when a ‘bad’ boy becomes a ‘good’ boy, then God loves him. Otherwise, God turns away from him. If man continues to be a ‘bad’ boy or becomes a ‘bad’ boy, then God does not love him! In other words, if man becomes a ‘good’ boy, then God changes and becomes good. And while before God did not love him, now He does! When man becomes a bad’ boy, God gets mad. When man becomes a ‘good’ boy, it makes God happy. This, unfortunately, is the way things are in Europe.
But the bad thing is that this takes place not only in Europe, but also in Greece. This spirit holds sway over many in the Church here. Orthodoxy has sunk to the point of being a ‘religion’ of a moody God! When man is ‘good,’ God loves him, but when he’s ‘bad,’ God does not love him.13 In other words, God punishes and rewards. So, Orthodoxy in Greece today has essentially been reduced to moralism. Isn’t that what they used to teach children in catechism class and in Greece’s independent Orthodox Christian societies, those organizations that look to the West for models and have corrupted the Orthodox spirit?
After all I have said, if you are interested in learning why Orthodoxy has reached such a sorry state, you should read Adamantios Korais. After the Revolution of 1821, his reforms instituted this policy in Greece. He is the one who initiated the persecution of hesychasm, traditional monasticism, Orthodoxy and the only true cure for the human soul of man. But let’s begin our inquiry elsewhere.
Let’s suppose that there is a research scientist who is not affiliated with any religion – he can be an atheist if you like – but one who does research on religious traditions. When he reaches the Orthodox tradition, he starts to dig around, discovers these things, and describes them. Then he says, “Hey, look at this! Here is a tradition that speaks about the soul, about the soul’s noetic energy, and about a specific curative course of treatment.” Later in his research, this scientist comes to the realization that if this curative treatment were implemented in human society, it would have a very beneficial effect on the health of the individual and society as a whole. Afterwards, as he continues searching, he begins to establish when this tradition appeared, what its sources are, how many centuries it has been successfully put into practice, and where this took place. As he persists, he discovers why this tradition no longer exists today among the majority of the Orthodox and why Orthodoxy has undergone this change and become so distorted. And as our researcher continues, he finds out that all this happened because hesychasm or traditional monasticism, the bearer of this tradition, was persecuted.
But why was hesychasm persecuted? It was persecuted because the countries in which it had flourished started to become Westernized politically as was the case in Russia after the reforms of Peter the Great and in Greece after the revolution of 1821. The modern historian Toynbee says that today Orthodox culture is gradually being absorbed by Western culture. He has written an entire book on this phenomenon. Of the twenty-six cultures that existed in the past, he finds only five still in existence today.14 These are the Hindu culture, the culture of the Far East (China and Japan), European culture, Orthodox culture, and the primitive culture that still exists today in some regions of Australia and Africa. And Toynbee’s theory is that today all the cultures of the world are becoming Westernized.
In the past, an effort was made for this Westernization to take place through the work of Western missionaries. In the past, Europeans used to send out armies of missionaries – and they still do so today – whose purpose was not only to convert other nations to Christianity, but also to Westernize them. And that is why all of these heretical groups are present in Greece and still active. Toynbee notes, however, that this missionary activity failed in the idol-worshiping societies of Africa, as elsewhere, because missionaries created divisions among the people. In a single indigenous family, for example, one son would become Lutheran, his brother would become Anglican, a third brother Baptist, their cousin Methodist, another cousin Pentecostal, another cousin Evangelical, and so on, so that they not only shattered the nation into small fragments through religion, but they even shattered families. It has been established, therefore, that this kind of missionary work was a great failure in Westernizing peoples of the third world.
Therefore in 1948, Toynbee suggested a new solution – that Westernization should take place by means of technology and the economy.
4. WHAT IS ORTHODOXY?
Nevertheless, in response to the process of Westernization, Orthodox people and Orthodox culture do fight back. But what is Orthodox culture? Is it a culture in the sense of Western culture? No, Orthodoxy is not a culture, even if Toynbee refers to it as “Orthodox culture.” Why, because Orthodoxy is a science. And according to today’s criteria, it is a medical science. It is not a culture. Orthodoxy is neither a culture nor a political system, because it is concerned with our personal salvation, with the salvation of our souls. Orthodoxy is based on two facts: “the Word became flesh”15 and “in hell there is no repentance.”16 Of course, Orthodoxy contains within itself all that is necessary for the creation of culture, but Orthodoxy is not a culture. Orthodoxy is not even a religion. Orthodoxy is not a religion like all the other religions. Orthodoxy is distinguished from the rest by a unique phenomenon that is not present in any other religion. This phenomenon concerns the origin, nature and destiny of human beings, as well as how human beings can be cured. It makes Orthodoxy different from the rest of the religions. Orthodoxy is a therapeutic course of treatment that heals the human personality.
A genuine doctor concerns himself with the treatment of anyone who is sick, without exception and without discrimination. He does not single out only certain people from the rest for treatment. He is not interested in people’s social standing, their educational level, their economic situation, their religion, or their ethical conduct. A genuine doctor only notices whether or not the people who come to him are sick. And if they are sick, he takes an interest, tries to treat them, and to heal their infirmities. He is obligated to treat them. In the Orthodox tradition we have something similar to this, but even more so. And it is precisely this something more that constitutes our way of fighting back against westernization.
God loves not only saints but also all people, without exception, including sinners, people in hell, and even the devil. And He desires to save and heal every one of them. He wants to heal them all, but He cannot, because they do not all want to be healed. We know this – that God is love and that He desires to heal everyone and loves everyone – because it has been verified and continues to be verified by the experience of those who have attained to theosis, in which God is seen and they have seen God.
Nevertheless, God cannot heal everyone, because He does not violate the human will. God holds man in high regard and loves him. He cannot, however, heal someone by force. He heals only those who want to be healed and who request that He heal them. Normally, someone who is physically ill, or even mentally ill, goes to the doctor on his own accord and not by force in order to get well—that is, if he is still thinking rationally. The same thing happens in the Orthodox therapeutic course of treatment. We must go to the Church freely on our own accord, without being forced or pressured. We must go to competent people who have reached illumination, are experienced, and possess the curative method of the Orthodox tradition. And then we must be obedient to them in order to find healing.
5. THE SOCIAL AIMS OF ORTHODOXY
Now what is the social aspect of our present subject? Take any human being, any person whatsoever, who lives in society and must function as a healthy social entity.
Earlier we referred to the healing of the human souls noetic energy. The completion of this course of treatment automatically results in the creation of a social human being, a person whose soul is healthy and who is prepared for all aspects of social activity. And such healed people, automatically and implicitly, are “ordained” doctors for others whose souls are sick. Here, the medical science called Orthodoxy differs from other sciences: once patients have been healed, they automatically become people who can heal others. For this reason, it is inconceivable for people who have been healed not to have spiritual children – that is to say, other people who depend on them spiritually, other people whom they advise and guide towards healing.
In the early Church, there was no special or official healer, because every Christian was a healer. Healing was the mission of the early Church. The missionary effort of the early Church was not like that of today’s Orthodox Church, which sometimes consists of advertising our beautiful beliefs and traditional form of worship as though they were nothing but products for sale. For example, we talk like this: “Take a look, folks! We have the most beautiful doctrines, the most beautiful worship, the most beautiful chanting, and the most beautiful vestments. See what a beautiful robe the bishop is wearing today!” And that sort of thing. We try to dazzle them with our staffs, our robes, and our head coverings so that we can carry out our missionary work. Of course, there is some sense and some success in doing missionary work this way, but it is not genuine missionary work like that of the early Church.
Today’s missionary work consists mainly of this: we enlighten superstitious people and make them Orthodox Christians, without trying to heal them. By doing this, however, we are just replacing or exchanging their former beliefs with a new set of beliefs. We are replacing one superstition with another. And I say this because when Orthodoxy is presented in this way and is offered in this way, how is it different from superstition? After all, when Orthodoxy is presented and offered as a Christianity that does not heal – despite the fact that healing is its primary task – how is it different from superstition?
There are Christians in the West who also have Christian dogmas and accept certain councils. On the basis of outward appearance, there does not seem to be such a great difference between the dogmas of the heretics and those of the Orthodox. The difference is not as huge as it is between Christians and idolaters. On the surface, Orthodox doctrine is not so strikingly different from that of heterodox Christians, especially given the fact that Orthodox doctrine, as taught today in Greece, is unrelated to the therapeutic treatment found in Orthodox tradition. So from the perspective of doctrine, how is Orthodox tradition different from the tradition of the heterodox? And why should someone who is not Orthodox believe in Orthodoxy and not in some other Christian dogma? After all, in the way that they are presented, neither one of them is offered as a treatment or pathway towards healing, but as superstition.
These days we talk about changing our way of thinking, about changing our beliefs, about changing our outlook on life, and this is the way we view repentance. In other words, for Orthodoxy today repentance is identified merely with the acceptance of Christ. That is to say, we accept Christ. And because we accept Him, we go to Church, we light a candle or two, and we become good little boys and girls. If we are young, we go to Sunday school. If we are adults, we go to a religious meeting now and then. And supposedly we are living in repentance; supposedly we are repentant. Or else, if we have done something bad in our life, we show some regret and ask forgiveness and call what we are doing repentance. However, this is not repentance. It is simply regret. Regret is the beginning of repentance, but the human soul is not purified by mere regret. In order for one’s soul to be purified of the passions, the fear of God and repentance must first be present and continue throughout the stage of purification until it is completed with divine illumination, the illumination of our nous by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
Since the Orthodox do not put this therapeutic treatment into practice, what makes them different from those who are not Orthodox? Is it doctrine? And what good are Orthodox doctrines if they are not used for the healing of the soul? When used in such a way, doctrine offers no benefit whatsoever.
6. WHAT IS THE STATE OF RECONCILIATION WITH GOD?
From an Orthodox perspective, what is that state of being reconciled in which God makes someone His friend? Look at the services of the Church. Baptism is identified with purification. Baptism is preceded by exorcisms that deliver man from the influence and power that evil spirits have over him. The triple submersion into and emergence out of the water that takes place during Baptism grants man remission of sins and destroys the devil’s influence and activity within him. This is followed by Chrismation that points towards a state in which he becomes illumined by the grace of God, that is, through the action of the Holy Spirit.
Among early Christians, after the newly illumined17 had been baptized on Holy Saturday, thus receiving the grace of Holy Baptism, and after this initial illumination had been supplemented through the mystery of Holy Chrismation that followed, they then proceeded towards full illumination, which chronologically was expected to take place on the day of Pentecost, fifty days after their Baptism.
But what does it mean for a person to receive full illumination? It is a visitation by the Holy Spirit, Who enters the nous or heart of man. The full illumination of the Apostles took place through the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, and the Church wants the same thing to be repeated for every member of the Church, at some moment in his spiritual journey. Thus in the early Church, the whole process of catechism for the newly illumined Christians was completed with their personal Pentecost, with the visitation of the Holy Spirit, Who came and dwelt in their hearts and prayed on their behalf. Naturally, this full illumination did not happen to everyone in such a short period of time, because not everyone was in the same state of preparedness.
Of course, in the case of the Apostles, they not only acquired full illumination on the day of Pentecost, but also reached theosis. Since Pentecost is the model for human spiritual perfection, the aim of every Christian is to reach theosis, which means to see God, his Creator: Christ in glory. This is what happens to all the saints of the Church. For this reason, we proceed immediately from the feast of Pentecost to the feast of All Saints in which we celebrate as a whole the memory of all the Church’s glorified saints, whom we are called upon to imitate. This is the keystone in the framework of the Church’s instruction in the faith.
7. ON THE MEANING OF DOCTRINE
The Fathers stress that salvation does not result automatically from Orthodox doctrine alone. Doctrine is not what saves people. It simply opens the pathway for man to reach purification and illumination. Without Orthodox dogma, however, no one can reach purification and illumination. Without an awareness and sensitivity to right doctrine, without Orthodox practice in one’s daily life, and without participation in the liturgical life of the Orthodox Church, no one can reach purification and illumination. But doctrine and liturgical life are not the means by which someone purifies his soul and reaches illumination. They are, however, the basic prerequisites and the necessary foundation that enables someone to be guided towards purification and illumination. In other words, doctrine alone does not automatically lead one to these states.
8. ON THE FALL OF ADAM
The Fathers teach that with the Fall, the human nous became darkened. Adam’s nous became darkened. The Fathers are not concerned with Adam per se, but with Adam’s nous and with the sickness that followed from the darkening of his nous. The Fathers speak about a nous void of understanding. Throughout Patristic literature, the whole issue of the Fall centers on this darkening of the human
nous.
But how do we know that man fell? Just from the historical description of the Fall in Holy Scripture? And what does ‘the Fall’ really mean? What does ‘Paradise’ mean? What was Paradise? There are two Patristic traditions on this subject, which are summarized by St. John of Damascus, who gives us both Patristic opinions without taking a position himself on this issue.
One tradition says that Adam’s nous in Paradise was illumined. The other tradition says that the condition of his nous was such that he could behold God continuously and that this is what paradise meant for Adam – to see the glory of God. Both the Alexandrian tradition and Cappadocian tradition (of St. Basil the Great) maintain that before the Fall, Adam beheld God with his nous, while the Antiochian tradition (of St. john Chrysostom) maintains that his nous was simply illumined.18
St. John of Damascus takes no position as to whether Adam’s nous was merely illumined before the Fall, or whether it was in a state where it could continuously behold God, that is, in a state of continuous theosis. Why does this Father of the Church not take a position? Because what interests him is to provide two explanations for the original state of the nous and how it became darkened. But how do we know that Adam’s nous became darkened? Very simply, because we know that we ourselves now have a darkened nous. And this darkened nous needs healing. The cure has two phases: illumination and theosis. Theosis is the complete cure.
But what does it mean to say that the nous has become darkened? It means that the noetic activity in the human heart is not functioning properly. Noetic energy begins to function properly only when man passes through purification and reaches illumination. After the Fall, the nous is in a darkened state. Why? Because it is full of thoughts19 and has been darkened by these thoughts. And when does the nous become darkened by thoughts? The nous is darkened when the thoughts of our reasoning mind [dianoia] descend into the heart and become thoughts of the nous, that is, when the location of our thoughts becomes confused between the rational mind and the nous. Thoughts are present in our nous that should not be there, because they belong to our reasoning faculty, the dianoia. The nous must be utterly empty of thoughts in order for it to remain pure and thus receptive, so that the Holy Spirit can come and dwell and remain in it.
9. WHAT IS THE CORE OF THE ORTHODOX TRADITION?
The subject at hand is what is the core of the Orthodox tradition. The Orthodox tradition offers us a method for curing the human nous and soul. This cure, as we have said, has two stages: illumination and theosis. Theosis – the state in which someone is able to see God – is our guarantee that it is possible to be cured, completely cured. This therapeutic method, this therapeutic course of treatment that the Orthodox tradition has to offer, has been handed down20 from generation to generation by people who, having reached the state of illumination or theosis, became therapists for others. We are not talking here simply about knowledge that has been transmitted through books, but about experience – both the experience of illumination and the experience of theosis – which has been handed down successively, from one person to another.
In the Old Testament, however, only the patriarchs and prophets of the Israelites are observed to have reached the states of illumination and theosis.21 This is a historical phenomenon. Before the prophets, we have the patriarchs. Before Moses, we have Abraham. We find in the Old Testament, however, that an awareness of the states of illumination and theosis existed even before Abraham. Abraham himself had seen God. He had reached theosis, that is. This is quite obvious. We also have evidence from Hebraic tradition that illumination and theosis existed in the period before Abraham among Abraham’s forefathers, such as Noah. After all, this tradition of illumination and theosis is something that was handed down. It did not turn up just like that, out of nothing. It did not just suddenly appear in the eleventh or twelfth century before Christ.
We have the Old Testament, but we also have the New Testament. It is easier to see these things in the New Testament, because the time period it covers is more limited, whereas the Old Testament contains 1500 years of history. Now there is a central and unifying tradition around which this 1500-year period revolves. And this tradition, which is the tradition of illumination and theosis, which was handed down from prophet to prophet, is the core of the Orthodox tradition. In other words, the core of the Orthodox tradition is this transmission of the experience of illumination and theosis from one generation to the next. It extends chronologically from Abraham in the Old Testament until John the Forerunner. It is the prophetic tradition, the tradition of the patriarchs and the prophets.
But even before the period we are talking about, there is the first period, which extends from Adam through Noah to Abraham. Today, the veracity of historical events mentioned in the Old Testament has been confirmed archaeologically at least as far back as the age of Moses. And today, no one doubts the great historical value of the Old Testament as a text. But even before Moses, as far back as the age of Abraham, they have uncovered archaeological findings that verify what is mentioned in the Old Testament concerning the person of Abraham.
So, we can see that the core of the Orthodox tradition is not the book of Holy Scripture, but the transmission of this experience of illumination and theosis, which has been handed down successively from Adam to our own time.
10. IS ORTHODOXY A RELIGION?
Many are of the opinion that Orthodoxy is just one religion among many and that its chief concern is to prepare the members of the Church for life after death, securing a place in paradise for every Orthodox Christian. Orthodox doctrine is presumed to offer some additional guarantee, because it is Orthodox, and not believing in Orthodox dogma is seen as yet another reason for someone to go to Hell, besides his personal sins that would otherwise send him there. Those Orthodox Christians who believe that this describes Orthodoxy have associated Orthodoxy exclusively with the afterlife. But in this life such people do not accomplish very much. They just wait to die, believing that they will go to paradise for the simple reason that while they were alive they were Orthodox Christians.
Another section of the Orthodox is involved with and active in the Church, interested not in the next life, but chiefly in this life, here and now. What interests them is how Orthodoxy can help them to have a good life in the present. These Orthodox Christians pray to God, have priests say prayers for them, have their homes blessed with holy water, have services of supplication sung, are anointed with oil, and so forth, all so that God will help them to enjoy life in the present: so that they do not get sick, so that their children find their place in society, so that their daughters
are ensured a good dowry and a good groom, so that their boys find good girls to marry with good dowries, so that their work goes well, so that their businesses go well, even so that the stock market goes well, or the industry they work in, and so on. So we see that these Christians are not so very different from other people who follow other religions, for those people do the very same things.22
From what we have said, we can clearly see that Orthodoxy has two points in common with all other religions. First, it prepares believers for life after death, so that they will go to paradise, whatever they imagine that to be. Second, Orthodoxy protects them in this life so that they will not have to experience sorrow, difficulties, disaster, sickness, war, and the like – in other words, so that God will take care of all their needs and desires. Thus, for this second type of Orthodox Christian, religion plays a major role in the present life and on a daily basis at that.
But among all these Christians we have just discussed, who cares deep down whether God exists or not? Who really yearns for Him and seeks Him out? The question of God’s existence does not even come up, since it is clearly better for God to exist, so that we can appeal to Him and ask Him to satisfy our needs, in order for our work to go well and for us to have some happiness in this life. As we can see, human beings have an extremely strong predisposition to want God to exist and to believe that God exists, because we have a need for God to exist in order to ensure everything we have mentioned. Since we need God to exist, therefore, God exists. If people were not in need of a God and could take measures to ensure sufficiency for the necessities of life by some other means, then who knows how many would still believe in God. This is what happens in Greece as a rule.
So we see that many people who were previously indifferent to religion become religious towards the end of their lives, perhaps after some event that has frightened them. This happens because they feel that they cannot live any longer without appealing to some god for help – that is, it is the result of superstitious beliefs. For these reasons, human nature encourages man to be religious. This holds true not only for Orthodox Christians, but also for adherents to all religions. Human nature is the same everywhere. Since as a result of the Fall the human soul is now darkened, people are by nature inclined toward superstition.
Now the next question is this: Where does superstition stop and real belief begin?
The Fathers’ views and teachings on these matters are clear. Consider first someone who follows, or rather thinks that he follows the teachings of Christ, simply by going to Church every Sunday, communing at regular intervals, and having the priest bless him with water, anoint him with oil and so on, without examining these things very closely.23 Does this person who remains at the letter of the law, but does not enter into the spirit of the law, stand to gain anything of any account from Orthodoxy? Now consider someone who prays exclusively for the future life, for himself and for others, but is completely indifferent towards this life. Again, what particular benefit does such a person stand to gain from Orthodoxy? The former tendency can be seen in parish priests and those who flock around them with the attitude described above. The latter tendency can be seen in some elders in monasteries, usually retired archimandrites waiting to die, and the few monks who follow them.24
Since purification and illumination are not their main focus or concern, both these tendencies, from the viewpoint of the Fathers, have set the wrong goals for themselves. But insofar as purification and illumination become their focus and the Orthodox asceticism of the Fathers is practiced with a view towards attaining noetic prayer, then and only then can everything else be placed on a firm foundation. These two tendencies are exaggerations that reflect two extremes and share no common core. But there is a common core, a structure that runs throughout Orthodoxy and holds it together. When we take into account this one core, this unique structure, then every subject that concerns Orthodoxy finds its proper place on a firm foundation. And this core is purification, illumination, and theosis.
What will happen to man after death was not an overriding concern for the Fathers. Their primary concern was what will man become in this life. After death, his nous cannot be treated. The treatment must begin in this life, because “in Hades there is no repentance.”25 This is why Orthodox theology is not outside of this world, futuristic, or eschatological, but is clearly grounded in this world, because Orthodoxy’s focus is man in this world and in this life, not after death.
Now why do we need purification and illumination? Is it so that we can go to Heaven and escape Hell? Is that why they are necessary? What are purification and illumination and why do Orthodox Christians want to attain them? In order to find the reason for this and to answer these questions, you need to have what Orthodox theology considers the basic key to these issues.
The basic key is the fact that, according to Orthodox theology, everyone throughout the world will finish their earthly course in the same way, regardless of whether they are Orthodox, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostic, atheist, or anything else. Everyone on earth is destined to see the glory of God. At the Second Coming of Christ, with which all human history ends, everyone will see the glory of God. And since all people will see God’s glory, they will all meet the same end. Truly, all will see the glory of God, but not in the same way – for some, the glory of God will be an exceedingly sweet Light that never sets; for others, the same glory of God will be like “a devouring fire” that will consume them. We expect this vision of God’s glory to occur as a real event. This vision of God – of His Glory and His Light – is something that will take place whether we want it to happen or not. But the experience of that Light will be different for both groups.
Therefore, it is not the Church’s task to help us see this glory, since that is going to happen anyway. The work of the Church and of her priests focuses on how we will experience the vision of God, and not whether we will experience the vision of God. The Church’s task is to proclaim to mankind that the true God exists, that He reveals Himself as Light or as a devouring fire, and that all of humanity will see God26 at the Second Coming of Christ. Having proclaimed these truths, the Church then tries to prepare Her members so that on that day they will see God as Light, and not as fire.27
When the Church prepares her members and everyone who desires to see God as Light, She is essentially offering them a curative course of treatment that must begin and end in this life. The treatment must take place during this life and be brought to completion, because there is no repentance after death. This curative course of treatment is the very fiber of Orthodox tradition and the primary concern of the Orthodox Church. It consists of three stages of spiritual ascent: purification from the passions, illumination by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and theosis, again by the grace of the Holy Spirit. We should also take note. If a believer does not reach a state of at least partial illumination in this life, he will not be able to see God as Light either in this life or in the next.28
It is obvious that the Church Fathers were interested in people as they are today at this moment. Every human being needs to be healed. Every human being is also responsible before God to begin this process today in this life, because now is when it is possible, not after death. Everyone must decide for himself whether or not he will pursue this path of healing.
Christ said, “I am the Way.”29 But where does this Way lead? Christ is not referring to the next life. Christ is primarily the Way in this life. Christ is the Way to His Father and our Father. First, Christ reveals Himself to man in this life and shows him the path to the Father. This path is Christ Himself. If a man does not see Christ in this life, at least by sensing Him in his heart, he also will not see the Father or the Light of God in the life to come.30
11. WHO ARE THE THEOLOGIANS OF THE CHURCH?
Now who are the Church’s theologians? The theologians of the Church are only those people who have arrived at a state of theoria, which consists in illumination and theosis. Illumination is an unceasing state, active day and night, even during sleep.31 Theosis is the state in which someone beholds the glory of God, and it lasts as long as God sees fit.
Someone who is in a state of illumination may never reach theosis. God grants theosis and decides whether the illumined need to be led to theosis. If God does not lead someone to theosis, it could mean that this person’s soul will be better off without this experience, because an experience of theosis could harm him, for example, by leading him into pride. In other words, God leads someone to theosis if that person will not be put in any danger spiritually and if that person needs this experience, whether for support or strength, or as preparation for some mission.
Thus, the experience of theosis is not automatic. Someone who is in a state of illumination cannot acquire it, simply because he wants to do so. On the contrary, a person in a state of illumination avoids asking God for the experience of theosis. But when someone needs it, God condescends and grants it, revealing His glory and uncreated Light. An ascetic, for example, lives in the desert depriving himself of many things and isolated from other people, all for the love of God. Since he has already been purified, the Holy Spirit then comes to comfort him and grant him experiences of theosis.
A true ascetic is never alone. At the very least, he has the Holy Spirit in his heart Who prays ceaselessly within him and Who keeps him company in his apparent solitude. This is what is meant by the state of illumination. When the Holy Spirit Himself deems it necessary, He occasionally also grants the experience of theosis when an ascetic has need of it, provided that it will help him, for example, to strengthen him after a demonic attack. These events are clearly seen in the lives of the saints. In these two stages of theoria, illumination and theosis, knowledge of God is clearly experiential. This knowledge is not metaphysical or the result of philosophical speculation.
12. ON NOETIC PRAYER
Noetic prayer is a very interesting subject. It is clearly an empirical state. There is no doubt that noetic prayer is a matter of experience. Even a psychiatrist cannot deny the fact – noetic prayer is clearly an experience. We would disagree with the psychiatrists, however, about what sets noetic prayer in motion. If the subject of noetic prayer were considered to be a phenomenon worthy of observation and study by scientists from the hard sciences, then these psychologists, psychiatrists, pathologists, biologists, and the rest would be duty-bound to apply the scientific method and formulate an hypothesis.
Naturally, the Church has her own records that document how someone with inner noetic prayer experiences this phenomenon. It is a spiritual state, with a tradition spanning hundreds of years, in which the person praying hears the prayer being said within his heart. The saints, in turn, have interpreted this tradition of noetic prayer in a specific way, and on the basis of their interpretation, the Church knows that noetic prayer is a spiritual experience that results from the effect of the Holy Spirit’s grace on the human heart. There are so many writings by the Fathers on this subject that no one can deny the existence of this long-lived tradition, even without exploring everything that Holy Scripture has to say about it. And today there are people living in our midst who have come to know for themselves this tradition by experience, because they can feel noetic prayer active within them.
Once these scientists admit that this is something real, they will have to make their own hypotheses in order to explain this phenomenon called noetic prayer. Naturally, some of them, especially here in Greece, will say that it is something made up by the priests. They will claim that the priests are just talking about some figment of their imagination. If only we were blessed to have priests in Greece with such pursuits! Another group of scientists could easily claim that noetic prayer is a form of hypnotism. I have had these kinds of discussions with doctors, and medical school professors at that, who claimed that noetic prayer was a form of hypnotism. But even if that is all there is to noetic prayer as far as they are concerned, a psychiatrist is still obliged to investigate this question systematically.
Now with respect to hypnotism, yes it is true – hypnotism is an experience. But a psychiatrist still needs to establish whether or not noetic prayer is a form of hypnotism. Hypnotism can cause hallucinations, incoherent states resulting from [a] disorganization in the proper arrangement of impressions made by human experience and stored in the memory. All the fragments of information that make up hallucinations are taken from sense impressions. A person does not enter a state of hallucination because he has lost contact with external stimuli, but because his memory has stopped following its normal pathways and the mechanism that should organize and integrate impressions and information previously stored in the brain now produces disassociation. This causes people to be imbalanced or to have dreams while they are awake. The fragments of information or perceptions that make up a hallucination, however, do exist. Even though the object seen at that time by someone hallucinating is not really in front of him, it does have some reality.32
Returning to the topic of hypnotism per se, the hypnotized person falls into a trance or enters a state resembling sleep. In this hypnotic state, he can remember events from his past and answers questions posed by his hypnotist. While he is in this trance, he is like someone in a coma who has no contact with his real surroundings.
Now with respect to noetic prayer, we are not dealing with something real that has been stored in the memory and that by being recalled causes someone to have a dream. What takes place during noetic prayer is not the same as what happens during a hallucination in which someone imagines that he sees something that is not really within his field of vision or perceived by his senses at the time. In the case of noetic prayer, what transpires in the human heart and what man feels takes place precisely at the same time that he feels it. It is not something from the past, but an experience of the present. Furthermore, no one who is hypnotized or hallucinating has an alert mind. But someone in a state of noetic prayer is not only alert; he can also simultaneously feel something quite clear-cut taking place within him – there is someone else praying in his heart on his behalf with “unspoken sighs.”33 None of this is observed in someone under hypnosis. During noetic prayer, the believer is well aware that what is taking place inside him feels natural and has been set in motion from within, but not by himself This is not simply an unambiguous experience; it is also something that the believer can simultaneously observe and participate in, if he chooses to do so.
This experience is genuine and the burden of proof for this lies not with the Orthodox who are knowledgeable about this experience, but with the scientists who have doubts about it or want to investigate it. If scientists provide their own interpretation for this phenomenon called noetic prayer, they are responsible for proving that their interpretation is correct. After all, the Orthodox have an age-old tradition for their interpretation of noetic prayer. For the Orthodox, there is no question about the genuineness of noetic prayer, and the Orthodox interpretation of it is indisputably correct. After all, we are not dealing with an interpretation of an experience from the past, which cannot be verified or reproduced, but with an interpretation of a real experience today. This reality is alive within the Orthodox Church. It is an experience that continues to be repeated and handed down from generation to generation.
The Church uses her own language, an ecclesiastical language, to talk about this. Through the voice of St. Paul, She says, “We do not speak with human wisdom, but with the power of the Holy Spirit.”34 What does this mean? Why does the Apostle make a contrast between the power of the Holy Spirit and the wisdom of this world? He makes this contrast because someone who has become a temple of the Holy Spirit by the Holy Spirit entering him, dwelling in him, and making an abode in his heart, such a person has a keen sense that there is a power in his heart. And since he can feel the activity of the Holy Spirit within, the words of others, their philosophical or theological arguments, do not convince him that he has become a temple of the Holy Spirit, because he already knows this directly by personal experience. He can feel the Holy Spirit within him. He can hear Him serving as both a priest and chanter within his heart. In other words, the Holy Spirit bearing witness to the human spirit35 is what makes this person absolutely certain that his body has become a temple of God because the Holy Spirit has come and taken up abode in his heart. The Apostle Paul describes this state when he says: “The Spirit of God cries within our hearts ‘Abba, Father.’’’36
Now, was the Apostle Paul describing a reality or an illusion? Was St. Paul’s head in the clouds when he was saying these things? If you pay close attention to what St. Paul says in chapter eight of his epistle to the Romans, you will see that he is talking about real prayer in the human heart. But the Apostle Paul is not the only one to speak in this way. David uses this language in his psalms and the Old Testament speaks in this manner as well. From all of this, we can see why the early Christians who were being prepared for noetic prayer first memorized the entire Psalter. The Psalter was so very important to them because it helped them to practice noetic prayer.
Today it is debatable how many Christians have read the entire Psalter. In the old days, Christians used to read it over the departed before the funeral. Perhaps, it would be the only time that they would read it in its entirety. The priest would read the Psalter, and if he had a chanter close by he would have the chanter read it as well. In the old days, in order to be ordained deacon you had to demonstrate that you knew the Psalter by heart.37 Why? Why was the Psalter so very important in the Church? It was so important because the Psalter contains prayers associated with noetic prayer. In Hebraic tradition, in prophetic tradition, and in early Christian tradition, people prayed noetically using the psalms. This is why St. Paul says, “I will pray with my spirit, I will pray with my mind.” “I will chant with my spirit, I will chant with my mind.”38 Hence, noetic prayer is not only prayer with words, it is also psalmody or prayer with the psalms. We have examples from tradition of noetic prayer using the psalms – St. John Cassian who taught noetic prayer with the psalms provides one of those examples. There is plenty of evidence for this assertion.39
So is it necessary to answer these questions with a philosophical proof when those who believe and have attained to this state of noetic prayer have this experience within? Since this experience exists, what is the use of metaphysics? What is the use of philosophy? How could philosophy be helpful? Has philosophy ever really helped anyone in his personal life to acquire this state of noetic prayer that acts ceaselessly in his heart so that he might become a temple of the Holy Spirit?
If someone has not had this experience but would like to experience it, he normally goes and is taught by those who do have it. This experience of noetic prayer is usually a prerequisite for an experience of theosis although there are some exceptions. During the experience of theosis, man experiences the uncreated glory of God. This experience of theosis is exclusively a gift of God. God grants it to whomever He wishes to grant it, whenever He wishes to grant it, and for as long as He wishes to grant it. It is not dependent on any human endeavor. Under normal conditions, however, one prerequisite is noetic prayer.
13. THEOLOGY AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD
If a student is interested in astronomy, he will read astronomy books about the celestial bodies and later observe the stars in the sky, When he grows up, if he desires to study the stars in more detail and to know them at closer range, he will go to college, study the stars through a telescope, and see those things that are invisible to the naked eye, This is precisely what happens in the spiritual life, The Christian who desires to see the glory of God must pass through certain stages or experiences through which he advances spiritually, As we said earlier, these stages are purification, illumination, and theosis, The state of total illumination comes when unceasing noetic prayer becomes active within the human heart. Then, a person literally becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit.
In spite of this similarity, the sciences, including any of the hard sciences, do not have any special and decisive experience corresponding to a state of illumination. Only a state corresponding to theosis is present in the exact sciences, permitting our analogy. Just as someone who is in a state of theosis can see the glory of God, so a scientist who has the instruments appropriate to his science (a telescope or a microscope, for example) can see the desired object in order to observe it and study it. As soon as you take up a natural science, you can immediately see the object you are learning about and come into direct contact with it.
Scientists are inspired by what they observe, A biologist is inspired by the flora and fauna that he observes, A microbiologist is inspired by the microscopic organisms that he can see through his microscope. Hence, a microbiologist is, so to speak, micro-biologically inspired. An astronomer is astronomically inspired. The object of their research inspires scientists of all sorts. So what should the equivalent state of inspiration be for a theologian (and the word “theologian” does not refer to earning a degree in theology, but to being accounted worthy of seeing God)? Naturally, a theologian should be divinely inspired. But who is divinely inspired, someone who has seen God.
Now why do we call someone who has attained to illumination ‘an illumined person’? He is an illumined person because he has the Holy Spirit dwelling within him and teaching him. And how does the Holy Spirit teach him, by noetic prayer. By praying in this person’s heart, the Holy Spirit teaches him and lets him know what he should say or do. Someone in such a state continuously receives insight about what the will of God is on any given subject. Hence, the Holy Spirit Himself is this person’s teacher in the art of prayer. In theology, God is not only the object of human inquiry, He is also man’s Teacher Who guides him to knowledge, the knowledge of God, which is nothing less than the vision of the uncreated Light.
Now in the exact sciences, how does a student achieve his proper place in his scientific field? Doesn’t he need someone to teach him the science he is studying? Do books only teach him, or is he also taught by living scientists? Of course, qualified scientists must also teach him. He has to go to college and get connected with a professor who knows the subject matter that interests him. In this way, the student also becomes convinced that his professor is truly knowledgeable about what the student desires to learn. Of course, the student realizes that his professor does not know everything. He learns this from the professor himself. A consistent and reputable scholar will clearly reveal to his student what he knows and what he does not know in his field. Thus, the student learns from his professor what remains unknown as well as what is already known in the scientific field he has chosen. He also learns the method or methods for acquiring knowledge. In other words, he is trained in research methods. He is taught how to distinguish between the known and the unknown as well as how to sift useful knowledge from useless information. He also learns how to enlarge the focus of his study or inquiry by further research. So if his professor is completely frank with the student and informs him about what he knows and what he does not know, if he teaches him how to do research, then the student can develop gradually into a specialist in his field just like his professor.
From all these details regarding vital questions of methodology, we can see that the empirical method for learning a science thoroughly corresponds to theology, the Patristic method for acquiring the knowledge of God. We can also see that both illumination and theosis are empirical states that are utterly unrelated to metaphysics or philosophical reflection. In terms of methodology, initiation into the state of illumination is no different from the corresponding initiation of students into any exact science. In order to reach the state of illumination, you have to go and get connected with a spiritual father who has already attained to this state, who is inclined to teach you the method for acquiring the knowledge of God and who is willing to help you advance spiritually.
14. ON RELIGION
This is the question that is now before us – should we identify religion with teachings about the immortality of the soul and the existence of God, for the sake of the life to come? Should we moreover identify religion with the final victory of universal justice? Are we obligated to have religion because there must be a God of justice Who will ultimately judge all mankind so that the unjust will be punished in Hell and the just (in other words, good boys and girls) will be rewarded in Heaven? If our answer is yes, then we must have religion so that justice will ultimately prevail and the human longing for happiness will be fulfilled. Is it conceivable for good boys and girls to be unhappy after their death in the life to come? It is inconceivable. And if they were wronged in this life, is it possible for these good boys and girls who suffered unjustly to receive no justice in the next life? It is impossible. And in Heaven shouldn’t they lead a pleasant life, a life of happiness? Of course, they should. But for all of this to happen, life after death has to exist as well as a good and righteous God Who will settle the score with good and just judgment. Isn’t that how things stand? He has to exist, at least according to the worldview of Western theology in the Middle Ages.
But then modern psychology comes along and discredits all of this. Modern psychology tells us that these views are products of the mind, because human beings have an inner sense of justice, which calls for naughty boys and girls to be punished and good boys and girls to be rewarded. And since compensation fails to take place in this life, the human imagination projects this idea into another life where it must take place. This is why someone who feels vulnerable becomes religious and believes in his religion’s doctrines. It also applies to someone who is devoted to justice and has profound and earnest feelings about what is right. They both believe, because the doctrinal teaching that they have accepted satisfies their psychological need for justice to be done. Their reasons are not based on philosophy or metaphysics, but on purely psychological considerations.
Given the above grounds, it is only right that good people be rewarded with justice and happiness in this life if they are ever to be rewarded at all. In fact, justice and happiness must prevail in this life, because these people do not know if they will have another life, since the arguments that we have mentioned for the existence of another life are clearly based on human psychology. They are not scientific arguments or arguments that are based on experience and scientific methodology. Thus, these people believe in life after death simply because they want to believe in it. This is also why their religion is really centered on the existence of another life where injustice is punished and justice is rewarded.
Thus you can see why so many serious-minded people living in Europe and America today can no longer accept such arguments as the basis for religion. This is also why such a large number of scientists have rejected religion altogether and have been driven to agnosticism, while their respective colleagues in Eastern Europe have been driven to atheism.40 However, in recent years many communists have abandoned the strict atheism of the past and have become agnostics. So in this respect, they resemble European and American agnostics. On the other hand, there are religious people in communist countries and in America who continue to believe in life after death, because, as we have explained, they want to believe, even though they do not have scientific arguments to support their convictions. This is the general state of affairs.
Now, what is Orthodoxy’s position on all of this? Is Orthodoxy also a religion that is identified with the fate of man after death or is it a religion that is interested exclusively in this life here and now that will have repercussions for the next? Of course, it is the latter case. The Fathers explain the reason for this with one small sentence – “In Hades, there is no repentance.”41 In other words, after death the possibility for repentance does not exist. However, modern Greek theologians follow their teacher Adamantios Korais and use metaphysics to approach this subject. By copying Latin and Protestant methodology, they have placed themselves utterly outside of Orthodoxy’s Patristic tradition.
15. ON TWO KINDS OF FAITH
Human beings can have two kinds of faith. The first kind of faith, which has its seat in the mind, is the reasonable faith of acceptance. In this case, a person rationally accepts something and believes in what he has accepted, but this faith does not justify him. When Holy Scripture says, “man is saved by faith alone,”42 it does not mean that he is saved merely by the faith of acceptance. There is, however, another kind of faith, the faith of the heart. It is referred to in this way because this kind of faith is not found in the human reason or intellect, but in the region of the heart. This faith of the heart is a gift of God that you will not receive unless God decides to grant it. It is also called ‘inner faith,’ which is the kind of faith that the father of the young lunatic in the Gospel asked Christ to give him when he said, “Lord, help my unbelief.”43 Naturally, the father already believed with his reason, but he did not have that deep inner faith that is a gift of God.
Inner faith is rooted in an experience of grace. And since it is an experience of grace, what would this make inner faith as far as an Orthodox Christian is concerned? Inner faith is noetic prayer. When someone has noetic prayer in his heart, which means the prayer of the Holy Spirit in his heart, then he has inner faith. Through this kind of faith and by means of prayer, he beholds things that are invisible. When someone has this kind of vision, it is called theoria. Theoria, in fact, means vision.
As a rule, there are two ways for vision to take place.
When a person has not yet attained to theosis, it is still possible for him to see by means of the prayer that the Holy Spirit is saying within his heart. After attaining to theosis, however, he can see by means of theosis, in which both this inner faith44 and hope are set aside, and only love for God remains (as a gift of God). This is what St. Paul means when he says, “But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.”45 When the perfect is come, faith and hope are done away, and only love remains. And this love is theosis. In theosis, knowledge comes to an end; prophecy is set aside; tongues, which are noetic prayer, cease; and only love remains. St. Paul says this in passages of great clarity and beauty. The Church Fathers in turn offer interpretations of these subjects that are indisputably correct.46
16. ON APOLOGETICS: THE QUESTION OF THE SOUL
An Orthodox theologian is under no obligation to take the existence of a Platonic-style Frankish soul into consideration, because unlike the Franks who were followers of Plato on the question ofthe soul, the Fathers refused to follow Plato on this topic. Naturally, modern Greeks have some trouble recognizing this, because they are in such awe of Plato and Aristotle. Modern Greeks learn to admire them so much in school that the Fathers turn into performers on the stage who dance to the music of Plato and Aristotle. How else, other than by being followers of the ancient Greeks, could the Fathers have become great Fathers in the eyes of modern Greeks? In Greece, the sole criterion for greatness is if something comes from ancient Greece. This is also why the feast of the three hierarchs has taken on the particular form it has taken in Greece, portraying the three hierarchs as a continuation of the great Hellenic spirit of ancient Greece. But if you read the three hierarchs, and above all St. Chrysostom, you will see that St. John Chrysostom consistently ridicules the ancient Greeks. He is renowned for deriding them. As far as St. Chrysostom is concerned, the word ‘Hellene,’ which ended up meaning idolater, is nothing more than an insult. Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa do not lag fur behind him for that matter, but as Cappadocians, they belonged to another tradition.
In terms of modern science, an Orthodox theologian is under no obligation to engage in apologetics like the Latins do over the question of the soul’s immortality, the existence of a spiritual soul, or metaphysical epistemology. He is under absolutely no obligation whatsoever. On the contrary, I would say that he is obligated to do precisely the opposite – that is, to try not to engage in apologetics and simply to present the Patristic positions on these subjects.
Christianity appeared during an age in which idolatry or paganism was the law and in which various philosophers – Platonists, Aristotelians, Pythagoreans, and so forth dominated the field in which Greek and Latin speakers discussed questions concerning the soul. Most of these philosophies were also religions with a following, such as Neo-Platonism, which was clearly a religion. Naturally, those who want to save Plato claim that he did not have a religious system, so that he will not be characterized as the founder of a religion. I personally suspect, however, that the ancient Platonic system was itself also a religion. Platonism was not only a religion, but Plato himself also founded a religion, since he incorporated his religious convictions within his philosophical system. Since Plato did not separate his religion from his philosophy, Platonism per se is a religion.
Of course, you can hardly make the same case with Aristotle, because Aristotle did not accept the individual immortality of man. For Aristotle, man as an individual is not a soul, so at least from this point of view, Aristotelianism is not a religion. However, from another angle, it is a religion, because Aristotle himself believed in the gods of that time, and because he himself was religious as was everyone else in his age. In fact, he was not above believing in magic, since his view of religion was also magical.
17. ON HUMAN THOUGHTS AND CONCEPTS
Now what is the origin of human thoughts and concepts?
Are the categories of human thought, words and concepts innate to the human mind or are they acquired, gained through external impressions? Although this was discussed in ancient Greek philosophy, it still continues to be discussed today. We know that Aristotle explicitly thought about this problem. This same question was reexamined later during the Middle Ages. And when we reach the age of the Enlightenment, John Locke and David Hume again returned to these metaphysical categories in their highly cogent studies. And this brings us to the modern era.
Today, the exact sciences are also wrestling with this question. We can see psychologists, psychiatrists, biologists, doctors, biochemists, and others applying the empirical method of research in order to explore the question of how thoughts originate and are created in the human mind. Today this topic is not so much a question of logical processes on man’s part (as examined by philosophy and metaphysics) or of philosophical reflection, as it is a matter of empirical investigation.
Currently,47 scholars are discussing whether human language is innate or acquired. From linguistics, we learn that every language has such a remarkable development with the passage of time that a linguist can attest to important differences in the same language from one century to the next. So when you read ancient texts from an earlier age, you cannot be certain that you fully comprehend those texts or even the vocabulary of that period. In other words, you cannot be sure how specific words were used then and what they meant.
For example, when you compare ancient Greek with modern Greek in this way, you discover a large number of words that are preserved in modern Greek, but have a different meaning today. So these words no longer signify precisely what they did in antiquity. At any rate, what matters for us is that the Church Fathers are quite familiar with the fact that expressions convey specific concepts. Thus, in order to understand the Fathers properly, we must know not only the expressions that they used, in other words, what they said and taught, but we must also know the corresponding concepts. And when we say “the Fathers,” we do not mean only the Fathers in the New Testament, but the Fathers in the Old Testament as well. The New Testament Fathers
l, refer to the Old Testament prophets as “the fathers of our fathers.” This is also why we celebrate the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers. So the aim is not merely to know the Fathers’ sayings or expressions, but also the concepts they used and the particular expressions or sayings they used to communicate them.
Now when we examine the entire Patristic tradition, we note that the Fathers stress that idolatry begins when someone identifies expressions or concepts about God with God Himself. They make this claim because God cannot be identified with any human concept. The uncreatedness of God literally cannot be expressed through concepts. Although we can attribute names to God (for example, we say that God is good, bountiful, merciful, and so forth), this practice is, strictly speaking, improper. And we know that it is inappropriate because of the prophets’ and the Fathers’ experience of glorification or theosis. During theosis, concepts about God have to be set aside. This experience discloses the fact that no created concept corresponds to the uncreated reality of God. There is absolutely no identity or similarity between our concepts or names for God and the reality that is none other than God Himself.
And this explains what is ascertained during the experience of theosis – that God is not Unity, He is not One, He is not Trinity. There are some lovely passages on precisely this issue by St. Dionysius the Areopagite and St. Gregory of Nyssa. All the other Church Fathers agree with these passages, because all the Fathers share the same experience.
18. WHAT IS THE FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINE OF THE PATRISTIC TRADITION?
Today, some people view what is called apophatic theology, as a philosophy influenced by Neoplatonists.48 There is no question that the terminology of the Neoplatonists is similar to that of the Church Fathers. The Neoplatonists also have their own apophatic theology, but there is one crucial difference – Neoplatonism is characterized by ecstasy, an experience that the Church Fathers view as demonic. During an ecstatic experience, the human mind or reason [logistikon] leaves the boundaries of time and space, loses any train of thought and is supposedly united with unchanging reality. In other words, Neoplatonists claim to transcend time and the world of change. In this process, the body, as far as they are concerned, is bad or negative. At any rate, the body does not participate in the Neoplatonic experience of ecstasy. For them, apophatic theology in its entirety is simply the purging of human thought by the removal of all the defects inherent in its limited nature. This release from the defects of human thought is the source of Neoplatonic apophatic theology. However, they are not making an effort to be freed from the created universe, but from the world of change, because Neoplatonic philosophy and metaphysics do not have principles or concepts such as creation ex nihilo or uncreated existence. They do not make the distinction between the created and the uncreated. In contrast, the basic category of Christian thought is the clear distinction between the created and the uncreated together with the teaching that between the created and the uncreated there is absolutely no similarity. This is not only the fundamental doctrine of the Patristic tradition, but also of the Hebraic tradition until today.
19. WHAT IS THE EXPERIENCE OF THEOSIS ?
Notwithstanding the importance of the distinction between created and uncreated reality in Patristic theology, medieval scholastic theology in the West would confuse these categories with the categories for changeable and unchangeable reality. In scholastic theology, which was really a mixture of Aristotelianism and Platonism, both sets of terms became interchangeable.
Aristotle speaks about an unmoved mover. He claims that there are about forty-nine unmoved entities that are in a state of pure actuality. Although they themselves do not move, they do cause motion in others. Like a magnet, they move other beings by attraction. The presence of entelechy, the self-actualizing fulfillment of a thing’s distinctive nature, is what drives motion to completion. Through entelechy, something in a potential state achieves its active or actual state. For example, a seed from a tree is a potential tree. When it falls to the ground and finds conditions appropriate for growth, it sprouts and becomes an actual tree. While it is still a potential tree, it has not yet been perfected, because its inherent entelechy has not completed the course of its development. For a seed, perfection is attained when it becomes a tree.
But according to Aristotle, there are also unmoved movers that do not possess this inherent potential, but are in a state of pure actuality or are completely active by nature. He maintains that they were always in existence, that they will always exist, and that they move all things by attraction. Whatever undergoes this transformation from a potential state to an actualized state progresses towards its perfection, and the attractive force that guides it towards this perfection originates in the unmoved movers. That is Aristotle’s teaching in a few words.
Now we encounter the same ideas on this topic in the Neoplatonists that we encountered in Aristotle. Plato, on the other hand, did not deal with this subject as far as we know. But when we turn to the Church Fathers, we encounter a certain St. Dionysius the Areopagite who is accused of Platonizing and Neoplatonizing, even though he clearly tells us that God is not solely an unmoved mover. He is also moved. In other words, God not only moves all things, but He Himself is also moved. There is in God an aspect that is capable of suffering or undergoing change. Naturally, St. Dionysius is writing this in opposition to Aristotle and the Neoplatonists. But it is also irrefutable proof that St. Dionysius the Areopagite was by no means in league with Neoplatonists, even though he used their language.
The suggestion that God is not only an unmoved mover, but also moved, is heresy to Neoplatonists and Aristotelians. It is an idea that does not withstand the test of reason and that consequently indicates that the Fathers did not practice philosophy. When the Fathers say that God is both an unmoved mover and also moved, they show us that we cannot apply any human categories to God. If we do try to apply them, then we will run into logical contradictions at every turn. This truth about God, however, is not derived from philosophy, but from the experience of theosis. By experience, the Fathers know that our concepts about God lose all value when we gaze directly at God Himself and behold that reality, which is none other than God Himself.
Thus, our concepts about God are used only as a means for helping someone to see God. When that person beholds God, then faith and hope pass away, and only love remains. These are St. Paul’s words and they are unequivocal.49When you behold God Who is Love, then faith in God and all the concepts related to faith, together with hope in God and all the concepts related to hope, are set aside. The concepts are taken away, because they are replaced by the vision of the Beloved Himself. During an experience of theosis or glorification, this Love is the vision of God. Then a person is glorified. He sees Christ in glory and partakes of the glory of Christ. He experiences participation in God.
People usually relate to their fellow man on the basis of their impression of him that they have already formed. But when man gazes directly at Christ during an experience of theosis, in which Christ reveals Himself to him in His glorified theanthropic nature, man is unable to keep in mind any human concept or previous opinion that he had presumably formed about Christ, because absolutely nothing within creation, material or immaterial, with the exception of Christ’s human body, resembles the uncreated reality and glory of the glorified Christ, Whom he now beholds. Man simply accepts Christ as he sees Him. Man cannot describe Him. He cannot speak objectively about Him, because human words are not capable of describing Christ’s uncreated reality or His divine nature. And this is the case because there is no similarity between the created and the uncreated.
At this point, we must stress that in the Christian tradition, the experience of theosis is not at all related to any form of ecstasy. Theosis is not an ecstasy. It is not something that only the human rational faculty experiences. During the experience of theosis, the entire man participates in this experience. Even the body participates with all its senses in normal working order. When someone sees Christ in glory, that person is completely alert. So this person does not merely see something in his mind. He sees with his body as well.
If you read the book of Job, you will see that it refers to the fact that Job’s flesh saw God.50 In other words; Job’s body also participated in the vision of the glory of God. This is Hebraic tradition at its very best. Throughout the duration of this experience of glorification or theosis, man’s body does not lose contact with its surroundings. But this presupposes that a person has grown accustomed to seeing the glory of God, because he has previously had comparable experiences. A person is disoriented only in the beginning when he first experiences theosis. He can even be temporarily blinded by the excessive brilliance of the uncreated Light, but he does not lose his mental faculties. His mind functions normally. He can think just like everyone else, but his sense perceptions may be impaired, since he is not yet accustomed to the uncreated Light. He may be temporarily blinded like St. Paul was blinded the first time that he saw the glorified Christ on the road to Damascus. When we say that St. Paul was blinded, it does not mean that his eyes were damaged, but that he was temporarily blinded by the overwhelming brilliance of the light of Christ’s glory. Then the Apostle’s senses were no longer overpowered, he could again see normally. It is not that some miracle took place and he regained his sight. He simply did not see for a period of time, because his eyes were overwhelmed.
When the uncreated Light becomes visible, it is much more luminous and intense than the light of the sun, and yet it is by nature different from sunlight. It is the very Light of the Transfiguration. In fact, this Light is not even light as we understand it and are familiar with it. Why not? Because the Uncreated Light transcends light.
When the vision of Light comes to an end for someone in this state of glorification, that person continues to have normal relations with other people in his life during the entire period in which the energy of theosis still affects him. We see this clearly in the lives of the saints. Although the saint is in a supra-natural state during an experience of theosis, he continues to mix with those around him as before. The only difference is that he does not eat, sleep, or relieve himself for the duration of this state, since his condition is above nature and his life is sustained solely by the grace of the Holy Spirit. If this state lasts for forty days and forty nights, as it did with Moses on Mount Sinai,51 the person in this state does not sleep, does not grow tired, does not eat, does not drink, and so forth for so many days and so many nights. In other words, he is free from the body’s blameless passions or the natural passions of the body. These phenomena occur because the functioning of the digestive system and the requirements for sleep are suspended. Then man becomes an earthly angel. But apart from this difference, he behaves just like everyone else. He walks around, he talks with others, he interacts socially, he teaches, and so forth, and at the same time he still remains in this state.
Some of today’s academic theologians look down their noses at these descriptions from folk tradition and make fun of them. They do not realize that when it comes to such matters folk tradition falls well within the scope of the experience of illumination and theosis, which is backed up by an entire tradition of Patristic thought that provides us with theological interpretations for these phenomena.
Folk tradition from the villages in Asia Minor, especially in the old days of the Turkish domination, preserves accounts of a village priest in such a state for the duration of the Divine Liturgy. Nevertheless, he continued to read, chant, make exclamations, read the prayers, and finish the service. How are we to explain this? Although it is true that unceasing noetic prayer of the heart is discontinued during an experience of theosis that does not mean that reasonable worship necessarily has to stop. The mind or intellect can continue to pray using texts, especially since it does so for the instruction of others. Of course, the priest who experiences theosis during the Divine Liturgy does not need to pray using texts for his own benefit, but he does so for the benefit of those who are following the Liturgy and need to hear him. So, the priest continues to celebrate the Divine Liturgy until the end.52
So it is clear that we cannot identify these phenomena with the ecstasies of the Neoplatonists, or even with the ecstasies of the Middle Platonic School if we take into account the writings of St. Justin Martyr the Philosopher and use them as a key for interpreting the teaching of that school. I mention the Middle Platonic School because some historians of philosophy claim that Platonism was not a religion, but became a religion in the form of Neoplatonism starting with Plotinus and his disciples.
But in the first part of Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho, St. Justin describes how he personally became an adherent of Platonic philosophy, how he found a platonic philosopher who assumed the responsibility of teaching him, and how he expected to see God at any moment. This means that Justin Martyr, who lived a considerable time before the appearance of Neoplatonic philosophy, spent his time doing spiritual gymnastics or spiritual exercises. He believed that in this way he would suffer an ecstasy at any moment, and see God.
This also means that his teacher was not merely a philosopher, but rather a type of spiritual father, an instructor or guru as we would say today, who guided him to religious experiences, which for us are just demonic experiences. The hesychast theologians discuss these issues at length. For example, St. Gregory Palamas denounced the ecstatic experiences of the Platonists as demonic. Today, since such language does not strike some people very well, since they do not like the sound of the word ‘demonic,’ they will replace this word with contemporary psychological or parapsychological jargon and call these experiences hallucinations or parapsychological phenomena. And indeed, those who seek ecstasies really suffer from these hallucinations. Neverthe1ess, as far as the Church Fathers are concerned, all these phenomena are still clearly demonic.
20. ON EROS53
According to the Neoplatonists, God does not yearn or have eros for man, but man yearns for God. They view eros as a deficiency, because they claim that man yearns for something that he lacks. In their opinion, wherever yearning or eros is present, it implies insufficiency even in the relationship between God and man. In ancient Greek philosophy, this lack or deficiency is called eros. Since someone who is not perfect has eros, that means that eros is for the imperfect.
For the Neoplatonists, perfection involves the repression of desire or eros. It is only because man is an imperfect being that he yearns. Since God, on the other hand, is perfect, He does not have eros. God cannot yearn, because He is perfect and self-sufficient. This is the reason why the Neoplatonists consider Him to be an unmoved mover.
Now consider what holds true for Orthodox tradition. When St. Dionysius the Areopagite claims that God is also moved, he is saying something else. He also mentions how some people have had discussions about whether eros and agapi54 are the same, and have come to the conclusion that they are not the same. Eros is different from agapi. That is why they maintain that God has agapi for man, but does not have eros. Meanwhile, man has eros for God, but he should only have agapi. But when St. Dionysius enters the discussion, he brings up his own experience of theosis and reaches the conclusion that God not only has agapi for man, but also eros. He also claims that eros and agapi are the same thing for God.55 Now what Platonist could ever say that God has eros for man? That is out of the question as far as they are concerned.
21. ON TERMINOLOGY, EXPRESSIONS, AND CONCEPTS IN THEOLOGY
The Fathers stress that all the expressions and concepts that a person can have are products of human thought. Concepts and expressions do not come down from heaven and God did not personally create concepts and expressions in the human mind. The Fathers base this teaching on their experience of theosis, which leads them to stress that every human language is a human invention. Man is the creator of the language with which he communicates with his fellow man. There is no divine language. God does not have His own language that He gave to man and He does not even communicate with man via some special language that He gives to those with whom He communicates. Language is the result of human needs. People formed it in order to help them communicate and interact.
So language is not what it was made out to be by Dante, a good number of Protestants, and the Frankish theologians of the Middle Ages. It is also not what the Muslims claim for the Koran – that the Koran and its language came down from heaven. The Muslims even maintain that there exists an uncreated Koran in heaven. On this very issue, there is an important discussion that took place between St. Gregory of Nyssa and the Eunomians. The Eunomians believed in the existence of a divine language that God revealed to the prophets and that included the names for God that the prophets mentioned. So the Eunomians were claiming that the names for God were the essence of God and that these names for God mentioned in Holy Scripture conveyed concepts that corresponded to the reality that is God. Of course, this is not the case.
In line with the above, we cannot make any distinction between a divine language and human languages, because there is no divine language with which God speaks to mankind. There is also no way to discern which words are appropriate for theology and which are not. There’s no unambiguous distinction between acceptable and unacceptable terminology. The only criterion that we can use for terminology about God is the criterion of reverence. There are words that are not in good taste for us to use when referring to God. For example, it is disrespectful to say that God is a smooth operator. There are others words, however, that are respectful enough to use when we speak about God, such as saying that God is Light.
In this context, the epistemology of the Fathers, which is clearly empirical, is in its entirety quite useful at least for Orthodox Christians, and perhaps for other Christians as well. You could even call it quite modern. After all, when the Fathers composed their writings, they did not suspect that a Frankish tradition would later develop under the influence of Augustinian thought. Most of the Fathers in the East were not familiar with Augustine. Those who did know something about him did not consider him very important, at least in the earlier days. In any event, the Fathers did not read Augustine’s writings and certainly could not imagine that the entire Western tradition of Goths, Franks, Lombards, Normans, and others would later embrace him as their only source of guidance in theology. Unfortunately, Augustine espoused the epistemology of the Platonists, Neoplatonists, and Aristotelians. Since his epistemology was clearly Aristotelian-Platonic, it was also completely different from that of the Church Fathers.
What sets Augustine’s theology apart from the rest of Patristic theology is that he theologically accepts the very essence of Platonism by accepting Plato’s archetypes. According to Plato, all things in the world are copies of certain archetypes. Naturally, the Fathers not only thoroughly rejected this teaching and the very existence of Plato’s archetypes, but they even excommunicated from the body of the Church those who accepted Plato’s archetypes, because the acceptance of these archetypes is a form of idolatry.56 Today, I do not know if there is any serious-minded human being who accepts this teaching.
From what has been said so far, you can see why Orthodox Christians do not make a distinction between secular and religious terminology. There are not secular words on the one hand and religious words on the other. All the words that we use for concepts about God are secular words. It is en6ugh that they be respectful.
Thus, we see God or the Old Testament Yahweh being described as a rock. But is God a rock? In the spirit of Platonic philosophy, we should only use abstract expressions for God.57 We should employ terms like nous, logos, intellect, hypostasis, substance, trinity, unity, and so forth. Nevertheless, the Bible uses words like mountain, rock, stone, water, river, sky, sun, and so on. In other words, if we take a look at the Old Testament, we will find many names attributed to God that are not taken from human form or nature, but from inanimate creation. The energy of God is described as a cloud, fire, light, and so forth.
Since the time of the prophets, and even earlier Jewish tradition has known that man cannot make any image of God, because God does not have any image in the material universe. In the Old Testament, any image of God whatsoever is forbidden. This is why Jews did not have icons or images in the Old Testament.
The only exact image of God the Father is Christ, the Word of God Who became man. God does not have any other images outside of Christ. A common human being is not an image of God. Only Jesus Christ the God-man is the image of God. With the exception of Christ in His human nature, nothing in the created world is an image of God.58
This is the reason why we are free to borrow any name or concept and to attribute it to God as long as we do so in an apophatic way, because God does not have any likeness in the created world and because there are no concepts in the created world that can be attributed to God as a way of identifying Him. So on the one hand, we do attribute a name to God, but only if, on the other hand, we also take it away from Him. For example, although we say that God is Light, we negate this at the same time by saying that God is also darkness. We do not add this qualification because God is not Light, but because God transcends light. God does not lack anything, but He exceeds everything. This will become clearer as we proceed.
At this point, we come to a crucial difference between the apophatic theology of the Church Fathers and that of the Western Scholastic theologians of the Middle Ages. Even today if we open up a dogmatic textbook written by Roman Catholic theologians, we will come across their claim that there are two ways to theologize – one way involves attributing names to God and the other negative way involves removing these names from God. But what is absurd is that for them these names are not taken away from God in order to avoid attributing them to Him, but in order to purify the names of their imperfections.
But you will not find such a thing in the Church Fathers, for whom the method of attributing names to God is really quite simple. Names are given and they are taken away. In other words, they make use of opposites. But when the Fathers speak about God and attribute opposites to Him, they negate Aristotle’s law of contradiction59 and in so doing overturn the entire edifice of Aristotelian philosophy.
This means that the Fathers do not follow the rules of logic when they deal with theological matters or talk about God. Why? Because the rules of logic are valid, in so far as they are valid, only for God’s creation. The rules of logic or philosophy are not applicable with God. There is not any philosophical system or system of logic that can be applied to God. The Fathers consider those who think that they can approach God via pure mathematics to be terribly naive, simply because there is no similarity between the created and uncreated. What is valid in the created realm is not valid for the uncreated reality that is God, because there are no rules from created reality that can be applied to uncreated reality.
The Fathers do not say anything about God on the basis of philosophical reflection. They do not sit at their desks like the Scholastics in order to do theology, because when the Church Fathers theologize, speculation or reflection is strictly forbidden. The only sensible way to study the Bible is not to speculate (that is, to try to understand Holy Scripture by employing the reason or abstractions), but to pray. But what do we mean by prayer? Noetic prayer, because noetic prayer means that the Holy Spirit visits the believer and prays within his heart. When this occurs, the believer is illumined and becomes capable of rightly understanding the concepts from the Old and New Testament, and is also in a position to be led from his present state of illumination to theosis.
If and when someone reaches theosis, he will know from the very experience of theosis precisely what is meant by the sayings and concepts that he comes across in the Bible. This now brings us to an interpretive key – when those who reached theosis and who wrote Holy Scripture use expressions or concepts, these concepts are divinely inspired in the sense that they are based on the experience of illumination or theosis. This also applies to the expressions or concepts used in the writings of the Church Fathers and the saints. In other words, they wrote what they wrote on the basis of this experience and because of this experience what they wrote is divinely inspired.
22. ON TWO FORMS OF REVELATION
This is why there are two forms of revelation. We have revelation as noetic prayer and revelation as theosis. Of course, the basic key is the second kind of revelation as glorification or theosis. Through theosis we fully comprehend the revelation of illumination. In this way, we encounter an understanding of revelation and divine inspiration that is thoroughly and exclusively empirical.
But why does God not reveal words or some new terminology during this experience of theosis? When the Holy Spirit comes and prays within the human heart, He does not pray with new words that He brings along with Him, but He prays with familiar words that are already in the mind and are taken from human experience. For example, the Holy Spirit uses the very same prayer that the believer uses when he prays in his mind, so that the self¬same prayer becomes the prayer of the heart. For instance, the monk says in his mind, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” When the Holy Spirit enters his heart, then these very same words will become the prayer of his heart. From this point forward, his heart will be praying with these words rather than his mind. When the Holy Spirit prays within the believer, He prays with the same words that the believer himself used previously. This also explains the tradition of noetic prayer taking place with the words of a psalm or some extemporaneous prayer. In this case, the particular psalm or the words of a prayer become the prayer of the human heart.
So the experience of illumination does not reveal to us any new words or terminology. We cannot claim that the Holy Spirit came to the Fathers and revealed to them terminology such as one essence and three hypostases or consubstantial. That is not revelation, but theological terminology that the Fathers employed to contend with heretics. Terminology is not revelation from God, since properly speaking even inspiration is not revelation from God. Simply put, when the Fathers were inspired, they would compose a text from expressions and concepts with which they were already familiar. They would take these expressions and concepts from the tradition of piety (from what they already know about the faith), from the Old Testament, or from the New Testament. They would use nouns taken from common experience so that everyone can comprehend their meaning.
But when God reveals Himself through theosis, all sayings and concepts are set aside. According to the Church Fathers, when someone speaks about God,60 he is to do so on the basis of the inner experiences he has accumulated, the supporting testimony of the Holy Spirit in his heart, and the documented experiences in Church Tradition of those who have attained to theosis. Since he is already in a state of illumination, he turns to those who have experienced theosis as guides in his theology. In other words, he uses those expressions and concepts that the saints who reached theosis in the past and present used and handed down to the Church.
Here we have the basic key to the Patristic tradition: whoever speaks about God is found in a state of illumination and speaks about God on the basis of the documented experiences of those who have experienced theosis (the Old Testament, the New Testament, and Patristic texts). He also prays on the basis of their documented experience. This explains why the most important prayers of the Church are the Psalms of David, which are the foundation of the liturgical life of the Orthodox Church. After the psalms come the spiritual songs and hymns that the Apostle Paul speaks about.
All these psalms, songs, and hymns are the building blocks that provide structure to the Church’s liturgical life. They act in unison to guide and prepare the believer for illumination, provided that he is a struggler and is purified from his passions. And when someone enters a state of illumination, he uses these psalms, hymns, and prayers that he hears in church. In other words, when someone is in a state of illumination, the Holy Spirit uses the prayers of the liturgical tradition as He prays within that person. And when the believer finds himself in this state of illumination that is when he speaks about God. He does not speak about God merely on the basis of his own personal experience in general, but on the basis of a specific personal experience in which the Holy Spirit Himself bears witness to the believer’s spirit.61
So someone in this state of illumination, who studies the writings of those who have experienced theosis, does so on the basis of this certainty provided by the Holy Spirit’s testimony. When he reads the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Patristic texts, the acts from the church councils, the saints’ lives, and discourses, as well as the Church’s liturgical texts, the Holy Spirits testimony enables him to interpret correctly, these writings of those who have experienced theosis. If he also happens to have undergone an experience of theosis, then he is riot only able to interpret these writings correctly, but he is also able to theologize correctly. In this way, he also becomes a theologian of the Church.
Consequently, there is a fundamental difference between someone who has experienced theOS1S and is a true theologian on the one hand, and someone who is in a state of illumination and practicing theology on the other. This difference remains even if the person in a state of illumination has had a small taste of the experience of theosis. So a theologian really speaks about God, but someone making a theological interpretation also speaks about God. However, the mere fact that someone, while making a theological interpretation, speaks about God does not mean that he is a theologian. He will literally become a theologian when he reaches the state of theosis and sees Christ in glory. Then all the truth that man is able to know in this life is revealed to him, because Christ is the Truth, which is personal.
Until someone reaches theosis, he is simply a student of theology who speaks about God. He will become a graduate with a degree in theology when he experiences theosis. Of course, those who have earned a degree from a theological faculty at some university are nowadays considered to be graduates with a degree in theology. But these self-styled theologians do not bear any relation to the genuine theologians of the Patristic tradition. If we use the criteria of the Apostle Paul and Church Fathers such as St. Symeon the New Theologian regarding who is truly a theologian, we will see that contemporary modern Orthodox theology, under the influence of Russian theology, is not Patristic theology, but a distortion of Patristic theology, because it is written by people who do not have the above-mentioned spiritual prerequisites. Only when you use strictly scientific criteria can you acquire some objectivity in your research and in your conclusions.
23. CONCERNING OBJECTIVITY IN RESEARCH AND THEOLOGY
But what do we mean when we talk about objectivity in research h? In the exact sciences, objectivity is acquired through observation and analysis. For example, how did we learn that there are nearly one hundred thousand genes in a cell? We observed them in an electron microscope, we photographed them, and we counted them.62
The same procedure is also followed in astronomy using the telescope. Before 1926, all astronomers believed that there was only one galaxy. But today astronomers know by the use of radio telescopes that there are at least one hundred million galaxies in the universe. In other words, you look at something and verify it by the experience of observation. Everything in the exact sciences revolves around this objectivity, which is derived from observation, experimentation, and measurement. The chief characteristic of this objectivity is an experiment’s repeatability with the reproduction or confirmation of the same results. In other words, many scientists at different parts of the globe can simultaneously verify something that one of their colleagues first discovered. Scientific knowledge is subject to verification and redefinition by other researchers at different locations and times. So the evidence of many reliable scientists gives rise to objectivity and defines it in the exact sciences.
What, then, can be objective in Patristic theology and how much does it differ from subjectivity? The diverse theologies that circulate today in Orthodoxy are simply estimates about what Patristic tradition is. They are subjective assessments. But how can today’s Orthodox theologian acquire objectivity in his theology? The problem is that he accepts the truth of his faith as a given, because he has usually been raised in the Orthodox faith since childhood. In other words, he believes in advance, because he is an Orthodox Christian. He accepts Christ in advance, he accepts the truth of Christ’s teachings in advance, he accepts the teachings of the Church Fathers in advance, he accepts the decisions of the local and ecumenical councils in advance, he accepts the canon law of the Church in advance, and so forth. Under such conditions, how can a modern Orthodox theologian possibly acquire objectivity in his theological method? This is the fundamental problem today.
24. WHAT IS THE CORE OF ORTHODOX TRADITION?
We happen to be entrusted with a treasure – the theology of Orthodox Tradition. Orthodox theology is the culmination and product of centuries of experiences that have been repeated, renewed, and recorded by those who have experienced theosis at different times. We have the experience of the patriarchs and the prophets as well as the later experience of the Apostles. We call all of these experiences ‘glorification:.’ To say the prophet was glorified means that the prophet saw the glory of Cod. To say the Apostle was glorified means that the Apostle saw the glory of Christ. Seeing the glory of Christ, the Apostle ascertained by his own experience that the glory of Christ in the New Testament is the glory of Cod in the Old Testament. Hence, Christ is the Yahweh and the Elohim of the Old Testament.
Although it is not clear in the Old Testament Who the Holy Spirit is, the Apostles discovered Who He is by experience. Their experience repeats the experience of the prophets, but there is a difference because the Apostles were glorified after the Incarnation: Yahweh of the Old Testament now has the human nature of Christ. Although three of the Apostles were partially glorified during the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, all of the Apostles were fully glorified at Pentecost, during which they reached the highest state of glorification that any human being can ever reach in this life.
After the experiences of the Apostles come the experiences of the glorified who include the Church Fathers and those saints who reached theosis. And so the experience of theosis continues to appear in each generation up to the present.63 This experience of theosis is the core of the Orthodox tradition, the foundation of the local and ecumenical councils, and the basis for the Church’s canon law and liturgical life today.
If the contemporary Orthodox theologian is to acquire objectivity, he must rely on the experience of theosis. In other words, we can positively state that a student of Patristic tradition has acquired objectivity in his theological method only when he has personally undergone purification and illumination, and reached theosis. Only in this way will the researcher not only understand the Patristic tradition, but also verify for himself the truth of this tradition through the Holy Spirit.
25· WHO IS A PROPHET IN THE NEW TESTAMENT?
The Church bases Her entire teaching about both the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation of God the Word on Her teaching about divine grace. St. Paul writes, “God has placed in the Church, first Apostles, second prophets, third teachers ….”64 In time, most would interpret this passage as indicating that for St. Paul, the prophet was the bishop in the churches of the early Christians. So first there are the Apostles, then the bishops, and after that the presbyters who, according to this interpretation of St. Paul, are the teachers in the Church.
If you read St. Paul’s fourteenth chapter in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, you will see that in this chapter he clearly refers to the existence of many prophets, or Christians with the prophetic gift of clairvoyance in the parish of Corinth. Since he writes, “Let the prophets speak in groups of two or three,”65 there must have been at least three prophets, and perhaps there were as many as six or seven. From this, we can conclude that all the prophets in Corinth were not bishops.
So what does St. Paul mean by the word ‘prophet’? has meaning becomes clear in another epistle where the Apostle Paul writes that the mystery of God has not been revealed to previous generations in the way that it has been revealed to his own generation, namely, in the way that it has been revealed “now to the Apostles and prophets.”66 This means that in the Old Testament Christ did not reveal Himself in the way He has now revealed Himself to the Apostles and prophets. At this point, St. Paul is not talking about the Old Testament prophets, but about the prophets in the Church.
First of all, this means that an apostle is someone to whom Christ has revealed Himself in glory. This explains why in chapter fifteen of his First Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul’s list of all the people to whom Christ appeared includes not only those appearances after Christ’s resurrection, but also after Pentecost. In other words, St. Paul does not distinguish between appearances of Christ before Pentecost and afterwards.
So merely being a disciple of Christ before His crucifixion is not the primary way to know that someone is an apostle. The primary characteristic of any apostle includes having an experience in which Christ reveals Himself in glory to that person after His resurrection. St. Paul writes, “I do not know Christ according to the flesh, but according to the spirit,”67 because in order to know Christ according to the flesh St. Paul would have had to spend time with Christ before His crucifixion, something that St. Paul did not do. After the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection, we do not know Christ according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. In other words, we see Christ noetically with the eyes of our soul and in glory during an experience of theosis.
Secondly, St. Paul’s words about the mystery of God now being revealed mean that a prophet is another type of believer to whom Christ has revealed Himself. So when someone acquires this particular experience in which the post-resurrectional Christ appears to him in glory or when someone sees Christ in glory, this experience automatically makes that person either an apostle or a prophet. This means that when St. Paul refers to a prophet, he is speaking about someone who has reached theosis. We can see this dearly in St. Paul’s statement, “ … when one member of the Church is glorified, then all the members of the Church rejoice with him,”68 which he mentions before listing “… those whom Christ has placed in the Church, first, apostles, second, prophets, and so forth.”69
Moreover, scholars now admit that St. Dionysius the Areopagite’s comments about bishops from that time period reflect this historical reality. In other words, just as the Apostle Paul’s prophet is someone who has reached theosis, so St. Dionysius the Areopagite’s bishop is someone who has reached theosis. Furthermore, at that time the bishops of the Church were selected from those prophets whom St. Paul mentions.70
Now we learn from Nikitas Stithatos that there are people who have been consecrated bishops directly by God Himself, although they are not recognized as bishops by others. Nevertheless, they really are bishops. In other words, by having reached theosis, they have the spiritual authority of a bishop.
At that time, the parish of Corinth was apparently in commotion because believers with “kinds of tongues,” which are the different forms of noetic prayer, or at least some of them, thought that they should be put on par with everyone else. This is why St. Paul tries to restore good order to the Church by telling them that in the Church there are first apostles, then come the prophets, then the teachers, and finally those with kinds of tongues.
In chapters thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen of his First Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul takes pains to give a thorough presentation of Orthodox ecclesiology. Apparently, in the Apostle Paul’s parishes all the members of the Body of Christ were clearly called by God,71 because everyone had received a visitation by the Holy Spirit in his heart. They were divinely-called members of the Body of Christ, because they were all ordained by the Holy Spirit Himself. So the prophets in his parishes attained to glorification or theosis just like the Apostles did. Meanwhile, the parish’s teachers and those ranked below them had only attained to illumination.
26. ON THE MYSTERY OF CHRISMATION
If we now relate this information from Corinthians with what is mentioned in the prayers from the service of Holy Chrism, we can clearly see that the mystery of Chrismation was viewed as a mystery for the illumined, that is, for those who had already received the visitation of the Holy Spirit in their hearts.
In the early Church, the mystery of Chrismation and the mystery of Baptism were apparently not celebrated together. While the mystery of Baptism was performed “unto remission of sins,” the mystery of Chrismation was intended for those who had already become members of the Body of Christ, because they were presumably called by God through the presence of the Holy Spirit already praying in their hearts. The mystery of Chrismation was performed to seal or authenticate this event. That is why during this mystery the priest exclaims, “the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit” when he anoints the Christian. So, this seal was the Church’s confirmation that the Christian who had just been Chrismated had reached the stage of Illumination. That is why chrismation is called confirmatio in the Latin tradition, meaning confirmation. It was the confirmation that this particular Christian had passed through the stage of purification and had reached a state of illumination. So the Church comes along and seals him, considering him to be from this point on a full member of the Body of Christ.
So in the early Church, the baptized were considered to be members of the Church only after Chrismation. Through Baptism they received remission of sins. Through Chrismation they became members of the Church. Today, infants are Chrismated immediately after their Baptism.
27. ON LAITY, CLERGY, AND THE CHURCH
Notwithstanding the earlier understanding of Baptism and Chrismation, we see a strange development in the history of the Church – the quality of the Church’s “royal priesthood”72 did not remain at its original level.73
Even in the days of the first Christians, both laity and clergy were present from the very beginning. St. Paul calls the laity idiotes or untrained persons. The Church Fathers in turn explain that St. Paul’s untrained persons are the laity. A layman is someone who has been baptized, but has not yet been called from on high so that he could enter the royal priesthood or become a member of the clergy. A clergyman was considered to be called by God when the Holy Spirit entered his heart and began to pray there. In other words, he had become a “temple of the Holy Spirit,”74 and consequently a member of the Body of Christ that is the Church. This is why the Apostle Paul first tells the Corinthians “ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular”75 and then explains what he means by saying “God hath set some in the church, first apostles, second prophets ….”76 In other words, he gives us his own definition for the Body of Christ.
Later, the Church fathers inform us that, al a certain point in history, men were ordained into the clergy who would have been considered to be laymen in the early Church. Afterwards, some of these men wet-e also consecrated bishops. St. Symeon the New Theologian (AD. 949-1022) has practically written a dissertation on this subject.
This means that a certain practice crept into the Church – men who were unqualified to belong to the clergy of the Church were ordained to the clergy. In other words, men were ordained who had not met the spiritual prerequisites for the priesthood.
St. Symeon the New Theologian was so highly successful in rebelling against this abnormal situation that the Church called him ‘the new theologian.’ From his era until the time of St. Gregory Palamas, a great battle raged within the Church about the qualifications for the election of a bishop. On account of this hesychastic controversy, as it came to be called, St. Symeon the New Theologian’s position ultimately prevailed and was sanctioned – candidates for consecration as bishops of the Church were to be selected from monks within the hesychastic tradition of purification, illumination, and theosis.
28. ON FRANKISH DOMINATION AND HESYCHASM
Throughout the entire period of Turkish domination, bishops continued to be selected from monks within the hesychast tradition. For that matter, this same practice also persisted during the Frankish’; domination that preceded it. A large segment of the Orthodox Roman world that was later enslaved to Turkey had previously been enslaved to the Frankish states.
It is worth noting how vehemently the Franks struggled to subjugate the Orthodox Christians to Frankish bishops during the many centuries of the Frankish presence in parts of Greece and the Middle East. After all, the Franks did not allow Orthodox bishops to be consecrated. And this practice should hardly surprise us, since we are all familiar with the Frankish domination in recent Greek history when the Dodekanisa were under Italian rule and the Franks refused to allow the consecration of an Orthodox Bishop for those islands. The plan of the Roman Catholic Church and the Italians was to subjugate the Orthodox Christians to Frankish bishops in this way. That is what we call ‘Frankish domination’. Frankish domination was not merely an episode from the Middle Ages before the Turkish domination, since there was a Frankish domination in Greece even after our liberation from the Turks.
What is really significant is that the Franks who governed Eastern Roman territories during this entire period were very much aware of the fact that Orthodoxy found and finds her strength in the hesychast tradition. Hesychast piety has always given Orthodox Christians the strength to endure slavery. But how does hesychasm give anyone such strength? Someone with noetic prayer is not afraid of anything, because in his heart he has the Holy Spirit Whose testimony supports him and Who informs him that he possesses the true Faith in God as well as the correct convictions about God. Such a person is in a position to undergo any torment whatsoever for the sake of the ruling power [vasileia] of God – Heaven.
The Franks are not the only ones who were aware of this. Even the Turks knew it. For centuries, hesychasm has been recognized as Orthodoxy’s strength. However, the Franks did not view hesychasm as representative of Patristic tradition, but as a distortion of Patristic tradition. They would never admit that the hesychast tradition is the genuine Christian tradition of the first Christians, in spite of the fact that this very tradition was also present in the West for many centuries.
Unfortunately, this tradition was lost when it was engulfed within the tradition of the conquerors of Western Roman culture, in other words, in the tradition of the Normans, Goths, Franks, Burgundians, Lombards, and the rest of the Germanic tribes. This means that hesychasm is not merely an Eastern phenomenon. It is a universal Christian phenomenon that was originally present throughout all of Christendom.
If you correctly interpret St. Paul, you can see that he repeatedly speaks about noetic prayer, which is the heart of hesychasm from the standpoint of methodology. The Apostle is speaking about this prayer when he writes, “I will pray with the spirit, I will pray with the nous” and “I will chant with the spirit, I will chant with the nous.”78 The Church Fathers understand this prayer to be noetic prayer. If you need proof, look at St. John Chrysostomos’ commentary and see how he interprets these passages from the Pauline epistles. So the hesychast tradition is not Byzantine tradition, but early Christian tradition.
The Franks knew full well that they had correctly identified hesychasm as the source of Orthodoxy’s strength. So what did they do to get rid of it? After the Revolution of 1821 and the founding of the Modern Greek State, the Franks deliberately set out to undermine hesychasm, and Adamantios Korais took it upon himself to do just that. After the revolution of 1821, Korais declared war against hesychasm at the same time that the Russians and the Europeans were also setting their sights at undermining hesychasm and uprooting it from the Christian tradition. This is how we have reached the point where today we consider hesychasm to be an unimportant detail within Orthodox tradition and an insignificant phenomenon from the past. In fact, we learned from the textbooks that we used in junior high that hesychasm is a heresy, a trivial and marginal tradition.
Let’s summarize what we have said so far. First of all, St. Symeon the New Theologian starts a revolution. Next, this tradition manages to elevate at least the hierarchy. From that point, this tradition continues until the Greek Revolution of182 1. And finally, the Greek Revolution comes along and nearly buries this tradition.
But what happened next? The plan to bury hesychasm spread to the heart of the Orthodox patriarchates. The Archbishop of Athens at the time, Meletios Metaxakis, took it upon himself to see that burial completed. Apparently, Metaxakis was an important Mason. And I say ‘apparently,’ because the Masons themselves claim that Meletios Metaxakis was a Mason. So Metaxakis first became Archbishop of Athens, then patriarch of Constantinople, and finally patriarch of Alexandria. As Metaxakis made this tour of duty from Athens to the patriarchate of Constantinople and from Constantinople to the patriarchate of Alexandria – he was, in fact, first Metropolitan of Kytios in Cyprus – he buried hesychasm wherever he went.
The only patriarchate to which he could not go was Antioch, because Antioch had revolted against Orthodox Roman culture during the previous century and would no longer accept Greek Orthodox bishops. Otherwise, Metaxakis would have gone there as well. He was also expelled from Jerusalem. I suspect that the Roman Catholics and Protestants played some role in this development, since the burial of hesychasm has always been and still is one of their aims.
In the meantime, a renowned Roman Catholic specialist on Orthodox subjects named Martin Jugie (1878-1954) writes a book in Latin about the dogmatic teaching of the Eastern Church.79 In this book, he announces the death of hesychasm. He writes, “We can now say that hesychasm has disappeared.” A contemporary Greek historian and author of The History of the Greek Nation has said the same thing. He triumphantly announces that hesychasm is dead, that the words romaois, romois, and romaiosyni81 have now disappeared from the Greek language, and that modern Greeks no longer have a problem with their ethnic identity. Since hesychasm and Roman culture an; not unrelated, the plan was to extinguish them both.
Recently, a Roman Catholic theologian named Daniel Stiernon wrote a large article in French about Palamism. In it, he presented a complete bibliography and fully describes the interest of past scholars in hesychasm. His article begins as follows: “When Jugie wrote his book on doctrinal teaching, he announced the death of hesychasm, that is, that hesychasm no longer exists.” Stiernon wrote this survey of the complete bibliography on Palamite studies in 1972.s~ Of course, at the time there were only a few works on hesychasm, together with some translations of Patristic texts by monks from the past two centuries. In the monasteries some monks had beautifully translated into modern Greek quite a few of St. Gregory Palamas’s works. Naturally, Jugie was not interested in doing research about what the monks were writing.
He was solely interested in publications about hesychasm that could be found in the libraries of the theological schools, which at that time had forgotten about Palamas and hesychasm. Later Stiernon continues, “however,. dozens of works on Palamas have appeared within a short period of time leading to a revival of hesychast teaching in Orthodoxy’s official theological schools.”
Today, interest in hesychasm happens to be on the rise. Many works related to hesychasm have been translated into foreign languages, and many heterodox have become Orthodox on account of hesychasm. However, we happen to be at a curve in the road on the subject of hesychasm. Behind the scenes, a battle is being fought that the student world is not aware of. It has reached the point of downright slander not only on theological subjects, but even on non-¬theological topics. The aim of this slander is to prevent the spread of hesychasm.
One group in particular from Athens has made up insulting catchphrases in order to mock hesychasm. They invent catchphrases, because they are not professionally capable of holding a serious theological discussion on the history of doctrine or the dogmatic teaching of the Church Fathers. Instead, they spread the spirit of scholarly research that is conducted in Protestant circles, even though the Orthodox prerequisites for Old and New Testament research are completely different. 50 they sling their catchphrases and ridicule the leaders of hesychasm to those living both in Greece and abroad.
They also resort to more direct methods to hinder the Church in Greece, which has already taken up a position in favor of hesychasm. One of Her bishops, Panteleimon Karanikolas of Corinth, has labored at length on Patristic texts. He has compiled an index for the Philokalia, arranged The Key to the Church Fathers, and translated the book, The Way of the Pilgrim. So, the hierarchy of the Greek Church has positioned itself on the side of the theological leaders for the revival of this hesychast tradition.
In spite of this, the other side, comprised of philosophers and heralds of the end times, still tries to attack, even though those who really speak about the end times are those who practice hesychasm, not relaxation.83 Genuine Orthodox eschatology is hesychasm. Those philosophers use social and political issues as a mask to hide their filthy culture in order to bury our Roman culture.54 For this reason, not be naïve. Christ told us to be as wise as serpents.
______
NOTES:
1 1st Corinthians 14:5.
2 Romans 8:16.
3 This means that the Spirit of God speaks to our spirit. In other words, God speaks within our heart by the grace of the Holy Spirit. St. Gregory Palamas in his second discourse from “In Behalf of the Sacred Hesychasts” notes that “the heart rules over the whole human organism …. For the nous and all the thoughts (logismoi) of the soul are located there.” From the context of grace-filled prayer, it is clear that the term ‘heart’ does not refer to the physical heart, but to the deep heart, while the term nous does not refer to the intellect (dianoia), but to the energy/activity of the heart, the noetic activity which wells forth from the essence of the nous (i.e., the heart). For this reason, St. Gregory adds that it is necessary for the hesychasts “to bring their nous back and enclose it within their body and particularly within that innermost body, within the body that we call the heart.” The term “spirit” is also identical with the terms nous and “heart.” Philokalia, vol. IV (London: Faber and Faber, 1995), p, 334.
4 Cf. Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos, who notes: “Man has two centers of knowing: the nous which is the appropriate organ for receiving the revelation of God that is later put into words through the reason and the reason which knows the sensible world around us.” The Person in Orthodox Tradition, trans. Effie Mavromichali (Levadia: Monastery of the Birth of the Theotokos, 1994), p. 24.
5 I Corinthians 14: 19.
6 In Greek, the Prayer of Jesus consists of exactly five words in its simplest form, which in English is translated as “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me” -TRANS.
7 “Thus as Saint John of Damascus puts it, we are led as though up a ladder to the thinking of good thoughts …. Saint Paul also indicates this when he says: ‘I had rather speak five words with my nous …. ‘” St. Peter of Damascus, “The Third Stage of Contemplation,” in Philokalia, 3, page 42 [my translation: d. also English Philokalia, vol. XXX, p. 120] and St. Nikitas Stithatos, as cited below.
8 With respect to this, Venerable Nikitas Stithatos writes, ” … If when you pray and psalmodize you speak in a tongue to God in private you edify yourself, as Saint Paul says …. If it is not in order to edify his flock that the shepherd seeks to be richly endowed with the grace of teaching and the knowledge of the Spirit, he lacks fervor in his quest for God’s gifts. By merely praying and psalmodizing inwardly with your tongue, that is, by praying in the soul – you edify yourself, but your nous is unproductive [cf. 1 Corinthians 14: 14], for you do not prophesy with the language of sacred teaching or edify God’s Church. If Paul, who of all men was the most closely united with God through prayer, would have rather spoken from his fertile nous five words in the church for the instruction of others than ten thousand words of psalmody in private with a tongue [ef., 1 Corinthians 14: 19], surely those who have responsibility for others have strayed from the path of love if they limit the shepherd’s ministry solely to psalmody and reading.” St. Nikitas Stithatos, “On Spiritual Knowledge,” in The Philokalia, vol. 4, pp. 169-170.
9 The term used is logismos (plural-logismoi), which is the technical term in ascetic literature for a thought combined with an image. According to St. Maximos, a logismos can be simple (dispassionate) or composite (passion-charged: e.g., a memory combined with a passion). (Bishop Hierotheos Vlachos, Orthodox Psychotherapy: The Science of the Fathers, trans. Esther Williams [Levadia: Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 1994], pp. 215-216). According to St. Isaac the Syrian, four causes generate logismoi: “Firstly, from the natural will of the flesh; secondly, from imagination of sensory objects in the world which a man hears and sees; thirdly, from mental predispositions and aberrations of the soul; and fourthly, from the assaults of demons who wage war with us in all the passions … ” (ibid., p. 218). Although logismoi first appear on the horizon of the mind, they are immediately transmitted to the heart, so that we feel as though they arise from the heart (ibid., p. 221). The Lord Himself referred to this saying, “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matthew 15:19)-TRANS.
10 “In its physiological prayerful state, noetic energy moves cyclically like an axle turning within the heart. In its ailing state, noetic energy does not turn like an axle cyclically, but while being rooted in the heart, it unfolds and cleaves to the brain and creates a short-circuit between the brain and the heart. So, the concepts of the brain that are all from the environment become concepts of noetic energy always rooted in the heart. So, the sufferer becomes a slave of his environment …. The undefeatable weapon against the devil is the healing of this short circuit between the heart’s noetic energy and the brain’s reason. The healing consists of the limitation of all concepts in the brain, whether they be good or bad, which is achieved only when the noetic energy of the heart returns to its physiological cyclical movement by means of unceasing noetic prayer. Those who maintain that it is possible to cast out bad concepts and keep only good ones in the brain are naive. One must know the concepts of the devil with precision to defeat him. This is achieved by means of the cyclical movement of prayer in the heart. … ” Father John Romanides, “Religion is a Neurobiological Illness, Orthodoxy its Healing,” Orthodox Hellenism: Way in the Third Millennium (Agion Oros: 1. M .. Koutloumousiou, 1995), vol. 2, pp. 67-76 (in Greek).
11. Although many Orthodox theologians who write in English translate the Patristic term theosis as deification, that translation is problematic, because the wider public associates deification with the imperial cult of Rome. Toward the end of the republic, the Senate would formally deify certain emperors. Although this practice began in Rome with the deification of Romulus as the god Quirinus, it was common to ancient and oriental monarchies as a form of ancestor worship, reverence, or even flattery. The Classical Greek term for this kind of deification was apotheosis (the term theosis was seldom used prior to the Patristic period). It implies polytheism and the notion that some individuals can cross the line separating the created and the uncreated. This deification was condemned and mocked by early Christian apologists such as St. Justin Martyr and Tertullian.
In his English writings, Fr. John consistently avoids the term ‘deification,’ sparingly uses the term theosis as it is (although he uses it frequently in Greek), and prefers the term ‘glorification.’ The value of a term such as glorification is that it reflects both the Biblical continuity and the nature of the experience. According to the will of God, the prophets could see God’s glory, the Apostles could see Christ’s glory at the Transfiguration, and the saints still can see the glory of the Resurrected and Ascended Lord.
To avoid the pagan notions associated with the term ‘deification; and in keeping with Fr. John’s own practice, we will leave the term theosis un-translated. For verbal and adjectival forms, we will use the words “to glorify’ and “glorifying” where possible. – TRANS.
12 Worship associated with texts formulated by the reason that is illumined by the Holy Spirit. – TRANS.
13 Professor George Mantzaridis in his comments related to Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou’s book entitled Reference to the Theology of Elder Sophrony (Essex: Sacred Monastery of the Honorable Forerunner, 2000), which was printed in the periodical Synaxis (85 Jan-March 2003], 98), mentions the following:
“The unwavering criterion of the truth and the catholicity of the Church consists of love for one’s enemies. In the teaching of St. Silouan and the Elder Sophrony, people are not classified as ‘enemies’ and ‘friends’ [or 'good people' and 'bad people'], but as those ‘who have known’ and those who ‘do not know’ God. Wherever ‘enemies’ are acknowledged, it means that part of the body of humanity is cast aside and universality is restricted. Keeping the commandment of love for one’s enemies means that man embraces all human beings and becomes catholic, universal. And on an ecclesiastical level, love for one’s enemies comprises the criterion that assures catholicity. ‘The true Church is that which maintains alive love for one’s enemies’ [pg. 350]. It is highly significant and especially appropriate for this point to be stressed in our age.”
14 Fr. John is likely referring to Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975), Civilization on Trial (1948). Toynbee was an English historian best known for his 12-volume A Study of History (1934-61), a monumental synthetic work on civilization, “Unlike Spengler in his The Decline of the West, Toynbee did not regard the death of a civilization as inevitable, for it mayor may not continue to respond to successive challenges. Unlike Karl Marx, he saw history as shaped by spiritual, not economic forces …. Many critics complained that the conclusions he reached were those of a Christian moralist rather than of a historian. His work, however, has been praised as a stimulating answer to the specializing tendency of modern historical research.” (Encyclopaedia Britannica CD) -TRANS,
15 John 1:14.
16 St. John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book II, Chapter IV.
17 The newly-illumined refers to those who were formerly un-illumined, but afterwards were partially illumined by grace in a process that began with their pre-baptismal instruction, continued during their Baptism, and was, so to speak, completed during the service of Chrismation.
18 “The first formed were most simple and dispassionate like angels bearing flesh …. Through the commandment of obedience, the first fashioned were to hasten to the perfection of incorruption, blessed theosis.” Athanasios of Paros, Synopsis [Collection of Divine Dogmas of the Faith] (Leipsia: 1806), pp. 256-257.
19 Logismoi. Cf. note on this term in the earlier section: “Who is Mentally Ill?”
20 Paradidetai from whence the word paradosis, “tradition,” is derived.
21 The prophet or patriarch first hears the voice of God (the Spirit praying in his heart: illumination) and later has a vision (“sees” the glory of God: theosis). – TRANS.
22 As we noted in the Prologue, Father John’s words are at times caustic.
23 Of course, genuine Orthodox Christians do these same things and it is not wrong for them to desire to do them. The problem is when someone stagnates at this level.
24 As a rule, this is seen when the spiritual father and his monks are not interested in hesychasm.
25 St. John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book II, Chapter IV.
26 Of course, all people have a partial experience of this vision of God immediately after the departure of the soul from the body at their biological death.
27 “In the fire of revelation on the final day, the deeds of each will be tested by fire as Paul says. If what one has built up for himself is a work of incorruptibility, it will remain incorruptible in the midst of the fire and not only will it not be burned up, but it will be made radiant, totally purified of the perhaps small amount of filth … ” St. Nikitas Stithatos, “On Spiritual Knowledge,” ?79, The Philokalia, vol. III, page 348 [in Greek] [in English, page 165].
28 “We have fallen so far from the vision of Him, corresponding to the dimness of our sight, since we have voluntarily deprived ourselves of His Light in this present life.” St. Symeon the New Theologian, Extant Works, Discourse 75 [in Greek].
29 John 14:6.
30″ … At Christ’s Second Coming, all mankind will be raised and will be judged according to their works. The sinners who did not acquire spiritual eyes will not cease to exist. They will continue to exist ontologically as persons, but they will not participate in God. The righteous will both participate in God and commune with Him. As Saint Maximos the Confessor teaches, the sinners will live with an ‘eternal lack of well being,’ while the righteous will live in a state of eternal well being.’” Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos, The Person in Orthodox Tradition (Levadia: Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 1994), p. 162 [in Greek].
31 “I sleep and my heart keeps vigil.” Song of Songs 5:2.
32 This also takes place with hallucinogens such as LSD. Of course, when someone is under hypnosis, he can also have hallucinations resulting from a demonic influence, in which case he comes into contact with evil spirits.
33 Cf. Romans 8:26.
34 “And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” I Corinthians 2:4.
35 Cf. Romans 8:16.
36 Cf. Galatians 4:6. In other words, the Holy Spirit within us cries out towards the Father saying, “my Father.”
37 Canon Two of the Seventh Ecumenical Council.
38 I Corinthians 14:15.
39 In Father Joanichios Balan, The Romanian Book of the Elders (Thessalonica: Orthodox Kypselis), reference is made to a Christian layman who had unceasing noetic prayer, unceasingly reciting the Psalms.
40 The was said in 1983.
41 St. John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, book 11, chapter IV.
42 Ephesians 2:8.
43 Mark 9:24.
44 I.e., prayer of the heart.
45 I Corinthians 13: 10 and 13: 13. Since faith and hope have fulfilled their purpose and man has reached the point of seeing God, the source of his faith and hope, he now simply knows and loves the One Who is Love.
46 The entire Philokalia is concerned with these issues.
47 The year was 1983.
48 Neoplatonists are philosophers who belonged to the last school of Greek philosophy that took its definite shape in third-century Rome under the direction of Plotinus (A.D. 205-270), the author of The Enneads. -TRANS.
49 1st Corinthians 13:13.
50 Cf. Job 19:26: “And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” Also, Job 42:5: “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.”
51 Cf. Exodus 34: 28-31.
52 This also took place with St. Seraphim of Sarov during the Divine Liturgy. In his case, however, on account of the excessive glory and the newness of the state of theosis, it appeared as though his contact with his surroundings was interrupted. By the time of his famous conversation with Motovilov, however, he was accustomed to the state of theosis and no longer disoriented by the brightness of the Light. See the life of the Saint. – TRANS.
53 Eros is the term for love commonly used when referring to lovers and those who fall in love. It is the root for the English word ‘erotic’ and sometimes translated as an ‘erotic force.’ Eros connotes a passionate desire, an intense longing, and an impatient yearning. – TRANS.
54 Agapi is the Christian term for the love between the persons of the Holy Trinity and the Trinity’s love for mankind John 3:35, 15:9]. It is the characteristic of Christ’s disciples John 13:35] and is manifested most clearly in the self-sacrifice of the Cross John 15:13]. It implies unselfish behavior and placing one’s brother first in matters large and small [Romans 14:15]. Agapi is an ineffable [Ephesians 3: 19] gift or fruit of the Holy Spirit that is shed in the human heart [Romans 5:5 and Galatians 5:22]. “God is agapi” [1 John 4:8]. St. Paul’s hymn to agapi offers a summary of the traits that manifest the presence of this divine gift. “Agapi is long-suffering, and is kind; agapi does not envy; agapi does not boast, is not puffed up, does not behave unseemly, does not seek its own, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Agapi never fails” [1 Corinthians 13:4-8]. ¬TRANS.
55 “God is a Person and loves man. For this reason, Saint Maximus the Confessor, who follows Saint Dionysius, says: Theologians call the divine sometimes an erotic force [eros], sometimes love [agapi], sometimes that which is intensely longed for [eraston] and loved [agapiton]. Consequently as an erotic force [eros] and as love [agapi], the divine itself is subject to movement; and as that which is intensely longed for [eraston] and loved [agapiton], it moves towards itself everything that is receptive of this force [eros] and love [agapi]:” Cf. Met. Hierotheos Vlachos, The Person in Orthodox Tradition, p. 104 [For the citation by St. Maximus in English, cf. "Fifth Century of Various Texts," §84, Philokalia, vol. 2, p. 280].
56 See “Conciliar Decrees of the Holy and Ecumenical Seventh Council for Orthodoxy” (Athens: Fos Publications), pp. 155-166.
57 That is, we should use terms for God that have a spiritual or intellectual content rather than a material one.
58 Adam was fashioned in the image of Christ. Strictly speaking, man is not all image of God the Father, but he is an image of Christ.
59 A law of Aristotelian logic that states that it is impossible for p and not p to be true. For example, an object cannot simultaneously be entirely black and entirely white. It can be black or white, but it cannot be both at the same time.
60 If someone is nUL in a state of illumination, he is not allowed to theologize. This Patristic position is expressed best by St. Gregory the Theologian in his well-known first theological discourse against the Eunomians: “AJI people, my Ii-iends, are not in a position to philosophize about God; no, ther are not. The subject matter is not so cheap and lowly that anyone can approach it. And I will add that the subject is not for every audience, nor for every hour, nor for everyplace, but it is for certain occasions, before certain people, and within cert.’lin limil~. Everyone is not permitted, because theology is permitted only to those who have been examined, and become accomplished in Iheoria, and who have been previously purified in soul and body, or at the very least are being purified.” Oration 27, PG 36. f6 A-B.
61 “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit.. .. Romans 8: 16. ¬TRANS.
62 This was said in 1983. From that time until the present, enormous strides have been made in this field.
63 During the past few decades many saints of the Church who have experienced Iheosis have become known, such as Elder Paisios the Hagiorite, Elder Sophrony of Essex, England, Elder Porphyrios of Athens, Elder lakovos of [via, Elder Joseph {he Hesychast, and Elder Ephraim of Katounakia among others within and outside of Greece.
64 I Corinthians 12:28.
65 I Corinthians 14:29.
66 Ephesians 3:5.
67 II Corinthians 5: 16.
68 I Corinthians 12:26.
69 Cf. I Corinthians 12:28.
70 "The prevailing custom was to use the title 'bishop' for the first among the prophets in a parish and to refer to the remaining prophets as 'presbyters,' although in the beginning it was common for all the prophets to be called 'presbyters.' It is noteworthy that the Church at Corinth had at least five prophets (l Corinthians 14:29). Paul was not very concerned with the title 'bishop' or 'presbyter,' since he considered them all to be prophets and as such to be at the foundation of the Church together with the Apostles (Ephesians 2:20). As in the case of the Apostles, their ordination was directly from Christ by means of theosis (Ephesians 3:5) and afterwards by means of the recognition of this theosis by their peers who had also experienced theosis." Father John Romanides, Roman Fathers of the Church: The Works of Gregory Pa1.amas (Thessalonica: Pournara Publications, 1984), vol. 1, p. 7 (in Greek).
71 "Of course, Saint Paul stresses that God is the One Who places e,lch one ill the Church. He begins with the Apostles and prophets who have reached theosis and elld~ with 'kind~ of tongues' (I Corinthians 12:28). These spiritual stages are the result of the baptism of the Spirit, which is distinguished Ii"om the baptism of water, as it appeilrs until today in the services of Baptism and Chrismation. Those who are found in this number comprise the 1"0)'{11 priesthood. The ·private persons' (I Cortl/Illialls 14: 16) are the laymen who do not have the baptism of the Spirit; they are not yet numbered by Paul among the members thaI God has placed in the Church." Ibid., p. 7
72 I Peter 2:9.
73" _ .The regeneration of mall, the revelation of the heart, and the discovery of the hypostatic principle cultivate III man a fervent love for the entire world that is expressed by S<lcrificial prayer on behalf of the whole world. With a heart alhlnle with love, man emerges from the narrow limited boundaries of self and lovingly enters the h)'poslflJiJ of the other. To a certain extent, he lives Christ>s self-emptying and anguish in Gethsemane by lamenting for the entire world. In the lives of many saints, we see that they had this compassionate heart for all creation, even for the devil. This sacrificial prayer that arises when the believer experiences the appearance of God and uncovers his own personhood is called 'the royal priesthood'. Those who pray noetically have what is called 'the spiritual priesthood'." Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos, The PCI:1011 ill tire Orthodox Tmditioll, p. 96 [in Greek].
74 1 Corinlhitms 6: 19,
75 I CorinlhiflllS 12:27.
76 I CorinlhiflllS 12:28.
77 Father John uses the term ‘Frankish’ to refer to the theological and cultural synthesis of Germanic tribal paganism and Augustinianism that began under Charlemagne, eventually extinguished the Orthodox Catholic Church of the West, and inspired the Crusades which contributed to the fall of Constantinople in the East. In this case, the Frankish domination may also refer to Venetian rule in the islands. – TRANS.
78 1 Corinthians 14: 15. See the discussion of this passage in section one.
79 Martin Jugie, Theologia dogmatica christianorum orientalium ab ecclesia catholica dissidentium (Paris: Sumptibus Letouzey et Ane, 1926-1935), 5 vols.
80 Roman in purified and spoken Greek respectively.
81 Romanity or Roman culture.
82 Daniel Stiernon, “Bulletin sur Ie Palamisme,” RevEtByz 30 (1972), 231-241.
83 Father John is making a play on words here – TRANS.
+++
Romanity Press to Release A Realism of Glory, The New Book on Fr. John Romanides By James L. Kelley
As Fr. John suggests, outside of Christ-the only true Word or Image of God the Father-there is no place for theology to begin. He is the Second Adam[1] who through his incarnation remade and reconstituted fallen humanity, thereby ending the first Adam’s bondage to death and the devil and clearing the way for his uncreated glory to abide in the purified heart of man. Of course, man must accept actively the glory of God, “stand[ing] before God with the nous in the heart” and continuing “unceasingly day and night, until the end of life.”[2] Each Father of the Orthodox Church speaks in one way or another about this illuminative path, according to which the heart of man is purified from fantasia (passion-tinged thoughts) through a lifelong ascesis[3] aimed at a greater and greater participation in the Taboric[4] glory of the Lord.
Fr. John follows the Orthodox teaching that the first Adam, having been made “in the image of the Image,” was created for nothing less than union with the Godman. Worldly philosophy with its secular anthropology, being unable to deliver man from fantasies, fails to make good on its promise to put man in touch with reality. The glory of secular learning is worldly, and though it can yield a relative good, when asked to bear the weight of salvation, it falls short. Ever-leery of the Augustinian West’s[5] religio-philosophical preoccupations, Fr. John grounds his Christology in the reality (or “realism”) of theosis, or glorification.
This realism of glory, as we have termed it, should not be confused with the many varieties of philosophical realism presented in Western philosophy.[6] Aside from deification-based Orthodox realism there are countless varieties of religio-philosophical “realism” which present man as an abstract, static being whose existence is bound by unchanging laws of nature, and who may or may not be a poor copy of a Platonic universal. For those in the pseudo-realist camp who choose to believe in them, these Platonic forms actually dwell in the mind of God and are somehow more “real” than anything in the material world by virtue of their immutability and their rationality. The Orthodox realism of glory, by contrast, is based on the biblical and patristic truth that man, having his origin in change (creatio ex nihilo), is not subject to natural laws but instead exists, along with the entire cosmos, as a being-in-motion. Moreover, for the Orthodox, reality does not inhere in concepts or in any Augustino-Platonic beatitude. Rather, for those who believe in the Orthodox realism of glory, reality is not a thing that exists as a given essence or concept, but instead reality is the uncreated glory of God, which is not an intermediary, but is divinity itself. Man attains to greater and greater measures of reality as he ascends more and more into divine glory. Contrariwise, non-existence or unreality is gauged according to man’s movement away from divine glory. This ontological movement of man is either toward the Image/Word by means of His glory, or away from glorification by means of the world’s glory (“the power of the enemy”[7]) into an illusory ontological autonomy.
NOTES:
[1]The biblical/patristic theme of Christ as the Second Adam began with St. Paul: ”For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (I Cor. 15:22 King James Version). Met. Hierotheos (Vlacchos) in his study of Orthodox Christology, The Feasts of the Lord (Levadia, Greece 2003), explains the significance of Christ as the Second or New Adam: ”It says repeatedly in Holy Scripture that Christ is the new Adam, who became man in order to correct the error of the ancestral Adam. The first Adam in Paradise, although he was still inexperienced, was in a state of illumination of his nous because that in him which was in the image was pure and received the rays of the divine light. But after his sin, he was darkened, he lost the likeness, but did not lose the image entirely. In the patristic tradition it says that the image in Adam was obscured, darkened, without being entirely lost. Through the incarnation of Christ and the deification of human nature Adam came back to his former glory, and indeed rose still higher” (154).
[2] St. Theophan the Recluse (1815-94): ”The principal thing is to stand before God with the mind in the heart, and to go on standing before him unceasingly day and night, until the end of life.” In Igumen Chariton, The Art of Prayer, trans. E. Kadloubovsky and E.M. Palmer (London 1966) 63.
[3] ”Ascesis” comes from the Greek word askein, “to exercise,” and in the context of Orthodox spiritual life it refers to the prayers, Sacraments, services, and spiritual guidance designed to purify man’s inner life. In his short but moving piece Spiritual Life (Etna, CA 1997), Constantine Cavarnos offers a lucid description of Orthodoxascesis/athlesis: ”Askesis, the practice of the virtues, is a term taken over by the Greek Church Fathers from classical Greek philosophy. We find it in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. It means ‘training.’ The derivative word asketes, ‘ascetic,’ means one who trains himself, preparing for victory in a contest. The Apostle Paul uses as a synonym for askesis the term athlesis (Hebrews 10:32). Athlesis means for him struggle, such as that in which an athlete engages in preparing himself for a contest” (5). Of course, Orthodox ascesis is by no means mechanical or magical since it is man’s cooperation with God’s prevenient grace or glory, which calls man to participate more and more in Him, but which does not coerce man or in any way curtail his freedom. Fr. Michael Azkoul has shown through his discussion of Pope St. Gregory the Great’s (540-604) writings that there was an Orthodox prevenient grace and an Orthodox predestination in the Latin West which seems to have been formulated as a self-conscious corrective to St. Augustine’s heterodox opinions (see M. Azkoul, The Influence of Augustine of Hippo On the Orthodox Church [Lewiston 1990] 94-95).
[4] ”Taboric” here refers to Mount Tabor, traditionally held to be the site of the Holy Transfiguration. For an overview of the Orthodox Fathers’ interpretation of the Transfiguration, see P.A. Chamberas, “Transfiguration of Christ: A Study in the Patristic Exegesis of Scripture,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 14.1 (1970) 48-65.
[5] ”Augustinian West” refers to the non-Orthodox theology of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, as is outlined in detail below, ch. 5-9. Also included under the broad designation “Augustinian West” is the secular philosophy that has developed in Europe and North America associated with Hegel, Marx, Kant, and countless others.
[6] For a brief summary of the different types of “realism” found in Western philosophy, see C. Rohmann, A World of Ideas: A Dictionary of Important Theories, Concepts, Beliefs, and Thinkers (New York 1999) 336-337. On the nominalist/realist debate see M.M. Adams, “Is To Will It as Bad as To Do It? The Fourteenth Century Debate,” Fransiscan Studies 41 (1981) 5-60; R. Cross, “Nominalism and the Christology of William of Ockham,” Recherches de theologie Ancienne et Medievale 58 (1991) 126-156; A.E. McGrath, The Intellectual Origins of theEuropean Reformation (Oxford 1993); P.V. Spade, “Ockham’s Nominalist Metaphysics: Some Main Themes,” in Spade 100-117; and E. Stump, “The Mechanisms of Cognition: Ockham on Mediating Species,” in Spade 168-203.
[7] Orthodox Christian Prayerbook: A Manual of Daily Prayers of the Ancient Christian Faith(Hollywood, CA 1998) 62.
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