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Chapter One

THEOLOGICAL EPISTEMOLOGY OF SACRAMENTAL METAMORPHOSIS

Introduction This chapter is divided into four major sections; in the first section we try to explore the notion of the incomprehensibility of God in relation to sacramental metamorphosis. In this endeavor we shall discuss certain general characteristics of the Eastern theological tradition such as its monastic and mystical approach in relation to sacramental metamorphosis. When we consider the epistemological background of sacramental metamorphosis we shall discuss the mysterious nature and iconographic language of the Eastern theological tradition, in general, in relation to the transformation of the human person and the cosmos. However, the Eastern theological tradition is deeply embedded in the notion of apophaticism as its chief epistemological methodology. Since God’s way of being in the world is absolutely incomprehensible by His essence, it is the most significant way to understand the saving action of God, which has to be fulfilled in and through the sacramental metamorphosis.

Secondly, we shall go through certain important elementary notions with regard to the sacramental metamorphosis. The Pauline notions of nous and pneuma and the Plotinian notion of One are the most significant among them. In the third section, we shall also try to explain very briefly the substantial notions of Eastern trinitarian theology in relation to sacramental metamorphosis. Finally, we shall try to give a brief picture of the trinitarian sacramentology in view of the participation of the human person in the trinitarian life. First of all, let us discuss certain significant theological characteristics of the East in view of sacramental metamorphosis.

1 Certain Theological Features in Sacramental Perspective Eastern Theology is deeply rooted in a profound concept of mystery. God cannot be comprehended by human reason. The exploration of this mysterious nature of the divine-human-cosmic relationship is one of the most significant tasks of this sacramentological research. With what we are most concerned in this discussion on sacramental metamorphosis is how it is explained through the basic characteristics of Eastern theology in its own patristic and doctrinal traditions. There is a mystical approach to theology, monasticism and iconography in the Eastern Churches are the greatest treasures of the East and they are interwoven with its theological trends. First of all let us discuss sacramentological approach in relationship with its monastic tradition.

Theological Epistemology 2

1.1 Monastic Approach The word monasticism is derived from the Greek word monachos, which means “living alone.” Notwithstanding this etymological connotation indicates only one element of monasticism, later monastic life became communitarian.1 Monasticism played a decisive role in religious life and the theological development of the Eastern tradition. There is a great richness of spirituality and theological depth in Monasticism. After the conversion of the Emperor Constantine, as the martyrdom of blood no longer existed, the monks by their withdrawal from society into the desert fulfilled a prophetic and eschatological ministry in the life of the Church.2

It is believed that monasticism first emerged in Egypt and then it rapidly spread all over Christendom.3 Monasticism has taken three different forms. First there were hermits, men leading a solitary life in huts or caves, in tombs, even among the branches of trees and on the top of pillars. Anthony of Egypt (251-356 C.E.) is considered the father of monasticism. Secondly, community life began where monks lived together under a common rule and thus the monasteries were started. Pachomius is considered the pioneer of religious life. Thirdly, monasticism found another form called semi-eremitic life; a ‘middle way.’ Instead of a single highly organized group there is a group of small settlements.4 Though most of the Eastern monasteries have never become centers of

1 Agehananda Bharati, “Monasticism,” The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 12 (Chicago: William Benton Publisher, 1974) 335-343, 335. The word monachos originally did not mean a hermit or solitary, but primarily “the unique one.” The oldest Syriac term for monk is ihidaja; it also means “the unique one” or “the perfect one.” Cf. Ernst Benz, The Eastern Orthodox Church: Its Thought and Life, Richard & Clara Winston trans., (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963) 86. There was a great revival of spirituality in Byzantium in 14th c. which is the most sublime expression of monastic mysticism. It is called the doctrine of hesychism, a word derived from Greek hsuci,a which means “tranquillity,” “calm or solitude,” interior peace attained through the intellect descending into our heart with constant repetition of the name of Jesus Christ, associated with the prayer of the publican; “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me a sinner” (Lk 18:14). Cf. Michel Quenot, The Icon: Window on the Kingdom, A Carthusian Monk trans., (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1991) 94. It also indicates the state of being still in the presence of God. See Edmund J. Rybarczyk, Beyond Salvation: Eastern Orthodoxy and Classical Pentecostalism on Becoming Like Christ, Paternoster Theological Monographs (Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster Press, 2004) 39. Hesychia makes transformation of time into the eternity of God possible. See George Mantzarides, “Tradition and Renewal in the Theology of Saint Gregory Palamas,” Eastern Churches Review 9 (1977) 1-18, 10. 2 Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, Pelican Books Series (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1967) 45. 3 Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, 45. Monasticism became an established institution in the Christian Church during the 4th century.There are different views with regard to the origin of monasticism, See Ernst Benz, The Eastern Orthodox Church, 85-86. See also George A. Maloney, A History of Orthodox Theology Since 1453 (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1976) 264. Monasticism is employed as a bridge between the Eastern and Western Churches. See Theodoros Nikolaou, Jill Pittinger trans., “Between the Eastern and Western Churches Monasticism as a Bridge,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 37 (1993) 23-37, 29-30. 4 Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, 45. Because of the monasteries, Egypt was considered a second Holy Land in the 4th century C.E. Since the 10th century C.E. Mount Athos, a rocky peninsula in North Greece was considered the chief centre of Orthodox monasticism. These monasteries of Mount Athos


learning as they were in the West, the monks in the Eastern tradition dedicated their life entirely to liturgy, mysticism and contemplation.5 The contribution of monasteries in the theological and spiritual development of the Eastern Churches is undeniable because Eastern theology is deeply rooted in its worship and liturgy. The liturgy was formed and developed in monasteries. Through the monasteries the Eastern liturgy has included an ascetical and mystical realm. The Turkish invasion put an end to monasticism in Constantinople.

This fundamental relationship is focused on its sacramental and liturgical life. Monasticism has not taken into account the perspective of source and instigation of spiritual life, but rather it is “spiritual development and perfection, is always present, seeking its symbolic expressiveness in sacramental and liturgical reality.”6 However, monasticism is not religious escapism which tries to flee from basic needs and aspirations of the peoples and passively seeking God overlooking love and relationship with neighbor. Obviously, it is not the last resort for those who are distressed and fleeing away from personal responsibilities and relationships with the others by considering the world as full of sin and evil. Rather, it is the life of a divine calling towards a genuinely deep relationship with God, the other and the cosmos, deeply rooted in sacramental and liturgical life. In monastic life every believer should have concern for the relationship with one’s own neighbor in Christ and this relationship creates a transforming experience in the community. Sacramental deification is primarily viewed as one’s transformation into communion in mutual love and relationships. This non-self-interested love only can transform human persons as well as the cosmos; Yannaras says,

Only love, as an ontological (rather than an ethical) category, can express self-transcendence and self-offering – a communion with being – as a volitional mode of existence; only love can refer to an existence which exists not through necessarily

produced 26 Patriarchs and 144 bishops. This shows the importance of Mount Athos. The source of Eastern spirituality is rooted in early Christianity itself. The depth of Eastern spirituality could be found in its monasticism. See George A. Maloney (ed.), Pilgrimage of the Heart: A Treasury of Eastern Spirituality (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983) 2-5. Certain modern scholars say that the theological thinking and Biblical exegesis developed through ‘Monastic Theology’ in the monasteries. See P.K. Meagher, “Monastic Theology” William J. McDonald (ed.), New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 9 (Sydney: The Catholic Universrity of America, 1967) 1032. Also Cf. J. Gribomont, “Eastern,” William J. McDonald (ed.), New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Vol. 9 (Farmington Hills: Gale, 2003) 797-800. See T. Spidlik, “Monasticism,” William J. McDonald (ed.), New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 9 (Sydney: The Catholic University of America Press, 1967) 1032-1048, 1043. For the situation of monasticism after the Arab invasion, see Bernard McGinn, “Christian Monasticism,” Mircea Eliade (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol.10 (New York: Macmillian Publishing Company, 1987) 46-50. Alexander Schmemann, The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy (Chicago: Rinehart and Winston, 1962) 113-197. For the difference between Eastern Orthodox and Western Roman Catholic monasticism, Cf. Ernst Benz, The Eastern Orthodox Church, 89-90. 5 Ernst Benz, The Eastern Orthodox Church, 98. 6 Lars Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos: The Vision of St. Maximus the Confessor (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985) 129.


acquiescing to the fact of its existence, but through freely hypostasizing its being (by coming forth as distinct hypostases of its being) – producing hypostases by “generation” and “procession” with which it structures being as a communion of love.7

Evagrius speaks about the ultimate goal of monastic life as attaining perfect knowledge; moreover he presents this passionless love as the indispensible gate to natural knowledge. For him love and knowledge are perfectly united.8 The monastic life is not “an end in itself,” rather it serves as charity towards God and neighbor.9 Such love has the power to transform the whole desire towards the ascetic goal to reach detachment. Rowan Williams makes this clear, saying “[t]he whole purpose of ascesis is to challenge and overcome in ourselves whatever makes us an obstacle to the connection between God and the neighbor.”10 It is fundamentally a life of transformation with divine human relationship. Maximus the Confessor says;

For him whose mind is continually with God, even his concupiscence is increased above measure into a divinely burning love; and the entire irascible element is changed into divine charity. For by continual participation in the divine illumination it has become wholly lightsome and, making the passible element one with itself, it has turned as was

7 Christos Yannaras, Postmodern Metaphysics Norman Russell trans., (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2004) 176. 8 Evagrius Ponticus, Ad Monachos, Jeremy Driscoll trans. 222. Eros is primarily a personal category. It reveals the carnal form of universal mode of divine energy which is the creative energy that constitutes the life and personal otherness. See Christos Yannaras, On the Absence and Unknowability of God: Heidegger and the Areopagite Haralambos Ventis trans., (London, NewYork, NY: T&T Clark, 2005) 100-2. 9 Lars Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos, 22-23. Though the ascetic life gives a negative connotation as a cutting off from the world, Maximus the Confessor provides a more positive connotation of ascetical theology. He gives a positive emphasis to it as the life of deeper love and relationship. As Louth points out, Maximus vividly emphasizes “the danger of not only a purely negative detachment, but also of a purely intellectual attachment to the truth.” Furthermore, he supplements it with a more positive emphasis on the importance of “deeper and purer love.” Maximus is aware of the danger of apatheia, dispassion. He calls it “disinterestedness.” For him apatheia is “the restoration of what is natural.” See Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 40-41. Apatheia is the goal of monastic life. Evagrian’s definition of apatheia is “the health of the soul.” It is argued that the perfect apatheia is attained only in the eschatological union, but it has a foretaste of union within the physical life. See Mette Sophia Bocher Rasmussen, “Like a Rock or like God? The Concept of apatheia in the Monastic Theology of Evagrius of Pontus,” Studia Theologica 59 (2005) 147-162, 150, 7. According to Blowers, Maximus doesn’t segregate agape as self-transcending charity and eros as the deeply rooted driving passion of the individual but rather both express “the truly graced and indeed “natural” motion of the concupiscible faculty.” See Paul M. Blowers, “Gentiles of the Soul,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 4 (1996) 56-85, 77. Bede Griffiths suggests certain monastic reformation of the West in the light of ashramic life of the East, such as mutual respect between the persons as well as the community. The community exists for personal growth towards the fulfillment of God’s call. See Bede Griffiths, “Radical Monastic Renewal in Light of the East,” Monastic Studies 18 (1988) 251-256, 252. 10 Rowan Williams, Where God Happens: Discovering God in One Another (Boston: New Seeds, 2005) 32. It is not fleeing away from the responsibilities of the relationship with the other. Cf. Ibid., 70. Asceticism doesn’t seek possession of the material world but it “lives by relationship with God.” See Elizabeth Briere, “Creation, Incarnation and Transfiguration: Material Creation and our Understanding of it,” Sobornost 11 (1989) 38. Loveless people are incapable of transcending themselves. Christos Yannaras, Postmodern Metaphysics, 30.


said above, to a divinely burning love without end and unceasing charity, passing over completely from earthly things to the divine.11

Yannaras rightly speaks about asceticism which is the struggle to renounce one’s egocentric attitude and transpose the relationship with the world around us which creates an indirect relationship with God.12 Thus monasticism is the way of life in which one can recognize one’s own self in inner silence and the other as part of him/herself by which s/he may come into closer relationship with God. As we have seen already monasticism doesn’t create a timid human person but rather it transforms the human person into a courageous status, in this regard it is worth noting one of the Evagrian commentaries as a proverb. “An irascible man will be terrified; the gentle man will be without fear.”13 He presents gentleness in contrast to fearfulness. Gentlness is the divine nature that has to be learned and achieved from the incarnate Word of God, Jesus says, “Learn from me, for gentle am I and humble in heart.” In this proverb the notion of gentleness manifests one of the most concrete expressions of genuine love,14 which leads him/her towards perfect knowledge. The perfect knowledge leads someone to perfect faith and the perfect faith leads to fearlessness. The sacraments regenerate the faithful towards this fundamental Christian attitude of courage and certitude. From the perspective of sacramental deification, monasticism has a significant role in which the human person has to open him/herself towards the Word of God, positively respond to it and to be strengthened by the sacraments. In this sense sacramental deification leads the human person from fearfulness to courage which paves the path to complete liberation. Deification of the human person through the sacraments is also fundamentally rooted in the mystical experience of silence through which one has to find out his/her own self and rediscover the presence of God in the other. Christian asceticism is not an act of creating an attitude of self-absorption, rather it has a fundamental ecclesial dimension; Yannaras says,

Christian asceticism is above all an ecclesiastical and not an individual matter. It is the changing of our nature’s individual mode of existence into a personal communion and

11 Maximus the Confessor, Centuries on Charity II. 48, Polycarp Sherwood trans., (New York, Mahwah, N.J: The Newman Press, 1955) 162-3. In our discussion on sacramental metamorphosis we shall make a major focus on the theology of Maximus the Confessor. He is considered the most outstanding Fathers of the early Greek theology and a strong defender of Chalcedonian Christology. He developed a substantial synthesis on the early Church’s teaching on deification based on early Greek philosophy. He fought against the heresy of monotheletism, in 662 he was exiled twice and he had his right hand and tongue amputated because of his strong defense of Chalcedonian Christology. See George A. Maloney, The Undreamed has Happened, 129. 12 Christos Yannaras, Elements of Faith: An Introduction to Orthodox Theology Keith Schram trans., (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991) 49-50. 13 “ vAnh,r qumw,dhj ptohqh,setai, o de. prau?j a;foboj e;stai)” Evagrius Ponticus, “Commentary on Individaul Proverbs,” M12, Ad Monachos, Jeremy Driscoll trans. 224. 14 Evagrius Ponticus, Ad Monachos, Jeremy Driscoll trans. 224. Humility is God’s gift and grace, See St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain & St. Makarios of Corinth, The Philokalia Vol 4, G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard & Kallistos Ware eds. & trans. (London: Faber and Faber, 1995) 238.


relationship, a dynamic entry into the community of the life of the body of the Church. The aim of asceticism is to transfigure our impersonal natural desires and needs into manifestations of the free personal will which brings into being the true life of love. Thus the instinctive need for food, the greed for the individual’s independent self-preservation, is transfigured in the context of the Church’s fasting: submission to the common practice of the Church becomes paramount, turning it into an act of relationship and communion.15

Moreover, sacramental metamorphosis in and through the monastic life is to rediscover the other as one’s own self-embodiment, which enables the human person to move through an integral transformation towards becoming divine. Furthermore, monasticism is a state of silence in which s/he flees away from worldly noise, to listen to God and rediscover oneself and experience the nearness of God and the other. Monasticism became the cradle of the most important spiritual force in Eastern churches, which paved the way for the mystical nature of theology.

1.2 Mystical Approach Mysticism in the East was fundamentally a radical asceticism and there is no ultimate distinction between mysticism and theology.16 Its goal is union with the divine. Mysticism is considered the crown of theology: “theology par excellence,”17 which is the integral process of knowing God from within. Athanasius states that the self-moving (immortal) soul is taking the knowledge and understanding of God the Word from itself; he says, “the soul has an idea of the contemplation of God and is its own path, taking the knowledge and understanding of God the Word not from outside but from itself.”18 Eastern theology never made any kind of distinction between personal experience of divine mysteries and dogmas of the Church. In this regard mysticism and theology are irrevocably interwoven. For Lossky, the term ‘mystical theology’ denotes no more than a spirituality, which expresses a doctrinal attitude which has to be lived. He observes;

15 Christos Yannaras, The Freedom of Morality Elizabeth Briere trans., (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. 1984) 109-110. 16 Ernst Benz, The Eastern Orthodox Church, 100. Mysticism is considered as a third kind of knowledge after sense knowledge and knowledge of inference. It is partaking in communion with God through knowing God. See SKG, “Mysticism,” The New Encyclopaedia Britannica vol. 12, 15th ed. (University of Chicago, 1982) 786-87. Through the ascetical way of life, the monks devoted themselves totally to God and fully withdrew from their fellow human beings. It is complete liberation from this world and flesh, which is not a complete break off from ordinary human life but to go beyond the experience of worldly life and to be transformed through the Word of God and the sacraments. However it gives the integral vision of being fully human and fully alive. 17 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976, rep. 2002) 9. 18 “dia. tou/to gou/n kai. th/j peri. Qeou/ qewri,aj e;cei th.n e;nnoian, kai, auvth. e`auth/j gi,netai o`do,j, ouk e;xwqen, avllv evx eauth/j lamba,nousa th.n tou/ Qeou/ Lo,gou gnw/sin kai kata,lhfin.”Athanasius, Contra Gentes 33, Robert W. Thomson ed. & trans. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1971) 92-93. It is the subjective experience of an individual person. See John Peter Kenney, “Review of The Mysticism of Saint Augustine: Rereading the Confessions,” Routledge, Robert Louis Wilken, First Things 167 (2006) 54-57, 54.


In a certain sense all theology is mystical, in as much as it shows forth the divine mystery: the data of revelation. On the other hand, mysticism is frequently opposed to theology as a realm inaccessible to understanding, as an unutterable mystery, a hidden depth, to be lived rather than known; yielding itself to a specific experience which surpasses our faculties of understanding rather than to any perception of sense or of intelligence.19

Theology deals with the ineffable mysteries of faith more than certain rational exercises. In this way theology is not merely an intellectual speculation, but it is a living dialogue with God and with the world through the liturgy and spirituality in the proclamation of the Kingdom of God. Hence, theology touches each and every dimension of human life.20 Throughout the centuries-long christological controversies and other such problems, the Oriental Churches remained faithful to the apostolic teaching and there is an unshakeable foundation with regard to aspects of trinitarian, christological and mystical theological approaches.21 In the East, with regard to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, it has always been a matter of faith and practical experience rather than of metaphysical speculation.22 From an Eastern theological perspective, the doctrine of the Trinity is incomprehensible through the rational mind; and faith alone can “embrace these mysteries, for it is faith that makes real for us things beyond reason and intellect (Heb 11.1).”23 Eastern theology is reluctant to make any rational exercise for capturing divine mysteries. Consequently, the theology of the East seems undeveloped and unsystematized from a rational point of view.

The rational deduction has its due place in Eastern theology; however, it is on an inferior level. Rather than separating reason from experience, Eastern theology tries to join the two.24 We shall discuss this epistemological approach in a later section. Thus the mystical approach can be considered as the heart of Eastern theology. In this mystical approach of theology every person can experience God; such an experience is obtained only through the personal participation in the ecclesial life of the liturgy and the sacraments.25 From this

19 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 7. 20 Aram Keshishian, “The Oriental Orthodox Churches,” 103. 21 Aram Keshishian, “The Oriental Orthodox Churches,” 104. 22 Daniel B. Clendenin, Eastern Orthodox Christianity: A Western Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 22005) 53.

23 Daniel B. Clendenin, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, 53-54. 24 Daniel B. Clendenin, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, 54-55. In this way mystical knowledge is superior to the intellect. See Vladimir Lossky, “Apophasis and Trinitarian Theology,” Daniel B. Clendenin (ed.), Eastern Orthodox Theology: A Contemporary Reader (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1995, repr. 2004) 149-162, 149. In this regard, it is also significant to discuss the two different theological strategies; one is classic modern theological strategy which correlates the claim of reason and the disclosures of revelation. The second strategy believes that “reason functions best in theology by developing rigorous concepts and categories to clarify theology’s sole foundation in revelation.” We agree with the second theological strategy together with Jean-Luc Marion. According to him the second category states that “any attempt at correlation is at best a category mistake – at worst, an attempt to domesticate the reality of God by means of reason and being.”Jean-Luc Marion, God Without Being: Hors-Texte, Thomas A. Carlson trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991) David Tracy, forward, ix, x. 25 Alexei V. Nesteruk, Light from the East: Theology, Science, and the Eastern Orthodox Tradition, Kevin J. Sharpe (series ed.), Theology and the Sciences (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) 45.


very mystical approach, Eastern theology paves the path towards the whole theology is seen on the notion of qe,wsij (deification). The basic notion of qe,wsij can be considered as the most sublime characteristic of Eastern theology in its different dimensions. In this regard it is clear that Eastern sacramentology is strongly embodied in Eastern mysticism and spirituality. Let us turn our discussion towards qe,wsij as the basic characteristic of Eastern theology.

1.3 Sacramentological Significance of qe,wsij The Eastern theology considers the salvation of the human person always in terms of qe,wsij. The Greek term qe,wsij can be understood as Deification or Divinisation of the human person, which means “making divine,”26 furthermore, qe,wsij is the work of grace by which s/he tries to become united with the body of Christ.27 In this sense it is sacramental in nature. Sacramentology and qe,wsij are essentially interrelated notions. The most basic content of the Soteriology of the Church is based on the Incarnation of the Word of God that is always taken into equal consideration with the deification of the human person. Both the Incarnation and deification are inherently interrelated theological notions. Neverthless, the soteriology is not only related to the human person but it is also integrally related with cosmic perfection.

The term qe,wsij comes from another Greek word avpoqe,wsij which is connected to a pagan custom of regarding emperors and certain other important persons as gods and later this idea is to be connected to Christian canonisation. This term is used in the Eastern Churches in the sense of ‘union with God,’28 which speaks of the union with immortality and incorruptibility. God’s call to a human being is to desire union with Him. Though this

26 Henry George Liddel & Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948) 797.

Moutsoulas points out, Homer had already identify the term Qeo,j (God) with avqa,natoj (immortal). See Elias D. Moutsoulas, The Incarnation of the Word and the Theosis of Man: According to the Teaching of Gregory of Nyssa Constantine J. Andrews trans., (Athens: originally published in 1965, English tran. in 2000) 15. Deificaiton is the perfection of a human’s destiny, which is also the perfection of the whole cosmos through the human person. See Lars Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos, 51. It is the ultimate fulfilment of the human capacity towards God. See Stanley M. Burgess, The Holy Spirit: Eastern Christian Traditions, 43.

27 G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon, 649-50. 28 F. L. Cross, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (London, Oxford University Press, 1958) 75.

Theosis is the central theme for the Eastern Christianity in general and it is incorporation into the life of the triune God. Cf. Richard Albertine, ‘“Theosis” According to the Eastern Fathers, Mirrored in the Development of the Epiclesis,” Ephemerides Liturgicae 105 (1991) 393-417, 393. Moutsoulas observes that Irenaeus used the Stoic origin term e[nwsij in order to emphasise the reconnection of human person with God. Elias D. Moutsoulas, The Incarnation of the Word and the Theosis of Man, 168. The term e[nwsij is the return to the source without loss of one’s own individuality. Clement of Alexandria first coined this non-biblical term to reveal the heart of New Testament theology. See George A. Maloney, “The Doctrine of St. Symeon the New Theologian on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit,” Diakonia 9 (1974) 261-285, 274. See also Emil Bartos, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, 7.


terminology of deification is borrowed from the Platonic tradition, this doctrine of deification has its own biblical roots, such as the idea of peoples as ‘gods’ (Ps 82:6; Jn 10:34), the image and likeness of God in the human person (Gen 1:26, 27; Rom 8:29; 1Cor 15:49; 2Cor 3:18), the themes of our adoption by God (Jn 1:12; Gal 3:26; 4:5), our participation in the divine nature (2Pt 1:4) and divine immortality (1Cor 15:33) all these notions form the basis of patristic teaching on deification.29

Eastern theology is clear that “becoming god” does not mean identification with the divine essence but it is an experience of adoption by the grace of God. The notion of “becoming divine” or “making divine,” are intensely promulgated by the Fathers of the early Church. Athanasius says, “For He was made man that we might be made God; and He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality.”30 Athanasius and Maximus the Confessor clearly speak about qe,wsij in its integral relation with the Incarnation. The qe,wsij is explained in the perspective of the perichoretic union of divine and human natures in the person of Christ. Similarly, the human person is to be deified in divine nature which we will discuss in the next chapter. qe,wsij does not mean the mystical union of divine and human natures which leads to absorption of the latter by the former, rather it is the realization of real humanity in the light of divinity. Nissiotis points out three essential things about the term qe,wsij;

a) the re-established communion between God and man in Christ Jesus through the union in him of God with humanity as a whole and with humanity as a distinctive person, without any kind of mixture between the two natures. b) the sharing of man in the Grace of the Trinitarian God through the Holy Spirit, Who is to be understood not only as a subjective agent in man appropriating the objective revelation of God but as the activation of the consequences of the union realized between God and man in Christ. Through the Holy Spirit man becomes the receptacle of the Act of the Trinitarian God in Christ. c) the power of transforming human nature, not into another nature, without spot or sin, but from glory to glory, that is, from the creation to the re-creation of oneself in the Light of Jesus. In this context “theosis” means re-affirmation of the real humanity which derives its divine element directly from the hands of the divine Creator.31

According to the Greek Fathers, Christ is the paradigm of human deification. Christians are invited to partake in his divinity.32 However, our special concern in this endeavour is

29 Hilarion Alfeyev, http://www.orthodoxia.org “Deification in Christ,” Theology and Mysticism in St.

Gregory Nazianzen, Lectures at the Divinity of the Faculty of the University of Cambridge, Spring 1999, (accessed on 05.02.2004).

30 Athanasius, Incarnation of the Word (NPNF IV), 2nd series, 1991, 65. 31 N. A. Nissiotis, “Interpreting Orthodoxy,” 9. Theosis is not a complete annihilation of soul and body but it

is the integral transformation of the human person by participation in the divine life through divine grace. See Melichsedec Törönen, Union and Distinction, 192.

32 Ken Parry, Deification, Ken Parry et al., (ed.), The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999) 159. See also F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), “Deification,” The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) 465.

http://www.orthodoxia.org/


to do research on how this notion of qe,wsij works with the sacraments of the Church. The sacraments are the salvific activities of the trinitarian God in the Church in which the faithful is becoming divine by being fully human. qe,wsij is ‘to make godly,’ which is understood as eucharistic and ecclesial as well as a matter of complete personal fulfillment of his/her own sacramental task in his/her moral and spiritual life.33 It is not, however, any kind deterioration of human nature, but it is the elevation towards the better. For Anastasios Sinaites defines qe,wsij as Stavropoulos has stated;

Theosis is the elevation to what is better, but not the reduction of our nature to something less, nor is it an essential change of our human nature. A divine plan, it is the willing condescension of tremendous dimension by God, which He did for the salvation of others. That which is of God is that which has been lifted up to a greater glory, without its own nature being changed.34

There is a remarkable step in the process of deification with regard to the nature of the human person. Zizioulas argues that qe,wsij is participation not in the nature or substance of God, but in His personal existence. Consequently, he identifies salvation as the realisation of the personhood of the human beings.35 More evidently, it is the existential participation; Yannaras says,

The ecclesial knowledge of God is a common mode of life – the knowledge is the act and event of participation in a new mode of existence. It is not ideological co-ordination, or moral conformity, but an existential transformation, that is effected by the grace of the Spirit of God within the unrestricted limits of the free, liturgical consent of men and women.36

The notion of qe,wsij has great significance in both its theological and anthropological dimensions. Theologically it finds the unequivocal union with the divine which is the most ultimate end of human life. In the same way, the sacramental metamorphosis is the realization of one’s own personal uniqueness through union with the divine in and through the sacraments and the sacramental tasks. This is the anthropological basis of theosis in the perspective of sacramental transformation of the human person. We turn now to explain the anthropological foundation of the concept of qe,wsij.

1.3.1 Anthropological Foundation of qe,wsij

The human person is created in the image of God and s/he is created with the ultimate task of achieving the likeness of God. We try to elucidate the anthropological notions with

33 Ken Parry, Deification, 159. Geo Pallikunnel, “Integration and Deification Through Holy Qurbana,”

Christian Orient 18 (1997) 107-131, 108. The Eastern Syriac tradition used the terms to convey the concept of qe,wsij (deification or divinzation) are malahanuta and metalahanuta which are derived from the noun alaha means “deifying” or “making divine” or “making to be a partner of the divine nature.”

34 Christoforos Stavropoulos, Partakers of Divine Nature, Stanley Harakas trans., (Minnesota: Life and Life Publishing Comapany, 1976) 19, as cited from (PG, 89), 77 BC.

35 John Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 49-50. 36 Christos Yannaras, On the Absence and Unknowability of God, 96.


regard to qe,wsij, because we have to discuss the sacramental transformation of the person which is basically anthropological in character. From the perspective of qe,wsij, sacramental transformation of the human person is a task to be achieved. The term qe,wsij is mostly articulated in a personal encounter, rather than in ontological categories.37 God’s plan is to make human persons partakers in his triune communion. Ware explains the notion of image and likeness with regard to the anthropological basis of qe,wsij; he states,

The gulf between creature and Creator is not impassable, for because we are in God’s image we can know God and have communion with Him. And if man makes proper use of this faculty for communion with God, then he will become ‘like’ God, he will acquire the divine likeness; in the words of John of Damascus he will be ‘assimilated to God through virtue’. To acquire likeness is to be deified, it is to become a ‘second God’, a ‘God by grace’. ‘I said you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High (Psalm lxxxi, 6).38

However, we shall discuss the anthropological dimension of the sacramental metamorphosis in the next chapter. If we lose the perspective of personhood and take nature as our major concern with regard to theosis, then we would be in danger of misunderstanding about theosis.39 It is noteworthy that theosis is ultimately the realization or the basic fulfillment of the personhood of the human being.40 The human person can attain communion with God only through the Holy Spirit. The personal fulfillment of the human being is the achievement of the likeness of God, his/her being as esse ex esse Dei (as being from the being of God).41 In this sense Nissiotis is right when he says, “God calls each individual to share His already existing communion with all men, which is realized in a concrete, visible and historical form once for all in our time.”42 The qe,wsij

does not signify a mystical union which would result into absorption of human nature into divine.43 Mantzaridis is of the view that sin alienated human being from the divine

37 Georges Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View Vol.1, The Collected Works of

Florovsky (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1972) 115. 38 Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, 224. Comparing the Eastern and Western concepts of “Image and

Likeness” Vladimir Lossky holds that the Eastern and Western Churches understand the creation of human being differently, though not altogether contradictorily. According to Lossky, “St. Augustine, striving to form an idea of God, starts with the image of God in us and tries to rediscover in God what is found in our soul, created in His image. This method of psychological analogies is applied to the knowledge of God, to theology. St. Gregory of Nyssa, on the other hand, selects as a point of departure what the revelation tells us of God in order to find in man what corresponds to the image of God. This theological method is applied to the science of man, to anthropology. The first way tries to know God by starting from man created in His image. The second way wants to define man’s true nature by starting from the concept of God, in whose image man was made.” Vladimir Lossky, Orthodox Theology: An Introduction, 119-120 (the emphases mine). The so-called second way in the given form presupposes that the concept of God is already known to human beings. It is not clear how human beings acquire such pre-knowledge.

39 John D. Zizioulas, Paul McPartlan (ed.), Communion and Otherness, 243. 40 John D. Zizioulas, The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity: The Significance of the Cappadocian Contribution,

Christoph Schwöbel (ed.), (Edinburg: T&T Clark, 1995) 44- 59, 55. 41 Marta Ryk, “The Holy Spirit’s Role in the Deification,” 110. 42 Nikkos A. Nissiotis, “Conversion and the Church,” The Ecumenical Review 19 (1967) 261-270, 263. 43 Nikkos A. Nissiotis, “Interpreting Orthodoxy,” 9.


presence, but love of God does not allow him/her to enslave death. Through the Incarnation of God, Christ became human and he restored wo/man to Divine communion.44 In this way, though there is alienation of the human person due to sin, s/he can find his/her restoration in the sacraments of the Church.

Ryk holds more pneumatological perspective of the restoration of the human person in theosis through the sacraments. She says that the Imago is the essence of “humanum” which is rooted in God-Love and is the seal of the Holy Spirit, who anoints wo/man for personal contact with the personal God. Ryk points out;

The image is the most inward essence of man and therefore something indestructible. The likeness is accomplished through the free will of him, who cooperates with God and so becomes a realized image. From this derives the notion of image as the value given to man at creation and likeness as something yet to be accomplished. Image is given to man as gift, likeness is man’s task. The reaching of likeness, which is the goal of human life, is nothing more than the striving for deification in the Holy Spirit. 45

The notion of ‘image’ predestines wo/man’s participation into the divine life. The most important Gift of God to wo/man is that s/he is created in God’s own image and likeness which is not given to any other creature. As a result of sin wo/man has deviated from the communion with God. However, this communion can be revived mainly through the grace of the Holy Spirit, especially through the celebration of the liturgy and Sacraments in the Church. The human person finds his/her transformation into the divine communion through qe,wsij where s/he has the experience of sacramental metamorphosis.

1.3.2 qe,wsij Towards Metamo,rfwsij

In this discussion of the epistemological foundation of sacramental metamorphosis we shall try to elucidate the due significance of the synthesis of both anthropological and theological realms. We would prefer to present the sacramental deification of the human person in terms of metamorphosis, because it implies an integral transformation from an anthroplogical perspective. Sacramental metamorphosis is not an abstract concept but it is more concrete experience in the everyday life of the individual. When we discuss both the Scriptural and patristic usages of the term metamo,rfwsij, it is transformation. In classical Greek it means “to remodel” or “to change into another form external or spiritual.”46 Adherents of ancient religions believed that gods and spirits could transform themselves

44 Georgios I. Mantzaridis, The Deification of Man, 16 45 Marta Ryk, “The Holy Spirit’s Role in the Deification,” 110-111. 46 J. Behm, Art. M<etamo,rfwsij, Geoffrey W. Bromiley ed. & trans., Theological Dictionary of the New

Testament (hereafter TDNT) Vol. IV, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1985) 755-59, 755. See also Giovanni Filoramo, “The Transfiguration of the Inner Self in Gnostic and Hermetic Texts,” Jan Assmann & Guy G. Stroumsa (eds.), Transformation of the Inner Self in Ancient Religions, H.G. Kippenberg & E.T. Lawson (eds.), Studies in the History of Religions Numen Book Series Vol. 83 (Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, 1999) 137-149, 144-5.


and others; gods are able to take the appearance of human persons. The noun Metamo,rfwsij is seen in terms of the transformation of Christ, transformation of the saints into Christ’s likeness.47 Behm says,

To be changed into a god-like being is the great goal which the initiate, moving from one stage to another, strives to reach by the vision of the deity. … The initiate experiences what happened to the god himself. … The transformation involves the freeing of the body from the bonds of material nature; it is physical transfiguration. … The ability of the gods to transform themselves is highly lauded, and man can attain to the manner and power of deity by magical change into divine form, …magic brings it about that the human soul reflects the immortal form of the deity. 48

In the NT the Transfiguration of Jesus is an instance of metamo,rfwsij, which became an eschatological ideal for the believer (Mk 9:2; Mt 17:2). In the Pauline corpus there are two very important references in this regard, namely, 2 Cor 3:18; Rom 12:2. In 2 Cor 3:18 there is no hint of a mystical deification as in mystery cults where, through ritual the initiates transform themselves. For Christians the change into the likeness of Christ is re-attainment of the divine likeness which man had in the Garden of Eden. It is an eschatologically oriented gradual process. In that sense it is “already” but “not yet.” In Pauline thinking this transformation is a joint work of Christ and the Spirit. Behm observes;

To Christian the Spirit has granted free vision of the heavenly glory of the Lord, Christ. In this vision they undergo an unceasing and progressive change into the image of the One whose glory they see. It is the Lord himself, present and active by the Spirit, who brings about this change. … In virtue of the presence of the pneu/ma, in whom the risen Lord is Himself present (v. 17 f.), the transformation begins already, and from within though not only inwardly, refashions after the likeness of the Lord, by giving them to share in the do,xa.49

In Rom 12:2 metamo,rfwsij becomes an imperative. The redeemed already belongs to the age to come (Gal 1:4). Hence their conduct must conform to that form of the redeemed state. But by themselves they cannot give that form to themselves. It is the Spirit who causes this transformation on the basis of their will and effort to lead morally good lives.50 The theosis implies transformation and re-creation of the human person by divine intervention, which is achieved especially through the sacraments and liturgy of the

47 G. W. H. Lampe, Art. “Metamo,rfwsij,” A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarandon, 1961) 854.

Deification is transformation and moreover the indwelling of the triune God effects the transfiguration of our nature. See Jules Gross, The Divinization of the Christian, 232.

48 J. Behm, Art. Metamo,rfwsij, 757. 49 J. Behm, Art. Metamo,rfwsij, 758-59. Theosis is a process as well as divine promise where someone finds

the fullness of salvation. See Michael J. Christensen, “The Problem, Promise, and Process of Theosis,” Michael J. Christensen & Jeffery A. Wittung, Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008) 23-31, 24, 25.

50 J. Behm, Art. Metamo,rfwsij, 759.


Church.51 In this way, theosis is an ecclesial experience that strands the integral transformation of the created. In other words, theosis is metamorphosis which implies the total transformation of both microcosm and macrocosm.

We shall see the christological and pneumatological dimensions of the sacramental metamorphosis in later sections. Now we will try to elucidate the “mystery” concept of Eastern theology on which we build our specific notion of sacramental metamorphosis. In contrast to the Western metaphysical speculation, the East is condescending toward the whole category of mystery.52 Furthemore, the Eastern theology considers theology as ‘mystery.’53 Let us now turn our discussion to the specific feature of mystery as the hermeneutical key for the sacramental metamorphosis.

1.4 Musth,rion: A Hermeneutical Key We shall try to formulate sacramental metamorphosis from the perspective of the concept of mystery. The monastic influence and the mystical approach of Eastern theology mainly pave a path to the concept of mysteries. It is one of the most significant concepts with regard to the notion of sacramental metamorphosis of the human person through divine intervention. The divine mysteries of the Church such as the mystery of the Trinity, Incarnation, paschal mysteries of the Son of God and the mysteries with regard to the action of the Holy Spirit are evidently confessed and manifested in the sacramental celebrations of the Church. The sacramental metamorphosis of the human person is necessarily interrelated with the sacramental celebrations of divine mysteries in the Church. The theological concept of mystery is not merely something hidden and secretive to human mind, but it is moreover, the language of essence and revelation of the Triune God (transcendence) in Incarnation (immanence) and the continuing saving action. It is obvious that sometimes it contradicts the language of the human rational discursive mind and furthermore, it is incomprehensible in nature.

First of all, in Hellenism musth,rion is the promise of salvation and furthermore it is the sanctifying union with the deity and devotees who share in divine life. It is also remarkable to note that the Platonic notion of musth,rion is firmly connected to the

51 Hubert Cunliffe-Jones, Christian Theology since 1600 (London: Duckworth, 1970) 124. 52 Daniel B. Clendenin, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, 49. 53 Nikkos A. Nissiotis, “Interpreting Orthodoxy: The Communication of some Eastern Orthodox Theological Categories to Students of Western Church Traditions,” The Ecumenical Review 14 (1961) 4-28, 5. The scholastics adopt the metaphysical thinking of cause and effect in relation to the theological approach; thus, we find there is a productionist scheme in the scholastic theology of the West. According to the metaphysical approach, one thinks that s/he can capture God in one’s own reason. See Louis-Marie Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament, 21-26. See also See Joseph Martos, Doors to the Sacred, 63.


elevation of the human soul to union with the divine.54 From this philosophical background let us discuss the Pauline language of Christian mysteries. For Paul Christian mysteries contradict the wisdom of the Greeks. The Pauline notion of musth,rion is fundamentally interrelated with the kerygma of Christ. Christ is the musth,rion of God, Col. 2:2.55 The mystery presupposes revelation and the revelation discloses the mystery. Paul speaks about the paradoxical nature of the wisdom of the human persons and the power of God. The Crucified Christ is a stumbling block to the Jews and a folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called to salvation, Christ is the power of God and wisdom of God (1Cor. 1: 17-25). Paul says “God has given us the wisdom to understand fully the mystery, the plan he was pleased to decree in Christ, to be carried out in the fullness of time: namely, to bring all things in the heavens and on earth into one under Christ’s headship” (Eph 1: 9-10). The NT always speaks about mystery in relationship with its revelation with regard to salvation. God has revealed the mystery to the prophets and apostles through the Holy Spirit in order to make human beings partakers in divine nature.56 God’s decisive transcendental intervention in the salvation of the human person is creatively manifested in the folly of the Cross of Christ, which is not comprehended by the Jews so well as the Gentiles. This is the wisdom of God that remains a mystery to the human person. In this Pauline concept of the mystery of God the “weakness of God,” which is truly “stronger than any earthly power” is well manifested.57 Bouyer clearly says, “God transcends every conception as well as every power belonging to this created world….God will not appear in all his power, in all his reality, except for those who accept with faith the proclamation of the Cross and find their justification in the Spirit whom they receive in virtue of it.”58 God is “wholly other,” “the absolute other” and He is beyond the understanding of human rationality; He is totally a personal Being. Furthermore, there is neither the possibility of real knowledge nor ontological density without mystery.59 The mysterious nature of salvation in Eastern theology is accepted only through faith in God. Paul states; “I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. I became its servant according to God’s commission that was given to

54 G. Bornkamm, “musth,rion,” Gerhard Kittel (ed.), Geoffrey W. Bromiley trans., TDNT Vol. 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1967) 802-828, 805, 808. 55 G. Bornkamm, “musth,rion,” Gerhard Kittel (ed.), 819. 56 John L. McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1965) 598. Christian mystery is revealed to those who are endowed with the Holy Spirit. See G. Bornkamm, “musth,rion,” Gerhard Kittel (ed.), 819. 57 Louis Bouyer, The Christian Mystery: From Pagan Myth to Christian Mysticism, 11. God’s wisdom is mystery. See Theodore Abū Qurrah, A Treatise on the Veneration of the Holy Icons, Sidney H. Griffith, trans., (Leuven: Peeters, 1997) 33. 58 Louis Bouyer, The Christian Mystery, 11. 59 Henri De Lubac, The Discovery of God, Alexander Dru trans., (New York: P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1960) 101-102.


me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1: 24-27).

The mystery is revealed in Jesus Christ and salvation is made known to the Gentiles. The revealed but most incomprehensible divine mysteries are activated in and through the sacraments of the Church in view of transformation of the human person and the cosmos. The mystery of the world and humanity, and their relationships with the Creator is seen as “an active presence of the absolutely Transcendent in their existence.”60 According to Bouyer the Christian mystery leads the human person towards the resurrection of the whole being together with body and soul and ultimately rooted in the transfiguration of the whole cosmos.61 In its mystical approach, Eastern theology is trying to experience God, rather than to make certain conceptualizations through the discursive manner. Sacraments themselves are termed as mysteries, for they are intrinsically interrelated with the incomprehensible nature of God. The human person can partake in Christ’s mysteries of salvation through the sacramental mysteries. According to Cyril of Jerusalem, by way of partaking in the Baptism of Christ’s death, we become one with with Him and thereby we have been granted the “newness of life.”62 In sacraments, s/he becomes a sharer of Christ’s paschal mysteries that mean s/he shares both in the passion and death and in the glory of the resurrection of Christ. Because we become sharers of the paschal mysteries of Christ the human person is led to a state of deification. Cyril of Jerusalem speaks also about deification through the Holy Eucharist as the faithful becomes one with the Body and Blood of Christ through the partaking in the Body and Blood of Christ. He says;

With perfect confidence, then, we partake as of the Body and Blood of Christ. For in the figure of bread His Body is given to you, and in the figure of wine His Blood, that by partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ you may become one body and blood with Him. For when His Body and Blood become the tissue of our members, we become Christ-bearers and as the blessed Peter said, “partakers of the divine nature.”63

The mystery is the sharing of eternal life in God, in fellowship with the Holy Trinity (1Jn 1:2). The human person finds his sharing in the eternal life in and through the sacraments and the Word of God. This sharing is not a concept which is beyond human understanding but it is an experiential factor, moreover it is a corporeal relationship. The sacraments

60 Dumitru Staniloae, “The Mystery of the Church,” Gennadios Limouris, Church, Kingdom, World (Geneva: WCC, 1986) 50-57, 51. 61 Louis Bouyer, The Christian Mystery, 35. Christ himself is the mystery. The mysteries of Christ’s salvific events are clearly presented in the Scriptures, the Church and the Sacraments. See Hugh Wybrew, The Orthodox Liturgy, 24. 62 Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogical Lecture II. 7-8, Leo P. McCauley & Anthony A. Stephenson trans., The Fathers of the Church vol. 64 (Washington D.C: The Catholic University of America Press, 1970) 167. 63 Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogical Lecture IV.3, trans., Leo P. McCauley, 181-2.


bring a substantial relationship of both the personal and the community.64 In this sense, the ineffable divine mystery is both immanent and transcendent; it is immanent in its creation of ecclesial communion and it is transcendent in its eschatological communion, which makes him/her the perfect sharers of divine life. LaCugna speaks about divine mystery in a more comprehensible way; she says,

To speak of God as mystery is another way of saying that God is “personal.” An analogy can be drawn with our knowledge of other (human) person. We speak of a person revealing herself or himself to us. By that we do not chiefly mean learning facts about that person’s past or present but seeing with the ‘eyes of the heart’ who that person is, grasping through love her or his ineffable or inexhaustible mystery. The more intimate our knowledge of another, the more we are drawn to that person’s unique mystery and the deeper that mystery becomes. The same is true of God; God is not less mystery on account of God’s radical immanence in Christ. Indeed, the God who is absolutely other, absolutely transcendent but also absolutely near to us – this God is absolute mystery.65

God’s abiding saving action is concealed and revealed in various ways especially in the Word of God and the Sacraments in the Church. Concerning the transformation of the human person in Sacraments and the Word of God, mystery is the language of the sacramental metamorphosis. The musth,rion can refer to God’s primordial action of creation, more specifically speaking to his act of Incarnation and to the sacramental life of the Church. In this sense it is God’s movement toward union with the creation.66 Mystery is the language of the transformation of the human person in relation with partaking in the divine life through the relationship with the other as God’s living presence and with the whole cosmos. On the other hand, the language of mystery would be meaningless for one who withdraws into him/herself by undermining the other as the essential part of God and oneself. The notion of mystery makes him/her a partaker in divine life by way of moving out of oneself and to create new path for others in the perspective of cosmic transformation.67 In such a sense, it is inevitable to speak of the sacramental transformation of both the human person as well as the cosmos in the language of mystery. In this regard the concept of mystery and iconographic language are intrinsically interrelated notions. Let us turn to the concealment and the manifestation of the paschal mystery of Christ in sacraments, especially through iconographic language.

64 Jean Corbon, The Wellspring of Worship, 41. 65 Catherine M. LaCugna, “The Trinitarian Mystery of God,” Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives, Francis Schüssler Fiorenza & John Galvin (eds.), (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1991) 151-92, 57. In this regard it is also remarkable to point out the three basic points about the notion of mystery according to Karl Rahner. He says that mystery is a property of statement, mysteries in the plural and the multiplicity of mysteries comprised of truths which are “provisionally incomprehensible.” According to him in ordinary language the truth statements have the quality of mystery, because it is mysterious to reason. Furthermore, he speaks about mysteries as the affirmations of truth by the divine communication in and through revelation which is the object of faith. See Karl Rahner, “The Concept of Mystery in the Catholic Theology,” Theological Investigations Vol. 4, Kevin Smyth trans., (London, Darton, Longman & Todd: Helicon Press, 1966) 36-73, 38.

66 Charles Miller, The Gift of the World: An Introduction to the Theology of Dumitru Staniloae (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000) 85; PG 91:1084D, Staniloae, DT III. P9. 67 Richard Valantasis, Centuries of Holiness: Ancient Spirituality Refracted for a Postmodern Age (New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc, 2005) 15.


1.5 Sacramental Metamorphosis and Iconographic Language The iconographic language of the Eastern theological approach is one of the most profound theological characteristics with regard to our discussion on sacramental metamorphosis. However, we shall not make a thorough research on icon; rather we will try to explore the iconographic language in the perspective of sacramental metamorphosis. John of Damascus defines image as “a likeness and pattern and impression of something.”68 He further states that the purpose of images is “to guide us to knowledge and to make manifest and open what is hidden, certainly for our profit and well-doing and salvation.”69 In this sense Eastern theological tradition tries to make present the mystery of God through holy icons.70 The unfathomable mystery of God is revealed and proclaimed in the event of the Incarnation (Rom 16: 25) and what is ‘secret and hidden’ revealed through the Holy Spirit (1Cor 2:7-10). Christ is described as the icon of the invisible God (Col 1:15). The eivkw.n is more than a copy of something, it is the reality and it implies the illumination of its inner essence.71 According to Zizioulas iconographic language is developed in the Syro-palestinian tradition and in its Eucharistic liturgical tradition of the East. This tradition presents truth not as a product of the mind but as an eschatological reality which is oriented towards the notion of “dwelling” (Jn 1:14), a communion event.72

68 John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images, III.16, Andrew Louth trans., 95. The first evidence of Christian iconography is seen from 3rd C.E onwards. They were mostly decorative paintings on the catacombs. See Hugh Wybrew, The Orthodox Liturgy: The Development of the Eucharistic Liturgy in the Byzantine Rite (London: SPCK, 1989) 22-3. 69 John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images, III.17, Andrew Louth trans., 96. 70 Eastern theology is closely linked with the devotion to the icons. An icon is more than a painting; it is visible representation of the invisible reality. The icons represent the core of faith and the practice of the Eastern Churches, furthermore it is also considered as equal to Holy Scripture. Binns says, “Icon can be seen as the pictorial equivalent to the Bible. So it is clearly the case that iconography has little to do with art, and everything to do with theology. The word ‘icon’ is a transliteration of the Greek eikon or ‘image’, and the iconographer is literally the writer, rather than painter, of images.” John Binns, An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) 98. There are two different groups related to holy icons which emerged in the history of the Eastern Churches. The first group is called Iconodules or venerators of icons, who vigorously defended the place of icons in the life of the Eastern Churches; the other group is Iconoclasts or icon-smashers, who suspicious of religious arts which represented human beings or God, demanded the destruction of the same. See Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, 38. For more on icons and iconoclasts, See Catherine P. Roth trans., On the Holy Icons: St. Theodore the Studite (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001). 71 Hermann Kleinknecht, “The Greek Use of eivkw.n,” TDNT Vol II (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964) 388-390, 389. The Greek notion of icon denotes mysterion, sacred mystery as sacrament which conveys divine grace. See Margaret E. Kenna, “Icons in Theory and Practice: An Orthodox Christian Example,” History of Religions 24.4 (1985) 354-68, 346, 7. As Zizioulas points out, Maximus the Confessor rightly considers “The things of the Old Testament are shadow (skia,); those of the New Testament are image (eivkw.n); and those of the future state are truth (avlh,qeia).” See John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (London: Darton, 1985) 99. The reality of icon transfigures the human by divine grace. See Michel Quenot, The Icon, 93. 72 John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 100. The icon of Christ bears the Greek abbreviation IC XC


This apocalyptic root of the iconographic language makes the truth relational and liberates the truth from “conception,” “definition,” and “comprehension.”73 The human person’s corruptible nature participates with the icons in the deification of the human person and it is the sacramental presence.74 God’s grace is manifested and communicated in this world through the sacraments and icons, which have a transformative dimension. Being created in the image implies the human person is the microcosm which also means s/he sums up all creation.75 Kenna rightly affirms; “The icon is a microcosm of the relationship between the material world, human beings, and the divine power believed to have created them all. More than this, it is a sacramental form of communion with that divine power.”76

The icon is also an image of the sacramental transformation of the whole cosmos. Neoplatonists used eivkw.n in order to elucidate the relationship between what is higher and what is lower in the hierarchy of the universe.77 The Greek Fathers consider eivkw.n as “something real and as true as avlh,qeia.”78 Eivkw.n is not merely an aesthetic representation of the paschal mysteries of God; rather it renders the invisible reality “visible and active.”79 In the Eastern theological tradition, the function of the eivkw.n is to relate the invisible to the visible. The most significant and sublime function of eivkw.n would be to unite the material and spiritual realm.80 In this regard, the icons are also called to participate in the transformation of the cosmos, for the materials which are used to make icons are taken from the organic world.81 It can be affirmed clearly in the categorization of icon by John of Damascus; out of his six categories of icon three are important for our discussion. They are (i) the consubstantial or natural, it is the image of Father in Christ; (ii) the image of God in man; and (iii) the image of God in all creation.82 God created the

( vIhsou/j Cristo,j) and the Theotokos for the Mother of God, MP QY (Mh,thr Qeou/). See Michel Quenot, The Icon, 85. 73 John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 100. 74 Michel Quenot, The Icon, 87. Giakalis also presents a vivid picture of the communication of divine grace through the icons. Cf. Ambrosios Giakalis, Images of the Divine: The Theology of the Icons at the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994). 75 G. W. H. Lampe (ed.), eivkw,n, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1961, 192005) 411. 76 Margaret E. Kenna, “Icons in Theory and Practice: An Orthodox Christian Example,” 345-68, 348. 77 Andreas Andreopoulos, Metamorphosis: The Transfiguration in Byzantine Theology and Iconography (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2005) 32. 78 John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 99. 79 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 189. Randi Sider-Rose rightly affirms: “Only the divinity beyond the icon is to be venerated, not a divinity contained within.” Cf. Randi Sider-Rose, “Iconography: Learning to See: The Sacralized Vision of Byzantine Iconography,” David L. Weaver-Zercher & William H. Willimon, Vital Christianity: Spirituality, Justice, and Christian Practice (London: T&T Clark, 2005) 154-166, 156. 80 Andreas Andreopoulos, Metamorphosis, 36. See also Samuel M. Powell, A Theology of Christian Spirituality (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005) 57. 81 Michel Quenot, The Icon, 83. 82 John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images, III, Andrew Louth trans., 96-99.


human person in His own image and likeness, s/he has to be transformed in His likeness, therefore an icon has an explicit task in view of personal as well as cosmic transformations. Quenot clearly elucidates the transformative task of an icon, he says; “it [icon] is the image of a world transformed, transfigured, rendered transparent by a spiritualization which embraces the entire cosmos.”83 In our discussion on sacramental metamorphosis the iconographic language mediates the absence with the presence. God’s grace is made visible in the physical life situation of the human person. Now, we turn our discussion to the essential relationship with the icon and symbol.

1.5.1 Eivkw.n and Su,mbolon

An eivkw.n is a ‘symbol’ which contains and communicates the realities of the mystery of salvation in an embodied way. We find in Maxiums’ theology that a “symbol” may be replaced by other terms like “type” or “icon,” which are expressed in the perspective of the economy of salvation. While he speaks about Maximus’ liturgical theology, Thunberg clearly states that “symbol” takes the place of “icon,” and “it is the symbol that contains the mysteries of our salvation.”84 In this respect, the ‘symbol’ and ‘icon’ are discussed in an immensely realistic manner with regard to the iconographic language in sacramental metamorphosis. Realism and symbolism are not separate realities but are mutually related. Sacraments are symbols, but obviously they are also realities which transform Christian life through divine grace that directs him/her towards deification.85 Such a way sacramental metamorphosis is integrally related with the iconographic language of sacraments, which re-present the reality of divine salvific mysteries physically in the cosmos.

The Greek notion of sumba,llw means to “unite” or to “hold together.” A symbol communicates reality in a partial and imperfect manner. However, it “unites

John of Damascus says that an icon as a window transparent to divinity, seen “through a glass darkly.” See John of Damascus, On the Divine Images: Three Apologies against Those Who Attack Divine Images, David Anderson trans., (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000) 53, as cited in Randi Sider-Rose, “Iconography: Learning to See: The Sacralized Vision of Byzantine Iconography,” David L. Weaver-Zercher & William H. Willimon, Vital Christianity, 154-166, 156. 83 Michel Quenot, The Icon, 147. Sacrament is the visible symbol which assimilated the uncreated divine energies in transcendentalizing purpose through which s/he is effected anew. See Oleg Tarasov, Icon and Devotion: Sacred Spaces in Imperial Russia, Robin Milner-Gulland trans. & ed., (London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 2002) 158. 84 Lars Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos, 163. See also, Kuruvilla Pandikattu, Idols to Die, Symbols to Live: Dynamic Interaction between Language, Reality and the Divine (New Delhi: Intercultural Publications, 1998). 85 Lars Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos, 157, 127. See more on the relationship between the mystery and symbols, Christos Christoforidis, “The Nature of Symbols and the Created Order,” Elizabeth Theokritoff trans., Sourozh 98 (2004) 13-33, 21-4. The veneration of icons is seen as a symbolic practice where there is an interaction between visibility and invisibility. See Paul Moyaert, “In Defense of Praying with Images,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 81.4 (2007) 595-612, 600-1.


disproportionate realities.”86 The symbol is means of knowledge, which depends on participation.87 Andreopoulos made a significant observation on Theophanes of Nicea who made a distinction between icon and symbol. For him icon may be superior to symbol because both of them share in the essence of what they represent. However, the icon has the physical resemblance with the prototype, which is not the case with the symbol.88 Schmemann argues that in its very essence icon is a symbol of the Kingdom, the divine glory and the manifestation of the new creation.89 In its iconic role, sacramental theology is a language of God-experience, which is intrinsically oriented towards the transformation of the human person. In the Eastern theological language of icon, we undermine certain rational conceptualizations on God’s essence. Icon is able to convey the profound truth of faith and obviously it is more than a cataphatic epistemological approach of making a certain theological conceptualization, it leads the faithful towards the deeper mystery of God.90 The icons are symbolic representations of the presence of the saving act of God in the human situation. In this regard, let us discuss the saving presence of God in and through the sacraments of the Church.

1.5.2 Eivkw.n as the “Presence of the Absence”

As we have discussed already, an icon does not convey any aesthetic physical beauty or value as such, but it has certain important tasks within the community of the faithful.91 Icons convey the inner depth of the unfathomable mysteries of God in a more comprehensible way. In this sense, icons are the profound semiotic channels that reveal

86 Alexander Schmemann, “The Symbol of the Kingdom,” Joseph J. Allen (ed.), The Orthodox Synthesis: The Unity of Theological Thought (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1981) 35-47, 38. See also Paul Moyaert, “In Defense of Praying with Images,” 608-9. The Su,mbolon comes from two Greek words su,n ‘with’ ba,llw ‘I throw’ it is a throwing with. See Stephen W.Need, Human Language and Knowledge, 132. It is sym-ballein, ‘putting together,’ sacramental symbolization indicates the mutual relation. See Louis-Marie Chauvet, The Sacraments: The Word of God at the Mercy of the Body (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 11997, 2001)70, 85-88. 87 Alexander Schmemann, “Sacrament and Symbol” 141. 88 Andreas Andreopoulos, Metamorphosis, 32. 89 Alexander Schmemann, “The Symbol of the Kingdom,” 44. Keane argues that symbols are intrinsically apt to reveal the realities they present, See Philip S. Keane, Christian Ethics and Imagination: A Theological Inquiry (New York: Paulist Press, 1984) 37. 90 Michel Quenot, The Resurrection and the Icon, Michael Breck trans., (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997) 54. 91 Andreas Andreopoulos, Metamorphosis, 25. Similarly, Quenot points out; “an icon reveals the deepest reality of the person and of the world beyond the physical exterior.” See Michel Quenot, The Resurrection and the Icon, 51. Icon is not an idol but it reveals the knowledge of God and manifests the mysterious nature of the Incarnation of the Word of God. Cf. Elizabeth Zelensky & Lela Gilbert, Windows to Heaven: Introducing Icon to Protestants and Catholics (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2005) 22, 24. Marion speaks about the entire change of substance made visible the invisible. See Jean-Luc Marion, Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness Jeffrey L. Kosky trans., (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002) 40-41. See also Jean-Luc Marion, The Crossing of the Visible James K.A. Smith trans., (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004) 2-5.


the mysterious nature of the Eastern theological approach and in which we could see the mystery of sacramental transformation in its interrelatedness with both the divine and human realms. However, more than a popular pietism, just as are sacraments in the Church, icons also can be considered the “presence of the absence.” In its organic relationship with liturgy, the icon is the constant reminder of the Incarnation and the paschal mystery of the economy of salvation.92 The icons relate the realities of the visible-invisible and hidden-revealed. The ineffable mysteries of God are made visible through the sacred images. The faithful never see the aesthetic beauty of an icon, rather they look beyond the icon then to see and experience the divine mysteries in a mystical manner. The ineffable essence of God is made present through his energies and is communicated to the faithful through the Word of God, Sacraments and holy icons. The incomprehensibility of God (absence) is present in and through the sacred icons in the Church. As a result the sacramental nature of the icons is also very much emphasized. Quenot rightly observes,

[t]he icon is at the heart of the liturgical celebration that presupposes its presence….Word and image are united, revealing the hidden face of Scripture. If the Eucharist enables each baptized individual to become “one flesh” with Christ, the icon brings one face to face with Him.93

When we consider sacramental metamorphosis from the perspective of iconographic theology, it is noteworthy that it is through the reality of the Eucharist that the icon penetrates the divinity and makes it known to the human person and to creation and sanctifies everything,94 because the icon is considered equal to and venerated as the living Word of God. Ouspensky relates the icon to the Scripture and the Cross; saying, “the icon is placed on a level with the Holy Scriptures and with the Cross, as one of the forms of revelation and knowledge of God, in which Divine and human will and action become blended.”95

As we have seen already the icon as the semiotic channel which relates the visible and invisible, so it also stands as the dwelling place of divine grace which makes the human person partake in divine energies and get transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, iconography enables the human person through its sacralized vision “to nurture and nourish compassionate action”96 for the other. As the Sacraments and the Word of God lead the faithful towards an active Christian life, icons also play an equal significance 92 Michel Quenot, The Resurrection and the Icon, 44. 93 Michel Quenot, The Resurrection and the Icon, 46. He observes; “the icon is a true sacramental of a personal presence,” it is the visible expression of the invisible. Cf. Michel Quenot, The Icon, 79. 94 Michel Quenot, The Resurrection and the Icon, 46. 95 Leonid Ouspensky, “The Meaning and Language of Icons,” Leonid Ouspensky & Vladimir Lossky (eds.), The Meaning of Icons, G. E. H. Palmer & E. Kadloubavsky trans., (New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1982) 25-49, 30. 96 Randi Sider-Rose, “Iconography: Learning to See: The Sacralized Vision of Byzantine Iconography,” David L. Weaver-Zercher & William H. Willimon, Vital Christianity: Spirituality, Justice, and Christian Practice (New York, London: T&T Clark, 2005) 154-166, 155.


in creating the basic Christian attitude towards the doers of the will of God. Randi Sider-Rose argues: “Different from a rational appeal to human willpower, Byzantine iconography enflames the heart and activates the imagination with an authentically Christian vision – a vision that, above all else, reveals to us that Christ was the image-event that created new possibilities of whom we can be as seers and doers.”97 Since our discussion is on icons as the symbolic representations of the divine mysteries, it focuses our discussion on Christ as the true eivkw.n of God from the perspective of sacramental metamorphosis.

1.5.3 Christ as the True Eivkw.n of the Incomprehensible God

The Word became flesh and dwelt among humanity in order to make salvation visible to all mankind, which essentially leads a Christian to partake in the eternal light and life of the incomprehensible triune God (Jn 1:14). This participation in Christ the true icon makes him/her as the co-heir of divine glory. When someone partakes in the body and blood of Christ then s/he becomes co-heir of his divinity. John of Damascus says; “If they are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ and partakers of the divine glory and kingdom, how shall not the friends of Christ be also fellow partakers on earth of his glory?”98 In Pauline theology, he speaks about Christ as the visible image (eivkw.n) of the invisible God; “in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature” (Col. 1: 14-15). In this way the divine salvation economy is fulfilled through the human participation in Christ who is the true icon of the incomprehensible God. Athanasius clearly states that the invisible God is present in the world through the Word of God;

It is thus the omnipotent and perfectly holy Word of the Father himself who is present in all things and extends his power everywhere, illuminating all things visible and invisible, containing and enclosing them in himself; he leaves nothing deprived of his power, but gives life and protection to everything, everywhere, to each individually and to all together.99

Moreover, Athanasius presents Christ as the visible eivkw.n who manifests God the Father in the world. He also says that the wisdom and the power of reasoning are given to those who participate (Metoch.n) in Christ who is the true image of the Father, because;

[H]e is absolute wisdom, very Word, and himself the Father’s own power, absolute light, absolute truth, absolute justice, absolute virtue, and indeed stamp, effulgence, and image [eivkw,n]. In short, he is the supremely perfect issue of the Father, and is alone Son, the

97 Randi Sider-Rose, “Iconography: Learning to See…,” 154-166, 166. 98 John of Damascus, Three Treatises on Divine Images, I, Andrew Louth trans., 34. 99 Athanasius, Contra Gentes 42, Robert W. Thomson ed. & trans., 115. God is incomprehensible and invisible by His nature, because God is above all created being, however He might be known to wo/men by his works. Ibid. 35, p.95.


express image of the Father. kai. sunelo,nti fra,sai, karpo.j pante,leioj tou/ Patro,j u`pa,rcei, kai, mo,noj evsti.n uio,j, eivkw.n avpara,llaktoj tou/ Patro,j.100

Since Christ is the true icon of the incomprehensible God, the human indwelling in Christ makes him/her the true icon of Christ in the world. The sacramental deification necessarily implies this personal transformation.

1.5.4 The Human person: the Icon of Christ

In the Incarnation, the ineffable mystery of God entered into time and space and invited every human person to partake in the divinity, which is the movement of the corruptible human nature into the incorruptibility of the divine mystery. The human person in God’s eivkw.n and s/he has to become God’s likeness.101 Christ the true image is understood as fully divine and fully human so that he is able to understand the human personhood in its fullness. Quenot rightly affirms;

Christ is the image of the Father, fully God and fully man. In Him and through Him the tarnished image of man recovers its initial beauty. Because God became one flesh with man by nature through the Incarnation of Christ, we are now able to become one with God by grace, through communion in the death and Resurrection of Christ.102

The icon of Christ expresses neither his divinity nor his humanity, but his entire personality without any confusion.103 The iconic presence of Christ guides the human person towards the transformation of his/her being in his/her union with divinity. Since Christ is the icon of the invisible God, in sacramental deification the human person is specially chosen and entitled to become one with Christ through the Word of God and Sacrament, moreover, s/he has the task of becoming an icon of Christ in the world. It is not merely a state of being a witness to Christ in the world, but it is the iconic representation of Christ in the world by which s/he is entitled to present the invisible God in one’s own life situation. In sacramental deification, the human person becomes the transparent light of God, while being the “life-giving presence” of God for the world; and indeed, s/he is “becoming an icon of God for the people, and an icon of the people for God.”104 Quenot vividly expressed the view that Christians are living icons of God, he

100 Athanasius, Contra Gentes 46, Robert W. Thomson, 130-131. Through the process of theosis the human person will be transformed into the image of God. See Elizabeth Zelensky & Lela Gilbert, Windows to Heaven: Introducing Icon to Protestants and Catholics, 81. The icon of Christ is the basic representation of all other human persons, “God-become-man sanctifies the faces of all humanity.” Cf. Michel Quenot, The Icon, 147. Icons are represented as the basic image of transformation of both the human person and the whole cosmos. See Ibid., 151. 101 Jouko Martikainen, “Man’s Salvation: Deification or Justification?,” Sobornost 7.3 (1976) 180-192, 183. See also Arthur Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age, 302. 102 Michel Quenot, The Resurrection and the Icon, 58. 103 Michel Quenot, The Icon, 40. 104 Boris Bobrinskoy, The Compassion of the Father, Anthony G. Gythiel trans., (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003) 44, as cited from Homily for the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy (March 3, 1985). The only occurance of the Greek notion of morfo,w in NT Gl 4:19 speaks about the goal of


states: “Man is an icon of God, but only insofar as he is fully human, radiating the presence of Christ.”105 Being fully human in relationship with God and the other in harmony with the cosmos is the iconic representation of Christ in the world. It is achieved through the sacraments and especially the sacramental praxis. In this sense, sacramental metamorphosis is an event of making the human divine which is the actual representation of incomprehensible divinity in the cosmos. Iconographic language tries to disclose the ineffable mysteries of God in the rational realm of the human mind; such incomprehensible divine mysteries are to be experienced rather than arrived at through discursive means.

1.6 Sacramental Metamorphosis and the Incomprehensible Essence When we discuss sacramental deification, the most significant question is how the communion of a human person is possible with the incomprehensible God. We also try to explain in what sense the incomprehensible God is comprehensible or knowable to the human person. Paul says that God is “unknown, and yet well-known” (2 Cor 6:9). In this regard, we try to understand sacramental deification as the encounter of the human person with the incomprehensible God; paradoxically speaking, God is “hidden yet revealed,” and the “nearness yet otherness of the Eternal.”106

Eastern theology holds the incomprehensibility of the divine essence as of paramount significance. In His essence (ousia) God is incomprehensible and He manifests Himself through the economy that is in his operation, so that the human person can participate in the divine life. Maximus the Confessor speaks about the knowledge of God as, “God is not accessible to any reason or any understanding and because of this we do not categorize His existence as existence itself whether expressed or conceived simply or in any particular mode.”107 It is also significant to note that Irenaeus reconciles his teachings on incomprehensibility with the notion of divine immanance. In His inner being God is ineffable and above every Principality, but He is revealed and manifested through the Word of God, the Son who is eternally co-existing with the Father.108 God is hidden but revealed, Irenaeus continues: “of what nature and how great He is, [God] is invisible and indescribable to all things which have been made by Him, but He is by no means

becoming Christian is the “fashioning of Christ in man.” In this regard, the “Christ-life may come into being in believers.” See J. Behm, “morfh,”, Gerhard Kittel (ed.), TDNT Vol. 4, 742-759, 752. Celebrant of sacraments should become visible icon of God. See Robert L. Wilken, “The Pastor as Icon,” Dialogue 32.1 (1993) 19-28, 22-23. 105 Michel Quenot, The Icon, 158. 106 Kallistos Ware, “God Hidden and Revealed: The Apophatic Way and the Essence-Energies Distinction,” Eastern Churches Review 7.2 (1975) 125-136, 125. 107 Maximus the Confessor, The Ambigua 10.37 (PG 91: 1180D). as cited from Alexei V. Nesteruk, Light from the East, 77. 108 Ireneaus, Against Heresies II. 30. 9 (ANF I) 406.


unknown.”109 God reveals Himself in the Word of God and the Word of God incarnated in the form of a human being. He manifested the glory of God in his life and mission. When we consider that the sacraments are visible signs of the invisible grace of God, then it is noteworthy that the invisible God lives and acts in the human realm by sanctifying and transforming him/her into the sphere of being fully human and fully alive in divine life through the sacraments. In this sense, sacraments are the meeting point of the incomprehensible God with the human person. Gregory Palamas dedicated his theological thinking to one basic truth; “The living God is accessible to personal experience, because He shared His own life with humanity.”110 God is no more a concept which is beyond the experience of the human person, rather He communicates with the human person in and through the Sacraments and the Word of God. This fundamental communication implies the radical transformation of the person into the divine life. In this respect, it is also significant to note the vivid statement of John of Damascus, who says; “Therefore I am emboldened to depict the invisible God, not as invisible, but as he became visible for our sake, by participation in flesh and blood. I do not depict the invisible divinity, but I depict God made visible in the flesh.”111 As a result the sacramental metamorphosis can be understood in a more comprehensible manner in its corporeality of the communication of God’s love and grace in view of transformation.

However, the sacramental transformation is not understood from a conceptual and rational discursive exercise but as personal experience in the uniqueness of the divinity. The uniqueness of God is expressed through the apophatic way of speaking of God. His difference is in His transcendence over ordinary language. “Being itself is the cause of mental objects, is beyond all essence and has no colour, shape, size or any visible characteristics.” For God is pure being who does not have any observable qualities.112 When we say that God is incomprehensible, it does not mean that God is irrational, but it implies His wisdom infinitely encompasses human wisdom and creative capacity.113 Neverthless, we are not discussing sacramental metamorphosis in the perspective of the notions of rational or irrational because it is beyond that. In such a way, since we focus this research on sacramental metamorphosis we must pay significant attention to apophatic epistemological methodology of the incomprehensibility of God and the sacramentology. Before that, let us turn our attention to incomprehensibility in relation to transcendence.

109 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4, 20. 6 (ANF I) 489. 110 Gregory Palamas, The Triads, John Meyendorff (ed.) & Nicholas Gendle trans., (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1983) 1. 111 John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images, Andrew Louth trans., (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003) Treatise I.4, 22. 112 Eric Osborn, The Beginning of Christian Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981) 37. 113 G. L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (London: SPCK, 1952) 6.


1.7 Incomprehensibility and Personal Transcendence From the perspective of sacramental deification, God’s utter incomprehensibility implies also the transcendence of the human person. God is utterly impossible to know in His essence, being the creator of the world and totally different from the creature. Gregory of Nyssa says that the divine essence is unattainable not only by human beings but also by every intelligent creature.114 The only possible knowledge of the incomprehensible God in the human realm is the knowledge due to Divine grace manifested especially in the Incarnation. The incomprehensibility and transcendence of God make possible the transformation of the human person through the divine-human intervention in the event of Incarnation, in which the human person is united with the life of Christ and the triune divine communion. Through the participation into the divine mysteries we become sharers of the divine transcendance, Clement of Alexandria says; “When we are baptized, we are enlightened; being enlightened, we become adopted sons, we are made perfect; and becoming perfect, we are made divine.”115 It is clear that the sacramental transformation is also a dynamic process. In understanding qe,wsij, God and human beings are profoundly connected together with Christ.116 The Incarnation is the only way to unite the human person with God and the world.117 The transcendence of the human person is the main concern of our discussion in sacramental metamorphosis, which is essentially the incorporation with the person in Christ who is the manifestation of the incomprehensible God. Ware made an attempt to mitigate the paradox of the transcendental essence of God without abolishing the radical disparity between the created and the Uncreated; in the event of the Incarnation of the Logos the Godhead has revealed to mankind, “God is hidden as well as disclosed.”118 When the incomprehensible God made himself accessible to human persons in their spatio-temporal situation, then there was the possibility of an experience of transcendence, which we experience mainly through the sacraments of the Church. However, the divine transcendence is the fundamental principle of the transcendence of the human person.

The overwhelming experience of transcendence is achieved by the divine gift of sharing in “His own Image” the Word in whom the Father is made known.119 For Athanasius, Incarnation basically transforms the human person and manifests the invisible: “For by His becoming Man, the Saviour was to accomplish both works of love; first, in putting

114 Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, Abraham J. Malherbe & Everett Ferguson trans., (New York: Paulist Press, 1978) 95. 115 Clement of Alexandria, Christ the Educator, Book I. 6. 26, Simon P. Wood trans., “The Fathers of the Church,” vol. 23 (Washington, D.C: The Catholic University of America Press, 1954) 26. 116 Emil Bartos, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, 21. 117 Emil Bartos, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, 21. 118 Timothy Ware, “God Hidden and Revealed…,” 125-136, 126. 119 Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word, (NPNF IV) 42.


away death from us and renewing us again; secondly, being unseen and invisible, in manifesting and making Himself known by His works to be the Word of the Father, and the Ruler and King of the universe.”120 While Athansius affirms that the transformation of the human person takes place by becoming human in doing the works of love, Gregory of Nyssa speaks about the sacramental transformation as ‘we become “clean” in our wills and “put away the evil” of our souls, we thus become better men and are changed to a better state,’ and become children of God.121 Bartos speaks of Staniloae’s view of Incarnation that becomes the epistemological basis of the way of knowing the incomprehensible God and take part in the life of God in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,122 which paves the path towards transcendence of the human person ultimately resulting in cosmic transformation. In this sense, let us say that the Incarnation is the basis of qe,wsij too; furthermore, incomprehensibility and personal transcendence are interrelated. However, we shall discuss this basic notion of Incarnation and deification in the next chapter.

The human encounter with the incomprehensibility of the Holy Trinity takes place in and through the sacraments. While we discuss the epistemological foundation of sacramental metamorphosis, it should be necessarily related to the apophatic approach in theology. Mystical experience and theology are mutually interrelated and complement each other.123

As far as Eastern theology is concerned, the apophatic theological tradition leads the faithful towards a mystical experience and this mystical experience paves the path towards personal transformation and s/he becomes “god by participation” and “one” with God.124 Human nature must undergo a certain necessary transfiguration by grace both spiritual and cosmic.125 The way to know the incomprehensible God is necessarily the way to deify the human person. Union with the Divine does not yield to knowledge because it is not an object of knowledge. Knowing God implies the taking up of humanity within the relationship with God, in such a way that knowledge of God makes him/her in a state of

120 Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word, (NPNF IV) 45. 121 Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism, 40 (NPNF V) 508. Therefore, transcendence of the human person is the result of taking away evil from one’s own life and regenerates the personhood in a new culture of love in union with the life of Christ. Sacraments and the Word of God basically work for the transformation of the person as well as the cosmos. 122 Emil Bartos, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, 21. 123 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St: Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002) 8. 124 Harvey D. Egan, “Christian Apophatic and Kataphatic Mysticism,” Theological Studies 39.3 (1978) 399-427, 422. 125 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 18.


being with God.126 According to Staniloae the foundation of Eastern epistemology is based on “transformation” which can convey the experience of God. He states;

Theology promotes progress as it helps the spiritual progress of Christian people towards an eschatological communion which is universal and perfect. Theology is a part of the movement of the human spirit towards full union with God and – through its task of explaining this movement – has a particularly effective role within it.127

The human person is entitled to experience the eschatological union, which is incomprehensible with the triune God, through the sacraments. That is why sacraments transform the human person in a new way of being. In this divine-human coactivity of the sacramental metamorphosis, let us discuss the apophatic-cataphatic synthesis as an epistemological methodological approach. First of all let us turn our discussion to apophaticism.

1.8 Apophaticism and the Sacramental Transformation Study of apophaticism is the substantial epistemological approach of all the Eastern theological traditions. Etymologically the term ‘apophaticism’ comes from the Greek word a,po,fasij for “not speaking,” “to deny” and “to say no.”128 Sometimes it seems that apophatic theology is mis-understood as negative theology by both the Eastern and Western theological traditions. Apophaticism necessarily indicates the inability of the rationality of the human person to know the transcendent God, unless there is divine intervention. Yannaras says that apophaticism is neither irrationalism nor indifference to the logic of scientific formulation of knowledge or self-centered mysticisms, rather it is the philosophical epistemology of both affirmation and negation.129 Speaking on the incomprehensible divine mysteries, if we follow merely certain positive affirmations, then there is the possible danger of making ‘idols’ instead of ‘icons.’ In this sense, Yannaras rightly points out, apophaticism is “destructive of idols.”130 The Eastern theology kept alive the apophatic tradition as a sublime epistemological methodology in theology.

126 Eberhard Jüngel, God’s Being Is in Becoming: The Trinitarian Being of God in the Theology of Karl Barth John Webster trans., (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001) 75. 127 Dumitru Staniloae, The Experience of God, 93. For him theology is a means towards an end; union with God, qe,wsij. 128 Jonah Winters, Saying Nothing about No-Thing: Apophatic Theology in the Classical World, http:// bahai-library.org/personal/jw/my.papers/apophatic.html (accessed on 12.05.2003). Cf. Marios P. Begzos, Apophaticism in the Theology of the Eastern Church, 327-357.

129 Christos Yannaras, On the Absence and Unknowability of God, 60. 130 Christos Yannaras, On the Absence and Unknowability of God, 22. See also Christos Yannaras, Postmodern Metaphysics, 59. See more on idols and images, Irven M. Resnick, “Idols and Images: Early definitions and controversies,” Sobornost 7.2 (1985) 35-51. The negative theology reflects an aversion to idolatory. See Richard A. Rosengarten, “Satire and Negative Theology: Swift, Voltaire, and the Hermeneutical Dilemma,” Svensk Teologisk Kvartalskrift. Arg. 81 (2005) 107-114, 114.


Dionysius made a distinction between two theological methods: cataphatic or positive theology, which fosters positive affirmations, while the other is apophatic or negative theology which is a negation of the positive affirmations of God.131 However, God is beyond the human capacity of both knowing and unknowing; beyond the negation and affirmation. But the negation of the positive affirmations of God does not imply that it is a negative theology. The apophatic ‘negative’ approach accepts the fact that God’s very nature is unknowable. When we say unknowability, then arises the problem of stagnancy in the process of knowing God. God is invisible and beyond the capability of understanding and expression of human words, it is “the darkness.”132 The Eastern theology strongly holds that God is in His essence totally transcendent and unknowable. God is “the wholly Other,” invisible, radically transcendent and beyond all our understanding,133 and sometimes even beyond our experience. Bartos opines, “Even when

131 Dionysius, (PG 3) 1065. St. Thomas Aquinas reduces the two ways into one, making negative theology a corrective to affirmative theology. Ibid., 26. But to equate “apophatic” with “negative” can lead to error. See J. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 92. Cataphatic theology is affirmative theology which tries to make God conceivable and visible. Nesteruk is pessimistic when he speaks about cataphatic approach which is “to create the idols full of deception.” However, the apophatic and cataphatic knowledge of God is mutually intertwined. See Alexei V. Nesteruk, Light from the East: Theology, Science, and the Eastern Orthodox Tradition, 51, 79. Jean Danielou designates the chief sources of apophatic approach as Hellenistic Judaism, Middle Platonism and Gnosticism. God’s uncreated nature is strongly emphasized in the Hellenistic-Judaic polemic against idols; such terms found in Greek Philosophy are atheatos (“invisible”); aoratos (“invisible”); achoretos (“uncontainable”); agenetos (“uncreated”); anendees (“not needy”); anekphrastos (“inexpressible”); aphatos (“ineffable”) etc. Cf. Gregory P. Rocca, Speaking the Incomprehensible God: Thomas Aquinas on the Interplay of Positive and Negative Theology (Washington, D.C: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004) 5. Staniloae speaks about two kinds of apophaticism; firstly apophaticism that is experienced but cannot be defined and secondly that which cannot even be experienced. Cf. Dumitru Staniloae, The Experience of God, 103. Apophatic language is more difficult because of two moments; first of all apophatic language which is learning to deny all kinds of assertion about God, and secondly it is beyond speech and illumination. See J. Alexander Sider, “The Hiddenness of God and the Justice of God: Negative Theology as Social Ethical Resource,” David L. Weaver-Zercher & William H. Willimon, (eds.) Vital Christianity: Spirituality, Justice, and Christian Practice (New York: T&T Clark, 2005)115-125, 118. 132 Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, V. xii. (ANF II). 133 Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, 11. See Carnegie Samuel Calian, “Eastern Theology,” The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 6 (Chicago: William Benton Publisher, 1974) 145. With regard to the apophatic theology Cappadocians were not exactly breaking new ground with this thought, but it is the thought of Plato, the prophet of rationalism. In his dialogue, Timaeus, Plato insisted that “it was hard to know and difficult to declare to all the nature of god.” We can see the same expression in book vi of the Republic; he insisted that the idea of the Good is beyond mind and being. This notion of apophaticism has a great impulse from the writings of Philo from the first century, he speaks of God is incomprehensible. See Philo, On the Posterity and Exile of Cain, 169 and Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 5.17.83. as cited by Anthony Meredith, Gregory of Nyssa, The Early Church Fathers Series, Carol Harrison (ed.) (London: Routledge, 1999) 13. Paul Evdokimov vividly states: “trinitarian dogma is an absolute stranger to all metaphysical speculation.” Cf. Paul Evdokimov, L’Esprit Saint dans la tradition orthodoxe (Paris: 1963) 43 as cited by Catherine M. LaCugna, God For Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991) 54. Strictly speaking, God can only be designated by negative attributes: it is possible to say what God is not, but it is impossible to say what He is. So, in fact aphophatic theology is not negative. The “apophatic” theology is only applicable to the essence of God in the Orthodox view. The true


man participates in God’s energies, he comes to that point when he experiences infinite realities that cannot be described, for God is always beyond what is experienced.”134 The perfect contemplation of God is beyond abstraction, it is a participation in divine things and it is a gift and possession rather than a process of negation.135 According to Lossky, the goal of apophatic theology is “a question of an ascent towards the infinite; this infinite goal is not a nature or an essence, nor is it a person; it is something which transcends all notions both of nature and of person: it is the Trinity.”136 Apophatic theology has remained as the ‘hallmark’ of the Eastern theological approaches to God.

From the aforementioned discussion it is clear that apophaticism is a major epistemological methodology and a religious system of thought towards the incomprehensibility of God which speaks of God, not what he is but what he is not. This incomprehensibility (avkata,lhptoj) of God’s nature corresponds to an experience; meeting a personal God through revelation.137 Athanasius states that God the creator is “beyond all being and human thought” who made human in his own image and giving him “a conception and knowledge of his own eternity;” it is not to abandon his concept of God but to participate in the communion of God through divine grace.138 Sacramental deification is also seen as the personal experience which we have through fundamental searching to know the unknowable and being reborn into the wisdom of God through the baptism of water and the Spirit. It also substantiates personhood by the work of the divine spirit through the sacrament of confirmation, experiencing the forgiveness of sins through

knowledge of God always includes three elements: religious awe; personal encounter; and participation in the acts, or energies, which God freely bestows on the creation. By the apophatic approach the “essence” of God is unknown and His “energy” is known. See Christos Yannaras, “The Distinction Between Essence and Energies and its Importance for Theology,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 19-20 (1975-76) 232-245. By using the philosophical words, ‘essence’ and ‘energy,’ the Orthodox Church tries to denote both the infinite distance between divine and human natures and their co-existence, through ‘the Act’ of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit acts in human beings, as members of the Church, through the ‘mysteries’ (Sacraments). Nikkos A. Nissiotis, “Interpreting Orthodoxy,” 10. By affirming the method of apophaticism Eastern theology holds the ‘absolute otherness’ of God’s being. See John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion, 90. Lossky sees the true nature of apophaticism, which constitutes the fundamental characteristic of the whole theological tradition of the Eastern Churches. Cf. Vladimir Lossky, Mystical Theology, 26. While Chauvet speaks of the incomprehensibility of God, he says; “God must remain “completely unknown” to us because there is no concept which can encompass both God and humankind, no third term which would be common to both.” As a consequence, God is spoken by way of “super-eminent negation.” Therefore according to him this suggests that the analogy of relation between relations. See L. M Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament, 38. See also Anthony J. Godzieba, Lieven Boeve & Michele Saracino, “Resurrection – Interruption – Transformation…,” Theological Studies 67 (2006) 777-815, 781.

134 Emil Bartos, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, 27. 135 Gregory Palamas, Triads, I. iii. 18, 36. 136 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 44. 137 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 34. It is essentially being in the presence of the living personal God. Cf. John Chryssavgis, Light Through Darkness: The Orthodox Tradition (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Book, 2004) 57. 138 Athanasius, Contra Gentes 2, Robert W. Thomson ed. & trans., (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971) 7.


the sacrament of confession and partaking into the Body and Blood of Christ in view of being united with Christ towards the trinitarian communion. Moreover, sacramental deification is a process of being born and growing in divine wisdom and driving away the darkness of ignorance. Notwithstanding the conceptualization and certain logical affirmations regarding the sacramental metamorphosis, it is an experience beyond human accessibility. The inaccessibility or incomprehensibility of God’s essence shows us the weakness of human reason.139 Knowledge of God is fundamentally apophatic but it doesn’t mean God is radically inaccessible to the human persons. The ineffability of God, however gives a “precise and eminently positive meaning.”140 Let us turn our discussion to certain different dimensions of apophaticism in our theological discussion on sacramental metamorphosis. First of all, let us discuss the epistemological notion of sacramental metamorphosis in relation to aphophaticism and its positive affirmation.

1.8.1 Apophaticism and Affirmation

The human endeavor to capture God in the rational realm would be an absurdity. Since the essence of God is absolute mystery to human reason, the human language is totally inadequate to fathom this mystery. The semantic synthesis of affirmation and negation of divine essence is fundamentally the human acknowledgement of God’s being as non-being (transcendence of being). The affirmation of the incomprehensible essence of God itself is negation and at the same time the language of negation itself is affirmation of the incomprehensible essence of God. As a result it is affirmation in negation and negation in affirmation. The experience of the ineffable mystery is beyond the rational exercise of human affirmation or negation, Ware asserts;

God cannot be properly apprehended by man’s mind; human language, when applied to Him, is always inexact. It is therefore less misleading to use negative language about God rather than positive – to refuse to say what God is, and to state simply what He is not. As

139 Anthony Meredith, Gregory of Nyssa, 13. As Meredith points out, Plato elevates the notion of good as the supreme values. For him God is supreme. Gregory of Nyssa is influenced by the Platonic notion of the unity of being and value. Ibid., 17. The divine incomprehensibility is due to two reasons, first of all it is the incapability of the human mind and secondly it is the unique and ineffable nature of the personhood of God. See Catherine M. LaCugna, God For Us, 302

140 Henry de Lubac, The Discovery of God, Alexander Dru trans., (New York: P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1960) 121. Apophatic negation as a way of preeminence. See Robert S. Brightman, “Apophatic Theology and Divine Infinity in St. Gregory of Nyssa,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review XVIII (1973) 97-114, 99. The knowledge of God and participation are inseparable. See Verna E.F. Harrison, Grace and Human Freedom According to St. Gregory of Nyssa, Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity Vol. 30 (Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1992) 18. However, the rational conceptualization of knowledge of God can be made idols of God. See Robert S. Brightman, “Apophatic Theology and Divine Infinity in St. Gregory of Nyssa,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 18 (1973) 97-114,101. As Gregorios observes, Gregory of Nyssa rejects the pagan affirmations as contrary to the Scripture and Christian tradition, especially he rejects Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus on their views about the soul and resurrection, the nature of the world, human being and God. See Paulos Gregorios, Cosmic Man, 21.


Gregory of Nyssa put it: The true knowledge and vision of God consist in this – in seeing that He is invisible, because what we seek lies beyond all knowledge, being wholly separated by the darkness of incomprehensibility.141

Obviously, cataphatic rational knowledge is seen within apophatic knowledge. Sacramental metamorphosis is the human experience of participation in the ineffable mystery of the triune God; subsequently, it is beyond the capacity of rational affirmation or negation. However, the incomprehensibility of God as both experienced and as an eschatological fulfillment is in the human realm at its most sublime, which is to be encountered in sacramental metamorphosis. The divine mysteries are beyond our efforts of conceptualization. Dionysius Ariopagite begins with an invocation to the Holy Trinity, he prays to guide him ‘to the supreme height of mystical writings, which is beyond what is known, where the mysteries of theology, simple, unconditional, invariable, are laid bare in a darkness of silence beyond the light.’142 LaCugna clearly expressed her view on apophaticism as, “God can only be apprehended, not comprehended, in the union of love that surpasses all words and concepts.” She uses apophaticism in her theology both as the way of approach to God and as God’s economy for all His creatures.143 Though apophatic knowledge is apparently a negative way of understanding divine mysteries, cataphatic affirmations are also taken into consideration in our discussion. In this sense apophaticism is not a theological agnosticism; rather it is the epistemological reorientation towards the self revelation of the transcendent God. Zizioulas made a remarkable observation with the essence-energy distinction in God which indicates the relationship between God and the world as “ontological otherness bridged by love,” and thereby apophatic theology is seen in identification with the language of love and communion. He affirms;

The principal object of this theology is to remove the question of truth and knowledge from the domain of Greek theories of ontology in order to situate it within that of love and communion…. The perspectives offered by an approach to being through love, as arrived at by the mystical and ascetic theologians of the period, led by another route to the same conclusion that the eucharistic and trinitarian approaches of the previous period reached: it is only through an identification with communion that truth can be reconciled with ontology.144

141 Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, 72. Though the emphasis on the transcendence of God seems at first sight to exclude any direct experience of God, in fact through negative theology the possibility of a true mystical union with God is emphasised. Ibid., 73. As Ware observes, for the Greek Fathers apophaticism is a “leap beyond all language and discursive thinking.” Cf. Kallistos Ware, “God Hidden and Revealed…,” 127. 142 Dionysius Areopagitae, De Mystica Theologia 1 (PG 3) 1000 (Paris: Migne Publishing Company, 1857). See Adam G. Cooper, The Body in Maximus the Confessor: Holy Flesh Wholly Deified, 31.

143 Catherine M. LaCugna, God For Us, 332-333, See Elizabeth T. Groppe, “Catherine Mowry LaCugna’s Contribution to Trinitarian Theology,” Theological Studies 63 (2002) 730-763, 759. Lossky sees apophaticism as the method of knowing God as ‘Godself.’ Delio succinctly points out that the true knowledge, especially theology entails “a death to the self-grasping intellect.” See Ilia Delio, “Theology, Metaphysics, and the Centrality of Christ,” Theological Studies 68 (2007) 254-273, 270. 144 John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion, 91-2.


From the careful study of apophatic theology we can observe that it is not a theology of agnosticism or a purely negative approach but rather it is also a positive approach to theology; it reveals the positive content of theology. Though the apophatic way of knowledge is a superior way of knowing God, there is the mutual relationship between apophasism and cataphacism. The unknowable God can be knowable in communion and participation (Jn 1:18).145 The incomprehensible essence of God is revealed and experienced in the person of Christ through the sacraments in the Church. If our concerns are with knowing God as a person, then both apophatic and cataphatic knowledge are grounded in supernatural revelation.146 However, in order to understand the essential nature of apophaticism we have to go further and discuss an approach of apophatic-cataphatic synthesis. Since our discussion is on sacramental metamorphosis in the light of the epistemological approach of God’s incomprehensible nature which is fundamentally beyond affirmation and negation, it is also significant to note the intrinsic epistemological nature of the apophatic-cataphatic synthesis.

1.8.2 Apophatic – Cataphatic Synthesis

From the perspective of sacramental metamorphosis, it is important to explain the epistemological features from an approach of apophatic-cataphatic synthesis. Though Gregory of Nazianzen has intensely defended apophatic theology, he keeps a balanced approach to the incomprehensibility of God and to apophatic theology.147 In this regard, Gregory of Nyssa says that God is incomprehensible in His essence; he states,

Now if any one should ask for some interpretation, and description, and explanation of the Divine essence, we are not going to deny that in this kind of wisdom we are unlearned, acknowledging only so much as this, that it is not possible that which is by nature infinite should be comprehended in any conception expressed by words… For by what name can I declare the unspeakable? Accordingly, since the Deity is too excellent and lofty to be expressed in words, we have learned to honour in silence what transcends speech and thought.148

Basil also vividly speaks about the inability of human language with regard to the incomprehensible essence of God. He says that language is too weak and incompatible to

145 John Chryssavgis, The Light Through Darkness: The Orthodox Tradition, Traditions of Christian Spirituality Series, Philip Sheldrake (series ed.) (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004) 57. 146 Dumitru Staniloae, The Experience of God, 97. 147 Gregory Nazianzen, A Preliminary Discourse Against the Eunomians (NPNF VII), Philip Schaff & Henry Wace (eds.), 2nd Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996) 284-288.

148 Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, Book 3 (NPNF V), Philip Schaff & Henry Wace (eds.), (Grand Rapid, MI: Eerdmans, 1996) 146-147. According to Bartos, Staniloae’s negative theology is different from mystical theology or apophaticism. Negative theology is a concept via negativa of Western theology, which denies the conceptualisation of God and asserts intellectual helplessness. On the other hand, apophaticism or the mystical theology of Eastern theology affirms that it is the direct experience of God which is not possible to articulate in positive terms. Cf. Emil Bartos, Deification in Eastern Orthodox theology, 25.


act in the service of objects of thoughts.149 It is incomprehensible because the divine mystery is revealed by God, but it is never profoundly revealed. In this regard, Maximus the Confessor made a clear distinction; he states that God has “a simple, unknowable existence, inaccessible to all things and completely unexplainable, for He is beyond affirmation and negation.” It is neither via affirmativa, nor via negativa; rather via theologia superlativa.150 It doesn’t mean that it is a negative approach but it is beyond both affirmation and negation. Though the knowledge of God cannot be reduced to the realm of rational exercises and linguistic comprehension, it is communicable through the Word of God and the sacraments as mystical experience. Maximus further holds an apophatic-cataphatic epistemological methodology in regard to the knowledge of God and made a better synthesis of the same:

If you theologize in an affirmative or cataphatic manner, starting from positive statements about God, you make the Word flesh (cf. John 1:14), for you have no other means of knowing God as cause except from what is visible and tangible. If you theologize in a negative or apophatic manner, through stripping away of positive attributes, you make the Word spirit as being in the beginning God and with God (cf. John 1:1): starting from absolutely none of the things that can be known, you come in an admirable way to know Him who transcends unknowing.151

Staniloae made a good synthesis between the apophatic and cataphatic theological approach saying that they are neither contradictory nor exclusive but rather mutually complementary to each other.152 However, the cataphatic approach also implies an

149 Basil, The Letters VII, (NPNF VIII) 115. 150 Maximus the Confessor, Mystagogia, Epistolae Praeviae (PG 91) 653-654. There are three ways of coming to knowledge of God; first, the via affirmativa; which makes certain positive affirmations about God, second, the via negativa; which tries to understand God by denying finite realities to God, and thirdly the via theologia superlativa, which goes beyond all categorical discourse and discursive reasoning. The Eastern theology is more concerned with the via theologia superlativa. Therefore, apophaticism is beyond affirmation and negation. Cf. Marios P. Begzos, “Apophaticism in the Theology of the Eastern Church: The Modern Critical Function of a Traditional Theory,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 41 (1996) 327-357. See also Edmund J. Rybarczyk, “Reframing Tongues: Apophaticism and Postmodernism,” Pneuma 27.1 (2005) 83-104, 86. Henry de Lubac also deals with the three ways of human knowledge of God, “affirmatio, seu positio; negatio, seu remotio; eminentia, seu transcendentia.” He came into conclusion that via eminentiae is the superior and anterior to via affirmationis. See Henry de Lubac, The Discovery of God, 122-123. The doctrine of theosis demands the movement of “cataphatic-apophatic-supereminent theology,” which is beyond affirmation and negation. Cf. Nancy J. Hudson, Becoming God, 28.

151 Maximus the Confessor, Centuries on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God, II. 39. as cited by Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 53. 152 Dumitru Staniloae, The Experience of God, 96. Cataphaticism and apophaticism are rather complementary. See Silviu Eugen Rogobete, “Mystical Existentialism or Communitarian Participation: Vladimir Lossky and Dumitru Staniloae,” Lucian Turcescu (ed.), Dumitru Staniloae: Tradition and Modernity in Theology (Iasi, Oxford, Palm Beach, Protland: The Center for Romanian Studies, 2002) 167-206, 189. See also Emil Bartos, “The Dynamics of deification in the Theology of Dumitru Staniloae,” Lucian Turcescu (ed.), Dumitru Staniloae, 206-248, 210. The apophatic-cataphatic synthesis can be considered as the human effort of speaking the unspeakable. This synthesis is the necessary means to achieve union. See Aristotle Papanikolaou, Being with God, 20-21.


experience beyond affirmation and negation. The mystical presence of God can be experienced mainly through apophatic knowledge. Nesteruk speaks about two modes of understanding apophaticism in a philosophical methodology. First of all, it is the direct mystical experience of God which transcends the world and secondly, it is the knowledge that starts from the world and reaches the limit of the world pointing towards a non-worldly foundation. The intellectual apophatic knowledge of God is fundamentally rooted in the experience of God.153 For Pseudo-Dionysius apophaticism is not an end in itself, rather it leads to a third way, beyond affirmation and negation – de-nomination: it concerns a form of speech which no longer says something about something (or a name of someone), but which denies all relevance to predication. Frank argues that it is one of the most important contributions of Eastern Christianity to the theological endeavor.154 Staniloae speaks about two ways of knowledge; ‘a schematic,’ general knowledge and ‘a concrete,’ particular knowledge. In schematic knowledge, God communicates Himself in a rational manner through the form of attributes. In concrete knowledge, God communicates Himself “more concretely, or more intensely,” in the uncreated energies. The intellectual knowledge of God is attained only through apophatic knowledge, which is the superior way of grasping his infinite richness and the ineffable mysteries. In this way Staniloae argues that the apophatic knowledge is “not irrational but supra-natural,” and it is “supra-rational.”155 The divine knowledge is intrinsically rooted in the participation in the divine life. For Palamas, the vision of God is “not an intellectual grasp of an external object, but an interior participation in the life of the Holy Spirit: to see God is to share in this life, i.e., become divinised. This involves a complete transfiguration of the whole person, body and soul together.”156 The integral transformation of the human person is the achievement of participation into the very life of God. In order to have a genuine experience of the transcendent God, one must be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.157 In this instance, it is right to state that the epistemological view of sacramental metamorphosis is both beyond the notions of affirmation and negation and at the same time it is the result of cataphatic-apophatic synthesis. The incomprehensible essence of God remains as the greatest mystery before the human mind and that which is beyond the affirmation of our rationality. In such a way, apophaticism is the language of silence, which is beyond conceptualization and opens up towards the ineffable experience of qe,wsij.

153 Alexei V. Nesteruk, Light from the East, 78-9. 154 G.L.C. Frank, “The Incomprehensibility of God in the Theological Orations of Saint Gregory the Theologian and Its Implications for the Contemporary Debate About the Fatherhood of God” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 39 (1994) 95-107, 96.

155 Dumitru Staniloae, The Experience of God, 98, 100. 156 Gregory Palamas, Triads, John Meyendorff (ed.) 121. 157 Edmund J. Rybarczyk, Beyond Salvation, 43.


1.8.3 Apophaticism and Deification

It is always decisive to discuss deification in the language which is beyond both affirmation and negation. In this regard, although we would like to present sacramental metamorphosis in the language of apophatic-cataphatic synthesis, we prefer to speak about it in the language of apophaticism; for, it is the essential semiotic link between the incomprehensibility of God and human participation in the divine life. Bartos speaks about apophaticism as the theological task to keep in balance the mystery of God and the economy of salvation. He says; “apophaticism as a theological method was the result of encounter between the language of negation, which was found in the philosophical culture of the first Christian theologians and their theological task to keep in balance the mystery of God in His theologia and oikonomia.”158 It is the Christian theological way of approaching the mystery of the transcendental God through negation, not affirmation. God is ineffable and He surpasses any human rational conception. God is unknown absolutely both in his essence and existence. God’s incomprehensibility is well expressed in sacred Scripture, for example Yahweh’s revelation of his name to Moses is “I am who am” (Ex. 3:14) can be interpreted as the denial of His name. The Incarnation of the Word of God is the remarkable event, which restores the possibility of human participation in the Godhead; Yannaras says it is also the possibility of apophatic knowledge, which is the experience of personal communion;

[T]he apophatic knowledge of God, as experience of personal relationship, does not divide, but brings nature and knowledge into harmony in the hypostatic event of divine-human (or theanthropic) communion, in which everyone participates who accomplishes a personal (living-ecstatic) self-transcendence of nature.159

Knowledge of God is passion rather than learning. This passion of personal relationship is the starting point of apophatic knowledge.160 The participation of the human person in the incomprehensible and unnamable God (Ex 3:14), however is explained in the language which goes beyond affirmation and negation. With regard to the notion of God’s incomprehensibility and sacramental metamorphosis, let us discuss some essential notions behind this ineffable union of divine-human-cosmic interpenetration. First of all, we shall discuss briefly the notion of immortality in Aristotle.

1.8.3.1 Aristotelian Notion of Sharing the Immortality We do not intend to go into a detailed research of the different nuances of Aristotelian philosophy of the soul and immortality; rather this is a precise exposition of the Aristotelian views on the soul and immortality from the point of view of the sacramental metamorphosis. It is remarkable to highlight the Greek Philosophical background

158 Emil Bartos, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, 24. See also Martin Laird, “Apophasis and Logophasis in Gregory of Nyssa’s Commentarius in Canticum canticorum,” Studia Patristica 37 (2001) 126-132, 132. 159 Christos Yannaras, On the Absence and Unknowability of God, 91. 160 Christos Yannaras, On the Absence and Unknowability of God, 99.


especially with Plato and Aristotle on account of our discussion on sacramental metamorphosis; while Platonism is characterized by the idea of Being, Aristotelianism is characterized by the idea of Becoming.161 When we discuss the idea of immortality of the human soul, then we acknowledge its capability of movement towards the unmovable idea of the Being. Aristotle upholds the view of immortality; and he vividly speaks about the movement of the human race from mortality to immortality. When he affirms the nature of living beings, he says, “as far as its nature allows, it may partake in the eternal and divine.”162 He speaks of the soul as the source of the living body, which we recognize in three senses; “the source or origin of movement,” “the end,” and the “essence of the whole living body.” Therefore, it is the actuality of whatever is potential with its essence.163 LaFave presented the famous Aristotelian definition of the soul (ψυχη ,), that is “the entelechy of a natural body having life potentially within it.”164 Aristotle speaks about the capability of an individual living thing in partaking of the eternal because it is the goal for the all things to strive for, he says;

Since then no living thing is able to partake in what is eternal and divine by uninterrupted continuance (for nothing perishable can for ever remain one and the same), it tries to achieve that end in the only way possible to it, and success is possible in varying degrees; so it remains not indeed as the self-same individual but continues its existence in something like itself – not numerically but specifically one.165

The soul has the potency to act in respect to the higher function of nou/j towards the participation in perfection. In this regard it is significant to note that all finite perfections intrinsically spring from “participations in Absolute Perfection.”166 The human person is

161 Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. 1 Greece and Rome (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1946) 372. For Aristotle the essence tends towards full actualization in the Unmoved Mover, self-subsistent and self-contained. His philosophy of Being is par excellence and the explanation of Becoming is found in Being. It is “the world of becoming, being a world of realization, of reduction of potency to act.” Cf. Ibid., 376. If the Aristotelian notions of the Supreme Good, the First and Final Cause are within the range of human knowledge then there is no gap between the knowing mind and the Supreme Good. See Paulos Gregorios, Cosmic Man, 72. 162 Aristotle, On the Soul, II. 4. 415b, The Basic Works of Aristotle, Richard McKeon (ed.) 561. 163 Aristotle, On the Soul, II. 4. 415b, The Basic Works of Aristotle, 561. The notion of immortality is not necessarily connected with the body-soul dichotomy, it is the transformation of a more perfect love. See Jörg Splett, “Immortality,” Karl Rahner, Cornelius Ernst & Kevin Smyth (eds.), Sacramentum Mundi vol.3, 108-110, 109. 164Sandra LaFave, Notes on Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Psychology, http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/Aristotle_de_anima.html (accessed on 09.02.2006). 165 Aristotle, De Anima (On the Soul), II. 4. 415b, trans. J.A. Smith, Richard McKeon (ed.), The Basic Works of Aristotle (New York: Random House, 1941) 561. See for Aristotelian philosophy is in relatioship with sacramentology. See Joseph Martos, Doors to the Sacred, 61-3. 166 Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. 1, 318. In classical Greek Philosophy, nous is the highest and godlike part of the human person. See John R. Lenz, “Deification of the Philosopher in Classical Greece,” Michael J. Christensen & Jeffery A. Wittung (eds.), Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008) 47-67, 47. The immortality of the soul is intrinsically related to participation in the divine life. See Terrence L.

http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/Aristotle_de_anima.html


constantly in motion towards participation into the absolute and unmoved being. With regard to the essential movement and participation of the created being into the uncreated and incomprehensible being, let us look at the essential link between the thoughts of Greek philosophy and Christian thinking. In this respect Philo Judeaus is one of the most significant thinkers.

1.8.3.2 Philo Judaeus (20 B.C.E. – 50 C.E.) Philo is considered as the essential link between Jewish Scripture, Greek Philosophy and later Christian writers. He made a distinction between “knowing that God exists and knowing what God’s essence is.” Philo calls God “the most generic (to, genikw,taton) of all,” which means that God has no genus or species and thus he is indefinable.167 Wolfson claims that Philo is the first one who propounds God as incomprehensible to the human mind moreover; in His essence God is unknowable.168 Though he elucidates incomprehensibility in a comprehensible manner, he does not make use of the negative way of speaking of the knowledge of God. Rocco also observes that Philo never espoused an explicit via negativa.169 In Philo, there is a formal distinction between the knowability of God’s existence and the unknowability of his essence; in connection with the latter, he says of God that He is “not comprehended by the mind.”170

Though he was not a systematic philosopher, Philo elaborates a chain of being that bridges the gap between God and the human person. Russell observes that while maintaining the transcendence of God, Philo introduces also the possibility of the ascent of the human soul to God.171 Philo frequently refers to the personal God of the Bible as o` qeo,j( but it is a predicate with wide application, not to the supreme deity alone. The lo,goj is the supreme mediator between the transcendent uncreated God and the created world. In relation to the

Nichols, The Sacred Cosmos: Christian Faith and the Challenge of Naturalism, The Christian Practice of Everyday Life Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2003) 175-6. 167 Harry A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 21948) 110. See also, Gregory P. Rocca, Speaking the Incomprehensible God, 9. Wolfson argues that the Ideas of Plato are like the God of Philo “invisible and imperceptible by the sense.” Cf. Wolfson, Philo, vol. 2, 111. Philo’s starting point of philosophy is the theory of ideas. This philosophical heritage is from Plato. However, there were many inconsistencies and vagueness with regard to the ideas of Plato. Cf. Harry A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Vol.1 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 21948) 200. 168 Harry A. Wolfson, Philo, Vol.2, 150. However, Wolfson argues that Aristotle and Plato do not definitely say that God is unknowable and He cannot be named or spoken of. Cf. Harry A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy, Vol. 2, 112. 169 Gregory P. Rocca, Speaking the Incomprehensible God, 9. See also Donald F. Duclow, “Gregory of Nyssa and Nicholas of Cusa: Infinity, Anthropology and the Via Negativa,” The Downside Review 92 (1974) 102-108, 104. 170 Harry A. Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy, Vol.2, 117. 171 Norman Russell, Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 58.


human person he is the Archetype, into whom God breathed a share of his own deity.172 The term qeo,j is taken by Philo as a designation of the “creative power” (poihtikh, du,namij), so that “I am your God” is equivalent to “I am thy maker and creator.”173 Though the name “God” is used as if it were the name of God, it does not signify divine essence.174 God cannot be described in positive terms. Philo uses both anthropomorphic language and negative theology. Anthropomorphic language has the primary function to make the essential ineffable relation between God and the human person intelligible.175 Negative theology goes further than anthropomorphic imagery which eliminates all personal and human imagery and depreciates all linguistic concepts.176 Furthermore, the via negativa emphasizes the transcendence of God by way of negating any kind of name and concept.

The ascent of the soul to God takes place on four levels: the religious (which is the flight from idolatry), the philosophical, the ethical and the mystical. The height above the earth has to be reached by the powers of thought. Philo says: “One would need to become a god – something which is impossible – in order to be able to apprehend God.” Wisdom, faith, piety and the practice of virtues are the things which raise the intellect to God.177 On the level of ethics, the search for wisdom with the sovereign function of intellect is within the microcosm of human. The successful practice of virtues enables the human person on the way to perfection to attain metriopa,qeia “moderation of passion,” but the perfect human person strives to eradicate the passions and arrive at the state of avpa,qeia “absence of passion.”178 The practice of virtues confers immortality. Philo describes the winning of immortality as paliggenesi,a (rebirth), which means that virtuous souls after death become pure nou/j. The goal of the moral life is the Platonic likeness to God, which according to Philo is equivalent to the Stoic te,loj of living in conformity with nature.179 Human effort alone is insufficient; the achievement of telos is possible when God himself grants the capability to share in His own nature, which is the incommunicable essence of God. The

172 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 59. 173 Harry A. Wolfson, Philo, 136. 174 Peter Frick, Divine Providence in Philo of Alexandria, Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 77 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999) 38. 175 Peter Frick, Divine Providence in Philo of Alexandria, 39. 176 Peter Frick, Divine Providence in Philo of Alexandria, 40 Cited from Raoul Mortley, From Word to Silence, Vol. 2. 15.177 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 60. Cited from Frag. From QE 2., 258 trans., Marcus. In this section we are mostly indebted to the Philosophical insights of Norman Russell. 178 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 60. Irrational passions are presented as the legacy of human fallenness. See Paul M. Blowers, “Gentiles of the Soul: Maximus the Confessor on the Substructure and Transformation of the Human Passions,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 4 (1996) 57- 85, 61. 179 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 61. Philo associates the biblical narration of the creation of the human race in the image and likeness of God with the Platonic doctrine of likeness to God as the goal of moral life. Ibid., 77.


participation in God does not imply becoming God, rather it retains the uniqueness of the separate identity through “becoming like God.”180 In this regard no essential change occurs in participation, but the human person truly shares in divine life. According to Russell, Philo puts it in more philosophical language;

When the prophetic intellect becomes divinely inspired and filled with God, it becomes like the monad, not being at all mixed with any of those things associated with duality. But he who is resolved into the nature of unity is said to come near God in a kind of family relation, for having given up and left behind all mortal kinds, he is changed into the divine, so that such men become kin to God and truly divine.181

Philo admits that Moses is called a god only in title or analogy (Ex: 7:1). When Philo speaks about the ascent of Moses to God as pure nou/j, it is the reduction to incorporality, rather than any essential transformation.182 Therefore, Philo states that there is a remarkable synthesis of the movement of the soul with nou/j and te,loj which paves the path towards the achievement of the divine likeness. We shall discuss later the relationship between nou/j and te,loj. Before that we will discuss the immortality of soul.

It is significant to note the Platonic influence which makes his thinking different. Philo was a Platonist and he followed the Platonist theory of ideas. Plato pertinently emphasies the immortality of the soul,183 it is “self-mover,” the principle of movement (avrch. Kinh,sewj) and thereby it is immortal. It is also worth noting that Platonic philosophy speaks of the uncreatedness of the soul, it is both ungenerated and indestructible. 184 However, he also speaks about the createdness of the soul in Timaeus.185 For the invisible soul shares reason and harmony, it “came to be as the most excellent of all the things begotten by him who is himself most excellent of all that is intelligible and eternal.”186 Philo vividly states that souls are created by God,187 and he also speaks about the immortality of the soul rather than the resurrection of the body. There are certain distinctive descriptions such as “recovery of life” and to “give breath and life again,” which were conceived as new life in the Second Book of Maccabees. Philo takes these

180 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 61. 181 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 61. as cited from QE 2.29 Marcus trans. 182 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 62, 64. See also Paulos Gregorios, Cosmic Man The Divine Presence, 14. 183 Plato, Phaedo 107d, 114d, G.M.A. Grube trans., John M. Cooper (ed.), Plato: Complete Works (Indanapolis/Cambridge, Hackett Publishing Company, 1997) 92, 7. See Paulos Gregorios, Cosmic Man: The Divine Presence, 17. See more on Platonic influence, Nicholas Arseniev, Revelation of Life Eternal: An Introduction to the Christian Message (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1982) 69-70. 184 Plato, Phaedrus 245-6b, Alexander Nehamas & Paul Woodruff trans., John M. Cooper (ed.), 523-4. See also R. Hackforth trans., Plato’s Phaedrus 245c, (Cambridge: The Cambridge University Press, 1952) 63. See also A. H. Armstrong, “The Nature of Man in St. Gregory of Nyssa,” The Eastern Churches Quarterly (1948) 2-9, 5. 185 Plato, Timaeus, 41d, Donald J. Zeyl trans., 1245. 186 Plato, Timaeus, 37a, Donald J. Zeyl trans., John M. Cooper (ed.), 1240. 187 Drummond, I, 431, cited by Cf. Harry A. Wolfson, Philo, vol.1, 367.


expressions of immortality and describes them as a new birth (paliggenesi,a). In connection with the vocation of Moses (Ex. 24:16), Philo uses the expression “second birth” (deute,ra ge,nesij) in the same sense.188 Philo argues that nothing in the world is really perishable, every individual thing is eternal.189 From the aforementioned discussion it is clear that the Philosophical contribution of Philo is substantial in our discussion on sacramental transformation, for he is the remarkable linking point of Hellenistic-Jewish-Christian thinking. From this perspective let us turn our discussion to Clement of Alexandria who strongly upholds the transcendence of God which is beyond human rationality. He also speaks about the participation of the human person in the divine eternity. Let us discuss certain key notions of Clement of Alexandria about the transformation of the human person in divinity. 1.8.3.3 Clement of Alexandria (150-215 C.E.) Clement settled down in Alexandria at the end of his search for true knowledge of God. He found that Christianity was the true philosophy and it could lead the human person to keep away from error and find the light of truth. Though there is the chasm of inapproachability between divine essence and human knowledge, the human person has an inner urge to overcome ignorance and achieve the likeness of God.190 By way of presenting cause and effect, Clement speaks of the transcendent God as the first cause. The God who is the first cause is not like a human person, but the human person is to be brought to the likeness of God, i.e. introduced into the adoption and friendship of God.191 Clement speaks about the first cause, as it becomes the peak of intellectual activity and mystical vision. He finds the problem of linking a transcendent God with creation and causality.192 Clement says that God does not have thousands of properties that have been given to parts of creation. With regard to our discussion, his contribution on participation in divine life is one of the most significant factors.

The participation in God is neither a natural relation, nor the physical but relational and ethical.193 Clement understood that the participation in God’s ineffable glory is expressed in negative language rather than as a certain positive affirmation. He says; “we may reach somehow to the conception of the Almighty, knowing not what He is, but what He is

188 Harry A. Wolfson, Philo, vol. 1, 405. 189 Harry A. Wolfson, Philo, vol.1, 412. 190 Eric Osborn, The Beginning of Christian Philosophy, 23. 191 Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata 6. 14 (ANF II) 506. 192 Eric Osborn, The Beginning of Christian Philosophy, 58. Justin and Irenaeus accept the privations of the first cause argument. Justin provides a certain account of divine names and points out the effect of God on human lives. In the same way Irenaeus shows the constant activity of God in history and the vision of God granted to the human person. See Eric Osborn, The Beginning of Christian Philosophy, 60. 193 Eric Osborn, The Beginning of Christian Philosophy, 116.


not.”194 Clement proposes that the knowledge of God implies the notion of knowing what he is not. In this regard, Clement maintains the Platonic view of “good” in relationship to the participation in and achievement of the likeness of God. For him, Plato speaks of the end as communicable and exists in the ideal forms themselves, which he calls “the good.” The participation in divinity is the complete good and perfect happiness. Plato terms happiness (euvdaimoni,a) “the most perfect and complete good.” Clement further speaks about Plato’s thinking on this complete good as: “Sometimes he calls it a consistent and harmonious life, sometimes the highest perfection in accordance with virtue; and this he places in the knowledge of the Good and in likeness to God, demonstrating likeness to be justice and holiness with wisdom.”195 It is the higest good because it is the participation in the wisdom and glory of God made the human persons “fellow-heirs”; Clement says,

But on us it is incumbent to reach the unaccomplished end, obeying the commands – that is, God – and living according to them, irreproachably and intelligently, through knowledge of the divine will; and assimilation as far as possible in accordance with right reason is the end, and restoration to perfect adoption by the Son, which ever glorifies the Father by the great High Priest who has deigned to call us brethren and fellow-heirs.196

In the same way, when he speaks of the true excellence of the human person, he says that to keep oneself from wrong is the beginning of salvation.197 True excellence is manifested in his/her act of volition. Furthermore, the salvific act of becoming divine is the basic urge of the human person;

And as godliness (qeopre,peia) is the habit which preserves what is becoming to God, the godly man is the only lover of God. And such will he be who knows what is becoming, both in respect of knowledge and of the life which must be lived by him, who is destined to be divine (qew/), and is already being assimilated to God.198

He states that the best thing in heaven is the “partaker of the eternal and blessed life.”199 However, partaking in the divine life for a human person makes him/her perfectly human. This activity is not as a result of any kind of compulsion, but it is the free will of the human person to come to eternity. Clement says: “Everything, then, which did not hinder a man’s choice from being free, He made and rendered auxiliary to virtue, in order that there might be revealed somehow or other, even to those capable of seeing but dimly, the

194 Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata 5. 11 (ANF II) 461. Clement was very closer to the intellectual circles of Middle Platonism in his philosophical thinking. Cf. Vladimir Lossky, “Apophasis and Trinitarian Theology,” Daniel B. Clendenin (ed.), Eastern Orthodox Theology: A Contemporary Reader 149-162, 152. 195 Clement of Alexandria, The Writings of Clement of Alexandria, The Miscellanies, Book II, trans., William Wilson, Vol. II, Ante-Nicene Christian Library: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers, Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson (eds.), (Edinburgh: George Street, T&T Clark, 1869) 74-75. Happiness is always linked to virtues; “happiness never exists without virtue; and that virtue, apart from corporeal and external objects, is sufficient for happiness.” Ibid., 76. 196 Clement of Alexandria, The Writings of Clement of Alexandria, 76. 197 Clement of Alexandria, The Writings of Clement of Alexandria, 142. 198 Clement of Alexandria, The Writings of Clement of Alexandria, 408. 199 Clement of Alexandria, The Writings of Clement of Alexandria, 409.


one only almighty, good God – from eternity to eternity saving by His Son.”200 The human person is free to participate in the divine life, which is based on his/her choice. It is worth noting the remarkable contribution on human rationality and divine transcendence of Pseudo-Dionysius.

1.8.3.4 Pseudo-Dionysius (5th C.E.) Pseudo-Dionysius lived after the Council of Nicaea toward the end of fifth century C.E. Dionysius speaks about two natures of God – the undifferentiated and the differentiated. In His differentiated aspect, God is super-essential and super-excellent. In His undifferentiated nature, He is unknowable to the human mind, “being approachable only by agnosia or mystical unknowing.”201 We know God as the Creator, in other words our knowledge is of the immanent God. We do not know the God who transcends creation, in other words our ignorance is of the transcendent God.202 However, God transcends both transcendence and immanance and is beyond the capability of human rationality. Dionysian apophatic concepts are essentially linked with the Plotinian notion of One, which is transcendent to everything which can be named.203 For him, God is not the first cause or the highest being, rather he transcends human conceptions.204 The goal of Christian life according to Pseudo-Dionysius is the glorious union with the Divinity. But for Dionysius this union with the divinity is not an epistemological fact, for it is not an object of human knowledge. Williams argues that the Dionysian version of Christian speech is dialectical: “first we ascribe to the divine as Creator of all the attributes made manifest in Creation, and then we deny that these attributes describe the Creator who transcends the Creation.”205 Negation has its soteriological priority over the affirmations of God. Any language, whether it is negation or affirmation is inadequate to speak about the transcendent soteriological nature of God. The union of the soul, according to Dionysius is achieved without word, sight and thought. Whatever perceived or sensed lies below the transcendence. According to Williams, Dionysius ends his treatise on the Divine Names with the realization: “no unity or trinity, no number or oneness, no fruitfulness, indeed, nothing that is or is known can proclaim that hiddenness beyond every mind and reason of

200 Clement of Alexandria, The Writings of Clement of Alexandria, 414. 201 Dionysius the Areopagite, The Divine Names (Brook: The Shrine of Wisdom, trans. & ed. 1957) 5. As Lossky points out, Dionysian apophatic usage excludes the attempts to reduce the trinitarian transpersonal Unity, see Vladimir Lossky, “Apophasis and Trinitarian Theology,” 160, as cited from Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, De Divinis Nominibus 13.3. 202 Janet Williams, “The Apophatic Theology of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite – II,” 244. 203 Vladimir Lossky, “Apophasis and Trinitarian Theology,” 152. 204 Christos Yannaras, On the Absence and Unknowability, Introduction by Andrew Louth, 7 205 Janet Williams, “The Apophatic Theology of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite – 1,” The Downside Review 117 (1999) 157-172, 158.


the transcendent Godhead which transcends every being. There is no name for it nor expression.”206

As we have seen already God is never an object of human knowledge. The apophatic way is directed towards the point of speechlessness. In this way, apophaticism is not “just giving up on discourse and conceptuality,” rather it is a “way of expressing divine truth.”207 This divine truth is expressed in different ways; Dionysian examples are ‘darkness’ (which is beyond light) and ‘ignorance.’208 Williams sees the negative language as the clear manifestation of the truth; “You will be able to say something truer that all truth, but that you will make your apophatic negation truer than all truth.”209 This vocabulary of unknowing is a new development in Dionysian thought. Union with the Divine is not productive to knowledge because it is not an object of knowledge. Dionysius offers a clearer distinction between two kinds of negation, the aphairetic and the apophatic. Avfai,resij is the negative moment in the Christian progress in the understanding of God. Apophaticism is not a rejection of all kinds of human thoughts and words as inadequate to the experience of union, but it is a “richly positive ‘unknowing’ which exerts a transcendental force upon our thoughts and words – and acts.”210 In this perspective let us turn our discussion towards certain elementary epistemological and anthropological notions with regard to the sacramental metamorphosis.

2 Basic Notions of Sacramental Metamorphosis In order to explore the epistemological background of Sacramental metamorphosis we need to discuss certain key notions in relationship to the transformation of the human person by way of taking part in the life of the triune God. We shall discuss certain intrinsic notions of the incomprehensible uncreated God and the created human person together with the cosmos from both epistemological and anthropological perspectives. First of all, let us turn our discussion on sacramental metamorphosis to the relationship with the basic notions of nou/j and pneu/ma.

206 Janet Williams, “The Apophatic Theology,” 161. The fact that God transcends any kind of proper names doesn’t mean that he ought to be called “non–being,” “non–life,” or “non–intellect.” Dionysius prefers simply to say that God is “over being,” “over life,” and “over intellect.” Cf. Kevin Corrigan & Michael Harrington, “Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2004 ed.), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2004/entries/pseudo-dionysius-areopagite/ (accessed 01.02.2006). 207 Janet Williams, “The Apophatic Theology of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite – II,” The Downside Review 117 (1999) 235-250, 238. Janet Williams, “The Apophatic Theology of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite – 1,” 161. When we plunge into the Darkness which is beyond the intellect, we pass even to the absolute Silence and become absolute by voicelessness. See The Mystical Theology of Dionysius the Areopagite (London: The Shrine of Wisdom, 1945) 9. 208 The Mystical Theology of Dionysius the Areopagite, 7. It is “Glorious Nothingness.” 7. 209 Janet Williams, “The Apophatic Theology of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite – II,” 239. 210 Janet Williams, “The Apophatic Theology of Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite – II,” 243.

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2.1 Sacramental Metamorphosis: nou/j towards pneu/ma In theological epistemological discussion on sacramental metamorphosis it is a sine qua non to speak of the elementary notions of nou/j and pneu/ma. In Greek Philosophy nou/j indicates the “organ of knowledge,” the “mind,” which is equivalent to “spirit” or pneu/ma.211 The Platonic notion of nou/j (reason, which also controls moral action) is “the most excellent part” of the soul of the human person. Aristotle goes beyond this and “he sets nou/j over the duna,meij of the soul as the evne,rgeia which characterises man.” It is immortal and divine, the “finest part of man’s spiritual life,” and it is the “epitome of the divine.”212 From the perspectives of Maximus and Evagrius nou/j has the highest function to contemplate the divine realities, particulary of the trinitarian mysteries and thereby nou/j is primarily responsible for God’s relationship to the human person.213 We shall now examine the fundamental notions of nou/j towards pneu/ma in their relationship with the transformation of the human person through the sacraments; however, we do not intend to make an elaborate study on these two specific notions.

In sacramental metamorphosis we cannot ignore the vital role of the body, mind and soul; moreover, the unconditional love avga,ph is primarily experienced through passionate love 211 J. Behm, “nou/j,” TDNT Vol. IV, Gerhard Kittel (ed.) 951-960, 954. Soma (body), psyche, (psyche: vital principle) and the nous (the rational principle) are the three elements of the human person. Nous is the seat of human freedom and free will that separates humans from animals. See Stephen W. Need, Human Language and Knowledge in the Light of Chalcedon, Theology and Religion Series 187 (New York: Peter Lang, American University Studies, 1996) 40. Though the nou/j is considered as the divine part of human, according to Thunberg, Evagrius was the first writer to break with the Pauline notion, and therefore the nou/j became definitely substituted for the biblical term pneu/ma) The nou/j is, however, somehow identified with the higher part of the human soul. Cf. Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor (Chicago & La Salle, Illionis: Open Court Publishing Company, 21995) 107-8. nou/j is the eye of the soul which acquires the experience of God. See Archimandrite Hierotheos Vlachos, The Illness and Cure of the Soul in the Orthodox Tradition, Effie Mavromichali trans., (Levadia: Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 1993) 64. 212 J. Behm, “nou/j,” TDNT, 954-5. According to Athanasian view as Rybarczyk observes, nou/j is an ikon of the Divine Reason, furthermore we are the image of Divine Reason in which we are capable of receiving revelation and knowing God. See Edmund J. Rybarczyk, Beyond Salvation, 34.Yannaras points out that there is a collapse of modern vision. The modern way of life is based on utilitarian rationalism which disdains metaphysics; thereby it considers neither the creation of humanity in the image and likeness of God nor the human intellect as a version of the mind of God. See Christos Yannaras, Postmodern Metaphysics, 19. Love of God and neighbour makes him/her capable of receiving divine grace, and thereby, through the nou/j the human person is able to move from image to divine likeness and to reach deification. See Melchisedec Törönen, Union and Distinction in the Thought of St. Maximus the Confessor, The Oxford Early Christian Studies, Gillian Clark & Andrew Louth (eds.) (Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007) 167-8. 213 Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 109. The nou/j is able to see or receive the Trinity. It is a primary instrument of human person’s relationship to God. See Ibid., 109. Furthermore, the whole cosmos can be transformed and returned to God through the nou/j. The Father is described as nou/j the source of life and generator of the Logos, and the life has been designated as pneu/ma. See James Nicholas Madden, Christology and Anthropology in the Spirituality of Maximus the Confessor, 514, 239. It is the nou/j which ultimately yearning for God. See Ibid. 246.


(e;rwj). Plato presents the body as “evil” (Phaedo 66b) and we should escape the “contamination of the body’s folly” (67a) and the soul is imprisoned in the body (81d).214 As Russell observes the first and second principle of the cosmos is nou/j, the former one is engaged in self-intellection (‘being’ in itself), whereas the latter in its intellection is extrinsic. Moreover he argues, with Plotinus “the final step is taken of placing the first principle, the One, actually beyond ‘being’ and intellection as the inexhaustible source of life on which all finite things depend for their existence.”215 Russell points out that the Platonic and the Socratic presentations of the soul are not simply as a life force, but “it as the true self, the inner man ‘chained hand and foot in the body and its passions. Its unity is proved by its immortality, for only that which is not composite is indestructible.”216 Plato explains how the intellect struggles to bring the unruly faculties of the soul in line with the more tractable ones. In the creation story of the Timaeus, the demiurge himself does not create human beings because if they received life from his hands they “would be on an equality with the gods.” He made sure that human beings are mortal and a divine element, the soul is provided by the demiurge.

The human nou/j is the “image of the image.”217 Meredith observes that for Gregory of Nyssa the words “mind” and “soul” are interchangeable for practical purposes but not in the case of Plotinus. For Plotinus, these two words are quite distinct.218 Nou/j works by direct apprehension and it apprehends the truth by “inner vision.”219 Thunberg argues that though nou/j is understood as the divine part of man, it became substituted for the biblical term pneu/ma220 The nou/j is primarily responsible for man’s relationship with God. Thunberg writes: “It [nou/j] is the contemplative part of man, and its highest function is to contemplate the divine realities and particularly the Holy Trinity.” He also presents the view of Evagrius that “spiritual knowledge is the wings of nou/j,” and nou/j can perceive or receive the Trinity.221 The nou/j is explained as the “primary instrument of man’s relationship to God.”222 When the notion of nou/j is used in its primary aspect of the human relationship with God, then the spiritual intellect can exercise “direct cognition of metaphysical realities and the divine.”223 In this way the direct knowledge of God is achieved not through certain discursive reasoning, but through the nou/j, the spiritual

214 Plato, Phaedo, G.M.A. Grube trans., John M. Cooper (ed.), Plato: Complete Works, 57, 58, 71. 215 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 37. 216 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 37. 217 Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 5.14. 218 Anthony Meredith, “The Concept of Mind in Gregory of Nyssa and the Neoplatonists,” Studia Patristica Vol. XXII, Elizabeth A. Livingstine (Leuven: Peeters, 1989) 35-51, 35. 219 Alexei V. Nesteruk, Light from the East, 53. 220 Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 108. 221 Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 109. 222 Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 109. 223 Alexei V. Nesteruk, Light from the East, 47.


intellect.224 This objective knowledge implies the experience of the participation in divine life. The epistemology of the experience of God is intrinsically rooted in the transformation of the nou/j.

2.1.1 Transformation of the Nou/j

The nou/j is in a constant movement towards God, which implies transformation. For Maximus, the human soul consists of an intellectual and vital faculty. The intellectual faculty has free movement according to its will and this vital faculty acts without choice in accordance with nature. The contemplative power belongs to the intellectual faculty and the active power belongs to the nou/j (reason). The mind is the mover of the intellectual faculty. When the mind directs the movements toward God, then it is called wisdom. Similarly, reason is also called prudence “when in uniting to the mind the activities of the vital faculty wisely governed by it in sensible direction, it shows that it is not different from it but bears the same divine image by virtue as does the mind.”225

Maximus says that wisdom is the potency of the mind; contemplation is a habit and knowledge is action while enduring knowledge is the perpetual movement toward the truth. The mind moves continuously and enduringly towards God, the truth. All theses actions are united and woven together by the work of the Holy Spirit. By way of exchanging these activities the human person receives the gift of deification.226 This view is well explored as we see in Maximus;

For thought is the act and manifestation of the mind related as effect to cause, and prudence is the act and manifestation of wisdom, and action of contemplation, and virtue of knowledge, and faith of enduring knowledge. From these is produced the inward relationship to the truth and good, that is, to God, which he used to call divine science,

224 Alexei V. Nesteruk, Light from the East, 75. The ascend of the human mind is an intellectual ascent. According to the Platonic sense the intellectual ascend implies the engagement of the integral human person, not merely an abstract discursive reasoning. It is also a sacramental act. Armstrong speaks about this as a mystical ascent to God. He further explains it; “as a life in the Church and fully sacramental, depending at every stage on the Sacraments and lived in the Mystical Body.” The Cappadocians avoid excessive Platonism. See A. H. Armstrong, “The Nature of Man in St. Gregory of Nyssa,” The Eastern Churches Quarterly (1948) 2-9, 5. 225 Maximus the Confessor, The Church’s Mystagogy 5, 190. Maximus calls the mind wisdom and the soul prudence. He says that the soul belongs through its intelligent mind, wisdom, contemplation, and knowledge which are directed toward truth. Through its rational reason belong reasoning, prudence, action, virtue, and faith which are all directed toward the good. For him, truth and goodness reveal God. On the one hand, truth reveals God in its essence (because truth is simple, unique, one, indivisible, immutable and wholly-eternal); and on the other, goodness reveals God in its activities; for the good is beneficent and protective of everything that comes out of it. See Ibid., 191. However, knowledge without passion does not bind the mind to God. See Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 2003) 306-7. Ratzinger says that the will without knowledge is blind. Joseph Ratzinger, On the Way to Jesus Christ, Michel J. Miller trans., (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005) 108. 226 Maximus the Confessor, The Church’s Mystagogy 5, 192-3.


secure knowledge, love, and peace in which and by means of which there is deification.227

Maximus says knowledge, truth and goodness exist alongside the natural movement of the soul, which implement the transformation into divine life. This transformation is an experience of union with God which transcends the realm of the power of reason and the mind. Maximus continues;

It brings us to rest beyond speech and knowledge in the ultimate truth and goodness of God’s embrace in accordance with his unfailing promise, so that there is no longer anything at all which can trouble it or cause it any disturbance in the secret recesses in God. It is in this blessed and most holy embrace that is accomplished this awesome mystery of a union transcending mind and reason by which God becomes one flesh and one spirit with the Church and thus with the soul, and the soul with God.228

Though sacramental deification is the work of divine-human cooperation, the transcending mystery of God is to be united with the human nou/j with regard to the essential transformation. In this regard, Maximus speaks about the human person as “a mystical church” and s/he enters into the state of silence through the mind. He states;

Conversely, man is a mystical church, because through the nave which is his body he brightens by virtue the ascetic force of the soul by the observance of the commandments in moral wisdom. Through the sanctuary of his soul he conveys to God in natural contemplation through reason the principles of sense purely in spirit cut off from matter. Finally, through the altar of the mind he summons the silence abounding in song in the innermost recesses of the unseen and unknown utterance of divinity by another silence, rich in speech and tone. And as far as man is capable, he dwells familiarly within mystical theology and becomes such as is fitting for one made worthy of his indwelling and he is marked with his dazzling splendor.229

The conversion of the nou/j is basically the transformation of the human person. In this regard it is also noteworthy that the nou/j is capable of receiving the transforming activities of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, the nou/j can be considered as a major source of the transformation of the human person. According to Staniloae, the mind acts as the chief source in deification, while the nou/j and pneu/ma cooperate in the transforming work of God. He writes;

The Holy Spirit gives [these unspeakable things], and the mind receives them. The cessation mentioned previously means only that the mind no longer discovers them by its operation, but by that of the Holy Spirit. So it no longer modifies the things received by its own operation, but it receives them as they are. The mind even receives them by the working of the Holy Spirit.230

227 Maximus the Confessor, The Church’s Mystagogy 5, 193-4. 228 Maximus the Confessor, The Church’s Mystagogy 5, 194. 229 Maximus the Confessor, The Church’s Mystagogy 4, 190. 230 Dumitru Staniloae, Orthodox Spirituality: A Practical Guide for the Faithful and a Definitive Manual for the Scholar, Archimandrite Jerome & Otilia Kloos trans., (Pennsylvania: STS Press, 2002, repr. 2003) 327.


As we have discussed already the Holy Spirit works through the nou/j of the human person, which leads the person towards transformation into the divine life. Let us discuss the very relevant Pauline anthropological notions of nou/j and swma.

2.1.2 Pauline Notion of Nou/j in Relationship with Sw/ma

In Pauline anthropology, the human being is situated in relation to God and the world. In Pauline writings the human being is made up of two elements. The first is the visible, tangible and biological part, called swma “body” (Rom. 12:4; 1 Cor 12:14-26). It is something much more than the body, although such a restricted sense is also found at times (Gal 1:16; Rom 1:24). Sw/ma seems to denote the “the man a whole, as a unified, complex living organism, even as a person” (1 Cor 9:27; Rom 12:1).231 Sometimes, Paul uses swma in a pejorative sense, to speak of its “desires or passions,” (Rom 6:12; 8:13), of the “body of sin” (Rom 6:6), of the “body of humiliation” (Phil 3:21), or of “the body of death” (Rom 8:3). In short, the body is the “sin-ruled self” (Rom 7:23). The second element that goes to make a human being is sa,rx (rf;)B;)) which meant both “flesh” and “body.”232 At the same time, Paul uses sa,rx as a synonym for sw/ma (1 Cor 6:16). But the typical Pauline use of sa,rx lies in the fact that it denotes the human being’s natural, outward, earth-bound existence, where one is left to oneself and cut off from God (Rom 6:19; 1 Cor 9:8; Col 3:5). This earth-centered human represented by Sa,rx is often contrasted with the pneu/ma (Rom 8:1,4-5; 1 Cor 5:5; Gal 5:16-17).233 In the same way the sa,rx is not a power which works as pneu/ma) The sa,rx never occurs as the subject of an action, while the pneu/ma is often presented as an acting subject. However, sa,rx approximates to the idea of a power which works on the human person that determines his/her destiny beyond the earthly life.234 The third element in the human being is yuch,. Paul does not use it as the vital principle of biological activity as in the OT (vp,n,,). For Paul it means, “the living being/person” (1Cor 15:45) with his vitality, consciousness, cognition and volition (1Thess 2:8). Therefore, it expresses the vitality, consciousness, intelligence and volition of the human person (1Thess 2:8; Phil 2:30; 2 Cor 12: 15; Rom 11:13; 16:14).235 This is the natural and earthly life of human beings. As Fitzmyer points

231 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “Pauline Theology,” Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Roland E. Murphy (eds.), The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Geoffrey Chapman, Britain: n.d.) 1382 – 1416, 1406. See for Pauline contributions to theosis, Stephen Finlan, “Can We Speak of Theosis in Paul?,” Michael J. Christensen & Jeffery A. Wittung (eds.), Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008) 68-80, 70-71. 232 Eduard Schweizer, “sa,rx,” TDNT Vol. VII, Gerhard Friedrich (ed.) 135. The Pauline notion of psyche does not grasp the religious truth and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. See Bruno J. Korosăk, The Holy Spirit and the Sacraments: Theological Essay (Nova Gorica: Branko Editor, 2005) 18. 233 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “Pauline Theology,” Raymond E. Brown (eds.) 1406. 234 Eduard Schweizer, “sa,rx,” TDNT Vol. 7, Gerhard Friedrich (ed.) 132. 235 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “Pauline Theology,” Raymond E. Brown (eds.) 1406.


out, although Paul does not use yuch, in a specifically derogatory sense, it does remain the life of sa,rx and it is not the life ruled by the Spirit; hence, Paul calls “the one who lives without the Spirit of God” yuciko.j (1Cor 2: 14). Such a person is not a “spiritual man” pneumatiko,j (Rom 7:14; 1Cor 2:15).236 Pneumatiko,j is “one who possesses the Spirit” (1Cor 14:37) or “the Spirit-filled people” (1 Cor 3:1). Hence pneumatiko,j is contrasted with sarkikoi, 1Cor 2:13 and 12:1.237

The term nou/j occurs in Paul 21 times, which means basically “thought.” It is the “principle of thought and knowledge, of clear and intelligent thought.”238 Paul speaks of nou/j in relationship with moral principles. For Paul, nou/j is the aspect of the human being “as a knowing and judging subject; it designates a capacity for intelligent understanding, planning and decision (cf. 1Cor 1:10; 2:16; Rom 14:5).”239 Nou/j is that which enables God’s people to understand his moral will enshrined in the Commandments and respond to them (Rom 7:23). It helps the humans to recognize what can be known about God from creation (Rom 1:20). In Rom 11:34 nou/j is used as “the saving purpose of God.”240 Kardi,a (heart) is a Pauline expression specifically referring to the activities of the will (Gal 4:9; 1Cor 4:21). Like the Hebrew bloe, it connotes the strongly emotional aspect of the will in the sense of loving (2 Cor 7:3), grieving (Rom 9:2) desiring (Rom 1:24) doubting and believing (Rom 10:6-10) etc.241 In relation with human beings and ethics Paul uses the term sunei,dhsij which means, “the conscience.” It is the capacity to judge one’s action either in retrospect (as right and wrong) or in prospect (as a guide for proper activity). This term sunei,dhsij is related to the nou/j (Rom 7:23-25).242 Bartos shows the Fathers of the Church considered the nou/j as “the peak of the soul,” for it has “a transparency or a special openness to God.”243 The Cappadocian Fathers also strongly insisted on the relationship between God the Nou/j me,gaj and the human nou/j.”244

236 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “Pauline Theology,” Raymond E. Brown (eds.) 1406. 237 Frederick William Danker, (ed.) A Greek-English Lexicon, 837. The Pauline view of “flesh” and “Spirit” refer to the possible ways of human relationship with God. Cf. Brian D. Ingraffia, Postmodern Theory and Biblical Theology: Vanquishing God’s Shadow (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995) 140. The Pauline notion psychic is associated with the “first man” or the “man of dust,” contrasting “life-giving Spirit,” the Second Adam, See Stephen Finlan, “Can We Speak of Theosis in Paul?,” 70-71. 238 J. Behm, “nou/j,” TDNT, 958. 239 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “Pauline Theology,” Raymond E. Brown (eds.) 1407. 240 J. Behm, “nou/j,” TDNT, 959. 241 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “Pauline Theology,” Raymond E. Brown (eds.) 1407. 242 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “Pauline Theology,” Raymond E. Brown (eds.) 1414. 243 Emil Bartos, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, 259 as cited from Gregory Nazianzus, Oratio 31, 26-37 (PG 36) 161. 244 Jules Gross, The Divinization of the Christian: According to the Greek Fathers, Paul A. Onica trans., (Anaheim, CA: A&C Press, 2002) 193, as cited in Gregory Naziansen, Carminum libri duo [Two Books of Poems] 5.2.


Furthermore, the true nature of the nou/j is the reflection of divine nature.245 At this point, it is also important to discuss the essential relationship between the notions of nou/j and pneu/ma in Pauline theology.

2.1.3 Pauline Notion of Nou/j in Relationship with Pneu/ma

Let us first of all discuss the Pauline notions of nou/j and pneu/ma in relation with the basic transformation of the human person into the divine life. In his theology, Paul uses the notion of nou/j to a greater extent. We saw above that the notion of nou/j designates the “faculty of intellectual perception or thinking” (cf. also Lk 24: 45; Rev 13:18). It could also indicate a “way of thinking, as sum total of the whole mental and moral state of being.” Paul vividly expresses his theological perspective on the penetrating activity of nou/j in the sacramental transformation. He made a remarkable statement that it was through baptism in Christ that Christians are perfectly united in the same mind and purpose of Christ (1 Cor.1:10).246 This penetrating activity is used for indicating the transformation of the human mind by the renewing action of the Spirit through the sacrament of baptism; Danker speaks of it as, “…natural nou/j penetrated and transformed by the Spirit which they [Christians] receive at baptism Rom 12:2.”247

In 1Thess 5:23 Paul speaks of sw/ma, yuch, and pneu/ma. In this case pneu/ma does not designate the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:16; 1 Cor 2: 10-11). Sw/ma and yuch, jointly denote the whole human being; pneu/ma suggests the willing self and particularly apt to receive the Holy Spirit.248 According to Frederick, nou/j in the phrase h`mei/j de. nou/n Cristou/ e;comen in 1Cor 2:16b denotes pneu/ma.249 When Paul used pneu/ma with sa,rx, it signifies the immaterial part of the humans (2 Cor 7:1; Col 2:5) and it also denotes the Spirit of God bearing witness to our very self (Rom 8:16).250 The basic Pauline notion of pneu/ma is that which differentiates God from what is not God. All those who belong to God possess the

245 Anthony Meredith, “The Concept of Mind in Gregory of Nyssa...,” Studia Patristica XXIII, 39 from (PG 44) 161c.- 164b. 246 Frederick William Danker (ed.), A Greek-English Lexicon, 680; [emphasis is mine]. Similarly, Powell speaks of transformation through baptism as requiring the transformation of the mind {nou/j} (Rom. 12:2), so that we can discern the will of God. See Samuel M. Powell, A Theology of Christian Spirituality (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005) 55. 247 Frederick William Danker (ed.), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1957, repr. 2000) 680. The nou/j is superior to discursive reasoning, it is a “spiritual intellect.” dianoi,a is also an intellectual faculty, the mind. According to Nesteruk, dianoi,a| (“reason,” “mind”) employs certain specific cognitive operations; it works by either induction or deduction. The function of dianoi,a| is “to collect information about objects that are outside itself, be it data derived from sense observations or received through spiritual knowledge or revelation.” See Alexei V. Nesteruk, Light from the East, 52. 248 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “Pauline Theology,” Raymond E. Brown (eds.) 1406-1407. 249 Frederick William Danker (ed.), A Greek-English Lexicon, 680. nou/j is neither equated with the pneu/ma nor the fuch,, see J. Behm, “nou/j,” 958-9. 250 Frederick William Danker (ed.), A Greek-English Lexicon, 832-833.


Spirit and hence have a share in divine life (2 Cor 3:18).251 Paul speaks of this transformation in this same verse as th.n auvth.n eivko,na metamorfou,meqa (“be changed into same form”). Christians take on the perfection of Christ through the operation of the Holy Spirit.252 Gregory of Nyssa used pneu/ma to denote both human breath and the Divine Spirit.253 The faithful belong to God in and through the sacraments in a special way that pave the path to transformation through the Holy Spirit. In our discussion on sacramental metamorphosis we saw that the notions of nou/j and pneu/ma were the most significant aspects. From the perspective of sacramental metamorphosis it is also vital to think about the Plotinian notion of One as one of the the foundational notions because it plays an influential role.

2.2 Plotinian (205-270 C.E.) Notion of One (to, e]n) Plotinus was born in Egypt in 205 C.E. and he is one of the most influential philosophers after Plato and Aristotle and of course, he has been much influenced by their thoughts. He is generally considered the founder of Neoplatonism. For Plotinus, the One (to, e]n) is the Supreme Good, which is the “cause of itself,” which “exists by itself,” and it is the source or cause of everything.254 According to Plotinus, divinity is a graded triad; in three Hypostases, divinity is communicated through any one of these hypostases. The three hypostases (the three fundamental metaphysical principles of Plotinus) are the One or First Existent, the Divine Mind or First Thinker and Thought, and the All-Soul or the First and Only Principle of Life. He believed that the One created the universe by progressive emanation (progression downward from God to the world), which is the emanation from the universal soul and of a particular soul. He calls the souls moi,raj “particles” which come from God. The One is the Supreme Divine Triad, which is the Simple, the Absolute, the Transcendence, the Infinite and the Unconditioned. It is equal to the concept of Good in Plato. It is unknowable and it transcends all knowability and it transcends even the

251 Frederick William Danker (ed.), A Greek-English Lexicon, 834. 252 Frederick William Danker (ed.), A Greek-English Lexicon, 639-640. 253James H. Srawley trans., The Catechetical Oration of St. Gregory of Nyssa II., Early Church Classics (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1917) 30. 254 Panayiotis Papageorgiou, “Plotinos and Eunomios: A Parallel Theology of the Three Hypostases,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 37.3-4 (1992) 215-231, 217. There is the utter transcendence of all categories of the being of the One. See Joseph P. Farrell, Free Choice in St. Maximus the Confessor (South Canaan, PA: St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 1989) 39. Plotinian metaphysics may be expressed in two ways, divine emanation and morality. Divine emanation is the downward progression from God to the world, and morality is the upward from the world to God. Divine emanation is marked by three degrees; matter, world soul, nou/j and God or One. All these degrees partake in divinity in different ways. The One is the principle of knowledge and everything is depended on this One. One is God, and he is above all understandings. The first emanation is the nou/j (unchangeable thought) which is inferior to One. Cf. The Philosophy of Plotinus, http://radicalacademy.com/philplotinus.htm#knowledge (accessed on 01.04.2006). The notion of One is denial of multiplicity. See Michael Sells, “Apophasis in Plotinus: A Critical Appraoch,” Harvard Theological Review 78:3-4 (1985) 47-65, 49-50. The theological epistemology and neo-Platonic scheme have an undeniable relationship. See Lieven Boeve, “Postmodern Sacramento-Theology: Retelling the Christian Story,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 74 (1998) 326-343, 328.

http://radicalacademy.com/philplotinus.htm#knowledge


qualities of Being.255 Like Plato, he also believes that the body has to be suppressed and the soul can overcome the body to attain unity with the One. The One is omnipresent and infinite. How do humans attain God unless by the traditional means of asceticism which is capable of liberating the soul from the prison of body? There is some kind of relationship between God and humankind. Human beings think about their own nature as the means of participating in the divine.256 According to him matter is the actualization of Non-Being; moreover Non-Being is Non-Existence. He argues;

If it is to be present at all, it cannot be an Actualization, for then it would not be the stray from Authentic Being which it is, the thing having its Being in Non-Beingness: for, note, in the case of things whose Being is a falsity, to take away the falsity is to take away what Being they have, and if we introduce actualization into things whose Being and Essence is Potentiality, we destroy the foundation of their nature since their Being is Potentiality.257

Plotinus speaks about the Being as potentiality and for him the soul is related to the intellect and the intellect is related to the One. When he speaks about the essence of the soul, Plotinus says that anyone who sees the greatness of the soul, s/he will know its greatness and divinity which has the capability to transcend the things of this world.258 We are not substance in the strict and proper sense; moreover we participate in substance and it is a particular kind of substance. We are not masters of our own substance for we are not absolute substance. So we are going to locate ourselves in active actuality.259 One cannot act without willing; his/her activities are what we might call his/her substance. So his/her will and substance are the same.260 Plotinus claims that God is neither good nor not good because God is upera,gaqwn (beyond the good), which denotes that God transcends all kinds of categories and rational affirmations. The Plotinian One transcends the human act of knowing. In this regard let us try to explore briefly the Plotinian notion of One in relatiosnhip to nou/j and soul.

255 Plotinus, The Enneads, Stephen MacKenna trans., (London: Faber and Faber, 1969) xxv-xxvi. Neoplatonism is a powerful religious philosophical system on the emanation of everything from the One. See William J. Hill, The Three-Personed God: The Trinity as a Mystery of Salvation (Washington D.C: The Catholic University of America Press, 1982, repr. 1988) 38. 256 Jules Gross, The Divinization of the Christian According to the Greek Fathers, 50. 257 Plotinus, The Enneads, Stephen MacKenna trans., 122. Celsus, the chief critic of Christians, presents his accounts of true logos is a systematic Platonic theology, which places the highest first principle above Being, but it does not identify it as the One. He seems to have probed deeper into Platonism with whom he shared the three ways of knowing God; via eminentia, via negativa, and via analogia. See Eric Osborn, The Beginning of Christian Philosophy, 28. God is said to be both being and non-being, He “transcends unknowably everything.” Christos Yannaras, On the Absence and Unknowability, 66. 258 Plotinus, Enneads IV, G. P. Goold (ed.), A.H. Armstrong trans., (London: Harvard University Press, 1984) 15. However, the Plotinian notion of One is not an active agent but it is passive. See John Peter Kenney, “Review of The Mysticism of Saint Augustine,” 55. 259 Plotinus, Enneads VII, G.P. Goold (ed.), A.H. Armstrong trans., (London: Harvard University Press, 1988) 265-267. 260 Plotinus, Enneads VII, G.P. Goold (ed.), A.H. Armstrong trans., 269.


2.2.1 The to, e]n, Nou/j and Yuch,

The nou/j is the emanation from the One and there is a relationship between the One and the nou/j, and the nou/j and the Soul (yuch,). The One is considered as the simple god (a`plou¯j) who begot the god in second line that is the Intellect (nou/j) and somehow this second god begets the third god, the Soul (yuch,).261 Before its embodied state, the Soul pre-existed in union with the divine realm and it has its source in the One.262 The Soul is an image of the nou/j, and its existence and perfection come from the nou/j; the nou/j is also called the father of the Soul.263 Nevertheless, according to Plotinus, the One transcends the intellect which in turn transcends the act of knowing that pertains solely to the Secondary Nature and it is prior to the multiplicity. He says;

Knowing is a unitary thing, but defined: the first is One, but undefined: a defined One would not be the One-Absolute: the absolute is prior to the definite….Thus the One is in truth beyond all statement: any affirmation is of a thing; but ‘all-transcending, resting above even the most august divine Mind.264

The Platonists maintained the doctrine of the undescended soul which finds that deification in a technical sense is not possible. However, one of the two major successors of Plotinus is Iamblichus (the other is Prophyry) who made a major change in Neoplatonism, who does not believe in the existence of the undescended element in the human soul. As Russell says;

As long as the human soul is considered as to be part of the same essence as that of the gods in whole or in part, the realization of the human telos consists in waking up to what we really are: transcendent beings trapped in the world of sense. But once the notion of the undescended soul has been rejected and the soul of a human being is conceived of as essentially different from that of a god, some ontological transformation is needed before the soul can ascend to the divine life. This transformation is the result of theurgy, a concept which entered into Platonism from the Chaldean Oracles. ‘Doing philosophy’ could no longer in itself raise the soul to the level of the divine because the divine essence transcends the essence of the human soul to such a degree.265

261 Panayiotis Papageorgiou, “Plotinos and Eunomios:…,” The Greek Theological Review 37.3-4 (1992) 215-231, 217. Plotinian notion of soul is capable of ascending towards God and attaining divine likeness. See Anthony Meredith, The Cappadocians (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000) 35. 262 Gregory Telepneff, The Concept of the Person in the Christian Hellenism of the Greek Church Fathers: A Study of Origen, St. Gregory the Theologian, and St. Maximus the Confessor (Doctoral Dissertation, Berkeley, CA: UMI Dissertation Services, 1991) 19-20. 263 Panayiotis Papageorgiou, “Plotinos and Eunomios:…,” 215-231, 221-2. The nous is never contrasted with psyche. See Gregory Telepneff, The Concept of the Person, 320. 264 Plotinus, The Enneads, Stephen MacKenna trans., 395. 265 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 43. Theurgy means “divine work,” god-making,” making gods of men,” Plotinus speaks about the ascend of the soul through the divine work. Iamblichus believed mystical philosophical contemplation of Plotinus alone is unable to unite the human person to god. There is also the need of certain appropriate magical ritual actions through which the divine grace operates. He believed the possibility of the soul being able to ascend to the higher rank, god purifies the worshippers and ascend they into the Intelligible or Divine world. Cf. Theurgy, http://www.kheper.net/topics/Neoplatonism/Iamblich-theurgy.htm (accessed on 05.04.2006). Theurgy is

http://www.kheper.net/topics/Neoplatonism/Iamblich-theurgy.htm


Plotinus pertinently states that our concern is “not merely to be sinless but to be God.”266 When we affirm the reality and individual identity of the Real Being then it proves that these Real Beings exist in the realm of Intellect. As a result, Plotinus affirms that intellection and Being are co-existents:

In a Being, then, the existence, the intellection, the life are present as an aggregate. When a thing is a Being, it is also an Intellectual-Principle; when it is an Intellectual-Principle, it is a Being; intellection and Being are co-existents. Therefore intellection is a multiple not a unitary, and that which (like the Good) does not belong to this order can have no intellection.267

A Pythagorean tendency is to give prominence to the One and internal duality of divinity is to be removed by subordinating the Mind to the One and including Soul among the three ultimate principles. Plotinus avoids the threat of dualism. Osborn says, “[t]he perfection of the One overflows to produce all things in a descending order; yet it transcends them and does not embrace the forms as its thoughts. On the other hand, the Mind includes forms of particular things and of persons.”268 Mind represents the One in Soul, and Soul provides order to the visible world. Therefore, it is more appropriate to say “body is in soul rather than soul in body.” All these prove that Plotinus is not a metaphysical dualist.269 There are twofold divisions of soul in Plotinus. The rational level is identified with discursive reason and the irrational with sense perception. Sometimes, he seems to be using a threefold division. In such context, “the highest level is the unfallen soul which has not descended into matter and remains in contemplation of Nous.”270 In the transcendental world the nou/j (the first emenation of One) is the highest entity of One.271 When the human soul has become one with the nou/j, it can be said unequivocally that it achieves identity with the Godhead because it lives on the level of the eternal.272 The union between the nou/j and the One is also explained in the light of participation. Plotinus speaks of the participation in One; “we need a unity independent of participation, not a combination in which multiplicity holds an equal place.” He further says; “Only by a leap can we reach to this One which is to be pure of all else.”273 We shall discuss this notion of participation in the sacramental metamorphosis in the later section.

used in sacramental context which means sanctification and deification through the sacramental mysteries. See Paulos Gregorios, Cosmic Man, 40. 266 Plotinus, The Enneads I.2.6, Stephen MacKenna trans., 34. 267 Plotinus, The Enneads, Stephen MacKenna trans., 418-419. 268 Eric Osborn, The Beginning of Christian Philosophy, 29. 269 Eric Osborn, The Beginning of Christian Philosophy, 29. 270 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 39. 271 J. Behm, “nou/j,” TDNT, 956. 272 Plotinus, The Enneads II.9.9, Stephen MacKenna trans. 141. 273 Plotinus, The Enneads 5.5.4, Stephen MacKenna trans. 406.


The union with the nou/j is different in kind from union with the One. Meyendorff points out that the very specific “oneness” is realized in the Eucharistic koinwni,a.274 In the process of the act of Contemplation we are looking towards the Vision as an end.275 However, the ultimate stage of the soul’s journey is to become one with the object of its search; this union is not absorption. This union is described as vision. In the Intellectual-Principle there is a “complete identity of Knower and Known.” In this respect, according Plotinus, “Being and Knowing are identical.”276 Gross sees that there are two distinguished parts of Plotinian Philosophy with regard to soul; firstly the origin of the soul and its descent into the body; and secondly, the soul’s way back to the sovereign Good. Moreover, he speaks of nou/j as the “child” of [pai/da] the Good, a “second God” [qeo.j deu,teroj].277 Plotinus also argues that the soul is the primary principle of participation. He states;

The primal phase of the Soul – inhabitant of the Supreme and, by its participation in the Supreme, filled and illuminated – remains unchangeably there; but in virtue of that participation, that of the primal participant, a secondary phase also participates in the Supreme, and this secondary goes forth ceaselessly as Life streaming from Life; for energy runs through the Universe and there is no extremity at which it dwindles out. But, travel as far as it may, it never draws that first part of itself from the place whence the outgoing began: for if it abandoned its prior (the Intellectual-Principle), it would no longer be everywhere (its continuous Being would be broken and) it would be present at the end, only, of its course.278

The soul is the primary principle with regard to participation in the Supreme and it has also the most important phase which is the movement towards the te,loj. Let us now turn our discussion to the notion of nou/j oriented towards the te,loj.

2.3 Nou/j Towards Te,loj The human person is considered as microcosm. As Corpus Hermeticum presents the whole parts of the one cosmos is sumpaqh/, i.e. “interconnected and mutually affected; man therefore, in as much as he is a part of the Kosmos.”279 However, it is explained that a human person is more than a part of the cosmos, in virtue of his/her nou/j, s/he is capable of participating into the supracosmic God.280 The nou/j has the task of directing the integral person towards the spiritual life.281 Moreover, God is o` avgaqo,j nou/j (the Supreme Good/

274 John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 174. 275 Plotinus, The Enneads III. 8. 1., Stephen MacKenna trans., 239. 276 Plotinus, The Enneads III. 8.8. Stephen MacKenna trans., 245. 277 Jules Gross, The Divinization of the Christian: According to the Greek Fathers, 51-52. 278 Plotinus, The Eneads III.8.5, Stephen MacKenna trans., 242-3. 279 Walter Scott ed. & trans., Hermetica, VIII.5, 200. 280 Walter Scott ed. & trans., Hermetica, VIII.5, 201. 281 Gregory Telepneff, The Concept of the Person, 321.


Summum bonum) that is distinguished from the human nou/j which is ouv kako,j (evil). Being nou/j( God can be apprehended by the human nou/j.282 In relation to God nou/j represents the human person as a whole and furthermore it establishes the “true God-ward orientation of the entire man.”283 It is God who brought the mortal existence of the human person into immortality.284 Russell clearly speaks about the returning to God as the ‘way of immortality,’ which has been described by Nag Hammad in three stages: gnw/sij, lo,goj and nou/j. The gnw/sij is the stage of spiritual awakening stimulated by the human mind. Consciousness can be elucidated as divinity itself. Consequently, to become fully conscious means to become aware of the divine presence in oneself. The second stage lo,goj is that of the acquisition of knowledge and the attaining of maturity through revelatory discourse. Those who achieve this state, can ascend towards the Father and surrender themselves to the Powers and having become powers themselves, come to be in God. This is the te,loj of those who possess gnosis, to be deified.285 The final stage is the vision of nou/j. It is “[t]he rupture of seeing the beauty of God culminates in deification as the pure nous, separated progressively from the bodily senses, the psychic faculties, and the vices, is able to share a community of being with the Father and all his celestial powers.”286 If a human person attains the beatific vision in this earthly life, it transforms him/her into pure ouvsi,a( or in other words changes him or her “from a man into a god.”287 The Hermetica answers the question of attaining the experience of Good in the physical life of the human person and thereby the teleological experience of deification;

Can man attain to the vision of the Good? Yes; but not until after death. While a man is still in the body, he can catch only faint and intermittent glimpses of the Good. But when released from the body, he may behold the Good in its full spendour; and if he does, he will thereby be changed from a man into a god.288

The discussion of deification in Corpus Hermeticum introduces the term metabolh,, which is the transformation of the soul after death. Plutarch says; ‘human souls begin to enter into immortality by transforming themselves into demons and then in the same way into

282 Walter Scott ed. & trans., Hermetica, VIII.5, 201. 283 Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 111. The nou/j is always associated with communion with God. In Athanasian view nou/j is a determining factor of human beings as a whole with regard to their relationship with God. See Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius: The Coherence of his thought, 61. Transformation refers to the fundamental change of nature through the renewal of mind in order to discern the will of God. See Stephen Finlan, “Can We Speak of Theosis in Paul?,” 73. 284 James Brashler, Peter A. Dirkse and Douglas M. Parrot trans., “Asclepius 21-29 (VI, 8),” James M. Robinson, (trans. Director) The Nag Hammadi Library in English (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977) 301-2. 285 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 47, 48, cf. NHL vol. vi. 6.63. 286 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 48. 287 Walter Scott ed. & trans., Hermetica: The Ancient Greek and Latin Writings which Contain Religious or Philosophic Teachings Ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, Vol. II (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1925) 241. 288 Walter Scott ed. & trans., Hermetica X.4b-6, 225.


the choir of the gods.’289 In the same way, the term used by Hermetica peri. Qeio,thtoj

dialego,menoj means “concerning the state of a man who has become qei/oj or e;nqeoj)))where we are told that qeio,thj is something done by God (to a man?) and that it is related to God as no,hsij to nou/j)”290 The choice of gnw/sij brings about baptism in nou/j and the essential core of humanity needs to be made divine through being endowed with nou/j. In this context, a further term is introduced; paliggenesi,a or regeneration. The term paliggenesi,a occurred in Hermetica in order to signify the transformation which is described in various phrases.291 The Platonists were not accustomed to employing the metaphor of ‘rebirth’ expressed by the term paliggenesi,a) Probably it originated from either the conception of the Christians who reborn were in the sacrament of baptism or of some Pagan mystery-cult in which the human person can be reborn by a sacramental operation. However, the author of Hermetica does not believe paliggenesi,a as effected by any sacramental operation.292 This term regeneration means a new birth evn nw/ (“in knowing”) or evn qew/ (“in God”) because the nou/j belongs to the divine world – “which results in a change from a life that is mortal to one that is immortal and therefore divine. Although the agent of regeneration is another human being who has become a god, regeneration is not taught but is the result of God’s mercy.”293 According to Russell, human beings are deified by regeneration, in which they are really transformed into nou/j so that they can know God. He presents this reality of transformation as a present reality.294

Nevertheless, the cessation of mental activity makes the path open for the divine activity to descend into the human person. This cessation of mental activity towards the divine activity in the human person is well explored by Staniloae by his remarkable study on the specific view of Dionysius the Areopagite and Gregory Palamas;

They attribute to it, along with the power of the natural activity directed toward created things, also the power to enter into union with God, to accept the union and spiritual feeling of uniting with God. It’s true that this sense of union is due to the divine activity dwelling in it. But an object couldn’t assimilate this spiritual feeling caused by God. The mind has the capacity to appropriate as its own the divine, spiritual operation; it is capax divini, capable of the divine, and this capacity has gone from virtually to actuality, by the cleansing of the passions.295

289 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 48, as cited from Corpus Hermeticum X. 7. 290 Walter Scott ed. & trans., Hermetica: XIII, 375. 291 Walter Scott ed. & trans., Hermetica: The Ancient Greek and Latin Writings which Contain Religious or Philosophic Teachings Ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, XIII. 373. The doctrine of Corpus Hermeticum is based on the Platonic doctrine of avna,mvhsij) Some of the most important terms indicating transformation are; eivj to. avgaqo.n cwrei/n; h` tou/ nou/ parousi,a; gnw/sij; h gnw/sij tou/ qeou/; to. th/j gnw,sewj fw/j) Ibid., 373. 292 Walter Scott ed. & trans., Hermetica: XIII. 374. 293 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 49, Corpus Hermeticum xiii. 3,10. 294 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 50. 295 Dumitru Staniloae, Orthodox Spirituality, 328.


Russell argues that with regard to deification, Clement and his successors are indebted to Platonism. The definition of likeness to God as the goal of the spiritual life, the concept of participation, the ascent of the soul and the notion of reaching out to God in ecstasy are all of Platonic origin.296 The nou/j, however, has the capacity and the tendency to surpass the natural activity which directs toward created things and penetrates the divine activity of union with the trinitarian life in and through the sacraments that paves the path for the unfathomable and appropriate transformation of the created. Obviously, it is both the experience of the “already” and eschatological.

Irenaeus speaks about the potentiality of human nature for realizing God’s image by growing into the likeness of God and possess the immortality and incorruptibility.297 Maximus the Confessor also states the teleological vision of the potentiality of the human person as;

The one who by virtue has unshakably held firm against suffering bears active in himself the first coming of the Word which purifies him from all blemishes. But the one who by contemplation has transported his mind to the angelic state bears the power of the second coming which renders him free from passion and decay.298

It is a dynamic movement which paves the path to the transformation of the human person towards a teleological experience. It is also the potentiality towards incorruptibility and eternity.

2.4 Potentiality [Du,namij] and Actuality [Evntele,ceia] From the perspective of Philosophical anthropology, the human person is intrinsically a potential being undergoing the dynamic transformation towards incorruptibility and eternity. On evaluating Plotinian Philosophy, Smith names two different types of “separateness,” the higher level which is compatible with unity and the lower level of nou/j, which is particularly the physical world. Furthermore, he argues that Plotinus presents ‘potentiality’ to the intelligible world in two ways; the whole may possess the parts of potentiality and each part may possess the whole potentiality.299 In this sense potentiality is presented in a wider perspective.

Aristotle speaks of nou/j (mind) as “the power of thinking.”300 He holds the teleological view of the order of all things in the world. He calls the self-contained and self-developed essence evntele,ceia. He speaks of substance as actuality and the soul is the actuality of the

296 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 52. 297 Irenaeus, Against Heresies III, 19.1 (ANF I) 448. 298 Maximus the Confessor, Chapters on Knowledge 98, Selected Writings, George C. Birthold trans., 146. 299 Andrew Smith, “Potentiality and the Problem of Plurality in the Intelligible World,” H.J. Blumenthal & R.A. Markus (eds.), Neoplatonism and Early Christian Thought: Essays in honour of A.H. Armstrong (London: Variorum Publications, 1981) 99-107, 99, 101. 300 Aristotle, On the Soul, II. 414b 20.


body. Substance has three meanings – form, matter and the complex of both. Out of these three, matter is potentiality and form is actuality. In this sense the body cannot be the actuality of the soul.301 Since the soul is one ousia or substance, there is no inherent difficulty in becoming one with yuch,, once the lower part has been fully subjected to the higher part.302 Since the human person is self-possessed with the combination of body and soul – matter and form, s/he has the inner competence to move upward to immortality. Leijssen observes that Rahner uses the Aristotelian term evntele,ceia in sacramentology in order to show its dynamic movement towards the final destination.303 This movement itself is the process of transformation, which we shall discuss later from the sacramental point of view. When the transformation has taken place through the sacraments, then it is the transformation towards the participation into divine life, which is eternal and immortal. Furthermore, when Plotinus speaks about the potentiality of the universe, he says; “the potentiality whose non-existence would mean the non-existence of all the Universe and even of the Intellectual-Principle which is the primal Life and all Life.”304 The whole potential of the universe is oriented towards The One. He says; “Every particular thing has a One of its own to which it may be traced; the All has its One, its Prior but not yet the Absolute One; through this we reach that Absolute One, where all such reference comes to an end.”305 The nature of this Absolute One is beyond any affirmation of its existence or essence, which transcends everything and exists by its own power.306 In this respect, we discuss the possibility of the sacramental metamorphosis not only of the human person but also its implications for the transformation of the whole cosmos. From the Plotinian perspective, the Intellectual-Principle is a Real-Being, which is a sort of mediation between us and the Unknowable One. It is often named as nou/j

301 Aristotle, On the Soul, II. 412a, 414a 15 Richard McKeon (ed.), The Basic Works of Aristotle, 555-9. Pure potentiality is “Prime Matter” and pure actuality is “Pure Form.” According to Aristotle we don’t have any experience of pure Form which is God. LaFave presents Aristotle’s view on potentiality and actuality; “For Aristotle, this is the same as saying everything's goal is to be as fully and completely as possible what it already is potentially. Like Plato, Aristotle believes excellent things are not only better but more real (more actual). Aristotle uses the word entelechy to mean fully realized being that exists within something formally and guides the actualization of its potential toward full being. Entelechy is a kind of form.” Cf. Sandra LaFave, Notes on Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Psychology, http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/Aristotle_de_anima.html (accessed on 09.02.2006). See Aristotle, De Anima (On the Soul), Hugh Lawson-Tancred (London, Penguin, 1986) 157. Luchte made a study on Aristotelian entelechy with the notion of Monad of Leibniz, the monad as entelechy, which strives for the fulfilment of its potentiality. See James Luchte, “Mathesis and Analysis: Finitude and the Infinite in the Monadology of Leibniz,” The Heythrop Journal: A Quarterly Review of Philosophy and Theology 47.4 (2006) 519-543, 528, 9. 302 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 40. 303 Lambert Leijssen, “Rahner’s Contribution to the Renewal of Sacramentology,” Philosophy & Theology 9 (1995) 201-222, 215. 304 Plotinus, The Enneads III.8. 10, Stephen MacKenna trans., 248. 305 Plotinus, The Enneads III.8.10, MacKenna trans., 249. 306 Plotinus, The Enneads III 8.10, MacKenna trans., 249.

http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/Aristotle_de_anima.html


which is often translated as Divine-Mind.307 According to Plotinus the “Divine Mind”308 is the place of every soul and he says that the end and goal of the soul is to be united to God who is over all things. Attainment of this goal is an “unspeakable actuality and not in potency only.” Plotinus describes this ‘unspeakable actuality’ in his own words;

Often I have woken up out of the body to my self and have entered into myself, going out from all other things; I have seen a beauty wonderfully great and felt assurance that then most of all I belonged to the better part; I have actually lived the best life and come to identity with the divine; and set firm in it. I have come to that supreme actuality, setting myself above all else in the realm of intellect. Then after that rest in the divine, when I have come down from Intellect to discursive reasoning, I am puzzled how I ever came down, and how my soul has come to be in the body when it is what it has shown to be by itself, even when it is in the body.309

With regard to the unspeakable actuality, God is neither essence nor act and either particular or general, Maximus states; “But He is a principle of being who is creative of essence and beyond essence, a ground who is creative of power but beyond power, the active and eternal condition of every act and to speak briefly, the Creator of every essence, power and act, as well as every beginning, middle, and end.”310 God comes down in his energies and He assures wo/man’s participation in immortality and infinity through his personal character.311 It is also remarkable to point out what Rahner says about the Creator God who is the future of both the human person and the whole cosmos. He argues that there is the divine act of ongoing creation that enables us to become what is radically new. God empowers this whole process of ongoing creation and grants the capacity to transcend itself and becoming a new creation.312 The Incarnation of the Logos and the transfiguration of the whole cosmos in relation to the resurrection are integrally related and the fulfillment of the created spirit of God.313 The unspeakable potentiality of the human person proves that the human person is a “microcosm.” The whole cosmos is intrinsically related with his/her being. As we have discussed the concepts of actuality and potentiality have a significant role in sacramental metamorphosis, so the concept of participation is also inevitable and undeniable.

307 Plotinus, The Enneads, V.1.4, Stephen MacKenna trans., xxvi. It is also translated as “Divine Intelligence” or “Divine Intellection.” 308 Plotinus, The Enneads V.1.4, Stephen MacKenna trans., 372. 309 Plotinus, Enneads IV 8.1.1-11, Armstrong trans. 310 Maximus the Confessor, Selected Writings, Chapters on Knowledge 4, George C. Berthold trans. (Mahwah, NY: Paulist Press, 1985) 129. 311 Dumitru Staniloae, The Experience of God, 102. 312 Karl Rahner, “Evolution,” Sacramentum Mundi: An Encyclopedia of Theology (1968) 2, 289-97, 96. 313 Karl Rahner, “Evolution,” Sacramentum Mundi 2, 289-297, 289.


2.5 The Mete,cw From the perspective of sacramental metamorphosis, the concept of participation is ontologically a relationship which is one of the most significant notions in our discussion on being human and becoming divine. This term Mete,cw is translated as “to have a part” or “share in something.” It means “participation.” Mete,cein means “to have a share in,” and Metoch, means “participation.”314 The participation is a movement. God is incomprehensible and immutable whereas the human person is mutable because of his/her created nature. This capacity of dynamic movement transforms his/her soul towards the better. 315 Gregorios points out the use of metousia in Plato and Gregory of Nyssa; Plato had used the term metousia to indicate the participation of the being in an ideal and at the same time Greogry of Nyssa defines participation as “the decisive principle of existence for all creation.”316 According to Allen, the Platonic metaphysics of participation is unifying the One and the Many. He also points out that if we posit the two existences of Being and Becoming, a world of Forms and a world of particulars in unity then there is the reconciliation of unity and diversity.317 In this regard it is noteworthy that “Being and Becoming must be distinct and yet together.”318 The term participation is extensively used by Plato in explaining the very dependence of the world of becoming on the world of being. From its philosophical perspective, Plato speaks about this participation in Phaedo as;

Then would you not avoid saying that when one is added to one it is the addition and when it is divided it is the division that is the cause of two? And you would loudly exclaim that you do not know how else each thing can come to be except by sharing in the particular reality in which it shares, and in these cases you do not know of any other cause of becoming two except by sharing in Twoness, and that the things that are to be two must share in this, as that which is to be one must share in Oneness, and you would dismiss these additions and divisions and others such subtleties, and leave them to those wiser than yourself to answer.319

314 Hermann Hanse, “Mete,cw,” TDNT Vol. 2, Gerhard Kittel (ed.) 830. See also for participation, Paulos Gregorios, Cosmic Man, 101-3. 315 Everett Ferguson, “God’s Infinity and Man’s Mutability: Perpetual Progress According to Gregory of Nyssa,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 18 (1973) 59-78, 63, 67-70. 316 Paulos Gregorios, The Human Presence: An Orthodox view of Nature, 62. As Gregorios points out Gregory of Nyssa speaks about participation into the creative energies of God as an integral event which comes via Christ, through the human person and the whole cosmos. See Paulos Gregorios, Cosmic Man, 103. 317 R.E. Allen, “Participation and Predication in Plato’s Middle Dialogues,” R.E. Allen (ed.), Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, New York: The Humanities Press, 1965) 43-60, 56. There is the contrast between both Being and Becoming and One and Many. The contrast between One and Many is closely linked with the notion of the unknowability of God, for the knowledge of God is by becoming like him. See also John Whittaker, “Plutarch, Platonism and Christianity,” H.J. Blumenthal & R.A. Markus (eds.) 50-63, 56. 318 R.E. Allen, “Participation and Predication…,” R.E. Allen (ed.), Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics, 57. 319 Plato, Phaedo 101c, G.M.A. Grube trans., John M. Cooper (ed.), Plato: Complete Works, 87.


It is however, sharing the One and the Many, with the absolute. While evaluating Plato, Keating observes that Plato used the term me,qexij ‘participation,’ which signifies a relationship of sharing with “the absolute and self-subsistent idea.”320 From the Christian theological perspective the Platonic notion of participation me,qexij is the relationship of dependence of the creation on the Creator described in terms of “grace or giftedness.” In such a sense the participatory ontology is the affirmation of the goodness of the creation.321 The Platonic concept of participation is taken up by Aristotle and then by the Neoplatonist school. It is also rooted in the Platonic contrast between Being and Becoming; “God is that which is and man is that which becomes.”322 Participation in divinity is a trinitarian act, especially through the grace of the Holy Spirit; this participation is neither affection nor division of the divine essence.323 Epistemologically speaking, knowledge is the experience of participation; however this participation is possible only as the result of divine operation.324 From this philosophical milieu, let us see briefly how this term Me,tocoj is used in the New Testament.

2.5.1 The Mete,cw in NT

In the New Testament use, the term participation is virtually synonymous as koinwni,a in the sense of partaking with someone in something.325 Paul uses this Mete,cw as children’s participation in the same flesh and blood of parents in Hb 2:14; the Eucharistic participation in the same broken bread of Christ that is body of Christ (I Cor 10: 17; 21). Paul uses Me,tocoj as sharing or partaking in a heavenly calling (Hb 3:1) and the sharing of children in the inheritance of their father’s heritage (Hb 12:8). Paul says that we have become partners of Christ by using the term Me,tocoj.326 There are three Pauline texts which speak of participation in the sense of relationship with the Holy Spirit, which is basically closer to sacramental metamorphosis; Hb 6:4 “partakers of the Holy Spirit” (meto,couj pneu,matoj a`gi,ou) 2Cor 13:13, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit (hv koinowni,a

tou/ avgi,ou pneu,matoj); and Phil 2:1 “participation in the Spirit” (koinwni,a pneu,matoj).327 From these three Pauline texts which speak of the concept of participation in the Holy

320 Daniel A. Keating, The Appropriation of Divine Life in Cyril of Alexandria, 146, as cited from Rudi A. Te Velde, Participation and Subsidiarity in Thomas Aquinas (Leiden: Brill, 1995) xi. For Plato the true Being is idea, not God. 321 James K.A. Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post-secular Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic & Paternoster Press, 2004, 22005) 192. 322 John Whittaker, “Plutarch, Platonism and Christianity,” H.J. Blumenthal & R.A. Markus (eds.), Neoplatonism and Early Christian Thought: Essays in honour of A.H. Armstrong (London: Variorum Publications, 1981) 50-63, 56. 323 Athanasius, Four Discourses Against Arians, Discourse I. 5.16, (NPNF IV). 324 Emil Bartos, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, 82. 325 Daniel A. Keating, The Appropriation of Divine Life in Cyril of Alexandria, 148. 326 Frederick William Danker (ed.), A Greek-English Lexicon, 642-643. 327 Daniel A. Keating, The Appropriation of Divine Life in Cyril of Alexandria, 149.


Spirit, we may come to a better conclusion on participation of the human person in the divine life through the sacraments, which we will discuss in the third chapter. It is clear that the NT usage of mete,cw is seen as participation in communion, especially participation in the Holy Spirit, which is the central theme of sacramental metamorphosis. Let us turn our discussion on its usage in Patristic theology.

2.5.2 The Mete,cw in Patristic Theology

We see the extensive use of the term mete,cw in Patristic theology in relationship to the participation in divine life. Irenaeus employs mete,cein and metoch, to elucidate the participation of the human person in the divine life of the incomprehensible God on the basis of human knowledge. He says, “For as those who see the light are within the light, and partake of its brilliancy; even so, those who see God are in God, and receive of His splendour.”328 All the irrational creatures have obtained the capability of rationality and sanctification by being partakers in the Word through the Holy Spirit, which is the attainment of salvation in cooperation with the Trinity. By participation all human persons have a share in God.329 Through participation s/he dwells in the life of the Trinity and becomes a sharer of the eternal life of God, which is the ultimate end of sacramental metamorphosis.

Similarly, Athanasius also made use of the term me,tocoj in a substantial manner. He frequently uses me,tocoj to indicate the relationship between the Logos and the human person.330 Keating presents sufficient arguments on the Athanasian usage of the term participation to explain the divinity of the Son and Spirit in view of the human share in the divine life. He points out that Athanasius made a definite link to the Incarnation and the sacramental participation in Christ.331 Gregory of Nyssa presents the dynamic participation of the human person in the Incarnation itself through the mediation of the sacrament of baptism and the Eucharist. He speaks of the participation in divine life as the union with immortality through the sacraments. He says;

Since, then, that God-containing flesh partook for its substance and support of this particular nourishment also, and since the God who was manifested infused Himself into perishable humanity for this purpose, viz. that by this communion with Deity mankind might at the same time be deified, for this end it is that, by dispensation of His grace, He disseminates Himself in every believer through that flesh, whose substance comes from bread and wine, blending Himself with the bodies of believers, to secure that, by this union with the immortal, man, too, may be a sharer in incorruption.332

328 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, iv. 20. 5. (ANF I) 489. 329 Origen, De Principiis I.3.5-6 (ANF IV), 253. 330 Athanasius, Contra Gentes 46, Robert W. Thomson ed. & trans., 131. 331 Daniel A. Keating, The Appropriation, 154. 332 Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism, 37 (NPNF V) 506.


This is the patristic usage of the term mete,cw as human participation in immortality and incorruptibility. This is achieved by partaking in sacramental life and union with Christ by sharing his Body and Blood in the sacraments. From this sacramentological perspective mete,cw is sharing immortality.

2.5.3 The Mete,cw as a Substantial Sharing in Immortality

The participation of the human person in divine life is oriented towards an inexplicable experience of sharing in immortality. Let us see the meaning of deification in 2 Peter 1: 4 is not an absorption in divine essence but it is the participation (sharing in immortality) in divine energies and divine attributes.333 Being sharers in the immortality of the Uncreated God always implies a relationship. When Russell looks at the specific Platonic usage of the two key terms o`moiosij and me,qexij, he argues that although me,qexij is the stronger term, “they both seek to express the relationship between Being and becoming, between that which exists in an absolute sense and that which exists contingently.”334 The Me,qexij is a real relation, it has been defined as; ‘“participation” is the name of the “relation” which accounts for the togetherness of the elements of diverse ontological types in the essential unity of a single instance.”335 When we say “participation” it conveys a relationship, which is substantial not just as matter of appearance and it is asymmetrical, not a relationship between equals. On the other hand, “likeness” is also a name for another “relationship” which accounts for the togetherness of elements of diverse ontological types. Therefore, according to Russell “participation” can be strong or weak depending on whether it is used properly (kuri,wj) or figuratively (katacrhstikw/j).336

We have to consider the two aspects in this regard; ontological and dynamic in this participation model. As Russell deems ontologically it is concerned with the transformation of the human nature by the Incarnation and dynamically with the individual appropriation of this deified humanity through the sacraments.337 In the same way, Meyendorff also observes that in the Byzantine tradition: “knowledge of God implies “participation” in God – i.e., not only intellectual knowledge, but a state of the entire human being, transformed by grace, and freely cooperating with it by the efforts of both will and mind.”338 Meyendorff suggests the biblical term “sanctification,” instead of qe,wsij from an ecumenical perspective with both Lutherans and the Orthodox traditions. He emphasizes that sanctification is possible only through participation in the divine

333 James Starr, “Does 2 Peter 1:4 Speak of Deification?,” 90. 334 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 2. 335 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 2. 336 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 2. 337 Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 2-3. 338 John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends & Doctrinal Themes, 140.


life.339 However, by affirming Gregory of Nazianzen, Palamas finds it erroneuos to identify the eternal glory of God with the imparticipable essence of God. He speaks of the eternal glory of God as participable because the vision of God is a mode of participation in Him.340 In any case the divine ousia is not shared with the created either epistemologically or ontologically.341 In the perspective of sacramental metamorphosis it is also significant to note that understanding the notion of human participation in divine energies as most of the Eastern theologians state, but however according to Zizioulas as Papanikolaou argues, it is the participation not in terms of divine energies but in terms of divine hypostasis of the Son of God.342 Nevertheless, participation in the divine life is a progressive process which has an eschatological perspective.

2.5.4 The Mete,cw Towards an Eschatological Communion

The human participation in divine immortality is also the participation in eschatological communion with the trinitarian God. It is an eschatologically oriented movement. The unique feature of participation according to Gregory of Nyssa is that it is a never-ending infinite process and has an eschatological perspective.343 This eschatological perspective of participation is essentially oriented towards the eternal salvation of the human person in relationship with the sacraments.

Patterson makes a remarkable observation on Plato who speaks on the question of what is “uncreated” and “created.” He prefers to call what is “being” and what is “coming into being,” “being” and “becoming.”344 When we discuss the eternal participation into the Uncreated, first of all, we should experience the greatest mystery of God, who is becoming in the created realm in order to make the human person sharers in the divine life, which is an eschatological experience. Where unity is central to salvation, there the theme of communion and participation are prominent. Salvation is “not reconciliation of man with God but reconstitution of the divine fullness from the divine sparks scattered in the world.”345 Powell speaks of the participation in the life of God in the sacrament of

339 John Meyendorff, “Humanity: “Old” and “New”- Anthropological Considerations,” John Meyendorff & Robert Tobias (eds.), Salvation in Christ: A Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1992) 59-65, 59. Sanctification is experienced only through participation in the Most Holy God, since qe,wsij is the real me,qexij in the holiness of God s/he becomes sanctified in it. However, me,qexij cannot be replaced as mere sanctification, because qe,wsij is experience beyond sanctification. 340 Gregory Palamas, Triads, III. ii. 13, Meyendorff (ed.), 99. 341 Paulos Gregorios, Cosmic Man, 122. 342 Aristotle Papanikolaou, Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine-Human Communion (Notre Dame: Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press, 2006) 106. 343 Daniel A. Keating, The Appropriation of Divine Life, 155. 344 L.G. Patterson, Methodius of Olympus: Divine Sovereignty, Human Freedom, and Life in Christ (Washington, D.C: The Catholic University of America Press, 1997) 45. 345 Eric Osborn, The Emergence of Christian Theology, 170.


baptism as an essential participation in the trinitarian God.346 This communion is within the trinitarian God between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as well as between God and the human persons together with the cosmos. This eschatological transcendence of God begins with the claim that “the being of God is in his becoming.” We can know God as he is ‘for us.’ God’s being is always in relation to someone and this being is found in relation to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as well as in the event of revelation. God’s being is always in his becoming and coming.347 The incomprehensible mysteries of God are incarnated in the Word of God and still continue in the sacraments. In this continuing process of transformation of the human person, s/he is ultimately in a relationship with the dual existence of the created and the uncreated.

2.6 Sacramental Metamorphosis: avge,nhtoj and genhto,j Sacramental metamorphosis is an embodiment with the union of created and uncreated. Let us see the major distinction between the nature of the created and the uncreated. Gregory of Nyssa speaks of the twofold division of existence; created and uncreated. While the uncreated possesses immutability and immobility, the created is liable to movement and alteration. The uncreated Trinity enters into the alterable life by being born again in the spirit and water.348 He speaks about the twofold nature of existence as mobility and immobility; in this regard the created being can move towards the uncreated and the union of the created and the uncreated is possible. John of Damascus also clearly demonstrates the distinction between the avge,nhtoj written with a single n which means that which has not been created, while avge,nnhtoj written with double n means that which has not been begotten. The first meaning implies a difference in essence which is uncreated and the latter is created or originated.349

Gregory of Nyssa and Cyril of Jerusalem made this transforming movement of the created to the uncreated in the language of sacramental metamorphosis. In sacramental metamorphosis the substantial faith in the uncreated is essential. While speaking about the mystery of baptism in view of the experience of Nicodemus, Gregory of Nyssa says; “So that if a man does not conduct himself towards the uncreated nature, but to that which is kindred to and equally in bondage with, himself, he is of the birth which is from below and not of that which is from above.”350 In the same way, according to Cyril of Jerusalem,

346 Samuel M. Powell, A Theology of Christian Spirituality, 65. 347 Eric Osborn, The Beginning of Christian Philosophy, 75. 348 Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism 39 (NPNF V) 506-7. 349 John of Damascus, Orthodox Faith, Book I, Saint John of Damascus, Frederic H. Chase trans., The Fathers of the Church 37, (Washington, D.C: The Catholic University of America Press, 1958, rep. 1970) 181. Basil also made a clear distinction between the created and the uncreated, which has beginning and without beginning. See Basil, Hexaemeron, hom. 1.7-8. (NPNF VIII). 350 Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism 39 (NPNF V) 507.


this movement is clearly shown in relationship to sacramental transformation. For him, the union and renewal of the created into the uncreated is realized through regeneration in the sacrament of baptism; “to put on the new man which is being renewed unto perfect knowledge of his creator.”351 Deification of the human person implies the complete liberation of the integral person from all kinds of created things and a movement towards communion with the uncreated transcendent God. God can be seen in His energies which were manifested in the created world. The progressive deification of the human person is through the permeation of divine glory.352 In sacramental metamorphosis, movement from the created to the uncreated is a result of co-activity with the divine energies, which are oriented toward a transformed experience. Winslow explains the Nazianzen’s view on qe,wsij as a “dynamic” relationship of the “divine-human” that implies the ability “to grow dynamically” in God “for man to become God.”353 While we discuss about the sacramental metamorphosis as a movement of created to the uncreated, it is noteworthy to point out Staniloae’s vision on it; he writes,

Deification is the passing of man from created things to the uncreated, to the level of divine energies. Man partakes of these, not of the divine essence. So it is understood how man assimilates more and more of the divine energies, without this assimilation ever ending, since he will never assimilate their source itself, that is, the divine essence, and become God by essence, or another Christ.354

Speaking about the radical disparity between the created and the Uncreated, Ware opines that its ontological and epistemological gap cannot be abolished.355 The radical incomprehensibility of God is not only the result of sinful human nature but also the ontological gap between the created and the uncreated. The uncreated Creator is inaccessible to both human and celestial creatures.356 The epistemological process of knowing God is essentially rooted not in a certain discursive intellectual exercise, but it is based on a personal relationship with God that which we experience in communion with God. This relationality is, however obviously the relationship between the created and uncreated being. In the sacramental relationship, it is noteworthy that there is an interaction between the created and the uncreated; one perfects the other in order to carry out the perfecting mission of the uncreated in the whole universe toward the fulfillment of God’s creation.

351 Cyril of Jerusalem, “Lenten Lectures (Catechesis)” I. 2, Leo P. McCauley trans., The Works of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem Vol.1, The Fathers of the Church Vol. 61 (Washington, D.C: The Catholic University of America Press, 1969) 92. 352 Per Lonning, Creation: An Ecumenical Challenge? Reflections issuing from a study by the Institute for Ecumenical Research Strasbourg, France (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1989) 169. 353 Donald F. Winslow, The Dynamics of Salvation: A Study in Gregory of Nazianzus, 188. Gregory of Nazianzen understood theosis not as “an event,” but as “a process.” Ibid., 190. 354 Dumitru Staniloae, Orthodox Spirituality, 373. 355 Kallistos Ware, “God Hidden and Revealed,” 126. 356 John Chryssavgis, Light Through Darkness: The Orthodox Tradition, 61.


2.6.1 Transforming Interaction between the Created and the Uncreated

In this section, we shall try to develop this relational experience from the perspective of sacramental theology. While we consider the transformation of the human person it is significant to note that the duality of human existence as created with body and soul, in this sense s/he has both material spiritual existence. With regard to our discussion on sacramental metamorphosis, the created and the uncreated are two fundamental notions, even though there is “a basic gulf (ca,sma)” between the created and uncreated which can be bridged by the will of the Creator.357 From the sacramentological point of view, the profound communication between the created and the uncreated necessarily implies transformation. As we have seen already the created is always liable to change and transformation and at the same time the uncreated is an unmovable being, which is the fundamental source of deification. Irenaeus says that the created has been sanctified and transformed in sacraments. He says;

For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of resurrection to eternity.358

Likewise, the transformation of the sacramental elements of the Eucharist, the whole celebration of the sacraments is oriented towards the transformation of the person as well as the cosmos. This transformation creates a new hope towards eternity and incorruptibility.

2.6.2 The Uncreated as the Author; the Created not as an Object

As the aforementioned sacramental transformation the uncreated God is the author of the transformation at the same time the created is not merely an object of it. From an epistemological point of view, in this interpersonal relationship between the created and the uncreated, the created is not considered merely as an object of the relationship, rather it is a divinely transformed experience in which the human person is also taken into consideration as the subject; for it is an experience of synergy. Aristotle teaches about the actual knowledge as “identical with its object.”359 In sacramental metamorphosis, the uncreated is the source and subject of the transformation of the human person and the cosmos. However, we cannot objectify the human person in sacramental metamorphosis in a substantial relationship between the created and the uncreated. Though the divine initiative is primary in this interpersonal relationship of the created and the uncreated, it is more appropriate to speak of a subject-subject relationship rather than subject-object

357 Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 51. 358 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4, 20, 5 (ANF I) 486. 359 Aristotle, De Anima, III. 5, 430a, J.A. Smith trans., The Basic Works of Aristotle, 592.


relationship. The human person is divinely transformed in the archetypal images, which are both subjects and objects.360 In this regard it is right to say that God is absolutely beyond every relationship of subject and object.361 The human person possesses incorruptibility and immortality through the transformation.

In sacramental metamorphosis, there is the union and participation which takes place in the dynamic interpersonal relationship between the created and the uncreated being. This is an actualized corporeal experience of the human person with the dynamic interrelation in the communion of the divine persons in the Trinity. When Gregory of Nyssa spells out the notions of the uncreated and created, he states that the only begotten God is the author and source of all created beings.362 He speaks of the two levels of existences (o;vvvvvntwn), the created (ktisto,n) and the uncreated (a;ktiston):

Since, then, there is a twofold division of existences, into created and uncreated, and since the uncreated world possesses within itself immutability and immobility, while the created is liable to change and alteration, of which will he, who with calculation and deliberation is to choose what is for his benefit, prefer to be the offspring; of that which is always found in a state of change, or of that which possesses a nature that is changeless, steadfast, and ever consistent and unvarying in goodness?363

The created is liable to change and in a state of movement. The movement of the created is, however towards possession of the immutable and uncreated, whereas, the divine nature, on the contrary, is unlimited and has no temporal dimension because it transcends eternity and infinity.364 The transformation towards eternity is the work of the Holy Spirit.

360 Walter Wink, The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of Man (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002) 156-7. However, the human person bears an ontological necessity; s/he is not the cause of his/her existence. In this sense s/he is a “passive agent in his [her] coming to be.” Nevertheless the unique freedom of the human person makes the remarkable choice to participate in divinity (deification). See Rowand Benedict Sheehan, “The Freedom of the Person in Christ,” 42. 361 Maximus the Confessor, The Ascetic Life, Polycarp Sherwood trans., 96. 362 Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius Book II (NPNF V), 2nd series, 113. Gregory of Nyssa says, “but that when the original creation of man had decayed and vanished away, to use his own language, and another new creation was wrought in Christ, in this too no other than He took the lead, but He is Himself the first-born of all that new creation of men which is effected by the Gospel.” Ibid., 113. 363 Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism 39, Moore William and Wilson Henry A trans., (NPNF V), 2nd series (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979) 506-507. Bracken explains this relationship in a more sociological manner. According to him; “Just as the three divine persons of the Christian Trinity are one God in virtue of their dynamic interrelation, so all created entities have their identity not in terms of their individual being but rather in terms of their participation in various social groupings or functioning systems of which they are members.” Cf. Joseph A. Bracken, The One in the Many: A Contemporary Reconstruction of the God-World Relationship (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001) 4. According to Turcescu, Gregory of Nyssa does not use the term “fatherhood” and “sonship” to indicate the first two persons in the Trinity, rather he prefers to use avgennhsi,a, ge,nnhsij and evkpo,reusij for the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit respectively. See Lucian Turcescu, “The Concept of Divine Person in Gregory of Nyssa’s To His Brother Peter, on the Difference Between Ousia and Hypostasis,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 42. 1-2 (1997) 63-82, 77. 364 David L. Balas, Metousia Theou: Man’s Participation in God’s Perfections According to Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Studia Anselmiana 55 (Rome: Herder, 1966) 76. Aristotle speaks about two distinctive


2.6.3 Transformation of the Created and the Work of the Holy Spirit

Gregory of Nyssa pertinently states that the Holy Spirit unites the Created and the Uncreated.365 The sacraments essentially unite both the created and the Uncreated through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Person of the Holy Spirit is the Giver of grace, which is uncreated grace and by its very nature it is divine. As Lossky points out, “[i]t is the energy or procession of the one nature: the divinity (qeo,thj) in so far as it is ineffably distinct from the essence and communicates itself to created beings, deifying them.”366 In sacramental metamorphosis the Spirit directs the transformation into the communion of divine life through becoming the body of the Son. Papathanassiou presented this view of deification in a more concrete manner towards a trinitarian communion; he writes,

He brought Creation into existence so that it would of its own volition lead towards God, meet him and finally become his flesh; to be more precise, the final goal of Creation is to become the body of the Son, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, and thus enter the eternal Trinitarian life. The realization of this schema began with the Incarnation of the Son.367

The human person is created with the potential and the means to advance towards God. “God alone is Infinite by his uncreated Nature: all else is finite, being created.”368 While affirming Stăniloaen theology, Bartos tries to establish that God created the human person in order to imitate the communion of the persons of the Trinity.369 God’s transcendence is assured by the character as Person. According to Staniloae only the Transcendent Person can assure an infinity, that which made possible the participation of the human person in

peculiarities of the soul; local movement and thinking. Both speculative and practical thinking is found in animals. See Aristotle, On the Soul, III.2, 427b. The soul of the animal is characterised by two faculties; the “faculty of discrimination in the work of thought and sense,” and the faculty of “originating local movement.” For him this kind of movement is “always for an end and is accompanied either by imagination or by appetite.” Ibid., 431b & 432b. With regard to the local movement, according to Aristotle mind and appetite are originating movement; mind, which calculates the means to an end, while appetite is in every form of it relative to its end. Mind never produces movement without appetite. Then mind will be always right, and at the same time appetite may be right or wrong. Ibid., III. 10, 433a 365 Gregory of Nyssa, On the Holy Spirit (NPNF V) 321-322. 366 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 172. God is only known through the triune communion of persons. Yannaras says, “God is known and communicable through His incomprehensible uncreated energies, remaining in essence unknown and incommunicable.” See Christos Yannaras, “The Distinction between Essence and Energies and its Importance for Theology,” Peter Chamberas trans., St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 19.4 (1975) 232-245, 241. 367 Athanassios N. Papathanassiou, “The Flight as Fight: The Flight into the Desert as a Paradigm for the Mission of the Church in History and Society,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 43.1-4 (1998) 167-184, 170. God communicates himself on a purely created level. This self-communication is self-manifestation also. Cf. Karl Rahner, The Trinity, 37-38. See also Rowan Benedict Sheehan, “The Freedom of the Person in Christ,” 44. 368 Iain M. Mackenzie, Irenaeus’s Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching: A Theological Commentary and Translation (Aldershot: Hants, 2002) 69-71. This distinction between Creator and creature is the main theme in the Books I and II of Adversus Haereses of Irenaeus. Cf. Ibid., 71. 369 Emil Bartos, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, 132.


the trinitarian communion by the grace that becomes an eternal reality.370 The Eastern doctrine of deification is based on this notion of the union between the uncreated God and the creature. The sacraments play a vital role in bridging the gap between the created and the uncreated, whereas, the alienation of the created from the uncreated creates certain darkness and turmoil, especially hopelessness in the divine human relationship, which results in a radical rupture of the relationship between the created and the uncreated. The extreme limit of the created being, where the human person is separated from God by nature and will, creates a new mode of non-being that is sin.371 Lossky states;

The infinite distance between the created and uncreated, the natural separation of man from God which ought to have been overcome by deification, became an impassable abyss for man after he had willed himself into a new state, that of sin and death, which was near a state of non-being. In order to reach that union with God, to which the creature is called, it was then necessary to break through a triple barrier of sin, death and nature.372

The Holy Spirit unites both into the communion of the Trinity. The way of deification finds its fulfillment only through triumphing over the obstacles of nature, sin and death. Cabasilas speaks about the triumph of these triple barriers as effected through the Christ event, as he deems, “that of nature by His Incarnation, of sin by His death, and of death by His resurrection.”373 Sacraments in the Church are the chief source and language of the triumph over these triple barriers and guide the human person towards participation in immortality. All created beings are specially called to come into the union with God that is accomplished in the cooperation of the created will with the divine will. Kallistos’ view on Salvation is significant to note;

370 Dumitru Staniloae, The Experience of God, 101. 371 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 135. Sin is not created but it is an accidental. According to Paul Ricoeur sin is “not the transgression of an abstract rule – value – but the violation of a personal bond……That is why the deepening of the sense of sin will be linked with the deepening of the meaning of the primordial relationship which is Spirit and Word.” Paul Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, Beacon Paperback Series, Emerson Buchanan trans., (Boston: Beacon, 1967) 52. However, this we shall discuss later. “In deification the ontological gap between the created and uncreated realm is crossed via the uncreated divine energies, but beyond this distinction there is something of God which is absolutely inaccessible, designated by the term “superessence.”’ Cf. Thomas L. Anastos, “Gregory Palamas’ Radicalization of the Essence, Energies, and Hypostasis Model of God,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 38 (1993) 335-349, 347. The economic manifestation of the trinitarian God is that “energy originates in the Father, being communicated by the Son in the Holy Spirit.” Cf. Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 82. There is an ontological distinction between the Un-created (God) and the created (universe). The essence of God and the creation are totally different. The word “Creation” denotes everything except God. Cf. Athanassios N. Papathanassiou, The Flight as Fight, 170. 372 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 135. Human nature is “destined” for the good and “inclined” to evil. See Paul Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, 252. This paradox of destination and inclination should be taken into consideration when we speak of the separation of the human from God. The apophatic baseline of Eastern theology recognises the incomprehensibility and inexpressibility of the knowledge and language of God, and made God uncreated. See Thomas L. Anastos, Gregory Palamas’ Radicalisation, 336. 373 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 136 as cited from De la vie en Christ, 3 (PG 150), Fr. in Irenikon, IX, 1932, suppl., pp. 89-90. See also Carl S. Tyneh, Orthodox Christianity: Overview and Bibliography (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2003) 68.


…the organic participation in the uncreated energies of God; it denotes transforming union with Christ in the Spirit; it denotes the total transfiguration of our created human personhood by divine grace and glory. On the other hand, of course, it does not mean that we become in a literal and unqualified sense God by essence and nature; it does not imply that we are turned into additional members of the Trinity.374

This transforming union of the created into the Uncreated God is realized in the sacraments, while never being a complete assimilation; rather the created is in a ceaseless state of becoming. In this respect, Maximus’ concept of creatures is noteworthy:

[They] are in a perpetual state of becoming. “Wherever there is diversity and multiplicity there is becoming; everything in the created world is in a state of becoming, the intelligible as well as the sensible, and this limitation and this movement of becoming are the domain of the forms of space and time. God alone remains in absolute repose; and His perfect unmovability places him outside space and time.375

The mystery of the Church is inherent in the creation, however according to Lossky it is the basic vocation of the created to participate in the fullness of divine life. It is called to make this union in the free cooperation of the created will with the divine will.376 At this point, it is vital to discuss the epistemological characteristics of sacramental metamorphosis in relationship to the twofold notions of the absolutely incomprehensible essence and the comprehensible energies of God.

2.7 Sacramental Metamorphosis: the Ouvsi,a - Evne,rgeiai In our discussion on Sacramental metamorphosis, there is the possibility of ambiguity with regard to the participation of the human person in the divine life. The remarkable distinction between essence and energies may be capable of clearing the ambiguities regarding Sacramental metamorphosis. The Cappadocian Fathers vividly affirm the distinction between the essence and energies in God. While confronting Eunomianism, the Cappadocians emphasized the unknowability of the divine essence by making clear that we may participate in the divine energies, not in the divine essence.377 Basil the Great

374 Kallistos of Diokleia, “Deification in St. Symeon the New Theologian,” Sobornost 25:2 (2003) 7-29, 10-11. The created is transformed by the uncreated; see Thomas L. Anastos, Gregory Palamas’ Radicalisation, 338. Again we see “The ontological gulf between God and the created being is crossed in deification, as the created subject “transcends humanity, is already God by grace; he is united to God and sees God by God.” Ibid., 339. The Christians are called to be the priests who minister the transformation of the whole universe into the Kingdom of God. This is actually “the human cooperation (synergia) in a divine work with cosmic potential.” Cf. Athanassios N. Papathanassiou, The Flight as Fight, 176. 375 Maximus the Confessor, De ambiguis (PG 91) 1260 C, as cited by Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 98. 376 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 112-113. 377 Emil Barto, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, 65, as cited from St. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto

(PG, 32) 136 BC. Basically ousia means the identity of a thing; what makes the thing what it is. See Stephen W. Need, Human Language and Knowledge in the Light of Chalcedon, Theology and Religion Series 187 (New York: Peter Lang, American University Studies, 1996) 37. Human persons can participate only in the divine energies and never in the divine ousia, St. Symeon speaks of the energies of the uncreated light. See Kallistos of Diokleia, “Deification in St. Symeon,” 20. The distinction between the


states the inaccessibility of human rationality with regard to the essence of God, but at the same time the accessibility of divine energies. Basil says that divine energies come down to us, while the essence of God remains inaccessible.378

The essence-energies distinction is an expression of the transcendence and immanance of God revealed in the Incarnation. The divine energies bridge the gap between the transcendent God and His creation.379 In this instance, sacraments are to be understood as the divine energies which elevate and thereby make possible the participation of the human person into the divine communion. According to Gregory Palamas there is only “one unoriginate essence,” that of divine essence, which is all-powerful without beginning.380 Divine essence transcends all kinds of affirmations and negations. Thus, the distinction between the essence and energies has already been made by the Cappadocian Fathers. The divine essence is ontologically distinct from the divine evne,rgeiai.381 The Ouvsi,a or essence means “God as he is in himself,” and the evne,rgeiai denotes God in “action and self-revelation.”382 Concerning the distinction between essence-energies, the theological contributions of Gregory Palamas is essential to our discussion.

essence and energies is the starting point of apophatic knowledge of God. See Christos Yannaras, On the Absence and Unknowability of God, 83. The purpose of essence/energies distinction is as Papanikolaou says; “It protects the reality of the mystical experience in theological expression, and prevents it from falling into a rationalistic complacency that would preclude an ecstatic union with God.” See Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Divine Energies or Divine Personhood…,” 357-385, 363.

378 Basil, Letters 234, 1 (PG 32) 868-72 as cited by John Chryssavgis, Light Through Darkness, 61. The Ousia is shared within the trinitarian Godhead and cannot be shared with the creation either epistemologically (intellectually) or ontologically (in terms of being). See Paulos Gregorios, Cosmic Man, 122. 379 Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Divine Energies or Divine Personhood:,” 357-385, 359. This essential

distinction of essence/energies implies being/becoming in God. See Arthur Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming – Natural, Divine, and Human, Theology and the Sciences (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993) 100.

380 Gregory Palamas, Triads, III. ii. 5, 93. 381 Emil Bartos, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, 70-71. The energies are natural processions which are inseparable from the nature and nature is inseparable from the three Persons, personal procession of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Cf. Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 86. 382 Kallistos Ware, “God Hidden and Revealed,” 125-136, 128. Basilian view in this regard is explained by Anthony Meredith as; “the inner nature, or ousia, of God is inaccessible to us, we can know a good deal about his activities – ‘energeiai’ is the name Cappadocians gave to them – in so far as they effect us.” Cf. Anthony Meredith, Gregory of Nyssa, The Early Church Fathers, 14. In order to accommodate the doctrine of deification Cappadocian Fathers appropriated the Aristotelian terms such as “essence,” “energies” and “hypostasis.” In order to show the unity in Trinity, they used these terms. One Divine essence is identically shared by the three divine hypostases. Cf. Thomas L. Anastos, Gregory Palamas’ Radicalization, 340-41. The root meaning of the term fu,sij “nature” (which is derived from the Latin term natura) is “to grow” or “to be born.” That shows the created entities, according to Yannaras the same goes for the term being or essence ouvsi,a; “God transcends every essence, being none of the things that are, but beyond every being and the source of all the beings,” as cited from Scholia on the Divine Names (PG 4) 188A, by Christos Yannaras, On the Absence and Unknowability, 63. The divine energies reveal to us the personal otherness of God and make it accessible to the human experience. Ibid. 85.


2.7.1 Palamite Distinction

Gregory Palamas is a major intellectual and spiritual figure of the Orthodox theological world, who also reaffirms this remarkable distinction between essence and energies in Eastern theology.383 For him, though God has the entire manifestation in His energies, essence and energies are not totally identical in God.384 God is manifested in his energies which is essentially a deifying gift of God. Gregory says: “But you should not consider that God allows Himself to be seen in His superessential essence, but according to His deifying gift and energy, the grace of adoption, the uncreated deification, the enhypostatic illumination.”385 By recapitulating the views of Gregory of Nyssa and other Fathers, Palamas says, “the natural energy is the power which manifests every essence, and only nonbeing is deprived of this power; for the being which participates in an essence will also

383 Gregory Palamas was born to a noble family in Constantinople in 1296. He received an excellent education in Aristotelian philosophy. He became a monk at the age of twenty in Mount Athos and was in close contact with hesychastic life, which is the life of prayer and withdrawal, of which the basic goal is to participate in the divine energies. He became the Archbishop of Thessalonica in 1347. He began to engage in a debate with the Greek-Italian philosopher, Barlaam the Calabrian on theological method. These discussions led him to the writings of the Triads. He argues that both the body and mind of the human person could be transformed by the knowledge of God. He states: “If God were absolutely transcendent, but also could be “experienced” and “seen” as an uncreated and real Presence, one had to speak both of a totally transcendent divine “essence” and of uncreated, but revealed “energies.” Gregory Palamas, Triads, John Meyendorff (ed.), 7. Barlaam became shocked by the Palamite claim on human participation in the divine life. In response to Barlaam, Gregory emphatically presents deification as an experiential reality. See also Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 304-305. See more on Barlaam, Robert E. Sinkewicz, “The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God in the Early Writings of Barlaam the Calabrian,” Mediaeval Studies 44 (1982) 181-242. See more on the Palamite teaching on thesois, Norman Russell, “Theosis and Gregory Palamas: Continuity or Doctrinal Change?,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 50.4 (2006) 357-79. The Aristotleian notion of essence and energy came through Plotinus, the Cappadocians, Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor and finally Palamas related it with theosis. See Ibid., 376. See also Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, 68. In order to preserve the simplicity of God, Western theology speaks of the simple substance whereas Eastern theology speaks of the idea of superessential essence. See Emil Bartos, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, 72. “The deifying energy is a function of the superessential essence of the Holy Spirit.” It is enhypostatic, which means “an energy having no hypostatic independent existence of its own, it exists as a function of the three divine hypostases in so far as they enact the divine essence, and it exists gratuitously in created hypostases which are given the privilege of ‘acting’ the divine essence.” Cf. Thomas L. Anastos, Gregory Palamas’ Radicalization, 343. Michael Hryniuk affirms the possibility of real deification saying, “he [Palamas] employs the Cappadocian concept of divine, uncreated energies which are “enhypostatized” – that is, which express the distinct modes of existence of the divine persons.” Cf. Michael Hryniuk, “Triumph or Defeat of the Trinity?,” 9. The enhypostatized divine energies express the divine persons as the opera ad extra of God. Ibid., 10. God as the universal source of being, “transcends being in essence,” this superessential essence is the emphasis on God’s transcendence. See Michael Hryniuk, “Triumph or Defeat of the Trinity?,” 5-26, 14. 384 Gregory Palamas, Triads, III. ii. 9, 96. 385 Gregory Palamas, Triads, III. i. 29, 84. Unlike Barlaam who made use of reason to know both the created and the uncreated, Palamas used a different approach in his methodology of knowing the created and the uncreated. The divine grace illuminates human reason to comprehend the concepts and objects through the illumination of nous. The attainment of knowledge of God is through the divine illumination of the nous. See Hierotheos (Vlahos) of Nafpaktos and St. Vlasios, “Orthodox Theology and Science,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 44.1-4 (1999) 131-148, 134.


surely participate in the power which naturally manifests that essence.”386 Though the essence of God is absolutely imparticipable, the divine energies are participable so that the human person can participate in divine life. Gregory says,

Since man can participate in God and since the super-essential essence of God is absolutely unparticipable, there is a certain something between the participable essence and the participants, which permits them to participate in God. …… He will thus be present for all with His manifestations and His creative and providential energies; in one word, we must seek a God in whom we can have a share in one way or another, so that by participating in Him, each one of us may receive, in the manner proper to him and according to the analogy of participation, being, life and deification.387

Therefore, it is clear that Eastern theology made a distinction between the divine essence and energies. Knowing God is not an abstract concept but participation in His uncreated energies; therefore energies become the key concept in deification.388

2.7.2 Essence-Energies Distinction and Sacramental Transformation

The essence of God is incomprehensible and unknowable. Basil the Great affirms that the essence of God is “totally unlimited” and unapproachable. Human beings are incapable of knowing the nature, essence and inner life of God.389 The Fathers of the Church do agree with the incomprehensibility of God’s essence and they stress that we can know God through His divine energies.390 Furthermore, Nissiotis made a vital step with the distinction between “essence” and “energy” in relation to sacraments. He says;

By using these philosophical terms, which they put forward in a tentative way, they seek to denote the infinite distance between divine and human nature, and at the same time the immediacy of their co-existence through “the Act” of the Holy Spirit in them as members of the Church who receive this act through the “mysteries” (sacrament).391

Ware also made a remarkable contribution to the distinction between essence and energies in sacramental perspective. According to him, the Holy Spirit works through the sacraments in the life of the faithful and consequently s/he is to be transformed by both

386 Gregory Palamas, Triads, III. ii. 7, 95. 387 Gregory Palamas, Triads III, 2, 25, Less Triads, 2, 29 as cited by George Maloney, 71-72. As Ware points out that Gregory Palamas again states: “[God] is not revealed in his essence (ousia), for no one has ever seen or described God’s nature (physis); but he is revealed in the grace (charis), power (dynamis) and energy (energeia) which is common to Father, Son and Spirit. Distinctive to each of the three is the person (hypostasis) of each, and whatever belongs to the person. Shared in common by all three are not only the transcendent essence – which is altogether nameless, unmanifested and imparticipable, since it is beyond all names, manifestation and participation – but also the divine grace, power, energy, radiance, kingdom and incorruption whereby God enters through grace into communion and union with the holy angels and the saints.” See Kallistos Ware, “God Hidden and Revealed,” 130-131. 388 Emil Bartos, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, 57. There is this distinction to affirm the incomprehensibility of God in His essence and the possibility of deification through God’s energies. Cf. Michael Hryniuk, “Triumph or Defeat of the Trinity?,” 9. 389 Carl S. Tyneh (ed.), Orthodox Christianity, 8. 390 Carl S. Tyneh (ed.), Orthodox Christianity, 8. 391 N.A. Nissiotis, “Interpreting Orthodoxy,” 10.


divine and human cooperation. For example, he speaks of the sacrament of Baptism: “[t]hrough this Baptism in the Holy Spirit, which is closely linked to theosis, the saints become ‘light in light’, that is to say, they are transformed into light by the divine light; each of them ‘is baptized little by little entirely without stain, a child of the light and the day, and no longer the child of a mortal man.”392 Similarly, by receiving Holy Communion we will be transformed into the ‘divinised body’ sw/ma teqeo,meon of Christ. This divinization is partaking of the divinised body which is that of God himself, thereby s/he also becomes god through this ineffable union of the divine and human.393 Through Holy Communion the totality of Christ’s person; human and divine, is imparted to the totality of the human person.394 Bartos affirms that grace grants an ontological spiritual condition as a divine operation in the human person.395 With regard to the sacramental metamorphosis the notion of participation in divine energies is significant.

2.7.3 Participation in Energies

Deification is taking place necessarily through incorporation with the divine energies. The energies represent not only the power of God, but also God’s generosity.396 Though the incomprehensibility is absolute, God is known through his relationships and communion. God is, however, known, communicated and participated through the uncreated divine ‘energies.’ On the other hand, if God were to remain entirely imparticipable, then genuine ontological communion between God and a human person or deification would be impossible.397 In the specific understanding of deification through divine grace we have

392 Kallistos of Diokleia, “Deification in St. Symeon the New Theologian,” 14. 393 Kallistos of Diokleia, “Deification in St. Symeon,” 14-15, as cited from Hymn 30: 467-72. 394 Kallistos of Diokleia, “Deification in St. Symeon the New Theologian,” 15. 395 Emil Bartos, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, 286. 396 Duncan Reid, Energies of the Spirit, 64. 397 Catherine M. LaCugna, God for Us, 183, 184. See also Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, 68. Though we distinguish energy from nature and nature from persons, Yannaras affirms: “we do not attribute any synthetic character to nature itself; we do not divide and we do not fragment nature into persons and energies: the persons and the energies are neither “parts” nor “components” nor “passions” nor “accidents” of nature, but the mode of being of nature.” The personal expression of the energy recapitulates “impartially” the entire nature; it is the existence of nature. Therefore, the only way we can name the nature is in the personally expressed energy of nature; energy signifies nature: “Essence and energy can both receive the same name (lo,goj). The natural energy that is expressed personally represents that possibility of empirical knowledge, which comes from a personal “participation” and “communion” in the essence or nature.” See Christos Yannaras, “The Distinction between Essence and Energies…,” 236. God transfigures the human person as well as the whole cosmos through the energies. Sacramental grace leads the human person, with the help of his/her God-given capacity to his/her “freedom in responsibility,” which makes him/her into the self-transcending and transfiguring participation in the divine energies that lead to deification. See John Breck, “Divine Initiative: Salvation in Orthodox Theology…,” 108-109. God’s personal giving is uncreated grace; the effect of this personal love and giving is the transformation of the human person and the world which is through created grace or sanctifying grace. Cf. Michael G. Lawler, Symbol and Sacrament: A Contemporary Sacramental Theology (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1987) 54. See also Christos Yannaras, On the Absence and Unknowability of God, 63.


seen that it is basically the adoption of human beings as God’s sons and daughters. Irenaeus states: “But of what gods [does he speak]? [Of those] to whom He says, “I have said, ye are gods, and all sons of the Most High.” To those, no doubt, who have received the grace of “adoption, by which we cry, Abba Father.”398 The human person should partake in the divine life intrinsically through the energies of God. Irenaeus emphatically states that unless the human person had been joined to God, s/he could never have become a partaker of incorruptibility; furthermore this participation is transformation in the divine communion. He writes;

For, in what way could we be partakers of the adoption of sons, unless we had received from Him through the Son that fellowship which refers to Himself, unless His Word, having been made flesh, had entered into communion with us? Wherefore also He passed through every stage of life, restoring to all communion with God.399

This deification through the grace of God is essentially effected through the energies of God. Reid affirms that this participation in the divine life makes an elevated status, that is the children of God by adoption; he pertinently states:

Creatures are deified through God’s energy, or grace. The ontological distinction is retained between the one who is Son of the Father by nature and those who – even in deification – are children of God by adoption. The Son is eternally God, one of the holy trinity, while deified human beings participate in the energies of God.400

Eastern theology emphatically speaks of the participation in the divine energies which paves a path towards the transformation of the human person through his/her works of charity. This is also the way to meet the presence of God in the other. Let us now turn our attention to the deifying nature of energies.

2.7.4 Trinitarian Deifying Energies

The purpose of human life is to take part in the trinitarian communion and particularly, share in the life of Christ in divine grace and energy.401 Divine energy is not some abstract concept but it is the salvific necessity in the life of the Church.402 As we have already discussed, the triune nature of God has only one unique essence and energy. These energies are not merely accidents or “things” but are truly God, the Father, the Son and the

398 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, (ANF I) iii. vi, 419. 399 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, (ANF I) iii. xviii, 448. 400 Duncan Reid, Energies of the Spirit, 129. In this regard LaCugna also affirms: “The deifying, uncreated energies are a procession (pro,odoj) or literally a ‘leap out from’ God (e;xalma) that express and make manifest the superessential essence of God and enable the human person to enter into ‘real’ communion with God.” See Catherine M. LaCugna, God For Us, 184. 401 Christofors Stavropoulos, Partakers of Divine Nature, 18. Energies are uncreated (avktistoj). Cf. Kallistos Ware, “God Hidden and Revealed,” 130. Deification is not a change of nature but it is the unending process of inpouring of the Divine energies. See David Mellling, “The Heavenly Liturgy: Our Participation with the Angels,” Sourozh 102 (2005) 4-18, 7. 402 Emil Bartos, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, 65. as cited from Didymus, On the Holy Spirit (PG 39) 1062 BC.


Holy Spirit.403 The Trinity is consubstantial and undivided. The Father begets the Son from His own essence eternally and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and is sent to the world through the Son.404 Moreover, our dynamic relationship with God and the cosmos is fulfilled through the divine energies.

The trinitarian basis of the uncreated energies can be clearly vindicated, because they originate from the Father, they are received by the Son in His proper way and by the Holy Spirit.405 The Holy Spirit brings the deifying divine energy into the innermost parts of the human consciousness and it produces an innate sensitivity to God. Moreover, this sensitivity creates a relationship. In such a way sacramental metamorphosis is intrinsically a movement which has the progression towards a relationship with the uncreated. Bartos argues that it is a threefold relationship: “(1) in relation to God as a special capacity of the soul to perceive God as distinct from the world; (2) in relation to the person himself as an accentuation of the human consciousness; and (3) in relation to other human beings as an intensive humanisation.”406 In this sense, the trinitarian deifying energy is relational; a relationship among the human person and with the whole cosmos. This trinitarian relationship is manifested in the cosmos through the Incarnation, which is the fullness of trinitarian manifestation in history. This is the manifestation of divine essence-energies in view of deification of the micro-macrocosmic realities. In this way, the divine-human encounter is possible within the spatio-temporal dimensions. Ware affirms that every fu,sij has its own evne,rgeiai, the incarnated Christ has two natural energies and two wills, human and divine, eternal and uncreated.407 Therefore, the sacramental metamorphosis is basically through the uncreated energies of God, which is the fruit of Incarnation, which we shall discuss in the next chapter. Human participation in the divine energies made possible the elevation of human nature.

2.8 Sacramental Metamorphosis as Elevation of Human Nature The created human nature has an innate eagerness to be elevated into the uncreated through the divine energies. First of all, let us discuss the meaning of “nature.” Aristotle used the term fu,sij which means ‘growth.’ ‘Nature’ means primarily “the genesis of growing things;” secondly, the “immanent part of a growing thing,” from which growth proceeds and; thirdly, “the source from which the primary movement in each natural object is present in it in virtue of its own essence;” and, finally nature means “the essence

403 George A. Maloney (ed.), Pilgrimage of the Heart, 45. 404 Carl S. Tyneh (ed.), Orthodox Christianity, 22. 405 Emil Bartos, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, 59. 406 Emil Bartos, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, 59. Cabasilas affirms baptism as the initiation into the trinitarian communion. The three times immersion in the water during baptism is the symbol of initiation in the trinitarian life. See Nicholas Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, 73. 407 Kallistos Ware, “God Hidden and Revealed,” 129.


of natural objects.”408 So, nature is the essence of the objects, it is “a source of movement; for the matter is called the nature because it is qualified to receive this, and process of becoming and growing are called nature because they are movements proceeding this.”409 Thus, fu,sij is understood in terms of movement and growth towards perfection, it is the process of becoming. From this basic Greek philosophical understanding of fu,sij let us discuss the elevation of human nature, which is the movement towards participating into the divine life.

Gregory of Nyssa states that the immutable divine nature transforms the human nature; “What is impassible by nature did not change into what is passible, but what is mutable and subject to passions was transformed into impassibility through its participation in the immutable.”410 According to John of Damascus the change of nature is “economical union,” which is an inseparable union with God the Word, by which he means “union in subsistence by virtue.” It is also the permeation of natures through one another.411 In this respect, Clement of Alexandria says that the human is “made immortal by the grace of God, through faith and righteousness, and by knowledge.”412 Though s/he is created in potential participation in the divine grace, Cyril of Alexandria proves that human nature underwent corruption as a result of Adam’s transgression, whereas the Word of God became human and assumes human nature and destroys the corruption of the nature and elevates the same to the state of immortality and salvation.413 The notion of elevation of human nature does not mean an absorption into the divine nature or an elimination of personal distinctiveness. Deification neither assimilates human nature into the nature of God nor threatens the uniqueness of it. But it is the participation of human nature in divinity through adoption by the grace of God. We reiterate that deification is not an essential participation in the Divine ouvsi,a but it is the participation in the triune communion, which is not only an experience of life in the world but it is eschatological also. In this sense, sacramental metamorphosis is absolutely a becoming process.

408 Aristotle, Metaphysics, V. 4, The Basic Works of Aristotle, Richard McKeon (ed.), 755-6. 409 Aristotle, Metaphysics, V. 4, 1015a, The Basic Works of Aristotle, Richard McKeon (ed.). Deification is the process of uplifting toward God as procession; moreover it is completely dominated by the quest for knowledge. Thereby, it is elucidated as fundamentally an epistemological context. Cf. Paul Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts and an Introduction to Their Influence (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) 93. 410 Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, Abraham J. Malherbe & Everett Ferguson trans., (New York: Paulist Press, 1978) 61. Blowers says, “Ontologically speaking, the mystery of deification coincides with the full ‘history’ of human nature, a nature which receives definition precisely by its ongoing openness to gracious restoration and transformation.” Blowers, “Realized Eschatology in Maximus the Confessor,” Ad Thalassium 22, 262-3. 411 John of Damascus, “Concerning the Deification of the Nature of our Lord’s Flesh and of His Will,” III. 17 (NPNF IX) 2nd seires, The AGES Digital Library Collections, Philip Schaff (ed.). 412 Fragments of Clemens Alexandrinus, William Wilson trans., (ANF II) 571. 413 Cyril of Alexandria, First Letter to Succensus 9, Cyril of Alexandria: Select Letters, Lionel R. Wickham ed. & trans., Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1983) 79.


According to Staniloae this eschatological view of deification is clearly affirmed by Maximus the Confessor, he says; “[d]eification never stops, but continues beyond the ultimate limits of the powers of human nature, to the infinite.”414 The elevation of human nature in theosis implies his/her “real involvement in the divine life.”415

In the perspective of the elevation of human nature into divine, it is noteworthy to point out God’s kenotic love in this specific attainment. In Incarnation as God empties and becomes one with human nature, so the human person in deification also empties him/herself in order to be elevated to the divine realm. Gregory of Nyssa has pertinently remarked; ‘The Godhead “empties” Itself that It may come within the capacity of the Human Nature, and the Human Nature is renewed by becoming Divine through its commixture with the Divine.’416 Therefore, through sacramental deification the human person has been lifted up towards a greater divine glory, which is an ontological transformation. Saint Athanasius of Mount Sinai states:

Theosis (Divinisation) is the elevation to what is better, but not the reduction of our nature to something less, nor is it an essential change of our human nature. A divine plan, it is the willing condescension of tremendous dimension by God, which He did for the salvation of others. That which is of God is that which has been lifted up to a greater glory, without its own nature being changed.417

The elevation of human nature is essentially a dynamic process towards the achievement of divine-human participation; it has also the task of self-renunciation in this process. Descending God does not lose the incomprehensible divinity and the ascending human never loses his/her personal uniqueness in the divinity. Becoming one in the Being is not assuming the nature, but it is the experience of the life of communion where we keep the distinctiveness in divinity. We shall discuss this kenotic dimension in sacramental metamorphosis in the next chapter. According to Florovsky, through Incarnation of the Word, the human nature was not merely anointed with grace but was “assumed into an intimate and hypostatical unity with the Divinity itself.” It is the elevation into the

414 Dumitru Staniloae, Orthodox Spirituality, 363. 415 Ross Aden, “Justification and Deification,” Dialogue 32.2 (1993) 102-107, 106. The elevation towards divine status (apotheosis) is also divinely granted. 416 Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius 5.5 (NPNF V) 2nd series, 181. The manifestation of true humanity and divinity serve as an interpretative key for social action in the Church. See Lisa D. Maugans Driver, “The Fulfillment of Human Nature in Eastern Patristic Christianity,” David L. Weaver-Zercher & William H. Willimon (eds.), Vital Christianity: Spirituality, Justice, and Christian Practice (New York: T&T Clark, 2005) 102-114, 103. 417 St. Athanasius of Mount Sinai, Concerning the Word (PG 89) 77 B-C, 159. St. Ephrem speaks of deification in the Syriac tradition, saying that God created man in view of a ‘created god,’ Christ himself fulfils this destiny. Ephrem the Syrian, The Pearl Seven Hymns on the Faith, J.B. Morris trans., (NPNF XIII), 2nd Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979) 300. Hilarion Alfeyev, St. Symeon the New Theologian, 259. Isaac the Syrian speaks of the total transfiguration of human nature by the grace of God. As cited by Hilarion Alfeyev, St. Symeon the New Theologian, 259.


trinitarian communion.418 Basil states that the being made like God and being made God is the “highest of all.”419 Staniloae presents Maximus’ vision in this connection as:

So, if deification in a broad sense means the elevation of man to the highest level of his natural powers, or to the full realization of man, because all during this time divine power of grace is active in him, deification in a strict sense involves the progress which man makes beyond the limits of his natural powers, beyond the boundaries of his nature, to the divine and supernatural level..420

Divinization into the trinitarian communion is an elevation of human nature, it is realized through the participation in divine life by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. In the Holy Spirit we become sharers and partakers in the divine communion. The Holy Spirit transcends all creation and brings the life of the triune God into every creation. In the life of sacraments the human person can grow in union with God by way of attaining the forgiveness of sins and committing him/herself in entirety for the grace of God. Maximus the Confessor says;

He sets in movement in us an insatiable desire for himself who is the Bread of Life, wisdom, knowledge, and justice. When we fulfil the Father’s will he renders us similar to the angels in their adoration, as we imitate them by reflecting the heavenly blessedness in the conduct of our life. From there he leads us finally in the supreme ascent in divine realities to the Father of lights wherein he makes us sharers in the divine nature by participating in the grace of the Spirit, through which we receive the title of God’s children and become clothed entirely with the complete person who is the author of this grace, without limiting or defiling him who is Son of God by nature, from whom, by whom, and in whom we have and shall have being, movement, and life.421

All the way through the life of prayer and sacraments, the faithful are in the process of being elevated in their nature in the divine likeness. This life giving and transforming mission is done through the divine energies. Since our discussion on sacramental metamorphosis is the act of partaking in the trinitarian life of the triune God, let us turn our discussion to a very rich theological tradition namely, to that of the trinitarian theology of the Eastern Churches.

418 Georges Florovsky, Creation and Redemption Vol. III, Collected works Florovsky Georges Series

(Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1976) 95. 419 Basil, On the Spirit 9.23. (NPNF VIII) 16. 420 Dumitru Staniloae, Orthodox Spirituality, 363 as cited from Maximus the Confessor, Chapters of Five Centuries 1.28, PG 90. 1189. 421 Maximus the Confessor, Commentary on the Our Father 5, Maximus the Confessor: Selected Writings George C. Berthold trans., (Mahwah, NY: Paulist Press, 1985) 118. The divine grace is also called “elevating grace.” Cf. Barthelemy Froget, The Indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Souls of the Just: According to the Teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, Sydney A. Raemers trans. (New York: The Paulist Press, 1921) 146.


3 Trinitarian Theology and Sacramental Metamorphosis Sacramental metamorphosis is intrinsically embedded in trinitarian theology. Trinitarian theology is the fundamental dogma of the Christian Churches;422 by the term ‘God’ Christians mean the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.423 On evaluating Staniloea’s theology, Rogobete clearly says that the Holy Trinity represents the metaphysical truth, he says the Trinity is the supreme mystery of existence, in a certain extent it is intelligible. Moreover the Holy Trinity is love without beginning.424 This fundamental experience of God as the Trinity is experienced and celebrated in the liturgy and sacraments of the Church. Compared to the Western understanding of the Trinity, the Eastern trinitarian theology has a different primary emphasis. We shall explain this primary emphasis of Eastern trinitarian theology after introducing the trinitarian theology of the Cappadocian Fathers. However, we do not intend to go into an elaborate discussion on the trinitarian theology of the Eastern Churches; rather we will explain the elementary notions of the trinitarian theology from the perspective of sacramental metamorphosis, especially the communion of the human person with the trinitarian life through the sacraments. The economy of salvation of the human person is the total incorporation into the trinitarian life of God through the paschal mysteries of the Son. In this sense, deification of the human person is the work of the Trinity which paves the path to the transformation of oneself as well as of the cosmos.425

Trinitarian theology was systematically developed in the East especially with the strenuous efforts of the famous Cappadocian Fathers. Though our study mainly focuses on the contemporary theologians of the East, it is necessary to study the Cappadocian Fathers first for they are the principal formulators of the Eastern trinitarian theology. Thus, it is necessary to take a look at the trinitarian theology of the Cappadocian Fathers.

3.1 The Cappadocian Trinitarian Theology Our discussion on the trinitarian theology is mainly based on the Cappadocian contributions. The Cappadocian Fathers had a decisive role in the formation of the

422 Gregory Nazianzen, Introduction to the “Theological” Orations (NPNF VII), Philip Schaff & Henry Wace (eds.), 2nd Series (Edinburgh: Eerdmans, 1978) 280-284, 282.

423 Gregory Nazianzen, The Second Oration on Easter 45 (NPNF VII) 422-434. 424 Silviu Eugen Rogobete, “Mystical Existentialism or Communitarian Participation: Vladimir Lossky and Dumitru Staniloae,” Lucian Turcescu (ed.), Dumitru Staniloae, 167-206, 193. “God is identically monad and triad”; monad is the principle of essence and triad is the mode of existence. See James Nicholas Madden, Christology and Anthropology, 237. The trinitarian existence of God implies love and freedom; it is also closely related to the notion of deification in the trinitarian God through participation in the hypostasis of Christ. It also affirms the real divine-human communion. See Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Divine Energies or Divine Personhood…” 377. 425 Anne Hunt, The Trinity and the Paschal Mystery, 122.


trinitarian theology of the Eastern churches.426 They strongly defended the divine unity against the erroneous teachings of Eunomius who identified God’s essence as ‘unbegottenness,’ and consequently argued that the begotten Son was not God.427 In order

426 The Cappodocian Fathers of the Fourth century are (1) Basil the Great (330-379 C.E.); older brother of Gregory of Nyssa, bishop of Caesarea, (2) Gregory of Nyssa (330-395 C.E.) and (3) Gregory of Nazianzus (329-389 C.E.); bishop of Sasima and later Constantinople. See more about the Cappadocian contributions on trinitarian theology, Anthony Meredith, The Cappadocians, 102-110. 427 Joseph T. Leinhard, “Ousia and Hypostasis: The Cappadocian Settlement and the Theology of ‘One Hypostasis,’” Stephen Davis, Daniel Kendall & Gerald O’Collins (eds.), The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) 107-108. See also Catherine M. LaCugna, God For Us, 53-57. The Cappadocian Fathers strongly attacked the erroneous Eunomianism which is named after Eunomius of Constantinople. His followers were called Eunomians or Anomoeans, because of their denial of any substantial similarity between God the Father and God the Son. The word Anomoeans is from the Greek word anomoios which means “unlike,” “dissimilar.” This is the most extreme group in the 4th century who taught that the Father and the Son had “dissimilar” natures. Donald K. McKim, Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1996) 12. They are also known as Aetians and Exoucontians. Eunomius came from a peasant family of Cappadocia. He went to Alexandria and became a disciple of Aetius in 356 C.E. Eunomius became an ordained deacon in 358 C.E. See F.L. Cross (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (London: Oxford University, 1957) 473. He was upholding the tradition of Arius and Eusebius of Nicomedia and fighting against the Nicene and Homoousian parties. Cf. Panayiotis Papageorgiou, “Plotinos and Eunomios: A Parallel Theology of the Three Hypostases,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 37 (1992) 215-231, 216. Eunomuis’ eloquence won over the minds of the multitude. After the council of Seleucia in 359 C.E. Eunomius was appointed the bishop of Cyzicus. His heretical positions had made him resign his See and he retired to Cappadocia. He spent his last years at Dakora where he continued to write against the position of Nicaea. He died in exile at Dakora. See E.A. Livingstone (ed.), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1977) 181. His principal work is an apologhtiko,j composed in 360 C.E. According to Wickham, Eunomius delivered the Apologia in January 360 C.E. at a Council held in Constantinople, convened by the homoousian bishop Akakios of Caesaria. Cf. L.R. Wickham, “The Date of Eunomius’ Apology: A Reconsideration,” Journal of Theological Studies 70 (1969) 231-240. He authored a Commentary on Romans and a collection of Epistles, both now lost. Cf. F.L. Cross (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 473. After the publication of Basil’s Contra Eunomium, Eunomius wrote his Apologia Apologiae ‘Apology for the Apology’. Cf. Catherine M. LaCugna, God For US, 56. Major theological figures of his time composed full-scale treatises against him; among them Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Saint Basil the Great and Theodore of Mopsuestia are noteworthy. St. Basil the Great refuted him in his doctrinal work Against Eunomius (364). The principal teaching of Eunomius is based on One “single supreme Substance whose simplicity is opposed to all, even virtual, distinction whether of properties or attributes.” He calls this single Substance a.gennhsi,a (‘Ungenerated Being’), which he held to be “absolutely intelligible.” Cf. F.L. Cross (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 473. See also E.A. Livingstone (ed.), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 181. His concept of One single supreme substance is derived from Plotinus’ concept of One, which we have already discussed. Cf. A.H. Armstrong, The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967) 237 as cited in Panayiotis Papageorgiou, “Plotinos and Eunomios,” 217. According to the Eunomian argument being the Unbegotten belongs to the substance of the Father and being Begotten belongs to the substance of the Son; therefore, the Father and the Son are of different substances. Gregory Nazianzen maintained the Nicene Faith of the Trinity or Tri-unity of God; that is, the Doctrine that while there is but One substance or Essence in the God-head, and by consequence God is in the most absolute sense One, yet God is not Unipersonal, but within this Undivided Unity there are three Self-determining Subjects or Persons, distinguished from one another by special characteristics (idio,thtej) or personal properties – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” Gregory Nazianzen, Introduction to the “Theological” Orations (NPNF VII) 280-284. Eunomians were condemned in the First Council of Chalcedon. There are certain other heresies also connected to the trinitarian theology. Patripassianism: it is a third century heresy, which


to defend various Christian faiths intrinsically based on the trinitarian concept, the Cappadocian fathers held the Trinity in oneness based on the ouvsi,a and the threeness in Trinity is based on u`po,stasij. In this regard the Cappadoicans, especially Gregory of Nazianzen powerfully wrote against Eunomianism.428 The Cappadocians confronted also the last exponents of Arianism and the doctrinal challenges of Apollinarianism. While Arianism denied the divinity of Christ, Apollinarianism radically questioned the full humanity of Christ.429 The Cappadocian Fathers were accused of tritheism during the theological discussions in the fourth century. Zizioulas observes that the Cappadocians’ contribution on the divine substance was great in extent in solving the various problems of trinitarian theology. He asserts;

Up until the period when the Cappadocians undertook to develop a solution to the trinitarian problems, an identifying of ousia with hypostasis implied that a thing’s concrete individuality (hypostasis) means simply that it is (i.e., its ousia). Now, however, changes occurred. The term hypostasis was dissociated from that of ousia and became identified with that of prosopon. But this latter term is relational, and was so when adopted in trinitarian theology. This meant that from now on a relational term entered into ontology and, conversely, that an ontological category such as hypostasis entered the relational categories of existence. To be and to be in relation becomes identical. For someone or something to be, two things are simultaneously needed: being itself (hypostasis) and being in relation (i.e. being a person).430

Thus, God is three in u`po,stasij and one in ouvsi,a; these mi,a ouvsi,a, trei/j u`po,staseij highlight the ontological understanding of the category of koinwni,a in the writings of Athanasius and the Cappadocian Fathers.431 Zizioulas affirms that the Cappadocians’ assumption about each of the persons of the Trinity was started from a full and complete being.432 The trinitarian God is understood in terms of relation and communion. According to Collins the term koinwni,a may have an ontological implication in the New Testament and the early Fathers of the Church, “but it is the Cappadocians who bring out those

held that the Father, like the Son, suffered. The Trinity is suffering. According to Modalism: ‘The Godhead was not consistently trinitarian; the persons succeeded each other in a passing way, as modes of God’s expression and activity.’ Monarchianism is the heresy which denies the separate persons in God. Cf. Michael O’ Carroll, Trinitas: A Theological Encyclopedia of the Holy Trinity (Wilmington: Delaware, 1987) 162,163, 176. 428 Gregory Nazianzen, The First Theological Orations (NPNF VII) 284-288. Cf. also Joseph T. Leinhard, “Ousia and Hypostasis…”, 107-108. 429 Peter Bouteneff, “The Human Person and the Person of Christ According to the Cappadocians,” Sobornost 21.1 (1999) 22-36, 22. Gregory of Nyssa argues against Apollonarius that if Christ is to be called ‘man’, he has a human intellect. Ibid., 31. See also Sarah Coakley, “Person in the Social Doctrine of the Trinity: A Critique of Current Analytic Discussion,” The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity, Stephen Davis, Daniel Kendall & Gerald O’Collins (eds.), 123-144, 131. 430 John Zizioulas, Being As Communion, 87-88. 431 Cappadocian’s adoption of three hypostases is to designate the three divine Persons. See John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 180. Paul M. Collins, Trinitarian Theology: West and East, Karl Barth, the Cappadocian Fathers, and John Zizioulas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) 189. See also Catherine M. LaCugna, God For Us, 57. 432 John Zizioulas, Contribution of Cappadocia, 26, as cited in Patricia A. Fox, God as Communion, 38.


implications in an explicit acknowledgement that the divine being is relational.”433 G.L. Prestige observes the Greek terminological consensus for the Godhead:

Thus, when the doctrine of the Trinity finally came to be formulated as one ousia in three hypostaseis, it implied that God, regarded from the point of view of internal analysis, is one object; but that, regarded from the point of view of external presentation, He is three objects; His unity being safeguarded by the doctrine that these three objects of presentation are not merely precisely similar, as the semi-Arians were early willing to admit, but, in a true sense, identically one. The sum ‘God + God + God’ adds up not to ‘3 Gods’, but simply to ‘God’, because the word God, as applied to each Person distinctly, expresses a Totum and Absolute which is incapable of increment either in quantity or in quality.434

Therefore, the Cappadocian Fathers strongly emphasized the trinitarian God in terms of koinwni,a. Let us turn our discussion to the primary emphasis of the Cappadocian trinitarian theology.

3.1.1 The Primary Emphasis of the Cappadocian Trinitarian Theology

The primary emphasis of Eastern theology is basically rooted in the notion of the communion of the triune God. The Cappadocian Fathers had expressed the relationality of persons in the Trinity in terms of communion of three u`po,stasij as one ouvsi,a.435 The emphasis on the notion of communion of three persons is understood as the most fundamental emphasis of the trinitarian theology in the East. The being of God exists as communion; Zizioulas explains this communion as:

God’s being, the Holy Trinity, is not caused by divine substance but by the Father, i.e., a particular being. The one God is the Father. Substance is something common to all three persons of the Trinity, but it is not ontologically primary until Augustine makes it so. The Cappadocians work out an ontology of divine being by employing the Biblical rather than the Greek view of being.436

433 Paul M. Collins, Trinitarian Theology: West and East, 189. 434 G.L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (London: Heinemann, 1936, 21952) 169, with reference from Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua 105 (PG 91) 1863. Maximus the Confessor speaks about the substantial existence of the three-personed monad: “And the triad is truly a triad, not completed by discrete numbers (for it is not a synthesis of monads that might suffer division), but the substantial existence of the three-personed monad. For the triad is truly monad, because thus it is, and the monad truly triad because thus it subsists. Thus there is one Godhead that is as monad, and subsists as triad.” Cf. Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor, The Early Church Fathers Series (London: Routledge, 1996) 170. 435 Paul M. Collins, Trinitarian Theology, 190. The divine community is based on the modern view of the person which is different from that of the Cappadocians; Jenson argues: “although the triune identities are not, as such, persons in the modern sense, God is; and if each identity is God, each identity is also personal, and the three a community.” R.W. Jenson, God According to the Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982) 106. 436 John D. Zizioulas, “On Being a Person” Christoph Schwöbel & C.E. Gunton (eds.), Persons, Divine and Human: Kings College Essays in Theological Anthropology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991) 40. “The three are consubstantial and so one sole God.” There is no hierarchical gradation between the Three Persons. See Leonardo Boff, The Trinity and Society, Paul Burns trans., Liberation and Theology Series (Tunbridge Wells: Burns and Oates, 1998) 4. See also Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Is John Zizioulas an Existentialist in Disguise? Response to Lucian Turcescu,” Modern Theology 20:4 (2004) 601-607.


The Father is the source of communion in the Trinity and He shares the substance with the Son and the Holy Spirit. The mutual indwelling or perichoresis of the Three Persons in the Trinity negates any kind of gradation. For the Eastern churches, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not a matter of pure theological discussion alone, but it is a living and saving mystery for human beings.437 The inner nature of the Trinity is self-communicating love within the Persons as well as the whole cosmic structures. Ware describes this basic notion of Eastern theology as:

Man, so the Bible teaches, is made in the image of God, and to Christians God means the Trinity: thus it is only in the light of the dogma of the Trinity that man can understand who is and what God intends him to be. Our private lives, our personal relations, and all our plans of forming a Christian society depend upon a right theology of the Trinity.438

The trinitarian God is a personal God, not a philosophical concept or category.439 Eastern theology holds that we can understand the Trinity only as it is revealed to us. But, the essence of the Trinity is beyond human comprehension. Phrased differently, as we have discussed already the Eastern theology holds the absolute transcendence of God. Ware presents the Palamite distinction of essence-energies, which safeguard both divine transcendence and divine immanence.440 Though the absolute transcendence of God is well emphasized in Eastern theology par excellence, the human mind can experience God through His divine energies. This discussion essentially leads us to the most important notion of the Father as the principle source in the Trinity.

437 Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, 216. 438 Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, 216. 439 Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, 217. The personal identity of God is possible not on account of His substance but because of His trinitarian existence. Zizioulas explains: “If God the Father is immortal, it is because His unique and unrepeatable identity as Father is distinguished eternally from that of the Son and of the Spirit, who call Him “Father.” If the Son is immortal, He owes this primarily not to His substance but to His being the “only-begotten” (note here the concept of uniqueness) and His being the one in whom the Father is “well pleased.” Likewise the Spirit is “life-giving” because He is “communion” (II Cor.13: 14).” John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion, 48-49. See also, Sylvester Kanjiramukalil, Ecclesial Identity of the Malankara Catholic Church (Kottayam: Oriental Institute or Religious Studies, 2002) 29-30. 440 Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, 217. Saint Gregory Palamas (1296-1359) made an important distinction between the doctrine of divine essence and the uncreated divine energies. This distinction played a remarkable role in the trinitarian theology of the East. LaCugna observes Palamas’ teachings on divine essence and energies: “while the divine essence is utterly unknowable and imparticipable, the creature participates in the uncreated divine energies.” Catherine M. LaCugna, God For US, 182. For Palamas the divine essence (ousia) is unknowable, incommunicable, unnameable, imparticipable; the divine ousia is devoid of any relationship with the creature. However, God is known and communicable through His uncreated divine energies. Palamas distinguished three aspects of God’s being: “(i) the permanently unnameable and imparticipable divine essence; (ii) the uncreated energies; (iii) the three divine hypostases, Father, Son, Spirit.” For him our deification is real, and God remains absolutely transcendent to union with the creature. Ibid., 184. Palamas states that every manifestation of God ad extra is personal; He acts in the world as the Father, the Son and the Spirit. This ad extra expresses the very trinitarian existence. In God, “origin is hypostasis.” It is not always clear how the energies and the Spirit are related. See Michael O’Carroll, Trinitas, 174-175.


3.1.2 The Father as Avrch,

The Cappadocian emphasis was on the Father as the “source” of the Son and the Holy Spirit and they emphasized the co-equality and co-eternity without any kind of gradation in the Trinity. According to the Eastern theological understanding, the particularity of the u`po,stasij of the Father is to be the source or avrch, of the other two persons in the Trinity. Gregory Nazianzen says; “one safeguards only one God in referring the Son and the Spirit to a single Principle, neither compounding nor confounding them; and in affirming the identity of substance and what I will call the unique and like motion and will of the Godhead.”441 Basil also emphasizes the divine avrch, presenting the co-equality among the three divine u`po,stasij in one ouvsi,a, he writes: “God is one, because the Father is one.”442 Furthermore for Basil the Father is “the original [primodial] cause of all things that are made,” the Son is “the creative [operative] cause,” and the Holy Spirit is “the perfecting cause.”443 This pneumatic act of perfecting indicates the confirmation of firmness and fixity in good.444 The avrch, is the person of the Father, Meyendorff affirms that the “Father is the “source” and the “principle” avrch, of the divine ouvsi,a, which is shared by the Son and by the Holy Spirit.”445 The Father in the Holy Trinity is considered as “the principle, cause, and fountain-head of the Godhead.”446 This emphasis on the Father as the principle source of the Trinity has often been misinterpreted as “monarchy”447 of the Father. The

441 Gregory Nazianzen, Oration XX, 7 (PG 35), 1073. He clearly speaks that the Father is the First Cause of the Godhead, See John A. McGuckin, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001) 342. 442 Basil, Contra Sabellianos (PG 31) 605 (Paris: Migne Publishing Company, 1885). 443 Basil, On the Spirit, 16.38. 444 Basil, On the Spirit, 16.38. 445 John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 183. See Christos S. Voulgaris, “The Holy Trinity in Creation and Incarnation,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 43 (1998) 365-366, 366. According to Hill, Origen speaks of the Father as ena,j, “the one and the only God; he is the archē from which the Son and Spirit derive their divinity,” however, he denies the possibility of co-equality of the essence of God in the Trinity by the term of Origen’s three u`po,stasij or ouvsi,a; furthermore it creates a hierarchical gradation. See William J. Hill, The Three-Personed God, 40-41. 446 Paul M. Collins, Trinitarian Theology: West and East, 195. For more on the relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the issue of filioque, Dumitru Staniloae, Theology and the Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980) 15 ff. There are two dimensions of the Holy Trinity with special application to ethics; first the relationships of the Holy Trinity are revealed as having certain structure and order; the Father is the source and “chief principle” (the avrch, ) of the Trinity and the Son is eternally originated from the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. This Eastern concept of the trinitarian perspective is rejected by the western filioque (‘and the son’) which teaches that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Eastern Orthodox theology holds the view that the filioque distorts the relationship of the persons in the Trinity and particularly it depersonalises the Holy Spirit. Cf. Stanley S. Harakas, Living the Faith: The Praxis of the Eastern Orthodox Ethics (Minnesota, MN: Light and Life Publishing Company, 1992) 11-12. 447 Monarchianism is strictly a conservative monotheism that understands God’s transcendence as Monarchia. It implies that God is “the sole ruling power” against any kind of polytheism and dualism. Hill presents the monarchial view of Tertullian’s theology as “Monarchial Trinitarianism.” Cf. William J. Hill,


notion of avrch, does not mean any gradation in the trinitarian communion. There is no Father without the Son and the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit completes the relationship between the Father and the Son into a perfect communion. This shows that the mutual interdependence of the three Persons in the Trinity. Though we believe in three Persons in the Trinity there is only One Godhead. Gregory of Nyssa describes the name Godhead is derived from both operation and nature:

If, then, Godhead is a name derived from operation, as we say that the operation of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is one, so we say that the Godhead is one: or if, according to the view of the majority, Godhead is indicative of nature, since we cannot find any diversity in their nature, we not unreasonably define the Holy Trinity to be of one Godhead.448

In this relational trinitarian hypostasis, the Father is the source and the supreme cause of all divinity. The Council of Nicaea affirms that the Son is begotten from the Father and the Spirit proceeds from the Father.449 In this sense the Father is the unique source of the Son and the Holy Spirit;

The Father, deriving his being from himself, brings forth from his essence, but on the capacity of his hypostatic property, the Son by way of generation, and the Holy Spirit by way of procession. He confers to them his whole essence but he does not communicate to them his hypostatic property of begetting and proceeding. Therefore, the Father remains the unique ‘cause’ of being of the Son and of the Holy Spirit who are ‘caused.’450

This sublime relationship in the Trinity among the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is the fundamental notion in trinitarian theology. The trinitarian communion is the mutual indwelling of the divine persons in the Trinity, however, the term pericw,rhsij denotes the same mutual interpenetration as well as the union of the divine-human natures in the Son.

The Three-Personed God, 35. This monarchical perspective may lead to a danger of hierarchical gradation in the divine Trinity. The monarchians are called Modalists, according to whom God is One, the distinctiveness in the Trinity is energies of the One God, not persons. The Eastern notion of arche is not monarchical concept; rather it is the absolutely equal sharing (homoousios) of the divinity within the three Persons in the Trinity. Cf. Thomas G. Weinandy, The Father’s Spirit of Sonship: Reconceiving the Trinity (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995) 56. 448 Gregory of Nyssa, On the Holy Trinity (NPNF V) 329. ‘The Father is greater than me’ implies no hierarchical gradation rather than equality in being the Father and the Son. It generates full and equal ontological status. Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness, 143.

449 Philip Schaff & Henry Wace (eds.), “The Nicene Creed,” The Seven Ecumenical Councils (NPNF XIV) (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991) 3. Eastern theology intends to state that the divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father who is the ultimate origin and source of all divinity whereas Western theology intends to assure that the divinity of the three divine Persons as consubstantial; “the Holy Spirit possesses the same nature that the Son received from the Father; as the Son received it from the Father, he bestows it on the Father on the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.” Cf. Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society, 202. With regard to the doctrine of procession, Eastern theology has affirmed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone. Cf. Vladimir Lossky, In The Image and Likeness of God, 78. 450 M. A. Orphanos, “The Procession of the Holy Spirit according to Certain Later Greek Fathers,” Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflections on the “Filioque” Controversy, Lukas Vischer (ed.) (Geneva: WCC, 1981) 42-43, as cited in Paul M. Collins, Trinitarian Theology: West and East., 196.


3.1.3 The Pericw,rhsij

The concept of pericw,rhsij explains the mutual indwelling of the three Persons of the Trinity. The unity in the Trinity is well manifested in the concept of pericw,rhsij, in which we understand the mutual indwelling of the three Persons in the Trinity as the perfect nature of relationship. The Son and the Holy Spirit have their source of Being in the Father, therefore they are eternally consubstantial with the Father, furthermore they are “coeternal together.”451 The Greek term pericw,rhsij or the Latin term circumincessio denotes different notions such as; “encompassing,” “revolving,” “interpenetrating,” “co-inherence,” “permeation” or “mutual indwelling.” Gregory of Nazianzen, Maximus the Confessor and John of Damascus used the term pericw,rhsij to elucidate both the mutual indwelling of the three divine persons in the Trinity and the co-inherence of the divine and human natures in Christ.452 The persons exist perichoratically and mutually permeating one another. Gregory of Nyssa teaches:

But in the case of the Divine nature we do not similarly learn that the Father does anything by Himself in which the Son does not work conjointly, or again that the Son has any special operation apart from the Holy Spirit; but every operation which extends from God to the Creation, and is named according to our variable conceptions of it, has its origin from the Father, and proceeds through the Son, and is perfected in the Holy Spirit.453

This perichoretic indwelling is well expressed in the prayer of Jesus. When Jesus prays for the disciples “Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (Jn. 17:20-21). This mutual interdependence is the

451 Gregory of Nazianzen, Introduction to the “Theological” Orations (NPNF VII) 282-3. 452 Ken Parry, “Perichoresis” Ken Parry et al. (eds.), The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999) 376-77. The notion of the arche of the Father in the Trinity is mismatched with the idea that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit share a common ousia. The Greek Fathers first used this term in a christological context. By this term they tried to express the intimate union of two natures in Christ, later it is used to emphasis the trinitarian indwelling and communion of Three Persons in the Trinity. Therefore, christologically, pericw,rhsij is the mutual indwelling of the divine and human natures in Christ. In trinitarian pericw,rhsij, it is the sacred indwelling of the three Persons in one sole God. It is the consubstantiality of the Divine Persons. Cf. E.G. Kaiser, “Perichoresis, Christological,” Berard L. Marthaler (ed.), New Catholic Encyclopedia 2nd ed. (Farmington Hills: Gale, 2003) 122-23. John of Damscus used this term in 8th c. in his De Fide orthodoxa, according to him three persons in the Trinity are made one not so as to commingle or to be confused, but so as to cleave to each other, and they have their being in each other. They have “their circumincession one in the other without any blending or mingling and without change or division in substance.” John of Damascus, Orthodox Faith, Book I, Frederic H. Chase trans., Saint John of Damascus, 187. According to Maximus, christologically pericw,rhsij is unilateral, from the divinity to humanity, and it is charactarized by mutuality and reciprocity. See Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 23, 25. See also Demetrios Bathrellos, The Byzantine Christ, 114. See also Gary D. Badcock, Light of Truth & Fire of Love, 240-1. See also Oliver D. Crisp, Divinity and Humanity: The Incarnation Reconsidered, Current Issues in Theology (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 3. According to the circumincessio the Spirit is passive; he is the mutual love of the Father and the Son. See Thomas G. Weinandy, The Father’s Spirit, 78-9. 453 Gregory of Nyssa, On “Not Three Gods” (NPNF V) 334.


pericw,rhsij.454 From the perspective of sacramental deification, pericw,rhsij is divine penetration into human nature which makes the human person divine.

Thunberg speaks about the four realms of pericw,rhsij according to Maximus. Firstly he notes the divine penetration into the human level. In this sense Incarnation can be considered as the perichoresis. Secondly, it is the human penetration into the divine, which can be understood as the penetration of the human into the totality of the divine nature that is also fulfilled in Christ. It also shows that the pericw,rhsij is not the predominance of the divine over the human; rather it is full union without any confusion. Thirdly, it is the aspect of the reciprocity within divine-human relationship. Maximus uses this in most places. Fourthly, he attempts to make manifest the redemptive union of the divine-human in Christ.455 The concept of pericw,rhsij explains the union in the Trinity without confusing the personal distinctiveness of the Persons in the Trinity. Though pericw,rhsij explains the internal unity within the Trinity, it also sheds light on the communion between the divine persons and human persons. The ultimate participation of the human in the Trinity does not negate the identity of the human person. When we try to understand the ‘inner life of God’ it is not that life belongs to God alone but, however as LaCugna points out, the “[t]rinitarian life is also our life.”456 We are also partners of the divine life, as LaCugna affirms: “Followers of Christ are made sharers in the very life of God, partakers of divinity as they are transformed and perfected by the Spirit of God. The ‘motive’ of God’s self-communication is union with the creature through theosis.”457 The trinitarian life of communion and indwelling is “God in us, we in God, and all of us in each other.”458 Therefore, participation in the trinitarian life essentially leads us to the communion of human persons.

Prestige shows that Gregory Nazianzen speaks three times the term pericw,rhsij in order to show the encircling of life comes from corruption and transfers us to the higher life.459 The trinitarian perichoresis is not taken as a conceptual notion but rather it is the perfect model of relationship. Otto argues that pericw,rhsij is meaningless unless we take it as the ontological basis of a real relationship.460 The concept of trinitarian pericw,rhsij is the

454 Catherine M. LaCugna, God For Us, 228. 455 Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 27-31. 456 Catherine M. LaCugna, God For Us, 228. 457 Catherine M. LaCugna, God For Us, 228. It is in the trinitarian perichoresis that the Father accomplishes the whole economy of salvation in this world. In this realm the Holy Spirit is the spirit of eternal incorporation. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father without leaving Him, in this sense Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Father in God’s Fatherhood. Moreover, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of both the Father and the Son. See Anne Hunt, The Trinity and the Paschal Mystery: A Development in Recent Catholic Theology, New Theology Studies 5 (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1997) 23-24.

458 Catherine M. LaCugna, God For Us, 228. 459 G.L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (London: SPCK, 1952) 291. 460 Randall E. Otto, “The Use and Abuse of Perichoresis in Recent Theology,”368.


paradigm of the way of Christian life in and through sacramental metamorphosis. God is incarnated in the other in everyday life; the presence of God should be viewed in and through the presence of the other. This perichoretic model of Christian life is the ideal in sacramental metamorphosis. We participate in the trinitarian communion, the life of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit through respecting the personal dignity of the other, loving and healing the other through our words, deeds and presence. The sacraments and the Word of God inspire the faithful to commit him/herself to be the incarnated word of God in the world. At this point, the other is also considered as a sacrament of God’s grace in order to fulfill the life-giving mission of Christ in the world; such as preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God, healing the sick, comforting the afflicted and liberating captives. It is indeed, incorrect to celebrate the sacred mysteries (sacraments) without taking care of the other. Whenever we ignore the re-reading of the sacramental theology in the perspective of sacramental transformation, then the observation of cult and tradition have no meaning at all from the divine indwelling aspect of sacramental metamorphosis.

So far we have spoken of the primary emphasis of the communion dimension in the Trinity, the notion of communion and we explained that the trinitarian communion is understood in terms of pericw,rhsij. We have done this with the aim of explaining the sacramental theological position of the Eastern churches that it is that through the sacraments that persons are transformed into the trinitarian communion. However, with the Cappadocian Fathers, the Eastern trinitarian theology began to use the ouvsi,a to denote the unity of the Trinity and u`po,stasij to denote the persons in the Trinity.

3.1.4 The Terms Ouvsi,a, fu,sij and U`po,stasij

Our primary intention is to explain these terms in the light of their relationship to sacraments and sacramental transformation. However, first of all let us focus our discussion on different nuances of the terms ouvsi,a and u`po,stasij in the theological tradition of the Eastern churches and their powerful impact in later theological thinking. Balthasasr observes that the Aristotlian notion of ousia is “the highest and most comprehensive category of being,” furthermore; it is “the existing essence.”461 Bailly speaks of three nuances of meaning in u`po,stasij. It has a physical meaning in the sense of a base, a foundation or the sediment of something; sometimes, it is the foundation or the subject of a work or discourse; it could also be the substance or the basis of a thing.462

461 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy: The Universe According to Maximus the Confessor, 216. 462 A. Bailly, Abbrégé Du Dictionnaire Grec-Français (Paris, 1958) 914. Basil distinguished the two terms ousia and hypostasis, Basil, Letters XXXVIII, Philip Schaff & Henry Wace (eds.) (NPNF VIII) 2nd Series (New York, The Christian Literature Company, 1895)137. This distinction of the two terms ousia and hypostasis is stating that in Trinity there is one being (ousia) and three hypostaseis. Preliminary to the Biblical usage, in Classical Greek, this word has been used in several disciplines such as Medicine, Philosophy, Astrology and Law with various nuances of meanings. See Helmut Köster, Art. “u`po,stasij,”


However, we shall focus only on the second, the philosophical use. Stoicism makes a clear distinction between ouvsi,a and u`po,stasij.463 Ouvsi,a is the eternal being (“primary matter”) whereas upo,stasij is being which has come into existence in individual phenomena. Nevertheless, this distinction is only a theoretical one, because u`po,stasij is the actualization of ouvsi,a the primal matter. It is significant to note that in Philo the verb u`fi,,stamai denotes ‘real existence’ as opposed to ‘appearances.’ In that sense, it can be predicated only of God and the soul. One of the instances of his use of the noun u`po,stasij is very important. In contrast to the cosmos which is known through sense perception, u`po,stasij is the intelligible reality (nohth/j u`posta,sewj) ‘which may be known only through the idea of the primal type to the degree that this is present in that which “was formed” in relation to the “seen original.” … It is apparent at once those terms are used here in philosophical garb which are central to the Christology of Hb.’464 Paul uses u`po,stasij only in 2 Cor 9:4 and 11:17. In the 2 Cor 9:4 the meaning is “plan” or “project” while in 11:7 it is “purpose.” Its three-fold occurrence in the epistle to the Hebrews (Heb 1:3; 3:14; 11:1) is of paramount importance. In Heb 3:1 u`po,stasij denotes the actuality of the transcendent reality, namely God himself” of whom Christ is the unique revealer. The reference is to the transcendent good of the heavenly world, which alone has reality as opposed to the things of the shadowy existence of this world.465 U`po,stasij in Heb 11:1 evlpizome,nwn needs to be correctly translated.466 Lampe outlines a whole complex range of the use of u`po,stasij. It has been used as the subject and object; it has a trinitarian perspective; it could be a concrete instance of an abstract essence in an individual.467

From the aforementioned general concepts of these fundamental terms let us turn our discussion on their specific implications on trinitarian theology and its relationship with sacramental transformation. The primary emphasis of Eastern trinitarian theology can be explained also by considering the use of the terms ouvsi,a and u`po,stasij in the discussion of the Trinity. The Fathers of the fourth century used the terms ouvsi,a, u`po,stasij and fu,sij for the articulation of the mystery of the Trinity.468 The ouvsi,a in the Trinity is not an abstract idea of divinity but a rational essence through which the three divine individuals

TDNT Vol. 8, ed & trans., (Grand Rapids: Geoffrey W. Bromiley, 1985) 572-89, 572-85. Cf. also Henry George Liddel & Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1948) 1895.

463 Helmut Köster, Art. “u`po,stasij,” 575-76. 464 Helmut Köster, Art. “u`po,stasij,” 583. 465 Helmut Köster, Art. “u`po,stasij,” 585. 466 As Köster observes, Luther translated it as, “sure confidence,” which had negative repercussions on the notion of faith in both Catholic and Protestant circles. It made faith a conviction, too personal and subjective. Helmut Köster, Art. “u`po,stasij,” 586. 467 G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961) 1454-61. 468 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 50.


bind into one.469 The Cappadocians taught that God is one ouvsi,a and three u`po,staseij470 and thus they held Christian monotheism and the trinitarian confession of God as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Basil was the first to make the distinction between ouvsi,a and u`po,stasij clear.471 He speaks of the three upo,staseij and one ouvsi,a in the Trinity in the following manner:

For the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son; since such as is the latter, such is the former, and such as is the former, such is the latter; and herein is the Unity. So that according to the distinction of Persons, both are one and one and according to the community of Nature, one……one, moreover, is the Holy Spirit, and we speak of Him singly, conjoined as He is to the one Father through the one Son, and through Himself completing the adorable Blessed Trinity.472

One of the major differences between the theology of the East and the West is that while Eastern theology gives more emphasis to the person (u`po,stasij) over nature or substance

469 Vladimir Lossky, Orthodox Theology, 41. 470 Joseph T. Lienhard, Ousia and Hypostasis, 99-144. See Michael Hryniuk, “Triumph or Defeat of the Trinity? An Eastern Christian Response to Catherine LaCugna,” Diakonia 33 (2000) 5-27, 12-19. The terms u`po,stasij and ou,si,a designate the identity and difference of the persons in the Trinity. Cf. Vladimir Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 114. More frequently the term u`po,stasij occurs in the sense of firmness, obduracy, or persistence; this we can see in 2 Cor 11: 17, “I speak foolishly in this hypostasis of boasting.” See also Heb 3:14. Cf. G. L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought, 170. Gregory of Nyssa uses this term u`po,stasij six times in a philosophical sense before applying it in a theological sense. Cf. Daniel F. Stramara, “Gregory of Nyssa, Ad Graecos “How it is That We Say There are Three Persons in the Divinity but not Say there are Three Gods” (To the Greeks: Concerning the Commonality of Concepts),” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 41 (1996) 375-391, 377. There is another term used namely, o`m,oousi,a; it is consubstantial; the Nicene Creed reaffirmed o`moousioj in the following terms: “begotten of the Father, only-begotten, that is out of the ousia of the Father, God out of God…..homoousios with the Father.” Ibid., 210. This famous Nicean (325) response homoousios is suggested by Ossius who was chaplain to Emperor Constantine. See William J. Hill, The Three-Personed God, 42. According to Vladimir Lossky the term u`po,stasij has two meanings; it means, “simply existence.” From this definition we see that ou,si,a and u`po,stasij are the same thing. There is another meaning namely, “that which exists by itself and in its own consistency.” This definition denotes the individual, deferring numerically from every other. The ou,si,a means an individual substance; existence in general, but capable of the application of other individual substances. Cf. Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology, 51. See also John Zizioulas, “The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity: The Significance of the Cappadocian Contribution,” Christoph Schwöbel (ed.), Trinitarian Theology Today: Essays on Divine Being and Act (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995) 44-60. Ou,si,a indicated the essence of a substantial thing, fu,sij indicated the being of totality of the individual. See Johannes Zachhuber, Human Nature in Gregory of Nyssa: Philosophical Background and Theological Significance, Suppliments to Vigiliae Christianae 46 (Leiden: Brill, 2000) 73-74. 471 Basil, De Spiritu Sancto, The Treatise De Spiritu Sancto, Blomfield Jackson trans., (NPNF VIII), 2nd Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1978) 1-50, 37. Patricia A. Fox, God as Communion: John Zizioulas, Elizabeth Johnson, and the Retrieval of the Symbol of the Triune God (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2001) 38. See also in Joseph T. Lienhard, Ousia and Hypostasis, 105. As Bathrellos points out Maximus emphatically indicates the ontological priority of hypostases over nature. See Demetrios Bathrellos, The Byzantine Christ, 111. The hypostasis is also identical with human nature and persons. Ibid. 41-2.

472 Basil, De Spiritu Sancto, The Treatise De Spiritu Sancto, 28.


(ouvsi,a), Trinity over unity;473 Western theology gives more emphasis to the substance or nature over person, unity over the Trinity, oneness over threeness.474 In the same way, the Scholastic over-emphasis on Aristotelian categories such as substance-accidents and cause-effect in theological discussion distorted the sublime notion of sacramental metamorphosis. Consequently, deification appears as “almost completely unintelligible,”475 because the human person is essentially human. Therefore, if someone partakes in the essence of God then s/he is God by essence. In this regard Zizioulas tries to make it clear in terms of relationship of personhood, he says;

Thus, man becomes truly man, that is, he acquires fully his natural identity in relation to God, only if he is united with God – the mystery of personhood is what makes this possible. Theosis, as a way of describing this unity in personhood, is, therefore, just the opposite of a divinization in which human nature ceases to be what it really is. Only if we lose the perspective of personhood and operate with ‘nature’ as such, can such a misunderstanding of theosis arise.476

According to Eastern theology God’s activity originated in the Father and is sustained through the Son and fulfilled by the work of the Holy Spirit. Whereas in the West, Augustine speaks of the activities of God as the work of the Trinity, for there is one divine nature existing in three divine persons. Thus it is understood that the Trinity creates, redeems and sanctifies.477 Since, the terms ouvsi,a and u`po,stasij are significant in

473 However, Turcescu argues that the Cappadocian Fathers did not state a priority of the persons over the substance, but preferred to keep the two together. See Lucian Turcescu, “The Concept of Divine Persons in Gregory of Nyssa’s…,” 63-82, 82. 474 Catherine M. LaCugna, God For Us, 96-97. Similarly, Boff also observes the theological traditions of the East and the West on the Trinity, both have followed two paths to balance between unity and Trinity. The Greeks started from the monarchy of the Father as well as the principle of all divinity, whereas the Latins started from one divine substance internally differentiated in the three Persons. Both saw the Persons constituted by relationship. Cf. Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society, 137. Groppe also points out the different understanding of the East and the West. In the East the Cappadocian formulation is that God exists as the persons (hypostases) of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit who share a common divine nature (ousia), whereas in the West Augustine and his successors emphasised the divine essence over the triune persons and unity over trinity. Cf. Elizabeth T. Groppe, Yves Congar’s Theology of the Holy Spirit, American Academy of Religion Academy Series (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 61. 475 Hans Küng, On Being a Christian, Edward Quinn trans., (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1976) 442. Hans Küng speaks of deification as meaningful only through humanisation. Though the doctrine of deification is not a prominent theme in the Latin tradition, the notion of theosis is not entirely absent from the western tradition. It expresses the idea of salvation in juridical categories. See Daniel B. Clendenin, “Partakers of Divinity: The Orthodox Doctrine of Theosis,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 37 (1994) 365-379, 369. See also Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification, 321. Jenson speaks about the ambiguities of theosis such as additional gods, paganism, pantheism etc. See Robert W. Jenson, “Theosis,” Dialogue 32.2 (1993) 108- 112, 109-110. Andrew Louth presents the ambiguities of theosis in the Western – Protestant theologies. See Andrew Louth, “The Place of Theosis in Orthodox Theology,” Michael J. Christensen & Jeffery A. Wittung (eds.), Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008) 32-44, 33. 476 John D. Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness, 243. 477 Catherine M. LaCugna, God For Us, 97. The West adopted a different approach to trinitarian theology; Meyendorff says “Latin philosophy considers the nature in itself first and proceeds to the agent; Greek


understanding the undercurrents of Eastern trinitarian theology and the difference between the Eastern and the Western trinitarian theology, we need to discuss the usage of the term in the trinitarian theology in detail.

The terms Essence (ouvsi,a) and Nature (fu,sij) do not denote an individual or personality, “but the Genus or Species; not Unum in Numero, but Ens Unum in Multis.”478 Gregory of

philosophy considers the agent first and passes through it to find the nature. The Latins think of personality as a mode of nature; the Greeks think of nature as the content of the person.” Cf. John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, as cited from Theodore de Regnon, Études de théologie positive sur la Sainte Trinité (Paris, 1892) I, 433. Saint Augustine says: “Wherefore, nothing can be said of God according to the accident, because nothing accidental can happen to Him. On the other hand, not everything that is said of Him is said of His substance. With reference to created and changeable things, what is not said according to the substance must necessarily refer to an accident.” Cf. Saint Augustine, The Trinity, The Fathers of the Church, Stephen McKenna trans., (Washington, D.C: The Catholic University of America Press, 1970) 5.5. 179. For Saint Augustine ‘Unbegotten’ is not a substantial but a relative term. It is the denial of relationship. This denial of relationship is not the denial of a substance. He says, “Therefore, they say, the Father is called the Father in relation to the Son, and the Son is called the Son in relation to the Father, but unbegotten refers to the Unbegotten One Himself, and begotten to the Begotten One Himself, and consequently, if whatever is said according to the substance, then to be unbegotten is different from begotten and consequently their substance is different.” Cf. Saint Augustine, The Trinity, The Fathers of the Church, 5.6, 181. Thus the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, but there is only One God. As Boff observes, the Fathers of the Western Church explicitly teach the triune God as: “God is above all an absolute Spirit who thinks and loves. So his supreme understanding of himself is called the Son, and his infinite love, the Holy Spirit. Or, God is the highest Good, which intrinsically expands. The complete self-surrender of himself is called the Son, and the relationship of love between Father and Son means the Holy Spirit, the thread of union between the two.” Cf. Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society, 4. With regard to filioque Augustine gives an alternative way of conceiving Trinity; he states that the Holy Spirit appears as the mutual love of the Father and Son, it is known as mutual-love theory. Though it is well known in Western theology, it is found in the East as the East has not been well disposed to this mutual-love theory. David Coffey observes that this theory will prove to be the key to full agreement between the East and the West regarding the procession of the Spirit. Cf. David Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the Mutual Love of the Father and the Son,” Theological Studies 51 (1990) 193-229, 193. Then there is the question that remains about the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit. Augustine stresses the idea that the Holy Spirit is the “gift,” the common gift of Father and Son. David Coffey, “Holy Spirit as the Mutual Love…,” 196. Timothy Ware points out the difference as well as the mutual complimentarity between the Eastern and the Western theologies, he says, “From the start Greeks and Latins had each approached the Christian Mystery in their own way. The Latin approach was more practical, the Greek more speculative; Latin thought was influenced by juridical ideas, by the concepts of Roman law, while the Greeks understood theology in the context of worship and in the light of the Holy Liturgy. When thinking about the Trinity, Latins started with the unity of the Godhead, Greeks with the threeness of the persons; when reflecting on the Crucifixion, Latins thought primarily of Christ the Victim, Greeks of Christ the Victor; Latin talked more of redemption, Greeks of deification; and so on. Like the schools of Antioch and Alexandria within the East, these two distinctive approaches were not in themselves contradictory; each served to supplement the other, and each had its place in the fullness of Catholic tradition. But now that the two sides were becoming strangers to one another – with no political and little cultural unity, with no common language- there was a danger that each side would follow its own approach in isolation and push it to extremes, forgetting the value in the opposite point of view.” Cf. Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, 56-57. See also Nicholas Cabasilas, A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, J.M. Hussey & P.A.McNulty trans., (London: SPCK, 1960) 78-9. 478 Gregory Nazianzen, Introduction to the “Theological” Orations (NPNF VII), 2nd Series, 280. ou,si,a is being, fu,sij is nature, and o`moousioj means consubstantial. These terms ou,si,a and u,po,staseij are extremely complicated. The Cappadocian Fathers used the aforementioned terms in trinitarian theology in relationship with “u`po,stasij” the primary substance (the individual and concrete), and also the term


Nyssa says, “[w]e, for instance, confess that the Holy Spirit is of the same rank as the Father and the Son, so that there is no difference between them in anything, to be thought or named, that devotion can ascribe to a Divine nature.”479 The fu,sij is referred to as the existence of being that can be comprehended. However, it is not referring to the ouvsi,a of God.480 With regard to deification, 2 Pet 1:4 speaks in terms of “partakers in the divine nature,” which clearly shows the unmediated union between God and the human person; but the term “nature” (fu,sij) denotes the energies of God not the essence.481 In this sense, it is clear that there is difference between the terms ouvsi,a and fu,sij)

Three u`po,staseij signify “three subsistent persons.”482 Gregory of Nazianzen initially preferred to use the word fu,sij for what is one in God and rarely used one ouvsi,a with three upo,staseij, he writes:

We worship, the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, One Nature in Three Individualities……… the Trinity is a true Trinity; not a numbering of unlike things, but a binding together of equals. Each of the Persons is God in the fullest sense. The Son and the Holy Ghost have their Source of Being in the Father, but in such sense that They are fully consubstantial with Him, and that neither of Them differs from Him in any particular of essence. The points of difference lie in the Personal Attributes; the Father Unoriginate, and Source of Deity; the Son deriving His Being eternally from the Father, and Himself the Source of all created existence; the Holy Ghost proceeding eternally from God, and sent into the world.483

Gregory of Nyssa speaks about the unbegottenness of the Father and begottenness of the Son; “If God is Father because he has begotten the Son, and ‘Father’ has the same meaning as Ungenerate, God is Ungenerate because He has begotten the Son, but before He begat Him He was not Ungenerate.”484 Eastern theology gives sufficient attention to

“substance” with the “secondary substance” as for Aristotle. There is only one divine Essence or Substance; Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, are one in essence or consubstantial. Ibid., 280. The Chalcedonian definition of faith rightly states; Our Lord Jesus Christ “the same perfect in Godhead; the same perfect in Manhood.”See Stephen W. Need, Human Language and Knowledge in the Light of Chalcedon, 47. 479 Gregory of Nyssa, On the Holy Spirit: Against the Followers of Macedonius (NPNF V), 2nd Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994) 315. 480 Paulos Gregorios, The Human Presence: An Orthodox View of Nature (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1978) 25. According to him for Maximus the Confessor the fu,sij and ou,si,a are similar and have a common meaning. See Ibid., 25. The fu,sij denotes the individual or particular nature. See Hans Urs von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy, 217. 481 Kallistos Ware, “God Hidden and Revealed,”127. Participation in divine nature is attained by the knowledge of Christ, which is received through conversion that leads to eternal life. See James Starr, “Does 2 Peter 1: 4 Speak of Deification?,” Michael J. Christensen & Jeffery A. Wittung (eds.), Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008) 81-92, 83. 482 Joseph T. Leinhard, “Ousia and Hypostasis…,” 101. Three perfect u`po,staseij are the three perfect Persons, See also George Dion. Dragas, “Exchange or Communication of Properties and Deification: Antidosis or Communicatio Idiomatum and Theosis,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 43 (1998) 377-395, 379. 483 Gregory Nazianzen, Introduction to the “Theological” Orations (NPNF VII), 2nd Series, 281. 484 Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius Book 1 (NPNF V), 2nd Series, 89.


the unbegottenness of the Father and begottenness of the Son. The trinitarian God exists in One ouvsi,a and three distinct upo,staseij. The term u`po,stasij does not denote consciousness or self-consciousness.485 From our discussion on the terms ouvsi,a and u`po,stasij we would like to discuss further the notion of personhood which is also the sine qua non to understanding the dimension of sacramental metamorphosis in Eastern sacramentology.

3.1.5 Sacramental Metamorphosis: U`po,stasij and Pro,swpon

The notion of personhood has a decisive role in our study of sacramental metamorphosis in Eastern sacramentology. We try to elucidate the fundamental notion of the personhood in Eastern theology. Hill presents Tertullian’s presentation of the Latin term persona in trinitarian theology; the Father, Son the Spirit are three personae of one substance.486 While evaluating Basil, Turcescu reveals that the Basilian use of u`po,stasij is to express “something that has subsistence” or simply the “subsistence;” however, Basil strongly discouraged the use of pro,swpon as a technical term to refer to the divine persons.487 Gregory Nazianzen identified upo,stasij with the term pro,swpon and Gregory of Nyssa reinforced the distinction between ouvsi,a and u`po,stasij and coined the trinitarian formula mi,a ouvsi,a – trei/j u`po,staseij. Thus, the ontological category of the concept of person was born.488 The Cappadocian identification of pro,swpon with upo,stasij expresses the unity of God. According to Zizioulas, the concept of the person is humanity’s “most dear and precious good,”489 furthermore he understands the notion of theosis in terms of an

485 Sarah Coakley, “Person in the Social Doctrine of the Trinity: A Critique of Current Analytic Discussion,” Stephen Davis, Daniel Kendall & Gerald O’Collins (eds.), The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) 124-144,133. 486 William J. Hills, Three-Personed God, 35. See also Norman R. Gulley, “A One-sided Trinity in Theology: Its Continuing Impact,” 49. 487 Lucian Turcescu, Prosopon and Hypostasis in Basil of Caesarea’s Against Eunomius and the Epistles, Vigiliae Christianae 51.4 (1997) 374-395, 378, 394. 488 Patricia A. Fox, God as Communion, 38. While speaking of the object and substance in God, Prestige notes the distinction between u`po,stasij and prosopon: “…prosopon was a non-metaphysical term for ‘individual,’ while u`po,stasij was a more or less metaphysical term for ‘independent object.’ The persons of the Trinity have been described by u`po,stasij first in Origen. See G.L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought, 179. The patristic notion of personhood and the term hypostases are strictly ontological. Demetrios Bathrellos, The Byzantine Christ, 104. The real Cappodocian revolution is the identification of prosopon with hypostasis. In this way it expressed the category of koinwni,a over ou,si,a. The relational dimension of prosopon should be combined with the ontological dimension of hypostasis.See Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Divine Energies or Divine Personhood,” Modern Theology 19 (2003) 357-385, 366-7. Sheehan argues that when the Greek notion of prosopon and the Latin notion of persona fail to describe the ontological content of personhood, u`po,stasij is another Greek term which was employed to reveal the ontological content of personhood that means “nature” or “concrete being.” Rowan Benedict Sheehan, “The Freedom of the Person in Christ,” Sourozh 100 (2005) 35-47, 39. 489 John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 65. He incorporates the term u`po,stasij not with substance but with communion, he states; “hypostasis is identical with Personhood and not with substance, it is not in its ‘self-existence’ but in communion that this being is itself and thus is at all. Thus communion does not


ontology of personhood. The notion of personhood is the most fundamental being including both person in relation and self-existent reality.490 Christianity is a personalistic religion and its God is a personal God. According to Dorenkemper Christianity summarizes three personal mysteries:

(1) God, the absolute and infinite, unique and wholly “other” One, is three Persons; (2) Jesus Christ, the one mediator between God and man, is the Person of the WORD having both a divine and human nature; (3) there is a mystical personality of Christ, in which Christians enter into personal communion with God. All theology is ultimately a reflection on and seeking an understanding of these three personal realities.491

In this regard, we would like to build on Eastern sacramentology on the basis of the notion of personhood, in the perspective of his/her transformation.The concept of personhood is very relevant in Eastern trinitarian theology because the personhood of the individual is much affirmed. As we have already discussed the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are three unique persons i.e., three u`po,staseij. These three upo,staseij are essentially one in ouvsi,a. This essential relational character of the Godhead is the basis of relational nature of human existence. LaCugna rightly affirms; “A person is an ineffable, concrete, unique and unrepeatable ecstasis of nature.”492 According to the ancient Greek understanding “pro,swpon or pro,swpeion is in its theatrical nuance of role; persona is the role which one plays in social or legal relationships.”493 In such a sense the notion of person is different

threaten personal particularity; it is constitutive of it.” John D. Zizioulas, “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity: A Theological Exploration of Personhood,” Scottish Journal of Theology 28 (1975) 401-448, 409. 490 Silviu Eugen Rogobete, “Mystical Existentialism or Communitarian Participation: Vladimir Lossky and Dumitru Staniloae,” Lucian Turcescu (ed.), Dumitru Staniloae, 167-206, 197. He presents the ontological view of personhood in Staniloae. Persons are the mode of existence of the essence. Cf. Christos Yannaras, Elements of Faith, 27. Yannaras defines the human subject as a “personal existence”[author’s italics]. He speaks of the term person to define existence as relationship. It is existentially relational and creates a loving communion.Christos Yannaras, Postmodern Metaphysics, 177. 491 M.J. Dorenkemper, “Person (in Theology),” Berard L. Marthaler (ed.), New Catholic Encyclopedia 2nd ed., (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003) 148-151, 148. The Eastern theologians start with the distinction of Persons, whereas Western theology looked to the unity of the divine substance. Greek Fathers held the distinctiveness of the Persons and “the oneness of the divine substance is preserved by their doctrine of perichoresis i.e., the coinherence of the Divine Persons in a dynamic compenetrating existence.” As Dorenkemper observes, Augustine found difficulty in maintaining the distinction of Persons. He solved the problem by using the term “Person” in the Trinity which can only mean, ‘subsistent relation.’ Cf. M. J. Dorenkemper, “Person (in Theology),” 149. 492 Catherine M. LaCugna, God For Us, 289. The uniqueness of personhood is something absolute. See John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 47. The persons in the Trinity are characterised by the relational mode of existence. See Christos Yannaras, On the Absence and Unknowability of God, 8. Karl Rahner also sees the three different upo,staseij in the trinitarian self-communication. See Karl Rahner, The Trinity, Joseph Donceel trans., (London: Burns & Oates, 1974) 25-27. The self-communication of the persons occurs according to their personal peculiarity that is according to their mutual relations. Rahner further says; “these three self-communications are the self-communication of the One God in the three relative ways in which God subsists.” Ibid., 35. 493 John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion, 34. According to the Roman thought persona reveals his/her political or domestic entity. In this sense freedom is excercised by the totality of the human relationship. See


from the individual. There is the distinction between individual and person; in Greek Atomon is the individual denoting human beings as inward, self-contained and isolated, whereas pro,swpon denotes the human being as person, face, outward-looking, being in relationship, involved with others. So the former signifies separation and the latter communion.494 In this discussion on personal transformation through the sacraments, the human person comes from the notion of the individual which is inward and self-contained and s/he finds his/her own personhood. The ultimate end of Eastern sacramentology is the transformation of this unique person towards communion.

The notion of person is both a concept and a living reality. In a discussion on the theological notion of personhood, the terms persona, pro,swpon and u`po,stasij are important. The term persona, which is the Latin equivalent of the Greek pro,swpon

achieved a special significance in theological discussion.495 Zizioulas observes that Plato’s notion of person is nothing but a “mask,” something which has no bearing on his true “hypostasis,” something without ontological content,496 and at the same time Hyppolytus may be the first to use the Greek term pro,swpon in trinitarian theology.497 The term

pro,swpon has had a vital role in the Christological disputes of and the trinitarian theology in the early Church. The Fathers of the Church adopted this term which had a wide range of meaning and they were well aware of its ability to express the mystery of the three divine persons both in their unity and distinctness.498 God is personal because he is freedom in essence.499 In Eastern theology, the notion of ‘relationship’ is essential when we speak about three u`po,staseij in the Trinity, which forms the ‘communion.’

Rowan Benedict Sheehan, “The Freedom of the Person in Christ: The Concept of Hypostasis in John Zizioulas and Panayiotis Nellas,” Sourozh 100 (2005) 35-47, 38. 494 Kallistos Ware, ‘“In the Image and Likeness.” The Uniqueness of the Human Person,” John T. Chirban (ed.), Personhood: Orthodox Christianity and the Connection Between Body, Mind, and Soul (Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey, 1996) 4-5. 495 L.W. Geddes & W.A. Wallace, “Person (in Philosophy),” New Catholic Encyclopedia, Berard L. Marthaler (ed.), (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 22003) 146-148, 146. For the notion of personhood Cf. David Coffey, Deus Trinitas: The Doctrine of the Triune God (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999) 76-80. See John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion, 27. For further notions of personhood in trinitarian theology; see Vladimir Lossky, Orthodox Theology: An Introduction, Ian and Ihita Kesarcodi-Watson trans., (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1989) 42. 496 John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion, 33. See G.L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought, 158-159. 497 Zizioulas, Being As Communion, 38. Paul uses the term pro,swpon in its basic meanings, “face” and “countenance,” in 1 Cor 13:12; 2 Cor 3:7, 13; 8:24; 10:1,7; 11:20; Gal 2: 6,11; Col 2:1; 1Thes 2: 17; 3:10. This term pro,swpon is also used as “mask” worn by the actors resembling a human face. Cf. Lohse, “pro,swpon,” Gerhard Friedrich (ed.), TDNT, Vol. 6, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1968) 768-780, 768, 9. For more details on the trinitarian theology of personhood, See Patricia A. Fox, God as Communion, 32-41. 498 Lohse, “pro,swpon,” 778. 499 David A. Fisher, “Byzantine Ontology: Reflections on the Thought of John Zizioulas,” Diakonia 29 (1996) 57-63, 61. Walter Kasper also pertinently speaks about the most sublime notion of ‘relation’ in God; he speaks about the highest reality as not substance but relation. Cf. Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, Matthew J. O’Connell trans., (New York, NY: Crossroad, 1991) 154-156.


According to Zizioulas the understanding of ‘person’ in Roman antiquity is fundamentally seen as his/her relationship with others in a juridical sense to organize a human life in a state. It has no ontological implication. Thus the wo/man has to play different roles, more than one pro,swpon, in order to play many different roles.500 This Roman persona presupposes both denial and affirmation of human freedom and this freedom is affirming his identity. Zizioulas says, “the identity of the concrete man a product of freedom, and man in his very being identical with the person.”501 For these things, Zizioulas suggests two basic presuppositions which are necessary: firstly, “a radical change in cosmology which would free the world and man from ontological necessity; and secondly, an ontological view of man which would unite the person with the being of man, with his permanent and enduring existence, with his genuine and absolute identity.”502 Bracken developed this metaphysics of intersubjectivity as to begin not even the ongoing relationship of the individual person with others, but with the uniqueness of the individual in relationship with the other.503 However, from the perspective sacramental metamorphosis we shall give due emphasis to personhood in the light of hypostasis.

The sacraments inspire the human person to live in a relationship with the other in love and freedom, which brings forth communion.The concept of person in its absolute and ontological sense was born historically in the faith of the triune God.504 This is the revolution in Greek philosophy, which is expressed historically through an identification of the “hypostasis” with the “person.”505 Zizioulas observes that the term “u`po,stasij” does not have any connection with the term “person” in Greek philosophy. The term “person” for the Greeks was considered as the essence of man, whereas the term “hypostasis” is closely connected with the term “substance,” and fully identified substance with hypostasis.506 Instead of the term “person,” the East was using the term u`po,staseij for the

500 John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion, 34. 501 John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion, 35. 502 John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion, 35. The unique relationship of the person is also the basis of the harmonious relationship of the cosmos. See Rowan Benedict Sheehan, “The Freedom of the Person in Christ: The Concept of Hypostasis in John Zizioulas and Panayiotis Nellas,” Sourozh 100 (May 2005) 35-47, 37.

503 Joseph A. Bracken, The One in the Many, 18. 504 John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion, 36. 505 John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion, 36. The divine hypostasis is the fullness of God’s revelation of being; it is a personal mode of existence. “God as person is the hypostasis of being.” Cf. Christos Yannaras, The Freedom of Morality, Elizabeth Briere trans., Contemporary Greek Theologians Series (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984) 16. 506 John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion, 36. The Greek Fathers preferred to use the terms u,po,stasij and pro,swpon for the divine persons; in order to point out both absolute identity and absolute difference they used the terms u,po,stasij and ou,si,a which identify the person and the essence. Cf. Vladimir Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 112. The term ‘person’ had been used in the West from the time of Tertullian in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. See Ibib., 36 as cited from Tertullian, Adversus Praxeam 11-12, Patres Latini 2, 1670D.


Holy Trinity, already in the time of Origen.507 The Cappadocian Fathers favored the term u`po,stasij over the term pro,swpon. Zizioulas refers the term ‘identity’ to the unique particular, so that the communion is the ontological relationality in which three are together. Our discussion on sacramental metamorphosis is the linking point between the ontology of personhood and the incomprehensible essence of God. This divine-human union creates the unspeakable and intrinsic personal relationship of communion. One cannot speak of God outside the relationship of the trinitarian communion.

3.1.6 U`po,stasij as Communion

Sacramental metamorphosis is not understood in terms of merely an individual transformation rather it is the salvific event of communion, moreover it is an ecclesial event. In this sense, it is significant to note that the Church represents and manifests the trinitarian relationship and hypostatic union. The unfathomable relationship of communion in the Trinity is the essential criterion for the sacramental metamorphosis that implies the transformation of the human being together with the cosmos. In the Church the faithful do not participate in a common life rather through the sacraments and liturgy s/he experiences the unfathomable life giving communion of trinitarian life. This communion of love and relationship transforms and deifies the human person.508 The Cappadocians give much stress to the trinitarian communion. Basil and Gregory of Nyssa prefer to emphasis the word koinonia (communion or fellowship). The Athanasian view of the trinitarian communion is in terms of substance and essence, homoousios (consubstantial).509 From a sacramental perspective, understanding ‘being as communion’ is the most significant notion. The Trinity reveals this ultimate truth of ‘being as communion.’ The aim of the sacraments is to constitute communion between divine and human and among human beings. It is not possible to speak of God without the concept of relational being; “communion.”510 God is communion because God is the Trinity.511

507 John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion, 37. The ontological position of the theology of the Greek Fathers is that no substance or nature exists without the person or hypostasis or mode of existence; no person exists without substance or nature. Ibid., 42. 508 Emil Bartos, “The Dynamics of Deification,” 235. Personhood is to be understood in relation to nature and freedom, because nature would be transfigured and deified. See Mikhail M. Kulakov, Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky (1903-1958) John Witte Jr. & Frank S. Alexander (eds.), The Teaching of Modern Orthodox Christianity: On Law, Politics, and Human Nature (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2007) 172-232, 179. 509 Kallistos of Diokleia, “The Human Person as an Icon of the Trinity,” Sobornost 8.2 (1986) 6-23, 8. 510 John Zizioulas, Being As Communion, 17. Personhood in Trinity is understood as relationship. See Sarah Coakley, “Person in the Social Doctrine of the Trinity,” 124. Similarly, David N. Power also observes that the matter of communion in living reality is the ultimate participation in the communion of Trinity. Cf. David N. Power, Sacrament: The Language of God’s Giving (New York, NY: Crossroad, 1999) 304. 511 Zizioulas’ implication of “being” is understood as “communion” and of God understood as “persons in communion.” Patricia A. Fox, God as Communion, 25. Boff tries to clarify this: “Three Persons and a single


Zizioulas speaks of the ouvsi,a of God, “God, has no ontological content, no true being, apart from communion” i.e., the Holy Trinity.512 The existence of the triune God is the perfect communion of the Three Persons in the Trinity. He continues to talk about the relationality that is the foundation of all talk of God and ontology:

The tautology “God is God” says nothing about ontology, just as the logical affirmation A = A is a dead logic and consequently a denial of being which is life. It would be unthinkable to speak of the “one God” before speaking of the God who is “communion,” that is to say, of the Holy Trinity. The Holy Trinity is a primordial ontological concept and not a notion which is added to the divine substance or rather which follows it, as is the case in the dogmatic manuals of the West and, alas, in those of the East in modern times…. the being of God could be known only through personal relationships and personal love. Being means life, and life means communion.513

Personal relationship is the basic notion of being and this relational existence is the communion of persons. According to LaCugna, the heart of the Christian life is union with Christ by means of communion with our fellow human beings. She affirms:

Trinitarian theology could be described as par excellence a theology of relationship, which explores the mysteries of love, relationship, personhood and communion within the framework of God’s self-revelation in the person of Christ and the activity of the Spirit.514

The trinitarian communion can be recognized as the prototype of human communion.515 The practical challenge of the trinitarian faith lies in the fact that God is not a solitary God but God is the loving communion of the three divine persons.516 This trinitarian communion and relationship is celebrated and experienced in the sacraments of the Church. The participation in the sacraments is the real participation in the divine communion. The sacraments are the principal source for human beings to participate in divine communion and to be transformed into trinitarian communion. It is the experience

communion and a single trinitarian community: this is the best formula to represent the Christian God.” Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society, 133. 512 John Zizioulas, Being As Communion, 17. Each of the divine person exists in the Trinity in, with and for others in a communion of love and life; Boff also asserts; “the perichoresis - communion model seems to be the most adequate way of expressing revelation of the Trinity as communicated and witnessed by the scriptures. Seen within the framework of perichoresis, the theories elaborated by theology and the Church to signify the Christian God as person, relationship, divine nature and procession, are not invalidated, but become comprehensible.” Cf. Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society, 137. 513 John Zizioulas, Being As Communion, 17. He draws the Patristic conclusions on the discussion of being of God as: (a) there is no true being without communion, nobody exists as an “individual,” therefore communion is an ontological category; and (b) Communion comes neither from a “hypostasis,” that is a concrete and free person, nor does it lead to “hypostases,” that is, concrete and free persons. It is not an “image” of the being of God. “The person cannot exist without communion; but every form of communion which denies or suppresses the person, is inadmissible.” Ibid., 18. The advancement of individualism functions as an inexorable alienation of humanity. Christos Yannaras, Postmodern Metaphysics 27. 514 Catherine M. LaCugna, God For Us, 1. 515 Anne Hunt, What are They Saying About the Trinity? (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1998) 10. Timothy Jones made a remarkable development in trinitarian spirituality in a challenging and most promising manner. Cf. Timothy Jones, “The Promise and Challenge of Trinitarian Spirituality,” Sewanee Theological Review 46 (2002) 77-90. 516 Anne Hunt, What are They Saying About the Trinity?, 10.


of the trinitarian communion through the sacraments, which enables human beings to achieve communion at every level of human existence. As we have noted earlier the Father is the source of everything and it is through the same Father the human community becomes a community of brothers and sisters. Eastern trinitarian theology clearly explains the concept of person, by understanding it in terms of hypostasis, that each human being is created to achieve the fulfillment of one’s own personhood. We have already pointed out that the major concern of our study is to explain the “sacramental transformation” of the human person as well as the cosmos into the trinitarian communion. Having noted the trinitarian perspectives of the Eastern churches, we also need to focus our discussion on this essential basis of trinitarian sacramental theology in the perspective of sacramental metamorphosis.

4 Towards a Trinitarian Eastern Sacramentology Eastern sacramentology has not yet been developed systematically as it is in the Western theological tradition. Eastern sacramentology can be further enhanced by critically comparing it with Western sacramentology. Western theology is developed and systematized based on different philosophies.517 Eastern theology ignores the strict distinction between “sacraments” and “sacramentals.”518 However, Eastern theology has the basic foundation of its sacramental and liturgical traditions from apostolic time onwards. Leijssen is appreciative of Eastern sacramentology. According to him;

[T]he approach to the liturgy and sacramental economy of salvation from the Eastern traditions is a “plus point.” The fact that we now have – with respect to the former juridical and rubrical approach to classical Western theology – a description which begins with the unfathomable mystery of the Trinity and the incarnation of the Son of God, whose paschal mystery perpetuated in the Church community by the power of the Holy Spirit is celebrated until the end of time, can only be considered as an enrichment and as a good starting point for further developments in the future.519

517 Tomy M. Poovathanikunnel, “The Sacramental Mysteries: A Syro-Malabar Approach,” Questions Liturgiques/Studies in Liturgy 78 (1997) 34-49, 38. Sacrosanctum Concilium 59 says that “the purpose of the sacraments is to sanctify men, to build up the body of Christ, and finally, to give worship to God.” See Walter M. Abbott (ed.), “Sacrosanctum Concilium” 59, The Documents of Vatican II (London: Chapman, 1967) 158. Peter E. Fink speaks about the peculiar situation of Eastern sacramentology and special situations in the West. He says, “Since the Eastern Churches did not undergo a Renaissance, a Reformation or an Enlightenment, they have preserved some ancient traditions forgotten in the West but have not elaborated a systematic sacramental theology.” Cf. Peter E. Fink, The New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1990) 1125. 518 John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 191. In general, sacramentality involves three fundamental elements: first, the ultimate meaning of human experience; secondly, the divine saving presence; and thirdly, the transformation of the human being individually and communally. Cf. Bernard Cooke, “Sacraments,” Peter E. Fink (ed.), The New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship, 1116-23, 1116. 519 Lambert Leijssen, “The Sacramental Economy of Salvation in the Catechism of the Catholic Church,” Questions Liturgiques/Studies in Liturgy 77 (1996) 229-239, 230.


In the Eastern tradition, sacraments are articulated in connection with other aspects of the faith, such as Christian anthropology, Christology and soteriology.520 Bawai Soro points out that in the fifth century, Theodore of Mopsuestia, an Antiochean theologian, presented a complete exposition of the sacramental beliefs of the churches in the East.521 From the East Syrian point of view, the concept of sacramentology is based mainly on the anthropology of Theodore of Mopsuestia and its soteriological aspects. An etymological study of sacraments will help us to understand the correct meaning of the sacraments.

4.1 The musth,rion and Sacramentum The term sacrament directly derived from the Latin word sacramentum which is equivalent to the Greek word musth,rion which means mystery.522 It is also noteworthy that the Syriac term “raza’ is also equivalent to the Latin term “sacramentum.” Depoortere designates these two terms as ‘twin terms’ which cannot be separated. He observes, “The mysteria or sacramenta are the actualizations of the salvific mysterion, which is ‘already’ and ‘not yet.’”523 In the term “Raze” the faithful participate in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.524 Winkler asserts that the Maronite theologian Estephan Ad-Duwaihi

520 Bawai Soro, “Understanding Church of the East Sacramental Theology: The Theodorian Perspective,” Johann Marte & Gerhard Wilflinger (eds.), Syriac Diologue: Fourth Non-Official Consultation on Dialogue within the Syriac Tradition (Vienna: Pro-Oriente, 2001) 22-52, 22. Orthodoxy sees all of Christian life as bearing a sacramental character. Cf. Donald Fairbairn, Eastern Orthodoxy Through Western Eyes (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002) 26.

521 Bawai Soro, “Understanding Church of the East Sacramental Theology,” 22. 522 Louis Dupré presents this Greek term mysterion as direct contact with God and participation in divine immortality. See Louis Dupré, The Other Dimension: A Search for the Meaning of Religious Attitude (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972) 179-180. See for its relationship with the sacraments in the early Church, G. Bornkamm, “musth,rion,” Gerhard Kittel (ed.), 826-7. In the patristic period there was no technical term to designate the sacraments. Primarily the term musth,rion was used in the sense of “mystery of salvation.” Then, there came to be other terms such as “rites” or “sanctifications.” Cf. John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 191. The Mysterion implies the divine plan of salvation of the whole world in Christ in its full sense. See Klemens Richter, The Meaning of the Sacramental Symbols: Answers to Today’s Questions, Linda M. Maloney trans., (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1990) 16-7. According to Schmemann mysterion is the most adequate term in the contemporary understanding of sacramentology in its essence. Cf. Alexander Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical Theology, Asheleigh E. Moorhouse, trans., The Library of Orthodox Theology Series (London: Faith Press, 1996) 105. This term musth,rion is translated by the Latin term Sacramentum which has both juridical sense and military connotations designating an oath of loyalty. Cf. Kristiaan Depoortere, “From Sacramentality to Sacraments and Vice-Versa,” Questions Liturgiques/Studies in Liturgy 82 (2001) 46-57, 47-48. When the term musth,rion designates the inner reality of the sacraments, Sacramentum points out “the outer celebration in the first place, while presuming the inner reality.” Ibid., 48. Stranks affirms that The Latin term Sacramentum was used narrowely and used to signify a sacred thing, whereas the Greek term musth,rion had a much wider meaning and signified an action or representation of an event. See Thomas D. Stranks, “The Eucharist: Christ’s Self-communication in a Revelatory Event,” Theological Studies 28 (1967) 27-50, 33. 523 Kristiaan Depoortere, “From Sacramentality to Sacraments and Vice-Versa,” 48. 524 Dietmar W. Winkler, “Rediscovering the Common Syriac Heritage: Sacramental Theology and Sacrament of Initiation,” Johann Marte & Gerhard Wilflinger (eds.), Syriac Dialogue: Fourth Non-Official Consultation on Dialogue within the Syriac Tradition (Vienna: Pro-Oriente, 2001) 10-13, 11. The term mysterion was translated in Latin terms mysterium and sacramentum. Later this term sacramentum


describes the term “raza” as the “symbolic reality of God’s acts celebrated by the Church in the power of the Triune God.”525 It is through the sacraments that the human person could penetrate into the divine communion and experience the salvific grace of God.

Having examined the works of Jacob of Edessa (+708), Ivannis of Dara (860), Moses Bar Kepha (903) and Bar Hebraeus (1298), Winkler states that up to the 13th century, the West Syrian tradition did not use the number “seven” for the sacraments. The sevenfold system of sacraments is adapted from Western Latin scholastic theology.526 The term “raza” (Latin equivalent sacramentum) expresses the salvific act of Jesus Christ on the cross and the eschatological hope of the Kingdom of God.527 Christ’s mission of proclaiming the Kingdom of God is continued through the Church after the death and resurrection of

emphasizes the visible sign of the hidden reality of salvation, which was indicated by the term mysterium. In this sense Christ himself is the mystery of salvation: ‘For there is no other mystery of God, except Christ.’ The saving work of his holy and sanctifying humanity is the sacrament of salvation, which is revealed and active in the Church’s sacraments (which the Eastern Churches also call ‘the holy mysteries’). Cf. Lambert Leijssen, “The Sacramental Economy of Salvation,” 236. See the etymological root of the word sacraments, raza in Syriac is very close to the concept of mysterion (Mystery) related to the Latin term Sacramentum (sacred). Raza is understood in the tradition of the Eastern Church as a “mystery in the sense that the act of the Church transcends the existential moment. It both re-presents the past redemptive act of Jesus Christ on the Cross, and points to the future eschatological expectation of his Second Coming. In the Church’s “Mysteries” the believer is given participation in the Death and Resurrection of Christ, and in the life of the Kingdom to come.” See Bawai Soro, “Understanding Church of the East Sacramental Theology,” 23. When Depoortere refers the term sacrament to Christ, it is understood that the sacrament is the translation of the term musth,rion; he states that it is “the mysterious, elusive enduring work of God through the Spirit in the totality of human reality and the human sharing in that reality via participation.” Kristiaan Depoortere, “Sacramenten vieren (III): De Kerk, gedachtenis van de Verrezene,” Collationes 25 (1995) 34-35, as cited in Lambert Leijssen, “The Sacramental Economy of Salvation,” 235. 525 Dietmar W. Winkler, “Rediscovering the Common Syriac Heritage…,” 11. In Western theology sacramentals are separated from sacraments. Sacramentals are distinct preparations for the sacraments, not essential to them. Cf. Kristiaan Depoortere, “From Sacramentality to Sacraments…,” 49. “Sacramentals do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the Church’s prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it.” Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church (Bangalore: TPI, 1994) 1670, 319. The mystery concept of God reveals the human incapability of intellectual comprehension of God. See Maxmios Aghiorgoussis, “East Meets West: Gifts of the Eastern Tradition to the Whole Church,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 37 (1993) 3-22, 4. 526 Dietmar W. Winkler, “Rediscovering the Common Syriac Heritage…,” 11. This numbering of the sacraments is the contribution of the Western Church and it is widely accepted among the Eastern Christians after the thirteenth century. Cf. John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 192. The doctrine of the ‘seven sacraments’ appears for the first time in the Profession of Faith required from Emperor Michael Paleologus by Pope Clement IV in 1267. Cf. Ibid., 192. See Michael J. Fahey, “Sacraments in the Eastern Churches,” Peter E. Fink (ed.), The New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship, 1126. See also Ernst Benz, The Eastern Orthodox Church, 32-33. See also Bernard Leeming, Principles of Sacramental Theology, 553-4. The Orthodox Church rejects the scholastic juridical conception of the sacrament. Bernhard Schultze, “Eastern Churches,” Karl Rahner (ed.), et al., Sacramentum Mundi: An Encyclopedia of Theology, Vol. 2 (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969) 120-133, 131. See also John Meyendorff, The Orthodox Church: Its past and Its Role in the World Today (New York: Pantheon Books, 1968) 72-3. See Adrian Fortescue, The Orthodox Eastern Church, 365. 527 Dietmar W. Winkler, “Rediscovering the Common Syriac Heritage…,” 11. The sacramentum etymologically is that which something is made holy. See Bernard Leeming, Principles of Sacramental Theology, 561.


Christ. This particular redemptive communal activity of the Church eventually became known as the sacraments.528 On the one hand musth,rion is the right term to connote the hidden meaning of the salvific act of God and the other term, sacramentum implies a juridical or military concept. In this sense, musth,rion reveals the salvific meaning in its fullness. The sacraments are the celebration of the sacred mysteries of salvation, the incarnated Word together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, sacraments are the chief moments of experiencing trinitarian communion.

4.2 The Sacramental Encounter with the Trinity From our aforementioned trinitarian theological discussions, it is also clear that sacraments are the sanctifying operations which pave the path towards the transformation of the human person as well as the whole cosmos. Thus a sacrament is sanctifying work of the Holy Trinity and moreover it can be the most effective encounter with the triune God. Gregory of Nyssa speaks of the sanctifying function of the triune God:

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit alike give sanctification, and life, and light, and comfort, and all similar graces. And let no one attribute the power of sanctification in an especial sense to the Spirit, when he hears the Saviour in the Gospel saying to the Father concerning His disciples, “Father, sanctify them in Thy name.” So too all the other gifts are wrought in those who are worthy alike by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: every grace and power, guidance, life, comfort, the change to immortality, the passage to liberty, and every other boon that exists, which descends to us.529

The trinitarian relationship of the sacraments is undeniable. Worgul defines “sacraments are symbols arising from the ministry of Christ and continued in and through the Church, which when received in faith, are encounters with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”530 In this regard, sacramental metamorphosis is the effective encountering activity of the Trinity. This sacramental encounter with the Trinity is operated and celebrated from a wider perspective of communion with the Church including the co-activity of divine, human and cosmic dimensions. The trinitarian relationship is not merely a paradigm for

528 George S. Worgul, From Magic to Metaphor: A Validation of Christian Sacraments (New York: Paulist, 1985) 125.

529 Gregory of Nyssa, On the Holy Trinity (NPNF V), 2nd Series, Philip Schaff & Henry Wace (eds.), 328. 530 George S. Worgul, From Magic to Metaphor, 123. When Lambert Leijssen speaks of the theology of sacraments and liturgy, he says that liturgy is the celebration of the divine mysteries and it is the work of the Holy Trinity, quoting from Eph.1: 3-6; “Blessed be the God the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places….” The fundamental components of the sacramental liturgy are doxology, anamnesis (“memory”), epiclesis (“invocation”) and koinonia (“community”). See Lambert Leijssen, “The Sacramental Economy of Salvation..,” 232, 233. The three sections of the architecture of most of the Eastern Churches symbolise the Trinity namely the Spirit (narthex) leads us to Christ (nave) who brings us before the Father (altar) by means of our communion in the sacred gifts. Cf. Tomy M. Poovathanikunnel, The Sacramental Mysteries, 46. Through the sacraments, the faithful become sharers and partakers of the divine nature and we share the communion of the Holy Trinity. God is united with human nature in the Incarnation in order that we might share in His divine nature. Cf. Gregory Afonsky, Christ and the Church: In Orthodox Teaching and Tradition (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001) 18.


the human relationship in the Church but rather it constitutes an “internal principle”531 of genuine participation in divine-human union by grace, which is incorporated in and through the sacraments in the ecclesial communion.

From an ecclesiological point of view, the essential nature of the Church is nothing other than communion; communion in the life of the triune God and the communion of churches. The most sublime gift of divine life is given to the faithful through the sacraments in communion with the Church. Through the celebration of the liturgy the faithful can partake in the divine life of the Trinity. In the Divine Liturgy the faithful receive the sacraments and celebrate communion with God and their fellow beings together with the whole cosmos. This dimension of communion is well established in sacramental life, especially in baptism, sacrament of reconciliation and the Holy Eucharist. The participation in the life of the triune God is the ultimate aim of Eastern theology. The community of the faithful addresses the Holy Trinity who is “understood as one and confessed and proclaimed as three.”532 The Church is made complete at the Eucharistic celebration. Binns rightly affirms: “the eucharistic community is not part of the Church, but the complete Church to which nothing can be added for it to function as God intends.”533 Without sacramental celebrations there can be no Church, in the same way sacramental celebrations bring the human person in union with the Trinity. In the West Syrian liturgy the trinitarian dimension is well emphasized with “(a) the initial trinitarian benediction, (b) the trinitarian doxology with which almost every prayer ends, and (c) the prayers addressed to the Father.”534 The trinitarian structure of Eastern theology can be considered as the heart of Eastern liturgical celebrations which evokes the presence of the triune God.535

God is the union of three persons who intimately love each other, through the Incarnation of one Person of the Holy Trinity, the Logos, who became a human being in order to unite humanity with the oneness of the divine Trinity and its never-ending joy and love. Through the sacrament of baptism, the faithful become members of Christ’s body and in Eucharist His Body becomes part of the faithful. Thus, we become one with God through the Son and partakers in God’s own nature.536 Through the sacrament of baptism a person

531 Emil Bartos, “The Dynamics of Deification,” 236. 532 Baby Varghese, Some Aspects of West Syrian Liturgical Theology, 173. 533 John Binns, An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches, 41. 534 Baby Varghese, Some Aspects of West Syrian Liturgical Theology, 174. Cf. Lambert Leijssen, “The Sacramental Economy of Salvation,” 233. 535 Baby Varghese, Some Aspects of West Syrian Liturgical Theology, 175. 536 Harakas affirms that the chief source that constitutes the Church’s corporate reality is sacramental life. ‘Baptism incorporates into the shared life in the trinitarian communion and the Church; Chrismation makes the ecclesial presence of the Holy Spirit; the Eucharist manifests in every locality the unity of God and humanity- the Kingdom of God; marriage, ordination, penance and unction serve in each case to bring individual relationships and conditions into the corporate experience and life of the people of God’. Cf.


proclaims the trinitarian faith and is born into the communion of the Trinity. In Chrismation, the faithful are anointed with Holy Oil and enter into Communion with the triune God. In Penance, the faithful are regenerated from their sinfulness and enter into the loving communion of the Trinity. Usually, in the Eastern tradition baptism and confirmation are administered together. At the same time, immediately after receiving baptism and confirmation, the faithful are given Eucharistic communion.537 In the sacrament of reconciliation, the faithful can reconcile first of all with him/herself, then with the triune God, their fellow beings and the cosmic order. S/he reconciles with the cosmic order because when s/he commits sins it is quite natural that there is the breaking of cosmic order in one way or another due to sin. Through the sacrament of reconciliation it is also significant to note reconciliation with the cosmic order. This specific view of reconciliation is emphasized in the O.T. Book of Jonah, as a concrete expression of the Ninevites’ reconcilitation. A fast was proclaimed and everyone, great and small, put on sack cloth and sat in ashes. It included the king, nobles, ordinary human beings and animals (Jonah 3: 5-8). Such sacramental reconciliation is pre-eminently focused in taking part in the trinitarian communion. Its ecclesiology is also “liturgical ecclesiology,” rooted in trinitarian theology.538 The Holy Eucharist, Matrimony, Holy Orders and the Unction of the Faithful are totally dedicated to divine communion through the grace of God conferred by the Holy Spirit. The sacraments are the special contexts in which the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit is offered to human persons in the Church.539 Through the grace of God the faithful get transformed. This transformation takes place through the sanctifying function of the Holy Trinity. This personal transformation is the ultimate end of sacramentology.

Conclusion In this chapter we have tried to explore the basic epistemological notions of the sacramental metamorphosis which implies the transformation of the human person as well as the whole cosmos. This chapter has four major divisions. In the first section, we have seen the chief characteristics of Eastern sacramental theology in relationship with deification. We have also made a brief exposition on apophatic-cataphatic epistemological methodology, in which we have seen that apophaticism is not a mere negative approach to this theological discussion, rather it is beyond both affirmation and negation. In this

Stanley Harakas, Living the Faith, 7. The baptismal formula itself shows our sense of belonging to the Trinity. Cf. Joseph Chalassery, “Christian Life: A Life with Christ in the Holy Spirit Towards the Father through the Mysteries of Christian Initiation,” Christian Orient 23 (2002) 107-132, 121. 537 John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 192. This indicates that the reception of any sacrament is the way to participate in the divine communion. 538 Jaroslav Z. Skira, “Ecclesiology in the International Orthodox-Catholic Ecumenical Dialogue,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 41 (1996) 359-374, 374.

539 Dietmar W. Winkler, “Rediscovering the Common Syriac Heritage…,” 11.


respect, the sacramental metamorphosis is also exposed in the language of apophatic-cataphatic synthesis. In the second section, it was shown that sacramental metamorphosis was essentially the corporeal activity basically incorporated in nous and pneuma, but at the same time, it is also taken into consideration as an eschatological experience. It is also the work of participation in the divinity which is essentially through the deifying energies of God, which paves the path to the elevation of human nature. Thirdly, we briefly discussed the trinitarian theology of the Eastern tradition in regard to the concept of communion. Finally, we have seen the Eastern theological notions of sacramental encounter with the participation in trinitarian communion. Moreover, the first chapter opens the door to a new discussion on sacramental metamorphosis which is inherently related to the Incarnation of the Word of God. In this way, sacramental metamorphosis is anthropologically embedded too.

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