No longer the bloggers who say "Dox"

We are no longer the bloggers who say "Dox" but the bloggers who say Miko-Michail-Mike's Book Blog. The transliterated Greek apparently has gotten to Mike and having thrown off the glory of his old book review blog, he has - as a butterfly leaping forth from the caterpillar's cocoon - remade the good thing even better. Now his blog sits as the risen and exalted blog, bearing an altogether new kind of glory; yet still recognizable in its authorship. It is just, well, simply eschatological.

If you haven't visited my friend Mike Vendsel's Book Blog you really should. It's that good.

Snapshot of Problems with Origen

[ This relates to The Originist Crisis of the Sixth Century, (chapter 3) in John Meyendorff's Christ in Eastern Christian Thought. This is not the Synopsis of the chapter, but a precursor. ]

• Cosmology: Creation is co-eternal with God.
  
  
• Anthropology: Like Plato, Origen believed in the pre-existence of souls.
  
  
• Christology: Christ is not the λόγος (logos). Rather Christ is a soul that inhabited a human body (Platonic influence). This is similar to the "assumed man" of Nestorius that did not distinguish between eternal generation of the Son and creation in time.
  
  
• Eschatology: There is not a bodily resurrection; rather, Origen held to ἀποκατάστασις (apokatastasis), which is the belief that we are freed from our bodies and returned to our original immaterial state. Under the rubric of ἀποκατάστασις even Satan will be restored.

Two Leptas Worth of Piety Please

Mark 12:41-44 (NA26) ⁴¹ Καὶ καθίσας κατέναντι τοῦ γαζοφυλακίου ἐθεώρει πῶς ὁ ὄχλος βάλλει χαλκὸν εἰς τὸ γαζοφυλάκιον. καὶ πολλοὶ πλούσιοι ἔβαλλον πολλά· ⁴² καὶ ἐλθοῦσα μία χήρα πτωχὴ ἔβαλεν λεπτὰ δύο, ὅ ἐστιν κοδράντης. ⁴³ καὶ προσκαλεσάμενος τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι ἡ χήρα αὕτη ἡ πτωχὴ πλεῖον πάντων ἔβαλεν τῶν βαλλόντων εἰς τὸ γαζοφυλάκιον· ⁴⁴ πάντες γὰρ ἐκ τοῦ περισσεύοντος αὐτοῖς ἔβαλον, αὕτη δὲ ἐκ τῆς ὑστερήσεως αὐτῆς πάντα ὅσα εἶχεν ἔβαλεν ὅλον τὸν βίον αὐτῆς.

⁴¹ And after he sat down across from the offering box, he was observing how the crowd cast copper money into the offering box. And many wealthy persons were casting much. ⁴² So when one poor widow came, she cast two leptas (which is equivalent to a Roman quadrans). ⁴³ Then after Jesus called his disciples along side him, he said to them, "Truly I say to you that the widow - this poor one - cast into the offering box more than all of those who are casting. ⁴⁴ For they all out of their abundance cast; but she out of her poverty cast in all, as much as she had - her whole life." (writer's translation)

Have you ever heard someone say, "Jesus talks to us about money more than any other subject"? In a sense that is very true and rightly so, for wealth can become a terrible snare for us. However, I am not so sure that the only lesson in the above passage is 'give all your money to the Temple.'

Luke testifies to Jesus saying, "Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the Kingdom of God." Matthew writes, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." I think Jesus is interested in teaching us greater and more painful lessons than simply 'do you give enough money to the Temple?'. Money, wealth and poverty are the symbols, much like words, through which Jesus teaches us about the state of our souls before Him. We are as paupers who stand on street corners proclaiming our wealth, only demonstrating a sad psychosis.

The widow gave her whole life to the Temple. That is the lesson to Christ's disciples then and now. The Temple has always represented the place of God's presence; hence, giving to the Temple was to give to God. The word βίος (bios) is a word that does in fact mean life and here would seem to be used as a double entendre, having a double meaning. The second sense of the word is that of a person's subsistence, related to how the support themselves. Yes, the widow gave all of her subsistence to the Temple; however, Jesus is using this living picture to teach us to give our whole lives, all that we have and are to him.

Forget your checkbook for a second. How much of ourselves do we withhold from Christ who bought us in our totality? How much of our minds do we block off for our own purposes and pleasures? We parade ourselves as knowing what true pleasure is, and all the while we have shunned Him, that is the True Pleasure who is Christ. We have settled for little when Christ has given much. Lord have mercy on us, your people, that our appetites might be ravenous for Christ and Him alone. Amen.

³ We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. ⁴ Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; ⁵ in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; ⁶ in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; ⁷ in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; ⁸ through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; ⁹ known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; ¹⁰ sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything. (2 Cor 6:3-10 NIV, emphasis mine)

2. Chalcedonians and Monophysites

[ This is the second of eleven chapters out of John Meyendorff's Christ in Eastern Christian Thought ]

Synopsis of the Chapter
Unfortunately, the new distinction between φύσις and ὑπόστασις that Chalcedon introduced proved to be a catalyst for further misunderstandings, which can be categorized into four groups:

1. Dyophysites: These theologians remained faithful to Antiochene Christology and considered Chalcedon a post humous victory for Theodore of Mopsuestia - and a partial disavowal of Cyril of Alexandria.
2. Monophysites: Considered Chalcedon a return to Nestorianism. Rejecting the council they retained Cyril's formulation "one single incarnate nature of the God-Word" which undoubtedly consisted of "two natures" (εκ δύο φύσεων).
   
3. Neo-Chalcedonians: This group saw the council as not disavowing Cyril but merely condemned Eutyches. By saying "one hypostasis" Chalcedon was seen as upholding Cyril's argument against Nestorius.
4. Leontiusites: None of the above groups were able to rectify the terminological problems created by the Chalcedonian definition. In the first half of the sixth century, armed with Origenist metaphysics, Leontius of Byzantium (et al.) forged ahead with a creative effort towards a solution.

"The period between Chalcedon (451) and the beginning of Justian's reign (527) was dominated by a fruitless debate between the Monophysites and the strict Dyophysites." In the Chalcedonian corner was Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, who, as a friend of Nestorius, openly opposed not only Eutyches but also Cyril. "His refutations of the Twelve Anathematisms and the Council of Ephesus were remembered by everyone" (p. 31). He rejected any notion of theopaschism, believing that it was only Christ's human body, not his soul or divinity, that was resurrected from the dead. Significantly, Theodoret identified the single hypostasis defined by Chalcedon with the concept of a single πρόσωπον (prosopon, face). The choosing to ignore the way Chalcedon used hypostasis to explain prosopon caused further confusion.

Patriarch Gennadius of Constantinople (458-471), in his opposition to Cyril's Anathematisms, translated essential terms in such away that strict Cyrillians could not accept (p. 33). Gennadius avoided the term Θεοτόκος (theotokos) and ὑπόστασις (hypostatic union). His successors to the patriarchal see, namely Acacius, were forced under political duress to later betray Chalcedon.

The political duress gave way to the theopaschite controversies of the first years of the sixth century under Patriarch Macedonius (495-511), who was a rigid Chalcedonian. The Chalcedonism of the Acoemetae, the main adversaries of Monophysitism during the first part of the sixth century, was also an Antiochene interpretation of Chalcedon (i.e., contra Cyrillian interpretations). Pope John II would later decree the Acoemetae to be Nestorians (p 35-6).

So we see the rise of the Antiochene school, with Theodoret at the helm, over against its chief competition that had been in the Alexandrian school headed by Cyril. Monophysite theologians saw Nestorianism in these Antiochene articulations and consequently viewed the Council of Chalcedon as Monophysite, "in spite of the fact that the Council anathematized Nestorius and exalted the memory of Cyril" (p 36). The surest of Nestorianism for these Monophysites was the denial that 'the incarnate Word suffered in the flesh.' So theopaschism became the litmus test.

Ironically, the Chalcedonians continued to identify φύσις (fusis) and ὑπόστασις (hypostasis) which were two terms between which the Council had made definitive distinction. Joseph Lebon's Monophysitism identified Severus' doctrine of incarnation as essentially Cyrillian Christology. What must be kept clear is that Cyrillian Christology does not imply Eutychianism. "The debate between Antioch and Alexandria begun at the time of the Council of Ephesus was merely continuing as if the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon had not taken place" (p 37).

Timothy Aelurus gives us the simple logic of the Monophysites of the time: "if there are two natures, there are also necessarily two persons; but if there are two persons, there are also two Christs" (p 38). Flowing from this premise, the Monophysites argued that if Christ's humanity was only such 'by economy' and not 'by nature' then his humanity was transitory and imaginary and thus resulted in Nestorianism. We can see this in the following quote from Philoxenus:

The Word was not changed into flesh when he took a body from it, and the flesh was not transformed into the Word's nature when it was united to it.

Philoxenus considers Christ fully human and although his position has an Apollonarian origin, he refuses to interpret it in this sense and asserts against Eutyches that Christ is consubstantial with us (humanity).

This seems to beg the question, "How can we say that Christ was in possession of his own body, soul and spirit?" Severus answers by saying that Christ's single nature possesses all the natural qualities (ἰδίοώματα) of humanity (p. 40). He argues that before the incarnation the Word was a simple nature; however, after the incarnation the Logos became composite in regard to the flesh (σύνθετος πρός τήν σάρκα). For Severus Christ is without a doubt made "out of two natures" (ἐκ δύο φύσεων); however, the union of the two natures results in a transforming into one nature. Severus, out of faithfulness to Cyril, refused to say "two natures after the union [of the incarnation]" because Cyril never said it, consequently leading him to a Monophysite rigor that Cyril never had (p 42).

Following Aristotle, Severus' one nature had only one ἐνέργεια (energy, activity). "This is why the formula in the Tome of Leo on the active properties of each nature -- agit utraque form cum alterius communione quod proprium est -- taken over by the Chalcedonian definition, 'each nature keeping its own way of being,' was for the Monophysites most difficult to admit. In their eyes two energies meant two beings; thus, the hypostatic union reduced to an illusion (p 42). In response Severus made a distinction between ἐνέργεια and ἐνέργηθέντα (works), referring to what is done by the activity.

In this way, Severus was attempting to reconcile the Chalcedonian and Monophysite positions. However, in denying that Christ's human existence was in terms of φύσις (nature) or ἐνέργεια (activity) he begged the question: Is "a human nature without human energy a true human nature?"

The Antiochene interpretation of ὑπόστασις as a mere synonym of πρόσωπον (face) did not demonstrate for the Monophysites that Chalcedon had remained true to Cyril of Alexandria. The hypostasis, according to the Council, was the 'point where the particularities of the two natures meet' and consequently the Council did not say that the hypostasis of the union of Christ's two natures was the pre-existent hypostasis of the Logos.

Chalcedonians responded by invoking the Trinitarian terminology of the Cappadocians. Both Chalcedonian and Severian orthodoxy proclaimed that Christ was consubstantial to the Father in his divinity and consubstantial to humanity in his human nature (p 45). However, the invocation of the Cappadocian formulations for the Trinity proved problematic. Severus would argue that in identifying essence and nature in Christology would presuppose that the whole Trinity had become incarnate!

At the end of the day, a specifically Byzantine theology provided the Church with the elements of a genuine solution, consisting in a new awareness of the hypostatic union. "This re-interpretation of Chalcedon played in relationship to the council a role similar in all aspects to the role the Cappadocian Fathers played in relationship to Nicaea" (p 46).

PhotoIconic Updated

For those of you who admire photography or at least honest attempts at it be they ever so amateur, PhotoIconic, my photoblog, has been updated with photos from my trip to Notre Dame (to hear my wife give a paper on the place for a qualified fideism at a philosophy conference on Mystery). I have also added a few pics from Turtle Creek in Dallas, St. Petersburg, Russia and Kirov, Russia.

Imagine a New World in Which God Speaks

A quote from another book I am reading lately:

But consider what would emerge if the clergy accepted as their modest role the voicing of scripture material, without excessive accommodating -- that is, without accommodation to political liberalism or political reactionism [conservatism?], without accommodation to religious orthodoxy or critical urbaneness, but only uttered the voice of the text boldly, as it seems to present itself, even through it does not seem to connect to anything....What is yearned for among us is not a new doctrine or new morality, but new world, new self, new future.¹

What I like about Brueggemann is that he makes me think and imagine, often because his books can make me as uncomfortable as they encourage me. On the one hand, he is really directing people, namely pastors and priests, back to scripture as it is, apart from our hopes for what we think it should be. Letting Scripture speak on its own terms is in my view the best way to learn about God's imagination. On the other hand, he has set up for us dichotomies that I am not sure follow. In other words, it does not seem to me that "religious orthodoxy" or critical prowess (which I take to be a reference to proficiency in Textual Criticism) are necessarily opposed to letting the text speak for itself.

If the Scriptures are in fact the articulation of the imagination of God, as it were, then it would seem that they, on their own terms, are concerned about both orthodoxy and orthopraxy. In this way, Church Tradition would seem to be entailed in this articulation of the supreme imagination. Further, it would appear that if the Scriptures are in fact the articulation in textual form of God's revealed imagination then, of course, critical prowess is significant because we need to know what was in fact articulated.

However, if I understand the spirit of what Brueggemann is after, it is that in confusing the energies or effects of the divine imagination with its essence, we make the minor the major, missing the forest for the trees. Though the texts may "not seem to connect to anything", I believe that Brueggemann is directing us towards that, with which they do, as a matter of fact, connect. It is not primarily that the scriptures give us magnificent doctrines, but that the proclaim a new world order of which we may be a part in Christ. The scriptures point us in fact to the very essence of that for which we long. We behold Christ who is the essence of morality, the essence of beauty the essence of what it is to be made new. We behold in the scriptures the articulation of the One who has made himself know to us existentially; the incarnate imagination of God, who has caused us in authentic angst to cry out to Him, "I am yours, save me!"


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¹ Brueggemann, Walter. Texts Under Negotiation: The Bible and Postmodern Imagination. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), pp 20-21, 25.

St. Maximus the Confessor on Humanity before the Fall

I realize this is a little out of order, since I had said I was going to go through Meyendorff's Christ in Eastern Christian Thought chapter by chapter. However, this quote from chapter 7, "The Cosmic Dimension of Salvation," is worth sharing with you now. St. Maximus writes:

Today man in his actions is possessed by the irrational imagination of the passions, deceived by concupiscence, or pre-occupied either by the contrivances of science because of his needs, or by the desire to learn the principles of nature according to its laws. None of these compulsions existed for man originally, since he was above everything. For thus man must have been in the beginning: in no way distracted by what was beneath him or around him or near him, and desiring perfection in nothing except irresistible movement, with all the strength of love towards the One who was above him, i.e., God.

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see page 138 of Meyendorff's Christ in Eastern Christian Thought

αυτεξούσιος κίνησις, free movement, is for Maximus always a direction towards God and is the ultimate purpose or goal of humanity's existence.

1. Christology in the Fifth Century

[ This is the first of eleven chapters out of John Meyendorff's Christ in Eastern Christian Thought ]

Synopsis of the Chapter
The Council of Chalcedon in 451 opened a new era in Eastern Christian thought and at the same time caused a schism within the Eastern Church that endures to this day. It was at this Council that Christ was defined as one person with two unconfused natures (human and divine). Furthermore, this council was the collision of two waring schools of thought. On the one hand was the school of Antioch and on the other the school of Alexandria, led by Cyril an "ebullient" scholar. Out of the ashes of this conflict, Byzantine theology would accomplish a "creative synthesis between the traditions of Alexandria and Antioch" (p 14). The differences between the two schools center on soteriology (doctrine of salvation).

The two schools arose out of a previous controversy over the nature of God, the Trinitarian controversy that flowed into and out of the Council at Nicea. Nicea simultaneously opposed Arius and Apollonarius. The school at Antioch sought to refute the Apollonarian heresies while the Alexandrian school focused on rebuffing the Arian. "The two schools, formed by different mentalities and exegetical methods, produced ultimately contradictory Christologies" (p. 15).

Part of the difficulty, of course, comes from the fact that the theological vocabulary of the times was still in its infancy. Theodore of Mopsuestia, in trying to rectify the ambiguity in Antiochene Christology between the "assuming Word" and the "man assumed" introduced the formula: "one person (πρόσωπον) and two natures (φύσεις)" (p. 16). This terminology still had problems insofar as πρόσωπον can be taken to mean 'mask' (i.e., that Jesus just appeared as a person) and therefore did not require the Virgin Birth. This was the "object of conflict between Nestorius, a disciple of Theodore, and St. Cyril of Alexandria" (p. 16-17).

Over against Apollonarius, Antioch sought to preserve Christ's whole human nature. In so doing representatives of this school would never accept Cyril's theopaschism, that it was God who died upon the cross. "Theopaschism ... was the surest sign of Monophysitism and implied in Christ the absence of a genuine human nature,..." (p. 17). "In opposition to Antioch, Cyril of Alexandria tended to stress mainly that salvation is given and accomplished by God alone" (p. 18). Since he understood Christ not as a cooperation of human and divine but a union of the two, to reject the Virgin Mary's ancient title θεοτόκος (theotokos) was to reject that Mary bore the whole undivided Christ. It is to deny the mystery of the Incarnation. Cyril's terminology was still insufficient to "provide the framework of a universally acceptable Christology" and tended towards an "anthropological minimalism" (p. 19) and would seem to be the basis for his being a suspected Monophysite.

In Cyril's attack of Nestorian ideologies, he employs the terminology of μία φύσις (one nature) ... μία ὑπόστασις (one substance), which sounds Apollonarian. Elsewhere, we are affirmed that Cyril was not Apollonarian, for he writes, "that two natures became united without separation, without confusion and without transformation..." (p. 20). It is clear that the meaning of φύσις and ὑπόστασις for Cyril do not both identical.

Cyril's victory at Ephesus in 431 had the negative effect of defeating the "Nestorian temptation" and positively taught that Christ's Humanity was wholly human, "constituting the principle of the deification to which all those who are 'in Christ' are destined." It was at Ephesus that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was designated θεοτόκος (theotokos), the Mother of God, because she was not the mother of Christ's flesh but the mother of the whole Christ, who was God in flesh (p. 21).

Cyril, for an unknown reason did not apply the existing and accepted Cappadocian definitions of φύσις (fusis), οὐσία (ousia), and ὑπόστασις (hypostasis); thus, he had great difficulty shaking the Apollinarian suspicions that had plagued him. As with most great thinkers, the followers tend towards extremes that their predecessor never intended. Indeed "the heresy of Eutyches drew attention to the dangers of triumphant Alexandrianism", which quickly became "the only criterion of orthodoxy" (p. 23).

The Synod of Constantinople in 448, presided over by Bishop Flavian, condemned Eutyches, a monophysite who would not confess two natures of Christ existing after the union of the human and divine. Dioscorus of Alexandria engineered the reversal of the Synod of Constantinople in what has come to be known as the "Robber Council" which was prosecuted under the "martial leadership" of Cyril's nephew in the name of Cyril's theology.

The Council at Chalcedon in 451 would reverse the ruling of the Robber Council, condemning Monophysitism as "fundamentally repugnant to the Eastern Church, except Egypt alone" (p. 24). The problem with Cyril's terminology continued and ultimately it was by making recourse to Western Christology that the distinction between nature and hypostasis was made. Pope Leo's Tome to Flavian provided a way to uphold the full reality of the two substantiae in Christ without being Nestorian. This served to keep the Antiochene school from being overtaken by the great Monophysite wave, while at the same time, Cyril's great insight about the basic unity of Christ was not abandoned (p 24). The Council of Chalcedon identified Pope Leo's persona with ὑπόστασις and put an end to Cyril's μία φύσις (one nature). Significant excerpts from the Chalcedonian definition follow:

...truly God and truly man, the same consisting of a reasonable soul and body...born from the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos, as touching the manhood, one and the same Chrirst, son, Lord, Only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of the natures being in no way abolished because of the union ... (p. 25-6).

There was much laborious compromise before the final text of the Council was produced. Each bishop voted that Pope "Leo's [Tome to Flavian] was ... a new expression of the true faith proclaimed at Nicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus, and in Cyril's letters" (p. 27). Positively, resulted in theologians having adequate language by which to simultaneously address Christ's unity and duality. Negatively, proponents of the hypostatic union were unsatisfied in their fundamental soteriological point. The ultimate deification of humanity could be sustained only if Christ's wholeness not be undermined.

Reflections on the Chapter
As I reflect on this chapter, I am amazed at the voracity that these bishops had for veracity about their Savior. At tension here are conceptions of soteriology (doctrine of salvation) as well as the obvious Christology. The discussion orbits around the Incarnation. For what purpose did God become human and in what degree did He accomplish this?

Monophysite and Orthodox alike see the need for underscoring the unity of Christ and at the same time the mystery of the Lord's dualism presents an insurrmountable tension at which we poke with little words hoping to articulate something of its magnitude. As the incarnate God, Jesus is also the eschatological man. I still struggle to get my head around much of the Eastern Church's terminology; however, the idea of deification seems to mirror much of what the Reformed tradition has at least at one time taught. Christ is the person who is truly human, because he alone kept covenant with the Living God. He lived with an active obedience in such a way that He was himself righteous. He willingly gave himself upon the cross, as a substitute for the salvation of His church, who lives their lives in Christ (εν Χριστω). The heinousness of sin is that Humanity, being made in God's image, does precisely what is unlike God. Christ the Eschatological Human does what is like God and to such a degree that he tells Thomas, "if you have seen me you have seen the Father." It is precisely in this true imago Dei (image of God), the Lord Jesus, that believers are transformed into His likeness. It is this mystical union that does in fact have a telos (goal, purpose) which is nothing short of restoring the likeness of God to humanity as God's image.

Just thoughts... I would love your comments.

Christ in Eastern Christian Thought by Fr. John Meyendorff

Over the next several days I wanted to walk through a book with you in a chapter-by-chapter manner. It is a book that I have found exhilarating and insightful, enriching and challenging - all at once. Christ in Eastern Christian Thought is a book by John Meyendorff that is all these things. Here's all the technical information:

Meyendorff, John. Christ in Eastern Christian Thought. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1975. 248 pages. ISBN 0-913836-27-3. [View Table of Contents]

The historical approach to the discussion, of what many Westerners would want to discuss under the systematic rubric of Christology, is at once exigent and refreshing. It is exigent because Western minds have been largely taught to think in purely systematic categories¹ and this book is not a systematic approach to Christology; however, it is very Christological. It is refreshing because at the center of this historical work is Christ, his Spirit working out illumination in His people, the Church.

To get the most out of this exercise together, I want to preface with this summary of ideologies that will be critical to have down so that you may benefit most from Fr. Meyendorff'’s work.

Summary of Ideologies

• Nestorianism: The belief that Christ existed as two persons (divine and human) not as God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, for ever (Gk. θεάνθροπος).
• Monophysitism: Comes from the Greek μονο- (mono-), meaning "one"” and ‑φύσις (-fusis), meaning "“nature"”. This is the belief that Christ possessed only one nature not two. There are several variations and degrees of Monophysitism and these are outlined below.
• Arianism: An early 4^th century controversy that most basically taught that the Father and the Son were not co-eternal. Jesus was divine but created and thus inferior, ontologically speaking, to the Father.

Facets of Monophysitism

• Eutychianism: Christ had two natures, but his human nature was swallowed up by the divine as "“a drop of honey in the sea."
• Apollonarianism: Christ had a human body (i.e., a "“living principle"”) but not a rational soul (Gk. νους). The rational soul of normal humans had been supplanted by the Divine Logos.
• Cyril of Alexandria: A very important Church Father who was Monophysite but certainly not Eutychian (Meyendorff, p. 37). The Fifth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon vindicated him in 533 (not to be confused with the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD). Chalcedon (533) would condemn Eutyches but would clearly not disavow Cyril.

I look forward to sharing with you the many nuggets of gold that I have found in Meyendorff'’s work. My bias is that of a Presbyterian and so my criticisms will likely reflect that; however, my prayer is that they would be most charitable and honoring to Christ and Fr. Meyendorff, from whom I have learned much.

Table of Contents

1. Christology in the Fifth Century
2. Chalcedonians and Monophysites
3. The Origenist Crisis of the Sixth Century (1 of 2)
   The Origenist Crisis of the Sixth Century (2 of 2)
   
   Snapshot of Problems with Origen
   
4. "God Suffered in the Flesh" (1 of 2)
   "God Suffered in the Flesh" (2 of 2)
   
5. Pseudo-Dionysius (1 of 2)
   Pseudo-Dionysius (2 of 2)
   
6. The Spiritual Writers: Salvation, Asceticism, and Deification (1 of 2)
   The Spiritual Writers: Salvation, Asceticism, and Deification (2 of 2)
   
7. The Cosmic Dimension of Salvation: Maximus the Confessor
   Excerpt on Humanity before the Fall
   
8. An Effort at Systematization: St. John of Damascus
9. Vision of the Invisible: The Iconoclastic Crisis
10. Christology in Late Byzantium
11. Conclusion

N.B. I hope to have links from this table of contents as the chapter discussions are published on this blog.

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¹ If you have read my blog much you will know that I am very partial to the Dutch/Continental flavor of Reformed theology which does a good job of balancing the historia salutis with the ordo salutis.

The God of the Living

Exodus 3:6 (BHSMORPH)

⁶ וַיֹּאמֶר אָנֹכִי אֱלֹהֵי אָבִיךָ אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹהֵי יִצְחָק וֵאלֹהֵי יַעֲקֹב וַיַּסְתֵּר מֹשֶׁה פָּנָיו כִּי יָרֵא מֵהַבִּיט אֶל־הָאֱלֹהִים׃

And he said, "I am myself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. (writer's translation)

Rationalists of every age have sought to deny the power of God to raise that which He has made from the condemnation of death. The Sadducees, the Jewish Rationalists of Christ's time, sought to expose the foolishness of the Resurrection. They only viewed the first five books of Moses as scripture (more than contemporary rationalists) and yet the were intent on reading those five books through a naturalistic lens.¹

The hope that Christ extends on the basis of these first books of revelation to us is that God is the God of the Living, not the dead (Mark 12:27). He is the Protector, the Divine Warrior, who continues to fight for His people - not just their memories and impressions, but their reality which is itself being remade. It is in Christ that His people are raised up, in a truly human state. The ressurrection is the truest hope when humanity will finally have been purged of our inherent contradiction and will be living as we were created to be - in perfect harmony with God and consequently ourselves, forever.

Indeed, and as a matter of fact, Christ is Risen, the first born from among the dead. It is so.

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¹ Farley, Lawrence. The Gospel of Mark : The Suffering Servant. The Orthodox Bible Study Companion Series. (Ben Lomond, Calif.: Conciliar Press, 2004) p. 197.

O Sacred Head Now Wounded

Bernard of Clairvaux
Eleventh century A.D.

O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown;
How pale Thou art with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn!
How does that visage languish, which once was bright as morn!

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest friend,
For this Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever, and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee.

I haven't made it through even just these three stanzas without being overwhelmed. The last half of the third stanza is one of the greatest statements I think I have ever prayed in song. What an Easter statement. Christ is Risen! Χριστος ανεστι! Иисус воскрес!

Revelation 21:6-7 - David's Son Reigns (Bibliography)

Resource
Beale, Gregory K. The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text. in The New International Greek Testament Commentary. Edited by I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.

Caird, George Bradford. The Revelation of St. John the Divine. 1st ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.

Johnson, Dennis E. Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation. Phillipsburg: P&R, 2001.

Kistemaker, Simon J. Exposition of the Book of Revelation. Vol. 20 of New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2001.

Revelation 21:6-7 - David's Son Reigns (Part 5 of 5)

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The Saint’s Place in Christ
Since it is the same all encompassing God, the Alpha and the Omega of the promises and of History, who makes us stand firm in Christ (2 Cor 1:21), the saint has full assurance that these promises given Christ are most surely his or her own. That is to say that the nature of God’s character, his covenant, his promises and the sure means by which he both obtains these for us and redeems us for them give us great hope to know that we who are in Christ will indeed prevail as overcomers to the very End.

In the Russian Context, На Русском Контексте
To apply this passage to a particular people group, I would encourage my Russian brothers and sisters in light of the aftermath of all the failed and hollow promises of the former communist regime and their tendency to view America as a salvation. Communism, Socialism and Democratic-Capitalism are all snowflakes on the furnace of history. They are not all encompassing nor can they do much of what they promise to do. Legislated capitalism may provide more sustenance than communism did and much more than the poorly legislated (unlegislated?) capitalism that exploits the Russian people now. However, that sustenance will perish, and ultimately leave a person from any country in a wasteland of emptiness.

What has a Russian to hope for? How can one who has sold her soul to the Party, only to see the Party die and fail her now have any hope that the promises made by some other ideology (e.g., Christianity) are worth the risk of so great a humiliation again? The Bible’s answer is profound. Communism and Capitalism have not the sovereignty over history and humanity that God Almighty does. Human Politico-Economic systems have hope in what depraved people should do, but do not do. In Christianity, the promises of God are placed fully on God’s ability to fulfill them in the God-Man, Jesus Christ. Where Human systems hope in an uncertain (and unattainable) future of fallen people, the Promises of God are secure in Messiah’s historic accomplishments of the past and his sovereign rule over all that was, and is and is to come.

Revelation 21:6-7 - David's Son Reigns (Part 4 of 5)

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Conquering, Inheritance and Sonship
“But there is more in this word than the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. It contains the very heart of John’s vision of heaven. Before he attempts to summon up the full resources of language to depict what is beyond language and thought, he leaves us with this first indelible impression that heaven is belonging to the family of God.”¹ That is to say all that are in Christ are heirs with Christ. It is Christ who has swallowed up death in victory (1 Cor. 15:54-57, c.f., Isa 25:8). This victory over death is shared by all who are united to Christ through the Gospel, through faith in Jesus (Rom. 8:17; Gal. 3:26-4:7; Eph. 3:6; Titus 3:7).

Kistemaker notes well that in John’s citation of 2 Samuel 7:14, he replaces the word ‘father’ in the 2 Samuel verse with the word ‘God’ in the Revelation 21:7 verse, and suggests that this is because

For us, the link between being children of God and being heirs is unbreakable. Whereas Jesus is the one and only Son, we are adopted sons and daughters. And whereas Jesus inherits all things (Heb. 1:2), we as co-heirs share in all his blessings….in Jesus Christ God has adopted us as his sons and daughters and made us members of his family (compare 2 Cor. 6:18). In Revelation, John never calls God the father of believers; yet he is the Father of Christ (1:6; 2:27).”²

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¹ Caird, 267.
² Kistemaker, 560.

2006 Easter Reflections

See also Christ the Conqueror (1 John 3:8)

In the resurrection of Christ it was proved that there was a man who could not be contained by death, could not be ruled by Satan, by the power of corruption, who was stronger than the grave and death and hell. In principle, therefore, Satan has as a matter of fact no longer the domionion over death. Christ by His death has overcome death (Heb. 2:14).

Herman Bavinck
Our Reasonable Faith, p 368.

The Gospel of Who's It Going to be This Time

A Westminster colleague of mine has made some helpful posts on the latest hu-ha on the Gospel of Judas. He has two parts as of today that I'll link for you here:

• Gospel of Judas Part 1
• Gospel of Judas Part 2
• NPR Interview on the Gospel of Judas
• Ben's Discussion of his participation in the NPR Interview

Thanks Ben.

Christ the Conqueror (1 John 3:8)

^{1Jn 3:8}ὁ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἐκ τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστίν, ὅτι ἀπ̓ ἀρχῆς ὁ διάβολος ἁμαρτάνει. εἰς τοῦτο ἐφανερώθη ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, ἵνα λύσῃ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ διαβόλου.

Those who practice sin are from the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. Into this [mess of a context] the Son of God was made manifest in order that he should destroy the works of the devil (writer's translation).

Many of us are most familiar with the Latin description of Christ's work as being a legal justification of the sinner before God on account of God's love for sinners. As ancient and important as this Anselmian understanding is, it is not the most ancient and I would say does not describe the other critical aspects of Christ's work on this earth as θεάνθροπος, the God-Man. 1 John makes plain to us that Christ is our Divine Warrior, our "Mighty Fortress", who has come to decimate his and now our enemies. The Most Holy God is one who is worthy of our reverence and weighty worship. For He alone has sent the devil packing. Indeed His D-Day incarnate invasion of this world was an absolute success and He has been raised from the dead to demonstrate this. We now live in the time in which we await the V-Day celebration in which the devil and his minions are marched through the streets of glory in humiliation before Christus Victor.

Revelation 21:6-7 - David's Son Reigns(Part 3 of 5)

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Christ as Fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant
Not only is Christ the all encompassing God of History and the source of life and salvation, he is the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. As previously noted, Revelation 21:1-8 is lavish with covenant language: blessings and cursings, obedience and disobedience, and “I will be your God and you will be my people” language. In 21:3 we read, “He will dwell with them as their God: they will be his peoples,…” As previously mentioned, Revelation 21:6-7 is in the context of covenantal blessings and cursings which hearken back to Deuteronomy 28. It is more specifically a fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant made in 2 Samuel 7:14:

2 Samuel 7:14 (NRSV) 14 I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings.

Revelation 21:7 (Writer’s) 7The one who is overcomes will inherit these things and I will be his God, and he will be my son.

The Davidic covenant is ultimately fulfilled in the singular masculine son¹ of 2 Samuel 7:14. The covenant language of Revelation 21:3 has been narrowed from people or peoples to a singular son. Ultimately the peoples and the people are by nature covenant breakers in dire need of a covenant keeping son to fulfill the Davidic Covenant. That son, clearly not being Solomon, is the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Kistemaker suggests that this is a mere allusion to the Davidic Covenant; rather, it appears that John the Apostle is exclaiming, “Jesus is the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant. Stop playing in the shadows and worship Him!”

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¹ As important as I deeply believe gender inclusive language to be in general, this is an instance where attempts to be gender-inclusive eradicate the OT connection to the NT fulfillment. Rev. 21:7 in the NRSV reads, “Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children.” The substantival participle ο νικων is not plural and it is masculine. Further God is spoken of in reference to a singular masculine son, not people or children in general because it is in direct reference to 2 Sam 7:14 which is also with reference to a single masculine son, not to children in general. That is to say, let’s be gender-inclusive in a conceptual way not simply on the basis of words.

The Magnitude of Christ in Our Midst Now

A Jesus who had died would be enough for us if Christianity were nothing more, and needed to be nothing more, than a doctrine for us to grasp with our mind, or a moral prescription and example which we had to follow. But the Christian religion is something very different and much more than that. It is the perfect redemption of the whole man, of the whole organism of mankind, and of the whole world. And Christ came to earth in order in this full sense to save the world. He did not come to achieve the possibility of salvation for us all, and then to leave to our free will the question of whether or not we would take advantage of the possibility. Instead, He humiliated Himself and became obedient even to the death on the cross in order really, perfectly and eternally to save us.¹

Perhaps we might transplant this quote into our own context this way. Christianity is far more transcendent than being a Republican or striving to maintain political conservatism. Christianity is far more immanent than a Gospel of being busy doing the right things or merely believing that the doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone (which is true) is what saves us. It is Christ that saves, Christ that gives life, Christ that reconciles us to the Father both now and into an eternal age in which we will not have much recollection of what a Republican or Democrat was. There will be far too much of Christ to need to conserve him.

That same Christ is in our midst even now, already here but not yet as He will be. Nevertheless that same Christ is in the midst of His church really and truly now.


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¹ Bavinck, Herman. Our Reasonable Faith. (Baker Books, 1977). p 363.

Revelation 21:6-7 - David's Son Reigns (Part 2 of 5)

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Fount of Living Water
Another theme that is prominent in both the Bible and this passage in Revelation is that of Christ as the source of living water. In the context of Revelation this could either be an attributive genitive (“fountain of living water”) or a genitive of apposition (“fountain of water, which is life”).¹

Beale further argues that the fountain of living water is in the context of a covenantal cursings and blessings formula. Revelation 21:7-8 certainly gives this connotation in light of the “I will be their God and they will be my people” concept, which runs through 21:3-8. Further, the blessings of 21:7 seems to be juxtaposed with the cursings of 21:8 in a way most intentionally drawing the reader back to these notions in Deuteronomy 28.

Revelation 22:1 sets forth Christ’s throne, sovereign rule, as the source of the river of life, the very fountain itself. The living water idea is found in John 4, where Christ identifies himself as source of the living water, which is conceptually that which will eternally and perfectly nourish the Syro-Phoenician woman so that she never thirsts again. That is to say that the living water is that which is true and eternal nourishment. John 6 conceptually equates that with Christ himself, who is the living bread or bread of life. That is the nourishment of life. That is to say that Christ is fulfilling what the Prophet Isaiah revealed:

8 Thus says the Lord:
In a time of favor I have answered you,
on a day of salvation I have helped you;
I have kept you and given you
as a covenant to the people,
to establish the land,
to apportion the desolate heritages;
9 saying to the prisoners, “Come out,”
to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”
They shall feed along the ways,
on all the bare heights shall be their pasture;
10 they shall not hunger or thirst,
neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down,
for he who has pity on them will lead them,
and by springs of water will guide them (Isa. 49:8-10, NRSV).²

In addition to being “resonant with the echoes of the Beatitudes,”³ the fountain of living water being Christ Jesus himself is the source and the sustenance of eternal life, that is life that does not die. In the context of the Bible as a whole, Christ, the Last Adam, offers freely (dwreavn) to the progeny of the First Adam the life source, which Adam the First failed to obtain (c.f., Romans 5:12-21). Adam was overcome. Christ overcame. This New Testament contrast echoes the very problem endemic to post-Edenic humanity which is found in Jeremiah 2:13:

13 for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water,
and dug out cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns
that can hold no water (Jer. 2:13 NRSV).

Here again, the Lord equates himself with the fountain of living water (מְקוֹר מַיִם חַיִּים), which his people forsake and then in His place erect idolatrous cisterns which cannot do what covenant breakers desire. This source of life idea ultimately returns us to the Garden in which Adam the First failed to obey God, having chosen instead disobedience by eating the fruit of the tree which was not a source of life but which brought death into the world.


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¹ Beale, 1056.
² See also, Genesis 16:7; Genesis 24:13; Genesis 24:43; Exodus 15:27; Numbers 33:9; Joshua 15:19; 1 Kings 18:5; 2 Kings 2:21; 2 Kings 3:19; 2 Kings 3:25; Psalm 107:33; Psalm 36:8-9; 107:35; 114:8; Song of Solomon 5:12; Isaiah 35:7; Isaiah 41:18; Isaiah 49:10; Isaiah 58:11; Jeremiah 2:13; 9:1; Joel 3:18; John 4:10,14; 7:38; Revelation 8:10; Revelation 14:7; Revelation 16:4.
³ Caird, 267.

Hail Mary Full of Grace

I have been enjoying how marvelous some of the Reformed writers of the late 19th century have articulated thoughts on the Uberdisciple (my term), Mary the mother of Jesus:

Mary enjoyed a high honor, an honor greater than the prophets and apostles ever had. She is the blessed, the favored, among women, and the mother of the Lord.

Bavinck, Herman. Our Reasonable Faith. p 336.

The person born of the Virgin Mary was a divine person. He was the Son of God. It is, therefore, correct to say that Mary was the mother of God. For, as we have seen, the person of Christ is in Scripture often designated from the divine nature, when the predicate is true only of the human nature. On this particular form of expression,
which, from its abuse, is generally offensive to Protestant ears, Turrettin remarks:

“Maria potest dici vere θεοτόκος seu Mater Dei, Deipara, si vox Dei sumatur concrete pro toto personali Christi, quod constat ex persona Λόγου et natura humana, quo sensu vocatur Mater Domini Luc. i. 43, sed non precise et abstracte ratione Deitatis.”

Hodge, Charles. Systematic Theology.
Vol 2, p 393.