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Editor's Preface
II
Author's Preface
"I honor the Seven Ecumenical Councils and the sa ving
Truth which they dogmatized and proclaimed, along with
the holy and God-bearing Fathers, as they were established
by the Holy Spirit Who guides and manages His Church.
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List of Illustrations
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Resurrection of Christ
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editor's Preface
Author's Preface
List of illustrations .
C H APTER ONE
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VI
INTRODUCTION
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1 . The Theologian . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2. The Knowledge of God . . . . . . .
3. God in The Holy Scriptures . . . .
4. The Holy Trinity in the Fathers
5. The U ncreated Energies . . . . . . .
6. God the Creator . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7. Evil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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C H APTER Two
C H APTER THREE
THE CREATION .
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1 . The
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2. The
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3. The
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4. The
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5. The I mage and Likeness of God . 9 1
6 . Adam and Eve : Paradise . . . . . . . 95
7 . The Fall of Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 8
8. Providence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Angels . . . . . . . . . .
Devil and Demons .
Physical World . . .
Nature of Man . . .
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CHAPTER FouR
CHAPTER FIVE
1 13
I. Abraham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1 15
1 18
1 39
141
1 43
1 47
1 53
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1 64
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1 95
..... ... .
1 99
FOOTNOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
207
GLOSSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
225
I N DEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
229
APPEN DIX
AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
Put another way, both the dogmas of the Church and the truth
they express are divinely revealed.
Revelation (apokalypsis, revelatio)8 is the communication of
God Himself to the creation . It takes many forms - His Provi
dence, of course, but also walking with Adam in the Garden of
5
Vespers, 6th Tone) . The 8th Tone of his feast (Vespers), proc
laims St. Constantine to have "received the knowledge of the
Spirit Who "anointed him priest and king."
The "influence" of the Holy Spirit came upon the Saints in
many ways, sometimes as "Light," often as "inspiration," com
monly in the Mysteries. From one point of view, He is carrying
out the divine Plan (Economy), but, from another, He responds
to those who pray, to His special vessels of grace. He indwells,
enlightens and anoints those who seek and serve God, not the
proud who dare to speculate about Him. The spiritual world is
reached not by research and reason, but by holiness. Holiness
is the action of the Holy Spirit on those who struggle for self-mas
tery (egkrateia) and dispassion (apatheia), in the keeping of
Christ's commandments. Therefore, we say that the holiness
which characterizes the lives of the Saints, the ascetical struggle,
is the holiness which gives them access to "the deep things of
God" (I Cor. 2: 1 0) .
Holiness i s the source of dogma not intellectual prowess.
Whatever may be the results of scientific inquiry concerning the
origin and nature of dogma or doctrine, they will never uncover
the saving truth, not unless the inquiry is undertaken with the
Faith and Grace of the Church, that is, the Spirit. All scientific
discoveries otherwise must be superficial and one-sided while
never leading the investigator or those whom he seeks to benefit
to the worship of the true God.
3. T HE WESTERN HETERODOX
The Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century declared
that "the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ" (found only in the
Scriptures) had been polluted by the intrusion of Greek and
Roman ideas, an intrusion commencing in the third century.
According to their historical scenario, the teachings of "the
medieval Church" evolved away from the Old and New Testa
ments with the accretion of human conventions and
philosophies. Luther, for one, looked to what the followers of
the Pope called "oral tradition" for the cause of this distortion
of the Christian Message. He wanted that Message cleansed of
10
ll
12
St. Basil
Wall Painting, Church of the Dormition,
Dormition Skete, Colorado, 1983
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18
and strangers replace. And he need not rely entirely upon his
own resources, for he will be "strengthened by the might of the
Spirit" (Eph. 3: 1 6) in his quest.
Yet, this matter must not be oversimplified. The path of
Orthodoxy from the time of the Apostles to the present day has
not been easy. Peace and love have not always reigned in the
C hurch. There were in the past, as there are now, disagreements
between teachers of the Faith - differences which generally
have not been fundamental (or, if they were, someone has even
tually left or been expelled from the Church). Thus, the dispute
between St. Cyprian of Carthage and Pope Stephen over "heret
ical baptism,"20 or between St. Gregory the Great of Rome and
St. John the Faster of Constantinople over the title of "ecumen
ical bishop,"21 and such like altercations had not the effect of
abrogating the Apostolic Tradition or, what is the same thing,
the infallibility of the Church.
From another point of view, if the priest, Origen, the monk,
Pelagius, or the Bishop Apollinarios ; if Nestorios and Eutyches
or Severos, were not anathematized,22 the Faith of the Church
would eventually have been lost. To be sure, from time to time
Christian doctrines have undergone what Fr. Florovsky called
a "pseudomorphosis" - the truth hidden under a "false form"23
- but the Holy Spirit has by some instrumentality always man
aged to cleanse the jewel of Truth. Its glitter is not covered for
long, not for any length of time that would prove injurious to
our understanding of the Orthodox Faith.
The Holy Spirit does not act alone in preserving "the purity
and immutability of the Holy Faith ," writes St. Vincent. Undoub
tedly, God has ordained that it will be kept "in force to all ages,"
but "the Catholic Christian" must love God with his whole heart
and soul, determined never to accept as true what is not taught
by the Church. He must be dedicated to God, putting nothing
above "the religion of the Catholic Faith - neither the affection,
nor the genius, nor the eloquence, nor the philosophy of any
human being." Whatever
". . . has been planted in the h usbandry of God's Church
by the faith of the fathers should, therefore, be cultivated
19
20
21
22
If it is true what St. Cyril said about being "led astray" by Greek
philosophy - on which the Fathers in general blamed heresy
- then, Augustine was surely a perfect example of its power.
Contrary to what most Western historians think they (the
Fathers) were not, like Augustine, seduced by Platonism - or
as Thomas Aquinas, deluded by Aristotle. They did not, as St.
Anastasios of Sinai wrote in The Guide, "explain the Scriptures"
or "teach the Church" in a " Homeric" or "Aristotelian way"; or,
as St. Gregory the Theologian said, "they taught in the manner
of the Apostles, not as Aristotelians" (Homily 23: 1 2).
The Fathers, from the first to the twentieth century, from
St. Ignatios to the Holy John Maximovitch, were confessors and
contemplatives , "God-minded" (theophroni) , "God-revealers"
(theophanton) who were initiated by virtue of their "dispassion"
(apatheia) into spiritual mysteries. They possessed thereby a
special knowledge (gnosis) by which they were able to "search
all things, yea, even the deep things of God" (I Cor. 2 : 1 0) in
the Spirit.
9. GNOSIS
The idea of spiritual knowledge (or knowledge of the spiritual
world) will be treated in greater detail in another place, but for
now we make the following observations .
Gnosis appears in post-Orthodox Western literature a s "mys
tical apprehension" or "mystical intuition." The "mystics" who
23
tion" within the range of the entire human race. It is the "mys
ticism" of the few who have gone so far to place themselves
above the "Church" while privy to a "secret plan" unknown to
the Prophets and the Apostles, the Fathers and Councils,
perhaps even to the angels . But their "mystical illumination ,"
their "spiritual journey's," "spiritual discoveries" - their gnosis
- does not belong to the Apostolic Tradition . Their god is not
the God of Christians, for the god of heretics is an "alien god"
and their "innovations make the gospel worthless" (St. Maximus
the Confessor) .
They do not present the gnosis or the mysticism of which St.
Gregory Palamas speaks in his Triads ( I I , 3 : 66) ,
"The knowledge, which is
beyond conception, is com
mon to all who have
believed in Christ. As to the
goal of this true faith,
which comes about by the
fulfilling of the command
ments, it does not bestow
of
God
knowledge
through beings alone,
whether knowable or
unknowable, for by "be
ings" here we understand
"created things"; but it
does so through the
uncreated light which is
the glory of God, of Christ
our God, and of those who
attain the supreme goal of
being conformed to Christ.
For it is in the glory of the
St. Gregory PaJamas
Father
that Christ will
Wall Painting, Church of the Dormition,
come again, and it is in the
Dormition Skete, Colorado, 1 983
glory of their father,
Christ, 'that the just will
shine like the sun ' (Matt. 13:43); they will be light, and will see
the light, a sight delightful and all-holy, belonging only to the
purified heart. This light at present shines, in part, as a pledge
25
for those who through dispassion have passed beyond all that
is condemned, and through pure and spiritual prayer have
passed beyond all that is pure. B ut on the Last Day, it will deify
in a manifest fashion 'the sons of the Resurrection ', who will
rejoice in eternity and will glory in communion with Him Who
has imparted our nature with a glory and splendor which is
divine. "
26
27
1 1 . TH E RETURN TO TRADITION
28
29
30
CHAPTER Two
God: The Holy Trinity
l . THE THEOLOGIAN
Before we examine Orthodox theology, we must consider
another related matter: the man who has traditionally explained
the doctrine of God to us: the theologian.
St. Gregory the Theologian tells us that the study of theology
is a privilege and a aweful responsibility. It is not a subj ect for
academic debate, nor a sport, nor should it be part of a casual
after-dinner conversation. Neither should everyone presume to
discourse on it; not before every audience or under any cir
cumstances. The subject of theology is not "so cheap and com
mon." Only he should "speak" or "philosophize" or "theologize
about God" who is a "past master of meditation" and, if not
purged completely of his passions, is at least "being purified."
"It is not safe, I say for the impure to touch the pure, even as
it is unsafe to fix weak eyes on the rays of the sun" ( Theol. Ora.
I , 4) .
Theology is not a matter of speculation and research; it is
not a "science" nor a "discipline." Theology is a "knowledge"
which leads to "union with God" (henosis tou Theou). Moreover,
theological knowledge is a special kind of knowledge to which
the name gnosis is given. Gnosis is not a knowledge which comes
by the senses; it is not a reasoned knowing which is proper to
the scientist, mathematician and logician ; nor is gnosis what
philosophers call "intuition" or the immediate certainty about
the thing felt or perceived or conceived . Gnosis is a "spiritual"
or "noetical knowledge," an experience of the human "heart"
(kardia) or "mind" (nous) or "spirit" (pneuma), all synonyms for
the cognitive aspect of the human soul.3 By gnosis the human
mind enters the spiritual world and obtains directly a knowledge
of God (theognosis) .
32
33
new way, putting old positions in a new dress; and that the
certainty and objectivity he so desperately wants eludes him.
If he thinks of himself as a "mystic," he will soon begin to
feel his distance from ordinary folk, that his religious experience
is different if not superior to theirs. Often his "mystical w ay"
will put him at odds with established teaching and conventional
authority. Not uncommon will be his possession of ideas and
experiences which make him spiritually akin to "theologians" of
other religions, Christian or not. And, to be sure, it is historically
true that "the history of mysticism" offers a picture of inter
dependence between "Christian," Jewish, pagan Greek and
oriental ideas. i
Also, let i t b e said that the "mystical theology" o f the Fathers
and Saints of the Orthodox Church have nothing in common
with the "mentality" of an Anselm or Aquinas, Duns Scotus or
Luther or Glanville, a Ritschl or Karl Rahner; nor, indeed, with
the "mind" of Plotinos, the Jewish Kabbalah, the Sophia-mysti
cism of Jacob Boehme, the eroticism of Catherine of Sienna or
the purgatorial mysticism of John of the Cross. If some analogy
of theological language and concepts may be shown between
Orthodoxy, heterodoxy, Judaism, Islam and paganism, we
ascribe it to historical circumstance; but, fundamentally, their
theological experiences provide no "agreement" ( I I Cor. 6 : 1 6) .
Orthodox theological experience and reflection originates
with Christ and the Apostles, but Roman Catholic theology,
mystical and rational, begins to develop in the eleventh century
while Protestant speculation, although rooted in the Latin theol
ogy of the late Middle Ages, manifests independence of thought
only gradually, probably in the eighteenth century, with the
Moravians.H Both Papists and Protestants, incidentally, were
greatly indebted to Augustine, especially the Reformers who
took advantage of the ambiguities of his "theological system" to
stress human depravity, predestination and the irresistability of
grace .
I mportant to recognize, also, is the fact that the God of the
heterodox West is not the God of the Prophets, Apostles and
Fathers.9 He is not the God of the "initiated," but the God of
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36
37
come into existence. Thus, there must have been a time when
the earth and universe did not exist. The whole is not greater
than the sum of its parts. Therefore, the universe did not cause
itself; and that cause must exist outside the creation, lest we wish
to think that the cause existed before itself in order to start itself.
Moreover, the cause must be uncaused, a cause produced by no
other. For if it has a cause, then, it is not uncaused and is not
the source of the universe. Necessarily, then, we must explain
the existence of things by an uncaused Cause. "And what else
could this be," asks St. John of Damascus, "but God?"2"
Of course, such argu
J
s
ments may assure us that
OH
'lll{
X
God is, not what He is. From
T
reason we have no knowl
edge of His Will, or His Plan
for the creation. This H e
revealed through direct and
personal communication,
the climax of which was His
dwelling among us accord
ing to the flesh (John 1 : 14).
H ere, then, is the third kind
of knowledge. Without it without His speaking to us
and finally joining us - we
would not have become
privy to God's commands
and promises, nor would we
have received the Holy
Spirit, "the Comforter, the
Spirit of Truth" (John
St. John of Damascus
1 4 : 1 6- 1 7) ; nor would we
achieve eternal life. "For this is eternal life," the Lord proclaimed,
"that they may know (ginoskos1) Thee the only true God and
Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent" (John 1 7 :3). The Incarnate
One is "the Way, the Life and the Truth" (John 1 4 : 6 ) : the "way"
to God, the "life" in Him, and the "truth" about Him.
38
God prepared the human race for His coming by the Law
and the Prophets - and as we shall see - by types and anti-types,
even among the Gentiles. In this manner, "He has disclosed to
us the knowledge of Himself as far as that is possible for us,"
St. John of Damascus cautions. In other words, we are not free
to theorize and speculate beyond those things which God has
graciously given to us. "All things, therefore , that have been
delivered to us by the Law and the Prophets, the Apostles a d
Evangelists , we receive, know and honor, seeking nothing
beyond these. " "As knowing all things, and providing for what
is profitable for each," John continues, "He revealed that which
it was to our profit to know; but what we were unable to bear
He kept secret. Let us be satisfied then and let us abide in them,
not removing everlasting boundaries , nor overpassin g the divine
tradition. "21
3. GOD IN TH E HOLY SCRIPTURES
The most important witness to the existence and activity of
God is the Holy Scriptures. To be sure, the Old and New Tes
taments presuppose unwritten traditions (agrapha1) . Before the
books of the Testaments were composed and collected, God
spoke directly to His chosen ones as He s poke to the writers of
the Bible. "Surely the Lord will do nothing," wrote the Prophet
Amos (3 : 7) , "but he reveals His secrets to His servants and
prophets. " Thus, we know that Moses, the author of the first
five books (Penteteuch) of the Old Testament was not present
at the creation, in Eden , with Noah and Abraham. The Hebrew
People were taught by oral tradition: stories and sayings about
God and His relation with them and the rest of the world were
repeated generation after generation. Under the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit, Moses was able to discern the truth and also to
receive a "new" knowledge. So it was with the writers of the
New Testament.
a. The Old Testament
Everywhere in the pages of the Old Testament is to be found
hints of the Holy Trinity. The righteous of the Hebrews must
have known that God had not told them everything about H im39
40
ment. Perhaps, the clearest type of the Trinity in the Old Tes41
Abraham recognized him as "the judge of all the earth" (v. 25).
I n this type, the three men or angels sybolize the Trinity, to be
sure, but it contains another truth : the "Lord" Whom Abraham
addressed was God the Son, the God of the Old Testament,
Yahweh, for which reason, incidentally, the icon of the "Hospi
tality" shows the angel in the center with a nimbus crucifixus
or "halo of the cross." He appears here as "the Angel of Great
council," "the Angel of Yahweh," the same One Who came to
Moses in the bush (St. Hilary of Poitiers, On The Trinity IV,
24-34) .
Another Old Testament type is found, according to the Holy
Fathers, in the book of Daniel - the story of Shadrach, Meschach
and Abednigo in the fiery furnace (Dan. 3 : 8-30) - which the
Church celebrates. In the Matins of the Feast of the Exlatation
of the Cross the following Katabasias in the 6th Tone is chanted.
"0 you youths equal in number to the Trinity, bless the
Father, God the Creator; praise the Word Who did descend
as the Angel to turn the fire to a dewy breeze; and exalt
more and ;? ore the all-Holy Spirit Who gives life to all for
evermore.
42
"I beheld in the night vision, and, lo, One coming with the
clouds of hea ven as the Son of man, and He came on to
the Ancient of days, and was brought near to Him. And
to Him was given the dominion, and the honour, and the
kingdom; and all na tions, tribes, and languages, shall serve
Him: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall
not pass away, and His kingdom shall not be destroyed"
(Dan. 7: 1 3, 1 4).
Jesus identified Himself with "the Son of man" and St. John the
Theologian ties
him to the figure of
"the Ancient of
days" in the book of
Revelation ( 1 : 1 3-20),
One
saying,
like unto the Son of
man, clothed with a
garment down to
the foot . . . His
head and hairs were
white as wool, as
white as snow . . . ;"
and St. Matthew
(25 : 3 1 ) shows Him
U pon a throne "Christ, the Ancient of Days , " St. Sergi us Cathedral,
j udging the world.
Cleveland, Ohio painted by Bishop Alypy, 1 984
44
at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming at the doors"
(Prov. 8 :3). The most controversial verses - at least in the fourth
century, durin g the Church's struggle with Arianism - reads,
"The Lord pGssessed Me in the beginning of His way, before
His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the begin
ning, before the earth was" (Prov. 8 : 22-23) . A few ancient man
uscripts have, "The Lord made Me . . . . " St. Athanasios the
Great and the other Fathers argued that whichever verses are
allowed ("possessed" or "made Me" ) , they do not portray the
Word or Wisdom as a creature. If they do not refer to the "divine
economy" or the I ncarnation, they, with the most inadequate
language, point to the eternal generation of the Son from the
Father.
Another sect of heretics, the followers of the Patriarch of
Constantinople, Macedonios, denied the Divinity of the Holy
Spirit. He taught that the S pirit was not God; "it" was nothing
more than a "force" or " power" of God Who is "spirit" O ohn
1 4 :28). The patristic defense of the Holy S pirit pursued the
same method as the defense (apologia) of the Son : the Spirit is
found in the Old Testament under symbols and types as well
as in such expressions, "the Spirit spake through the Prophets"
(Isa. 1 1 :2), "the Holy Spirit moved over the waters" at creation
(Gen. 1 :2), in the allusions to His conserving power (Ps . .I 04:29-30)
or in prayers, "Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me" (Ps. 5 1 : 3 ) .
A type o f Pentecost i s found i n the gathering o f the Hebrew
elders and their infusion by the Holy Spirit ( Num. 1 1 : 1 6- 1 7) or
in God's promise to "pour out my Spirit on all flesh" Qoel. 2 :23).
St. B asil equated Him with "the finger of God" Who wrote the
Ten Commandments (Ep. VII, 3) and St. Anatolios the H ymnog
rapher typified the Holy Spirit as "the pillar of smoke" that
blocked Pharoah's path near the sea (Sunday After Nativity,
Matins, 8th Tone) .
The Holy Spirit worked with God the Son in the Old Testa
ment as He does in the New. He is "the S pirit of God," "the
Spirit of Christ," - in the creation, providence and salvation of
the universe. He is the Spirit of Yahweh - God the Son - a
name which the translators of the Septuagint ( = LXX) rendered
45
Kyrios; and He, like the Father and the Son, is Adonai or Master
(despotes, domiunus), El Shadday or the Almighty (pantocrator,
omnipotens), El Olam or the Eternal (aionion, aeternus), Elohim
or the Most H igh God ( hypsistos, altissimus) , etc. "By these
names God is called," St. Aphrahat explains. "The great and
honorable names of the Godhead He would not keep from the
righteous ones though He is the great king . . . "25 The divine
names generally apply to the action of the three Persons, not
to their super-divine Essence.
imparts not the wisdom of men but the Wisdom of God, "inter
preting spiritual truths to those who possess the S pirit" (I Cor.
2: 1 3).
The Spirit both inspired the Scriptures and gives understand
ing to them who in true faith read and meditate "the divine
oracles," as the Fathers sometime call the Bible. Without the
Spirit, moreover, none would call J esus "Lord," nor would He
be our brother and God our Father. As St. Paul says,
"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the
sons of God. For you have not received again the spirit of
bondage to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adop
tion, whereby we cry, 'Abba, Father. " The Spirit itself bears
witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
and if children, then, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with
Christ; if so be we suffer with Him, that we may be also
glorified together" (Rom. 8: 1 4- 1 7).
Those who belong to God in Christ are members of the Church
whose unity depends on the Spirit.
The New Testament is replete with words, idioms, figures of
speech and statements which assert the Divinity of Christ. H e
i s "Emmanuel, God with us" (Matt. 1 : 2 3 ) ; and "the image of the
invisible God, the first-born of all creation" (Col. 1 : 1 7) ; or He
is the One in Whom "the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily"
(Col. 2 : 9 ) : or He Who "reflects the glory of God and bears the
very stamp of His Nature" (Heb. 1 : 1 3) . St. Paul writes to St.
Titus that the Church awaits "the appearance of the glory of
our Great God and Savior J esus Christ" (Tit. 2: 1 3).J esus pointed
to Himself as the God of the Old Testament with the provocative
words, "Amen, Amen, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I
am" Qohn 8 : 58). He further offended the J ews by saying, "The
Father and I are one" Qohn : 30). After the Resurrection, St.
Thomas worshipped Him as, "My Lord and M y God" Qohn
20:28).
There is no more famous affirmation of Christ's Divinity than
the prologue to the Gospel of St. John. "In the beginning was
the Word (Logos) . . . " of the first verse was a conscious imitation
of Genesis 1 : 1 , "In the beginning God . . . . " Listen to what St.
John Chrysostom writes about these words of the prologue,
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J esus Christ and the Love of God the Father and the communion
of the Holy Spirit be with you all" (II Cor. 1 3 : 1 4) . The remarks
of St. John Chrysostom on this text are not without interest. He
explains the change in the customary order of names. Why did
St. Paul, he asks, place the name of the Son before the Father?
It was in fact not the first time that the Apostle had transposed
the Persons (and their gifts) in the trinitarian formula.
"For having said, 'the grace of Christ, and the love of God
the Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit; ' he, in
another place speaks of 'the communion of the Son, ' and
also 'the love of the Spirit' (Rom. 1 5:30). And in the first
letter to the ch urch at Corinth, 'God (the Father) is faithful,
by Whom you were called into the communion of the Son '
(I Cor. 1 :9). Thus, the things of the Trinity are not divided;
and whereas our 'communion ' is in the Spirit, it has been
grounded in the Son; and whereas grace comes by the Son,
it is also the grace of the Father and the Holy Spirit. Have
we not read, 'Grace be to you from God the Father'? And
in another place, the Apostle, having ennumerated many
forms of it, adds, 'But all those things are inspired by one
and the same Spirit Who apportions to each one individu
ally as He wills ' (I Cor. 1 2: 1 1). Such things are said not to
confuse the Persons but to show the individuality and dis
tinctness of each in the unity of their common essence. "30
St. Chrysostom teaches here not only the individuality and same
essence (homoousios) of each Person in the Trinity, but their
absolute equality. Each has the power to do what the other can
do. And, if the Persons are equal, then, aside from the properties
which give them their distinctive identity, what belongs to one
belongs to all.
4. THE HOLY TRINITY IN THE FATHERS
By virtue of historical circumstances, the Fathers of the East
(writing in Greek and Syriac) and the Fathers of the West (writing
in Latin) often approached the same topic from different sides.
Thus, in the case of the Trinity, the former were far more
concerned with the "transcendent Trinity" than the latter who
seemed to pay more attention to God - "the economic Trinity"
- in His relation to the Church and the world. Put another
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51
First, Paulinus says that the Spirit is "from" the Word; and, then,
he asserts that "the Spirit proceeds from the Father." What must
we think? Is he referring to the Trinity in time or eternity?
perhaps both?
In another Poem (V, 43), he gives the same order to the
divine Persons, but in relation to Their act of creating the world.
"Thou art the Father of the Only-Begotten Lord and God," he
says, "and intermingly with both the Spirit Who flitted over the
waters." The word "intermingly" may allude to their common
essence or to a moment of common action or manifestation. In
another Poem, h e appears to address the manifestations o f the
Son and the Spirit.
"The Holy Spirit comes forth from the Only-Begotten Son
and Father, and is Himselfproceeding from God34 Though
the Spirit is everywhere, His fiery presence was actually
visible as He quickly passed over the place where the young
Apostles gathered in harmonious council" (Poem XXVI I ,
93).
from the dead; but this is no other than the Spirit of Christ.
The divine Persons of Christ and the Father can be shown
to differ in some respects if also it can be shown that the
Spirit which is from God the Father is not the very Spirit
of Christ, "
In the conclusion to his discourse, St. H ilary addresses the
Father, saying that he will never call the Holy Spirit a creature,
"seeing that He proceeds from Thee and is sent through Him"
(Son) . Then, he exclaims,
"Bu t I cannot describe Him whose plea for m e I cannot
describe. As in the revelation that Thy Only-begotten was
born of Thee before times eternal, when we cease to strug
gle with the ambiguities of language and difficulties of
thought, the one certainty remains; so I hold fast that the
Spirit is from Thee and through Him, although I cannot
comprehend it with my intellect . . . " (XII, 56).
H ilary admits but one principle or cause of the Trinity : God the
Father, but he says the Spirit proceeds from the Father through
the Son. He was not the only church father to accept this formula.
We may mention St. Pope Gregory I I , Bishop of Rome, who
in his Confession of Fiath to St. Germanos of Constantinople,
states that "the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father by the
mediation of the Son (a Patre vera, medianti Filio) ." He adds
the Holy Fathers have always understood the relation of the
Persons in this way.:Js The Saint was right. Many fathers, East
and West, adopted such a formula. St. Cyril of Alexandria, St.
Gregory the Theologian, St. John of Damascus and others
allowed that in eternity the Spirit, although proceeding only
from the Father, "abides" in the Son. "Mediation" may indeed
bear that connotation.%
The one, unalterable premise of Christian theology is the
monarchy of the Father. Questions about the procession of the
Spirit in time or eternity, with or through the Son, however
important, are secondary. Yet, it may have been the lack of
precision in these "secondary" matters that permitted Augustine
of H ippo (354-430) to initiate a new way for theology in the
Latin West. Western medieval and modern church historians
mistakenly assign to him a preeminence in the "development"
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5 . T H E UNCREATED ENERGIES
The Uncreated Energies of God are the means by which
the Three Persons of the Trinity created the world and the way
in which they ordinarily communicate with it - save the Incar
nation which is the actual descent of the Person of God the Son
into the world, "who was made flesh and dwelt among us" (John
1 : 1 4) . The Uncreated Energies differ from both the essence and
the Persons of the Trinity, albeit related to both . They are "move
ment" or "rush of God" out of His essence (St. John of Damascus)
or "the rays of Divinity penetrating the created universe" (St.
Dionysios the Areopagite). According to St. Basil the Great
"the energies are n umerous and the essence of God simple
and wha t we know when we say God is in fact His energies.
We do not presume to approach His essence. His energies
come down to us, but His essence remains beyond our
reach "50
The enrgies are not the essence of the Trinity, but they express
them and are no less divine , coming forth from the essence
through the divine Persons.
Of course , there have been and still are those who deny any
distinction between essence and energy. St. Gregory PaJamas
replied to his contemporary adversaries that such a distinction
is necessary to protect the integrity of both the Creator and the
creation.
"If, according to the nonsense ofAkindynos and those with
him, the divine energy is nothing different from the divine
essence, then, the act of creating - which is proper to the energy - will
in no way differ from the
acts of begetting and pro
cession which is proper to
the divine essence. B ut if
to create in no way differs
from begetting and pro
cession,
then created
things differ in no way
from Him Who is begot
ten and Him Who pro
ceeds. And if, according
to our adversaries, such is
the case, then, neither the
Son nor the Spirit differ
from creatures, since all
things are begotten and/
or
proceed
from
God the Father; th us, the
creation will be deified
St. Gregory PaJamas
and the divine Persons
will be ranked with their own creatures. For this very reason
the divine Cyril (of Alexandria), distinguishing between
essence and energy, says, 'The act of generation is proper
to the divine nature whereas the act of creating belongs to
His divine energy. ' Then, stating the obvious, he adds,
'Nature and energy are not the same'. ""3
The only way to deflect St. Gregory's logic while, at the same
time, denying any distinction between essence and energy in
God is to declare the energies - grace and lights, etc. - to be
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ever the motive for the creation, the Trinity acted from no neces
sity; in fact, we have no way of knowing why God created, even
if such n oble sentiments as love may be inferred. To be sure,
as the Fathers say , He wanted His creation to share His life , but
God was not lonely and He did not need to create the world to
comfort Himself. Nothing is added to Him by the existence of
the cosmos.
God created mysteriously and freely. He might not have
created at all . His choice was sovereign and what He created
was only one choice in an infinite number. The universe and
its inhabitants might have taken another form . Nevertheless, as
St. Athanasios the Great so often said , God's act of creation was
an act of condescension . Creation was not a tour de force, a feat
of accomplishment, a demonstration of power. It was not, as
the I ncarnation was not, something done for applause. The
existence of the world is an example - even as the Incarnation
- of self-limitation, an act of incredible humility .
7 . EVIL
Evil is a mystery. The ancient religions and philosophies gave
their answsers to the question, "Whence evil ?" but none of them
were satisfactory . Either, like the Hindu and the B huddist, they
believed that evil was the necessary companion of good, the
negative without which there could be no positive ; or, like the
Zoroastrians, they recognized the existence of two eternal prin
ciples, the Light of goodness and the Darkness of evil, antagonists
in conflict, a conflict which would one day end in victory for the
good . Of course , none of these religions offered a personal God
or an existential solution to the problems of death , sin and pain.
The ancient Greeks and Romans fared no better. Far more
inclined to philosophical rationalization, they seemed particu
larly dismayed by the idea that a "good god" or "gods" would
allow evil (i.e., catastrophe, war, death, suffering) in the world
they formed and governed. Some of the ancient philosophers
explained evil as "imperfection" or the distance of the cosmos
from its predetermined end : all that m a n and the universe could
be has not been reached and that gap between where we are
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They answered that the existence of evil mean s either that there
is no God or gods or He (or they) , like the rest of us, are subject
to a higher power; fate (moira, fatum), they sometimes called
it. But this is an intellectual solution, if a solution at all, and of
little comfort to the sick, the suffering, the orphan and the
widow.
In modern times, the Russian philosopher, Nicholas Ber
dyaev, accepted the notion of a "limited deity. " He wrote that
God, freedom and evil all spring from the incomprehensible
"abyss of nothing," what the German philosophers called
Ungrund. God has no control over evil or freedom and, there
fore, is not responsible for evil, what it does or my choice of it.
God, Berdyaev said, does only good and seeks to guide us in
the right use of our free will . I n attemtping to 'justify the ways
of God to man" (theodicy) , he has rendered Him impotent and
emptied the Cross of all its meaning.
The Scriptures and the Fathers dealt with "the mystery of
evil" in another way. They straightforwardly assert that God
made the world ex nihilo and made it "very good" (Gen. 1 : 3 1 ) .
Also, they teach that evil is not necessary or eternal and its
existence does not prove that God is either impotent or malevo
lent. Evil is an irrational fact of cosmic existence. It has no being;
it is a parasite which feeds on being. Human reason can provide
no answer to its origin or ultimate purpose. Every attempt to
explain evil ends with contradictions and paradoxes.
I n the book of Job, God condemns those who presume to
decipher evil by means of human logic or to accuse Him of
either creating, approving or propagating evil. As he said to Job,
"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowl
edge? Gird up now your loins like a man; for I will demand
of you to answer me. Where were you when I laid the
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Of course, St. John denies that God is the author of evil or that
evil is coercive . Neither Lucifer nor Adam and Eve were compel
led to choose evil. Moreover, evil is "unnatural" and the evil
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72
C H APTER THREE
The Creation
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l . THE ANGELS
God m ade time ("the beginning") and then the spiritual or
noetical or i nvisible realm , where the Light of His Glory shines
most brilliantly. This realm or heaven is the highest of all the
heavens which God made "in the beginning" (Ge n . 1 : 1 ) . After
wards, He made the sexless angels1 or "messengers" (angelos,
mal'ak in - Hebrew), which
He m ade for His Glory (Job.
4: 1 7 - 1 8) . "An angel is a sec
ond light," declares St . Greg
ory of PaJamas, "an effusion
or participation in God, in
the primal Light."2 "God the
Father first conceived the
heavenly and angelic pow
ers, "writes St. Gregory the
Theologian, "His concep
tion was fulfilled by His
Word and perfected by His
Spirit."3
The angels, belonging to
that part of creation "which
is not seen," to borrow the
words of the Apostle Paul,
are "immaterial4 and noeti
cal and therefore , writes St.
Archangel Michael
Gregory of Nyssa,
"reside in places above the universe and beyond the firma
ment, dwelling in a condition consistent with their bodiless
natures, that is they are light, clear, agile, unencumbered
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Angels sit atop the ladder of being while created and formless
matter rests at the bottom of it.
Summarizing the patristic teaching about the angels, St. John
of Damascus says that God called the angels i nto being out of
nothing,
"an incorporeal race, a sort of spirit or immaterial fire, or
in the words of the divine David: 'He made His angels
spirits and His ministers a flame of fire' (Ps. 1 03:4); and
by this He has described their lightness and ardor,
enth usiasm, eagerness and acuity with which they serve
Him for Whom they long; and how they are borne to the
regions above and are quite free ofall material thoughts . . .
An angel, then, is a noetical essence, perpetually in motion,
with a free will, incorporeal, subject to God, having obtained
by grace an immortal nature. The Creator alone knows the
form and limitation of its essence. "6
The angels are equal in nature - created, immortal, incorporeal
or bodiless, noetical or spiritual , etc. but the thousands upon
thousands of angels do not have the same rank and order.7
Following the Scriptures,H St. Dionysios the Areopagite
delineates nine such orders, each with three ranks: Seraphim
Cherubim-Thrones; Dominions-Virtues-Powers; Archangels
Angels and Principalities. They form a scale of angelic beings
to the very throne of God, the closer the angel "the more it
shares in the divine Likeness and Illumination . " The "higher
ranks possess the illumination and powers of the lower ranks,"
St. Dionysios states, "but the lower do not participate equally
with those above them."9
Briefly, the six-winged Seraphim, 1 0 standing closest to the
throne of God, "by the hidden, u nquenchable, changeless,
radiant and enlightened power, dispel and destroy the shadows
of darkness . " The many-eyed Cherubim "are filled by the partici-
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The other angels which have been given special attention by the
Fathers and religious writers are Gabriel, Raphael and U riel. 1 1
Gabriel will visit Daniel (Dan. 8 : 1 6) and will reveal to St.
Zacharias the birth of his son, St. John the Baptist (Luke 1 : 1 9)
and announce the I ncarnation to the Theotokos (Luke 1 : 2 6-27).
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and bear our prayers to God (Rev. 8 : 3 ) ; angels contend for the
souls of the deceased with the devil (Jude 9 ) ; and will accompany
Christ at the Judgment (Mark 8 : 38) and gather the elect (Luke
8 : 26), casting evil doers into hell or gehenna (Matt. 1 3 : 4 1 ) ; and
they will enter the heavenly Jerusalem with the saved (Heb.
1 2 : 2 2 ) . They are not to be worshipped (Col. 2: 1 8) . 1 2
Although everywhere, angels are not omnipresent. They have
a mobility unknown to human beings. Whatever most modern
religious thinkers believe, angels are not mythological creatures;
nor are they ideas stolen by the Old and New Testaments from
ancient Near Eastern religions . The fact that many religions,
ancient and modern, have an angelology is no reason to assume
that such beliefs are the common superstition of religions with
a common cultural background. The truth is that Christians and
their Hebrew ancestors were not the only religions to experience
them. For example, the Nephilim (Gen. 6: 4) and Job were not
Hebrew and had contact with angels. The Church knows of
their existence ; in fact, angels belong to the Church.
2 . THE DEVIL AND HIS DEMONS
Demons are fallen angels, angelic rebels "which kept not their
first estate but left their habitation" (Jude 6) to wage war against
God. They were created good, but some, under the leadership
of the archangel, Samael, revolted against Him. The reason for
their revolution was pride, refusing, during God's council with
the angels, to serve the man whom the Almighty intended to
create. Samael or Satan had greater ambition. Isaiah was given
a vision of his fall,
"How has Lucifer, that rose in the morning, fallen from
heaven! He that sent orders to all the nations is crushed
to the earth. B u t thou saidst in thine heart, I will go up to
the heavens, I will set my throne above the stars of the
heavens: I will sit on a lofty mount, on the lofty mountains
toward the north: I will go up above the clouds; I will be
like the Most High. B ut now thou shalt go down to hell,
even to the foundations of the earth. " (Isa. 1 4 : 1 2- 1 4) .
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They had fallen into the "air" (Job 1 : 7 ; 2 : 2) or the void of created
space which suggests that the angelic rebellion occurred after
God had created the highest heavens. They now turned their
attention to Adam, he who Satan refused to serve and of whom
he was envious for his high position in the creation (Wisdom
2 : 24; Rom . 8 : 7 ) .
"Bu t because man, albeit subject to God, was given to rule
all creatures of the earth, the devil, the originator of evil,
looked with envy upon him and conceived ways to deceive
him and to cause his ruin. Unable to use violence - hind
ered by the Sovereign Ruler Who had fashioned all rational
natures free and self-determining - the devil decided to
use false counsel to abolish man 's dominion. He beguiled
him; or rather persuaded man to neglect and to dismiss
the admonition and commandment of God. In this way,
h e induced him to partake in his own apostasy from God
and hoped also to make him a partaker of his condition of
eternal darkness and death "'4
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one age here also embraces all the ages.17 The present and
the future are called 'ages of ages. ' Furthermore, everlasting
(aionios) life and everlasting punishment indicate that the
'age to come' is without end. For that (eighth) age, the period
after the resurrection, will not be counted by days and nights.
There will be no evening but one day only, no evening
because 'the Sun ofRighteousness' (Christ) will shine brightly
on the saved, but the sinful in that age will endure only
profound and limitless night"18
The ages commenced, the Fathers testify, when God the Son the Demiourgos or Builder - began to fashion the "first day"
"the one day" - which will cease when He Who built all things
comes to judge all things.
Before God created the galaxies and planets, He set a boundry
to the physical universe, a periphery or "heaven" to it (Gen. 1 : 8) .
Beyond it are other heavens, the "third" being the one into which
St. Paul was snatched (II Cor. 1 2 : 2) . As St. Irenaeos, bishop of
Lyons writes, there are seven heavens.
"But the earth is encompassed by seven heavens, in which
dwell Powers and Angels and Archangels, giving homage to
the Almighty God Who created all things, not as if He were
in need of anything, but Jest they too become idle, useless
and accursed. Therefore, the Spirit of God in His indwelling
is manifold and is enumerated by Isaiah the prophet in seven
charismata (Isa. 1 1 :21) resting on the Son of God, that is, the
Word, in His coming as man . . . Hence, the first heaven
from the top - and which surrounds the others - is wisdom;
and the one after and within it, understanding; and the one
after, the third, is counsel; and the fourth, counting from
the top downwards . . . fortitude . . . knowledge . . . godliness;
and the seventh, the firmament about the earth, full of the
fear of the Spirit, Who lights up the heavens. For after this
pattern Moses received the seven-branched candlestick always
burning in the sanctuary; since it was the pattern of the
heavens that he received the liturgy, as the Word says to him:
'You shall do according to all the pattern of what you have
seen on the mountain ' (Ex. 25:40)"19
There. are many "heavens" for which reason the Lord taught u s
t o pray, "Our Father Who art i n the heavens (ouranois)" and to
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the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over a ll the earth,
and over every creeping thing that moves upon it. ' So God
created man in His Own image, in the image of God He
created him; male and female He created them. And God
blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and m ultiply,
fill and subdue the earth . . . '. " (Gen. 1 : 26-28).
If God waited until the "sixth day" to create the ruler of the
earth, it was because, as the Fathers explain, man is the center
and synthesis of all things; he is a "little world" (microcosm), a
miniature and composition of the "greater world" (macrocosm)
of nature . He is, therefore, the unity or nexus of the physical
and noetical or spiritual world. As St. Gregory PaJamas writes,
"God did not form the whole man and matter and the other
elements which form the sensible world as He did the other
animals; rather He made only man 's body from these mat
erials, but his soul He took from things supercelestial, even
from God Himself by means of an ineffable in-breathing.
The soul is great and wondrous, surpassing the entire phys
ical world which surrounds him and which he was ordained
to govern. The soul knows God and receives Him and
manifests Him . . . and by Grace the soul is able to unite
hypostatically with Him after a struggle to achieve that
privilege . . . . "26
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"Man's soul did not exist until it was breathed into his body,
nor was it implanted in that body by anyone save God,
Who is the Creator of both soul and body . . . "2''
As St. Macarius the Great warns us, we must not conclude that
the soul is divine because it exists in the body by virtue of the
divine-inbreathing. It is "a creature noetical, beautiful, great and
wondrous, a fair likeness to and image of God," but altogether
an act of grace .:Jo Indeed, the soul is not even wholly spiritual ,
neither it nor the angels, as St. Faustus once observed. Only
God is completely immaterial.
Here, then, is the meaning of the Genesis anthropology
wherein God created the first man, breathing into his face "the
breath of life," into a body taken from the earth; and "man
became a living soul" (Gen. 2 : 7 ) . The soul - which the Hebrews
believed was seated in the blood - is the source of the will to
live, to thrive and to create. The soul possesses a non-rational
side, an impulse within it which impels the soul towards God
(Ps. 42 : 2; 1 39 : 1 4 ; Deut. 4 : 29). It is the "heart" ( kardia, cordus,
leb in Hebrew) which also judges between right and wrong,
makes contrition, believes and doubts (Ps. 1 5 : 2; 1 9 : 1 5 ; 5 1 : 1 9 ;
Prov. 3 1 : 1 1 ; Job 9 : 4 ; Rom . 1 0 : 9) . And, as the Lord Himself said
about the heart, from it proceeds "evil reasoning, murder, adul
tery, fornication, theft, lying, blasphemy . . . " (Matt. 1 5 : 1 9) and
with which, if it is pure, we "see God" (Matt. 5 : 8) .
In the soul i s man's reason (dianoia, ratio, fikar i n Hebrew)
with its discursive (analytical) and intuitive functions. In the
writings of the desert Fathers, the reason is called "guardian"
or "sentinel of the heart" - aside from its other powers. The
Lord recognized the various faculties of the soul, including
reason, in His command, "You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart (kardia), with all your soul (psyche) and with
all your mind or reason ( dianoia). This is the first and great
commandment" (Matt. 2 2 : 37).31 Finally, reason is also distin
guished from "spirit" (pneuma, spiritus, ruah in Hebrew) . "I
will pray with m y spirit (pneumati) and I will pray with the
understanding ( to n01) ," exclaims St. Paul in his first letter to
the church at Corinth ( 1 4 : 1 5).
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When Moses relates that God made man in His own Image
(eikon, imago, selem in Hebrew) and Likeness (homoisis, simil
tudinem, demu t in Hebrew) , he did not mean that man was the
analogy of God. The notion that God and man are alike - albeit
God is absolute, perfect and sublime - belongs to the Greek
philosophical tradition. This ostensible similarity or analogy
allowed the human mind - wherein the kinship to the divine
lay - to pass from the visible and changing world below to the
invisible and unchanging world above. The most famous expo
nent of this theory, as students of philosophy know, is Plato who
taught that everything in the visible world is only a replica or
copy of everything in the ideal or invisible world.
This theory has been treated with intellectual sophistication
by some and vulgar naivete by others. Thus, Augustine of H ippo
tried to prove the existence of the Trinity from the nature of
the human soul which he believed to be the analogy of God.
The soul, he said, possesses memory, reason and will - three
aspects of one reality just as Father, Son and Holy Spirit form
one God. Some thinkers, whether in antiquity, the middle Ages
or modernity, have held that, since God made male and female
in His "image and likeness," one must assume that God has male
and female characteristics. They usually assign masculinity to
the Son and femininity to the Holy Spirit. Contrary to this v iew,
St. Gregory of N yssa states that "the distinction between male
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St. Gregory adds that the "image of God" (and the "likeness"
we must achieve) apply to "our human nature, from the first to
the last," that is, all human beings share in the one and only
"image of God" through our first-parents (XV I , 1 8) . The Fall
of Adam meant the breaking (not the loss of) the "image" the loss of human solidarity however. Christ came to restore the
"image" and to "sum up under one head" ("anakaphaloisasthai,
recaptiulatio) humanity divided by sin (Eph. 1 : 1 0 ) . Only in
Christ, too, was the "likeness" to God made possible once again.
6. ADAM AND EVE: PARADISE
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red to it? To show, says St. Ambrose, the great power and wisdom
of God : that he who was made from nothing could become
perfect by God's grace, to become divine. The creation of Eve
in Paradise teaches us,
"that each person acquires grace by reason of virtue not
locality or nation. Hence, although created outside of
Paradise - an inferior place - man is found superior,
whereas woman - created in a better place - is found to
be inferior. She was the first to be deceived and was respon
sible for misleading man. Wherefore, the Holy Apostle
Pa ul has related that women in olden times were subject
to the stronger vessel and recommends that they obey their
husbands as their masters. And St. Paul says, 'A dam was
not deceived but the woman was deceived and was in sin '
(I Tim. 3 : 1 4) . This is a warning that no one ough t to rely
on himself; and she who was made as man 's assistant needs
his protection. The head of the woman is the man, who,
while he believed that he would have the help of his wife,
fell beca use of her . . . "54
Also, we learn from this story that she is the mother of the
h uman race which was intended to become perfect and achieve
the beatitude, as we have mentioned, was the purpose for Eden.
Her offspring there would have become gods, a fact that will
produce bitter irony.
"The woman" was created for the man as his h elper. She was,
in no sense, his slave, neither in Paradise was she wholly subject
to him. Adam was "preeminent," the "leader," but only after
the Fall was she in submission to him. "Equality," writes St. John
Chrysostom, "is known to produce strife and therefore, God
allowed the human race to be a monarchy, not a democracy;
but the family was constructed similar to an army, with the
husband holding the rank of monarch, the wife as general and
the children also given stations of command."'' Intriguing, too,
is the fact that God seems never to have spoken directly to Eve
but delivered His commands to her through Adam.'" Also, it
was the man who named "every living creature" (Gen. 2: 1 9) .
7 . T H E FALL O F MAN
Adam and Eve "were naked and were not ashamed" (Gen.
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The serpent was shrewd. He told no patent lies, but twisted the
truth. First, God did indeed not tell the woman directly that she
must not eat of the tree. The devil tricked her. "Did God say,
'You shall not eat . . . "' and Eve replied, "We may not eat . . . "
and "neither shall you touch it lest you die." In fact, writes S t.
Gregory PaJamas, Eve was outwitted, led to draw conclusions
about the words of God by the sagacity of the devil. She began
to think that God is not the supreme good, but rather the author
of death.
"We m ust understand from His words that God 'did not
make death ' (Wisdom 1 : 13), whether of the body or of the
soul. For when He first gave the command, He did not
say, 'On the day you eat of it, die:, but "In the day you eat
of it, you will surely die' (Gen. 2 : 1 7) . He did not say after
wards, 'Return now to the earth, ' but 'you shall return '
(Gen. 3: 1 9) , for telling in this way wha t would come to
pass. " 61
The serpent, having led Eve to doubt the word of the Creator,
enticed her further with a slander against Him, saying that God
was not only not good, butjealous and selfish - "For God knows
that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you w ill
be like H im , knowing good and evil." There is a modicum of
truth in his words, for the plan of the Lord was precisely to
elevate an obedient Adam and Eve to the plane of divinity, as
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St. Athanasios declares. She believed the serpent and her eyes
were opened. Her passions were aroused and she did eat.
She gave the fruit to her husband he also ate. Why did Adam
follow his wife, knowing first hand that God had forbidden him
to eat of the mysterious fruit and aware, too, what the conse
quence of disobedience would be?
"Attend carefully, " urges St. John Chrysostom. "The
woman said, 'The serpent beguiled me. ' But the man did
not say to God, the woman deceived me, but 'she gave me
of the tree, and I did eat. ' Now it is not the same thing to
be deceived by a fellow-creature . . . as by an inferior and
subordinate animal. This is truly to be deceived. Compared
therefore with the woman, there is no word that Adam was
'deceived. ' But she was 'beguiled' by an inferior and subject
creature, but he by an equal. Again, it is not said of the
man that he 'saw the tree was good for food, ' but the woman,
and that she 'did eat and gave it to her h usband': so that
he transgressed, not captivated by appetite, but merely
from the persuasion of his wife. The woman taugh t once,
and ruined all"62
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.,
We must notice that the serpent lost his upright position and
condemned to crawl on his belly; but more importantly, in the
words of God are the "proto-evangel," the first promise of a
Savior.
To the woman He said,
"I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain
you shall bring forth children, and your desire shall be for
your husband, and he shall rule over you . "
children sexually and painfully. Also, she must obey her hus
band; indeed, he became "lord" over her (Eph. 5 : 22).
And to Adam , He said,
"Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and
have eaten of the tree of which I command, 'You shall not
eat of it, ' cursed is the ground because ofyou; in toil shall
you eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it
shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the
field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you
return to the ground out of which you were taken; you are
dust and to dust you shall return " (Gen . 3 : 1 4- 1 9) .
After God gave His judgment , Adam called "the woman" Eve
"because she was the mother of all the living" (Gen. 3 : 20 ) . She
was to be the mother of a fallen race, instead of one with the
promise of perfection and immortality, a promise which now
belongs to the Church, "the new Eve." We will discuss the entire
matter of the new Eve in the next volume and show it's connec
tion with the Mother of God.
But why were our first parents expelled from Eden? The
answer is not as simple as it may seem . God did not curse the
ground of Paradise, but only the ground on which Adam and
Eve must henceforth live. The entire earth would have eventu
ally become paradisical if they had remained faithful to God.
Before the Fall, as the Latin Fathers used to say, man was able
not to sin and able not to die, but now Adam and Eve were
unable not sin and unable not to die . They had lost the glory
(kabod in Hebrew) of God and their evil, according to St. Gregory
Palamas, '.'would have contaminated that divine place" were they
allowed to remain.64
Outside of Paradise, that is to say, no longer in communion
with God, Adam and Eve became subject to the law of corruption.
They were no longer lords of nature. Thus, during the Matins
of Meat Fare Sunday, we hear Adam lament,
"Woe is me, I cannot bear this disgrace. I who was formerly
king over all earthly creatures, Behold I am now captive
to death beca use of unlawful counsel. And I who was for
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St. Cyril and St. John were not alone in defining the consequence
of Adam's Fall as death. St. Theophilos of Antioch affirms,
"So also the first man, by disobedience gained his expulsion
from Paradise. Not as if any evil existed in the tree of
knowledge, but from the fact of his disobedience did man
draw, as from a fountain, labor, grief and, at last, fell prey
to death "69
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8 . PROVI DENCE
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CHAPTER FOUR
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them by the Jewish nation, the call of the Gentiles to form with
"the remnant of Joseph" the new Israel .
1 . ABRAHAM
We know that from the very beginning God had a plan of
salvation , even before "the foundation of the cosmos" (world)
(Eph. 1 :4). Was it a contingency plan in case Adam failed to
endure the test of Eden? We cannot say ; nevertheless, when our
first-parents fell away from communion with God, He did not
abandon their posterity, but, as we have already learned, pre
pared for the deliverance of the human race (Gen. 3 : 1 5) . The
first major step in that direction, Moses tells us in the first book
of the divine Scriptures, was the appearance of God to Abraham
in Hebron, saying,
". . . I am thy God, be well-pleasing before Me, and be
blameless. And I will establish My covenant between Me
and thee, and I will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram
fell upon his face, and God spoke to him, saying, And I,
behold! My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father
of a multitude of nations. And thy name shall no more be
called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham, for I have
made thee a father of many nations. And I will increase
thee very exceedingly, and I will make nations of thee, and
kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish My coven
ant between thee and thy seed after thee, to their genera
tions, for an everlasting covenant, to be thy God, and the
God of thy seed after thee. And I will give to thee and to
thy seed after thee the land wherein thou sojournest, even
all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I
will be to them a God. (Gen. 1 7 : 1 -8)
God will renew H is Covenant with Isaac (Gen. 26: 2-5) and jacob
(Gen. 28: 1 3- 1 5).
Particularly interesting in the life of Abraham are the types
of the Messiah, such as the incident at Moriah where he is com
mand by God to offer up his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice to Him
(Gen. 22: 1 - 1 4) . The "sacrifice" of Isaac on the wood was a type
of God the Father "sacrificing" H is Son on the wood of the cross
Qohn 3 : 1 6) . Another type is found in the meeting of Abraham
with Melchizedek, King of Salem, "a priest of the most High"
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Put another way, the Messiah will come and be put to death and
in His Resurrection another people will blossom forth and "many
nations shall flee unto the Lord in that day for a people ; and
they shall dwell in the midst of the whole earth" (Zech. 2: 1 1 ) .
Writes St. Justin,
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Moses was the high priest o f the first Passover - in "a kingdom
of priests" (Exod. 1 9 :6 ) - but Jesus was both priest - "high
priest" of a "royal priesthood" (I Pet. 2 : 9) - and victim ("the
lamb of God") who shed His blood9 on the wooden altar of the
Cross, an event which took place during the celebration of the
Jewish Passover in the same month of Nisan after the vernal
equinox of the moon.
Moreover, as Moses sprinkled hyssop on the paschal lamb,
so "they put a sponge full of the vinegar on hyssop and held it
to His mouth" Qohn 1 9 : 29). The Gospels also record that, like
the lamb of the ancient Passover, not a bone of His body was
broken (Exod. 1 2 : 43 ; John 1 9 : 29) . And, to be sure, "the Angel
of Death" passed over the houses which bore the blood of the
covenantal lamb ; and Christ, by His blood, destroyed death. 1 0
A new era began for Old Israel, a new life for Christians who
"have the blood of the Lamb imprinted on their souls" (St. Hip
polytus of Rome) .
By their Passover the Jews escaped the bondage of Pharoah,
wrote St. Aphraat, "while we on the day of the Crucifixion are
delivered from the bondage of the devil. They sacrificed a lamb
and were saved by its blood from the Avenger while we are
delivered from evil deeds and death through the blood of the
Well-Beloved Son . " 1 1 As the blood painted on the entrances to
their houses, St. Cyril of Alexandria concurs, forbade the entr
ance of death to them, "the Mystery of Christ indeed forbids
the entrance of death and renders the believer inaccessible to
it. This is why we also, anointed with the sacred blood of Christ,
shall become stronger than death and despise corruption."12
As we said, the Mosaic Passover was an annual event, while
the Church "remembers" His Sacrifice, as the Lord commanded,
whenever She assembles, especially on Sunday - the Day of
His Resurrection, "the Lord's Day" (, Rev. 1 : 1 0). We will have
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occasion to say more about "Sunday" later. Again, the Jews ate
their paschal lamb as a symbol, a way of recalling the Mercy of
God, the day Israel became His "first-born," but Jesus described
participation in His Passover as the eating of His Body and the
drinking of His Blood. "Take, eat; this is My body . . . Drink of
it, all of you ; for this is My blood of the new covenant, which is
poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Matt. 26: 2628). At another time, Jesus said, " H e who eats My flesh and
drinks My blood has eternal life and I will raise him up at the
last day" Qohn 6 : 56).
The solemn eating of "the paschal lamb" - whether in Egypt
or at the Mystical Supper (or, yes, the Eucharist) - are types.
The first is a type of the second and the second (in which the
Eucharist shares) is a type of the great wedding feast of the
Lamb at the end of the world when the Church, His Bride, will
be joined to Him forever (Rev. 1 9 : 7- 1 0) . The types include Moses
and Christ.
The Gospel of John read at Pascha include the words, "the
Law was given by Moses, but Grace (charis in Greek) and Truth
(aletheias in Greek) come through Jesus Christ" Qohn 1 : 1 7) .
Charis and aletheia correspond t o the Hebrew hesed and
we'meth, the language of the old Covenant. Hesed describes the
enduring and faithful love of those joined in the Covenant; and
we'meth signifies the fidelity to covenant promises. We must
not forget that the Covenants include a common meal or feast.
We notice, too, the next verse of the Gospel lesson wherein
St. John states, "No one has ever seen God, but the only-begotten
Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed (more
exactly, "led the way," exegesato in Greek) Him (or to H im)." 13
Here i s an unmistakable reference to the Exodus: Christ "leads
the way" to God, to the Promised Land, as Moses "led the way"
(nay, Christ "led the way") to "the land of milk and honey," the
land of Canaan. We note the connection between the Promised
Land and eating ("milk and honey") .
At the same time, we must be aware o f the lonely word
"bosom" in John 1 : 1 8 which by itself suggests the marriage feast
or banquet in heaven, the feast of union between Christ
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away from the devil rather than Pharoah. Not without reason
did St. Matthew ( 2 : 1 5) quote the Prophet Hosea ("Out of Egypt
have I called my son . . . "). The "son" of God was, of course,
the Hebrew People and, in some sense, a person , J acob. We will
see later that Israel as a race - a new race - and a person are
identified with Christ, "the Son of God ."
a. Having fled Egypt, God did not lead Israel directly towards
the land of promise, but guided them "by way of the wilderness
to the Red Sea" (Exod. 1 3 : 1 8) . "And the Lord went before them
by day in a pillar of cloud to guide them along the way , and by
night as a pillar of fire to give them light" (Exod. 1 3 : 2 1 -22).
The "fire" is a type o f the pre-Incarnate Christ, but while the
"cloud" is a type connected with the humanity of J esus, it is also
the "cloud" which "overshadowed" the Virgin Mary at the
Annunciation and also appeared at the Transfiguration and the
Ascension, that is, the "cloud" was a sign of the Holy Spirit (St.
Ambrose, St. Zeno of Verona). The "cloud" as the Holy Spirit
was also suggested by its descent on "the Tent of Meeting" where
God conversed with Moses (Exod. 3 3 : 9 ; Num. 1 1 :25). We shall
see in a moment that the "Tent" was a type of the Incarnation.
With both the "fire" and the "cloud" to direct and protect
them, the Hebrews reached the Red Sea. By now, too, Pharoah
had changed his mind and pursued them (Exod. 1 4 :5-7). When
they saw Pharoah coming with his army and his chariots, with
the Sea before them, the People cried out to Moses, "Is it because
there are no graves in Egypt that you have brought us into the
wilderness to die? What have you done to us in bringing us out
of Egypt? ( Exod. 1 4 : 1 1 ) . And Moses encouraged them to have
no fear for "the Lord will fight for us . . . after this day you shall
see the Egyptians no more" ( 1 4 : 1 3) . God instructed the Prophet
to lift up his rod and stretch out his hand over the sea and divide
it that the people of Israel might go on dry ground through the
sea." When the Egyptians followed, the Sea was closed over
Pharoah and his army (Exod. 1 4 : 1 5-30 ).
Here is a type of the Cross as the first Canticle ( Irmos) of the
Matins of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross proclaims:
"Inscribing the invincible weapon of the Cross upon the
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their bellies with bread, while i t seems, that Moses had "brought
us o ut into this wilderness to kill the whole assembly with hunger"
(Exod. 1 6 :3). Then, the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Behold
I will rain bread from heaven for you and the people shall go
out and gather a day's portion each day . . . On the fifth day
when they prepare what they bring in, let them take twice as
much as they usually gather" ( 1 6 : 5) . The people were not
allowed to "gather" on the Sabbath, for it was a day of rest
consecrated to the Lord. "Now the house of Israel called its
name manna . . . " ( 1 6 : 3 1 ). 2"
The Lord Himself informs us that manna was a type.
Then jesus said unto them, " Amen, amen, I say unto you,
Moses gave you not that bread from hea ven; but My Fa ther
giveth you the true bread from hea ven. For the bread of
God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth
life unto the world. Then said they u nto Him, Lord, ever
more give us this bread. And jesus said unto them, I am
the bread of life: he that cometh to Me shall never hunger;
and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst . . . Amen,
amen, I say unto you, He that believeth hath everlasting
life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in
the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which com
eth down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof; and
not die. I am the living bread which came down from
heaven : if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever:
and the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give
for the life of the world . . . Amen, amen, I say unto you,
Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His
blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth My flesh, and
drinketh My blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him
up at the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My
blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh
My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him. As the living Father
hath sent Me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth
Me, even he shall live by Me. This is that bread which came
down from hea ven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and
are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live forever. "
Uohn 6:30-58)
Those who heard Jesus were confused not knowing how they
might "eat" Him as their fathers ate manna in the desert, aside
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from the natural revulsion of the Jews for drinking blood. They
did not understand Him, writes St. John Chrysostom, even when
He told them not to "seek the food that perishes," or when He
contrasted for them the manna of Moses and the great Mystery
of the Eucharist.21
St. Ambrose, discoursing on the Mysteries (Sacraments) of
the Church , ties manna, the Incarnation and the Eucharist.
"The manna was a great marvel; it was the food that God
rained down on the fathers. The hea vens nourished them
with this daily food. 'Man ate the bread of angels, ' as it is
written (Ps. 75:25). Yet, those who at this bread died in the
desert while the nourishment you receive, the B read
descended from heaven, comm unicates to you the sub
stance of eternal life. It is the Body of Christ. As the light
is greater than the shadow, the truth than the type, so the
Body of the Creator is greater than the manna from
heaven "22
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of it that the people may drink." And the Prophet did as he was
told. the water came and quenched their thirst. "And he called
the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the
faultfinding of the children of Israel, and because they dared
to put the Lord to the test, saying, 'Is the Lord among us or
not"' (Exod. 1 7 : 3-7).
St. Paul was the first to write concerning the typology of the
Rock of Horeb.
"I wan t you to know brethren, that our fathers were under
the cloud, all passed through the sea, and all were baptized
unto Moses (eis ten Mosen ebaptisan to) in the cloud and
in the sea; and all a te the same spiritual food and all drink
the same spiritual drink; indeed, they drank from that
spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was
Christ" (I Cor. 1 0 : 1 -4).
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down and worship him. This incident has a double Old Testa
ment reference: to Israel which, in taking possession of the land
of Canaan, "began to play the harlot"28 with the daughters of
Moab," by worshipping such fertility gods as B aal-eor (Num.
25 : 1 ) ; and, at the same time, we have the picture ofGod granting
Moses a vision of"all the land" which He had sworn " to Abraham,
Isaac and J acob, saying, 'I will give it to your descendents.' I
have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over
there"' (Deut. 34: 1 -4). Whatever sins Moses may have committed
that forbade his entry into the land of Promise, the Fathers all
agree that he could not "go over" the Jordan, because Moses
represented the Law. The Jordan is a type of B aptism and the
Promised Land a type of salvation; therefore, it is not by works
of the Law that we are saved but by faith through grace (Eph.
2 : 8-9). Knowing all these things, J esus replied to the devil, "You
shall worship the Lord your God, and Him alone shall you serve"
(Deut. 6: 1 3 ; Matt. 4 : 1 0).
g. Another Exodus type to which the Fathers invariably refer
us is the battle of Israel with the Amalekites (Exod. 1 7 :8- 1 3) .
No detail of the story seems more important than Moses standing
on the hill above the fray with h is arms outstretched. Whenever
he held them up, Israel prevailed and when he lowered them,
Amalek won. Because his arms became weary, Aaron and H ur
placed stones under his arms. U ltimately, Jesus the son of Nun
routed the Amalekites.
Moses on the hillside with h i s hands outstretched i s
everywhere taught b y t h e Fathers to be a type o f t h e Cross. The
companion of St. Paul, St. Barnabas writes in his Letter ( 1 2 : 2) ,
"God spoke again to Moses, telling him to make a type of
the Cross of Him who would die on it, for unless they
hoped in Him they would be ever at war. Moses kept his
arms outstretched and thus the Israelites gained the advan
tage. Why was this? So that they should realize that there
is no hope of salvation without Him . "
One must not overlook that Jesus was crucified between two
thieves, anti-types of Aaron and Hur.
Following the tradition of the C hurch , St. J ustin Martyr tells
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Jesus' conquest of the Amorite kings and his causing the sun to
stand still was also a type of the Crucifixon. Listen to the third
Kathisma of Matins for the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross:
"jesus, the son of Nun, 0 my Savior, in ancient times did
foreshadow Thy Cross mystically as he opened his arms in
the form ofa cross and the sun stood still until Thy enemies
were destroyed, 0 God. B u t now the sun has grown dark,
since it saw Thee on the Cross abolishing the might of
death and taking hades captive. "
The importance of the " sun" in this and other types will become
apparent as we learn the names and titles of Christ.
5. KING DAVI D
After the establishment of the monarchy under King Saul,
his tragic death, the passing of the Philistine danger, the new
( anointed) ruler, the thirty year old D avid, wanted to give the
tribes of Israel a symbol of their unity. He chose for that purpose
the founding of a capital, a Canaanite city, formerly occupied
by the Jebusites, between the Valley of H innon and the River
Kedron, with the name of Jerusalem ("the city of Peace"), "the
City of God . " He constructed new fortifications and rebuilt its
citadel or "stronghold," Z ion, which was situated on the city's
southeastern hill. "And David dwelt in the stronghold, and called
it 'the city of David"' (II Sam. 5 : 9) .
David also brought the A r k o f the Covenant to Jerusalem
and planned for it a permanent structure, the Temple, finally
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St. Jerome, remarking on these several verses, took note that from
this time "the house of David" became the norm of Messianic
prophecy. The Messiah or Christ is to be born of his "body. " He
will, like David, be priest and king - as well as prophet. Therefore,
it is better to say that the renewed Covenant between God and
Israel was not so much with David as through David - with "the
Chosen One" Who "is evidently Christ. "39
Not by accident, then, did the Lord preach the Kingdom of
the heavens and make the royal procession into Jerusalem on Palm
Sunday and establish the "new Covenant" and, of course, offer
H imself up on the altar of the Cross. Even more, the Lord com
pared H imself to the Temple (albeit the second Temple) when
He said to the Jews at Passover, "Destroy this temple, and in three
days I will raise it. " He meant, as St. John records, "the temple of
His body" (John 2 : 2 1 ). He was also proclaiming that God dwelt
in that body ; indeed, He was the Shekinah, that His body was the
Temple of the Holy Spirit.
His body, as St. Paul testifies, is also the Church and those who
are members of It also partake of the Holy Spirit who inhabits It.
Writing to the church at Corinth the Apostle exclaims, "Do you
not know that you are god's temple and that God's Spirit dwells
in you?" (I Cor. 3: 1 6) . All those have been baptized into Christ
have put on Christ, have joined themselves to Him, for which
reason they constitute "the Temple of the living God," the new
Israel.
6. THE N EW COVENANT
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He said again,
"Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for
the chief of nations; declare, give praise, and say, 'The
Lord has saved His people, the remnant of Israel. Behold
I will bring them out of the north country, and gather them
from the farthest parts of the earth . . . "' aer. 3 1 : 7-8).
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The world will become the Kingdom of God and I srael will have
a new King, Whose reign will never wane. As Daniel previews it,
"And there was given to Him (the Son of Man) dominion
and glory, and a Kingdom that all people, nations and
languages should serve Him : His dominion is an everlasting
dominion which shall not pass a way, and His Kingdom
shall not be destroyed
" (Dan. 7 : 1 4)
.
His capital will be "Mount Zion and the City of the living God,
the heavenly Jerusalem, and the company of many angels" ( Heb .
1 2 :22). I n that day
"the living waters shall go out from jerusalem; half of them
towards the sea, and halftowards the hinder sea : in summer
and in winter shall it be. And the Lord shall be king over
all the earth : in that day shall there be one Lord, and His
Name one" (Zech. 1 4 : 8-9).
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Israel will have become the world and the heavenly Jerusalem
her "eye" (St. Isaac the Syrian) . The Gentiles will share in the
new Covenant. J erusalem will be their city and they will drink
of its waters, its "mystical waters, " and they will behold His Glory.
"Arise, shine; for the light is come, and the glory of the
Lord is risen above you. For, behold, the darkness shall
cover the earth, and heavy darkness the people: but the
Lord shall arise upon you, His glory shall be seen by you.
And the Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the
brightness ofyour shining" (lsa. 60 : 1 -3).
All shall worship in the new Temple, "the temple not made with
hands" ( Heb. 9 : 24). God will find pleasure not in "offerings and
whole burnt offerings" (Mal. I : I O- I l ), but in holiness, "a broken
spirit and contrite heart" (Ps. 50: 1 7) . His new Temple will make
no more animal sacrifices (Jer. 3 : 1 6- 1 7) . Rather the People of
God will be a "living sacrifice" and they will worship God "in
the Spirit and Truth" (] ohn 4 : 2 1 ) . They will be a "habitation of
the Lord," "an holy temple" (Eph. 2 : 20-22), an "spiritual house"
(I Pet. 2 : 5). They will be the Church in which "the glory of the
God of I srael came from the east; and the sound of his coming
was like the sound of many waters ; and the earth shone with
his glory" ( Ezek. 4 3 : 2 ) .
If the language o f Ezekiel seems symbolic, i f not strange; if
the use of such phrases seems mystifying, it (they) must not
distract us, especially since we know that the Lord Himself, as
we have seen , referred to Himself as "living water" (i.e. , "mystical
waters"). Also, the solar ascription - "east" or "orient" - must
not distract us. Whether as some say, such words were borrowed
by Israel from her pagan neighbors ("sun worshippers") is of
no consequence. The prophets were directed to employ this
language in order to identify her new king, the king of all.
Thus, Malachi said, "Behold a man, the Orient is His Name,
unto you that fear My Name, the sun of righteousness shall rise"
( Mal. 4 : 2). St. Luke affirms, "through the tender mercy of our
God, whereby the Orient from on high has visited us" ( Luke
1 : 77-78). And the Lord will say, "As the lightening comes from
the east, so shall the Son of Man appear" (Matt. 24 :27). And St.
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147
ever, there is another and very specific prophecy about the birth
of the M essiah . It was uttered to King Ahaz, a successor to
David's throne.
"Hear then, 0 house of David! Is it too little for you to
weary men, that you weary God also? Therefore the Lord
Himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive
in the womb, and bear a son, and shall call His name
Emmanuel" (Isa. 7 : 1 3- 1 4) .
St. Matthew will interpret the name - " God with us" ( Matt.
1 : 23 ) . The Evangelist had in mind other words of the prophet
that the "waters"
"will sweep into Judah, it will overflow and pass on . . . and
its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, 0
Emmanuel . . . Be broken, you peoples; and be dismayed;
give ear, all you far countries; gird yourselves and be dis
tra ught. Take counsel together, but it will come to nothing;
speak a word, but it will not stand, for God is with us " ( I sa .
8 : 8- 1 0) .
1 48
before the time of David, "the sceptre shall not pass from Judah"
(Gen . 49: 1 0) . Therefore, on the day the Messiah comes - "On
that day I shall establish and rebuild its ruins; and I shall recon
struct it as the days of old" (Amos 9: 1 1 ) . Likewise, Michah fore
saw that the family of David would not be in power when the
Messiah comes which explains the reason for His birth in the
little town of Bethlehem.
"Now you are walled about with a wall; seige is laid against
us; with a rod they strike upon the cheek of the ruler of
Israel. But you, 0 Bethlehem Ephrata, who though you
are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you
shall come forth unto Me, He who is to be Ruler in Israel;
Whose going forth has been from the beginning, even from
everlasting" ( Mich. 5: 1 -2).
1 49
The Messiah will be a Shepherd, as David, who will love His sheep,
even giving His life for them. As God declares to Ezekiel,
"And I will set up over them One Shepherd, My servant
David, and He shall feed them: He shall feed them and be
their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and My
servant David shall be prince among them; I, the Lord, have
spoken. I will make with them a covenant ofpeace and banish
wild beasts from the land, so that they may dwell securely in
the wilderness and sleep in the woods. And I will make them
and the places round about My hill a blessing . . . " (Ezek.
34 : 23-26).
pass in that day, says the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to
go down at noon, and I will
darken the earth in the clear
day" which is little different
from St. Luke's description
(23 : 44-45) that "about the
sixth hour . . . there was
darkness over the whole
land until the ninth hour,
while the sun's light failed. "
Also, o n the Cross, the Lord
utters the words of Psalm
3 0 : 5 , "Into Thy hands I
commit My spirit . . . "
Although suffering a
cruel death, the Messiah
received new life , "For Thou
wilt not abandon My soul in
hades, nor wilt Thou suffer
Thy Holy One to see corrup
tion. Thou hast made known
to Me the ways of life, Thou
wilt fill Me with gladness
with Thy countenance ;
Prophet Amos, by Photios Kontoglou
delights are in Thy right
hand forever." (Ps. 1 5 : 1 0- 1 1 ).
He will not remain in the grave, but "shall be exhaulted and
lifted up and shall be very high" ( Isa. 5 2 : 1 3) . Thus, St. Paul
preached to the Jews at Antioch,
"And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the prom
ise which was made unto the fa thers, God hath fulfilled
the same unto us, their children, in tha t He hath raised up
Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou
art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee. And as concern
ing that He raised Him up from the dead, now no more
to return to corruption, He said on this wise, I will give
Thee the sure blessings of David. Wherefore he saith also
1 52
The prophets foretold that the Messiah would come and under
what circumstances. They could have believed and all the house
of Israel would have been saved ; indeed, she could have entered
1 54
into a new and glorious Covenant with Him, joining Him and the
Gentiles in the divine task of redeeming the human race and
tran sforming the creation. Instead the Jews fulfilled the prophecies
concerning their apostasy. As Malachi said,
'Judah is forsaken, and has become an abomination in Israel
and in jerusalem, beca use Judah profaned the holiness of
the Lord in those things wherein he has loved and courted
strange gods. The Lord will cut off the man who does such
things, and he shall be made base in the tabernacles ofjacob"
(Mal. 2 : 1 1 ).
C H APTER FIVE
Jesus the Christ or Messiah is "the Word ( Logos) made flesh ,"
God the Son , the Architect of the universe, Who came into His
world to restore the human race to the dignity from whence it
had fallen. His entire purpose was the salvation of all that He
had created. St. Paul meant nothing more when he wrote, " that
in the economy of the fulness of times, He might gather together
under one head in Christ, all things in the heavens and the
earth" (Eph. 1 : 1 0 ) . He recovered them from the devil who had
deceived our first-parents and made himself the god of the age.
Christ then offered the purified creation to His Father.
In other words, "when the fulness of time was come, God
sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to
redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive
the adoption of sons; and because we are sons, God has sent
forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father"
(Gal. 4 :4-6). He was "made of a woman," the ever-Virgin Mary,
the Theotokos (Mother of God), a title which sums up the whole
"economy of salvation" ( St. John of Damascus) , a title so crucial
to the Christian Faith that St. Gregory the Theologian declared,
"If an yone deny that holy Mary is Theotokos, he is estranged
from God." 1
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Icon under the Kovouklion of the Altar Table, Ch urch of the Dormition,
Dormition Skete, 1 985
Mary was the Mother of God, not because she gave birth to
Divinity, but that through her the Word became true man, God
Man (theanthropos) .2 He became - and henceforth shall always
be - true God and true man ; or, more specifically, the Person
and Nature of God the Son united with the nature of a man,
so that now He is God in two natures, united without confusion
or loss of identity as God or man . His humanity was the same
as our own (homoousios to anthropo) and, according to His
Divinity, He was exactly what the Father and the Holy Spirit
are (homoousios to Thea) .
Although His human nature is now "deified" - filled with
the Divine Glory, immortal, incorruptible, perfect in every way
- and ascended to "the right hand of the Majesty on high"
(Heb. 1 : 3 ) , it did not descend with Him. His human nature was
formed normally in the womb of the All-Holy Virgin. We may
say, then, there was a time when Jesus the man did not exist;
1 58
or, again, although Christ was always and forever shall be God,
God was not always the Jewish man and son of Mary. Jesus the
human being did not begin to exist until He was "made of a
woman, made under the law," albeit God the Son Who took that
humanity is forevermore and inseparably identified with it.
Before we undertake our study of Jesus the Christ, we must
remember one thing more : His Incarnation was the beginning
of something unique and incredible. He came to "His Own ,"
the Jews, as a Jew, because He was their God and " salvation is
of the Jews" Qohn 4:22). He appeared among them during the
Old Covenant, in its "last days." He was, therefore a man indeed, a Prophet, King and Priest - of the ancient agreement
made between Himself and Israel of old. Much of what He
accomplished during His earthly ministry belongs to that period.
Although the Resurrection and the Ascension belong to His
New Testament ministry, His Birth, Baptism, Transfiguration,
miracles and Mystical Supper transpired under the old dispen
sation. His Crucifixion carried the universe into the new age.
The Descent into Hades is not an historical event ; it occurs
beyond historical time. Yet, all these "mighty deeds of God" are
types of future realities: the future which immediately followed
the time of Israel, that is the age of the Church ; and the future
beyond it, the eternal age to come, "the Eighth Day. "
In the following pages, w e will concern ourselves with the
redemptive Work of the Lord Jesus. The activity of the Holy
Spirit, "the Comforter," related to that Work, takes place largely
with Pentecost and as the story of the New Testament begins
to unfold. The Holy Spirit is henceforth associated with the life
of the Church or, as St. Irenaeos said, "Where the Spirit is, there
is the Church. " This chapter, therefore, is limited to the Lord's
Incarnation, its purpose and implications. In connection with
this intent, we must take a serious look at the ancient and
m edieval heresies touching on the nature and mission of Christ.
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rophecy of the "last days." Jesus the Messiah would come in the
last days" to overcome the "enemies" of Israel. He would destroy
them , h owever, not on the field of battle, but on the Cross.
In oth er words, God promised that He would save His People.
H e Him self, God the Son , the God of the Old Testament, would
com e to them in the "last days" (Ps. 1 1 7 : 2 7 ; Isa. 7 : 1 4 ; Matt.
1 :23) . He came - or better, was sent by the Father, to save not
only Israel but the world. "He did not send a_ servant (wh ther
angel or principality , whether of those who d1rect the affa1rs of
the earth or who are entrusted with the arrangeme nt of the
he avens)," writes the anonymou s author of the Letter to Diog
netos , "but the Father sent the very Artificer and Maker of the
cosmos, the very One by Whom He created the heavens . . . "4
He came as a real man , "the Son of Man," "of the race of David,"
"the seed of Abraham " ( Heb. 2: 1 6) .
He would come in "the last days" when the force of the Old
Testament would expire. Indeed, He would come with a "new testa
ment," a "covenant of the heart" (jer. 3 1 : 3 1 -33), to form a new Israel
from the "remnant" of the old (Isa. 1 0:22). He would come to close
one "age" and open another. "For all things have entered a new
order," wrote St. Irenaeos, "the Word coming in the flesh, arranging
things in a new manner, that He might win back to God that human
nature which had departed from Him . . . "5
Therefore, "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us."
He came during the time of the Roman Empire, in Bethlehem of
Judea, in the days of Herod the king (Matt. 2: 1 ) according to the
mysterious plan of God, according to the divine agenda. Following
it, St. Irenaeos tells us, He revealed Himself according to the type
of the fallen Adam. "Searching him out" at the end of the day,
"so in these last times, by means of the same Voice, He also sought
out his posterity to visit them."6 He visited the human race visibly
to rescue it from the misery into which Adam's "transgression"
had cast his children.
Our misery was bondage, slavery to the devil, death and sin
a state of "corruption." "For this purpose the Son of God was
manifested," proclaims St. John the Theologian, "that He might
destroy the works of the devil" (I John 3:8). He appeared on earth
161
that "He might destroy him who has the power of death, that is,
the devil" (Heb. 2: I 4) . He tarried that He might abolish "death
and to bring life and immortality" ( II Tim. I : I 0) . To use the
language of St. Paulinus of Nola, the Lord came among us to
unite in Himself the human race "scattered in darkness" and to
reverse the process by which "sin governed our bodies, death
governed sin, and the devil governed death. "7
The birth of the Divine Conqueror was preceded by numerous
signs just as at the start of His saving ministry. Any pious or learned
Jew knew them. No prophetic sign was clearer than the appearance
of St. John the Baptist. He was the "forerunner" to the Messiah
about which even Moses spoke (Exod. 23 : 20-2 I ) . Later, the
Prophet Isaiah will announce,
"The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the
way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God. Every
valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be
brought low: and all the crooked ways shall become straight,
and the rough places plains. And the glory of the Lord shall
appear, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God: for the
Lord has spoken it" (Isa. 40: 3-5) .
first creation was realized in his sight. At that moment when Jesus
was baptized all the elements of the drama played out in the first
chapter of creation were present: God the Father calling Jesus
"beloved Son" instead of directing God the Son in the building of
the cosmos; the water of the Jordan instead of the primordial
waters over which the Spirit of God moved; and Christ (as the
"second Adam") surrounded by His Father, the Spirit and the
world He would recreate.
There is another type which John must have recognized: the
descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove recalled Noah's Ark,
an old world destroyed by water and a new one born from it (St.
Sophronios of Jerusalem). The dove returned to the ship with an
"olive branch," a symbol of the Spirit's mercy. That dove was also
a type of the Spirit at the Jordan which showed Jesus to be the
Messiah, "the Anointed One," anointed with "the oil of gladness."
We know, too, that Noah's Ark was a type of the Church, the
Body of Christ (St. Cyprian of Carthage).
As if this were not enough, the Jews should have understood
seeing in the incident of Jesus at the Jordan, the passage of I srael
under Jesus, son of Nun, leading Israel over the Jordan into the
promised land; and, also, the Lord "driven into the wilderness by
the Spirit to be tempted by the devil" (Matt. 4: 1 ) after His departure
from the River as a type of their ancestors in the desert. What
they might not have known - save by the report of believers
was what Jesus faced in the desert or wilderness, i.e. the temptations
of Adam and overcame them. He triumphed over the evil one
and thereby assured the world of new life.
2 .TH E SAVIOUR
When we call Jesus Christ "the Saviour"9 we affirm that H e
is the O n e Whom the Father has s e n t to recover the universe
from the devil. We confess, also, that He is the only "way, life
and truth" Uohn 1 4 : 6) , that "there is salvation by no other, for
there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby
we must be saved" (Acts 4: 1 2 ) . He is the "Door" Uohn 1 0: I ) ,
the M ediator or the One Who stands between God and man by
uniting them (I Tim. 2 : 5) . In other words, He is "salvation'
1 64
TH OGK
1 65
1 66
brought His disciples "up into a high mountain apart and was
transfigured before the m ; and His face did shine as the sun,
and His raiment was w hite as the light." He experienced the
Divine Light from the "eternal age to come," the Eighth Day,
in which the entire cosmos will be bathed and transformed by It.
St. Cosmas the Anchorite calls the Lord's Transfiguration
"the revelation of the mystery hidden before the ages." He,
along with St. Anatolios the Hymnographer, observed that the
Light of the Transfiguration necessarily prefigures the Resurrec
tion . 15 Not without reason did the Lord charge His disciples,
"Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man be risen from
the dead" (Matt. 1 7 : 9). The Transfiguration and the Resurrec
tion are connected surely on account of the U ncreated Light,
that is, the salvation of the u niverse involves both moments. To
be resurrected "on the last day" is also to enjoy the Light of
Divinity. After the Second Coming and the general resurrection
of all flesh, the creation will enter into perfect union with God
Who will be "all in all" (Eph. 1 :23).
Of course, those who will be "partakers of the Divine Nature"
are the members of the Church, the resurrected and transfigured
Body of Christ. The presence of Moses and Elias as well as the
disciples (later, Apostles) - Peter, James and John - all are the
foundations of the new Israel. As branches share in the life of
their vine, so will those ("branches") engrafted into Christ ("vine")
enjoy the Light of the eternal God. Hence, the words of the first
Kathisma of Matins for the Feast of the Transfiguration,
"Thou hast been transfigured, O Saviour, on Mount Tabor,
indicating the transformation of mankind which will occur
at Thy dreadful Second Coming. Moses and Elias did con
verse with Thee. But Thy disciples, Whom Thou didst call,
when they beheld Thy Glory, 0 Master, were dazzled by
Thy brightness. Wherefore, 0 Thou Who didst cause Thy
Light to shine on them, enlighten our souls. "
Considering, then, what has been said, what else can the title
"Saviour" mean when applied to the Lord Jesus? Postively, as
we have just seen, He is Saviour as providing deification; but,
negatively, He is the Saviour as liberating the human race rom
the evil one and destroying the power of death. More will be
said about this aspect of His mission in the pages ahead.
3. THE SECOND ADAM
Christ is the Saviour, but how does He save us? Nowhere in
the Scriptures or the Fathers is salvation accomplished, as some
Protestants sects say, by "faith alone," without any human effort.
The nature of the human predicament as well as the character
of divine revelation requires another solution. The human race
was divided by virtue of Adam's Fall. "Satan has scattered us,"
laments St. Athanasios the Great. When Adam fell, St. Maximos
the Confessor said, the unity of the human race was "shattered."
Following his transgression, the race of Adam suffered "division
and discord," wrote St. Basil the Great, but the Saviour came
"to re-establish its original u nity by bringing us into unity with
Himself' (Ascetic R ules, 1 8) . St. Cyprian of Carthage states that
the reunification of the human race is possible only if united in
"One Person," Christ . . . 1 6
Therefore, one very important reason for the I ncarnation was
to place among men that "One Person" through Whom they could
be reintegrated; or to quote once more the words of the Apostle
Paul, "to gather under one head (anakephaloisasthai
kephale
head) all things in Christ, whether in the heavens or on earth"
(Eph. 1 : 1 0). Put another way, the very God Who created the world
entered it and dwelt. among men in order to reclaim what had
been lost to the devil through the fall of the
first Adam. At one time, "all things" were subject to Adam, now
they will be subject to Christ. He came into the world to transform
creation into a "new Eden," that is to say, to restore "the state of
things" to us as they would have been had the first man not fallen.
No wonder the first book of the Scriptures, and the Gospel of St.
John which describes His Incarnation, opens with the words, "In
the beginning." The Incarnation is a "new beginning."
=
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1 70
way. Surely not because sex is evil or that He might avoid the
so-called "original sin," but that like the first Adam, He would
be the first of a new race. " For thus, in remodelling what was
from the beginning and moulding all over again through the
Virgin and the Spirit," testified St. Methodios of Olympos, "He
fashioned the same Man ; j us t as in the beginning when the earth
was virgin and untilled, God had taken dust from the earth and
formed, without seed, the most rational being from it."2" St.
Irenaeos gives a more detailed explanation,
"Therefore, as I have said, He ca used h uman nature both
to cleave unto God and to become one with Him. For unless
man could overcome his enemy, the enemy would not have
been rightly vanquished. And again : unless it were God
Who had freely given salvation, we could not possess it.
And unless man had been joined to God, he would not
have become a partaker of His Incorruptibility. For it was
incumbent upon Him Who is Mediator between God and
man - and by His rela tionship to both - to bring both
to concord and friendship, presen ting man to God, while
He revealed God to man. To be sure, in no other way could
we have become partakers of His Son ship unless we had
received from Him through the Son that communion which
refers to Himself; and unless the Word, having been made
flesh, had en tered into comm union with God. Those, there
fore, who think that the Son only seemed to dwell among
us - not really born in the f7esh and not truly having
become h uman - are themselves yet under the old con
demnation holding out pa tronage to sin; for by their per
verse reasoning, death has not been defeated, the death
which 'reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that
had not sinned in the manner of Adam 's transgression '
(Rom. 5 : 1 4) . B u t the La w in coming, which was given by
Moses and testifying that it is the knowledge of sin, did not
take away death 's dominion . . . It laid, however, a heavy
burden upon man, who possessed that sin which showed
his liability to death. For as the Law was not spiritual, it
merely made sin to stand in relief without abolishing it . . .
Thus, it behooved Him Who was to destroy sin and redeem
man from the power of death to become . . . man; to rescue
him who was in bondage to sin through death . . . For as
by the disobedience of one man (Adam) who was originally
moulded from virgin soil, the many were made sinners and
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TH E CHRIST
Whenever we refer to the Lord Jesus as "Christ" or " the
1 72
of Damascus again,
"Christ, therefore, is one, perfect God and perfect man :
and Him we worship along with the Father and the Holy
Spirit, with one obesiance, adoring even His immaculate
flesh, and never thinking that the flesh is unworthy of our
worship; for, in fact, it is worshipped in the one subsistence27
of the Word . . . B u t in this we do no homage to wha t is
created. We worship Him not as mere flesh, but as flesh
invested with Divinity, and beca use His two natures are
under the one Person and one subsistence of God the
Word . . . I worship the twofold nature of Christ, because
the Divinity is bound up with the flesh. Neither do I thereby
introduce a fourth person (a h uman person) into the Trin
ity. God forbid! But I confess one Person of God the Word
and of His flesh, and the Trinity remains three Persons in
one essence, even after the Incarnation of God the Son. "28
b. Gnosticism .34 Ancient Gnosticism took several forms Greek, J ewish and Christian. To whichever religion they
attached themselves, the Gnostics offered a picture of reality in
which the supernatural realm was filled, along with the
Almighty, with numerous other gods. Jesus Christ was such a
deity, albeit a special envoy of the Creaor. He came with a unique
and saving knowledge (gnosis) for those who would be saved.
If Gnosticism were right, then Christ is not God and no union
with Him is possible. Salvation comes by " knowledge," not by
grace. The Church becomes unnecessary and the Apostolic
Tradition is a lie. St. I renaeos, St. Hippolytos as well as many
ecclesiastical writers, such as the famous Tertullian, undertook
to refute the Gnostics.
c. Arianism. Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria (4th c.), taught
that Christ was not God. "There was a time when He was not,"
went his infamous maxim. He was opposed, among others, by
St. Athanasios the Great, who replied with his celebrated, " God
became man, that man might become god." Simply, if Christ is
not God, we cannot become "partakers of the Divine Nature."
Also, there is n o reason t o b e united i n Christ, that i s , in the
Church which is His Body. If Christ is not God, of what use is
She? She has no power to deify and Her Mysteries (Sacraments)
do not convey grace. Christ is not the Saviour and the claims of
the Chu rch are nonsense.
d. Apollinarianism . Apollinarios of Laodicea (see glossary),
an enemy of Arius, perverted the traditional christology i n
another way. H e denied that Christ had a true humanity, saying
that the mind of Jesus Christ belonged to God the Word. St.
Gregory the Theologian in his Letters to Cledonios, observes
that if Christ had no human mind, our human mind could not
be saved. " What was not assumed has not been healed, " St.
Gregory wrote, "for only what is united to the Godhead is saved.
For example, if Adam had only fallen in part, then, Christ takes
it to Himself and saves it; but if the whole of Adam's nature
fell , it must be united to the whole nature of Him that was
begotten and be saved as a whole. "
H e meant that God took a complete human nature, because
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1 79
1 80
Un th inkable , too, is the notion that, since Christ has only one
nature, God suffered on the Cross (theopaschism ). How absurd,
said St. Vigilius, Pope of Rome, to believe that God suffered
through the flesh and that "one of the Trinity hung on the
Cross."
The heretics did not grasp another consequence of their folly :
if Christ has only one will, the divine Will, then, the creature
has no freedom . Where there is no freedom, there is no choice
between good and evil, blame and praise may not be ascribed
to human actions. What, then, is morality? How is growth in
the Spirit possible? Are not all things predetermined? Is not
everyone and everything identified with God? How, then, do
we understand the role of the Church and Her Mysteries?
f. Iconoclasm . Although Iconoclasm or "icon-breaking" was
heresy
against icons - generally denying their use in public
a
and private devotions of Christians on the grounds of idolatry
- it was first of all a denial of the Incarnation. Iconoclasts
tended to have a strong contempt for matter and, therefore,
viewed the portrayal of Christ on canvas or mosaic or relief as
criminal. They recognized no direct connection between spirit
and matter which placed them in the Nestorian camp. Often,
they have been described as Monophysite, because the latter
merged the two natures of Christ into one, the divine nature,
which everyone agreed could not be depicted.
The great defenders of Orthodoxy, the Patriarchs of Constan
tinople, Sts . Germanos, Nicephoros and Photios; the monks, Sts.
Theodore of Studion and John of Damascus, argued persua
sively that not only did God create matter, but assumed a material
body. In other words, the icon portrays only the physical or
human side and, of course , the Virgin, the angels and saints,
making no pretense to capture the spiritual realities they presup
pose, realities apprehended only with "the eyes of faith" and
gnosis. Thus, the Fathers teach that icons or religious images
and their veneration (proskynesis) are justified because God
became a visible man. The Incarnation erected a bridge from
time to eternity which allows the communication between the
two realms. In any case, Christians worship (latreia) God alone.
Iconoclasm implies a false christology, leading not only to
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THE PASSION
Christ, Who is the Son of God became the Son of Man (the
new humanity) - the "heavenly man ," as St. Paul called Him4 1
- in order to recover and reconstitute all of creation . He was
motivated, in part, by compassion. "For God so loved the world
that He gave H is only-begotten Son ," writes St. John the Theolo
gian, "that whoseover believes on Him should not perish but
gain eternal life" O ohn 3: 1 6) . He did not want us "to perish
utterly ," neither to live in the disgrace of slavery (St. Athanasios
the Great) . In fact, He wanted him who had been deceived by
rhe devil to gain the victory over him.
Thus, it was necessary that man take a hand in his own re
demption; at the same time, he could not inasmuch as the entire
human race was subject to mortality and sin. Therefore, God
provided someone "born of a woman" - that is, of Adam's race
- to do what had to be done. Yet, since it was no longer the
uncontaminated world of the innocent Adam, for death and sin
corrupted it and a " tyrant" ruled it, God "Who alone has immor
tality ," became man. The Son of God became the "new man,"
the one who should - and could - reclaim and renovate the
creation. As St. Irenaeos confirms,
"B ut when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth
His Son, born ofa woman (Gal. 4 : 4) . For indeed the enemy
would not have been justly vanquished unless he who con
quered him was born of a woman. For by means of woman
the devil won the ad!,.a l l lage over the first man, even setting
himself as his adversary. And therefore does the Lord pro
fess Himself to be the Son of Man, comprising in Himself
the original man out of whom the woman was fashioned,
in order that as our species went down to death through
a vanquished man, so It might ascend to life again through
"
1 82
Sim ilarly, the words of the Kathisma for the Matins of Palm
Sunday proclaim ,
"Blessed art Thou, 0 Sa viour, Thou Who didst come into
the world to become a new, spiritual Adam. As Thou didst
consent to rescue Adam from the first curse, and didst
prepare all things for the best, 0 Thou Word, Lover of
mankind, glory to Thee. "
1 83
But how did Christ accomplish the death of death ? How did
He "destroy sin, overcome death and give life to man"? to use
the words of St. I renaeos. As the Scriptures say, "the Son of
Man is come . . . to give His life a ransom (lytron)43 for many"
(Mark 1 0 :45), a " ransom for all" (I Tim. 2: 1 6) . The "ransom"
is payed to the grave. As the Lord revealed to the Prophet Hosea
( 1 3 : 1 4 ) , "I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will
redeem them from death ." Moreover, the ransom is the very
life of Christ, the shedding of His blood. " I n H im we have
1 84
redem ption through His blood, " the Apostle says (Eph. l : 7).
Without the shedding of blood, as we have already learned,
there is "no remission of sin" (Heb. 9 : 22). This teaching, as we
also know, is associated with the covenant made between God
and Israel in Egypt, the Mosaic Passover. In Christ, the shedding
of His blood on the Cross, signifies the establishment of a "new
testament" or "covenant." The Lord spoke of His "blood of the
new testament, which is shed for many" (Mark 1 4 : 24). He was
"the Lamb of God" (John l : 36) Who, like the animal slaughtered
by the Chosen People in Egypt as a sin-offering, whose blood
was protection against death , Himself laying on "the altar of the
Cross" for the same reason. Jesus, however, was Himself both
priest and victim, He that "offers and is offered," to quote St.
John Chrysostom's Liturgy. He offered Himself to God the
Father as a "gift and sacrifice" ( Heb. 8 : 3) that we might be freed
from the devil and death and be reconciled to the Almighty.
Let there be no mistake, however, when He went to H is
voluntary Passion, He did not go, as the heterodox West thinks,
to pay, in our place, "a debt of honor" to His angry Father. The
Orthodox Church has never endorsed the opinion of Anselm
of Canterbury ( l l th c.) that Adam's sin was an offense to the
Majesty of God, an offense which must be erased with reparation
of His sullied honor. But sinful man cannot "satisfy" God's
demand. Therefore, it was necessary for God to restore what
the disobedience of man had taken from Him. Yet, it was man's
duty. The only solution, Anselm argued, was that God become
man and pay the price, to pay "the debt of honor" with His own
human life.
As the modern Father, Metropolitan Antony Khrapovitsky
explained, "the Latin theory of satisfaction was taken by Roman
Catholicism not from divine revelation but from Roman law . . .
from the feudal laws of knighthood."44 Those " laws" show up
clearly in Anselm's theory : crime, compensation, punishment,
vindication. In other terms, sin is breaking the moral and natural
law of God. Thus, man (everyone has inherited the guilt of
"original sin") is worthy of death, for "the wages of sin is death. "
If the condition of man i s to be altered and God compensated
1 85
for His lost honor, someone "must make, according to the inj ury,
restitution, in some way , to the satisfaction of the person (in this
case, God) injured," Anselm insisted.4" Man was vindicated by
Christ, the God-man, who payed the price of our transgression
on the Cross.
Anselm challenged and, at least for some, changed a doctrine
held by Christians for a thousand years without question or
doubt, reinterpreting that doctrine according to scholastic theol
ogt6 and on the grounds that "nothing was more reasonable"
than the notion of "satisfaction."47 In the teachings of the Church,
however, the redemption of Christ has no legalistic dimensions.
Rather, as already suggested, He shed His blood as the Good
Shepherd Who lays down His life for His sheep Qohn 1 0 : 1 1 ) ;
a s the divine Warrior fighting the army o f the demons (Isa .
1 6- 1 9) . He acted from mercy and condescension, not legal obli
gation . He took on human flesh to engage the devil in mortal
combat, proving triumphant at the great battle of the Cross.
Death , too, was killed, rejoices St. Athanasios, and we have now
"the hope of the resurrection ."4H
At the same time, we ought not to forget that the drama of
the Cross was typified in Eden. All the elements of Adam's
tragedy were present during the Lord's Passio n: "Adam," "Eve"
- born from His side4!' - a garden, temptation, mankind
("thieves") , God, the devil and "the tree of the Cross." Further
more, as if God wanted to add greater pathos to the scene, Jesus
was crucified on the hill of Golgotha which in Hebrew means
"the place of the skull" (ho topos tau Kraniou, in Greek) ; and
in Latin, Calvaria, from whence the English "Calvary" derives.
The head of Adam as buried there, which explains, inciden
tally, the reason that Adam's skull is depicted beneath the Cross
on all icons of the Crucifixion. Moreover, when the earth quaked
an opening or crater was made in the ground beneath the Cross
and Christ's blood fell upon the skull and thereby Adam and
his race were symbolically renewed.
Why did Jesus submit to the Cross? "If I be lifted up, I will
draw all men to Myself," He said Qohn 1 2 : 32). " How could He
have called us if H e had not been crucified?" St. Athanasioc>
1 86
asks, "for it is only on the Cross that a man dies with arms
ou tstretched .""" But also Jesus "hung on a tree" as a "curse," for
as it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree" (Gal.
3: 1 3 ) . The "curse," according to the Jewish understanding of
th e Scriptures, was put by God on everyone who betrayed the
Faith of I srael.
Jesus was accused of "blasphemy," accused by the Sanhedrin
(Mark 1 4 : 64) for calling Himself "the Son of God" and, there
fore, betraying that faith . He was crucified in observance of the
Law . But, as the Fathers tell us, His being "lifted up" carried a
certain irony ; for in this way , H e was "exalted" and the "curse"
became a blessing for all . The "curse" was death, St. John
Chrysostom writes, but by "dying He rescued from death those
who were dying, so by taking upon Himself the curse, He deliv
ered them from it."51 The Jews that condemned Him were them
selves condemned while their brethren who believed on Him
were saved along with the Gentiles who, as promised by God to
Abraham, would be blessed in his "seed" (Gen. 2 2 : 1 8 ; Gal . 3 : 1 4) .
The "blessing" i s eternal life and Abraham's "seed" i s Jesus the
Christ, His Ch urch .
But Jesus was "lifted up on the Cross" for another reason .
He was "lifted up" into the air, in the sphere where , as we saw
in chapter I I , the devil and his angels fell after their expulsion
from heaven. At His Crucifixion , He cleansed the air from the
evil influences of the enemy. Thus, just before He went to His
death, the Lord, said to His disciples, "Now is the judgment of
this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out" O ohn
1 2 : 3 1 ) . On the Cross, writes St. Peter Chrysologus, Christ was
"captured" by the devil, "the author of death," but in so doing,
he himself was conquered by Him Who "although slain . . .
op en ed the way for His sheep to conquer the devil and death"
(Sermon 42). In the words of St. Gregory the Theologian, "by
overcoming the tyrant, God set us free and reconciled us to
Himself through His Son . "
How were we "reconciled" to the Father through the blood
of His Son? First of all, let us erase from our minds any idea
that this reconciliation was effected by a substitutionary punish-
1 87
"Thou will not leave My soul in hades, neither will Thou permit
Thy Holy One to see corruption" (Ps. 1 6 : 1 0 ) .
In other words, the Lord surrendered Himself to the grave
a
as "ransom" in exchange for those who had been lost to it.
Th e final obstacle to a complete victory was the devil, the keeper
of the grave. The Cross was devised as a lure. When the devil
saw Christ hanging on the tree, laden with our iniquities, he
thought Him another sinner for his prison. He did not know
that hidden in the body of the Crucified was His Divinity."4 He
snatched Him up and the devil was snared by "the hook of
Divinity." As St. Gregory of Nyssa says ,
"For he who first deceived man by the bait of pleasure is
himself eceive by the c mouflage of h uman nature . . .
The devil/racticed deceit to ruin our nature but God
being goo , just and wise, used a clever device o sa ve th
creature who had been despoiled. Acting as He did, God
benefited not only the one who had perished but also his
postenty. For when death came into contact with life dark
ness wit ligh , corruption with incorruption, the wrse of
thes thmgs disappeared into a state ofnothing to the profit
of him who was fi-eed fi-om these evils. "'"
It seems only just that he who used deceit to snare the first
Adam was himself baited and caught by the second Adam. The
devil was trapped, however, not so much by God as by his own
evil conceit .
6. THE DESCEN T INTO HADES
During the period of His burial, the Lord descended into
hades55 to the surprise of God's angels who guarded its gates
and the demonized host within. The words of Psalm 23 (entitled,
"A Psalm of David, on the First Day of the Week.") Verse 9- 1 0 :
"Lift u p your gates, 0 ye princes; and be ye lifted up, ye ever
lasting gates, and the King of Glory shall enter in. Who is this
King Glory ? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord, m ighty in
w ar," are applied by St. Epiphanios of Salamis to this awesome
in cident. 57
At the Matin Service of Great Saturday, the Church sings,
1 89
J)
ij
y
I
)l
"Therefore, I purchase
the body that was sold
to you by the first
Adam; I cancel the
bonds. I paid the debts
of Adam, when I was
crucified and descended into hades; and I command you, '0
hades and darkness and death, bring out the imprisoned
souls of Adam. Thus, the evil powers, struck with terror, gave
back the imprisoned Adam. "59
Like Jonah in the belly of the whale, Christ descended into hades
"to visit those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, certain
that He goes to loose Adam, the captive, and his co-captive, Eve,
from affliction, He that is both God and her Son." Did He save
all? "In no wise," replies St. Epiphanios, " . . . He saved them that
believed.""" "And thus after He had freed those who had been
bound for ages," adds St. John of Damascus, "straightway He rose
again from the dead, showing us the way of resurrection.""'
7. T H E SABBATH AND THE RESURRECTION
After His death on Friday, "the day of preparation" (paras
keve), the Lord's body was placed in a "new tomb" which was
situated in a garden where He was crucified Qohn 1 9 : 4 1 ) . St.
1 90
1 93
1 94
THE ASCENSION
With the Ascension of the Lord into the heavens and His
session "at the right hand of God" (Mark 1 6 :20) , His earthly
ministry came to an end . The pattern of salvation layed down
by Christ for His "brethren" includes their ascension to the
Father and "sitting down" in Christ at "the right hand of God ."
Christ now makes constant intercession for His Own, wrote St.
Gregory the Great in his first Dialogue.
The Ascension of the resurrected and deified Christ into
heaven was visible to the naked eye, even "the cloud which
received Him out of their sight" (Acts 1 : 9) . He ascended into
the East, The Doctrine of the Apostles ( I I , 5 7 : 5) informs us, a
fact which also justifies, in part, the worship of the Church
towards the East. When He returns to judge the world, the
angels announced to His Apostles and disciples on the Mount
of Olives, He "shall come in like manner as you have seen Him
go into heaven" (Acts 1: 1 1 ) . He will return in might and majesty,
as the deified Man, the everlasting Man, the incorruptible Man
into whose side St. Thomas had thrust his hand, the transformed
Man who met the Apostles at the Sea of Tiberias after the Resur
rection, the Man bearing recognizable human features, a Man
now capable of feats which ordinary flesh could not do .
1 95
Psalm XXI I I which St. Irenaeos and the other Fathers who
describe the journey of the Lord up through the heavens (St.
Athanasios, St. Ambrose, St. Justin, etc.) drew on the picture of
the ancient procession into the Temple at Jerusalem which, as
we know, is a type of the Church which is an image of the
Temple of the heavenly Jerusalem. The first to use this figure
was St. Paul in his letter to the Hebrews where the Apostle
speaks of Christ seated at "the right hand of the Majesty on
high ," a place of exaltation prepared for His triumphant return
to the Throne of His glory.
As the Lord approaches His Father next to Whom He will
sit, now as eternal God-Man, once more He acts with the Spirit
Who proceeds from the Father, sending Him as Comforter to
His People according to His promise Qohn 1 5 :26). "The Spirit
of Truth" Himself commands all the heavenly host to welcome
the victorious Christ. As the Church chants during the Vespers
of the Ascension,
"The Lord ascended to the heavens to send the Comforter
into the world. Wherefore, the heavens made ready His
Throne, and the clouds His mounting. The angels wonder
as they see a man more exalted than themselves. The Father
receives into His Bosom Him Who is eternally with Him.
The Holy Spirit commands all the angels, 'Lift your heads,
0 princes, and all nations, clap your hands; for Christ has
ascended to rest where He was before. ' s
1 96
Jesus will leave H i s Throne once mar, "in is glry and all the
a n gels with Him" (Matt. 25:3 1 ( , to judg the hvmg an the
dead." He will not appear, however , until the other details of
the divine plan have been fully realized. St. Jus tin Martyr avows,
"God the Father raised Christ to the hea vens after the
Resurrection, and He will remain there un til He has struck
down the demons, Their enemies, and until the number
of the elect should be complete, for whose sake He has not
yet consigned the universe to flames. Hear the Prophet
David predict these things, 'The Lord said to My Lord, Sit
at My right hand until I make Thy enemies Thy foot
stool'. "69
1 97
1 98
EDITOR'S NOTE
APPENDIX:
Augustine of Hippo
(351-430)1
1 99
tedly, the Fathers and teachers i n the East were not everywhere
familiar with his writings, but Augustinian opinions were found
wanting by those who did encounter them.2
a. Augustine's theory of original sin evoked consternation
everywhere in the West, but most especially among the monks
of southern Gaul (France). The leader of the monks, St. John
Cassian, who had been ordained to the diaconate by St. John
Chrysostom, took exception to Augustine's views on God, man
and grace. In this he was joined by St. Vincent of Lerins, St.
Gennadius of Marseilles, St. Faustus of Riez (Rhegium), the
ecclesiastical writer Arnobius the Younger, as well as the
churches of Ireland and B ritain. They all declined to accept
Augustine's teaching that every person is guilty of and is being
punished for - or saved in spite of - Adam's sin. The B ishop
of Hippo had proclaimed that in Adam "was constituted the
form of condemnation to his future progeny, who would spring
from him by natural descent."3 He believed that baptism elimi
nates the guilt of original sin, but not all of its consequences,
j ust as the wound remains albeit the lance has been removed.4
Driven, as it were, by the force of his own logic, Augustine
i nsisted that man is sufficiently evil, whether because of the sin
inherited from Adam or the personal i niquity ("actual sin")
added to it, that God alone can save him. Since not all men are
saved, it is obvious that God has mysteriously chosen to reward
some and punish others. As Augustine wrote,
". . . owing to one man all passed into condemnation who
are born to Adam, unless they are reborn in Christ, even
as God has appointed to regenera te them before they die
in the body. For He has predestinated some to evelasting
life as the most merciful Bestower of grace; while to those
whom He predestinated to eternal death, He is the most
righteous Awarder ofpunishment. They are punished not
on account of the sins which they add by the indulgence
of their own will, but on account of the original sin, even
if, as in the case of infants, they had added nothing to tha t
original sin. Now this is m y definite view on the question,
so that the hidden things of God may keep their secret,
without impairing my own faith5".
200
201
I n the same manner, St. Ambrose of Milan says, "If you claim
grace, believe in its power; if you reject the power, do not ask
for grace" ( The Holy Spirit VII , 64.)
Likewise, on the question of predestination, which is necessar
ily tied to the issues of saving grace and free will, the Church
denies that God eternally predetermines some to salvation and
others to damnation. His knowledge of all things (omniscience)
does not involve pre-determination. As St. John of Damascus
expresses this matter,
"We ough t to understand that while God knows all things
beforehand, He does not predetermine them. For He
knows already those things that are in our power, but He
does not predetermine them. It is not His way that there
should be wickedness, but neither does he compel virtue.
Th us, predetermination is the work ofthe divine command
based on fore-knowledge. On the other hand, God pre
determines those things which are not within our power
in accordance with his fore-knowledge. In this fashion, God
has pre-judged all things according to His goodness and
justice. " 1 0
St. John summarized the theology that was the common inheri
tance of the entire Church until Augustinianism, making gradual
inroads, finally became the dominant thinking in the 9th century
West . "
202
203
205
206
FOOTNOTES
Augustine of Hippo
1.
Much of the material below has been covered already in the second
and third chapters of this volume.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
1 0.
of St. Justin Martyr, St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory the Theologian,
St. Jerome and St. Maximos the Confessor.
11.
13.
14.
1S.
1 6.
207
1 7.
The Creed for Catech umens VIII, 1 6 . See also his Retractions (chap
44) ; and On Baptism, Against the Donatists (bk. I ) .
1 8.
1 9.
20.
21.
208
FOOTNOTES
Chapter I - Introduction
1.
2.
3.
Rom. 1 5 : 4 ; II Tim. 3 : 1 6 .
4.
Mark 4 : 2 ; 1 2 : 2 8 .
5.
6.
7.
8.
See glossary.
9.
1 0.
S e e volume I I , chapter 7 .
1 1.
S e e glossary.
12.
See glossary.
13.
See glossary.
14.
See glossary.
15.
16.
17.
1 8.
1 9.
20.
St. Cyprian and his Synod of Carthage (258) declared that all heretics
coming into the Church must be baptized. The Bishop of Rome dis
agreed.
21.
St. Gregory wrote to the Patriarch that any bishop who "seizes u pon
this ill-advised name" takes u pon himself a "singularity" which "denig
rates his brethern" (Epistle 1 8, 5 ) .
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
p . 10.
27.
209
28.
29.
30.
Doxasticon of the Praises for Matins of the Sunday of the Holy Fathers
of the Seventh Ecumenical Council.
31.
32.
Most modern scholars believe that St. Dionysios was not a disciple of
St. Paul and never wrote the books attributed to him. They describe
h im as a sixth century Monophysite, Syrian monk, who stole the name
of St. Dionysios for his own writings. The fact that The Celestial
Hierarchy, The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, The Divine Names and The
Mystical may not have surfaced until the sixth century and tried to
explain the Tradition of the Church in the language of Plato means
only that the editor ofthese works tried to give them a "modern" look.
33.
35.
36.
S e e glossary.
37.
38.
34.
39.
40.
41.
See glossary.
42.
See glossary.
43.
44.
44.
See glossary.
1.
See glossary.
Chapter II
2.
See glossary.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
See the interesting work by R. Otto, Mysticism, East and West (New
York, 1 957) in which the author compares, for example, the H indu
210
Sankara with the 1 3th century German mystic, Meister Eckhart; and,
Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism (New York, 1 955) in which she contends
that the mystical experience is a bond between particular kinds of
persons, whatever limitations ordinary life may seek to impose on
them.
8.
9.
I 0.
II.
Homily on Psalm I, 8 .
1 2.
13.
14.
15.
1 6.
17.
1 8.
1 9.
In the late Middle Ages and, to be sure, in the modern world, many
theologians and philosophers taught that human reason could bring
sufficient knowledge of God to enable anyone to achieve the certainty
of human knowledge and to lead a life of saving piety. Such a notion
has no place within the Orthodox Faith.
20.
An Exact Exposition . . . , I, 3 .
Op cit., I , I . S e e Proverbs 2 2 : 2 8 .
On the Trinity I I I , 2 ; V I I I , 5 1 .
Hexaemeron I , 8 : 29.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
T h e word "political" i n the thinking of the Fathers did not carry its
modern sense; it meant, in both East and West, "what pertains to the
21 1
city" (polis, civitas), that is, the effect of something on the total life of
a person or, in the case of a Christian, his Church and t h e Empire.
32.
33.
The order of coming forth from the Father (the generation of the
Son and the procession or spiration of the Holy Spirit) is not the same
as the order of manifestation - especially in time - a manifestation
which is described as "the radiance of God's Glory." Thus the Lord
Jesus declares that He has "manifested" the Father's Name (Person)
and prays to possess once more the Glory they shared before the
creation of t he universe (J ohn 1 7 : 5, 22, 24). The Son is the Brightness
of the Father's Glory and the Spirit the S pirit of His Glory (He b. 1 : 3 ;
I Pet. 4: 1 4) and what may have happened between Them in eternity
may not be predicted of time. Thus, the Glory appeared as the powe r
that created the universe, the "word" that appeared in Old Israel, as
the Light of the Saints and Prophets. And, of course, there is the
supreme "manifestation," the Incarnation of the Word ("the glory of
Thy People Israel," exclaimed St. Symeon); and, too, the manifestation
of His Glory on Mt. Tabor with the Light of the Age to come and the
voice of God the Father; and the Baptism of the Lord after which the
S pirit appeared in the form of a dove, and the voice of God the Father;
and Pentecost in which the Holy Spirit came u pon the Church after
the Ascension of the Lord to Glory (See footnote 36). More will be
said about this topic in chapter IV.
34.
In both t h e Scriptures and the Fathers when the word "God" appears
unqualified by some other word or phrase, it refers to the Father ("I
believe in one God, the Father Almighty . . . ").
35.
PG 9 1 1 020A.
36.
37.
38.
212
3 9.
For example, St. John Cassian and the monks of Gaul; St Vincent of
Lerins, St. Faustus of Riez, etc. His ideas were, at first, rejected by the
Church of Ireland. Augustinian "theology" did not prevail in the West
until the 9th century and even then it met resistence, particularly
among the Slavs evangelized by Sts. Cyril and M ethodios.
40.
4I.
See glossary.
42.
God the Father is "cause" (aitia, causa) of the Son and the Spirit,
because they are eternally and ceaselessly coming out of Him. The
Father is not "cause" in the sense that the artist is the cause of the
painting or the falling rock is cause of my broken leg. Neither does
the word "cause" imply the slightest superiority.
43.
The Son is "begotten not made" declares the Creed of Nicea. The
idea the Fathers wanted to convey was that the Son issues from the
substance of the Father in the same way as a mother be gats her child.
He is not "made" as a carpenter makes a house. The Son is the Father's
only Son.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
that "love," for example, may be the way in which we experience the
energy (See his "'The River of Fire , " in The Saint Nectarius Orthodox
Conference . . . , pp. 1 03 - 1 3 1 ).
55 .
56.
Hexaemeron V, 23 : 82.
Ep. XLIII PC 91 640BC.
57.
58.
5 9.
60.
428AB.
213
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.
73.
74.
Hexaemeron I , 2 .
Op. cit. , I , 4.
Commentary on the Acts o f the Apostles II, 4 PG. 60 3 1 .
Philokalia (vol. 3), p. 255.
Hexaemeron I , 4 : 1 2 ; I, 6:20.
Physical, Theological . . . . Chapters, 2 PG, 1 50 1 1 2 1A . See also the
first century Shepherd of Hermas I, 6; the Trisagion and Anaphora
Prayers of St. John Chrysostom ' s Liturgy ; St. Maximos the Confessor,
Ambiguous Questions PG 9 1 1 1 64BC, etc.
On the Divine Names I I , 1 0 PG 3 673D.
The Power o f the Holy Spirit, 8-9.
Op. cit., 1 8 . St. Ambrose, Hexaemeron I, 8 : 29 .
The Beatitudes, Sermon 5 .
Chapter I I I - The Creation
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
2 14
9.
10
12.
13.
14.
15.
16
17.
18.
1 9.
Exact Exposition . . . I I , l .
Explanation of the Apostolic Preaching, 9 .
20.
2 15
nor is His Kingdom, like the Roman Empire, a human empire (See
St. J us tin Martyr, I Apology, I I ). God is the God Who reveals H i mself
and His Kingdom.
2 1.
22.
23.
Hexaemeron I , 4 : 1 3.
To A utolycos II, 15 PG 6 I 077B. This sentence contains two important
1 63 ] .
24.
things: a) the word "Trinity" is used for the first time in Ch ristian
literature; and b) the Holy Spirit is given the name "Wisdom" which
ordinarily belongs to God the Son or Logos (I Cor. I : 24). Only St.
Theophilos and St. Irenaeos call the Spirit "Wisdom of God" ( Sophia
tau Theou). Some scholars want to find in this a disagreement between
the Fathers and/or the Scriptures and the Fathers. But the Spirit is
"Wisdom," as St. Irenaeos argues, because He "manifests the Word."
He is the "Spirit of the Word" ( The Explanation of the Apostolic
Preaching, 5). The Spirit, then, is "wisdom," in an economic sense,
because He gives the "gift" or "charism" of wisdom and, as St. Basil
states, He gives the "right understanding of Christ" ( Ep. VII, 3). If,
after the second century, we no longer hear the Spirit identified as
"wisdom," it may well have been for the sake of the Church's general
defense of the Trinity.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
1 4 7 959A-960A.
36.
37.
38.
2 16
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
According to St. Ambrose, we have "no statement that God ever spoke
to the woman" ( On Paradise XIII, 5 4 ).
57.
58.
See glossary.
59.
6 0.
See glossary.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
6 8.
69.
70 .
71.
7 2.
73.
74.
217
75.
See glossary.
76.
Grace, On the Grace of Christ and Original Sin, On the Merit and
Remission of Sin for the Baptism of Infants.
77.
78.
79.
80.
I Apology, 60.
Chapter IV - The Economy o f Old Israel
I.
2.
T o hold the view that the Jews are n o longer "the Israel o f God"
or, indeed, that they are repudiated and cursed by Him is not to be
"anti-semitic," surely not with the onus that word carries today. Of
course, that rejection does not apply to Jews who join the Orthodox
Church; and in no case does it justify persecution , indifference to or
hatred of them.
3.
On the Mysteries V , I .
Dialogue with Trypho, 1 34 ; and see S t . Ambrose, Jacob and the Happy
Life 5 : 25 .
Dial. with Trypho, 1 25 .
Ibid., 1 1 9- 1 29.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
For Semites the blood (dem) is the place wherein resides t h e element
of life (nephesh) . "The life of all flesh is blood ," the Lord said to Moses
(Lev. 1 7 : 1 4) .
1 0.
II.
Demonstrations XII, 8 .
Worshipping in Spirit and Truth PC 68 I 069A.
Exegesate is the perfect form of exegeomai which means literally "to
1 2.
1 3.
lead the way" or "to guide;" it also means "to expound" or "interpret ; "
218
20.
21.
22.
was a type of the miracle of the loaves in which Christ fed the 5000
(Matt. 1 5 :3 8 ; Mark 8 : 9 ; Luke 9: 1 4 ; John 6: 1 0). Since the miracle of
the loaves itself belongs to the period of the Old Testament, it may
have been a type of the Eucharist.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
219
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
l.
2.
thropesanta).
3.
4.
5.
6.
220
7.
Poem 3 1 :69.
8.
9.
1 0.
11.
12.
13.
14.
Sermon 1 64.
1 5.
Ideomelon and Glory o f the Vespers for the Feast o f the Transfigura
tion. Since Christ's Resurrection is a type of our own, it follows that
we too shall be transfigured after the general resurrection.
1 6.
17.
Isaiah and the Fathers describe Jesus as "the Father of the age to
come" (the eighth day), because, as we shall discuss later, the eternal
"age to come" will be the Church. The Church is His Bride and the
Mother of His children, the elect, the saved. Therefore, Jesus will be
then, as He is in fact already, our "Father." (See St. Gregory PaJamas,
Defense of th e Hesychasts II, iii, 1 8).
1 8.
1 9.
20.
21.
22.
23.
221
the Father and the Spirit. But Christ, in His " personhood" or " person
ality," is God the Son . He has no human personality. See glossary.
24.
25.
Jesus Christ is the union of created man and uncreated God. Although
the man Jesus was always God the Word and remains now the same,
the Son of God was not always Jesus the man ; neither did His humanity
come down from heaven with Him. It did not exist prior to its birth
from the Virgin Mary.
2 6.
27.
St. John and the other Fathers used the expression "one subsistence
of the Word," because they do not want us to think that because Christ
has two natures He leads two lives. "Subsistence" was employed to
convey the idea that, although the Lord had two natures, He had one
life.
Exact Exposition . . . . III, 8.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
0n
The Council of Chalcedon, Act 5 (In J.D. Mansi, The Sacred Councils
(vol. 7). Venice, 1 795, 1 1 6f.) .
I n another volume, w e hope to show the application of the Chalcedo
nian christology to the Church , the Mysteries, the construction of the
universe, man and culture, history and politics.
See glossary.
St. Ignatios o f Antioch, Letter to the Samyrneans, 2-6. One can deny
that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ by thinking Jesus
to be a phantom; but the reverse is also true, that is, one can imply
that Christ is a phantom by denying that the Eucharist is truly His
body and blood. The charge of Docetism may, therefore, be levelled
at those Protestants who deny the "real presence" in the Eucharist.
See glossary.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
St. Paul's "heavenly man" i s the "Son o f Man" found i n the Prophets
and the Gospels. Outside of Palestine the Semitic expression "Son of
Man" would have had no meaning. St. Paul, as we know, travelled
222
42.
43.
44.
45.
Why God became Man? (Cur Deus Homo?). LaSalle, I 1 1 . 1 953, chap
ter I I .
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
The Incarnation . . . . , 2 5.
Homilies on Galatians III, 1 3 .
Metropolitan Antony, The Dogma o f Redemption, p. 42.
Homilies on Hebrews XVI, 4.
St. Ignatious of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians XIX, I .
Address on Religious Instruction, 26.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
The Greek word "hades" means the abode of the dead. Its H ebrew
equivalent is "Sheol." Strictly speaking, hades is not hell (Gehenna)
which is the state reserved for the devil, his angels and the wicked
(Matt. 5 : 2 2 ; 2 3 : 3 3 ) . As the condition of eternal torment, Gehenna
belongs to the age after the Judgement. Both the Scriptures (II Pet.
2 :4) and the Fathers sometimes used the word "Tartaros" as a synonym
for hell. This word had also borrowed from pagan Greek mythology
where it was described as a subterranean prison lower than hades.
Z eus put his enemies there. See also Job. 41 :24; H enoch 2 0 : 2 . Aside
from Gehenna and Tartaros, Abyss is another word for hell.
223
63.
64.
St. J ustin Martyr points out that many forefathers, such as Abraham,
never observed the Sabbath as a no-work day and yet were saved (Dial.
with Trypho XIX, 6 ; XXI, 1 ) . As St. Athanasios remarked, "And the
Sabbath is not idleness, but confession and humility" (On the Sabbath
and Circumcision PG 28 1 3 7 A). The "spiritualization" of the Sabbath
began already with the Prophets, especially Isaiah ( 1 : 1 3 - 1 9) . See Col.
2 : 1 6.
On the Sabbath . . . . , 1 3 3BC.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
I Apol. XLV, 1 -3 .
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
I . AGNOSTICISM
Unlike the
5. APOLOGY
224
7. ASKESIS
8. CANON
9. CHRISTOLOGY
1 0. COSMOLOGY
I I . COSMOGENY
1 2 . DOCETISM
From the Greek word dokei (it seems). One of the oldest
heresies: the opinion that C hrist's body was unreal, a
phantom.
1 3 . ECCLESIOLOGY
1 4 . ESC H ATOLOGY
1 5 . FEUDALISM
225
63.
64.
St. J ustin Martyr points out that many forefathers, such as Abraham,
never observed the Sabbath as a no-work day and yet were saved (Dial.
with Trypho XIX, 6 ; XXI, 1 ) . As St. Athanasios remarked, "And the
Sabbath is not idleness, but confession and humility" (On the Sabbath
and Circumcision PG 28 1 3 7 A). The "spiritualization" of the Sabbath
began already with the Prophets, especially Isaiah ( 1 : 1 3 - 1 9) . See Col.
2 : 1 6.
On the Sabbath . . . . , 1 3 3BC.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
I Apol. XLV, 1 -3 .
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
I . AGNOSTICISM
Unlike the
5. APOLOGY
224
7. ASKESIS
8. CANON
9. CHRISTOLOGY
1 0. COSMOLOGY
I I . COSMOGENY
1 2 . DOCETISM
From the Greek word dokei (it seems). One of the oldest
heresies: the opinion that C hrist's body was unreal, a
phantom.
1 3 . ECCLESIOLOGY
1 4 . ESC H ATOLOGY
1 5 . FEUDALISM
225
owner until the highest rank (the king); c) tenure was con
ceived as an honorable service to the rank above; d) mutual
obligations of loyalty, protection and servicewere binding on
all classes of medieval society; e) the contract between lord
and his tenant was the basis of all feudal law.
1 6. GNOSEOLOGY
1 7 . GNOSTICISM
J R. GRACE
1 9. HELLENISM
20. H ERESY
2 1 . ICON
2 2 . I M AGE
23. LEGALISM
24. LIGHT, D I V I N E
2 5 . LITERALISM
226
26. MODE R N I S M
2 7 . MONOPHYSTISM
29. NATURE
30. NESTORIANISM
3 1 . PANTHEISM
32. PELAGIUS
33. PERSON
34. PLATONISM
35. POLE M I C
3 6 . PROVIDENCE
227
37. RATIONALISM
From the Latin word for reason (ratio). The attitude that
reality can be understood by the human intellect; and some
times it means that nothing is true unless it passes rational
inspection.
38. RELATIVISM
4 1 . T H EODICY
42. T H EOLOGY
43. T H EORIA
44. TREATISE
4 5. TRIADOLOGY
46. TYPOLOGY
228
I NDEX
ABRAHAM (see types)
Adam (see types)
aion (age) 65, 82-83, 163, 1 94- 1 95
agios (holy) 7, 42, 1 38
Agnosticism 225
agraphai (unwritten Tradition) 3 9
Christ ( Messiah) 1 1 3 , 1 1 6, 14 7- 1 53 ,
Allegory 4 6 , 2 2 5
1 54 , 1 63 , 1 7 2- 1 75 , 197, 220
analogia encis 5 4
anapausis 1 9 1 , 1 92
181, 212
80, 9 1
apokalypsis
1 3 1 , 1 3 3- 1 34, 140, 1 4 1 ,
5, 225
1 60, 1 82- 1 89
Apollinarios of Laodicea 1 7 6- 1 7 7 ,
Passover 1 2 1 , 1 7 2, 1 94
Resurrection 4 7, 1 90- 1 95
Saviour 1 64- 1 72
Second Adam 1 32 , 1 69- 1 7 2 , 1 8 3,
209, 225
apologia (apology) 45
apophatike (see theology)
Apostolic Succession 1 5 - 1 6
Apostolic Tradition 2-4, 1 6 , 27-30,
1 89
Suffering Servant 14 7
theandros 1 58
theanthropos 1 5 8
229
I NDEX
Cosmology (ordero fcreation) 82-85
225
Council o f Chalcedon (45 1 )
1 74- 1 75 , 222
Council of Carthage (258) 209
Council of Constantinople (38 1 )
209
Council o fConstantinople (553) 22
Council of Constantinope (68 1 )
1 79- 1 80
Council of Ephesus ( 43 1 ) 207
Council of Nicea (325) 6, 220, 222
Council of N i cea (787) 2 1 0
Council o f Trent ( 1 545- 1 563) 8
Covenant (Testament, dia theke)
1 1 3 , 1 40 , 1 42, 1 43 - 1 47, 1 5 6, 1 6 1
Creation (see cosmogeny)
FATE (fatum) 69
Feudalism 1 8 5 , 225
fides quaerens intel/ectum 8
filioque 2 2 , 5 1 , 5 2 , 55, 203-204, 2 1 2
230
I NDEX
Gentiles (nations) 1 44 , 1 46 , 1 7 2 ,
1 96
Jews (Old) 47, 54, 1 1 2 , 1 3 2 , 1 44 ,
1 5 2 , 1 54 , 1 59 , 1 62 , 1 8 7 , 2 1 2 , 2 1 8
Rejection 1 5 3- 1 5 6
Anti-semitism 2 1 8 , 220
God, (continued)
Emmanuel 47
God the Father 46, 54, 56, 64, 66
God the Holy Spirit 26, 46-48, 52,
58, 65, 67, 9 1 ' 93, 1 64, 1 96, 203,
2 12, 2 1 6
God the Son (See Christ)
Godhead 46
0 WN 1 1 8- 1 1 9
Hypsistos 46
Kyrios 46
Monarchy 53, 56-57, 203
Trinity 3 1 , 4 1 , 46, 50-5 1 , 55-56
Yah weh 42, 45, 2 1 9
Golgotha 1 86
Grace (see U ncreated Energies)
graphe (written Tradition) 1 4
HADES 7 7 , 223
Heart (see kardia)
Heaven (s) 83-84
Hell (gehenna) 79, 223
Hellenism 8, 1 1 0, 226
henosis tou Theou 32
Heresy (heterodoxy) 7- 1 1 , 24, 6 1 ,
1 80, 1 8 5, 204-205, 2 1 2 , 226
hesedlwe 'meth 1 23
hexaemera 85
homoo usios 3 1 , 50, 1 58
hyle (matter) 65
ICON OCLASM 1 8 1 - 1 82
Icons 1 8 1 , 205, 226
Ideas (see Platonism)
Illumination (see photismos)
Incarnation (see Christ, economy)
Israe l (ch. 4)
Chosen People 1 44 , 1 85
Church ( New) 1 04, 1 20, 1 2 8, 1 3 2 ,
1 39, 1 4 3 , 1 5 6, 1 59, 1 7 5 , 1 76,
180, 1 8 1 , 1 87 , 22 1 , 222
Exodus 1 24- 1 3 9
J EREMIAH I I , PATRIARCH O F
CON STANTIN OPLE I V
Job 69-70, 8 1
Jonah 1 90
Judgement ( Krisis) 1 63
KALOM IROS, ALEXAN DER 2 1 3
kardia (heart) 3 2 , 89
kataphatike (see theology)
13-15
Khomiakov, Alexi 1 2
Khrapovitsky, Metropolitan
Antony 29, 1 8 5
Kingdom of God (basileia tou Thou)
43, 62, 1 1 0 , 1 95 , 20 1
Kontoglou, Photious 205
kyriake (see Lord's Day)
kerygma (preaching)
LA TRElA (worsh i p) 1 8 1
Legalism 226
Letter to Diognetos 66-67 , 1 6 1
Light (See Uncreated Energies)
Literalism (biblical) 226
Logos (see Christ)
Lord's Day (Day of Yahweh) 84, 1 22 ,
1 93
Lossky, Vladimir 2 1 0, 2 1 2, 1 93
Lukaris, Cyril 206, 208
Luther, Martin 220
lytronlan tilytron (ransom) 1 84 , 223
lux divinallux natura 6 1
MAGISTER (see didaskalos)
mal'ak (see angels)
Man 86-94
body 88-93
23 1
I NDEX
Man, (continued)
creation 85, 86
image and likeness 40, 54, 9 1 -95,
1 03 , 226
fall 98- 1 08
soul 88-93
m i nd (see nous)
Melchizedek (see types)
Mesolora, I 28
Metrophanes (Kritopolis), Patriarch
of Alexandria iv
Modernism 226
Moghila, Peter iv
moira (see fate)
Monophystism 1 79- 1 8 1 , 20 1 , 226
mono-thelesisldylo-thelesis 1 7 9
Moses (see types)
Mother of God (Virgin Mary) 76,
1 3 8- 1 39 , 147, 1 57 , 1 73 , 1 77 , 222
Mystical Supper (see Eucharist)
Mysticism 23-24, 34, 2 1 0-2 1 1 , 226
NATURE 6 1 , 7 1 , 1 73 , 22 1
Neapolitan Calendar 208
Nestorianism 1 77 - 1 79, 1 8 1 , 226
Newman, Cardinal Henry 1 0
nimbus crucifixus 42
Nisan 1 2 1
nous (mind) 32, 64, 89, 1 76, 2 1 6
OIKONOMIA (see economy)
Oktoechos 1 39
pascha (Passover)
Plato iii, 8 , 3 7 - 3 8 , 6 5
Platonism 23, 5 4 , 6 5
Plotinos 3 4 , 5 7 , 6 4
Pluralism (see relativism)
pneuma (spirit) 32, 9 3 , 2 1 6
Polemic 226
polis (city) 5 1 , 2 1 1 -2 1 2
Pope Pius I X 9
Popovich, Fr J ustin 29
proskynesis (veneration), 1 8 1
Predestination 200-20 1
Protestantism 7, 9, 29, 34
Providence (pronoia) 1 09- 1 1 1 , 226
Pseudo-Dionysios (see St. Dionysios
the Areopagite)
pseudomorphosis 1 9 , 206
QEDOSH (see agios)
RA TID (see reason)
Rhosse, Sekos 28
Ruysbroek, Jan van 24
SABBATH 84, 85, 1 29 , 1 90- 1 95 ,
204, 224
St. Ambrose of Milan 40, 6 1 , 65, 92 ,
96, 1 1 6, 1 25 , 1 27 , 1 28 , 1 30, 1 96,
202, 2 1 4 , 2 1 5
St. Anastasios of Sinai 2 3
232
INDEX
S t . Anthony the Great 6 2
St. Andrew of Crete 43, 4 4
S t . Anatolios t h e Hymnographer 4 5
St. Apharaat 4 6 , 1 22
St. Athanasios the Great (Alexandria)
3, 1 6, 45, 57, 68, 1 0 1 , 1 05, 1 66 ,
1 76, 1 86- 1 87 , 1 88 , 1 92 - 1 93, 1 96,
2 1 5 , 224
St. Athenagoras of Athens 5
St. Barnabas 4, 1 3 3, 1 40 , 1 60
St B asil the Great 1 3- 1 5, 49, 59, 62,
65, 1 27 , 1 69, 1 94 , 2 1 2
St. Clement of Rome 73, 2 1 5
iii, 1 8 1
St. Nicephoros the Solitary 90-9 1
St. Niceta of Remesiana 49, 67
St. Paulinus of Nola 5 1 -52, 73, 1 62
St. Peter Chrysologus l 07, 1 66,
1 6 7 , 1 87
St. Peter of Damascus 26, 36, 66
St. Photios the Great 26, 33, 55,
181, 213
233
INDEX
St. Seraphim of Sarov 62
St. Sophronios of Jerusalem 1 6 ,
1 64 , 1 66
St.
St.
St.
St.
Tikhon of Zadonsk 90
Vincent of Lerins 1 7 , 1 9 , 200
Vigilius of Rome (Pope) 1 8 1
Zeno of Verona 1 2 5
santus (see agios)
Schleiermacher, Friedrich 9
Schism 226
Scholasticism 8 , 6 1 , 92, 1 86, 228
Scriptures (Bible) 8 , 9 , 1 1 - 1 3 , 14,
15, 1 6 , 2 1 , 39-50
Secularism v, 228
Seventh Day (see Sabbath)
shea/ (see hades)
1 66, 1 6 8 , 1 69 , 1 76, 1 8 2
Theotokos (see Mother o f God)
thesmos (custom) 4, 1 4
Tome (see St. Leo o f Rome)
topos tou kraniou (see Golgotha)
tatum esse 36
Shepherd of Hermas 2 1 4, 2 1 5
1 0 1 , 1 04 , 1 6 1 , 1 66- 1 6 7 , 1 76, 1 82 ,
1 8 5 , 1 8 6 , 1 89 , 207
Amalekites 1 3 3-144
Ark of the Covenant 1 38 , 1 4 1
Brazen Serpent 1 3 7- 1 38
Burning Bush 1 1 9
Cloud 1 2 5 , 1 2 7 , 1 39
Egypt 1 20, 1 2 5 , 1 8 5
Elias (Elijah) 1 36- 1 37 , 1 62 , 1 68
Elim 1 2 8
Eve 7 0 , 8 1 , 8 5 , 97-98, 1 0 1 , 1 04 ,
Isaac 1 1 5
Hospitality of Abraham 42
Jacob (Israel) 1 1 6, 1 2 5 , 144, 1 55
Jerusalem 1 4 1 , 145, 1 46
Jesus, Son of Nun Qoshua) 1 3 3,
1 34, 1 39- 1 4 1 , 1 60, 1 64
Jordan 1 3 3, 1 36
King David 58, 1 4 1 , 143- 1 44, 1 4 7 ,
149, 1 9 1
2 34
I NDEX
Types/anti-types (continued)
Manna 1 29
Marah 1 2 8
Melchizedek 1 1 5
Moses 1 1 8- 1 24, 1 35 - 1 36, 1 6 8 , 1 9 1
Mt. Sinai 1 34, 1 36
Noah's Ark 1 64
Pharoah 1 1 4, 1 1 9, 1 2 2 , 1 2 5 , 1 26
Pillar of Fire 1 2 5
Promised Land 1 2 3
Red Sea 1 25 - 1 27
Rock 1 3 1
Shekinah 1 38 , 1 4 2
Tabernacle 1 38
Waters of Marah 1 2 8
Zion 1 4 1 , 1 4 5
UNCREATED E N E RGIES 2 6 , 39,
59-64, 1 35 , 2 1 2 , 226
2 35
Glory
Be To God
For All Things!
236