Graduated

Pictured: I and Professor Elliott Greene
Assistant Professor of Biblical Languages

There are moments when God demonstrates his grace in ways that are more perceivable than other times for me, which tells you more about my perception than it does about the ever-present nature of his grace. My graduation is one of these moments for me for many reasons I won't post here. Yesterday at 2:00 I graduated with a Masters of Divinity from Westminster Theological Seminary and will begin an internship at Park Cities Presbyterian Church in the Presbyterian Church in America on July 3, 2006.

Pictured: Dr. Peter Enns and I
Professor of Old Testament

Pictured: I and Dr. William Edgar
Professor of Apologetics

Pictured: I and Susan Logan
Encourager Extraordinaire

A Most Dynamic Paradigm (1 Corinthians 15:35, 44-49)

35 Ἀλλὰ ἐρεῖ τις· πῶς ἐγείρονται οἱ νεκροί; ποίῳ δὲ σώματι ἔρχονται; 44 σπείρεται σῶμα ψυχικόν, ἐγείρεται σῶμα πνευματικόν. Εἰ ἔστιν σῶμα ψυχικόν, ἔστιν καὶ πνευματικόν. 45 οὕτως καὶ γέγραπται· ἐγένετο ὁ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος Ἀδὰμ εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν, ὁ ἔσχατος Ἀδὰμ εἰς πνεῦμα ζῳοποιοῦν. 46 ἀλλ̓ οὐ πρῶτον τὸ πνευματικὸν ἀλλὰ τὸ ψυχικόν, ἔπειτα τὸ πνευματικόν. 47 ὁ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος ἐκ γῆς χοϊκός, ὁ δεύτερος ἄνθρωπος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ. 48 οἷος ὁ χοϊκός, τοιοῦτοι καὶ οἱ χοϊκοί, καὶ οἷος ὁ ἐπουράνιος, τοιοῦτοι καὶ οἱ ἐπουράνιοι· 49 καὶ καθὼς ἐφορέσαμεν τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ χοϊκοῦ, φορέσομεν καὶ τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ ἐπουρανίου.

35 But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? In what type of body do they come?"... 44 It is sown a natural (ψυχικόν, psychikon) body, it is raised a spiritual (πνευματικόν, pneumaticon) body. If there is a natural body then there is also a spiritual. 45 Just as it is written, "The first human, Adam, became a living nature (ψυχὴν ζῶσαν, psychan zoosan), the eschatological Adam became a life giving spirit (πνεῦμα ζῳοποιοῦν, pneuma zooopoioun). 46 But the spiritual (πνευματικόν) is not first; rather, the natural (ψυχικόν) comes first, then the spiritual (πνευματικόν). 47 The first man was from the dust of the earth; the second man is from heaven. 48 As the man from the dust, so also those of the dust, and as the man from heaven, so also those of heaven. 49 Just as we bore the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.

I should alert you to the fact that much of this analysis is from lecture notes I took while in Dr. Richard B. Gaffin’s Christology class at Westminster Theological Seminary and this post is being used as exam preparation for the final I take tomorrow.

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Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., Department Coordinator

Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology [Audio]

B.A., Calvin College, 1958; B.D., Westminster Theological Seminary, 1961; Th.M., 1962; Th.D., 1969; Graduate studies, Georg-August Universität, Göttingen 1962-1963; Westminster, 1965-.

Author: The Centrality of the Resurrection (formerly Resurrection and Redemption; Perspectives on Pentecost; Calvin and the Sabbath

Contributor: Jerusalem and Athens; Studying the New Testament Today; The New Testament Student and Theology; The New Testament Student at Work; The Book of Books; New International Version New Testament (editorial committee consultant); Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation; The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos (editor); Biblical Principles & Business: The Foundations; Inerrancy and Hermeneutic; Dictionary of Christianity in America; Theonomy: A Reformed Critique; Right with God; The Vitality of Reformed Theology; Dictionary of Paul and His Letters; Are Miraculous Gifts for Today?; A Confessing Theology for Today; The Glory of the Atonement; The Pattern of Sound Doctrine.

Representative Articles: "Paul as Theologian," Westminster Theological Journal, May 1968; "The Usefulness of the Cross," Westminster Theological Journal, Spring 1979; "The Holy Spirit," Westminster Theological Journal, Fall 1980; "Old Amsterdam and Inerrancy?" Westminster Theological Journal, Fall 1982 and Fall 1983; "The Holy Spirit and Eschatology," Kerux, December 1989; "Some Epistemological Reflections on 1 Corinthians 2:6-16," Westminster Theological Journal, Spring 1995; "Pentecost: Before and After," Kerux, September 1995. “Paul the Theologian,” Westminster Theological Journal, Spring 2000.

Context and Structure

While the NIV includes a paragraph break in the middle of verse 44, other versions do not. It will be the contention of this exegesis that there is a shift in Paul’s argument that would warrant a paragraph break in the middle of v 44.

It is at this point that we must also realize that the Apostle is answering a question in v 44 that he initially asked in v 35, viz., How are the dead raised? He makes a contrast between two bodies, which are connected by the resurrection. On the one hand, there is the body of corruptibility and death; on the other hand, there is the body of incorruptibility and life.

In v 45 Paul cites Genesis 2:7 and in so doing he expands the analogy that he had been making between Adam and Christ. The contrast he makes between them is not simply between individuals but between Adam and Christ as covenant heads, exemplifying the two bodies that are clearly in view in vv 47-49. In these verses Adam’s progeny is identified as οἱ χοϊκοί and Christ’s as οἱ ἐπουράνιοι.

The Scope and Contrast in View

In Paul’s citation of Genesis 2:7 (LXX) he underscores the point that Adam is a living person (ψυχὴν ζῶσαν). This marks a significant shift in Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 15. Here Paul expands the scope of reference regarding Adam to include his pre-Fall state (i.e., Adam as he was created, prior to sin).

Genesis 2:7
BHS (Hebrew) 7 וַיִּיצֶר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָאָדָם עָפָר מִן־הָאֲדָמָה וַיִּפַּח בְּאַפָּיו נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים וַיְהִי הָאָדָם לְנֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה׃	Septuagint (LXX) 7 καὶ ἔπλασεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον χοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς καὶ ἐνεφύσησεν εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ πνοὴν ζωῆς, καὶ ἐγένετο ὁ ἄνθρωπος εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν.

Paul’s Argument

1 Corinthians 15:45c is an ellipsis which assumes the ἐγένετο of Genesis 2:7 (LXX). He identifies for us two bodies that are connected by way of the resurrection of the incarnate Christ. On the one hand is the pre-resurrection body (σῶμα ψυχικόν) and on the other the resurrection body (σῶμα πνευματικόν), referring to the Holy Spirit (πνεῦμα ἁγίου). It is the reference to ψυχικόν regarding Adam that indicates the hinge on which Paul’s argument swings.

So in v 44b we see the antithetical parallelism that has been flowing throughout the passage moves to an “if…then” argumentative form, moving from the ψυχικόν body to that of the πνευματικόν. It is important to note that this shift in argumentation does not fit within the antithesis that has characterized the larger passage up to this point in 1 Corinthians 15. We see relation between his argument here and in places like Romans 5:12-21 where we find the “if Adam…how much more Christ” pattern (c.f., Hebrews).

Paul argues from the pre-resurrection body to that of the resurrection without the disjunction that he had employed in the verses prior to 44b. This means that the body of 44b is not the same as that of 44a. The body of 44a is characterized by perishability, dishonor and weakness, predicates resulting from the Fall. Paul could not argue directly from this body to the eschatological body of the resurrection; one cannot be inferred from the other, just as life cannot be inferred from death in the biblical worldview. It is for this reason that the NIV makes the paragraph break at 44b, demonstrating that the σῶμα ψυχικόν (something like “natural body”) of 44a is not the same as that of 44b.

So what is the σῶμα ψυχικόν of 44b? The body of 44b has been broadened conceptually to include not only the pre-eschatological but also the pre-Lapsarian (i.e., pre-Fall). In this we see that the post-Fall ψυχικόν is the result of the unnatural entrance of sin into the human race. Generally, it is quite difficult to convey the relationship of the Greek ψυχικόν and πνευματικόν in the English language. Thus, suffice to know that the relationship is looking at Creation on the one hand and the New Creation on the other, and Paul is arguing from the one to the other.

The Importance of Paul’s Philosophy of History

When Paul is asked about his resurrection hope, he responds by giving his philosophy of history. The apostle argues for a higher sort of existence than even Adam possessed prior to the Fall. We see this in the way Paul concludes this paragraph drawing our attention to the image of the man of heaven and that of the man of the dust. The image that Adam has is eschatologically oriented, having a view towards its fulfillment in Christ, the man of heaven.

In this way we see how Paul’s philosophy of History is dramatically different than that of his Hellenistic contemporaries who viewed history as cyclical. Consider Plato’s telling statement:

And if a person lived a good life throughout the due course of his time, he would at the end return to his dwelling place in his companion star, to live a life of happiness that agreed with his character. But if he failed in this, he would be born a second time, now as a woman.[1]

Aside from the very annoying chauvinism, Plato’s comment reveals to us that in his view human history was doomed to repeat itself over and over again. Paul’s notion of history is as a bright companion star over against the blackness of Platonic history. The Apostle in harmony with the scriptures is arguing for a history that is not simply linear, but that starts with its goal in mind. In other words, the goal of history is providentially and logically considered before its means in God’s decree.

In this history, Adam is first and in his federal position is head of an order characterized by corruption, dishonor, and weakness. By contrast, the order of Christ is second and last, being the order of fidelity, honor, and strength – the eschatological order. It is the paradigm of Creation and New Creation, each beginning with an Adam of its own. Thus, redemption is not a matter of Paradise Regained. It is an altogether better order, an “over-plus” as Dr. Gaffin put it.

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[1]Plato, "Timaeus," in Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997), §42b-c.

O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus!

Ebenezer
text: Samuel T. Francis (1834-1925)

O the deep, deep love of Jesus!
Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free;
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me.
Underneath me, all around me, is the current of thy love;
leading onward, leading homeward, to thy glorious rest above.

O the deep, deep love of Jesus!
Spread his praise from shore to shore;
How he loveth, ever loveth, changeth never, nevermore;
How he watches o're his loved ones, died to call them all his own;
How for them he intercedeth, watcheth o'er them from the throne.

O the deep, deep love of Jesus!
Love of ev'ry love the best: 'tis an ocean vast
Of blessing, 'tis a haven sweet of rest.
O the deep, deep love of Jesus! 'Tis a heav'n of heav'ns to me;
And it lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to thee.

---

My pastor, Skip Ryan, preached today on Luke 7:36-50. We closed with the above hymn. Dr. Ryan reminded me of the relationship that my view of sin has to my view of the Savior. If I would see Jesus in a fuller capacity, I must also be willing to take a sober look at my sinfulness in a fuller capacity. Christ has not come to save, nor does he work diligently to sanctify, the healthy but the sick, those in whom the very fabric of their souls lies tattered.

This deep love of Jesus is certainly seen in the marvelous tapestry that he does and is in fact weaving from the tattered fabric that we call the Church. But what is more is that his love is not first seen in the finished product, but in his willingness to submerge himself deeply into my context, my life, even into my hidden cesspools. Not only has Christ come and met me at these very points, but he has bound himself to me at this very point of death, that in his death and resurrected life I might also participate. In this way the Christian's old man is shed, like a snake sheds its old scales to put on newer better ones.

Yes, it is true, my faithful pastor, that the Savior is undervalued when our sin is understated. I wonder if this is not because we have been all too willing to leave Christianity in the systematic and abstract, being fearful to remember that Christ has made himself known in the mess of the Historical, in the raucous of the concrete. O the deep, deep love of Jesus!

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Luke 7:36-50 (ESV)
36 One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. 37 And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, 38 and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” 40 And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.” 41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” 44 Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” 48 And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 49 Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” 50 And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

More than Conquerors

Romans 8:37-39 (NA26)
³⁷ ἀλλ̓ ἐν τούτοις πᾶσιν ὑπερνικῶμεν διὰ τοῦ ἀγαπήσαντος ἡμᾶς. ³⁸ πέπεισμαι γὰρ ὅτι οὔτε θάνατος οὔτε ζωὴ οὔτε ἄγγελοι οὔτε ἀρχαὶ οὔτε ἐνεστῶτα οὔτε μέλλοντα οὔτε δυνάμεις ³⁹ οὔτε ὕψωμα οὔτε βάθος οὔτε τις κτίσις ἑτέρα δυνήσεται ἡμᾶς χωρίσαι ἀπὸ τῆς ἀγάπης τοῦ θεοῦ τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τῷ κυρίῳ ἡμῶν.

Writer's Translation
³⁷But in all these things we are winning a most glorious victory through Him who loved us. ³⁸ For I have been convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, neither things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God - the love that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This passage comes to my mind today as one who is feeling quite worn out by life and who faces the weight of my present situation with basically two options. On the one hand I can try and cope with my situation. I can do things that will help me get through the day - one day at a time. I can seek to ease the frustration level by splurging a little here or there. That's coping. There is no glory in its endless monotonous cycle.

On the other hand, passages like Romans 8:37-39 are fundamental and foundational. Here we find that Paul (after alerting us to his own frustrations in the process of sanctification in chapter 7) directs us back to the lens or paradigmatic icon of the Bible and our lives, the Lord Jesus. He concludes the chapter with thoughts that describe for us something of our identity.

He tells us that we who are in Christ are winning a most glorious victory (ὑπερνικάω). Then, he explains what he sees the basis for such a statement is. It is primarily the person and work of the incarnate, crucified and risen Christ. He is the one who loved us such that he became a human being, was humiliated on the cross and vindicated in his resurrection. Not even death could conqueror this man. It is that same love that compelled the Father to send the Son, and the Son to fulfill the will of the Father, that has bound the Incarnate God to his people. Consequently, Paul tells us that we too share in the same victory as we proceed with the King in his royal procession.

Thus, coping could not be further from the Christian's calling. Just getting through suffering is not that to which we have been called. Squeaking by does not resonate with the magnitude of this royal procession. Christ, our Divine Warrior, has fought and continues to fight for us, along with us and in us. So it is that we must know that the pain is there to be conquered, to make us stronger. Even if suffering were to waste away our bodies, the most glorious victory to which we are proceeding is sure to produce a greater nearness to Christ, the Suffering Servant, if we will not short circuit the process by methods of coping.

And so we land back in the Beatitudes where we find Christ reminding us that we are poor indeed, but that in Him we have been made rich. O God, may we hunger and thirst for righteousness, always knowing that the righteousness we need, true righteousness, is alone found in Christ. May he be the object of our appetites. Amen.

Calvin and the Fathers

I have always found it fascinating how much Calvin interacted with St. Augustine; however, did you know that he interacted tremendously with the Early Church Fathers? What is even more fascinating to me is how many Reformed people these days have forgotten that they come from a long meandering church tradition that stems from the Roman Catholic tradition and is influenced significantly from the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Luther simply wasn't the first Christian. :-)

So let me share some statistics from Calvin's work that I hope shows the girth of his interaction with the Fathers and other Saints of the Church:

• Name: (Commentaries # of references), (Institutes # of references)
  
• Irenaeus: (12), (12)
• Justin Martyr: (6), (1)
• Tertullian (35), (25)
• Origen (63), (2)
• Athanasius (3), (6)
• Gregory Nazianzen (1), (1)
• Bernard (5), (70)
• Augustine (275), (393)
• Ambrose (55), (51)
• Basil the Great (0), (1)
• Clement of Alexandria (2), (0)
• Clement of Rome (1), (0)
• Cyprian of Carthage (16), (50)
• Cyril of Jerusalem (2), (0)
• Pseudo-Dionysius¹ (1), (0)
• Eusebius (61), (4)
• Hilary (8), (11)
• Jerome (522), (37)
• Hipolytus (19), (0)
• Ignatius (1), (3)
• John Chrysostom (227), (56)

These are only a handful for which I had time to electronically search tonight. The numbers may be off a little because I did not have the time to read through every citation that my software showed as a hit. Nevertheless, I think this demonstrates that Calvin was very self-consciously standing on the shoulders of those who came before him, those with whom he agreed and those with whom he did not.


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¹ Pseudo-Dionysius was known to Calvin as Dionysius the Areopagite, referenced in his commentary on 2 Cor 12:1-5.

5. Pseudo-Dionysius (2 of 2)

Relevant links:
John Meyendorff's Christ in Eastern Christian Thought.
5. Pseudo-Dionysius (1 of 2)

Two dangers became evident in Dionysian thought that stemmed from the notions of unions and distinctions in God:

1. Pantheism
2. Platonic Emanationism
   

These dangers are indigenous to any form of Platonism. Pseudo-Dionysius (PD) avoided the problem of emanationism, in which each emanation of the divine implied a fragmentation of God having lost its fullness of the divine being as it emanated. He did avoids this writing:

It is common, synthetic, and unique for the whole Diety to be participated in fully and entirely by all the participants, and never by any of them in a partial way, as the central point of a circle is participated in by all the radii ... without being in any way fragmented. As for the unpartakableness of the Diety, universal cause, it also transcends [these participations], for there is with it no sort of contact, no sort of community, nor any synthesis between it and its participants. (p 97)

In other places PD distinctly divorces himself from neo-Platonism and articulates a Christian knowledge of God that accommodates neo-Platonist categories. Nevertheless, PD "cleverly avoids" explicit reference to the personalist concept of hypostasis. In a well-known passage from On the Divine Names, PD speaks of God being at once Trinity and Monad.

Two Great Dionysian Victories
In trying to use "against the Greeks the Greeks' own goods", PD accomplishes two great victories in essential areas. First, he successfully demonstrates that the knowledge of God is not discursive or identifiable with any natural process. Rather, it transcends our natural faculties and represents a mode of knowledge sui generis. Second, PD goes beyond Origen emanationism and pantheism in showing that the divine manifestations (i.e., "names") in the world do not interfere with his essential transcendence. (p 99)

It would seem almost certain that PD's intent was to protect (advance?) the Christian tradition in the context of the neo-Platonic intellectual culture in which he participated. Specifically, he was seeking a method which would allow for a deductive rediscovery of the proper order of things in the world, incorporating Christian religious forms into the intelligible structures of late neo-Platonism.

Philosophically Christian
PD remains fundamentally Christian. He maintains that God is still "above" the "Platonic One", not belonging to the lower hierarchical orders. Further, he demonstrates that the hierarchical procession is not a diminution of the divine being but God's presence was fully in each being. Dionysius is the source of the classical classification of the angels into nine orders, subdivided into three triads, which has no foundation in Scripture. (p 102) He remains trapped in the sense-mind dichotomy and lacked the philosophical means to express the realities linked with the incarnation.

His ecclesiastical hierarchy sought to follow as much as possible that of the angels or celestial hierarchy. The ecclesiastical hierarchy, being essentially arbitrary, seems to have twisted the perspective followed by the ecclesiology of the Church of the first few centuries. The Dionysian hierarch, designating not only bishops but great figures like Melchizedek, is essentially a Gnostic who transmits esoteric knowledge to those below him in the hierarchy. This notion reduces the idea of a sacrament down to a transmission of personal illumination. For example, the Eucharist is for PD only an ethical lesson for the "imperfect" and not a participation in the body and blood of Christ.

Theologically Christian
In terms of theologia PD was in the tradition of the Cappadocians, overcoming the antinomy between God's immanence and his transcendence. The different interpretation that the West has given On the Divine Names, has caused many misunderstandings between East and West on the "real sense" of Dionysian thought. (p 107)

Contributions to Christian Spirituality
Some lesser known areas of Dionysian influence are seen in ecclesiology and liturgical piety, essential elements of Christian spirituality. PD's cosmic hierarchy sought to relate that all beings were created in view of their union with God and the universal tendency to draw closer to God (imitation). This was a view that had been central to patristic anthropology since St. Irenaeus and later developed by St. Maximus. Strangely, PD asserts this in "complete separation" from the mystery of the Incarnation. (p 108)

For PD there are two distinct modes of union with God. On the one hand, there is theologia referring to the mystical, individual and direct; on the other hand, theurgy, describing the intermediary activity of the hierarchy. Dionysian theologia belongs to the realm of piety; however, theurgia is not so simply classified. Theurgia rests on the same neo-Platonic ontology as theologia; however, its aim was to transmit gnosis (knowledge), and the sacraments themselves are reduced to initiating symbols.

Christian liturgy, in trying to satisfy the needs of the masses, underwent a transformation. Preaching insisted on the sanctity of the sacramental action. The idea of esoteric initiation borrowed from Corpus Hermeticum, was used to communicate to the faithful the sense of the sacred and to remind them of how difficult it is to approach it. In the absence of such initiation, one possesses only indirect knowledge through hierarchical intermediaries and symbols. To penetrate these mysteries requires that one initiated.

5. Pseudo-Dionysius (1 of 2)

Relevant links:
John Meyendorff's Christ in Eastern Christian Thought.

"Byzantine thought never escaped from the great problem of the relationship between Greek philosophy and Christian revelation." It was the condemnation of Origen by Justinian that brought a great blow to neo-Platonism, which had gained respect in Christian circles after it had been adopted by the Gnostics. It is a view that presented the cosmos as a hierarchy in which the higher beings were intermediaries for the lower, while all emanated from God. Insofar as all idea of creation ex nihilo was excluded, this method made it impossible to avoid a monistic and essentially pantheistic worldview.

Nevertheless Origen did bring the doctrine of free-will as a corrective to neo-Platonism. However, out of the ashes of Origen's condemnation the "Alexandrian vision" rose, a phoenix flying on the authority of a source claiming to be from Dionysius the Areopagite, a disciple of St. Paul in Athens. While we are certain that the historical Dionysius did not write Corpus Areopagiticum, many today believe Pseudo-Dionysius (PD) belonged to Severian circles of Syria, which represented the moderate Monophysites. These circles sought to integrate within a Christian system the hierarchical world of neo-Platonism. PD's contribution was in introducing the corrective of God's absolute transcendence, influencing Byzantine thinking along the lines of theology and hierarchies.

Enomius and the Cappadocian Fathers
Arian extremists of the fourth century C.E., such as Eunomius, had argued that humanity could know God in his essence; i.e., as God knows himself. The Fathers made recourse through apophatic theology (negative theology). In other words, we may know what God is not, but it is impossible to say what God is. While Eunomius maintained that God in his essence (i.e., the Father) is knowable, the Cappadocian Fathers responded with the absolute transcendence of the divine essence (i.e., God is not knowable in his essence).

It is important to understand that the negations of apophatic theology are not on account of humanity's fallen position and resultant incapacity to know God; rather, it reflects the unknowability of God of God in his essence. Gregory of Nyssa explains to us that God "who by nature is invisible becomes visible through his energies, appearing in what is around him." (p 94). The Fathers in their controversy with Eunomius defended the biblical conception of the living and acting God over against a "philosophical and intellectualistic conception of Deity-Essence."

In the Platonic and Origenist traditions, the mind, in order to know God, must free itself from the prison-house of the material world and become its own self again. This was insufficient for Pseudo-Dionysius, who taught that the mind must come out of itself because the knowledge of God is beyond the mind (ὑπέρ νοῦν).

Thus, PD detaches himself from two important neo-Platonic postulates:

• The natural divinity of the νοῦς (mind)
• The knowability of the divine essence

This does not exclude ... the meeting between God and created beings; on the contrary, this meeting constitutes the aim and ultimate meaning of beings. It supposes a descending movement on the part of God, out of himself, to make himself approachable and knowable, and an ascending movement on the part of beings who first of all recover their 'analogy' with God, that is, their capacity to participate in the virtues of God; then, coming out of themselves, to participate in the very being of God (but not in his essence), and 'go back' (ἐπιστροφή) to God.(p 95)

It is precisely because PD does not identify the divine essence with the Platonic "One" that it is possible for him to speak of distinctions in God.

Comic Relief and the Force of Satire

This is one of those "I feel like I should laugh and cry at the same time" kinda links. It is a satire that animated series did on choosing a church and of course only Mark Traphagen would have found it. Thanks Mark, this was hilarious.

Go to Mark's blog and click on the link.

4. "God Suffered in the Flesh" (2 of 2)

Relevant links:
John Meyendorff's Christ in Eastern Christian Thought.
Snapshot of Origen.
4. "God Suffered in the Flesh" (1 of 2)

Leontius of Jerusalem (LJ) moved to deal with the theopaschism by arguing that the Word suffered hypostatically, in his own flesh, because the hypostasis was ontologically distinct from the divine nature Christ possesses and the human nature that he assumed. “In this hypostasis resides the union of the natures or essences which otherwise cannot be confused.” (p 78) Later Byzantine theology would draw this idea from LJ (who was pulling from Cyril) into its fundamental element:

[On the one hand,] the natures, even after the union, are two, because the uncreated divine essence can never as such be partaken of in any form by the created nature…. But, on the other hand, the humanity assumed by the Logos, hypostatized in him, deified by his energies, becomes itself the source of divine life, because it is deified not simply by grace but because it is the Word’s own flesh. Here is the difference between Christ and the Christians, between hypostatic possession of divine life and deification by grace and participation. (p 78)

It is this humanity of the Word, hypostatized in him, that is the foundation of the doctrine of the deification of man as the true content of salvation. It was St. Maximus the Confessor who showed that participation in the divine did not imply the passivity of the human nature; rather, it implied the restoration fo its authentic activity.

The Latin Monk, John Maxentius, intervened both at Rome and Constantinople to have the theopaschite formula approved and is mentioned as witness to the unity that could then still unite East and West in christological questions. Justinian sought to impose this unity on the whole of the empire, in which he specifically sought to concilliate the Monophysites by making them accept Chalcedon.

In 544, Justinian pronounced an edict against Theodore of Mopsuestia, the writings in which Theodoret of Cyrus attacked the anathematisms of Cyril of Alexandria, and the letter of Ibas to Mari the Persian (i.e., the so called Three Chapters, κεφάλαια). Justinian exercised caution in the way he nuanced his edict with respect to Theodoret and Ibas which prevented the entire Antiochene school from being condemned and thus depriving the church of the balance to the post humous triumph of Cyril. (p 81)

Justinian's Confession of Faith (ὁμολογία πίστεως) is addressed to the whole fullness of the Catholic Church strongly asserts the orthodoxy of the theopaschite formulas, which had become the litmus test of orthodoxy for him. In this work Justinian follows LJ in recognizing a distinction between nature and hypostasis; nature can only exist within hypostasis. Justinian makes a significant terminological concession to the great Monophysite Severus, when he admits that the natures of Christ "can only be distinguished by speech and thought, and not as two distinct things." (p 82) Thus, under the existing tensions, the only means of unity was to cause both sides to recognize that the difference between Cyril and Chalcedon was merely verbal and not conceptual.

In his desire to condemn Nestorianism (an important component in winning back the Monophysites), Justinian reiterated the "unity of subject in the incarnate Word." (p 83) The only restriction to Cyril's triumph was that was that the expression μία φύσις (one nature) was forbidden to be understood in any way other than as a synonym of μία ὑπόστασις (one hypostasis). Cyril is, therefore, orthodox; however, he must be considered in light of Chalcedon.

The fifth council then by rehabilitating the Cyrillian concept of the unity of subject in Christ, directed its energy to the hypostatic unity of the incarnate Word. Christ's humanity then is considered fully consubstantial with us. His hypostasis then was the pre-existing and divine Logos. All this is possible when hypostasis retains its "open" character as foundational and not contentful and is not identified with a "simple aspect of the natural existence, human or divine." (p 85)

Byzantine Christology by Justinian's time has been criticized for leaving too much of Christ's psychological life in the dark. Thus, the decisions of the fifith council must be seen as one step along the way in the development of a more robust christology. Significant later developments would be seen especially in St. Maximus's doctrine of the two wills and his conception of deification. The critics of the fifth council's christology seem to assert their criticism on the basis of Thomas' notion of "pure nature" which does not comport with either "the patristic conception of sin or with that of deification." (p 86)

Human nature, at the contact of God, does not disappear; on the contrary it becomes fully human, for God cannot destroy what he has made. (p 86)

De Sectis, attributed to Leontius of Byzantium between 581 and 607 CE, articulates a consciousness of Christ's consubstantiality with humanity. Thus, when the scriptures teach that Christ was progessing in age and wisdom (Lk 2:52); this was taken as meaning that he was learning what he did not know, i.e., that he suffered ignorance. Most Byzantine writers have shunned the idea of ignorance in Christ on account of the Greek notion of ignorance that is predicated on sin. Further, a certain philosophy of gnosis made knowledge the demonstration of unfallen nature. "Christ could not be ignorant because he was the new Adam." For St. Cyril this ignorance was something Christ assumed willingly in the "framework of economy"; however, it was nevertheless a genuine ignorance. Hence, the author of De Sectis was able to draw from the great Alexandrian doctor. (p 87)

Such thinking raised anthropological questions. Was humanity by nature corruptible? If so does this mean that when Christ assumes human nature that he is consequently assuming corruptibility? It was Severus of Antioch, in agreement with Chalcedon and arguing against Julian, who asserted that Adam was incorruptible prior to the Fall only insofar as he participated in the divine incorruptibility. It is in the resurrection then that Christ gives incorruptibility back to human nature (via participation).

It is worth noting that in condemning Julian of Halicarnassus "the Christian East ignored ... as a whole the doctrine of original sin 'of nature'" (p 88), wanting to shield Christ from such a nature. Humanity's mortality is thought not to be "a state of sin, but a condition of human nature that the Word, by his incarnation, came to assume and, by his resurrection, re-established into the grace of immortality." (p 88-9)

In conclusion, this shows that fifth century christology, viz. its theopaschite formulae, did not interfere with the reality of Christ's human nature, wich is also consubstantial with our human nature, being limited, ignorant and corruptible. By confessing "God suffered in the flesh," one underscores the corruptible state of human nature that Christ came to save by assuming it in the precise condition which Adam's sin had rendered it.

Christ in Eastern Christian Thought Progress

By way of reminder, I have made some progress on Fr. John Meyendorff's Christ in Eastern Christian Thought. I invite you to visit the foundational post in this series of chapter summaries of the work and view the Table of Contents, from which you will be able to access the individual chapter summaries and appendages.

4. "God Suffered in the Flesh" (1 of 2)

Relevant links:
John Meyendorff's Christ in Eastern Christian Thought.
Snapshot of Origen.

With the dangerous lack of coherence in the Chalcedonian apologetics, the debate gravitated towards questions of theopaschism, manifested especially in radical opposition of Chacedonians against the altered Trisagion: "Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, crucified for us, have mercy on us. This interpolated form was not "formally heretical" because it was addressed to Christ and not the Trinity; however, it had become the rallying cry for the Monophysites. So the polarity of the spectrum of this debate can be articulated like this:

• Monophysites: God was crucified for us.
• Chalcedonians: Only the manhood of the Logos was crucified for us.

This was the same problem that had been debated in the years prior to Ephesus concerning the term θεοτόκος (theotokos - mother of God), referring to Mary. Could the Logos really "be born" of the Virgin? Could God really be the "son of Mary"? Cyril in asserting the full theological validity of θεοτόκος against Nestorius declared in his twelfth anathematism that "the Word had suffered in the flesh". "At stake were Christ's identity itself and the nature of the union 'according to the hypostasis' defined at Chalcedon." Since everyone admitted that God was impassible a real distinction had to be achieved between nature and hypostasis (p 70).

St. Gregory Nazianzen had made this pre-Nicene idea integral to his soteriology: "We need a God made in the flesh and put to death (ἐδεήθημεν Θεοῦ σαρκουμένου καί νεκρουμένου) in order that we could live again." Even the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed confesses a "Son of God", born "of the Virgin Mary", and "crucified for us under Pontius Pilate". It is the confession of Nicaea, with which Cyril was preoccupied, that hinged upon whether or not Mary was the Mother of God or the Word suffered in the flesh.

Meanwhile at Antioch, there were philosophical reservations. While Antioch admitted to Christ's unity of being, confessed at Chalcedon by the term hypostasis, their difficulty remained in the fact that God who is impassible seemed to have passibility imputed to him. So the question emerged: Did God have to make death his own to vanquish it? While the Antiochene confessed the union of Christ as a doctrine, their inability to admit a distinction between nature and hypostasis resulted in only something, a nature or the flesh, dying on the cross rather than someone, the whole Christ Jesus.

John the Grammarian
John the Grammarian, in his Apology, articulated a defense for the Chalcedonian position. His defense rested on the necessity, acknowledged by the Monophysites, to assert Christ's double consubstantiality: to the Father and to us. As the argument went, if this double consubstantiality is true in Christ, the result is two natures or substances since "the same nature could not be consubstantial to God and creatures" (p 72). The Grammarian helps us to see that the Chalcedonian definition must be understood in connection with the Cappadocians' Trinitarian terminology. It is the thought of John the Grammarian that prepared the framework into which Leontius of Byzantium's christological terminology fit after it had been sifted from its Origenic context.

Leontius of Jerusalem
No progress with the Monophysites was accomplished until the hypostasis of the union of Christ's natures was identified with pre-existent hypostasis of the Logos. This connection made possible the doctrinal continuity between Cyril and Chalcedon. The chief contributor of this connection was Leontius of Jerusalem (LJ), not to be confused with Leontius of Byzantium, prominent in the previous chapter. While Leontius of Byzantium (LB) confessed multiple pre-existent hypostases of Christ (upto 3) since he refused to identify Christ with the Logos, Leontius of Jerusalem "violently attacked the ontological presuppositions of such a christology" (p 74).

Christ's humanity, according to LJ, did not possess the hypostasis of normal human beings (body/soul). He insists that Christ's hypostasis, belonging to the divine Logos, is not "particular" but is instead "common". Thus Christ unites all humanity and not only a single individual to the divinity. (p 74)

- Christ's Concrete Humanity
This idea rests on the conception of the imago Dei. St. Gregory of Nyssa saw the imago as belonging not to individuals but to humanity corporately. St. Iranaeus built his doctrine of salvation on the idea of "recapitulation" which was taken up again by Cyril, who asserts, "the incarnate Word 'possesses us himself, since he took over our nature and made of our body the body of the Word'" (p 75).

The synonymity of "nature" and "hypostasis" in Cyril, coupled with the absence of a stable metaphysical system and the presupposition that individuation was a result of the Fall (Plato) made Cyril's approach unjustifiable for LJ. It is LJ who argues that Christ has a rational soul contra Cyril's unwitting Apollonarian assertion of the relationship between the two substances of Christ's humanity.

LJ runs amuck on the shores of incoherence because he is unable to conceive a metaphysical definition of the hypostasis. Since Chalcedon distinguishes between nature and hypostasis in christology, it has become natural to apply to the theology of the incarnation the concepts that the Cappadocian Fathers used to express the mystery of the Trinity. If one takes hypostasis as "existence" as LJ did, then the Trinity is reduced to three gods. On the other hand, if one follows Thomas Aquinas in saying that the hypostases are but "relations"within the divine essence, then the theopaschite position of Cyril must be interpreted as applying to the divine nature itself.

Neither the Trinity or the Incarnation can be defined in the economies of Plato or Aristotle, in which the abstract and concrete stand in opposition to one another. According to the Cappadocians hypostasis cannot be reduced to the "particular" or "relation". Rather, while not being predicated on nature, it is the principle of the nature's existence.

This conception assumes that God, as personal being, is not totally bound to his own nature; the hypostatic existence is flexible, "open"; it admits the possibility of divine acts outside of the nature (energies) and implies that God can personally and freely assume a fully human existence while remaining God, whose nature remains completely transcendent. (p 77)

In this way, the Word remains impassible in his divine nature, but suffers in his human nature.

3. The Origenist Crisis of the Sixth Century (2 of 2)

Relevant links:
John Meyendorff's Christ in Eastern Christian Thought.
Snapshot of Origen.
The Origenist Crisis of the Sixth Century (1 of 2).

The Letter to Menas and the anathematisms of the fifth council do not always resonate with what we know to be true of Origen. Their objections focus on the περί ἀρχῶν mainly. Origen was inclined to remain quiet on some of his more dubious positions in his other works (viz., Commentaries). Further, some of the doctrines condemned have no parallel in the known writings of Origen.

Origen or Evagrius?
Anathematisms 6-9, 12 and 13 of the fifth council were concerned with a dualistic conception of Christ which distinguished Christ from the Logos. This distinction was not to be supported by the basic doctrine of the περί ἀρχῶν. The assembly's target then was not a straw-man of Origen; rather, it focused on the genuine doctrines of "one of the spiritual masters of Eastern monasticism, Evagrius.

For Evagrius, Christ was an immaterial intellect (νους - nous) who did not Fall (in the Platonic sense) and consequently did not materialize. Therefore, writes Meyendorff:

There was ... no incarnation of the Word. There was an abasement of the νους-Christ for the salvation of all creatures, in the various degrees of their fallen existence, in order to restore them to their primitive unity (p 55).

Christ then can be called Logos only because of his - Christ's - union to the Logos (a separate entity in Evagrius' thought) from before all world. This thinking obfuscated the doctrine of the Trinity that the Cappadocian fathers had given to the Church as well as presented a Christ that was something other than the Christ of Scripture.

Whoever says that it is not the God-Logos..., one of the holy Trinity, who is properly Christ, but that he is so by catachresis, because, they say, of the mind which stooped (διά τόν κενώσαντα εαθτόν νουν), being attached to the God-Logos himself (συνημμένον αὐτῷ τῷ θεῷ Λόγῳ), and which is properly called Christ, but whoever says that the Logos is called Christ because of the mind and that the mind is called God because of the Logos, be he anathema (Anathema 8).

Compare the above anathematism with this excerpt from Evagrius:

Christ is not the Word at the beginning, so that he who has been anointed is not God at the beginning, but that one, because of this one, is Christ, and this one, because of that one, is God....(p 55-6).

"After reading the fifteen anathematisms, one cannot help wondering how the notion, spread by Harnack, that Byzantine Christianity was Hellenized Christianity can have been so popular" (p 57). O. Cullmann has articulated that biblical time is an [eschatologically oriented] ascending line, while for Hellenism, it is the circle. Consequently, Greeks could not conceive of a deliverance that resulted from divine action within temporal history.

Justinian argued that on account of Origen's education in the mythology of the Greeks, he merely posed as exegete of the Scriptures, while he expounded the doctrines of Plato (p 57). Consequently, the circular notion of time and its succession of falls necessary to return to the primitive natural state implied a determinism that made redemption unnecessary.

Evagrius' condemnation was also monumental because he was one of the most widely read authors in Eastern monasteries. Even the most fierce of anti-Origenists like St. Barsanuphius, while officially condemning Evagrian doctrines as "Hellenistic myths" admitted that the soul could find useful teaching in the 'purely spiritual' and 'non-dogmatic' aspects of his work. Evagrius' work On Prayer continued under the borrowed name of St. Nilus.

The Evagrian conception of perfection as gnosis and of prayer as an activity "proper to the mind" was linked to his platonic anthropology. Thus, the Incarnation has no place in Evagrius whose spiritual goal was to hold oneself as immaterial before the Immaterial. Evagrius was the originator of the monologic prayer and consequently it became the center of Byzantine monastic life. St. John Climacus and St. Maximus the Confessor would take over his teachings at this point. The "intellectual prayer" in the different context of union with God [i.e., per Incarnation] became in the Byzantine tradition the "Jesus Prayer" (p 60).

Interestingly, it is Evagrius' master, St. Macarius who provides the corrective for Evagrian anthropology. St. Macarius presents the human being as a psychosomatic composite (psyche = soul, soma = body, hence human being = soul + body where the Greek formula might look like this: human being = soul - body). The result of this corrective is 1) the Incarnation is no longer excluded 2) spiritual life is not reduced to dematerialization of the intellect and 3) the center of spiritual life is union with Christ.

Leontius of Byzantium
A transitional figure between Evagrius and St. Maximus was the Origenist Leontius of Byzantium (not to be confused with Leontius of Jerusalem). Leontius sought to offer his solution to the contemporary Christological problem that divided Monophysites and Chalcedonians. His two major contributions to Christology are reflected in the essential christological definition:

1. A comparison between the two natures in Christ and the union of the body and soul in a human being.
   
2. The definition of the union of the divinity and humanity in Christ as an 'essential union' (ἕνωσις κατ' οὐσίαν).
   

As with many writers of substance, what is not written is as important as what is written. Leontius never designates the Logos as the subject of the union, which is always Christ. This distinction, carried over from Origen and Evagrius, is apparent in the way that Leontius deals with Christ's death, in which Christ suffered in the flesh by the will of the Logos (p 64).

Such an ontology (Evagrian) required that Leontius create a new system of metaphysical thought. Such an endeavor ended up conflating and/or confusing nature (φύσις) and substance (οὐσία). His articulation seemed to lead to the conclusion that there were different species of Christs and that the Christ only possessed one nature.

In light of these problems, Leontius gives us the term enhypostaton as a major contribution to christology. It is this new notion of the existence "within something" that allows Leontius to deal with the notion of "no nature without hypostasis" that the Nestorians and Eutychians both admitted. However, Leontius makes clear that enhypostaton is not identical with hypostasis and in this way Leontius' vocabulary strays from the Trinitarian vocabulary given by the Cappadocians.

It was when Leontius' notion was taken into a context that viewed Christ as identical with the Logos, being pre-existent and having assumed a human nature (enhypostaton), and when it was seen that the duality of natures does not obfuscate the unity of the subject in Christ, then Leontius "true contribution" took its place in the history of Christology (p 68).

3. The Origenist Crisis of the Sixth Century (1 of 2)

[ This is the third of eleven chapters out of John Meyendorff's Christ in Eastern Christian Thought. You may also wish to see the post Snapshot of Origen. ]

Origen's [c.a. 182 - 251 CE] personality and ideas have always been the source of passionate controversies. Condemned in his lifetime by his bishop, supported by numerous disciples, he was attacked again in the fourth century by St. Epiphanius and condemned in 400 by a council presided over by Theophilus of Alexandria. The role played by St. Jerome and Rufinus of Aquileia in the Origenist quarrels of that time are also well known. The same quarrels were used as an excuse for the deposition of St. John Chrysostom. (p 47)

In the vein of this legacy, Justinian (483 to 565 CE), the emperor in the Roman empire's east, issued his edict against the Originests in 543 due to the wide influence that the problematic doctrines Origenism were having broadly. As Theophilus of Alexandria tells us that for the Origenists the Divine Logos had not assumed a human body nor was the Logos to be identified with the Christ, which was the divine soul that assumed a human body (p 47-8). This distinction between Christ and the Logos smacked of the Nestorian distinction between the Word and the 'assumed man'.

The question of whether the followers of Origen were representative of what Origen himself taught begins to surface at this point. The question seems to pivot around Origen's περί ἀρχῶν (On First Principles, De principiis). In this work Meyendorf argues that problems with anthropology, cosmology and eschatology are indigenous to Origen. However, even this evidence is insufficient to explain the fate of Origenism in the Christian Tradition (p 49).

The ideas of Evagrius, one of Origen's most prominent fourth century interpreters, were passionately debated in the sixth century CE. The seat of Origenism at this time was in the Great Lavra of St. Sabbas in Palestine; however, in nearby Egypt the views had been condemned since 400 CE. These Origenist traditions significantly influenced the essentially popular movement of monasticism, which originally sought to express the eschatological nature of Christianity. It made monasiticsm more intelligible to the Hellenistic world while at the same time modifying monasticism with Platonic dualism. It would seem that different facets of monastic asceticism sought to purify the flesh in preparation for the resurrection of the dead, anticipating the realities of the Kingdom to come. "The linear perspective of biblical spirituality seeking the kingdom to come was thus replaced by a vertical perspective, the search for dematerialization.

While several modern historians (e.g., de Lubac, Daniélou, Bertrand) attempting to redeem Origen, the περί ἀρχῶν and many exegetical passages remain to underscore that Origen was working from a framework of Platonic monism. In the Gnostic Chapters Evagrius makes plain the origin of the doctrines condemned by the fifth council. In other words, in additions to Origen's problematic anthropology, cosmology and eschatology, Evagrius' Christology presents itself as the fourth pillar in the controversy that would be condemned.

Justinian describes these sixth century doctrinal problems in two letters: 1) the Letter to Menas and 2) the letter to the council of 553. The Letter to Menas produced ten anathematisms against the Palestinian controversies (Origenism per Evagrius). The letter to the council of 553 contained the essentials of the decisions that the assembly ratified, producing fifteen anathematisms.

Justinians attacks on Origenism began by bringing suspicion to Origen's Trinitarian subordinationism, which itself stemmed from a presupposition that Creation was co-eternal with God excluding the distinction, established by post Nicene theology, between the generation of the Son and the creation of the world in time (p 52).

Regarding the eternality of creation, Origen articulates in περί ἀρχῶν that God created a succession of worlds in which there was an eternal intellectual unity. The individuation and materialization of minds happens then by virtue of their free will and the "fall". His notion of what we would today call "Redemption" is that of ἀποκατάστασις (apokatastasis) in which we are finally freed from the prison of our body and subsummed into the intellectual unity. Origen taught that Satan would have a place as a spiritual creature of God in the restored intellectual universe. The council and Justinian would have none of this:

Whoever says that the life of the spirits will be analogous to the life which existed at the beginning, when the spirits were not yet fallen and lost, so that the end and the beginning are similar, and that the end will be the true measure of the beginning, be he anathema (Anathema 15).

Great Intro to Philosophy Course

For those of you in the Dallas area, my wife is going to be teaching an Introduction to Philosophy Course at Westminster Theological Seminary's campus this summer. Obviously, I am biased, but I can tell you that if you're interested in apologetics, systematics, or philosophy - especially its relation to theology - then you will benefit from this course. For more info see her website: http://cynthiarnielsen.com/introtophil.php

The Θεάνθροπος and the Θεόπνευστογραφη

What a mess of conflated Greek words. Now, if you are reading this post after a title like that, I commend you. The idea of Theanthropos (the first word above) is that of the Historic Christian definition (Chalcedon 533 AD) that the person or hypostasis ('υποστάσις) of Jesus was fully God and fully man at the same time, unconfused, unconfounded, unmixed; yet, at the same time one person and a true mystery. Second the idea connoted in Theopneustographe (i.e., God-breathed + writing. also my made up word) is that idea that the Scriptures are also analogously fully divine and fully human.

The unity of the bible, its hypostasis as it were:

...should ultimately be sought in Christ himself, the living word. [This] is a broad and foundational theological commitment based on the analogy between Christ and Scripture. As Christians we must remember that we believe not only that the Bible is the word of God, but that Christ himself is the word....[It could be said that] the Bible is God's word in written form; Christ is God's word in human form....The written word bears witness to the incarnate word, Christ. And what gives the written word its unity is not simply the words on the page [(following St. Augustine, De Magistro)], but the incarnate word who is more than simply the sum of the biblical parts.[!]¹

May the Church, who is Christ's, not fail to see the Bible's subject, her Bride, the risen and exalted Christ. Amen.

__________
¹ Enns, Peter. Inspiration and Incarnation. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005. p 110.