Partaking in Divine Nature: Deification and Communion

partaking in divine nature

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PARTAKING IN DIVINE NATURE Deification and Communion

Paul M. Collins

Published by T&T Clark International A Continuum Imprint The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX 80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New York, NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Copyright © Paul M. Collins, 2010 Paul M. Collins has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978-0-567-03187-7 (Hardback)

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contents

1

Introduction A problematic doctrine Deification in the context of Christian Tradition Method Elements of the metaphor of deification Methodological approach

1 2 4 5 9 10

2

Popular Piety, Philosophy and Scripture Introduction Apotheoˉsis in the ancient world Philosophy Later Platonism The Jewish and Christian scriptures A patristic proof text Wisdom literature New Testament

12 12 13 18 23 27 32 35 38

3

Early Church Witness Before Nicaea: didaskaleia, apologetics and exegesis Nicene orthodoxy: apologetics and polemics The Cappadocian Fathers Later witnesses

49 51 61 65 69

4 The Doctrine of Deification in Orthodoxy Twentieth and twenty-first centuries Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries The Middle Ages

v

74 77 87 95

CONTENTS

5 The ‘Architecture’ of the Metaphor in the West Introduction Theologia Mystica The Medieval mystics The early modern mystics Mystical theology in the twentieth century Deification in the traditions of the Reformation Anabaptists The English Reformation The Great Awakening and ‘Christian Perfection’ The Oxford Movement and its legacy Holiness, perfection and the Holy Spirit Contemporary Roman Catholic teaching

111 111 112 122 131 137 141 150 152 156 159 163 166

6 Transformation and Community The methodology of Mystical Theology Dynamic participation Sacraments as symbols of deification The practice of the Virtues Conclusion

171 173 177 182 188 193

Bibliography Index of Subjects and Names Index of Scripture References

195 207 217

vi

1 introduction

The idea that you or I might be ‘partaking in divine nature’ is for many people something which rarely if ever occurs to them. It is, of course, a reference to an ‘unlikely’ text in Scripture (2 Peter 1.4). For many faithful Christians as well as for those who discourse in the academy it may seem an abhorrent or presumptuous, esoteric or irrelevant idea. However, over the past 20 years or so there has been something of a renaissance in theological discourse concerning the doctrine which is variously referred to as ‘deification’, ‘divinization’ or ‘theoˉsis’: in 1987 Panayiotis Nellas’ work, Deification in Christ, was published in English; more recently, George A. Maloney’s work, The Undreamed Has Happened: God Lives in Us (2003); and Norman Russell’s works, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (2004) and Fellow Workers with God: Orthodox Thinking on Theosis (2009). Two collections of essays have also appeared. In 2006 Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov published Theoˉsis: Deification in Christian Theology and in 2007 Michael J. Christensen and Jeffrey A. Wittung published Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Tradition. Each of these collections includes an investigation of understandings of deification beyond the Eastern Orthodox Tradition. Yet for many in the ‘West’ the words ‘deification’, ‘divinization’ and ‘theoˉsis’ are opaque and problematic.1 One of the purposes of this book is to investigate whether the words and the doctrine(s) they indicate are necessarily opaque, problematic or esoteric. At the present time much energy in theological discourse is directed towards the exterior, to the external world. The words ‘practical’, ‘political’ and ‘public’ are often to be found in conjunction with the word ‘theology’. Theologians are engaging with matters beyond the confines of academic and ecclesial discourse, in order to engage with the relationship that the believing community of the Church has with

1

I will generally refer to ‘deification’ on the assumption that deification, divinization and theoˉsis are interchangeable terms which have the same meaning.

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PARTAKING IN DIVINE NATURE

the city and society and the world. Much attention is given to mission and missiology, to Fresh Expressions of Church, to making the Christian Gospel accessible in the cultures in which it is proclaimed today. In relation to all this outward engagement, the study of theoˉsis seems inward and introverted, something which deals with the interior realm of the individual and her soul; something which is not accessible to any kind of external evaluation; something which is intensely personal and framed by the promise of the future. Can such a doctrine or set of practices be relevant in the present day? Does a focus on theoˉsis not seem like withdrawal from engagement with the world into an escapist journey of interiority? But for me, far from being an irrelevant distraction, the analysis and discussion of the doctrine of ‘theoˉsis’ is of crucial importance for the Church today. Using sources from Scripture and Tradition, and from the experience of the revivalist spiritualities of different times and places such as the Hesychasts, the Evangelical Revival, the Wesleyan Holiness movement and the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, I will argue for a ‘functionalization’2 of the doctrine of deification understood in a broad sense. I will structure this ‘functionalization’ through an application of Thunberg’s phrase ‘energetic communion’3 used to describe the process and outcome of theoˉ sis. Thus, the project of this book is to investigate the corporate and collective dimensions of theoˉ sis in Scripture and Tradition and to relate these to an understanding of the dynamics of the divine–human relationship premised on an appeal to communion [koinoˉnia].

A problematic doctrine Before proceeding further I want to acknowledge the problematic status of the concept of ‘theoˉsis’ or deification. It is a disputed and contentious doctrine. The idea that the word ‘god’ should be used to describe a Christian believer remains a ‘scandal’. While the Apostles’ Creed refers to a ‘communion of saints’ and the Nicene Creed refers to the holiness of Church, many Christian believers prefer to emphasize the fallen and sinful reality of the believer and the Church. Holiness is the attribute of God, and the concept of participating in that holiness is seen by many as a distant and eschatological calling. However, the Revivalist movements do appeal to the calling to ‘perfection’ in the present. Perhaps the appeal to ‘perfection’ is more

2

I am indebted to Pecknold, C. C., ‘How Augustine Used the Trinity: Functionalism and the Development of Doctrine’, Anglican Theological Review (Winter) (2003): 127–42, for the exploration of the notion of ‘functionalization’.

3

Thunberg, C., Man and the Cosmos: The Vision of St Maximus the Confessor (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), p. 143.

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INTRODUCTION

‘hearable’ than an appeal to become ‘god’. Similarly an appeal to the calling to ‘immortality’ may be more palatable than the language of ‘divinization’. These differences of language and emphasis already suggest that the exploration of what may pass for an understanding of ‘theoˉsis’ may turn out to be very broad indeed. Nonetheless, it needs to recognized from the outset that there remains a deep-seated suspicion and hostility towards any notion of ‘partaking in divine nature’. One of the most famous condemnations is to be found in the writings of Adolf von Harnack.4 The core thesis of Harnack’s attack was that the Early Church has allowed the original pristine Christian kerygma to be overlaid by pagan and ‘Hellenistic’ thought forms and concepts, which he rejects in the strongest of terms. Jules Gross has argued that such views underestimate the Greek Fathers. He argues that they were not unaware of their context and of the issues which Hellenism and the philosophy of the time raised. Christian understandings of deification may easily be confused with pagan notions such as ‘apotheoˉsis’, but there is evidence that the Early Church writers were aware of these difficulties and sought to avoid and combat them. Another area of concern regarding deification is voiced by present day Protestant writers who raise objections to what they perceive is the eliding of the Creator–creature difference in the construction of theories of deification. A particular feature of this critique is Protestant abhorrence at the language of divine–human synergy, which seems either to elide the difference between the divine and the human or to suggest their ‘equality’ or ‘symmetry’. Another form of this suspicion is to be seen in relation to the Protestant construal of ‘justification’. Writers in the Middle Ages in the West tend not to distinguish between justification and sanctification as different events or processes, a distinction which the Reformers on the whole do make. The Reformers see union with Christ as ‘total’ in terms of justification but ‘partial’ in terms of sanctification. Medieval writers took justification and sanctification together and saw union with Christ as a single ‘growing’ process. This latter stance tends to make Protestant and Evangelical authors nervous, leading many to repudiate the notion of divine–human ‘union’. The twentieth century also saw theologians calling deification into question. The Roman Catholic theologian Hans Küng, writing in a post-war, postHolocaust context, suggests that there is a need for human beings to be humanized rather than divinized.5 It will form part of the agenda of this book to address these concerns, and if possible, to allay these fears. 4

5

von Harnack, A., History of Dogma (London: Williams & Norgate, 1896–99), Vol. 3, pp. 121–304. Küng, H., On being a Christian (Glasgow: William Collins Sons & Co Ltd, 1974), p. 442.

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PARTAKING IN DIVINE NATURE

Deification in the context of Christian Tradition So where does deification fit in the Christian Tradition? Is it a doctrine of the Christian ‘East’ rather than the Christian ‘West’? Is it an esoteric idea which need not detain the majority of Christian believers, or is it of crucial relevance to a proper understanding of the claims of the Gospel and the Christian Tradition? The notion of human ‘partaking in divine nature’ or deification relates to foundational concepts and raises key questions in Christian theological discourse: what are the divine purposes or intentions in creating and redeeming the cosmos? What is the purpose and goal of human existence? What is a human being? What does it mean to speak of human being as created in the image and likeness of God? What is the human condition? What does it mean to speak of salvation or of sanctification? In response to these questions as they relate in particular to the formulation of a metaphor of deification, I will examine discourse concerning the relationship between creation, theological anthropology, salvation, justification and theoˉsis. This will necessitate some reference to models of salvation, but it is beyond the scope of this book to pursue an in-depth enquiry into these. ‘Partaking in divine nature’ in particular raises questions of theological anthropology and human psychology. If the human person is understood to be simul justus et peccator, is it possible to construct a concept of deification on this basis? How are such notions as mind, soul and body to be understood theologically in the present day? Can the writings of the Early Church and the Middle Ages offer any insights for a theological psychology today? What if anything can be retrieved from traditional understandings of the human person in relation to ‘the Fall’? Does it make sense to speak of a pre- and post-lapsarian human condition? Does Early Church theological reflection on the ‘garments of skins’ (Genesis 3.21) have anything to contribute to contemporary understandings of human sexuality and gender? Is there ‘a deiform faculty’ in the human person? These questions will inform the structure of the discourse of this book. The examination of discourse relating to creation, theological anthropology, salvation, justification and theoˉsis will need to bear in mind the following questions. Does an appeal to deification require the kind of overarching doctrinal framework, which is to be discerned in Eastern Orthodoxy? How does the language of deification operate as a metaphor in relation to ontological claims? How is experience to be received in the construal of a doctrine of deification? Are the claims concerning holiness and perfection found in the spirituality of the Revivalist movements to be treated as parallel with and equal to the understanding of theoˉsis as taught in the Orthodox traditions? Caponi frames three crucial questions around the construction of a doctrine of deification: what conditions within a human being make divinization possible? What does it mean to actualize these conditions? How is this 4

INTRODUCTION

actualization accomplished?6 In relation to a broad construct of deification, Hallonsten usefully suggests that clarifying whether the distinction between ‘theoˉsis’ and ‘union with God’ points to different concepts. He argues that this distinction is rooted in the use of a particular vocabulary to express particular understandings of teleology, relating to the doctrines of creation and of salvation. He concludes that ‘theoˉ sis’ and ‘union with God’ are not to be seen as precisely meaning the same thing but that they are not mutually exclusive.7 The pursuit of a doctrine construed around a concept of koinoˉnia will entail an appeal to the doctrine of the Church which raises a further set of questions. How do models and metaphors of the Church resonate with a doctrine of theoˉsis? How is the Church to be understood as the context for the collective reception of (mystical) experience? How is the collective experience of the sacraments to be related to understandings of union with God? Furthermore is ‘theoˉsis’ an ‘ecclesiastical’ doctrine, as the doctrine of the Trinity is understood to be? The language of theoˉsis has not been adopted by the Church universally. The creeds speak of ‘the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting’ (The Apostles’ Creed), and ‘the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come’ (The Constantinopolitan-Nicene Creed of 381). In each of these statements an appeal to ‘immortality’ may be discerned. It is the use of the language of immortality in the New Testament documents which I believe is the main impetus towards the emergence of the metaphor of deification in the Early Church. Deification is not a creedal claim. But the later understandings of deification are predicated on the Chalcedonian statement of the person of Christ, as well as the soteriological implications of the councils of Nicaea and Constantinople. Although theoˉsis is one metaphor for redemption among others, the construal of the doctrine in relation to the councils indicates that there is a basis for claiming it as an ‘ecclesial doctrine’ if not of the same order as the doctrine of the Trinity.

Method Before proceeding further, the question of what method or methods could or should be used in analysing and constructing a doctrine of deification needs to be addressed. In particular, what approach should be used to interpret historical expressions of the doctrine? How are the antecedents to and 6

7

Caponi, F. J., ‘Karl Rahner: Divinization in Roman Catholicism’, in M. J. Christensen and J. A. Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Tradition (Madison, Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007), p. 259. Hallosten, G., ‘Theosis in Recent Research: A Renewal of Interest and a Need for Clarity’ in Christensen and Wittung, Partakers, p. 287.

5

PARTAKING IN DIVINE NATURE

imperatives behind the emergence of the doctrine of deification to be interpreted? How are different ideas, terms and authors to be understood to relate to each other? Assuming that they do relate to each other, which may be questionable. An analogy for how ideas, terms and authors may be placed in relation to one another could be that of stamp collecting or of threading beads on a string. These activities place commodities in relation to one other, usually in terms of the place of origin and chronology for a stamp collector. A stamp collector has criteria to which she works in placing the stamps and creating the collection. In terms of the expression or construction of the doctrine of deification how are different authors to be ‘placed’? What criteria are to be used? A brief acquaintance with those who have recounted the ‘history’ of the doctrine of deification will demonstrate that there are selfevident schools of thought or traditions by which authors, such as ‘the Fathers’ are ‘placed’ in relation to one another. Usually of course the placement is chronological, but, within an overall chronological structure, historians of doctrine have discerned pathways or trajectories of development. Such trajectories will be examined in Chapters 2 to 5. The notion of development, particularly chronological development is questionable; something that is chronologically later need not necessarily be a development of the earlier or be better than the earlier. The Orthodox tradition perceives that the doctrine of ‘theoˉsis’ finds a definitive expression in the writings of Maximos the Confessor and Gregory Palamas. From the writings of these two theologians modern Orthodox theologians have constructed a synthesized and systematized view of the divine purposes in creating and redeeming the cosmos of which ‘theoˉsis’ is a central feature. In pursuit of a more broadly conceived doctrine I will argue that this is not the only way to construe the metaphor of deification. To return to the question of method, is it possible to discern a method which is appropriate to the study of deification in Christian Tradition? In recent literature on deification the question of method has become explicit. Russell8 draws upon the work of Eric Osborn: The Beginning of Christian Philosophy (1981),9 whose brief but positive review of the use of the metaphor of deification stresses the need to be clear about method in relation to any analysis of the ‘development’ of the doctrine of deification. Osborn sets out various possible methods: cultural, polemical and elucidatory. The latter he subdivides into doxographical, retrospective or problematic. These methods had already been identified in an article on the historical development

8

9

Russell, N., The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) pp. 7–9. Osborn, E., The Beginning of Christian Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 111–20, 273–88.

6

INTRODUCTION

of philosophy by John Passmore: The Idea of a History of Philosophy (1965).10 The method of Passmore and Osborn may be summarized as follows. A cultural approach to deification elicits the question: how does it reflect the culture in which it emerged? This would interpret all components of a doctrine of deification in relation to the sociocultural setting from which they emerged. A polemical approach raises questions such as: does it make sense? Is it true? It looks for strengths and weaknesses and for the truth or falsity of the arguments used. As regards the elucidatory methods, Osborn suggested that the doxographer asks: ‘What has been said and how is it related to what other writers were saying?’ She looks for connections between writers. The focus of this method is not the context of the writer or the issues to which a writer is responding, but how what is written relates to predecessors and contemporaries.11 Osborn argues that though doxography is widely used, it has severe limitations. When dealing with ancient literature the gaps in chronology mean that arguments are constructed on limited evidence, or from a surviving text, which is elevated beyond its actual importance.12 Another limitation is that doxography often ignores the framework of an argument. It tends to add up citations, which does not prove the extent of an idea.13 Rather what is necessary is the careful weighing of arguments. Osborn does not dismiss doxography but argues that it needs to be supplemented by other methods. The doxographer tends to ignore logical questions and does not address problems which philosophers and theologians are seeking to ‘solve’. A second form of elucidation is retrospective method. This asks how is it possible to assess and place a theological ‘opinion’. It compares ideas and authors with historical sources rather than contemporary ones. Retrospective method relates to the ‘history of ideas’, where certain moments are identified as peaks. Osborn argues that the elevation of Chalcedon and Nicaea as such ‘peaks’ of thought distorts the appreciation of writings from the second century, for the concerns of the second and fourth centuries were very different.14 In terms of the concerns of the twenty-first century, the second century probably has more to say than the fourth because of the pluralism of the context in the second century. Retrospective method with its ‘history of ideas’ is very different from ‘cultural history’, which focuses solely on the contemporary context. Passmore argues that there are inherent weaknesses in cultural and retrospective histories. 10

11 12 13 14

Passmore, J., ‘The Idea of a History of Philosophy’, History and Theory (Supplement), 4 (1965): 1–32. Osborn, The Beginning, p. 277. Osborn, The Beginning, p. 278. Osborn, The Beginning, p. 279. Osborn, The Beginning, p. 285.

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PARTAKING IN DIVINE NATURE

They sit at opposite extremes from one another. In cultural histories successive philosophers remain unrelated to one another, while in retrospective history philosophers are assembled together too tightly in a continuous pattern.15 Passmore prefers the problematic approach, which he summarizes as the analysis of the construction of systems.16 He expounds the notion of the development of ideas around the suggestion that certain types of problems recur, sometimes in different ‘shapes’. Philosophers look for and suggest ‘solutions’ to these problems. Through careful analysis of the ideas of different authors and their arguments an advance in understanding may be discerned. In a problematic approach the following questions emerge: ‘What problem as he trying to solve?’ ‘How did this problem arise for him?’ ‘What new methods of tackling it did he use?’17 Passmore goes on to argue that the problematic historian needs to be a philosopher as well as an historian and that the problematic approach is the only one which sheds light on the ‘inner’ development of philosophy. In a problematic approach to deification, the quest would be to identify the problems to which it is given as the solution. Osborn argues that without the latter approach any writing about deification is pointless.18 This study of deification will draw upon authors and their texts across two-and-a-half millennia. This raises enormous questions in terms of historiography and the ‘translatability of texts’ from one culture to another.19 MacIntyre suggests such ‘translatability’ is taken for granted in scholarship which relies upon the presuppositions of the ‘Enlightenment view’ of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.20 He argues that the Enlightenment understanding of rational debate assumed that a conclusive outcome could be reached. This would ensure the refutation of error and the vindication of truth. In the present day he argues that there is a more inclusive understanding of debate and a weaker conception of rationality. He concludes that this means that, ‘There is no theoretically neutral, pre-theoretical ground from which the adjudication of competing claims can proceed.’21 The problem of the ‘translatability of texts’ raises two further questions: who speaks to whom? And how?22 In contemporary philosophy there are many different approaches to questions of the reception and interpretation

15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22

Passmore, The Idea, p. 23. Passmore, The Idea, p. 27. Passmore, The Idea, p. 29. Osborn, The Beginning, p. 113. MacIntyre, A., Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy and Tradition (Gifford Lectures 1998) (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), p. 171. MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions, p. 172. MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions, p. 173. MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions, p. 196.

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INTRODUCTION

of texts. MacIntyre appeals to the model of ‘conversation’ as a means of understanding and using texts from a variety of contexts and historical periods. If a text is seen as a moment in a conversation, it will be interpreted from the standpoint of the participants in that conversation. Each participant will have his or her own point of view and history. In addition, there will be different points of entry into a conversation and different understandings of why the conversation is happening, and the conversation may be extended over time.23 The questions and concerns identified in this exploration of appropriate methods for an exposition of the doctrine of deification, will be marshalled to answer the question: what imperatives are behind a given discourse on ‘deification’? Each example in the overall exposition will be discussed and analysed in relation to its context and its tradition(s). These may be self-identified or attributed, and the analysis will need to encompass any traditions that it relates to or opposes. It will be necessary to investigate each example’s place within a narrative of ‘development’. This will entail identifying the characteristics of the context of each example, such as the ‘Hellenist’ environment of the Early Church; the identification of heresy; the emergence of scholasticism in the Middle Ages in the West; the motivation for reform and change at the Reformation; and the ways in which the various revival movements have expressed the spirit of the age, where the ‘shift to subject’ is perhaps manifest in the spiritual goals of perfection and holiness and ‘romanticism’ is manifest in the appeal to the aesthetics of experience. This brings me to the investigation of experience. Each example will be examined in terms of the existential dimensions of religious or mystical experience. This is particularly relevant in the analysis of Hesychasm, the Western mystical texts, the charismatic and mystical phenomena associated with the radical reformers and the later revivals. This will entail the acknowledgement of experience in terms of either rapture or contemplation. This will extend the discourse beyond the discussion of cognitive elements of the doctrine of deification and into the realm of what is understood as mystical and aesthetic, although it is beyond the scope of this book to examine the psychology of such experiences.

Elements of the metaphor of deification I begin from the premise offered by Russell that deification is to be understood as a metaphor.24 The ‘metaphor’ is generally expressed in terms of one of two main ‘models’, which have antecedents in Plato. The first model is

23 24

MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions, p. 196. Russell, Deification, pp. 1–3.

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‘imitation’ of the divine and an extrinsic understanding of deification. The second model is ‘participation’ in the divine which is an intrinsic understanding of deification. In spite of there being a clear distinction between these models, both may result in (a) emulation of or a sharing in the divine attributes, such as incorruption, immortality and stability; (b) the ascent of the soul to God, which implies particular understandings of intellectual and/ or epistemological progress; and (c) transformation of the human subject or believer, which raises ontological questions. The identification of these outcomes of deification raises a further set of issues, which need to be borne in mind when analysing different texts and authors. First, there is an ontological concern about the difference between or potential merging of the created and uncreated orders of existence. The question of ontic difference has been a perennial concern in the construal of deification, and clarity about this area is fundamental for any exposition of the doctrine. Second, there is the approach of an author to the notion of the ineffability of God. What are the epistemological consequences of an appeal to divine ineffability? Does this manifest itself in an apophatic approach to the construal of doctrine? Is the goal of theoˉsis a knowledge of God?

Methodological approach What I take forward from the exploration of method will be based upon what Passmore and Osborn identify as a problematic approach. I will identify where certain types of problems recur, what ‘solutions’ are offered and whether it is possible to speak of an advance in understanding. It will be important to bear in mind the issue of the ‘translatability of texts’ from one culture and period to another. And I will draw upon Russell’s distinction that the metaphor of deification is either an ethical or a realistic construct.25 Three key questions will be addressed to each example of the formulation of the doctrine of deification: what is the structure of deification? What is the essence of deification? What are the means of deification?26 In addition, I will ask of each author why does he write about deification? What question(s) is he seeking to answer by discussing or positing a theory (or doctrine) of deification? What is the outcome of asking the question(s)? I am writing this as an adherent to the Christian tradition and, specifically, as a priest in the Church of England. I understand myself to be working within the hermeneutical community of the Church and that, as a hermeneutical community, the Church continues to shape the hermeneutical tradition of Christianity as well as being itself shaped by that tradition. The approach to theological reflection which I will use in pursuing this 25 26

Russell, Deification, p. 2. Caponi, ‘Karl Rahner’, p. 259.

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INTRODUCTION

analysis and interpretation of the metaphor of deification will be the ‘Anglican’ method expressed in the work of Richard Hooker, in which Scripture, Tradition and Reason illuminate each other in the quest to receive the Christian faith afresh in the contemporary context. To Hooker’s triad, I will add Wesley’s appeal to experience as well as an appeal to context. The appeal to Scripture and Tradition is made with an acknowledgement that the use made of the Bible and patristic sources by systematic theologians has been called to account in recent times.27 In treating the different stances of the interpreters of the doctrine of deification, I shall draw upon Lindbeck’s categorizations of doctrine as cognitive, experiential-expressive or a combination of these.28 My own preference is the latter combination of a cognitive with an aesthetic approach to theological reflection, to which I add Kaufmann’s understanding of the (theological) imagination.29 The doctrine of deification is a good example of the way in which the theological imagination and the aesthetic of experience have been used in theological reflection in the past. I will endeavour to continue this use in the present. The book is divided into five further chapters. In Chapter 2, I examine the sources of the Christian use of a metaphor of deification in the popular piety and philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome as well as in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. In Chapter 3, I analyse how the metaphor emerges in Christian discourse in the early centuries of the Church, particularly around the construal of heresy and orthodoxy. In Chapter 4, I examine the correlation of the construal of theoˉsis with the self-understanding of the Orthodox tradition. In Chapter 5, I narrate the usage of elements of the ‘architecture’ of the metaphor in the traditions of the West in order to reclaim Western understandings of deification for the present. Finally, in Chapter 6, I have set out a vision of a relational understanding of deification for today in terms of personal and ecclesial transformation, construed in terms of ‘virtue ecclesiology’.

27

28

29

Barnes, M. R., ‘Rereading Augustine’s Theology of the Trinity’, in S. T. Davis, D. Kendall and G. O’Collins (eds), The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 145–76. Lindbeck, G., The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (London: SPCK, 1984). Kaufmann, G., The Theological Imagination (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1981).

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2 popular piety, philosophy and scripture

Introduction The developed doctrine of deification may be traced to a variety of sources in the ancient world of the Greeks and Romans, some of them within popular piety; some within the philosophical traditions; and others within the Scriptures of Judaism and the New Testament. The extent to which Christian understanding is closely dependent on non-Scriptural sources is a matter of debate and interpretation. One of the major differences between Christian tradition and other traditions and practices in the ancient world relates to the conceptuality of ‘salvation’ and of the perceived need in Christian tradition to be saved from sin and death. This means that the level of dependency on non-Scriptural sources is often tenuous. Nonetheless, the effects of the context of the ancient world on the development of broad understandings of deification and emerging terminology in Christian tradition should not be underestimated. The emergence of the language of deification can be traced in various practices and examples in the popular piety and philosophical traditions of the ancient world. These ideas and practices of divinization in the ancient world may be ascribed to the general human desire for immortality. Such ‘immortal longings’1 have manifested themselves in various ways throughout documented human history. The ancient world seems to have taken it for granted that human beings could become ‘gods’. The gods of the ancient religions were little more than immortal human beings. Such an anthropomorphic notion of divinity puts the concept of transcendence at risk. The difference between divinity and humanity remains a fundamental ongoing question for theology. Does an over emphasis on the complementarity between the divine and the human inevitably dissolve claims for divine 1

Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act 5, Scene 2.

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POPULAR PIETY, PHILOSOPHY AND SCRIPTURE

‘otherness’? This question will inform this investigation of the Christian doctrine of deification. The ancient world envisaged apotheoˉ sis for the individual in terms of four possible pursuits or activities, which may be labelled as follows: educational, ethical, mystical and ritual. The educational path is associated with the pursuit of ‘academic’ philosophy or popular, less elitist expressions of philosophy. This path focused on the soul or the mind and often appealed to metaphors of light and to concepts of enlightenment or illumination. The ethical path could be pursued in its own right but was often associated with one or more of the other pursuits and was focused on training the human will through living a virtuous life. The mystical path had elitist and more popular manifestations, some of which included the practice of contemplation. This path was rooted in personal, spiritual experience of some kind and an appeal to metaphors of light. The ritual path was manifested in elite and popular forms and might include magical or liturgical practices to enable the individual to find deification for the soul. As the investigation proceeds it will be useful to bear these different paths in mind in order to place the different examples of deification theory and practice in relation to each other.

Apotheoˉsis in the ancient world The notion of apotheoˉsis in the ancient world was construed around two key concepts. The first of these is the status of the gods as immortals and a second relates to the phrase: ‘Know thyself’.

Immortality The status of the gods as immortals in the religions and myths of the ancient world is assumed. To be a god is to be immortal. This is the fundamental distinction between what is human (mortal) and divine (immortal). Jules Gross argues that the works of Homer, the Iliad and Odyssey, make clear the assumptions of the ancient world about divinity and also the possibilities for humankind to rise to it. He is clear that there is a strong association of divinity with immortality. He goes so far as to suggest that qeo/j [God] and a0qa/natoj [immortal] are synonyms.2 The acquisition by a human being of ‘immortality’ inferred that the person had become ‘divine’. There were different usages or registers of what it meant to ‘become god’. It is possible that within the works of the same writer that there were different ‘kinds’ of god. Insofar as there are different levels of deity, there may be different levels or kinds of apotheoˉsis. The identification of divinity with immortality 2

Gross, J., The Divinization of the Christian according to the Greek Fathers, trans. Paul A. Onica (Anaheim, CA: A & C Press, 2002; originally published in French by Editions J. Gabalda, 1938), p. 11.

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in the ancient world is key to understanding the development of Christian deification. What did St Paul expect his readers to take from his claim that As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven. What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15.48–56) St Paul may not have a conception of deification in his mind comparable with that of the Orthodox doctrine of eighth or fourteenth centuries, but the language and imagery of this passage from 1 Corinthians, when set in the context of the ancient world, has strong resonances with the identification of what is immortal with what is divine. This is not to say that St Paul or the Christian Tradition more widely considers that salvation is simply a matter of becoming ‘immortal’ and in that sense ‘divine’. Rather the Christian Tradition takes such understandings and reworks them. Belief in God who is transcendent as expressed in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures confronts the anthropomorphic gods in Greek and Roman mythology. This confrontation is the basis upon which the conceptuality of apotheoˉ sis is reworked into a conceptuality of theoˉsis premised on transcendent divinity.

Know yourself The phrase, ‘Know yourself’, was written on the walls of the forecourt of the temple of Apollo at Delphi in ancient Greece. Delphi was the site of the famous ‘oracle’ whom people came to consult to discover their future fate. The aphorism, ‘Know yourself’, is known in various ancient writers.3 3

For example, Chilon of Sparta, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Socrates, Solon of Athens, Thales of Miletus, Phemonoe.

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The imperative to ‘Know yourself’ points to an inward journey of discovery which brings self understanding. The imperative echoes the quest for selfknowledge and the need for personal change in the Allegory of the Cave in Plato’s Republic.4 The quest to ‘know yourself’, invites each person to enquire: Who am I? What am I? What is a person? The search for the real within oneself could also be a search for the divine; the imperative to know may also be interpreted as an imperative find or become (like) God. Those who followed the path of ‘knowing yourself’ sought the divine within themselves. As a consequence, they often came to see this world as illusory and sought to escape from its ‘reality’. The aphorism not only expresses what the philosophers taught about human personhood but was also used by Christian theologians. Philosophers argued that personal apotheoˉsis was possible because of what a person is or has within him or herself. Many Christians came to accept this philosophical premise. Gregory Thaumaturgus (the Wonderworker, c.213–70), a pupil of Origen, appeals to the aphorism, ‘Know thyself,’ in his panegyric for Origen and argues that it forms the basis for attaining apotheoˉsis.5 Origen himself appealed to the aphorism and saw the imperative to ‘know yourself’ as a means of looking into the soul, where one could find reflected the image of the divine mind. Here are to be seen some of the building blocks of a Christian doctrine of deification.

Expressions of apotheoˉsis Within the culture of ancient Greece and the wider Mediterranean world various traditions of apotheoˉsis may be identified. ‘Apotheoˉsis’ refers to the exaltation of a human person to divine rank or stature. Apotheoˉsis was understood to be possible for the individual in (a) mystery cults, (b) Orphism and (c) the religious instincts of Platonism. Mystery cults such as Mithraism instructed adherents in the theory and practice of the journey of the soul into the afterlife and in some cases into divine status. Orphism is a name given to a set of religious beliefs in ancient Greece, which included the understanding that the soul is divine and yet needs to be rescued or saved in order to attain ultimate communion with the gods. Much Orphic mythology focused on the descent of Orpheus and others into Hades and included ideas of resurrection and rebirth. The tradition of Platonism focused on the immortal potential of the soul and the human possibility of imitating or participating in the divine. These notions of the possibility of apotheoˉsis are supported by Greek and Roman mythology, in particular the example of Heracles or Hercules.6 Heracles was understood to be the offspring of the 4 5

6

Plato, Republic, Book 7. Gregory Thaumaturgus, The Oration and Panegyric addressed to Origen, Chapter 11 (11 PG10, 1081D–1084A: especially 1084C). The well-known hero is known as Heracles in Greek mythology and Hercules in Roman.

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god Zeus and a human mother Alcmena. He was understood to be an example of the ‘incarnation’ of divinity in a human life. While this example is not apotheoˉsis as such, the myth of Heracles is a further example of the cultural milieu in which apotheoˉsis is understood and ‘practiced’. It is an interesting parallel with the Christian understanding of incarnation, which became a core component in the construction of the doctrine of deification, as well as the paradigm of what Christian salvation understood as deification, both meant and looked like. Not all Christians see this is as a positive parallel, and some have rejected the model of incarnation because of possible associations with such myths as that of Heracles.

The Imperial cult Another key expression of the cultural currency of apotheoˉsis is the cult of the Roman Emperor. In the period before the Emperor Constantine, the general polytheistic milieu of the Roman Empire meant that the concept of the apotheoˉsis of a human being was widely accepted. So the notion that the emperor himself was divine was by no means extraordinary. The Imperial cult served to reinforce the person of the emperor as a focus of social unity, identity and cohesion. In the ancient world many of the cults in local temples had arisen around human persons who had acquired divine status. Each city built a temple to the Roman Emperor. From the time of Augustus each emperor was proclaimed ‘god’ after death and from Domitian onwards emperors were seen as divine during their lifetime. There is evidence that these developments did not receive universal acclaim. While the populace on the whole accepted the Imperial cult, the intellectual elite tended to be more critical and dubious. However, even Jews and Christians found ways of living with the Imperial cult. Jews were content to pray for the emperor and to offer sacrifice for him in the Jerusalem Temple prior to its destruction. Early Christian theologians accepted the cultural reality of polytheism and did not see it as a great problem, since the ‘gods’ were former human beings. During times of persecution Christians did not acknowledge the emperor as ‘god’, but at other times Christians were often prepared to accommodate themselves to the general cultural expectations, particularly as the Imperial cult was a unifying factor in society. Scholars have tended to see the emergence and acceptance of the apotheoˉsis of the emperor as part of a wider development of the possibility of apotheoˉsis of other individual persons. The apotheoˉsis of an emperor was enacted through the imperial funeral rites. This became the inspiration for a ‘democratization’ of apotheoˉsis for ordinary citizens of the empire. From the second century there is evidence that ‘apotheoˉsis’ referred to and indicated no more than ‘solemn burial’. This demonstrates that the aspirations of the ordinary citizen were to be understood in terms of ‘immortal longings’. 16

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Theurgy The last example of the expression of apotheoˉsis in the ancient world are the ritual or liturgical practices known as ‘theurgy’ [qeourgi/a] from the words theos and energeia, meaning ‘divine working’, ‘energy’ or ‘action’. Rituals were enacted, which were sometimes understood to be magical in nature, with the intention of invoking the action of one or more gods, specifically with the aim of uniting an individual with the divine. This union known as henoˉsis was understood to bring about the perfection of the individual or her soul. The oldest surviving record of the term ‘theurgy’ is found in the mid-second-century work, the Chaldean Oracles.7 There are examples of the theory and practice of theurgy to be found in the philosophical works of the later Platonists as such Iamblichus. Plotinus urged that those who wished to perform theurgy should practice contemplation, as part of the overall goal of reuniting with the Divine. The school of Plotinus was evidently a school of meditation or contemplation. Iamblichus of Calcis (in Syria) was a student of Porphyry, who in turn was a student of Plotinus, he taught a more ritualized method of theurgy that involved invoking the gods and magical ritual. Iamblichus believed that the practice of theurgy was a form of imitating of the gods. In his work, On the Egyptian Mysteries, he described theurgic practice as ‘ritualized cosmogony’, which bestowed on embodied souls the divine responsibility of creating and preserving the cosmos. Iamblichus understood that the divine cannot be comprehended through contemplation because what is transcendent is beyond reason. He argued that theurgy is a series of rituals and practices with the goal of attaining the divine essence by discovering traces of the divine in the different layers of being. Through these processes the practitioner of theurgy seeks the soul’s innate divinity as well as reunion with the Divine. It is possible to understand Christian worship as a form of theurgy. The rituals of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are understood in the writings of St Paul as means of participating in the death and resurrection of Christ and in the Body and Blood of Christ. Such New Testament understandings are reinforced in the developed doctrine of the Latin Medieval Church in the concept of the transubstantiation. The change of substance of the bread and wine understood in this doctrine suggest that when the communicant receives the sacramental elements, there is an assimilation of the communicant with the divine in Christ. The Eucharist understood in terms of the change of substance or of the Real Presence may be interpreted as a kind of theurgy in the sense that it contributes to the divinization of the participants. In the Greek Orthodox tradition some scholars have explicitly understood

7

Chaldean Oracles, Greek text found in Kroll, W., De Oraculis Chaldaicis (Hildesheim, Olms Verlag, 1962; Breslau 1894).

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the Liturgy as a form of theurgy; indeed Vladimir Lossky refers to ‘Christian theurgy’. Sacramental rituals and other forms of worship may be understood in a thaumaturgical way, which is a nuanced re-reception of the theory of theurgy within Christian tradition. Christian thaumaturgy seeks to understand the liturgy in terms of ‘miracle’ or ‘wonder’, while excluding any magical connotation, by stressing the divine initiative of grace and the human response of faith.

Philosophy There are at least two reasons why philosophical traditions should be included in a narrative of the emergence of the Christian doctrine of deification. First, popularized expressions of philosophical teaching, delivered in ‘schools’ around ‘guru’ figures explicitly developed notions of and practices to enable ‘divinization’ of individuals. Second, the more formal expressions of the great philosophical traditions of ancient Greece provide the conceptual framework and terminology which are core components in the emergence of a language of deification. In this section my focus will be on Plato and his much later ‘disciple’ Plotinus, but the narrative will include other figures and examples as well. In any discussion of Plato (429–347 BCE) and his contribution to later Christian thought, the first thing to note is the style in which Plato delivers his teachings. Plato’s writings are dialogues between persons holding different understandings. Some dialogues may represent the actual views of historical persons, while others may be constructs based on alternative perspectives which Plato thought it important to express. This dialogical and dialectical style means that it is not always possible to be certain what Plato himself thought, or to discern ‘development’ or change in his thinking. This is particularly the case when analysing Plato’s understanding of the idea of human imitation of or participation in the ‘divine’. Nonetheless, it is important to attempt to discern something of his understanding in this area, insofar as later Christian writers were influenced and inspired by Platonism in the construction of notions of deification. Imitation is understood in terms of the practice of the virtues and is an ethical approach. Participation suggests an outcome which is more ‘realistic’ and has ontological implications. So I will ask: why does Plato write about the possibility of human imitation of and participation in the divine? What questions is Plato seeking to answer by discussing or positing these theories about imitation and participation? What is the outcome of asking these questions? Statements of the conceptuality of imitation are found in the Republic (613), in Phaedrus where it is expressed in the myth of the Charioteer and in Theaetus (176a f.) where the core statement of this idea is to be found. One of the main reasons for Plato’s concern with ‘imitation’ relates to his 18

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understanding of evil as ‘vice’ and ‘ignorance’ (Sophist 228 c,d). ‘Ignorance’ is a lack of symmetry between the soul and truth, leading to evil. These concerns are voiced in the allegory of the cave found in the Republic (Book 7, 514a–20a). Although evil has made its home in human nature, Plato suggests that salvation is possible through assimilation to God: o9moi/wsij qew|~, which he defines in terms of growing in holiness, justice and wisdom, and, in other words, developing godlike characteristics. Imitation and participation are offered as solutions to the problems of evil and of the corruption of human nature. There are two issues which emerge from this appeal to imitation. One concerns the theory of ‘the forms’ and the other concerns the possible interpretation of Plato’s works in terms of a growing interest in the divine. The human soul might imitate the forms or imitate God. Does the imitation of the divine imply the use of the conceptuality and terminology of participation used in relation to the forms? If this were so, does ‘participation’ suggest the same notion of an inadequate resemblance to an (ideal) exemplar? How does the imitation of the forms relate to the imitation of God? ‘If man imitates God, does he no longer imitate or participate in the form of “man”?’8 The question of what may be understood as ‘divine’ in Plato’s works is complex. One answer might be the gods of mythology, the souls of the ancients and the divine heroes, who were the ‘visible’ gods of the heavens. Another might be the world itself, or the soul of the world, that which is the intellect which gives order to all things, or the answer might be ‘the forms’ and their ultimate expression ‘the Good’. Each of these might be said to refer to the divine. The idea of the Good was to be identified with the notion of being (Theaetetus, 186a). Plato’s works suggest a hierarchy of being or what is really ‘real’. At the bottom are ‘receptacles’, which are not really ‘real’ (Timaeus, 52b). Above this is the world of becoming, which is ‘real’ insofar as it participates in a higher form of reality (i.e. the realm of forms; Timaeus 50b, 51de, 52b; Phaedo 100d) This is the sensible world, the world of particulars, which is intermediate between true being and its opposite (Republic 477 f, 479c). Though Supreme Being cannot be found here, it is found in the higher realm which gives space-time its (partial) reality. Finally, there is the higher realm, the world of forms, in which the many individuals of the sensible world participate (Republic, 596a). The extent of this world is not defined by Plato but may include not only the ideas of sensible objects and sensible qualities but also ideas of moral qualities and relations such as ‘greater’ or ‘less’ and categories of the ‘same’ or the ‘other’ (Parmenides, 130; Phaedrus, 250b; Republic, 479c, Timaeus, 30cd, Phaedo, 103de, 101af; Theaetetus, 185cd; Sophist, 254–55) ‘To be’ is understood to mean participating in ‘being’ (Sophist, 252a). So it may be argued that ‘Ultimate Reality’ 8

Rutenber, C. G., The Doctrine of the Imitation of God in Plato (Philadelphia, PA: King’s Crown Press: 1946), p. 2.

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is Supreme Being, that is, God. In the Republic, the Good is seen as the source of intelligibility and existence of all things (Republic, 509b), but the Good is NOT ‘essence’; it far exceeds this. And yet the Good enters into relations and is sometimes called a form or idea (Republic, 517b, 526e) The notion of the ‘divine’ in Plato’s writings is multilayered and offers the later conceptualization of deification a number of core components. The further question of human imitation and participation is rooted in the understanding of anthropology which emerges from the creation myth as told in Timaeus 29e, which declares that all human beings should as far as possible be like the ‘divine’ (Demiurge) [paraplh/sia e(autw|~]. This understanding is expressed in a variety of ways in other writings. The soul is said to be like God (Phaedrus, 247c-e), and human beings are exhorted to follow in the steps of God, for they are ‘like’ (o(/moioj) God (Laws, 716bc). Plato argues that there is a human likeness to God (o(moi/wsij) (Theaetetus, 176a) as well as a likeness of the cosmos to God [paraplh/sia] (Timaeus, 29e). Such likeness is the ground for both, me/qecij [participation] and mi/mhsij [imitation]. Me/qecij refers to the participation of ‘forms’ in immanent things (Phaedo, 100cd; Republic, 476a); it is the presence [parousia] of ‘forms’ in things and the communion [koinoˉnia] of the ‘forms’ with things. Despite the language of likeness and imitation and participation, Plato argues that human beings are dissimilar to God in terms of nous [mind], which affects the potential of the human acquisition of knowledge. Although any acquisition of knowledge is understood as imitation of God, human beings struggle to acquire knowledge. Categorizing knowledge in terms of ‘truth’, Plato suggests that there several stages by which the human mind achieves ‘truth’ and identifies two main stages (1) opinion, and (2) knowledge, each of which is subdivided further. The two stages of opinion are (1) e)ikasia, a very foggy state of mind, and (2) pi/stij, a step higher but which only relates to sensible objects. The two stages of knowledge are (1) dianoi/a the divisions of the sciences, and (2) noh/sij is true knowledge. This final stage of knowing is achieved through dialectic. This is the ability to analyse and synthesize in the abstract. The philosopher is understood be a dialectician, imitating God, who is the supreme dialectician (Republic, 531d). The acquisition of knowledge is not for the lazy. Only the disciplined are able to see and know. For human beings attaining to knowledge is a long and arduous path, for the eye of the soul has been corrupted through its contact with the body. The educative process requires the pursuit of the virtues and other disciplines; this enables the human mind to acquire the skills of the dialectician, by disengaging the mind from the distractions of the senses. The educative process culminates in the vision of the idea of the Good (Republic, 505a–509c [Allegory of the Cave]). It is at the point where the human subject attains insight into the Good that she becomes most godlike and is transferred into the likeness of God’s image. In summary it is

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in the acquisition of knowledge that the human subject becomes like god. This understanding has resonances with the narrative of Genesis 3 and the eating of the fruit of the ‘tree of knowledge’. ‘Knowing’ in Plato’s writings is understood in terms of contemplation, another feature of the later understandings of deification. Plato argues that God contemplates (Phaedrus, 246–9; Timaeus, 29a) and that the human subject is a contemplator (Phaedo, 79c–80a). Contemplation is understood to bring knowledge of God, and likeness to God, and indeed enables the contemplator to become like God (Theaetetus, 176b–177a). The outcomes of questions concerning imitation and participation are expressed in terms of the imitation of God by human beings: o9moi/wsij qew|~ and the imitation of God by the cosmos: paraplh/sia e(autw|~. However, if human beings imitate their ‘form’, what ‘space’ would there be for the imitation of ‘God’? A ‘form’ is understood to be the eternal, changeless and perfect pattern, which is imitated by things. This imitation is limited; the ‘limit’ may be pursued but it is never reached: (Philebus, 54b f.; Phaedo, 75ab). The pursuit of its possibilities by each particular is through the attainment of excellence or virtue: a)reth/. ‘Virtue’ is the correct functioning of a thing according to the purpose for which it exists (i.e. its telos; Gorgias, 506d; Republic, 444d, Phaedo, 75ab; Philebus, 54b; Laws, 653a; Meno, 87d). On this basis a human being is understood to embody in time and space, ‘manness’, or perfect ‘manhood’, which is the goal of human life (Laws, 770d; Gorgias, 507de; Phaedo, 114c). This understanding of imitation and participation seems to preclude any imitation of ‘God’. The notion of paideia as the perfection of character in accordance with its nature may assist in understanding the notion of the imitation of the divine in the later writings of Plato. ‘God’ understood as the self-moving soul, and as perfect goodness and wisdom, is a model to be imitated by living/moving creatures. This offers a basis for resolving the conflict between the imitation of forms and the imitation of God. ‘God’ in Plato’s thought is the ensoulment of the Good, the Beautiful and the True. But God is not the form of ‘the Good’; rather ‘God’ is the highest possible ‘moving Good’. So God does not exist in complete static immutability like the forms. ‘Thus just as God himself is a kind of middle term between forms and things, so the imitation of God is a kind of mediated imitation of forms.’9 On this basis, it is possible to see that Plato argues that the imitation of God for human beings is a special case because human beings are moral creatures. Human beings have a mind [nou~j] which enables them to make the conscious achievement of true ‘manhood’ a possibility. This true humanity is seen in terms of the forms of justice, wisdom and temperance, of which God is the ‘ensoulment’, so making God the human subject’s larger ‘self’. ‘As such he serves as a definite, individual 9

Rutenber, Imitation of God, p. 37.

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example for imitation. The likeness of humanity is also the image and likeness of God’ (Republic, 501b, 589d).10 God as the human subject’s larger ‘self’ is ontologically significant for humankind’s imitation of God. Human imitation and participation is not in the form of ‘manhood’ but in ‘God’. Human beings vary in their likeness to God (Phaedrus, 248 cf.) and not all are like God (Phaedrus, 249b). The gap between God and human beings remains unbridgeable, despite the potential human likeness to God. The ‘divine’ is an ideal, which human beings endeavour to attain, but will never realize. The recognition of the difficulty of attaining to the likeness of the divine leads not only to an understanding of the limitation of achieving this goal as such but also of the number of human beings who are able to do this at all. Plato argues that the true imitator of God, who is most like God, is the philosopher (Phaedrus, 278d, 248d). Only a philosopher is able to enter communion with the gods at death (Phaedrus, 82bc). Plato laments that there are so few philosophers in his own day (Republic, 494a, 496ab), but argues that the philosopher is a superior creation, whose gifts and character enable him to achieve imitation of the divine (Republic, 535b–36a). As a lover of all wisdom, all truth, beauty and being (Phaedrus, 248d, 249c; Republic, 485a) the philosopher seeks assimilation with the truth (Republic, 533bc, 490ab). By participating in Wisdom the philosopher is himself assimilated to God, growing in likeness to God, so that the secular, temporal self is remade in likeness to the eternal (Phaedo, 78b–84b). Plato argues that only God knows all truth, while the philosopher seeks insight into truth: ‘The imitator of the God whose essence is nou~j is the man who knows.’11 God’s mind is complete and eternal, but even the philosopher’s mind remains potential, until it is ‘begotten’ through assimilation to the divine realm (Republic, 490b; Timaeus, 51e, 46d). Is this outcome of imitation and assimilation achieved through a kind of ‘religious mysticism’? Later Platonists such as Plotinus argued that assimilation to God [o(moi/wsij qew|~] was achieved through ecstasy or mystical experience in which the soul became like God and was united with God. This union was rooted in a purified moral life. Plotinus argued that assimilation was based on a high degree of interiority, in which ‘god’ and the ‘human’ became ontologically identical. At first sight the language used in Book 7 of the Republic seems very similar to this. However, in Plato’s understanding the vision of the Good is not religious mysticism. Plato’s understanding is akin to a non-religious mysticism, based on the experience of oneness with the truth. Evelyn Underhill identifies five stages of religious mysticism: (1) awakening (2) self-knowledge or purgation (3) illumination (4) surrender and (5) union and unitive life. It seems fairly clear that Plato’s description 10

Rutenber, Imitation of God, p. 38.

11

Rutenber, Imitation of God, p. 59.

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concludes at stage three, which does not necessarily mean that Plato was unspiritual. A further outcome of imitation and participation is transformation. The person who loves knowledge is understood to be a seeker after God; so that, in discovering the truth a person discovers God, and in this discovery, there is a transformation of the human will and morals. The contemplation of beauty, truth and goodness leads towards the outcomes of perfection [teleio/thj], adequacy [i(kanothj] and self-sufficiency [a)uta/rkeia]. This achievement is based upon a life of temperance. But in relation to imitation this raises a question as to whether God practices temperance? If temperance is the self-control of bodily pleasures (and God has no body) does this mean that the human subject needs to be emotionless in order to imitate God? Plato suggests an intriguing possibility of combining wisdom and ‘pure pleasure’. He suggests moderation rather than the elimination of pleasure as such. He appeals to the notion of a state of graciousness [ i(/lewn] which he sees as a condition of the ‘divine’. Plato rejects extreme asceticism, distinguishing between bodily pleasures which are mixed with pain, relative pleasures and pure pleasures. ‘Like God in the cosmos, man in making a cosmos out of his own inner life takes what is already present and brings it to maximum order and value, eliminating only in extreme cases.’12

Later Platonism A discussion of later Platonism (what has often been called Neo-Platonism) follows in order to set out and analyse together the main influences and sources of the Christian understanding of deification. There will be further discussion of Plotinus and others in this era in the next chapter, in order to examine the context of Christian writers. Plotinus (c.204–70) was a philosopher and teacher in his own right as well as being a significant influence upon Christian thinking. The thought of Plotinus may have been influenced in certain respects by Christian theology, which sometimes leads him to oppositional conclusions. My interest in the writings of Plotinus relates particularly to his understanding of ‘deification’. What were the questions he sought to address by positing a theory of deification? What outcomes emerge from asking these questions? Later Platonism emerged from a revival of interest in Platonism in the first century prior to the common era. A leading author at this time, Eudorus of Alexandria, working c.25 BCE, wrote of ‘likeness to God’ as the telos of human life. This became a key focus in later Platonism. Prior to this the Stoics had seen ‘conformity to nature’ as the telos of human existence. The change of focus to the ‘likeness to God’ raised 12

Rutenber, Imitation of God, p.71.

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two major questions. What aspect of the divine were human beings expected to become like? And what aspect of human being could become like God, so that such likeness could be attained? Theos ‘God’ or ‘a god’ was certainly more than human. The ‘divine’ in philosophical understanding was equivalent to ‘true being’. For the ancient Greek philosophers, ‘being’ was contextual; things did not simply exist, they existed in a particular way. ‘Being’ was understood to have degrees of being or reality. The most ‘real’ was the ‘divine’. To be deficient in being was to be deficient in divinity. For Plato the highest level of reality was the ‘Forms’. The form of the Good was understood to be transcendent and the cause of all lesser degrees of being. Below this there was a dynamic or cosmogenic aspect of the divine, the demiurge, and below the demiurge were the gods of polytheism, in a descending hierarchy. Aristotle (384–322 BCE) did not accept the conceptuality of the Forms and the mythology which Plato embraced. For Aristotle the divine was immaterial, eternal substance, whose only activity was intuitive knowledge (Metaphysics, XII, 6–7). This divinity was the ‘unmoved mover’, a perfect living and intelligent being below which were the moved movers. Later Platonism developed a synthesis of the thought of Plato and Aristotle and gave rise to a notion of the ‘really real’. In this understanding the ‘divine’ is nous [mind], whose self-intellection is the divine ‘forms’. In relation to the question of what aspect of the divine human beings become like, Plotinus constructed a descending hierarchy of deity. The ‘One’ was beyond being and intellection. There was a second hypostasis, nous, produced from the One, because the perfect is productive. A third hypostasis, psyche, produced from the second, as the second is from the first, is also rational. This third hypostasis is understood to be the immanent power of life and growth. This hierarchy of divinities disclosed the One at a variety of levels. Both nous and psyche were to be found in each human being. This became a core concept in later Platonism. Following Plato, it was understood that the soul as a unity was not composite and, therefore, was indestructible and immortal and possessed the recollection of memory. Plato had allowed for passions and desires within the soul. This acknowledged that there was struggle and conflict within the human psyche. Yet the nous was ‘a god to each person’, ensuring that the notion of immortality was attached to the human soul. Aristotle taught that parts of the soul are immortal. This meant that human beings could become immortal if they strove to live in accordance with the immortal parts of the soul. Later thinkers taught a duality of the soul, in which the soul was divided into the rational and irrational. The embodiment of the composite soul was seen as a kind of ‘fall’. Premised on these concepts of the divine and the soul Plotinus taught that although the soul was one ousia, it needed to be freed from its lower parts in order to attain oneness with the psyche [the world soul]. Further purification 24

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and abstraction was required for the soul to attain union with the One (Enneads, V.5.4.8). This final stage of the soul’s journey was completed through an annihilation of all duality. The soul became one with what it sought, yet was not absorbed by it. This process is described as one full of fear and pain. The union is described in terms of vision. However, vision implies a duality of the seer and the seen. Union is also described as touch, blending, self-surrender, ecstasy and erotic mingling. The union is understood in terms of the superimposed centres of two circles, which become indistinguishable and yet can be seen separately if they move apart. This union with the One is thought of as a ‘dizzying leap’ and yet is not something outside the human person. Plotinus argues that ‘We do not need to become gods but simply to realize what we are, which we attain in its fullness through union with the One: “for a god is what is linked to that centre.”’13 Despite these understandings of the deiform nature of the soul, the conceptuality of ‘deification’ remained problematic because of the doctrine of the ‘undescended soul’. The potential for deification was opened up by Iamblichus (250–325), who rejected the doctrine of the ‘undescended soul’. As a consequence the three divine hypostases came to be understood as a hierarchy of different essences. These essences could be ‘participated in’, and the individual might ascend and descend without compromising the transcendence of the higher hypostases. Plotinus’ pupil Porphyry (c.234–305) had anticipated this change, himself using the technical language of deification for first time about the year 300. He argued that to become like God was to attain the godlike quality of incorruptibility which was understood as ‘being deified’ (Ad Marcellam, 17). Iamblichus, who was Porphyry’s pupil, recast the context of deification by arguing that the human soul is non-divine. This meant that for deification to occur an ontological change becomes necessary. This placed further emphasis on the need for preparation for the ascent to the divine. Iamblichus argued that the transformation from human to divine was achieved through the practice of theurgy, which he understood as both intellectual as well as ritual. The works of Iamblichus provide virtually the only examples of the language of deification in philosophical discourse prior to fifth century. In the context of philosophy the conceptuality of deification was understood in terms of two different outcomes the ethical or the realistic. In the ethical outcome, ‘deification’ is understood in terms of a likeness to God achieved through ascetic and philosophical practices. Certain divine attributes could be attained by the human person through ‘imitation’ (homoiosis) [attaining likeness to God]). In the realistic outcome, human beings are in some sense transformed through a participation in God (methexis). Homoiosis and methexis are terms used in Plato and later Platonism and 13

Russell, Deification, p. 41.

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have different but overlapping meanings. Methexis suggests a more concrete outcome, but both concepts explore the relation between ‘being’ and ‘becoming’: that which exists ‘absolutely’ and that which is contingent. ‘“Participation” (methexis) is the name of the “relation” which accounts for the togetherness of the elements of diverse ontological type in the essential unity of a single instance.’14 In the instance of the togetherness of ‘holiness’ within a holy person there is a relation, which is substantial and not just an appearance and which is asymmetrical (i.e. not of equals). ‘Likeness’ (homoiosis) is another construal of the ‘relation’ between elements of differing ontological kinds but is weaker and non-constitutive, namely, holy people resemble each other and share in holiness. However, ‘participation’ may itself be strong or weak, for it may be used literally [kuri&wj] or figuratively [kataxhstikw=j].15 Another key aspect of the architecture of the doctrine of deification is the ancient Greek conceptuality of the going out from and return of the cosmos to its divine Creator. This notion relates in the thought of Plato to the understanding of the creation as an emanation from its (divine) origin. However, in the Christian reception of this concept it is reconstrued in terms of the conceptuality of creatio ex nihilo. In other words, the conceptuality of going forth (exitus) and of returning (reditus) to the divine is reconceived in terms of an ontological difference between the Creator and the created order. But the movement of flowing out and of return is retained. This is to be seen in the work of both Maximos the Confessor and Thomas Aquinas. The conceptuality of exitus and reditus becomes a metaphysical construct, which informs not only the doctrines of creation and of salvation (deification) but notions such as the missio dei. In other words the potential to ‘become divine’ for the human creation and perhaps for the whole cosmos (e.g. Romans 8. 22, 23) is part of the fabric of the creation, imprinted upon it by the divine intention and initiative in the act of creating. It is around these concepts that the later Christian doctrine of deification is constructed. Does this examination of the antecedents of the doctrine of deification in ancient Greek philosophy and practice imply that there is direct or wholesale influence of Platonism and other world views on the development of Christian doctrine, as Adolf von Harnack claimed. The works of Plato exercised a profound influence upon philosophers and theologians such as Philo of Alexandria, Plotinus, Porphyry, Gregory of Nazianzen, Augustine, Ps-Dionysius and Eriugena. Christian thinkers were as much part of the culture and world views as any of their contemporaries in the ancient world. But this does not mean that Christian belief was adversely affected by or changed into Greek philosophy. Many scholars argue that Christian belief is 14

Bigger, C. P., Participation: A Platonic Inquiry (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1968), p. 7. 15 Russell, Deification, p. 2.

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‘other’ in comparison with such ‘systems’ as Platonism. Dörrie argues that there is a ‘pseudomorphosis’, that is to say only the outward elements of Greek thought are used by Christians and that these have been inhabited and made their own by Christian writers.16 ‘They can have nothing but the outward appearance, the words and the images which may seem to be Platonic . . . in fact are completely alien to the metaphysic they seem to reproduce.’17 Not all scholars agree with Dörrie, but it is important to acknowledge that both later Platonist writers as well as Christians were not simply repeating the ideas of Plato. They produced innovative understandings, which in the Christian tradition were as much as inspired by the Gospel tradition as any contemporary world view.

The Jewish and Christian scriptures Filiation, perfection and holiness are foundational forms of expression for an understanding of divine – human intimacy, union or deification. The extent to which such concepts are found in the Hebrew Scriptures or the Septuagint is a matter of debate. But within these texts are instances of phraseology or conceptuality upon which a metaphor of deification can be constructed. Filiation, the divine adoption of human beings as sons and daughters is probably the most problematic of the three concepts. In patristic exegesis Psalm 82 verse 6 is used as a ‘proof text’ for filiation. There are other examples in the Hebrew corpus such as texts in Job and Psalm 29, which have been associated with ‘filiation’. These texts have been translated using ‘sons of God’, but in the New Revised Standard Version the phrase is rendered ‘heavenly beings’. Texts which refer in Hebrew to the ‘sons of God’ possibly indicate beings such as angels which inhabit the divine realm. These texts demonstrate an understanding of beings intimately related to the divine to an extent that they are called ‘sons of God’. Examples from the Septuagint suggest an idea of adoption. In the Wisdom of Solomon (chapter 5), a text related to those who have been persecuted, suggests that they have ‘been numbered among the children of God’ (Wisdom of Solomon 5.5). In Ecclesiasticus with reference to the poor and oppressed, it is suggested that ‘you will then be like a son of the Most High’ (Ecclesiasticus 4.10). These examples demonstrate that persons were held by their peers in the status of a child of God because of certain virtuous attitudes and actions. This may be interpreted as entirely metaphorical, but it demonstrates a shift in understanding from that in the Hebrew corpus. There is evidence in the Septuagint 16

Dörrie, H. S., ‘Jahre Forschung zum Thema Platonismus und Kirchenvästerhe’ in Platonica minora (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1976), pp. 508–23. 17 Vogel, C. J., ‘Platonism and Christianity: A Mere Antagonism or a Profound Common Ground?’ Vigiliae Christianae 39 (1985): 7.

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texts of an understanding of the potential for human beings to become perfect, which in the Hebrew corpus is understood to be a divine attribute.18 In the Book of Wisdom (4.10–14) the text suggests that a perfected humanity is possible, although it seems only on the basis of removal from this world. Similar examples are to be found in the book of Ecclesiasticus.19 The notion of sharing in the divine attribute of perfection is a possibility available at least to certain human beings. But it is an exclusive elite who achieve this end. The concept to being holy as God is holy is, however, a key understanding in the book Leviticus in the Hebrew corpus; chapter 11. 44, 45 is a key text: 44

For I am the Lord your God; sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming creature that moves on the earth. 45For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt, to be your God; you shall be holy, for I am holy.

This and other examples from Leviticus may be understood in terms of ritual holiness or purity. The inference of such a claim being that there is a marked difference between ritual purity and moral holiness. Whether such a sharp distinction is justified is questionable, as the Levitical law code may be understood to comprehend an understanding of holiness which is both ritual and moral.20 These phrases and concepts in the Hebrew Scriptures and Septuagint provide a basis for understandings of filiation, perfection and holiness in the New Testament, and they also provide a basis for the emergence of the metaphor of deification in the Early Church. Covenant’ is a pervasive concept in the Hebrew, Septuagint and Christian scriptures. It is word used in a variety of ways, but the usual understanding of covenant is of a ‘relationship’ or agreement between God and ‘his people’. This intimacy between the human and the divine is rooted in the notion that humankind is made in the divine image and is the basis for the Incarnation. Such intimacy also provides the basis for the idea of a synergy of wills. The following passage from the prophet Jeremiah promises a ‘new covenant’ which is more intimate: 31

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt – a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33But this is the 18

For example, Deuteronomy 32.4; 2 Samuel 22.31; Psalm 18.30. For example, Ecclesiasticus 31.10; 44.17 (Noah); 45.8 (Moses); 50.11. 20 See Leviticus 19.2; 20.26 and Numbers 15.40. 19

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covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31)21 The concept of covenant is found extensively in the Wisdom literature of the Septuagint corpus. The concept of a covenant relationship between God and his people remains of crucial importance for the construction of a doctrine of deification in the present context which demonstrates the relational dimensions of partaking in the divine nature. The phrase ‘image and likeness’ has been the focus of much attention in Christian theology, among those who want to exploit the phrase to formulate a Christian anthropology as well as among the detractors of such terminology. Among the theologians of the Early Church Clement of Alexandria brought together the understanding of ‘image’ in Genesis 1.26 with that of Plato in Theaetetus 176b, as Philo of Alexandria had done previously. The phrase occurs in the first creation narrative of Genesis. Wherefore we ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him, is to become holy, just, and wise. (Theaetetus, 176b)23

Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1.26, 27) 22

The Genesis narrative articulates the belief that human beings, male and female, are made in the ‘image and likeness’ of God. However, it provides no

21 22

23

See Hebrews chapter 8. From the NRSV: in Hebrew the word translated as ‘humankind’ is ‘adam’. There is further articulation of the imago dei in the blessing of Noah and his sons at the conclusion of the Flood narrative in Genesis 9.6. Plato, Theaetetus (trans. Jowett), 176b.

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content to this notion. It seems to be a means of establishing the distinctiveness of human being over against other sentient creatures. Subsequent generations have sought to puzzle out what such an extraordinary claim might mean. One understanding of imago dei has been in terms of human capability for language and reason. Another text from the Hebrew Scriptures may explain why this has been the case: You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God. (Exodus 20.4, 5) The association of image and likeness with idolatry has had considerable consequences upon Christian thinking about the imago dei and has tended to direct conceptualizations of the divine image away from anything material, reinforcing an emphasis upon rationality. At various moments in the history of the Church there have been violent disputes about images, such as during the Iconoclast Controversy among the Eastern churches and at the time of the Reformation in the West. These conflicts have tended to reinforce a cerebral or spiritual understanding of the divine image in humankind. In addition, in some traditions a distinction has been drawn between ‘image’ and ‘likeness’ which often relates to the outcome of the Fall. In the Orthodox tradition it is usual to distinguish between the divine image which remains part of human nature after the Fall and the divine likeness which is lost and needs to be restored. Understandings of the divine image are shaped by the desire to speculate on what human nature was like before the Fall in comparison with afterwards. Within the Orthodox tradition the comparison of the pre- and post-lapsarian state of humanity is often focused on the phrase ‘garments of skin’ as well as understandings of the divine image and likeness. In the aftermath of the disobedience of Adam and Eve there is a catalogue of consequences or curses (Genesis 3.14–19). At the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden, ‘The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all who live. And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them’ (Genesis 3.20, 21). The clothing of Adam and Eve in ‘garments of skin’ gives rise to whole raft of ideas about pre-lapsarian human nature, including questions of gender, sexuality and reproduction. Some scholars24 have drawn a parallel between the ‘garments of skin’ in Genesis 3 with the text of Genesis Rabbah, a midrash on the Torah, which speaks of Adam and Eve being clothed by God with ‘garments of light’ on the sixth day of creation (Genesis Rabbah 24

Barker, M., The Hidden Tradition of the Kingdom of God (London: SPCK, 2007).

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XX.12).25 The inference being that a potential for ‘immortality’ is lost through the clothing in ‘garments of skin’ implying bodily mortality. Adam and Eve having eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and in that sense having become like God, are expelled from Eden in order to prevent them eating of the tree of life and becoming immortal (Genesis 3.22–4). Despite the lack of any direct reference to ‘deification’ in the Hebrew Scriptures, there are strong resonances with the later conceptualities upon which the doctrine of deification was constructed. On the whole the consensus of scholarly opinion is agreed that the Hebrew Scriptures contain little or nothing which explicitly suggests a notion of deification. However, later exegesis, both Jewish and Christian, has interpreted elements within the Hebrew corpus as the basis for the metaphor of deification. These Jewish ‘post-biblical’ schools of exegesis are known as Rabbinic, Hellenist and Enochic. The main texts on which later understandings of deification are construed are narratives concerning Enoch, Moses and Elijah. These texts relate stories of the exaltation of a human person to God and to a heavenly status. On the whole readings of the Hebrew Scriptures have suggested that there is deep gulf between the Creator and the creation and that the fate of human beings at death is in the shades of Sheol (e.g. Job 7.9, Psalm 6.5, Proverbs 1.12) Pre-exilic texts suggest that there is no continuation of human existence beyond death. But it is interesting to note that among the references to Sheol, some speak of being rescued from Sheol (1 Samuel 2.6, Psalm 30.3, Psalm 49.15), and others speak of it as a place not devoid of God (Psalm 139.8). Another tradition suggests that some human beings are taken up into heaven, in particular Enoch (Genesis 5.24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2.11). The text suggests that Enoch had a close relationship with God. The interpretation of the phrase, ‘God took him,’ came to be interpreted as meaning more than physical death. In the light of such interpretation, some biblical scholars place the stories of Enoch and Elijah among the post-exilic texts of the Hebrew Bible. It is only in the post-exilic literature of the Hebrew Scriptures that anything approaching the metaphor of deification may be discerned. An example is the vision of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37.1–14, and the vision of the throne chariot of God, in Ezekiel 1.1–28; 10.1–22; 43.1–5. These texts suggest not only a vision of the divine in the here and now but also the potential for a vision of God, which unites the individual with God in the courts of heaven, perhaps eternally. The ideas found in the post-exilic text of Ezekiel may be traced in the texts of the later Wisdom and Apocalyptic literature. In these texts grades of angels and demons are portrayed, which connect God and the creation and ideas of immortality and resurrection find explicit expression along with the translation of the heroes of the faith into heaven. 25

See Psalm 104. 1,2.

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These trends were reinforced by the destruction of the second Temple in 70. In Judaism the Messianic expectations were brought into doubt, and, in the place of such expectation, there is a renewed emphasis on the study of Torah, and there emerges a spirituality of assimilation to the life of the angels or of ‘angelification’. If the angels are understood to be ‘gods’, this can be seen as a kind of deification. In some understandings it was possible to anticipate this in the present life through ‘an ecstatic ascent to the vision of the throne-chariot of God’.26

A patristic proof text The use of proof texts by the theological writers of the Early Church is focused on Psalm 82. This appeal emerges not so much from a reading of the Hebrew Scriptures or Septuagint as from a key text in the Gospels. In the narrative in the Gospel of John following the ‘Good Shepherd’ discourse, there is an attempt to arrest Jesus for blasphemy, during which Jesus himself cites Psalm 82 verse 6. The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus replied, ‘I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?’ The Jews answered, ‘It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.’ Jesus answered, ‘Is it not written in your law, “I said, you are gods”? If those to whom the word of God came were called “gods” – and the scripture cannot be annulled – can you say that the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world is blaspheming because I said, “I am God’s Son?”’ (John 10.31–6) The passage makes play of the correlation between the claim to be ‘gods’ and the claim attributed to Christ of being God’s Son. Here something of the later architecture of the metaphor of deification in terms of ‘filiation’ may be discerned. The later notions of becoming a ‘god’, being the Son of God and becoming a child of God are traceable to this text. Psalm 82.6 is the most often cited ‘proof text’ in early Christian sources for the emergent understanding of what became the doctrine of deification. The text of 2 Peter 1.4 may seem to the contemporary eye to be much more relevant, but this is a view from hindsight and has probably acquired more standing in the light of the construction of the later doctrine.

26

Russell, Deification, p. 53.

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Harnack and Bousset27 among others argued that in constructing the doctrine of deification early Christian writers had borrowed from ancient philosophical traditions, the mystery religions and the Imperial cult, and had overturned the original eschatological Gospel message. In particular, these critics pick up on the appeal made to Psalm 82 through the text of John 10. They interpreted this appeal as a justification for the development of something foreign to the Christian tradition. In their view, ‘The patristic appeal to Ps. 82.6 was thus an ex post facto justification for deification that did not contribute to the origin of the doctrine.’28 Carl Mosser argues that such a view misrepresents the biblical basis for the doctrine of deification and seriously misunderstands the way in which the early Christian writers approached Scripture.29 Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria are the earliest examples of this appeal to John 10 and Psalm 82.30 Psalm 82.6 is not simply read out of the Gospel text, but New Testament notions are being read into it by the early writers. Christians were developing ideas and not simply reiterating traditional, received understandings in the form of a scriptural warrant.31 What becomes evident is that Christians not only inherited the Hebrew Scriptures but also received some of the different traditions of scriptural interpretation in Judaism. However, the interpretation of Psalm 82 in the rabbinic literature of the Second Temple period is difficult to establish, since most patristic sources pre-date Jewish texts, other than 11QMelchizedeck of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 11QMelchizedeck and the Gospel of John are two examples of the interpretation of Psalm 82 in Second Temple Judaism. Mosser argues that what is of particular importance for early Christian writers is the declaration of sonship rather than the question of ‘godhood’ per se. 32 Mosser argues that Justin, Irenaeus and Clement understood Psalm 82.6–7 as a summary of the narrative of the Creation and Fall of humanity. God had created the human race to be his immortal ‘sons’. If humanity had not fallen they would have matured in their likeness of God. The Fall disrupts God’s intentions in creating the cosmos. The glory of the garden of Eden, the intimate relationship of a child of God and life itself are lost, and in their place the fate of humanity becomes corruption and death. However, the phrase, ‘the scripture cannot be annulled’ (John 10.35) was interpreted

27

For example, Bousset, W., Kyrios Christos: A History of the Belief in Christ from the Beginnings of Christianity to Irenaeus (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1970), pp. 420–53. 28 Mosser, C., ‘The Earliest Patristic Interpretations of Psalm 82, Jewish Antecedents, and the Origin of Christian Deification’, Journal of Theological Studies, 56(1) (2005): 33. 29 Mosser, Psalm 82, 34. 30 The earliest example is in Justin Martyr, The Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 124. 31 See Mosser, Psalm 82, 35. 32 Mosser, Psalm 82, 64.

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to mean that the divine intentions are not destroyed by the Fall. Verse 6 of Psalm 82 was seen as prophetic, pointing to the Incarnation and resurrection of Word, which fulfils the divine intentions of creation by recapitulating the fate of Adam. Mosser argues that the early writers came to understand that verses 6 and 7 of Psalm 82 pointed to a ‘Complete fulfilment . . . found in the new humanity consisting of those who are baptized into the death and resurrection of this new Adam’.33 This interpretation led to a conceptuality upon which later understandings of deification are constructed. ‘The conceptual synonymy between qeo/j, a)qa/natoj and a!fqartoj and the synonymous parallelism of Ps. 82:6 allowed for the patristic writers aptly to summarize their eschatological-soteriological expectations in terms of being made qeo/j / qeoi/.’34 This vocabulary becomes the basis for the terms used later: qeopoie/w and qeopoi/hsij. The particular question which arises from these understandings of Psalm 82, is whether this interpretation has any Jewish antecedents, or does this play into the hands of those who condemn deification on the grounds that it is based upon pagan conceptualities and terminology. Moser suggests that there is such evidence in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Enochic literature.35 An examination of this evidence follows. The figure of Enoch, a son of Cain, known from Genesis chapters 4 and 5 became the focus of reflection and speculation in the period from the third century BCE. Enoch came to be understood as a mediator between heaven and earth. In later Rabbinic texts the worship of Enoch is prohibited, which suggests that some saw him as a manifestation of Yahweh. In the first Book of Enoch and in the texts of the Qumran community the figure of Enoch becomes allied to a notion of transcendent life beyond ‘death’. This idea in these contexts may have emerged independently of any direct Greek influence. The texts of the Qumran community express the notion that the righteous are predestined to transcend death and join the company of the angels. The leader of the Qumran community was seen as the ‘new Moses’ who would lead the community towards ‘angelic life’. These ideas were based upon passages from the Psalms which were understood to refer to the heavenly court. The ‘Sons of Heaven’ who are angels are often referred to as elohim or elim, based on Psalm 82.1. The writings of the Qumran community suggest that the boundary between heaven and earth is either permeable or dissolved, suggesting an inaugurated eschatology.36 These understandings provide the basis on which the worship of the Qumran community came to be understood in terms of an anticipation of the ‘divine life’ of the heavenly court. 33 34 35

36

Mosser, Psalm 82, 59. Mosser, Psalm 82, 59. See Mosser, Psalm 82, 66–7. Jewish sources include Dead Sea Scrolls: 1QS 4.20,22–3; 1QH 4.15; also 2 Enoch 31.1; 4 Ezra 3.7; Sibylline Oracles 1.50; Wisdom 2.23; 3.4,7; 2 Baruch 73–4, for example, 74.3. 1QS 11.5–9; 1QH 3.21–2.

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In both the Book of Enoch and the writings of Qumran community there are the beginnings of a democratization of these expectations in that all of the righteous are admitted to the heavenly court, and take part in the heavenly liturgy of the angels. The significance of Moses is expressed in a drama dating from the second century BCE, Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian, which is written in Greek verse. Some fragments of this survive in the Stromateis (1.23.155–6) of Clement of Alexandria and Praepatio Evangelica (IX, 28.1–3) by Eusebius. The Exagoge suggests Moses’ superior status over Enoch, because of his ascent to the divine throne, his revelatory vision and his ‘deification’ on Sinai. In the Exagoge, Moses does not merely ascend and have a vision of God’s throne: God bids Moses to sit on his divine throne. Moses is given God’s own scepter and crown, God’s insignia. Moses shares God’s throne: he is divinized. Moses thus not only sees God’s throne as did Enoch: he rules from God’s own throne. This is a significant development in the Mosaic tradition: Moses, the human, is the patriarch who not only ascends, but shares God’s dignity. It brings to mind Philo’s later understanding of Moses as god and king, as well as rabbinic midrashism on Deut 33.1 which claims that Moses was a man when he ascended Sinai, and a god when he descended.37 (emphases in original) Moses’ ascent to heaven and sitting on the throne of God not only implies deification but also suggests that he is restored to the glory lost by Adam and becomes a prototype of a new humanity. Rabbinic sources provide evidence of the evolution of an understanding of deification, which is related to ‘Merkabah mysticism,’ a spiritual practice which emerged from meditation on Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot throne of God. This strand of Jewish tradition was an alternate to the view of the ascent to God understood in Greek philosophy. In this rabbinic tradition the exegesis of Psalm 82.6 interpreted the ‘gods’ as those who attain immortality through proper observance of the Torah. There is evidence that this interpretation strongly influenced later Christian understandings of deification. The Enochic texts make a fundamental contribution to the emergence of a doctrine of deification in Christianity. This dependency is witnessed in that survival of these texts is due mainly to their use and preservation by the Christian community.

Wisdom literature The book, the Wisdom of Solomon, dating from the first-century BCE, sits within the broad tradition of Wisdom literature that is found within the 37

Ruffatto, K. J., ‘Polemics with Enochic Traditions in the Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian’, Journal for the Study of Pseudepigrapha, 15(3) 2006: 204.

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Hebrew Scriptures and the wisdom texts of the ancient Near East and Greece. The Book of Wisdom brings to expression a Jewish idea of ‘blessed immortality’, which emerges from contact with and influence from ancient Greek philosophy. The beginning of the personification of ‘Wisdom’ can be found in the texts of Jewish Wisdom literature, such as Proverbs chapter 8. But in Hebrew Wisdom literature immortality is understood in terms of leaving a son after oneself, while in the Book of Wisdom the personification of Wisdom indicates something much closer to the ‘being’ of God, expressed in the vocabulary of ‘emanation’ and ‘image’ (Wisdom 7). The connection between personified Wisdom, understood as an emanation form God, and human beings, brings about an intimacy with God so that human beings are called the ‘friends of God’ and are not separated from God by death. Although she is but one, she can do all things, and while remaining in herself, she renews all things; in every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God, and prophets; (Wisdom 7.27) The Book of Wisdom may pre-date the writings of Philo of Alexandria, in which case this text is the first example of an appeal to immortality in ‘Hellenistic Judaism’. This construal of an immortal destiny for humankind is based upon the concept of personified Wisdom. Passages from Wisdom 3.1–9 and 5.15 suggest that the dead become immortal and live forever in the presence of God. Immortality [a0qanasi/a] or incorruption [a0fqarsi/a] is the telos for which human beings are created. The human soul is not naturally immortal, but God bestows immortality on merit. ‘Incorruption’ is a divine attribute, which the Epricureans saw as the difference between the divine and the human. In the Book of Wisdom incorruption is ascribed to human beings on the basis of the divine image: for God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity, but through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his company experience it. (Wisdom 2.23–4) The understanding of immortality as divine gift is reinforced in the reference to ‘manna’, described as the food of the gods, the ‘ambrosial food’ in Wisdom 19.21. This is the food of immortality, which bestows the divine gift on human beings and has resonances with later eucharistic understandings. The writings of Philo of Alexandria (20–50 BCE) are of interest for an analysis of the emergence of a Christian doctrine of deification for a number of reasons. In particular Philo is an example of an adherent to Judaism who lived and worked in the context of the cultural milieu of the ancient city of Alexandria, renowned for its philosophical schools. He is of significance 36

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because several Early Church writers explicitly refer to his writings, particularly Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Basil of Caesarea. Philo had been educated in the traditions of the contemporary understandings of Greek philosophy, and he took up an apologetic task of presenting Judaism in ways which would commend it to educated Jews and gentile converts. His apologetics are rooted in an Alexandrine tradition of allegorical interpretation, which can be seen in the interpretation of the works of Homer. Philo argued that between God and human beings there is a chain of being, which nonetheless meant that God remained transcendent. This ‘chain of being’ allowed for the possibility of the ascent of the soul to God through the practice of philosophy. The interpretation of the relationship between Jewish and Greek traditions in Philo’s writings is a matter of some dispute. Wesche argues that Philo brought together Hebrew and Platonist categories in a synthesis, which was taken up later by Origen.38 For example Philo writes that the mind [nous] is ‘intimately related to the divine Logos, being an imprint or fragment or effulgence of that blessed nature’ (De Opificio Mundi, 46). This divine Logos is ‘begotten of God’ and mediates between God and creation. But Dörrie argues that this is not so much a synthesis as a ‘pseudomorphosis’, in which only the outward elements of Greek thought remain. In this understanding Philo’s contribution to Jewish and Greek thought is much more innovative. The Wisdom tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures, and possibly of the Septuagint, is extended by Philo. Using Platonist concepts Philo sets out four different ways by which the soul ascends to God. The first is a religious approach (De Specialibus Legibus I.269–72) in which the soul abandons idolatry and turns to the true religion. Second, there is a philosophical approach (De Migratione Abrahami 194–5) in which the mind rises from sensible to intelligible objects through contemplation. Third, there is an ethical approach (Legum Allegoriarum I.108) which leads to immortality, through the practice of the virtues, making the soul ‘godlike’. Finally there is a mystical approach (De Somniis 2.32.2). On this path the true philosopher goes out of herself and attains the highest level possible for a human being to pure mind (nous). Moses was such a person. He embodied wisdom and so occupied a mediating position between God and human beings. But even Moses is called ‘god’ only ‘figuratively’, on the basis of sharing in the divine attributes of incorporeality and immortality.39 The philosophical and exegetical traditions of those Jewish writers influenced by the ‘Hellenistic’ environment of Roman Empire provide a context 38

39

Wesche, K. P., ‘Mind and Self in the Christology of Saint Gregory the Theologian: Saint Gregory’s Contribution to Christology and Christian Anthropology’, Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 39(1) (1994): 45. Russell, Deification, p.11.

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for early Christian writers which can be summarized in four distinctive understandings which form the basis for a Christian metaphor of deification. First, these traditions suggest that immortality is a gift from God, rather than an innate property of the soul. Second, the human soul enjoys a kinship with the divine glory but, nonetheless, remains distinct from the divine. Third, the possibility of moral progress allows the soul to participate in certain of the divine attributes. Finally, there are rare examples of human beings attaining an ecstatic encounter with God even in their earthly lives.40

New Testament The texts of the New Testament contain no explicit reference to ‘deification’. For some this will endorse their view that the metaphor of deification is foreign to the primitive Gospel. In my exploration of various themes in the New Testament I will endeavour to demonstrate that many of the features of the later metaphor are to be found throughout the writings of the New Testament. This is not surprising if one accepts that the metaphor arises from reflection on the New Testament witness. The metaphor of deification arises not only from reflection on the text of the New Testament but also from reflection on the experiences to which it testifies. The narrative of the Transfiguration provides a particular and important instance of an experience which Christian theologians believed was reiterated in the lives of the faithful. The hope of immortality is set out in 1 Corinthians 15. The play on the difference between mortal and immortal, perishable and imperishable is striking and resonates with the understanding that the divine is immortal and imperishable. The defeat of death and the putting on of immortality is seen in terms of the reversal of the fate of Adam:41 Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Corinthians 15. 20–6)

40 41

Russell, Deification, p.77. See also Revelation 2.7, ‘To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God.’

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The hope of immortality is related by St Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 to the possibility of the resurrection of a ‘body’ after the burial and decomposition of the mortal remains of a person. The possibility of the ‘resurrection body’ is construed in relation to a notion of a ‘last Adam’ as well as a ‘first Adam’. The first Adam is understood to be ‘a living soul’ [yuxh\n zw~san] ‘from the dust of the earth’, while the second Adam is ‘a life-giving spirit’ [pneu~ma zwopoiou~n] ‘from heaven’. In the resurrection of believers, the body of yuxh/ from Adam will be transformed into a body of pneu=ma from Christ. For those still living at the moment of the second coming there will be an instantaneous and radical transformation. The psychikon body will become the pneumatikon body. The Gospel of Matthew is the only one of the four gospels to include the extended passage of teachings called the ‘Sermon on the Mount’, in which is found the command to be perfect, in imitation of the divine perfection. You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the taxcollectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5. 43–8) This command to imitate the divine perfection is given concrete content as the passage above reveals. This godlike attribute of patient acceptance and inclusion is seen as the goal and standard for human behaviour. The passage itself makes no assumptions about becoming godlike as such. But the practice and habit of such behaviour is no doubt assumed to bring about a fundamental transformation of ‘sinful’ human attitudes and actions. The potential for attaining to divine attributes became a core element in the expression of the metaphor of deification. The passage is the core text in John Wesley’s construal of Christian Perfection and of the later Holiness movements in the Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions to which I will return.42 The notion of the divine image is found in Colossians 1 where the ‘image’ is understood in relation to the person of Christ rather than humankind.

42

Wesley, J., ‘A Plain Account of Christian Perfection’, in T. Jackson (ed.), The Works of John Wesley (1872), vol. 11, pp. 366–446; Wesley also appeals to other texts, for example, Hebrews 6.1; Philippians 3.15; 1 John 4.18.

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This passage became the basis for the interpretation of the imago dei in later Christian thought. The passage sets out a detailed and complex faith statement in relation to Christ, on the basis that he is the image [eikoˉn] of the invisible God. But how does this use of image relate to the human race in general? The understanding that Christ in his particular role and relationship with God is understood as ‘icon’ and that human beings are also ‘icons’ of God could be interpreted in terms of either difference or similarity. Kathryn Tanner argues for the latter.43 She suggests that any notion that the human and the divine are in ‘competition’ is a misunderstanding of the Christian Tradition. Christ as the icon of the invisible God allows humanity to be understood as perspicacious of the divine. The human potential of perspicacity of the divine is to be found in the gospel narrative of the ‘Transfiguration’ or ‘metamorphoˉsis’ of Christ. The ‘event’ of the Transfiguration, which is recounted in each of the Synoptic Gospels,44 becomes a core component in the construal of deification in the Orthodox tradition. Indeed icons of the Transfiguration are the pictorial expression of the metaphor of deification: Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!’ When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Get up and do not be afraid.’ And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. (Matthew 17.1–8) The narrative of the Transfiguration has a number of elements which become key in the construction of the doctrine of deification. The figures of Moses and Elijah are notable not only as key figures of Judaism but also as those who had their own ascent to the divine. There are several aspects to the story to highlight in terms of the later doctrine. The event occurs on a high mountain, which is a symbol of the ascent to the divine. It is a place of vision and light. The three disciples see the transfigured Christ and witness the light 43

44

Tanner, K., Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2001), for example, chapter 1. Matthew 17.1–8; Mark 9.28; and Luke 9.28–36.

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from his face. The vision of God [theoˉria] becomes a key factor in the construal of deification. Vision and light suggest contemplation, illumination and enlightenment, each of which becomes a core element in the theorization of deification. The revelation of the divine light on Mount Tabor may be seen as comparable with ‘Resurrection light’ and the ‘tongues of flame’ on the day of Pentecost. This appeal to light and illumination has strong echoes of Plato’s allegory of the Cave. The Transfiguration is a model of the transformation for the Christian believer. The paradigmatic status of the narrative is to be understood in terms of the much later conceptuality of the ‘Hypostatic Union’ expounded by the council of Chalcedon. The perichoˉrēsis of the human and divine revealed in Christ’s transfigured face on Mount Tabor becomes an exemplar of human redemption and sanctification. Furthermore, the perichoˉrēsis of the human and divine in Christ may be understood in terms of a ‘synergy’ of wills. The perspicacity of the human for the divine as witnessed in the narrative of the Transfiguration is not only a matter of ontology but also a matter of moral intent and of divine–human synergy. This comes to be understood as absolutely central to the construal of what is meant by deification in the Christian tradition. An example of the concept of the synergy of wills in the New Testament texts is the core Christian prayer: the ‘Our Father’. The Lord’s Prayer as used liturgically is based on the Matthean text: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. (Matthew 6.9–13) The phrase in verse 10 concerning the divine will may be understood as an invitation to conform one’s human will to the divine, and so enter into a synergy of wills. This interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer became widespread as the doctrine of deification came to be accepted, particularly in the Orthodox churches. The passage in 2 Peter 1.4 is the clearest statement of anything approaching ‘deification’ in the New Testament. But among the earliest Christian writers this verse does not evoke much interest. Later theologians such Cyril of Alexandria and John of Damascus and the post-Reformation writers do 41

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cite this verse in relation to their understandings of deification.45 However, in terms of biblical texts 2 Peter 1.4, together with Genesis 1.26 and John 10.34-5, provide the strongest basis for a theology of deification. His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants in the divine nature. (2 Peter 1.3, 4) In this passage from 2 Peter, the understanding that ‘divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness,’ means that through God’s promises Christian believers ‘may participate in (literally, ‘become sharers [koinoˉnoi] of’) the divine nature’ escaping from the corruption in the world which is caused by evil desires.46 Karl Barth interpreted this passage to mean nothing more than ‘the practical fellowship of Christians with God and on this basis the conformity of their acts with the divine nature’.47 But for exponents of a Christian understanding of deification the passage in 2 Peter 1.4 is a key text, which offers not only a strong biblical basis for the notion of human participation in the divine but also relates this verbally to the concept of koinoˉnia. There are two major themes in the letters of St Paul to examine in relation to the later understanding of deification in the Christian tradition. They are filiation, adoption as sons or daughters of God and ‘Christification’. I have chosen the word ‘Christification’ as an alternate to ‘deification’ to emphasize that Paul does not write of becoming divine explicitly. He does write of becoming closely identified with Christ, which Albert Schweitzer described as ‘in Christ mysticism’. While Paul himself had ‘mystical’ experiences, the use of ‘mysticism’ can be misleading in terms of a general exposition of Paul’s concepts of becoming identified with Christ. The identification of the believer with Christ occurs through a variety of means. It is possible through ritual or liturgical practices, specifically Baptism and Eucharist. There is also an ethical path in which the believer pursues the virtues or the gifts of the Spirit. In each of these cases Paul appeals to the metaphor of the Body of Christ. And in each case he argues that the believer has some kind of personal experience. In terms of Baptism the believer needs to experience death 45

See Benea, O., Theosis in the Biblical and Eucharistic Ecclesiology of Patristic Theology, MA Th, Lampeter University (Dissertation) p. 184.

46

Rakestraw, R. V., ‘Becoming Like God: An Evangelical Doctrine of Theosis’, Journal of Evangelical Theological Studies, 40(2) 1997: 258. Barth, K., The Christian Life: Church Dogmatics IV, 4, Lecture Fragments (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981), p. 28.

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and resurrection for himself as moral ‘conversion’ from sin to new life. St Paul uses various expressions for ‘participatory union’: ‘in Christ’, ‘with Christ’, ‘Christ in us’, ‘sons of God’. Paul’s expressions became the basis for reflection which informed the emergence of the metaphor of deification. There is a strand within the writings of St Paul which some scholars interpret in terms of a mystical understanding of the vision of and possible union with God. Paul writes of his own experience of ascent to the third heaven (2 Corinthians 12.2–4). This experience is parallel with the revelation of the eschatological life, which is found in esoteric traditions such as Gnosticism. In this instance it is clear that the detail of the revelation is personal to him. The experience is parallel with Merkabah revelatory experience, and it is possible that Paul was aware of traditions like that of Qumran. Paul’s writings are full of references to ‘union’ expressed in phrases such as being ‘in Christ’, ‘in the Spirit’, the ‘spiritual life’ and ‘life in God’, but such phrases are not used in relation to mystical experience as such. The two themes of adoption (filiation) and Christification in the letters are not mutually exclusive, and passages where one theme is used explicitly may also suggest the implications of the other. The idea of becoming one with Christ (Christified) is expressed by Paul in various ways. A foundation for this idea and experience is Paul’s identification of Christ and Adam. Adam is seen as a type of Christ in Romans 5.14, while Christ is seen as the second Adam in 1 Corinthians 15.45. The persons of Christ and Adam and their actions have consequences for whole human race, and it is on this premise that Paul speaks of the experience and process(es) of Christification. Paul also identifies Christ and Abraham, in relation to the notion of a covenant for all. In Galatians 3.23–29 Christ is understood in relation to Abraham and his seed, so that those who have ‘put on’ Christ in Baptism are the children of God. In Romans 8 Paul describes participation in Christ as a process of successive stages: liberation from demonic powers, sharing in the sufferings of Christ, sharing in Christ’s glory; indeed the whole creation groans waiting for liberation from vanity and corruption. There are references to being in Christ through the indwelling of the Spirit, the outcome of which is adoption, for those who call upon God their Father as ‘Abba’. Paul explores the work of the Spirit within the believer in 1 Corinthians 2.10–16.48 Paul distinguishes between the spiritual and the unspiritual, indicating that the Spirit interprets for the spiritual the consequence of which is to have the mind of Christ. This passage has strong resonances with the practice of a school of instruction gathered around a spiritual teacher, a practice which was often found in the ancient world and has been identified as a key element in the emergence of practices around the doctrine of deification.

48

Other instances of being ‘in Christ’: 1 Corinthians 15.22; 1 Corinthians 1.2; 2 Corinthians 5.17; Romans 6.23.

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Paul writes of ‘putting on’ Christ in Baptism, and extending the metaphor appeals to the image of being clothed in life and incorruption.49 The passage in Romans 6 on Baptism is a particular instance of the experiential as well as theological in the process of Christification: How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. (Romans 6.3–5) This ritual or liturgical example demonstrates that Christification is an experience with moral as well as eschatological consequences. This passage anchors the later doctrine of deification in a ritual and sacramental context, which was equivalent to contemporary theurgical praxis. Paul’s teaching on the Eucharist is not without its moral implications, but the emphasis in 1 Corinthians is on the twin understanding of the Body of Christ, where the one loaf is the material and ritual means of becoming and expressing the metaphor of the one Body of Christ, the Church. The one eucharistic bread is the means of expounding the relation of the one and the many in terms of koinoˉnia. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing [koinwni/a] in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing [koinwni/a] in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Corinthians 10.16–17) Paul reiterates the collective understanding of ecclesial belonging in 1 Corinthians 12.27, ‘Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.’ The ecclesial metaphor of the Body of Christ and its sacramental equivalent is a core element in Paul’s understanding of Christification and is central to the construal of the later doctrine of deification. This is central to a (re-)reception of the doctrine and practice of deification today. The construal of deification around corporate sacramental worship is the basis for a renewal of understanding which has a strong emphasis on the corporate and collective aspects of deification alongside the individual experience of partaking of the divine nature by each person.

49

See Romans 13.14, 1 Corinthians 15.53; Galatians 3.27; Ephesians 4.24; Colossians 3.10.

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The second and related theme in Paul’s letters is that of filiation or adoption as the sons, daughters or children of God. Paul writes that the faithful become sons of God by ‘adoption’ in Romans 8.14–15, Galatians 4.5 and Ephesians 1.5. He declares that the faithful are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ in Romans 8.17, Galatians 3.29 and Ephesians 1.14. The passage in Galatians 3 as noted previously is constructed on the basis of an identity between Christ and Abraham, which implies that the once-exclusive covenant is now extended to all people. There are precursors to this understanding in the Hebrew Scriptures, for example, Genesis 12.3 where God promises to Abraham that, ‘in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ The prophet Hosea (1.10) extends these ideas further still in his vision of the eschatological community, where all are invited to become ‘children of the living God’, members of a restored covenant relationship, enjoying intimacy with God. St Paul’s understanding of filiation builds upon these precursors in the Hebrew Scriptures, but he is the first Jewish writer to use the term ‘adoption’ [ui9oqesi/a].50 In Romans 8.12–17 Paul extends the idea from adoption as children of God, to becoming fellow heirs with Christ, suggesting that the Holy Spirit as the agent of adoption is contrasted with spirit of slavery. The outcome of adoption will be an end to present suffering and the arrival of the joy of the end times. In the Deutero-Pauline letters such as Ephesians there is a further extension of the idea of ‘adoption’. In Ephesians 1.5 the adoption of believers as sons through Jesus Christ is seen as part of God’s plan ‘to sum up [a0nakefalaw&sasqai] all things in Christ’, which has resonances with the later understanding of recapitulation in the work of Irenaeus. In Ephesians 1.10 the metaphor of the Body of Christ is changed, for here Christ is head of Body. This change of metaphor may indicate a change of emphasis. As head of the Body, Christ provides access [parrhsi&a] to the Father for his adopted brothers and sisters. Access to the Father relates to the notion of ‘imitation’. There are examples in the letters of Paul of his encouragement to his ‘spiritual children’ to imitate Christ through him.51 In Ephesians 5.1 there is an exhortation to the faithful to ‘be imitators of God’, which leads to the possibility of being ‘filled with all the fullness of God’ (Ephesians 3.19). The imitation of God is based upon the claim that the faithful are already saved and enthroned with Christ (Ephesians 2.6). Although salvation is assured, there is still room for development and growth until the full stature of Christ is attained. There are fewer references in the Pauline corpus to imitation than participatory union, but Paul does write of imitation and obedience, and this understanding is given further ethical emphasis in Ephesians. The themes of participation and adoption are also found in the letter to the Hebrews. 50 51

See Romans 8.15, 23, 9.4; Galatians 4.5; Ephesians 1.5. See 1 Corinthians 4.16, 11.1; 1 Thessalonians 1.6.

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Scholarly opinion is divided over the interpretation of Pauline teaching concerning Christification and adoption.52 Sanders argues that ‘the very diversity of the terminology helps to show how the general conception of participation permeated his thought.’53 The emphasis on participatory union with Christ is not disputed, but whether it is to be understood as soteriological is another matter. The outcome of participation is also disputed. Albert Schweitzer argued that while Paul stressed union of the believer with Christ, he did not speak of being one with God,54 while other scholars have argued that there are grounds for understanding ‘participation’ in the Pauline corpus in terms of ‘deification’. The balance of opinion is on the side of Schweitzer, as it is usual to argue that Christ was not understood to be divine until the writings of the second century. On this basis, union with Christ is not the same as union with God. Paul does not reflect on ‘participation’ per se; rather it is a means to an end, which may be ecclesial or liturgical or eschatological. Paul’s use of terms is understood to be metaphorical, but later writers reworked this into a technical language. It is for such reasons that I used the term Christification rather than deification. However, this does not preclude an understanding of participation which includes ‘real change’. In 1 Corinthians 10 it is clear that Paul considers that eating food sacrificed to idols is a participation in a certain kind of reality. Eating and drinking the eucharistic elements is seen as a ‘real’ participation in Christ, and by implication in the new creation. On the basis of such understanding, ‘participation’ is not to be understood as something solely within the subjective self-understanding of the believer. ‘Participatory union’ refers to something considered ‘real’ rather than being just a figure of speech. It may be difficult to categorize this ‘reality’. There remains a difference between Christ and those ‘in Him’, but he is not isolated from his people. In Christ believers are ‘renewed inwardly’ (2 Corinthians 4.16) and advance from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3.18). Such passages do not amount to a doctrine of deification. But they provide core elements which became the components of the architecture of the later doctrine, and they offer the potential for considered theological reflection on the calling and destiny of the human creation within the divine purposes of creating and redeeming. The Johannine corpus in the New Testament has many parallels with the Pauline corpus in terms of the themes of adoption and Christification, even if the vocabulary and phraseology are different. What is of particular interest for me are those texts which inspired an understanding of perichoˉrēsis. 52

53

54

Deissmann, A., Paul (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1927); Schweitzer, A., The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1957). Sanders, E. P., Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (London: SCM Press, 1977), p. 456. Schweitzer, Mysticism, pp. 3, 26.

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Perichoˉrēsis emerged as a theological concept in the writings of Gregory Nazianzen in the context of the discussion of how divinity and humanity relate to each other in the Incarnation. But in the Gospel of John the notion of indwelling is not only of the Father and the Son but also of the faithful with and in the Father and the Son. The Christological and Trinitarian developments of the notion of perichoˉrēsis are important in applying the doctrine of deification in the present day. But at this juncture what is important is the concept of the human indwelling in the divine, with the implications for participation in, adoption by and union with God. Within the Johannine corpus there are high expectations for the destiny of the Christian believer.55 In John 17 the unity of believers with the Father produces an outcome of receiving glory and of becoming completely or perfectly one. The unity of the Father and the Son is shared with the faithful, and the faithful receive the divine gifts of life, love and glory (light). that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17.21–3) The element of missiological witness in this text reinforces the potential for the metaphor of deification to be re-received today in the collective context of the Church and to provide the basis for an enriched understanding of mission as well as a renewed understanding of the cosmic dimensions of the divine purposes. The understanding of salvation in the Christian Tradition is something which was never the subject of ‘definition’ by an ecumenical council. The work of Christ in the Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection ultimately remains a mystery beyond definition, yet the New Testament texts and the writings of the Early Church theologians bear witness to a profound sense of being ‘saved’ through these events in human history. St Paul uses a multiplicity of metaphors to express the experience of being saved, and these have informed Christian discourse ever since. Some metaphors are more favoured in certain Christian traditions more than others. The metaphor of deification is a clear example of such preference. But whatever preference a Christian believer may hold, within whichever tradition, attempts to ‘explain’ the outcomes of the historical events of Christ’s birth, ministry, death and

55

For example, John 14.23; 1 John 3.24.

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resurrection remain metaphors of ‘salvation’. This is as true of deification as it is of any other metaphor of salvation. The metaphorical status of deification is particularly important to hold on to, as the language of imitation and participation may suggest a level of experiential reality which goes beyond the metaphorical. This is in no way to deny the reality of the experience of ‘mystical union’ with God. But it is a warning against reducing the mystery of Christ to the mechanism of human words. This is why the notion of ‘unknowing’ remains so crucial in the discussion of the metaphor of deification. I have shown that philosophical and scriptural sources each make use of the language of imitation and participation. The authors of the New Testament may be dependent on the philosophical traditions of the ancient world for some of their preconceptions, but, on the whole, while the language may be shared, their conceptual frameworks are very different. This is particularly the case in terms of ‘salvation’. The philosophical and scriptural traditions understand that the human predicament requires some kind of ‘solution’. Although imitation and participation are premised on philosophical understandings of the ‘forms’ in Plato, they are premised on the Person of Christ in Paul. Christ is the Logos ‘made flesh’. This is as much a challenge to philosophical understandings as an adoption of them by the Church. Nonetheless, the corporate and collective dimensions of the metaphor of deification were predicated on philosophical conceptions of communion as well as the Church’s experience of divine fellowship.

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3 early church witness

The purpose of this chapter is to discern how the metaphor of deification was used in the period of the first five centuries and to assess how the Church today can receive the witness of this common patristic heritage in order to understand and live out the divine purposes in creating and redeeming the cosmos. The expression of the metaphor of deification in the texts of the patristic era has been examined in great detail by authors such as Jules Gross and Norman Russell. This chapter does not in any sense to try to replicate the detailed investigation which is found in those works. My concerns are to examine the imperatives, which lie behind the use of the metaphor, and to discern what reciprocity there was between Christianity and other world views. I will also identify how components of the later expression of the metaphor were inherited from the patristic era. This is not to suggest that the ‘patristic era’ was in any sense homogenous. The Christian Tradition emerged through the very varied use of vocabulary and metaphor and the use of the theological imagination and speculation in reflecting on the Gospel tradition and the experience of the Christian life. Different approaches to theological reflection emerge and develop and wane across the Christian world in the early period. One of the intriguing aspects of the trajectory of the metaphor of deification in the first five centuries is the gradual spread of the broad appeal to the metaphor by theologians, only for that to disappear during the fifth century because of a growing sense of ‘orthodoxy’ within the Tradition. There are five basic components used in the patristic era to express the metaphor of deification. Three are pairs of opposites and two are pairings from the philosophical/theological tradition. The pairs of opposites are uncreated and created, immortal and mortal, divine and human, and the pairs of concepts are image and likeness, and ousia [essence] and energeia [energy]. The conceptuality of deification is also constructed around a variety of formulae. The philosophical tradition of ancient Greece provides at least three of these: (1) imitation of the divine, (2) participation in the divine and (d) the ascent of the soul to the divine. Each of these relates to the immortal– mortal pairing. Imitation relates closely to the practice of the virtues. 49

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Participation and ascent relate to a concept of contemplation or ‘theoˉria’ [vision], which suggests an encounter with divine light. In the Judeo-Christian Tradition the pairing of image and likeness plays a complex role. In particular, the notion of the ‘restoration’ of divine likeness holds a key place in the Orthodox understanding of deification, premised on the biblical narratives of the Creation and Fall in Genesis 1–3. The texts of the New Testament suggest a further set of concepts which become core elements in the construal of a notion of deification. The most fundamental of these is ‘filiation’ or adoption. Being adopted as a son or daughter of God suggests transition or transformation, which is certainly the understanding of the text of Romans 8. Such change or transformation is premised on the idea of divine– human exchange. This is most graphically illustrated in the Gospel narratives of the Transfiguration or Metamorphoˉsis of Christ. The notion that God becomes human in order that human beings might become divine has come to be understood as the ‘exchange formula’ which is found in many early writers and continues to be used liturgically as well as theologically to the present time.1 Also premised on the paradigm of the Incarnation or the Hypostatic Union is the core notion of divine–human synergy. This in turn relates to the use to the essence–energies pairing in Palamite understandings of deification. The appeal to the sacraments is fundamental to the construction of a doctrine of deification. Its ecclesial and corporate aspects extend deification beyond the realms of personal experience and individualistic piety. Baptism and the Eucharist express relational aspects of the doctrine. The correlation between Eucharist, being deified and communion [koinoˉnia] is crucial to the possibility of presenting a relational understanding of participating in the divine life. The appeal by Thunberg and Zizioulas to ‘an event of communion’ in respect of theoˉsis resonates with a notion of inclusion within a dynamic divine living and being, earliest evidence for which is found in the texts of Origen. This too is important in the development of a relational understanding of deification. The outcome of deification was understood in radically different terms, within the patristic period. Theologians used a wide variety of concepts and categories to express the metaphor of deification, and these are reflected in the considerable variety of outcomes of deification. There are three ways in which the outcome of deification is most often expressed: nominal, analogical and metaphorical. In a nominal usage the word ‘gods’ is applied to human beings as an honorific title. The analogical use extends the nominal; a biblical example is found in the text of Exodus 7.1 where Moses is said to be a god to Pharaoh. The use of metaphor is more complex, for there are two distinct means in which metaphor can be employed which suggest different outcomes: ethical and realist. In the ethical construal of the metaphor 1

For example, the exchange formula is used among prayers at the offertory in the contemporary Roman Rite of the Mass.

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deification is understood in terms of the attainment of likeness [homoiosis] to God through ascetic and philosophical practices. In other words, an individual might achieve some divine attributes by ‘imitation’, possibly by practising the virtues. In the realist construal of the metaphor, human beings are in some sense transformed, on the basis of a model of participation [methexis] in God. These outcomes do not suggest any collapsing of the creator–creature distinction. Deification remains a metaphor for God’s intended destiny for the human race and is a metaphor for the intimacy between the divine and the human in the present and in ‘ta eschata’. I will split the examination of patristic texts into two chronological sections, the first looking at the period until the Council of Nicaea and the second looking at the period after Nicaea. In the first part I will focus on the vocabulary used to express the metaphor of deification in the writings of Christian philosophers and theologians, including those who taught in the didaskaleia.

Before Nicaea: didaskaleia, apologetics and exegesis Probably the first evidence of the idea of being deified beyond what became the New Testament corpus is to be found in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch. I say ‘probably’ because there are issues regarding the dating of Ignatius’ life and, therefore, with the dating of the letters themselves. Evidence for Ignatius’ birth is scant, and dates for his martyrdom range between 98 and 117. The corpus of letters attributed to Ignatius is known in a shorter and longer collection. The shorter collection is usually deemed to be the more ‘authentic,’ but even these are contested because of what is seen as an appeal to a ‘monarchical’ episcopate, which would suggest a date in the fourth century.2 The letters of Ignatius use the language of ‘participatory union’ rather than any technical terms for deification, which may suggest an earlier rather than later date in this respect at least. Ignatius refers explicitly to Christ as ‘God’. On this basis it is inferred that if Christians participate in Christ, then they participate in God. In other words, to be ‘in Christ’ or to be ‘Christified’ is to be ‘deified’. The letters explore themes such as participation in God, the Eucharist, martyrdom, Church unity, attaining to God and the imitation of God.3 These ideas may be interpreted as evidence of a move away from

2

3

For example, Ruis-Camp, J., The Four Authentic Letters of Ignatius the Martyr; A critical Study Based on the Anomalies Contained in the Textus Receptus (Rome: 1979); Hübner, R. M., Thesen zur Echtheit und Datierung der sieben Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochien (Berlin: 1997). Ignatius writes of believers’ intimacy with God, for example, ‘God-bearers’ (Ephesians 4.2); ‘God-runners’ (Philadelphians 2.2); ‘participate in God’ (Ephesians 4.2): ‘are wholly God’ (Ephesians 8.1); ‘are full of God’ (Magnesians 14.1); ‘have God in themselves’ (Romans 6.3).

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the eschatological understandings of the New Testament writings to a conceptuality of the resurrection of believers through an ascent of the soul to immortality, which suggests the influence of ‘Gnostic’ sources. But Ignatius has a thoroughly ecclesial and collective outlook rather than a focus on the individual which is associated with Gnostic writings. The impetus behind Ignatius’ rhetoric of intimacy and union with the divine is the explicit claim that Christ is ‘God’. It is this Christological basis which is the predicate for human participation in the divine, which is achieved through becoming ‘in Christ’ in the ecclesial context of the sacraments.

The didaskaleia Ignatius was a bishop and pastor and had explicated the ecclesial tradition as he understood it. During the first half of the second century there is evidence of the emergence of didaskaleia or ‘schools’ which were groups of disciples or students gathered around a teacher. This reflects the growth of Christianity among those who were more educated, and perhaps schooled in philosophy. Christian didaskaleia were to be found in the main cities of the empire, modelled on philosophical schools. The clientele of these schools sought deeper spiritual insights, which can be seen to have apostolic sanction in such passages as 1 Corinthians 2.6–13. While these schools were in some sense independent, they were not usually separated from the local Church and its bishop. Among those who taught in this way were Basilides and Carpocrates in Alexandria, Aristides in Athens and Marcion, Valentinus and Justin in Rome. Evidently some schools had a more ecclesial basis than others. Some teachers focused on esoteric knowledge, which related to those who understood themselves to be ‘true Christians’. Some schools followed the path of ‘Know thyself’ and sought the divine within. Others taught that this world was an illusion and, on this basis, sought unity with God outside a pattern of salvation focused on the Church and the ‘reality’ of this world. One such teacher was Valentinus (c.100–175) who was born near Alexandria and educated there. He claims to have studied under a disciple of St Paul, and prior to the year 140 had moved to Rome, where he founded a school. There he developed doctrines which would become a source of Christian heterodoxy for centuries to come. The teachings of Valentinus survive only as quotations in the works of those who argued against them, such as Clement of Alexandria and Hippolytus of Rome. The Gospel of Truth a text which survives in Coptic among the Nag Hammadi texts may possibly have been authored by Valentinus. It is possibly ‘the earliest surviving sermon on Christian mysticism’4 and encourages believers to turn inwards, in order to find true knowledge and through Christ return to the source of being.

4

Layton, B., The Gnostic Scriptures (London: SCM Press, 1987), p. 250.

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The Gospel of Truth suggests that the material world is illusory, while the truth is unchangeable. It suggests that ordinary believers are subject to the error of the soul’s forgetfulness, which was standard, contemporary, Platonist teaching. The solution to this ‘error’ was gnosis, which was understood to be personal and experiential rather than philosophical. However, the process of acquiring and pursuing gnosis is through a solitary path of ‘self-discovery’. The believer is to stretch upwards for salvation and in doing so discovers that gnosis reaches down to them. The final goal of this process is repose in the Father, for all who emanate from Father will return to him. However, knowledge of the Father is never ‘total’ for he always remains hidden, unnameable and indescribable. Such teachings influence the formation and construction of the Christian Tradition insofar as orthodoxy emerges over against these ideas. Equally some of these ideas become accepted within the Christian Tradition. For example, Origen taught the descent and ascent of the soul, and similar ideas are found in the works of Evagrios Ponticus and Gregory of Nyssa. Among those who formed a didaskaleion in Rome was Justin Martyr (c.100–165). This has been described as being akin to the school of Plotinus described by Porphyry. Among the disciples of Justin was Tatian and possibly Irenaeus. The writings of Justin include two Apologies, addressed to the Roman Emperor and the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. Justin’s main motivation for writing was to explicate the Christian faith, particularly for the benefit of those who were not Christian. Justin may also be identified as a seeker after truth. He took his bearings from both Stoicism and Platonism, and he understood that the goal of life was to ‘see God’. However, he seems to have doubted that philosophy could achieve this by itself. He poses a fundamental question (from an old man on the seashore) ‘What affinity is there between us and God?’ Is the human soul divine and immortal as understood in Platonism?5 Here is an example of a key question in relation to the construal of a doctrine of deification: what is the distance or compatibility between the divine and the human? Justin’s answer rests on an understanding that the affinity between the human and the divine is not only an ontological concern but relates to what is moral. In other words, in order to ‘see God’ the believer requires righteousness and therefore virtue. Justin rejected the notion that the soul is immortal, that is, unbegotten, arguing that only God is unbegotten. Justin argued that the soul cannot see God without the Holy Spirit and needs Christ to ‘open the gates of light’, so that illumination is understood to be a gift from God. This gift of God is construed in relation to knowledge and experience of the incarnate Logos, which is attained through the grace of Baptism and the Eucharist. Thus knowledge is not extrinsic but is personal and leads to restoration of the

5

Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Dialogue 4.

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‘Adamic state’. In the Dialogue with Trypho, Justin makes an explicit reference to the language of ‘deification’ in relation to the exegesis of Psalm 82.6. Justin argues that Christians are the ‘New Israel’ that the ‘gods’ are those who are obedient to Christ. It is Justin’s endeavour to give an account of Christianity in terms which his non-Christian audience, either Pagan or Jewish, would understand that leads him towards an understanding of deification. This is based upon a critical reading of either philosophy or the Hebrew Bible, in relation to his own commitment to an understanding of the Incarnation of the Logos in Jesus Christ. According to Eusebius, Tatian (c.120–80) was a pupil of Justin, and after a period in Justin’s school he returned to live in his native Mesopotamia. Tatian is best known for his harmony of the four Gospels, the Diatessaron. One of his core understandings is that the Christian life is lived in order to recover immortality lost by Adam. He rejected the standard philosophical understanding of the human subject as a rational animal capable of receiving nous and knowledge. He preferred the biblical notion that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1.26). The human soul is to seek union with divine pneuma which was lost through the Fall. This union is achieved through the Holy Spirit, given to human beings as a gift from God, in order to participate in immortality and to recover the divine image and likeness. Some of Tatian’s ideas are parallel with those of Gnostics. But for him knowledge is available to all and is not esoteric. However, in order for the soul and body to become immortal it is necessary to refrain from the eating of meat and drinking of wine and sexual activity. Tatian describes the achievement of the deification of the body in terms of putting on a royal robe, which has parallels in the Gospel of Thomas: The believer indeed transforms his body through deification. He is able to do it precisely because Jesus is not unique, having twins, or ‘multiple personalities’, since the historical personality of Jesus is only vaguely defined. All this comes as a result of the quest for true wisdom, which the believer can now embrace.6 Deification, a sharing in divinity and immortality, results from the acquisition of wisdom but is predicated on an understanding of the divine image and likeness: The celestial Word, made Spirit from the Spirit and Word from power of the Word, in the likeness of the Father who begot him made man an image of immortality, so that just as incorruptibility belongs to God,

6

Siverstev, A., ‘The Gospel of Thomas and Early Stages in the Development of the Christian Wisdom Literature’, Journal of Early Christian Studies, 8(2) (2000): 332.

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in the same way man might share God’s lot and have immortality also. (Oratio ad Graecos, 7.6–10)7 Tatian seems to understand that immortality is the outcome of individual deification in this life, which would indicate a wholly realized eschatology. Furthermore, the distinction between the divine Logos and human beings is blurred through the use of the same terms to describe both. This appears to indicate an identification of humankind with the Logos. Tatian’s ideas are intriguing in that they demonstrate a close connection with the trajectory within mainstream Christian Tradition exploring the biblical concepts of the divine image and likeness and the recapitulation of Adam’s fate, while placing a strong emphasis on an appeal to wisdom and immortality and a realized eschatology. His writings demonstrate how varied, fluid and exploratory much early Christian writing could be. They demonstrate that deification was a recurring theme, relating to God’s original intentions in creating the world as well as in the outcomes of the redemption of ‘fallen’ humanity and the cosmos. If Tatian is an example of a disciple of Justin who took the Tradition in a direction which would soon be seen as heterodox, Irenaeus (c.202) is hailed as a champion of orthodox belief. Irenaeus, teaching in Lyons was faced with a different set of problems. He perceived that the teachers of Gnosticism focused on esoteric knowledge. His response was to proclaim a true Christianity available to all. In his polemic against Gnostic teachings Irenaeus developed the baptismal possibilities of Psalm 82.6, in which he sought to assure Christian believers that the attainment of immortality as ‘gods’ is possible for all. This claim is predicated on the Incarnation and participation in the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist. Irenaeus did not develop a technical language of ‘deification’ and only refers to ‘gods’ in relation to Psalm 82.6. He explores the conceptuality of the recapitulation of the fate of Adam, which is resolved in the adoption of believers as the ‘sons’ of God, based upon the exchange formula that God had become human, in order that the human might become divine. Salvation is construed in relation to Christology, but in a way totally unlike Tatian’s formulation. For Irenaeus it is the deified Body of Christ which is the basis of human participation in the divine: ‘the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through his transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself’ (Preface of Book 5, Against Heresies). This is an exchange of properties, but it does not produce an identity of substance rather it makes believers into ‘sons’ by adoption. Adoption relates to the distinction Irenaeus draws between the divine image and likeness

7

Siverstev, Gospel of Thomas, p. 335; see M. Whittaker (ed.), Tatian: Oratio ad Graecos and Fragments (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982).

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(Against Heresies 5.6.1, 5.11.2, 5.16.2; Proof of Apostolic Preaching 11). The image is of the yet invisible Son, which is manifested in Adam’s body. The divine likeness is communicated by the Spirit and is manifest in Adam’s participation in the divine life and the freedom of the Son. On this basis, Irenaeus understands that the divine likeness conveys two gifts: first, life, which human beings participate in but do not possess, and second, freedom, the possibility of exercising free will. True freedom is understood in terms of obeying the divine will. This notion has within it the seeds of a later understanding of divine–human synergy. In responding to the esoteric teachings of the Gnostics, Irenaeus begins a line of thought which considers who Christ is, in order for salvation to be achieved. Irenaeus argues that Such is the reason why the Word was made man and the Son of God made the Son of man so that man, in being mingled with the Word and in receiving in this way the filial adoption, becomes the Son of God. (Against Heresies 3.19.1)8 Irenaeus receives St Paul’s exposition of an Adamic Christology and extends these understandings to form ‘recapitulation’ as his main metaphor for salvation. On the far side of the empire from Lyons, Alexandria was a city of longstanding intellectual traditions and was a leading centre for philosophical and theological thought and speculation in the second century. It is in this city that two of the most creative Christian theologians of the early centuries had their home, Clement of Alexandria and Origen. As an intellectual centre, Alexandria would have been host to a number of didaskaleia at any one time. Among the Christian schools some were ecclesial, and others independent, as Clement and Origen’s schools were. Among the teachers in Alexandria at the end of the second century was Ammonius Saccas (c.160–242), whom Porphory reckoned was an ex-Christian. He had a didaskaleion, which may have been attended by Plotinus and Origen. This indicates something of the fluidity of thought among the intellectual class in Alexandria at the time, which included the teachings of such figures as Valentinus and Basilides. Alongside the private didaskaleia, there were official catechetical schools, sponsored by the bishop. At the end of the fourth century even these catechetical schools were closed down because of the controversy which by then surrounded Origen’s thought. In the works of Clement of Alexandria (c.150–215) there is the beginning of a direct appeal to deification as a metaphor for salvation. Clement’s

8

See Smith, D. A., ‘Irenaeus and the Baptism of Jesus, Theological Studies’, 58(4) (1997): 618–42.

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reasons for doing so were polemical and apologetic. Clement is the first Christian theologian to develop a ‘technical’ language for deification. He wrote that the Christian is deified by a heavenly teaching (Protrepticus 11.114.4), and when fully perfected after the likeness of his teacher, he ‘becomes a god while still moving about in the flesh’ (Stromateis 7.101.4). He was clear not to conflate the human with the divine. God remains transcendent, while human beings are not naturally divine (Stromateis 2.16.73); however, the telos of human existence is to become divine. Clement holds these ideas together by appealing to an understanding of the divine image and likeness, in both Genesis 1.26 and Plato’s Theaetetus 176b, as Philo had done previously. Clement appeals to a notion of participatory union with Christ, akin to the ideas found in the writings of St Paul and Irenaeus. Clement develops a specific vocabulary to express his ideas of deification, using qeopoie/w and e0kqeo/w as ‘to deify’ and qeopoio/j as ‘deifying’. He used qeopoie/w three times in a specifically Christian context, while qeo/w and qeopoio/j are used within a philosophical framework to indicate ‘dispassion’. As Irenaeus before him had done, in relation to the exegesis of Psalm 82.6 Clement taught that the baptized were adopted by God as ‘gods’, to which he added a philosophical dimension, that the ‘gods’ were those who have detached themselves as far as possible from everything human (Stromateis 2.125.5). Through overcoming the passions and contemplation of the intelligible, he taught that one could transcend the corporeal state and participate in the divine attributes. Clement links these two approaches – the ecclesiastical and the philosophical; though attaining the divine likeness required intellectual effort, it was at heart the ‘restoration to perfect adoption through the Son’ (Stromateis 2.134.2). Some scholars have argued that Clement produced a synthesis of Gnostic and Platonist concepts, with the more problematic elements removed. But Russell argues for an ecclesial and Philonic synthesis, drawing out his appeal to Baptism and Psalm 82.6 which had already been used by Irenaeus and Justin.9 In this interpretation deification is understood in terms of an inaugurated eschatology, which begins now and is fulfilled in heaven. Clement avoids Philo’s rejection of the body and argues that the body becomes immortal through adoption in the Son, the incarnate Logos. In this way all perfected Christians become ‘gods’, not in essence, but in title and by analogy. They participate in the divine attributes, through freedom from passion and through the grace and immortality given by Christ. The shape of the later Orthodox doctrine of deification is formed around these developments which emerged in the fluid and speculative context of Alexandria. Justin and Irenaeus had provided a basis for the doctrine, but the development of a technical language; a philosophical framework; the

9

Russell, Deification, p. 139.

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use of Hellenistic motifs, together with an allegorical exegesis of Scripture; and emerging Christological developments are Alexandrian contributions. Clement and Origen provide the means for deification to become a key metaphor for salvation. Unlike Justin and Clement of Alexandria, Origen (c.185–253) was not a convert from paganism, which probably means that he had a different approach to the intellectual traditions of Alexandria. He is less inclined to appeal to philosophy than Justin or Clement, and his focus was primarily on biblical exegesis. Origen is often cited as a writer who ‘promotes’ the conceptuality of deification, yet there are only seventeen references to deification in his extant writings. He uses deification language as a metaphor for salvation, although it is not altogether clear what his motivation for doing this was. He never appeals to Clement by name, but he does cite him occasionally and uses parallel terminology for deification. Origen uses a narrower vocabulary than Clement and does not use apotheoˉsis or qeo/w. Most commonly he uses qeopoie/w which he employs eight times in a Christian context and nine times pejoratively, and he uses qeopoio/j once (Selecta in Ezechielem 1.3). Christians are referred to as ‘gods’ in relation to Psalm 82.6. To some extent Origen stood in a ‘tradition’ which used the metaphor of deification, but unlike Clement, Origen understood deification in terms of the soul’s return to an unfallen condition. The study of the Scriptures was part of this process. He wrote of the outcome of this study and prayer to his former pupil Gregory Thaumaturgus: If you have done well or not in venturing, God and his Christ know, and anyone who partakes of the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. May you too be a partaker and ever increase the participation, that you may say not only, ‘We have become partakers of Christ’ (Hebrews 3.14), but also, ‘We have become partakers of God.’ (Philocalia, 13.4)10 For Origen deification is the participation of rational creatures in the divine through the operation of the Son and the Holy Spirit in the divinity of the Father, who alone is understood to be the ultimate source of divinity. The Father is o9 qeo/j and au0to/qeoj, while the Son and Spirit are qeo/j and qeopoiou/ menoj. The Son is uniquely qeopoiou/menoj in relation to the Father, but qeopoio/j in relation to human beings, for he is the prime agent of deification. The Holy Spirit makes human beings spiritual so that the divine Son may make them sons and gods. In Origen’s understanding human beings need to recover the divine likeness and become ‘gods’ in order to contemplate the source of divinity, the Father and thus partake in life, goodness, immortality and incorruption, which are the attributes of the Father alone.

10

Russell, Deification, p. 141.

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This construct of participation is rooted in the conceptuality of the dependence of the contingent upon the self-existent and the dynamic reaching out of the Persons of the Trinity in order to endow rational creatures with divine attributes. Origen’s emphasis on the ascent of soul to God is quite different from Clement’s understanding of deification in terms of the perfection of the ‘Christian Gnostic’ through ethical purification. In Origen’s view deification is participation of the rational creature in a dynamic divinity, so there is less of an emphasis on ethics and more on the dynamic relationship which connects the contingent with the self-existent. Russell argues that this conceptuality of participation is closer to Plato and Philo than Clement’s understanding of participation.11 For Origen the emphasis on ‘living with the life of God’, is a reconstrual of Paul’s understanding of participation, in terms which are more dependent on philosophical concepts. Origen’s relational and collective understandings of the processes of deification provide the conceptual basis for an attempt to craft a trinitarian and ecclesial understanding of deification today.

Apologetics and religious experience The cultural milieu of the North African Christian community in the Roman province of ‘Africa’ was different from that of Alexandria and in particular it was Latin speaking. This was the context in which Tertullian (c.155–220) worked as an apologist for the Christian faith and sought to confront heretical views. He wrote to defend Christianity against ‘pagan’ views and to commend the faith to those in authority in the Roman Empire and also wrote for catechumens. Tertullian’s creativity and theological imagination finds a parallel in the writings of Origen, and like Origen he too came under ecclesiastical suspicion, particularly as later in life he become a member of the Montanist ‘movement’. This was a group which experienced the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit and were deemed by the mainstream Church to have become overenthusiastic in their pursuit of these gifts. In particular, the group understood that the Spirit might reveal new truths contrary to the Apostolic faith. Tertullian was the earliest Latin author (whose writings survive) to use expressions which convey an understanding of deification. He crafted an exegesis of Psalm 82, arguing that this did not contain a reference to polytheism and that the ‘gods’ were not divine (Against Marcion 1.7. I). But he argued from the same text that human beings might become ‘gods’ by the grace of God (Against Hermogenes 5). In this interpretation he may have been influenced by Irenaeus. Also in Against Marcion Tertullian alludes to 2 Peter 1.4 which would be about 10 years earlier than Origen’s appeal to the text in De Principiis. Tertullian suggests that the divine response to 11

Russell, Deification, p. 154.

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the Fall is to take humanity into divinity, which he qualifies as human beings being invested with ‘an incorruptible nature’ (cf. 1 Corinthians 15.52–3) (Against Marcion 3.24). Tertullian’s writings demonstrate that elements of the metaphor of deification were acceptable and relatively commonplace expressions of God’s purposes in creating and redeeming by the late second century. The elements of the metaphor of deification are also to be found in the texts of Christian communities which spoke Syriac, Coptic and Chaldean as well as in the Greek- and Latin-speaking world. It is possible to see a common thread across the different linguistic communities expressed in the exchange conceptuality used by Irenaeus. The Son of God had become human so that human beings might become divine. Although within the Syrian traditions the metaphor of deification was known, it never had a prominent place in theological discourse. Deification was expressed in poetic literature and was explored through the use of symbolism and typology, rather than through the development of a technical vocabulary. There is a general consensus in the Syrian traditions that human destiny is to recover that which was lost by Adam and to share the divine life. A leading theologian in this tradition is Ephrem the Syrian (c.306–73). He was born in the city of Nisibis and was baptized as a youth. Bishop Jacob of Nisibis appointed Ephrem as a teacher in the city’s Christian school. He was ordained deacon and in his role as teacher began to compose hymns and write biblical commentaries. Later in life he taught in the school at Edessa. He was a contemporary of Athanasius and possibly used elements of the metaphor of deification before Athanasius. Ephrem uses poetic imagery to express his understanding of deification but does not develop a technical language. His understanding of deification emerges from an exegesis of the narratives of the Creation and Fall in Genesis. Deification is the aim and purpose of the Incarnation. In the Odes of Solomon, he writes of ‘putting on Christ’ (7.4; 13.12) and of clothing ourselves in holiness (13.3) and of being clothed with Christ’s name (39.3) and he crafts a version of the exchange formula: ‘He gave us divinity, we gave him humanity’ (Hymns on Faith 5.17). Ephrem probably did not know Greek, but it is possible that some of the works of Irenaeus had been translated into Syriac. In the outcome of deification Ephrem sees no merging of the human and divine. Deification is the product of grace and does not bring equality. While human beings become God by grace, the Second Adam is God by nature. Deification is seen an ‘exchange of names’, which preserves the ontological gap between creator and creature.12 Another source of Syrian teaching is found in the Macarian Writings which are associated with Macarios of Egypt (c.300–91); however, the 12

Brock, S., The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of St Ephrem (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1992), p. 154.

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context of these writings is Syrian monasticism. The use of ‘makarios’ may be as a title rather than as a specific person’s name. These writings are often compared with the work of Evagrios Ponticus, but while his works are characterized by an appeal to the intellectual tradition of Platonism, these writings are the product of reflection on the experience of prayer and of the Holy Spirit. It is worth remembering that both sets of writings find a place in the Philokalia of 1782. There are three collections of Macarian texts: the Homilies, Erotapocriseis (Questions and Answers) and an ascetical treatise (Epistula Magna). Russell suggests that these were written in the 380s in Mesopotamia or eastern Anatolia.13 The writings draw on the rich poetic imagery of the Syrian tradition but have been associated with Messalianism. The Messalians taught that the soul was occupied from birth with a demon. As this could not be removed by Baptism alone, constant prayer was also required. The goal of the Messalians was a personal experience of the Holy Spirit, manifest in ecstatic devotions. The Macarian writings focus on the work of the Holy Spirit in the spiritual life, but scholars on the whole agree that this experience is not predicated on the same understanding as the Messalians. The Macarian writings expound the spiritual life in terms of three stages. In the first stage the believer turns to God, but his heart remains dominated by sin; in the second, the heart becomes a battleground; and, finally, in the third, sin is driven out through the cooperation of the human will with the Holy Spirit. In this stage the believer attains a higher state than that in which Adam was created, and it is this which is sometimes referred to it terms of deification. In the Homilies there is frequent use of metaphors of mingling and participation, and the biblical passage 2 Peter 1.4 is cited in relation to the discussion of mixing and mingling. (Collection II, Homilies, 44.9) The relation of the divine and human in the spiritual life is expressed through metaphors of interpenetration and transformation. In relation to this Ezekiel’s vision of the throne chariot is linked to Christ’s Transfiguration (Collection II, Homilies, 1.2). The Syrian tradition demonstrates how elements of the metaphor of deification permeated theological reflection and discourse on the divine response to the human condition. It is a tradition which values the use of poetic language and draws on believers’ experience. These continue to be core elements in the reception of the metaphor of deification today.

Nicene orthodoxy: apologetics and polemics The response to the controversy concerning the views of Arius (c.250–336) resulted in the inclusion of the ‘homoousion’ in the conciliar statement of 325. This was an ontological solution. But the issues which Arius raised 13

Russell, Deification, p. 241.

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also impacted on soteriology and theological anthropology. In many respects Arius had expressed the logical out-workings of the biblical and philosophical traditions in construing the person of Jesus Christ as a creature, or a lesser god. But this conflicted with the believer’s existential and sacramental experience of the appropriation of salvation. Church practice and personal belief claimed that salvation was a divine initiative and gift bestowed through the divinity of the person of Christ, who being divine had become human in order that human beings might become divine. The authenticity of this ‘exchange formula’ as an interpretation of the New Testament tradition by the early fathers is called into question by some scholars, who continue to accept the critique of Adolf von Harnack. But this is to underestimate the dynamics of Pauline texts such as, ‘For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich,’ (2 Corinthians 8.9) the kenotic hymn (Philippians 2.5–11) and the claims about incorruption and immortality in 1 Corinthians 15. Following the Council of Nicaea in 325 the controversy did not subside, but took on new forms, in which the ‘homoousion’ was qualified with the appeal to ‘homoiousion’ and the status of the Holy Spirit was disputed. The period between 325 and the Council of Constantinople in 381 (and later) is a time when the claims made at Nicaea produce all kinds of different polemics. In this section I will examine some of the key writers who reflect upon the outcome of Nicaea in relation to the metaphor of deification, to ask why they are doing so and with what effect. One of the main protagonists for the Nicene understanding of Christ and the Godhead was Athanasius (c.293–373), Patriarch of Alexandria. He was a staunch defender of the homoousion and wrote a number of polemical works against those who sought to promote the conceptuality of Arianism. His uncompromising stance meant that he was several times exiled from Alexandria and deposed as Patriarch. Athanasius did not write systematically about deification. An analysis of his surviving writings shows that in many works, such as the Festal Letters and the Life of Antony, he does not mention deification. But in those texts where he does refer to deification, the concept is used as a polemical tool to defend Nicene orthodoxy against (Neo) Arianism. Athanasius appeals to the exchange formula to assert not only the divinity of Christ but also the divine reality of salvation. So Athanasius asserts that, ‘God became man so that man might become God’ (On the Incarnation 54:3). Athanasius employs a particular vocabulary for deification, mainly using qeopoie/w in relation to salvation, but refraining from using this in relation to the attainment of moral perfection. The language and conceptuality of deification are used in the conflict with Arianism, in order to demonstrate that the ‘unbegotten’ or ‘agenetic’ status of the Son enables him to deify. The Son is only able to make human beings ‘gods’ if he is of the same substance as the Father. 62

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Athanasius’ writings demonstrate that understandings which are found in the writings of Origen were received during the fourth century in different and complex ways, by authors writing from very different perspectives. Origenism not only fuels neo-Arianism but is also a source for those who defend Nicene orthodoxy. In particular, Athanasius took the idea of dynamic participation in the divine from Origen, but Athanasius expounds this on the basis of a more apophatic approach than that of Origen. Athansius argued that human beings could only be deified by means of participation in the deified flesh of the Incarnate Logos. Athanasius’ modification of Origenist understandings of deification entails the rejection of Origen’s speculative anthropology. Human beings are not fallen noes who can rise up the scale of logika; rather they are separated from God by a deep ontological difference, so human beings can only participate in the deified flesh of the incarnate Logos. This is achieved through participation in the ‘Body of Christ’, by which believers participate in the divinity with which the ‘Body’ is endowed. On this basis the believer could participate in incorruption and immortality, and in the resurrection life of heaven. It is probable that this ‘apophatic’ development in the writings of Athanasius gives rise to the emphasis on participation in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, which is seen in later theorization of the doctrine of deification. This emphasis in the works of Athanasius continues to provide a basis for an ecclesial and corporate understanding of deification today. Another staunch defender of Nicene orthodoxy was Hilary of Poitiers (c.315–67) who lived and worked in the province of Gaul. He was well educated and became a Christian, and c.353 he was elected bishop of Poitiers. His episcopate provides the context for his writings. Though Hilary wrote in Latin, he does not draw on the works of Tertullian, probably because Tertullian’s status was suspect. This may have inhibited the discussion of deification within the Latin-speaking community. Hilary is often described as the Athanasius of the West in that he shared his anti-Arian stance. He spent 4 years in exile in Phrygia (356–60) where he learned Greek, and it is possible that he came to know some of the works of Origen.14 During his exile he wrote De Trinitate, but there is no evidence that he drew explicitly on any Greek writer. In the concluding books of De Trinitate he used the exchange formula, which is parallel with the usage found in the writings of Irenaeus and Athanasius. He argues that the goal of human life is that believers may become ‘god’ in his earlier commentary on Matthew (On Matthew, 5.15). In Hilary’s understanding the deification of humanity is achieved in Christ. Christ’s humanity becomes fully deified at his Resurrection, and human beings share in this at their own resurrection. At the general resurrection human beings will be changed from corruption to immortality

14

Jerome argues that Hilary imitated Origen in his Commentaries on the Psalms.

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and from human weakness to divine glory. Thus, in Hilary’s construal of the metaphor, deification is essentially an eschatological reality. Hilary’s works demonstrate the use of the metaphor of deification in the defence of Nicene orthodoxy and roots it in a Trinitarian context. The witness of the texts of Evagrios Ponticus (345–99) demonstrates that the appeal to experience and speculation did not disappear in the period of the reception of Nicene orthodoxy. Evagrios, who is known as ‘the Solitary’, was a protégé of Basil and Gregory Nazianzen and became an Archdeacon in Constantinople during the time of Gregory’s patriarchate. After the Council of Constantinople, Evagrios experienced various temptations and as a result decided to follow the vocation of a monk at first in Palestine and later in Egypt. Although his ideas were condemned by the second Council of Constantinople in 553, his writings remained in circulation, and some were included in the Philokalia of 1782. Evagrios undertook to record and systematize the writings of the Desert Fathers, as well as to write his own reflections on the spiritual life. Although his work is seen as contributing to the Orthodox understanding of deification, he himself did not use the language of deification. Apollinarius, bishop of Laodicea (d.390), who had defended Nicene orthodoxy but had denied that Christ had a rational human soul, had used the language of deification. So the lack of an appeal to this language in the works of Evagrios may demonstrate a kind of polemic against the stance of Apollinarius. Evagrios witnesses to the beginning of the end of the use of the language of deification in early fifth century and to a move to the language of participation. This can be traced in the works of Gregory of Nyssa and Cyril of Alexandria. The explicit language of the metaphor of deification had become unhelpful, because of the controversy surrounding Origenism and Apollinarianism, and it came to be seen as incompatible with Nicene orthodoxy.15 Evagrios developed the speculative side of Origen still further, seeing the spiritual life as a process in which created intelligences returned to the divine source of their being. These ideas were strongly attacked by the ecclesiastical authorities, which led eventually to his teaching being condemned. He argues that the use of ‘gods’ in Psalm 82.6 is metaphorical. He has a strong sense that the human and the divine are different orders of being. The divine is ineffable, so in order to approach the divine, the believer needs spiritual training, in which the passions must be eliminated and the mind purified of all material images. Only in this way can the ascent of the mind to God take place. Evagrios expounds the goal of the spiritual life in terms of utter assimilation to Christ, in which all the material elements which make up the individual are removed. This in effect is an understanding of deification parallel to that found in the writings of Gnostics. The inclusion

15

Russell, Deification, p. 235.

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of Evagrios in the Philokalia meant that his ideas were to some extent rehabilitated, but it is his omission of the language of deification which is of particular interest.

The Cappadocian Fathers I will examine the contribution of the Cappadocian Fathers separately below, but I begin with an introduction to the background to their separate and distinction contributions to the construal of deification. How are their contributions to be situated? Scholars tend to agree that the Cappadocians reappropriated Origen for their fourth century context, and following the reassertion of the significance and values of classical antiquity in the short reign of the Emperor Julian ‘the Apostate’ (361–3) they sought to reach out to non-Christian rhetoricians. In doing so, the Cappadocians evolved and pursued a missionary strategy in relation to late Platonism. They used the terminology and conceptuality of deification as an element of their apologetics in relation to of this ‘strategy’ and in their polemics against Eunomius and Apollinarius. Their apologetic and polemical use of the conceptuality of deification relied upon their re-reading of Origen. Russell draws attention to the work of Brooks Otis, who interprets the re-reception of Origen by the Cappadocians.16 Otis argues that the Cappadocians recovered the angelogical and anthropological elements of Origen’s teaching and reinterpreted them by relating them to the anti-Origenist stance of Athanasius. In terms of the discussion of deification, the construal of the divine likeness and the ascent of the soul to God in Origen are related to Athanasius’ distinction between an ‘agenetic’ Trinity and a ‘genetic,’ created order. Athanasius expounded the concept of the fully divine Logos as the mediator between the agenetic and the genetic through the deification of the human flesh of Christ. The Cappadocian fathers sought to relate this ‘Nicene’ understanding of salvation with the Platonist tradition of the soul’s attaining likeness to God. The father of Basil of Caesarea was a professor of rhetoric, and Basil himself (c.329–79) was educated in Athens. He was initially drawn to monasticism but decided to live a ‘philosophic’ life. It was only in 370 that he became bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. Basil does not frequently appeal to the conceptuality of deification, but it has been argued that when he does so, he draws on the Alexandrian tradition. It is by no means a straightforward task to discern the sources which Basil draws upon. He mentions Philo only once, but some argue that there is evidence that he draws on Philo more

16

Russell, Deification, p. 6: Otis, B., ‘Cappadocian Thought as a Coherent System’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 12 (1958): 95–124.

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than this. He cites Clement of Alexandria directly, and again it can be argued that his influence and that of Origen is evident in his writings. Basil’s grandmother Macrina the elder had been baptized by Gregory Thaumaturgus, the pupil of Origen, who had evangelized Cappadocia, but it is difficult to assess the extent of the influence of Origen. Some scholars, McGuckin among them, have argued that Basil and Gregory Nazianzen had selected and edited works of Origen for their first major work the Philocalia. But Basil only cites Origen directly once (On the Holy Spirit 29.73). So while Basil knew Athanasius personally and held Origen in high esteem, he drew mostly from Clement of Alexandria rather than more recent theologians. In Basil’s understanding deification is a gradual process, in which human beings may be referred to as ‘gods’ only in the final state. With Athanasius he argues for the divinity of the Holy Spirit on the understanding that the Spirit is able to deify. But Basil does not appeal to the deification of the flesh as Athanasius did, nor does he identify becoming ‘gods’ with Baptism. For him the ‘gods’ are those who attain perfection through the practice of virtue. Such views stand closer to a Platonist understanding, and when this is taken together with his apophatic approach, Basil’s writings closely parallel the work of Clement of Alexandria. Basil argues that when human beings contemplate God they look on an incomprehensible beauty, and in so doing become ‘like’ God, imitating the divine moral excellence. So ‘gods’ is used by Basil in a titular sense. Like Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzen (c.330–90) belonged to the landed aristocracy of Cappadocia. He was born in Nazianzus where his father (also Gregory) was bishop. He was well educated, including 10 years that he spent in Athens (348–58), where he studied rhetoric, and came to know Basil. He returned to Cappadocia to live the ‘philosophical life’ on the family estates and was eventually ordained priest (361) and then bishop (372). Following his father’s death in 375 he withdrew to a monastery at Seleukia, but in 379 he was requested to go to Constantinople to become Patriarch, in order to promote Nicene orthodoxy in the city. He was the victim of various political intrigues and acts of violence, but in 380 was confirmed as Patriarch. Under his leadership the Council of Constantinople was convoked, but during the Council he decided to return to Nazianzus and remained there as bishop there until 383. Due to ill health he decided once more to take up the monastic life in the monastery of Arianzum, where he lived until his death. Gregory Nazianzen was a popular and well-respected theologian in his own day, which is evident in the ascription of ‘the Theologian’ given to him. He was held as a standard theological authority for many centuries, as witnessed in the appeal made to him by John of Damascus. It is only since the Second World War that Gregory of Nyssa has received more attention. As a well-read theologian, philosopher and rhetorician Gregory Nazianzen seems to use the language of deification as part of an apologetic attempt to 66

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address fellow philosophers and rhetoricians. He relates deification to the ‘homoousion’ status of the Son and the Holy Spirit, as Athanasius had done, in the struggle against Eunomius and Apollinarius, which is a polemical use of deification. Gregory is credited with coining the technical term theoˉsis, but there is a question as to whether this language and conceptuality is to be seen as ‘core’ to his theology. Between 362 and 363 in response to the policies of Julian ‘the Apostate’ Gregory wrote his Invectives against Julian, in which he criticizes the emperor’s morals and intellect. In the Invectives Gregory argues that Christianity will overcome imperfect rulers such as Julian through love and patience. This process as described by Gregory is the public manifestation of the process of deification (theoˉsis). There is a variety of expression of the metaphor of deification in Gregory’s writings. He sets out a version of the exchange formula (Oration 29.19) and refers to the philosopher as a ‘god’, which suggests that Gregory had a figurative, rather than realist view of deification. Gregory was well aware of Plato’s understanding of pre-existent noetic being, which returns by spiritual ascent to the authentic state of being (Oration 26–7), and he emphasizes the return of the soul to a transcendent condition, which is achieved through God’s purification of the soul and the insight of the soul into divine beauty. So it is that contemplation (theoˉria) lies at the heart of the process of deification (Commentary on John 32.27). Gregory uses the vocabulary of metousia as well as theoˉsis in the expression of the metaphor of deification. He argues that in Christ humanity was ‘brought to participate in the very deity itself’ (Contra Eunomium 3.4.22). Gregory Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa use the conceptuality of deification as a means of expressing Origen’s great and mystical vision of cosmic mystery and of the soul’s long journey to union with God within that mystery. Gregory understands this in terms of an ‘imitation’ of Christ. But he does not see imitation as an external ‘following’; rather it means becoming like the incarnate Son through the sacraments and the practice of philosophy. Through this process human beings transcend their limitations and experience transformation (metamorphoˉsis) by ‘mingling’ with the divine light. The vocabulary of ‘mingling’ is particular to Gregory Nazianzen, but he does not intend that the difference between the created and uncreated is abolished. Russell argues that while Gregory developed the vocabulary of theoˉsis, this does not necessarily mean that he develops a conceptuality of deification any more than Athanasius had done. Theoˉsis became a key word and concept for later writers, such as Ps-Dionysius and Maximos the Confessor. Gregory had emphasized the moral dimension of deification but did not take up Athanasius’ understanding of participation. This is something which Gregory of Nyssa would do. Gregory of Nyssa (330–94) was the brother of Basil of Caesarea and a friend of Gregory Nazianzen; unlike them he did not attend a major school, but he was educated in philosophy and theology. In 372 he became bishop of Nyssa, adjacent to the diocese of his brother Basil. Two landmark studies 67

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of Gregory were published in 1942 by Jean Danéliou and Hans Urs von Balthasar, and, since the Second World War, Gregory’s writings have been the focus of attention of scholars from a wide variety of Christian traditions. In his work, God according to the Gospel: The Triune Identity (1982), Robert W. Jenson argues that Gregory of Nyssa, perhaps more than Gregory Nazianzen or Athanasius, took from Hellenistic philosophy, but reinterpreted and reused its categories in the light and service of the Christian gospel. More recently, Sarah Coakley and Morwenna Ludlow have sought to resituate and reinterpret Gregory’s ideas.17 Gregory’s works continue to be the focus of much scholarly attention, which means that the reception of his ideas are coloured by many layers of interpretation. Gregory of Nyssa, like the other Cappadocians uses the metaphor of deification in his polemic against the neo-Arians and in his exploration of the Origenist legacy. Related to his understanding of deification is Gregory’s understanding of anthropology and gender in terms of the ‘garments of skin’ (Genesis 3.21).18 Gregory is often referred to as a speculative theologian which may be misleading, but he is a theologian who is not afraid of making connections and perhaps of using his imagination. In his work To Abablius: On ‘Not Three Gods’ Gregory draws out the connection between the word for the Godhead qeothj and the words qea [beholding] and qeathj [beholder] (Non Tres Dii PG 45, 121D). Gregory of Nyssa uses the phrase metousi&a qeou= in order to express the metaphor of deification, in the context of moral philosophy. Encouraged by Basil and Macrina, Gregory employs philosophical speculation in order to develop a new language code to clarify the differences between concepts of Christian deification and Platonist understandings of ‘assimilation’. Some scholars have argued that Gregory has a strong focus on deification, but he refers to the doctrine rarely. For Gregory, deification is predicated primarily on an understanding of the flesh assumed by the Son at the Incarnation and by extension on the sacraments. Basil and the two Gregories all appeal to reception of the Eucharist as a means of deification. Gregory of Nyssa in particular stresses this, in relation to his understanding of the Incarnation and the deified flesh of Christ. Deification is the human participation in the divine attributes and attainment to ‘likeness’ to God. Russell argues that Gregory of Nyssa found the language of deification inappropriate for the paradoxical ‘union’ of human and divine that he wished to express. While Gregory Nazianzen had been content to use the language of deification as a metaphor for human growth towards fulfilment in God, Gregory of Nyssa does not do so. Russell suggests

17

18

Coakley, S., Re-Thinking Gregory of Nyssa (Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003); Ludlow, M., Gregory of Nyssa, Ancient and (Post) modern (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). For example, Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Moses 22.

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that this may be so because Gregory thought that this might compromise the utter transcendence and unknowability of God. In place of the language of deification he used the language of participation to express the everdeepening relationship with God through union with the divine energies, while the divine essence remained beyond human comprehension.19 The texts of the Cappadocian fathers witness to a varied appeal to the metaphor of deification in terms of why and how the appeal is made. In particular, they demonstrate a developing trend towards a collective understanding of deification in terms of participation in the sacraments and a moral understanding in terms of a life lived in pursuit of the virtues.

Later witnesses Another strand in the defence of Nicene orthodoxy is witnessed in the writings of Augustine of Hippo (354–430). A convert to Christianity, he was baptized by Ambrose in Milan in 387 and became bishop of Hippo in 396. Augustine was a North African, whose language was Latin. Despite his mother Monica’s Christian faith, he chose to live as a pagan intellectual, and his journey to faith is recounted in his Confessions. It is in the Confessions that Augustine wrote ‘Thou hast made us for thyself. Therefore, our hearts are restless until they find rest in thee, O God.’20 It is in these words that Augustine shows that he understands that God is the goal of human existence. Indeed Augustine refers to forms of expression of deification more frequently than any other Latin writer.21 Augustine’s references to deification are rooted in the biblical example of Psalm 82, as it had been received in Church tradition.22 Despite this clear evidence, commentators on Augustine have argued that he was not faithful to earlier patristic tradition and had no understanding of deification. Orthodox writers have claimed that Augustine’s psychology left no room for ‘a deiform faculty’ in the human person.23 Lot-Borodine argues that Augustine’s construal of ‘beatitude’ is not equivalent to an Eastern understanding of deification, because he allows for no interpenetration of the divine and the human.24 These views are echoed

19 20

21

22 23

24

Russell, Deification, p. 232. Augustine, Confessions 1.1; R. J. Deferrari (ed.), The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1953), vol. 21, p. 4. For example, De Vera religione 46(86); De natura et gratia 33.37; Contra Adimantum 93.2. For example, In Johannis evangelium tractatus 2.15; Sermon 166.4. Drewery, B., ‘Deification’, in P. Brooks (ed.), Christian Spirituality (London: SCM, 1975), pp. 35–62. Lot-Borodine, M., La Déification de l’homme (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1970), pp. 39–40.

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by writers from the Church of the Latter Day Saints, who argue that for Augustine, God’s absolute oneness and otherness was so different from humanity’s created status that salvation, dependent on divine grace alone, could not bridge the gap between the eternal Creator and the creatures contingent upon him.25 So how is Augustine’s work to be received and situated? Augustine knew less Greek than Tertullian and Hilary, and he seems to have asked Jerome for translations of Origen’s commentaries. But once Jerome had embarked on a refutation of Origenism, these were never produced for Augustine. So there is little evidence to suggest that Augustine was influenced by Origen. But Augustine was profoundly influenced by contemporary philosophy. Following his Baptism Augustine lived in Numidia with a community of servi Dei [believers] who sought to live the Christian life in its fullness. The community focused on preparing for death by seeking deification, through freeing themselves from worldly constraints. In Letter 10.2 Augustine uses the phrase ‘deificari in otio’ [to attain deification in a life of scholarly seclusion], which may be taken from Porphyry’s Sententiae ad intelligibilia ducentes. Augustine could have known the works of Porphyry from the introduction to the Enneads of Plotinus in the Latin translation of Marius Victorinus. Most commentators agree that Augustine held together his Christian beliefs with contemporary Platonism. On this basis Augustine understood that the human soul was ‘divine’ in the sense that that God is always present to it. In other words, the human person participated in God’s being simply by existing. Alongside this belief Augustine understood that the soul is alienated from God by sin but is never separated from God’s presence. These views are comparable with those of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa for whom the Fall is a slipping away from a very close affinity between God and humanity and a veering off the true path. In his early work, De vera religione (390/1) Augustine argues that God confers divine status on the rational creation in common with Porphyry, and in his later work De Civitate Dei he continues to cite Porphyry and Plotinus as authorities for the understanding that divine likeness is the goal of human life. Augustine construes the imitation of the divine nature as an equivalent of deification: man is said to be after the image, on account, as we have said, of the inequality of the likeness; and therefore after our image, that man might be the image of the Trinity; not equal to the Trinity as the Son is equal to the Father, but approaching to it, as has been said, by a certain likeness; just as nearness may in a sense be signified in things distant

25

Norman, K. E., ‘Deification, Early Christian’, in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, vol. 1 (New York: Macmillan, 1992).

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from each other, not in respect of place, but of a sort of imitation. For it is also said, Be transformed by the renewing of your mind; to whom he likewise says, Be therefore imitators of God as dear children. For it is said to the new man, which is renewed in the knowledge of God, after the image of Him that created him.26 He writes that those who imitate God come to be penetrated by intelligible light and enjoy the participation of God (The City of God 10.2), which refers to John 1. Augustine’s exegesis of Psalm 82.6 (cf. Psalm 116.11) shares the earlier understanding that the ‘gods’ referred to by the psalmist are the baptized. He develops a notion that human beings are deified by grace, which makes a connection between his concerns for justification with deification. The outcome of deification is that believers become ‘sons’ of God (cf. John 1.12) and fellow heirs with Christ (Enarrationes in Psalmos 49.2). Deification can be known ‘now’ but its fulfilment is eschatological, which relates to the possibility of the beatific vision, through which believers participate in God (The City of God 22.30). In this way Augustine employs the language of ‘participation’ to suggest a relationship between the contingent and the self-existent. For Augustine human nature was never entirely freed from ‘sin’, which meant that even the baptized where never literally like God, but the believer receives the possibility of not sinning as a gift from God. The believer is bestowed with the gift of ‘gratia increata’ [uncreated grace] by the Holy Spirit, which Kärkkäinen argues is ‘the personal presence of the Triune God in man through the Holy Spirit’.27 The model of participation lies at the heart of Augustine’s construal of redemption but is always qualified. Human persons can never become the same as God, even if they share in his flesh through the sacraments. For Augustine deification always remained beyond human explanation: ‘that he should make men gods is to be understood in divine silence’ (Contra Adimantus, 93.2). Deification remains at the level of metaphor and analogy in Augustine’s writings, it is appropriated through Baptism and the Eucharist, and its fullness is only achieved in the eschaton, always remaining a mystery. Deification is construed in relation to the Trinity and a trinitarian understanding of the imago dei and in relation to the sacraments, so it has a strong collective and ecclesial

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27

‘Augustine of Hippo, On the Trinity Book 7.6.12’, in P. Schaff (ed.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 3 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887). Kärkkäinen, V.-M., ‘The Ecumenical Potential of the Eastern Doctrine of Theosis: Emerging convergences in Lutheran and Free Church Soteriologies’, in Toward Healing Our Divisions. Reflecting on Pentecostal Diversity and Common Witness. 28th Annual Meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, Springfield, MO, 11–13 March 1999, vol. I, p. 27.

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dimension in Augustine’s thought. This remains crucial for contemporary exploration of the metaphor. The fifth century was a time when the language of deification began to recede and disappear from mainstream theological discourse. I have drawn attention to some of the reasons for this in the discussion of the work of Evagrios Ponticus. Another witness to these changes is Cyril of Alexandria (c.378–444). He was born into an influential Christian family. His mother’s brother, Theophilus, was Patriarch of Alexandria. Cyril was given a thorough education in rhetoric, philosophy and theology. In 412, following the death of his uncle, Cyril was appointed Patriarch of Alexandria. Cyril is known as a great controversialist in the Christological debates, which led to the calling of the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451), and was a staunch defender of the Alexandrian tradition of Christology. He fiercely attacked the opinions and person of his opponent Nestorius (c.386–451), who was the Patriarch of Constantinople between 428 and 431. Cyril developed his understanding of deification in relation to his polemic against Judaism, Apollinarianism and Nestorianism. But he was reticent about using a technical language for deification even before the controversy with Nestorius. In his earliest writings he had followed the example of Athanasius and had used the terminology of deification, but in his later writings he ceased doing this. In its place he used the phraseology of 2 Peter 1.4: ‘partakers of the divine nature’. It is this Cyrilline usage which brings the New Testament phraseology into mainstream theological discourse. The phraseology had previously been employed Origen, Athanasius and Theophilus of Alexandria, but only infrequently. The issue at stake in using the phraseology of 2 Peter 1.4 surrounds the word physis [nature] and the relationship of this to ousia [substance or essence]. Cyril seems to use physis in a more dynamic sense than ousia. In other words physis is that aspect of the divine which is communicable to human beings. This means that his construal of ‘deification’ rests more on the recovery of the lost divine likeness, than an Athanasian transformation of the flesh. For the first time Cyril brings together an understanding of moral endeavour and the sacramental life in a construal of deification. He constructs an understanding of ‘dynamic participation’, which begins with reception of the Holy Spirit in Baptism. The Spirit then dwells in the baptized, who achieve adoption as ‘sons’ and ‘gods’ through God’s grace. The Holy Spirit and Son enable sanctification and filiation, which lead to incorruptibility. Cyril distinguishes between the corporeal and spiritual aspects of this process. Through participation in the Eucharist, the Son dwells within the participants corporeally. The Spirit motivates the believer’s moral life towards an inward transformation. Cyril argues that the human will relates to the divine image, so that human beings can choose the good and in doing so may participate in the divine. Based on his understanding of Christ’s human soul, Cyril construes deification in terms of a unity of body and soul, which involves the human will and the 72

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pursuit of virtue. He holds together moral progress towards divine likeness, with participation in the Eucharist and assimilation to Christ, which is the first fully rounded understanding of deification. The combined effect of the leadership of Athanasius and Cyril contributes to the eclipse of the Alexandrian tradition of the didaskaleia. In its stead a biblical and Irenaean approach emerges towards deification which has four main features.28 Each of these provides a firm basis for a relational understanding of the doctrine of deification today. First, there is a strong emphasis on the convergence of transcendence and immanence in Christ, and through participation in Christ the believer manifests the first fruits offered in Christ to all humanity. This conceptuality is rooted in St Paul’s language of being ‘in Christ’ and is extended by Irenaeus and Cyril. Second, there is a focus on a notion of participation as a way of understanding how what is ‘becoming’ can share in ‘being’ at an ontological level. That is to say how the created may share in the uncreated without losing its contingent status, and on a dynamic level how the created and contingent can partake increasingly of the divine nature through the work of the Holy Spirit and attain the image and likeness of God. Third, there is a clear rejection of any collapse of the gulf between the created and the uncreated. Mediation between the two orders is achieved through the exaltation of Christ’s humanity. Finally, the ecclesial context of deification is brought to the fore. There is a move away from individual contemplation to the practice of the virtues and the reception of the Eucharist in the synaxis of the faithful. The transformation of the believer begins in Baptism and is continued by the gift of the Spirit and the ongoing reception of the Eucharist in communion with the Bishop.

28

Russell, Deification, pp. 203–4.

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4 the doctrine of deification in orthodoxy

In this chapter and the one which follows I have constructed a narrative of the use of the metaphor of deification in theological discourse in the period since the first five centuries. I have decided to recount this narrative in two chapters each delineated by geography as well as chronology. In making this geographical division in the narrative I am following the contours of the discourse concerning deification which emerged particularly in the twentieth century. I have made this decision despite the increasing unease within contemporary theological discourse with the designations of types of theology as ‘Eastern’ or ‘Western’ and ‘Greek’ or ‘Latin’. For centuries theologians and historians have been using such designations as Roman or Latin Catholic, Eastern or Greek Orthodox, and Protestant. In recent times theologians have become increasingly aware of the problematic surrounding the designation of texts and their authors. One strand of this awareness is to be seen in the critique of the so-called de Régnon paradigm, and another is to be seen in the critique of Neo-Palamism. The caricature of Trinitarian theology as a competition between an Augustinian West and a Cappadocian East was a working paradigm among systematic theologians in the twentieth century largely as a result of the interpretation of the work of the Jesuit author Théodore de Régnon,1 by Eastern Orthodox writers such as Vladimir Lossky.2 This polarization and valuation of East against West is now challenged by patristic and systematic theologians alike.3 Vladimir Lossky along with

1

2

3

de Régnon, T., Études de théologie positive sur la Sainte Trinité, 3 vols, (Paris: Retaux, 1892–98). Lossky, V., The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Cambridge and London: James Clarke & Co. Ltd, 1957), chapter 3, especially pp. 56–8. For example, Louth, A., ‘Unity and Diversity in the Church of the Fourth Century’, in E. Ferguson (ed.), Recent Studies in Early Christianity: A Collection of Scholarly Essays, (London: Garland, 1999), vol. IV, pp. 1–18.

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John Meyendorff is seen as responsible for reawakening interest in the work of the fourteenth-century monk of Mount Athos, Gregory Palamas.4 Here again the ‘Eastern’ view is deemed to be more adequate and, therefore, preferable to the ‘Western’ view of divine activity, grace and the human knowing of God.5 The construal of the ‘East’ and ‘West’ as perceived from the standpoint of the ‘Byzantine’ Orthodox tradition has been re-assessed recently by Christos Yannaras and Aristotle Papanikolaou.6 So although this chapter is focused on the narrative of the use of the metaphor of deification in ‘Eastern’ Orthodoxy this is by no means an attempt to privilege the ‘East’ over the ‘West’. The concept of ‘orthodoxy’ emerges from a long-standing hermeneutical tradition within Christianity, which is premised on distinguishing truth from falsehood, or, indeed, orthodox views from heretical views. McGuckin7 argues that this hermeneutic has been operating at least since the earliest Church histories were written, for example, by Eusebius of Caesarea and that the same instincts are seen in the New Testament texts of the Johannine letters and Pastoral epistles. The main premise of the hermeneutic is that Church was born in truth and later became infected with heresy. Theological reflection on the need to challenge mistaken or heretical views led to a conceptualization of ‘orthodoxy’ in which ‘Church fathers’ are understood to be raised up providentially to defend the truth. This conceptuality is reinforced in particular by the Arian controversy. For example, Athanasius wrote the Life of Antony the Great in which he depicts Antony as one of first of the ‘fathers’ who represents a standard of truth, holiness and orthodoxy. Later Gregory Nazianzen identified Athanasius as the great defender of Nicene orthodoxy (Oration 21 and Oration 33.5). By the fifth century the concept of ‘authoritative fathers’ had emerged. For example, Cyril of Alexandria compiled a collection of the ‘sayings of orthodox fathers’ which he appealed to in his controversy with Nestorius. This conceptuality is endorsed in the canons of Ecumenical Councils (e.g. Ephesus 431: Canon 7). In this way the Council itself becomes part of the formulation of what orthodoxy is, by claiming to continue the tradition of the orthodox fathers. The broad conceptuality of ‘orthodoxy’ is part of a shared Christian heritage. But this shared understanding came to be the designation of a ‘tradition’

4

5 6

7

See Finch, J. D., ‘Neo-Palamism, Divinizing Grace, and the Breach between East and West’, in Christensen and Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature. See Lossky, Mystical Theology, chapter 4. Yannaras, C., Orthodoxy and the West (Brooklyn, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2006), especially chapters 1 and 2; Papanikolaou, A., ‘Orthodoxy, Postmodernity, and Ecumenism: The Difference That Divine-Human Communion Makes’, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Fall (2007): 527–46. McGuckin, J. A., ‘Patristics’, in The Westminster Handbook of Patristics (London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), pp. 252–4.

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within the Christian tradition, so that some churches claim to be ‘Orthodox’ as distinct from those who either do not claim this designation for themselves, or are denied this designation by the ‘Orthodox’. The structure of this distinction and separation relates to many factors, such as the claims of the Papacy, the fall of the ‘Western’ Roman Empire, the rise of Islam as well as doctrinal disputes involving the filioque. Perhaps a symbol of this distinction is to be seen in John of Damascus’s work The Defence of the Orthodox Faith [de fide orthodoxa] in the eighth century. A major component in the construction of the identity of the Orthodox ‘East’ during the twentieth century was the perception that the doctrine of deification is a touch stone of what it means to hold Orthodox beliefs over against a Catholic or Protestant ‘West’. Writers such as Dimitru Staniloae, Andrew Louth and Norman Russell have argued that the doctrine of deification, which is a core feature of Orthodoxy, is part of an overarching conceptuality of the divine purposes in creating and redeeming the cosmos in Orthodoxy. The emergence of Neo-Palamism within Orthodox theological discourse in the twentieth century shaped the interpretation of the ‘evolution’ of the doctrine of deification. Within this discourse two figures dominate the landscape, Gregory Palamas and Maximos the Confessor. The conceptuality of deification in Orthodoxy today is a synthesis of the ideas of these two writers constructed by Orthodox authors in the twentieth century. Texts of the Early Church and Medieval periods are interpreted in the light of these twentieth-century constructs of deification. In addition, the interpretation of the reception of the collection of texts known as the ‘Philokalia’ and published in the eighteenth century is of vital importance in the construction of a narrative of the metaphor of deification and of Orthodox identity in the twentieth century. The focus of the chapter is on the emergence of a doctrine of deification in ‘Byzantine’ Orthodoxy. This will be related to the emergence of Orthodox identity, particularly in the twentieth century. The structure of the chapter is a series of chronological surveys of the narrative of the metaphor of deification, beginning with the present and successively proceeding into the past to a final section on the ‘classic’ statement of deification in the sixth to eighth centuries. I begin with twentieth and twenty-first centuries, which have seen the re-emergence of Orthodox self-understanding in its own right as well as in relation to the dynamics of the Ecumenical Movement. This section will provide an overview of the metaphor of deification in the Byzantine Orthodox tradition as it is understood today. I then examine the expression of deification in Byzantine Orthodoxy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This will focus in particular on the publication of the Philokalia in the late eighteenth century and the influence that this has had subsequently, particularly in Russia in the nineteenth century. Following this, I examine examples of the understanding of deification in Orthodoxy in the Middle Ages. The main focus here will be upon Gregory Palamas 76

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and the Hesychast controversy. I will also examine the work of Symeon the New Theologian, and the work of Cydones who translated texts of Thomas Aquinas into Greek. In the concluding section I examine the work of earlier writers who are understood within the Orthodox tradition to contribute to the emergence of a ‘classic’ understanding of deification. This will include an examination of the texts of Ps-Dionysius the Aeropagite, Maximos the Confessor and John of Damascus. The purpose of proceeding in this manner is to highlight the hermeneutical processes in the reception of ancient texts in the present day.

Twentieth and twenty-first centuries It is clear from even a cursory reading of the works of Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century that ‘deification’ is understood to be a core element in the construal of Orthodox identity. The metaphor is used partly as a polemic against those outside the Orthodox tradition, and partly as an apologetic to them. From my perspective ‘deification’ has been construed as a touchstone of Orthodoxy, as a symbol of what distinguishes Orthodox belief from the beliefs of other Christians. It demonstrates a new self-understanding, identity and confidence among Orthodox communities, both those within traditional homelands and those in diaspora. The claims made about deification symbolize an ‘escape’ from a history of perceived ‘Westernization’. Westernization included the acceptance by the Orthodox church of the Latin Church’s dogma of seven sacraments and the influence on Orthodox theology of the thought of Aquinas as a result of Cydones’ translation of his works. The revival in Orthodox self-understanding can be seen in the emergence of a Neo-Palamite theological movement and the construction of the Aquinas/Palamas controversy. This revival encourages the construal of the metaphor of deification as part of a comprehensive theological conceptuality of the doctrine of creation and redemption. The metaphor is presented in terms of an appeal to experience and the transformation of the human subject. This construction of the metaphor is assembled from the texts of authors such as Maximos the Confessor, Gregory Palamas and Seraphim of Sarov. Their understanding that experience is often to be found within the corporate activities of the Church such as the Liturgy and the reception of the sacraments is particularly important. These theurgical and ecclesial dimensions of deification are important components for a contemporary interpretation of the doctrine. In this discussion of Orthodox theologians of the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries, I will focus on the work of Bulgakov, Sophrony, Lossky, Nellas, Staniloae, Louth, McGuckin, Papanikolaou and Zizioulas. It would have been possible to highlight the work of other theologians such as Kallistos Ware, Hilarion Alfeyev and Christos Yannaras, and I have drawn 77

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on their contribution to the discourse on deification elsewhere. My selection here has been determined mainly by the way in which a theologian approaches the ecclesial dimension of the metaphor of deification. There are a number of basic preconceptions to a contemporary Orthodox understanding of deification. The metaphor of deification is constructed on an a priori understanding that each person is created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1.26). This is the premise for the possibility of eternal life and a relationship with God. Furthermore, every human person is free and autonomous and as a creature made in the ‘image of God’ can intentionally seek and acquire the divine ‘likeness’. Deification is premised on the notion of Divine philanthropia, that is, God’s unconditional love for human beings, which is manifest in God’s desire that all people should be saved. Salvation is required because through disobedience human beings lost their divine potential and are now subject to bondage to sin, disintegration and corruption. Despite their fallen state, human beings are called to live out their lives in response to God. This means that there is a need to raise awareness of the transcendent goal of human life. In order to achieve this awareness and his or her divinely human potential, each person requires forgiveness and reconciliation. This is achieved through God’s initiative in kenoˉsis and obedience in the Incarnation, through which the God-Man [theanthropos / bogochelovek] re-perfects human nature. The outcomes of the Incarnation need to be applied to and appropriated by each person through an inner journey, whereby each is re-imaged and participates in the glorified divinely human nature.8 Sergei Bulgakov (1871–1944) was a highly creative and speculative theologian, whose sophisticated and collective conceptualization of theology continues to inspire theological enquiry today. He was a Russian Orthodox priest, who had left Russia following the Bolshevik Revolution and founded l’Institut de Théologie Orthodoxe Saint-Serge, in Paris, where he was professor until his death. His ideas were not universally welcomed among the Orthodox theological community. Georges Florovsky and Vladimir Lossky distanced themselves from what they saw as his speculative work on sophiology, and in 1935 Bulgakov’s notions surrounding sophia were condemned. Bulgakov is influenced by Vladimir Solovyov in a number of different areas, one of which is his collective and historical understanding of salvation, which he argues reaches its final stage in the work of Christ. Christ’s work enables believers to grow in and achieve salvation, understood in terms of deification. Milbank argues that for Bulgakov to become divine

8

See Golubov, A., ‘Foreword’, in D. Staniloae (ed.), Orthodox Spirituality: A Practical Guide for the Faithful and a Definitive Manual for the Scholar (South Canaan, PA: St Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 2002).

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now means constantly to shape better images of deity.9 This relates to how the difference or distance between the divine and the human is ‘calculated’. Milbank argues that Bulgakov’s understanding of deification suggests that the divine creative economy is such that all human working is a coming to know. Inversely, coming to know is a constant process of collective just distribution: ‘economy is knowledge in action; knowledge is economy in theory’.10 In relation to his collective construal of deification Bulgakov espouses a theurgic understanding of theoˉsis, for in his view all theology is theurgic; because ‘God only reaches us through the liturgical invocations latent in all human creative bringing forth of the unanticipated.’11 Bulgakov sympathized with the neo-Palamite revival of the Jesus Prayer associated with the Russian émigrés and their understanding that praying the prayer itself brings about the energetic presence of the Divine Person. This notion is predicated on the belief that ‘in some ineffable way the sonorous patterns and other sensorial resonances of human language have become attuned over the ages to a certain receptivity of transcendence.’12 However, for Bulgakov the premise for the metaphor of deification is not the distinction which the neo-Palamites draw between energies and essence in the divine; rather human beings can become God because God is constantly becoming human. The precondition of the possibility of Incarnation is the eternal descent of God into the Creation as Sophia and the eternal raising of humanity through deification.13 Bulgakov’s construal of a collective understanding of the divine–human potentiality and its outcome in deification supports a relational understanding of the doctrine for today. Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov 1896–1993) another remarkable Russian émigré, who after living in Paris and on Mount Athos settled in England and became a founder of the monastery at Toleshunt Knights in Essex. Sophrony was a disciple of St Silouan of Mount Athos and published a number of works on him, in which he sets out his teaching on and experience

9

Milbank, J., ‘Sophiology and Theurgy: The New Theological Horizon’ (Paper delivered in December 2005) http://www.theologyphilosophycentre.co.uk/papers.php (accessed 2 June 2009). Milbank argues that the reshaping of the understanding of divinity in the exposition of the doctrine of deification is also to be found in the Hermetic corpus, p. 35. See ‘Asclepius’, in B. P. Cophenhaver, Hermetica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1992) paragraphs 22–4, pp. 79–81. 10 Bulgakov, S., Philosophy of Economy: The World as Household (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 2000), p. 131. 11 Milbank, ‘Sophiology and Theurgy’, p. 36; see Bulgakov, ‘The Unfading Light’, in R. D. Williams (ed.), Sergii Bulgakov (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1999), pp. 149–59. 12 Milbank, ‘Sophiology and Theurgy’, p. 36; see Williams, Sergii Bulgakov ‘General Introduction’, pp. 1–19. 13 Milbank, ‘Sophiology and Theurgy’, p. 53.

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of ‘transfiguration’.14 In his spiritual testimony Sophrony vividly describes his own experience of the divine light.15 Sophrony’s life is an important example of the monastic vocation to pursue conformity to Christ, from which flowed his remarkable testimony to the mystical experience of communion with God. This appeal to ‘raw’ experience remains a key factor in the understanding and reception of the doctrine of deification within Orthodoxy at the present time. Sophrony also had a profound personal influence on John Zizioulas, which is most evident in his construal of personhood. Vladimir Lossky (1903–58), another Russian émigré, settled in Paris following the Bolshevik Revolution. He was one of the main contributors to the Orthodox revival in self-understanding and confidence in the twentieth century. He is probably best remembered for The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, published in French in 1944 and in English in 1957. Lossky pursued a strong polemic against the ‘West’ as he expounded and defended the ‘East’. In so doing he constructs or reconstructs the self-identity of Orthodoxy. In particular he reworked Russian Orthodox theology against the sophiology of Bulgakov, which he thought was ‘philosophically tainted’.16 Lossky perceives the doctrine of deification as the crowning achievement of Byzantine theology.17 He understands deification as mystical union with God, through a participation in the uncreated energies. In making this construction, he polarizes the ‘dynamic’ theology of ‘East’ against the ‘static’ theology of ‘West’. Lossky goes so far as to state that theoˉsis is ‘echoed by the fathers and the theologians of every age’.18 This is an overstatement and is part of his polemical assertion of the status of the doctrine of deification in the patristic period and within later Orthodoxy. Referring to 2 Peter 1.4, Lossky argues that The words of St. Peter are explicit: partakers of the divine nature. They leave us in no doubt as to the reality of the union with God which is promised us, and set before us as our final end, the blessedness of the age to come. It would be childish, not to say impious, to see in these words only a rhetorical expression or metaphor.19

14

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16

17

18

For example, Sophrony, A., The Undistorted Image: Staretz Silouan, 1866–1938 (London: Faith Press, 1958); The Monk of Mount Athos: Staretz Silouan 1866–1938 (London: Mowbray, 1973); Wisdom from Mount Athos: The Writings of Staretz Siloan 1866–1938 (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1975). Sophrony, A., We Shall See Him As He Is (Essex, England: Stravropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, 1988). Papanikolaou, A., Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine-Human Communion, (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), p. 1. See Lossky, V., In the Image and Likeness of God (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary 1985), especially pp. 97–98; and Mystical Theology, chapter 10. Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 134.

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Thus, Lossky defends a realistic and ontological understanding of deification. Whether this is truly representative of the tradition is another matter. As Russell suggests deification is a metaphor for understanding the goal and outcome of the divine purposes in creating and redeeming. This may include ontological claims, but such claims need to be made within a careful and nuanced framework, rather than as a piece of polemic. This is not to dismiss the influence which Lossky exerted on Orthodoxy and the reception of Orthodox understandings more widely. But it is to recognize his polemical approach. Nonetheless, Lossky does make important contributions to the discourse concerning the human person, preparing the ground for Ziziouolas’ understanding that in an ontological sense ‘person’ refers to the same kind of reality in the human as well as the divine. This modelling of ‘person’ echoes Lossky’s mystical interpretation of the human person.20 These concepts of personhood are important in relation to how the deiform characteristics of the human person are understood in relation to the viability of the metaphor of deification. Panayiotis Nellas (1936–86) provides an important lay voice in Orthodox discourse on deification. He taught in a high school in Athens, after studies in Athens, Lille, Paris and Rome. His work on deification is another landmark book of the twentieth century, bringing home the full sense of the way in which deification is a core feature of Orthodox theology.21 The book is premised on the understanding that until the twelfth century ‘East’ and ‘West’ shared a (more or less) common understanding of salvation but that from the twelfth century onwards East and West diverge and expound different understandings of anthropology, soteriology and ecclesiology. Such an understanding of doctrinal development is an expression of the Orthodox unease with scholasticism in general and the writing of Aquinas in particular. His writing may be seen as part of a renewal of self-understanding in Orthodoxy, in which the centrality of deification becomes primary and is closely related to a renewed ‘Orthodox’ understanding of anthropology and Christology. His concern to restate the doctrine of deification is rooted in the existential question, ‘what is a person?’ Kallistos Ware suggests that Nellas’ concerns are related to the question found on the walls of the Oracle at Delphi: ‘know yourself,’ raising questions for the individual: who am I? What am I? Nellas is clear that the human person is created in the divine image and likeness, and he sees the notion of ‘image’ as an axis in Orthodox anthropology, cosmology and Christology. Yet he argues that there is a ‘mysterious, indefinable

19 20 21

Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 67. Lossky, Image and Likeness, pp. 111–23. Nellas, P., Deification in Christ: Orthodox Perspectives on the Nature of the Human Person (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997).

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character of person’ and that God’s ‘icon’ within the human being and the human race is ‘incomprehensible’. In arguing so he sets out an apophatic or ‘negative anthropology’. Drawing upon Gregory Nazianzen, Nellas argues in a more positive vein that the human person is ‘a living creature that is being deified’ [zoˉon theoumenon] (Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 38.11). So the human person is not only a rational or political animal, nor just one who laughs, but is primarily an animal called to share consciously in the life and glory of God. This calling Nellas understands is mirrored by the human being’s sense of ‘inspiration’. He reflects on this phenomenon and argues that it is the nature of the human person to experience this ‘inspiration’, which he understands as ‘the inclination towards God’. In other words, human beings made in the image of God are, ‘simultaneously earthly and heavenly, transient and eternal, visible and invisible, truly and in fact “a deified animal”’.22 The outcome of human growth is to attain ‘full stature’ in Christ; Nellas designates this with the term ‘Christification’, by which he signifies the connection between anthropology and Christology. He strongly argues for a Christological structure of the human person.23 This claim relates to the notion that the incarnate Logos is the ‘Archetype’ of the divine image and of human life. The divine ‘image’ is understood to be a gift but is also a ‘goal’ and a pledge; thus, the ‘iconic’ or potential being of a human person is in the possibility to become ‘authentic’. Nellas argues that ‘Man finds in the Archetype his true ontological meaning.’24 In other words, the anthropological outcome of deification is Christification. Nellas is a key exponent of the renewed understanding of deification in Orthodoxy for an Anglophone audience and offers a clear exposition of the core components of the metaphor of deification in contemporary Orthodoxy. Another very significant figure in the development of Orthodox theology in the twentieth century is Dumitru Staniloae (1903–93), a Romanian Orthodox priest and theologian, who studied in Bucharest and Munich. He taught at the University of Bucharest and worked for the Romanian Orthodox Church. Between 1958 and 1963 he was imprisoned by the Communist regime in Romania. One of Staniloae’s main works is his Orthodox Dogmatic Theology (1978) known in English translation as The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, of which the second volume is entitled The World: Creation and Deification. Staniloae became aware of the need to liberate Orthodoxy from its so-called ‘Western captivity’ expressed in the frequent use of Latin theological categories in Orthodox theology from the seventeenth century onwards. Yet Staniloae’s own thought is influenced by many different voices, including Bulgakov, and the philosophers Kant, Hegel 22 23

24

Nellas, Deification, p. 15. He draws on Origen and Athanasius in making these claims: for example, Origen, Against Celsus 6.63; Athanasius, On the Incarnation 3, 4; Against the Greeks 2. Nellas, Deification, p. 37.

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and Schopenhauer. Later he became aware of the Hesychast tradition through studying the works of Gregory Palamas, which led him to take up the work of translating the Philokalia into Romanian. It is from these different influences that Staniloae develops his understanding of deification, partly as a statement of Orthodoxy’s distinctiveness; partly in interaction with Christians of other traditions; and partly to respond to the contemporary context. Ion Bria argues that in the Dogmatic Theology Staniloae sought to use a different approach and method from the predominant method which had been constructed by Vladimir Lossky. Bria suggests that Staniloae challenges Lossky’s cataphatic style of theologizing and sets an apophatic method alongside a cataphatic approach, seeing the two approaches not as competitors but rather as interdependent. Staniloae challenged an institutional view of the Church and was one of the first Orthodox theologians to construct a relational ecclesiology rooted in an understanding of koinoˉnia. Emerging from his experience of the Communist state in Romania, Staniloae pursued a theology of the world, in which the world was understood as God’s creation, called and destined for deification.25 His construal of deification is rooted in his understanding of Christology. In Christ is concentrated and realized all that is expressed in Christian dogmas: there is expressed the divine infinity in which his human nature participates and in which everything else, through his common human nature, has power to participate.26 The mystery of the person of Christ is the mystery of the communion between the divine and the human. Staniloae uses Maximos the Confessor’s understanding of the human person as microcosm of the cosmos and of the world as macro-anthroˉpos.27 This is the premise for a reciprocity between Christ, the human race and the cosmos, which means that salvation is as much a collective as an individual reality. Unusually for an Orthodox Staniloae develops a theologia crucis, but in doing so he overcomes the polarization usually found in a Protestant construal of the Cross, which sets up creation and salvation, nature and grace in opposition to each other. Rather he argues that The impossibility of separating human persons from cosmic nature means that the salvation and perfection of persons is projected onto the whole of nature, while it simultaneously depends upon nature.28 25 26

27 28

See Bria, I., ‘Preface’ in Orthodox Spirituality, pp. vii–xiv. Staniloae, D., The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology (New York: T&T Clark, 2000), vol. 1, p.79. For example, Maximos the Confessor, Letter 6, PG 91, 429D. Staniloae, Dogmatic Theology, vol. 1, p. 324.

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Staniloae’s construal of deification is rooted in the experience of living the Christian life. He understands that the practice of the virtues is not just a question of obeying commandments but is growth in transformation. Christian spirituality concerns the experience of the perfection of the faithful in Christ, which is achieved by participation in Christ’s divinely human life. This union with God is understood as an unending process; it is a perfection achieved through purification. Deification or participation in divinity is understood to be the goal of a believer’s life, which is achieved by a believer’s participation in the divine energies. Staniloae’s understanding of salvation, deification and the Church in terms of communion is another important instance of the possibility of expounding a relational doctrine of deification. Andrew Louth’s understanding of deification sits within the construal of Orthodox theology which distances itself from ‘Western Theology’.29 His understanding that deification lost ground in the West from the twelfth century places his thought within a neo-Palamite stance. He argues that deification relates to the whole of Orthodox theology and that this suggests a theological framework in which the divine purposes in creating and redeeming the cosmos are understood in terms of a human–divine union or communion designated by the term theoˉsis. He draws on the texts of the Fathers and argues that the events of deification and of Incarnation are parallel events (Athanasius) and that the event of deification is a consequence of the event of the Incarnation, whose outcome is ‘incorruption’ (Irenaeus). In distinguishing these ideas he argues that a Western understanding predicates redemption on a restoration from the consequences of the Fall, and he cites the text of the Exsultet [Easter Proclamation]. In the Eastern view deification is God’s intention from the moment of Creation, and the Incarnation is the interior basis of Creation and its final cause, so the purpose of Creation has always been deification. He describes deification as intimacy with God, rather than transcending what it means to be human. Deification is the fulfilment of what it is to be human. The Christian tradition does not advocate ceasing to be human, but deification does mean transformation; it is the transfiguration of the ‘human’. The ‘divine’ remains beyond comprehension, so deification is beyond comprehension and is a mystery. In other words, Louth espouses an apophatic theology of divine–human union. He suggests that there are two different ways in which ‘apophatic’ may be understood. He refers first to Christos Yannaras, who argues that an apophatic approach suggests poetry and images rather than cerebral dogma. This relates to understandings of the ‘beauty of soul’ in its ascetic struggle and its participation in the celebration of the liturgy. Yannaras explains his understanding by an appeal to etymology: kalloj [beauty], which he suggests 29

Louth, A., ‘The Place of Theosis in Orthodox Theology’, in Christensen and Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature, pp. 32–44.

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relates to kalein [to call]. The beauty of the soul is about being called back to God. Second, Louth refers to Ps-Dionysius in whose view ‘unknowing’ is ‘apophatic’, which transcends the limits of language. In his understanding theoˉsis is itself apophatic, for the human person encounters God through the gates of repentance. Louth provides another nuanced understanding of the metaphor of deification in its place in the overall landscape of an Orthodox theological framework. John McGuckin another contemporary Orthodox theologian constructs an understanding of theoˉsis in relation to communion. He argues that deification is to be understood in terms of sanctification, which is a process of being conformed to God. This process is construed in terms of the ‘metaphor’ of transfiguration. The just believer will share in the glory of the Kingdom by means of a ‘metamorphoˉsis’. He argues that even though the words theoˉsis and theopoiesis are not used in the New Testament, they are evocative of the destiny to which all human beings are called. He argues that deification is the ascent of the creature to communion with the divine, which is based on the prior divine election and ‘summoning’ of the creature to fullness of life. Thus, deification and salvation are understood in terms of a restoration of communion between the human and the divine.30 The question which Aristotle Papanikolaou, a contemporary Orthodox writer working in the United States, poses is whether contemporary Orthodox theology may only be expressed in neo-Palamite terms. In order to pursue this question he has provided a critique and comparison of the work Lossky and Zizioulas on the themes of communion and divine–human union or theoˉsis.31 The difference which emerges from this critique concerns the approach to ontology and epistemology as it is understood not only in trinitarian theology but also in respect of Christology. Although Papanikolaou is clear that neither Lossky nor Zizioulas construe the doctrine of the Trinity as a soteriological doctrine per se, he does argue that elements of trinitarian theology are used to construe the doctrine of salvation (as deification). It is this difference concerning the construal of the soteriological implications of the Trinity and the Incarnation which brings into question the dominance of neo-Palamite theology in Orthodoxy today. In his careful exposition and critique of the understandings of Lossky and Zizioulas he argues that while Lossky understands that the divine energies are a core component in the realization of divine–human communion, Zizioulas rejects the notion that the energies have a soteriological role. In place of the energies, Zizioulas construes the notion of hypostasis as the core theological understanding in the realization of divine–human communion. This difference has implications not only for the construal of deification but also for epistemology: for 30

31

McGuckin, J., ‘The Strategic Adaptation of Deification in the Cappadocians’, in Christensen and Wittung (eds), Partakers of the Divine Nature, pp. 95–114. Papanikolaou, Being with God.

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understanding how God is unknowable and knowable, incommunicable and communicable, transcendent and immanent. While Lossky argues that God’s essence is unknowable in accordance with his neo-Palamite understanding, Zizioulas rejects such absolute apophaticism. Zizioulas agrees that the what of God’s existence, that is, God’s ousia, is completely transcendent and unknowable and that theology has nothing to say about the divine ousia. But for him apophaticism does not extend to God’s Trinitarian existence, that is, the how of God’s existence, which is a personal existence, revealed to and known experientially by human believers.32 The Son in whom is the communion of the uncreated and the created is made present in the Eucharist. This is an expression of the immanent Trinity, that is, God’s being itself. ‘To give expression to this affirmation, the crucial distinction is not that between essence and energies, but between the existence of God and the way in which God exists.’33 This distinction is attributed to the Cappadocian fathers. Zizioulas goes on to argue that God is known (if only in a certain way) and that this leads to an ontology of personhood, both divine and human, which is the ground for divine–human communion. Papanikolaou argues that Zizioulas has constructed a more convincing understanding of the possibility of theoˉsis. In Zizioulas’ construct deification is Trinitarian because of the unity in the hypostasis of Christ, which is not possible in Lossky’s thought.34 Papanikolaou concurs with Zizioulas that an understanding of divine–human communion requires a distinction in the divine other than between energies and essence, and that is the distinction of hypostases, which Zizioulas argues emerged in the writing of the Cappadocians. Hypostasis is that in and through which divine-human communion is realised, and is a distinction necessary not simply for conceptualizing how such a communion is possible in Christ, but how it is possible at all. In this sense, Zizioulas’s ‘ontology’, though not explicit in the Greek fathers, may be interpreted to be consistent with their own logic.35 (emphasis in original) The concept of hypostasis is reworked by Zizioulas on the basis of the realism of divine–human communion in Christ – who is fully human and fully divine. In Papanikolaou’s understanding this use of hypostasis opens up language in a way in which essence language could not do. 32

33 34 35

Papanikolaou, A., ‘Divine Energies or Divine Personhood: Vladimir Lossky and John Zizioulas on Conceiving the Transcendent and Immanent God’, Modern Theology, 19(3) (2003): 373. Papanikolaou‚ Divine Energies‘, p. 373. Papanikolaou, ‘Divine Energies’, p. 377. Papanikolaou, ‘Divine Energies’, p. 378.

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Papanikolaou argues that divine–human communion understood in terms of the Incarnation sets before the world and the churches the understanding, ‘that God has created the world for so as to effect a communion between God and the world’.36 On the basis of this understanding, Papanikolaou argues that the mystical and the political are not opposed to one another. Rather the mystical is not to be understood only in personal terms, and ‘any experience of the love of God must be embodied and manifested in particular relations.’37 Such an understanding does not identify the divine with worldly structures but refers rather to the Orthodox understanding that the world is ‘sacramental’. ‘The world is already participating in God’s life, and the challenge for humans is to create the kinds of relationships, both political and ecclesial, that would maximize the degree of participation of the world in God.’38 He sees the outcomes of divine–human communion and/or theoˉsis in terms of ‘a world in which particularity, otherness, difference, relationality, and freedom are the norm and reflect the glory of God, which is the presence of God’s love that is always striving to show itself’.39 The use of these categories is crucial in the realization of a relational understanding of deification. Despite the polemic in the crafting of the East–West differences and the propagation of false conflicts in terms of the ‘de Régnon paradigm’ and the artificial dispute between Aquinas and Palamas, there is much inspiration to gained from recent Orthodox reflection on deification. In the construal of the doctrine in relational terms, Bulgakov provides the basis for an appeal to the collective; Sophrony, to experience; Lossky, to personhood and anthropology; Nellas, to Christification and, by extension, to ecclesiology; Staniloae, to the cosmic and the practice of the virtues; Louth, to the an overarching framework; McGuckin, to communion; and Papanikolaou, to alterity and relationality.

Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries The period of eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was a time in which Orthodox theology was faced with a number of extraneous influences. The outcomes of the interaction between the Orthodox tradition and Western theological and philosophical traditions produced a revival, in the monasteries at least, in the Hesychast tradition of contemplative prayer. Kallistos Ware has suggested that the second half of the eighteenth century was a moment when Orthodox theologians and monks began to recognize that 36 37 38 39

Papanikolaou, ‘Orthodoxy, Postmodernity, and Ecumenism’, p. 541. Papanikolaou, ‘Orthodoxy, postmodernity, and ecumenism’, p. 545. Papanikolaou, ‘Orthodoxy, Postmodernity, and Ecumenism’, p. 545–6. Papanikolaou, ‘Orthodoxy, Postmodernity, and Ecumenism’, p. 546.

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their tradition was threatened by the influences from Roman Catholicism, Protestantism and the Enlightenment. In Ware’s view, while the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 was an event of enormous significance in terms of the Orthodox understanding of Christendom, in many ways the Orthodox tradition continued to function more or less on the same intellectual and spiritual premises as it had before the Ottoman period.40 By the second half of the eighteenth century it became evident that there were new intellectual developments among educated Greeks. This has been termed ‘modern Hellenism’, which was more secular in outlook and looked back beyond the Christian era to ancient Greece for its inspiration. It was also influenced by the philosophers of the Enlightenment such as Voltaire and Encyclopaedists.41 The influence of Latin theology upon Orthodox theology and spirituality had been evident from at least the thirteenth century, and this too begins to be questioned. A spiritual and theological revival associated with a group of monks from Mount Athos known as the Kollyvades, which commended the practice of frequent communion among other things, emerged in the second half of the eighteenth century. Among that group were Makarios of Corinth (1731–1805) and Nikodimos the Hagiorite (1749–1809), who are understood to be the editors of the collection of texts known as the Philokalia, published in Venice in 1782.42

The Philokalia43 Perhaps the first thing to recognize about this collection of texts from the Patristic and Medieval periods is that the reason for its publication is an awareness among Orthodox monks and theologians that there is a problem. A problem associated with the new learning of the Enlightenment as well as the different perspectives of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. In other words, the Philokalia may be interpreted as a product of the Enlightenment. It is a deliberate collecting together of early and medieval Christian sources in support of a tradition of Hesychast or contemplative prayer, which is seen as a distinctive Orthodox practice. The motivation behind and purpose of

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Ware, K., ‘The Inner Unity of the Philokalia and its influence in East and West’, in S. Alexander (ed.) (Athens: Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, 2004), p. 1. The main exponent of ‘modern Hellenism’ in the eighteenth century was Adamantios Korais. See Ware, Inner Unity, p. 3. The Philokalia of the Holy Neptic Fathers, Filokali/a tw~n I9erw~n Nhptikw~n, published in Venice in 1782. Partial English translations of the Russian of Theophan the Recluse were published by Faber and Faber in 1951 and 1954. A full English translation is still in production in five volumes by Faber. The first four volumes are currently available the first was published in 1979. ‘Philokalia’ means love for what is beautiful and good, love for God as the source of beauty and goodness, and also love for what leads to union with the divine and uncreated beauty. Philokalia can also mean ‘anthology’.

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the Philokalia was to offer an answer, a distinctive answer to the issues which the Enlightenment and the perspectives of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism brought to bear upon Orthodoxy. This answer is rooted in an appeal to two core practices: nepsis and hesychia. Nepsis [nh~yij] relates to the virtues of sobriety, temperance and lucidity; vigilance and watchfulness; and hesychia [h9suxi/a] to the inner stillness of the heart. In other words, this is an appeal to inner, rather than external action and to the concerns of the kingdom within each believer. Second, this collection of texts is concerned with deification. The words of first sentence of the preface state that God, the blessed nature, perfection that is more than perfect, the creative principle of all that is good and beautiful, Himself transcending all goodness and all beauty, in His supremely divine plan preordained from all eternity the deification [theoˉsis] of humankind.44 Transforming union with the living God is the ongoing theme throughout the Philokalia, which is to be achieved through the constant invocation of the Holy Name of Jesus. In this way the grace of Baptism which becomes obscured during life is to be reactivated. The editors of the Philokalia express in this collection the perspective that the Greek Church and nation need to be reminded of their distinctive heritage and that this is best done through reading the mystical theology of the patristic and medieval periods. The method of the editors is to use these sources as a kind of ressourcement in order to combat in particular the perspective of the Enlightenment philosophers. So the purpose of the Philokalia is primarily practical and is intended not just for specialists, that is, monks, but for all the Orthodox. The title page states that it is for the ‘benefit of all the Orthodox’ [ei0j koinh\n tw~n 9Orqodo/cwn w0fe/leian]. Most texts included in the collection were written by monks for monks, but the editors had a much broader audience and purpose in mind. Nikodimus understood that the vocation to ‘pray without ceasing’ is for all Christians, those married as well as monks; those with families; and farmers, merchants and lawyers. The preface of the Philokalia recognizes that not everyone agrees with this broad ‘democratic’ intention and purpose. Indeed there might even be risk involved in making the texts available. The editors were clear that obedience to a spiritual father was very important, and yet they took the risk of publishing the Philokalia. In this way the Philokalia may be said to be a product of the Enlightenment in that its promotion of a democratic reception of the tradition is akin to the agenda of the encyclopaedists. The scheme of the book is a simple chronological order, with no systematic classification and no indication which texts were for beginners or which

44

Ware, Inner Unity, p. 2.

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were meant for the more experienced. The texts advocate ‘a scientific method’ of continual prayer to Christ in which the whole intellect is turned towards the inner self. This ‘spiritual and scientific work’ evokes the virtues against the passions in order to reactivate the grace of Baptism. The predominating approaches to prayer and deification in the Philokalia are the ideas of the writers Evagrios of Pontus from the fourth century, a colleague and friend of the Cappadocian fathers, and Maximos the Confessor from the seventh century. Ware argues that the editors were followers of the interpretation of Hesychasm associated with Gregory Palamas. Nikodimos edited a threevolume collection of Palamas’ works, although this was never published. However, the fourteenth-century Hesychast writings occupy no more than a quarter of the collection of the texts and the Heyschast texts chosen contain little about the experience of divine light and the essence–energies distinction associated with the Heyschast controversy. Andrew Louth suggests that the editors created a ‘canon’ for the Hesychast tradition. What the Philokalia does is to canonize a tradition of hesychast spirituality stretching right back from the hesychast controversy to the fourth century; quite what lies behind this creation of a canon is not clear, though it is very likely that the selection derives from many years, probably centuries, of monastic formation: these are the kinds of works monks were recommended to read by their spiritual fathers, especially in the Athonite tradition. . . . But once seen as part of a tradition, works are read with presuppositions that may be foreign to the spirit in which they were originally written.45 So how are the preconceptions and intentions of the editors to be understood and received? Some scholars have argued that Nikodimos was influenced significantly by Roman Catholic spirituality, canon law and theology. This is evidenced in his translations of The Spiritual Combat published originally in 1589 by Lorenzo Scupoli, renamed Unseen Warfare, and the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. He appealed to Roman Catholic canon law in The Rudder, and Roman Catholic influence is also found in his manual on sacramental confession, the Exomologetarion. The influence of Western pietistic moralism is to be seen in his Chrestoethia of Christians. Ware argues that while Nikodimos adapted to a Western audience by using Western texts and approaches, this is not the case in the Philokalia. Nikodimus does not use texts from the Counter Reformation in the Philokalia. The collection is not framed as an attack on ‘the West’; rather the collection is

45

Louth, A., ‘Light, Vision, and Religious Experience in Byzantium’, in M. T. Kapstein (ed.), The Presence of Light: Divine Radiance and Religious Experience (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2004), p. 89.

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offered to all Christians: monks and laity as ‘a mystical school of noetic prayer’.46 As an influential collection of texts, the Philokalia may be said to be a ‘hermeneutical filter’ which conditions the self-understanding of the Orthodox as well as the perception of the Orthodox by the ‘non-Orthodox’. Although the intention of the editors was that the collection should be available to all Christians, the texts were published in their original form of the Greek language which most Greeks in 1782 and since would not have found particularly accessible. Only from 1957 has there been a project to produce the Philokalia in modern Greek, facilitating its use by a much broader audience. It was the Slavonic translation published in 1793 made by Paissy Velitchkovsky and encouraged by Metropolitan Gabriel of St Petersburg which meant that the Philokalia had a popular audience in Russia. The 1793 collection was enlarged in the edition of Theophan the Recluse in 1877. The Philokalia was regularly reprinted throughout the nineteenth century and became very popular. It was an influence upon Seraphim of Sarov who encouraged its dissemination, and it was popularized in the publication of The Way of the Pilgrim. The Philokalia has been translated into many languages during the second half of the twentieth century. Staniloae published a Romanian translation which was complete by 1981. An English translation based on the Russian edition of Theophan was published by Faber and Faber through the encouragement of T. S. Eliot and spread the collection’s influence and popularity to an Anglophone audience. Thus, the Philokalia is a hermeneutical filter between the early and medieval sources and their reception in the twentieth century, offering to the Orthodox themselves as well as to ‘nonOrthodox’ Christian traditions a sense of Orthodox identity and practice. In summary Louth writes that The Philokalia . . . has had an enormous impact on modern Orthodoxy: virtually all the great names of twentieth century Orthodox theology – Lossky, Florovsky, Meyendorff, Greeks such as Nellas and Mantzaridis and even Yannaras, the Romanian Staniloae, and such representatives of monastic theology as Archimandrite Sophrony of Essex and Bishop Hierotheos Vlachos – can be regarded as standing in a ‘Philokalic’ or ‘Neo-Palamite’ tradition. This tradition of ‘Byzantine mysticism’ is then a living tradition, which only makes it the more difficult to approach it in a critical, scholarly way. Most scholarly work on Byzantine mysticism that has been done in the past hundred years, including the edition of texts, has been done from within this tradition, with the result that the perspective represented by the Philokalia has been taken for granted.47 46 47

Ware, Inner Unity, p. 12. Louth, Light, Vision, and Religious Experience, p. 88.

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The Russian Hesychast revival Although it would be oversimplistic to suggest that the only developments within Orthodoxy took place in Russia in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, I will focus on two figures from the Russian landscape of theology and philosophy as examples of the influence which Russia has on the development of Orthodox theology. One is primarily an experiential example, and the other, theoretical. However, the experiential has doctrinal implications, and the theoretical is rooted in personal mystical experience. Both examples testify to the impact of the revived interest in the experience and practices witnessed in the Philokalia. The witness to the experience of deification in the life Seraphim of Sarov (1759–1833) is to be seen against the background of the adoption of aspects of the Western European Enlightenment in the Russian Empire from the late seventeenth century onwards. The reforms of the Church by Tsars such as Peter the Great and Catherine II led to the closure of many Russian monasteries. However, during the second half of the eighteenth century there was a spiritual revival within the monastic life. The life of Seraphim of Sarov provides a clear witness to this revival. His understanding of spiritual warfare and his theology and experience of ‘charismatic shining’ sits in the tradition of the Philokalia and the practice of the Jesus Prayer. Seraphim was influenced in particular by Paissy Velitchkovsky (1722–94) a staretz from Moldova. He translated the Philokalia into Church Slavonic which was published in St Petersburg in 1793 under the title Dobrotoliubie. Some scholars claim that it is through this translation that the Philokalia attains its widest influence in Orthodoxy. Velitchkovsky is credited with beginning a neo-Hesychast revival in Russian and Moldovan monasteries, and which contributed to a revival of starchestvo [staretsism] the practice of spiritual leadership and direction which St Seraphim developed after his time as a hermit. Further evidence of the influence of this movement can be seen in the nineteenth-century publication, The Way of a Pilgrim, the work of an anonymous Russian monk, which details the practice of the Jesus Prayer and the study of the Philokalia.48 Tikhon of Zadonsk, bishop of Voronezh (1724–82) is another witness to this revival. He experienced visions of the divine light and wrote of the transfiguring power of the resurrection, mediated through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Despite his ascetical life and mystical experiences Seraphim was not elitist in his understanding of prayer and spirituality. He encourages his lay disciple Nicholas Motovilov in his catechism on the Holy Spirit by insisting that God makes no distinction between the monk and the lay man. ‘The Lord hears the prayers of a simple layman just as he does a monk’s, provided they are both living in true faith and loving God from the depths 48

The Way of a Pilgrim (London: SPCK, 1972).

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of their heart.’49 Such an understanding is an important aspect of Orthodox tradition which is often perceived, perhaps especially by those hostile to or sceptical about theoˉsis, as a tradition which favours a spiritual elite of mystic monks. Here in the teachings of Seraphim is evidence of a corporate and ‘democratic’ understanding of the spirituality which accompanies the metaphor of deification. Vladimir Solovyov [Soloviev] (1853–1900) is one of the main figures in the landscape of Russian philosophy and theology in the nineteenth century. In his early years he rejected Christianity but found faith again in his late teens and stands within the Russian Orthodox tradition. His approach to faith and religion led him to a strong interest in ecumenism particularly between Orthodoxy and the Roman Catholic Church. He taught philosophy in the University of Moscow and was known as a poet.50 It is through poetry that he expressed his mystical experiences. These experiences and his philosophical enquiry together inform his theological views, in which ‘unity’ plays an important role. It is in relation to this focus on unity that he explores the concept of Sophia and expounds his notion of sophiology and his understanding of God-manhood.51 His experience of the divine light, which he associates with wisdom [Sophia], is expressed in the concluding stanzas of the poem, Three Meetings: Still the slave of the vain world’s mind, But beneath rough matter’s rind, I’ve clearly seen eternal violet, rich royal purple, And felt the warm touch of divine light! Triumphing over death in wisdom’s light, Stilling the dream of time from its unyielding flight, Eternal Beloved, your name is held hid by my utmost plight, And forgive my timorous song!52 Solovyov’s exposition of sophiology is something which in the long term was officially rejected by the Russian Orthodox Church but continues to

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Cited by Bobrinskoy, B., ‘Introduction’ in V. Zander, St Seraphim of Sarov (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999), p. xii. For example, Solovyov, V., The Crisis of Western Philosophy: Against the Postivists, (Lindisfarne Press, 1996); Three Encounters (Three Meetings) 1875. Solovyov, V., ‘Lectures on Godmanhood’ (1878) in V. S. Solovyov and E. L. Radlov (eds), Collected Works of V. S. Solovyov (St Petersburg, 1911–14; Brussels, 1966). Solovyov, V., concluding stanzas of the Three Meetings (http://www.poetry-chaikhana. com/S/SolovyovVlad/ThreeMeeting.htm), accessed 2 June 2009. English version by Ivan M. Granger.

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fascinate theologians today.53 However, I shall focus on his understanding of unity and God-manhood, which are generally deemed to be more within a traditionally Orthodox framework of Christian theology. The expression of Solovyov’s understanding of unity has particular implications for the construal of ecclesiology and a relational interpretation of deification. His focus on unity is manifest in his understanding of the universal character of Christianity, which he expresses in the terms: panwholeness, worldwideness and globalism. This ecclesial manifestation of unity is rooted in prior Christological claims: ‘The all-connecting pivot in the unity is the Godman Christ. “Godmanhood” [bogočelovečestvo] is the historical-theological realization of pan-unity.’54 He understands that the union achieved in Christ is a union of things divine and human, a union of spirit and matter, eternity and time; it is the culmination of evolution and the beginning of the deification of humankind and world. ‘God-manhood’ is an uncommon term, which, in Solovyov’s usage, encompasses not only the divine Incarnation but also its outcome – redeemed humankind. Solovyov expresses his understanding of redemption in the terms: obožestvlenie [deification], preobrazovanie [transformation] and pereoždenie [rebirth], which he understands as not so much as a future outcome as a present reality. ‘Redemption is considered to be a harmonic-evolutionary process, instead of an eschatological break in history; and as a cosmic and collectively human event, instead of an appeal from God aimed at the individual human being.’55 God-manhood is then a collectivist concept, for Christ’s ‘act’ of redemption is contained in his cosmic function of re-creator of mankind. Solovyov rejects Western understandings of redemption, both Catholic and Protestant, as satisfaction for the ‘disturbed legal relation with God’. Although he understands salvation to be collectivist, he warns against any political or ideological understandings of salvation, particularly those associated with socialism, for salvation is understood to be based solely on the divine–human unity, found in Christ and presently in the Church. Thus, he understands that the task of the Church is to bring about unity for all humankind.56 The Church is the ‘world-wide [vsemirnaja] organisation of true life’. The Church is the mediator between divine life and physical life; it is the divine–human life in which eternity is achieved in time and which is at the same time the realization of divine love in human freedom. It is in effect an instance of collective divine–human synergy. Solovyov’s influence is received mainly through his appropriation by Bulgakov. But his understandings of redemption as 53 54

55 56

For example, Milbank, ‘Sophiology and Theurgy’. Bercken, W. Van den, ‘The Ecumenical Vision of Vladimir Solovyov’, Exchange, 28(4) (1999): 314. Bercken, ‘Ecumenical Vision’, p. 314. Solovyov, V., History and Future of Theocracy (1889); Russia and the Universal Church (published in French 1889).

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deification and of the Church as the corporate means of achieving Godmanhood in the present remain key concepts for an understanding of deification which goes beyond the interior experience of the individual. The reception of the Philokalia in nineteenth-century Russia facilitated not only a spiritual revival but also a theological renewal which was based on the core element of experience. The concepts which Solovyov developed contribute to an understanding that deification is not simply a private concern or experience but something which forms and frames the Church as a believing community in its relationship with God’s purposes for the whole cosmos. This conceptuality provides a strong basis for my own purposes in construing the metaphor of deification as a relational doctrine today.

The Middle Ages The reception and interpretation of the work of theologians in the Middle Ages by neo-Palamite writers in the twentieth century is focused mainly around two authors, Symeon the New Theologian and Gregory Palamas. Their place in the firmament of the defenders of Orthodoxy is secured partly through their inclusion in the Philokalia and in the case of Palamas through the vindication of his views in the outcome of the Hesychast controversy in the mid-fourteenth century. Their place in the construal of Orthodox history is a further indication of the importance of the Philokalia as a means by which present-day Orthodoxy has come to understand itself. Symeon and Gregory are key figures in the presentation of a Hesychast understanding of prayer and of the outcome of the Christian Life in deification. The period from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries in the Byzantine Empire and the Orthodox Church was one in which controversy and the threat of the Ottoman Turks were never far away. The period witnesses the ongoing struggles relating to the filioque controversy with the Latin Church, which informs the context of the Hesychast controversy. During this period there is a movement of renewal in secular learning and ‘humanism’ which is also part of the background to the Hesychast revival. I will focus primarily upon the figures elected by the neo-Palamites: Symeon the New Theologian and Gregory Palamas, but in addition I will illustrate the theological temper of the period with a brief examination of the ideas of Michael Psellus, and Gregory Scholarius, who became the first Patriarch following the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople as Gennadios II. It will also be important to acknowledge the work of Prochorus Cydones, a monk of Mount Athos, who represents another dimension of this period – the increasing interest in Latin theology among some Orthodox theologians. The work of Michael Psellus (c.1018–78) provides a remarkable example of the renaissance in learning which occurred in the Byzantine world from the eleventh century onwards and produced what has been called a 95

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‘Christian Hellenism’.57 Psellus was a polymath working in many disciplines, including philosophy and theology. In relation to the metaphor of deification he explores the use of image and likeness,58 the understanding of deification in terms of perfection,59 and he reiterates the concept