Recap: Purpose of manifestation of God

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We're going to resume our study of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite. The first meeting was a kind of theological introduction based on the terms thearchy and hierarchy, thearchia and hierarchia. And we said that Dionysius bases his teachings on the divine oracles, as he calls them, the words, the theologia, that is on the words of the Old and New Testaments. We said the whole vision of Dionysius in reference to the thearhia, that's the divine source, the divine beginning of all things, is theosis, deification. And he describes thearhia as proceeding, processing, as it were, which is another key term in Dionysius, and sees the whole universe as a manifestation of God, the theophony of God, a revelation of God. And the purpose and result of this manifestation is, of course, the deification of man, raising us to the likeness of Christ, in whose image we were created.

Dating, Historical Background of Corpus & Authorship

SPEAKER_00 2:06

So Dionysius is typically dated at around five hundred. When we say Dionysius now, we're referring to the Dionysian corpus, that body of writings which bear the name of Dionysius. And there are a number of questions regarding the authorship of that corpus, the dating of that corpus, and I want to make you aware of what the arguments are. In the final analysis, let me just say from the outset that with all these theories, opinions, scholarly opinions in mind, we return to the tradition of the church. But there are in the corpus four treatises and nine epistles. The treatises are on the divine names, on the mystical theology, the celestial hierarchy, and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. And then you have the nine short letters. So what about the author? Who is the author of the Corpus Areopagiticum, the Areopagite corpus, often referred to as the Dionysian enigma? Firstly, we have the question of not only who is the author, but what is his purpose? In Acts seventeen, chapter seventeen, verse thirty-four, it says, How be it certain men clave unto him and believed, among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. And it's interesting that throughout this corpus, throughout the Dionysian writings, there are allusions to other apostles. We mentioned in passing last time that the corpus, the corpus areopagiticum, is highly influential not only in the East but also in the West.

Reception of Corpus in West (John Scotus Eriugena, c. 810 – c. 877, Thomas Aquinas, c. 1225 - 1274, The Cloud of Unknowing, late 14th century)

SPEAKER_00 5:19

However, the Dionysius that was received in the West was received through John Scotus Erigena, whose years are from around eight hundred and ten to around eight hundred and seventy-seven. So he belongs to the ninth century, and there you have the beginnings of scholasticism, the run-up, if you like, to the theology of the schoolmen, culminating in Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas, whose years are from around 1225, so thirteenth century, to twelve seventy-four. And of course, the influence of Dionysius can be seen in the West in such writings as The Cloud of Unknowing, which belongs to the 14th century, and others, other writings as well. Tremendously, tremendously influential in the West as well as in

Augustine and Intellection

SPEAKER_00 6:42

the East, but a very different Dionysius emerges in the West. Why? Basically, because of the intellectualistic approach of the West, which goes back to at least to Augustine. There are some elements of this, even in Tutullian, so that's that's very early. But Augustine, after Augustine, where the highest form of revelation is understood to be intellection. What is intellection? Intellection is basically that there are on the highest level of revelation, God revealing himself to man, the thoughts of God are transmitted from God, from the mind of God, to the mind of man. And it's this transmission, this intellection, this grasping of divine thoughts, which is understood as being illumination and characteristic of sanctity. So you have the saint emerging as a person with a brilliant mind. And I know, I'm fully aware that I'm describing this now in rather crude terms, but I'm doing so in order to convey the point. Well, at any rate, we'll come back to this point again of the apostolic authorship of Dionysius and the Dionysius that was received. In the Orthodox world, Dionysius, as I said, was received first and foremost through Maximus the Confessor. We'll say a word about that in a moment.

Authorship (Lorenzo Valda & Erasmus)

SPEAKER_00 9:08

But the authorship was first questioned in the West by Lorenzo Valda in 1547 and by Erasmus Desiderius 1466 or 1469 to 1536, the humanist.

Humanism and the sense of the holy

SPEAKER_00 9:38

And there is something I'd like to say about this whole term humanism and humanist. And you know that in the West humanism became central after the period of scholasticism. There was a kind of renaissance which brought in a very sharp focus on the human. And this was part of the renaissance of ancient learning, Greek and Latin principles. Be that as it may, I think the most important thing about the emergence of humanism in the West was the fact that there was a loss of this sense of holiness. And what I mean by that is that people stopped believing that you could become a saint. You could truly become a living image of Christ. That was possible. That a life of sanctity, a life of holiness, perfection in Christ is truly possible. They began to lose that in a big way. And what takes its place is focus on man. Human achievements, let's put that, let's put it that way. Human achievement, man. Man becomes the center of attention, the focus, the center of the universe is taken by man. And I think that this is really what's happening. There's a lack of faith which emerges because saints disappear. There are no more, or there are very few, examples of concrete examples of sanctity, proof that the commandments of Christ lead to deification, lead to becoming Christ-like in the full sense of the word.

The antidote: Saints of our own times

SPEAKER_00 12:32

And I do believe that in God's mercy, He's given us remarkable saints in our own times, in order to counterbalance, counteract to some significant degree the what's creeping into the Orthodox world as well. I mean, it's it's you know, with globalization, call it what you will, is having its impact, its effects on all of us. And it's not that we reject the world or hate the world or have any sort of, you know, we go into the di into, I don't mean, you know, to go in in the direction of conspiratorial theories and you know it's it's them against us and all the kind of paranoid stuff. But it doesn't interest us. I'm talking about sanctity. I'm talking about the fact that I'll tell you straight, um, I can't deny the fact that Saint Saphroni is Saint Sophroni. I can't I can't deny the fact that Saint Porfirius is Saint Porfirius, and I can't deny the fact that Saint Baisius is Saint Baesius and the others, which we were blessed to know. And I think that we were blessed to know them, and they were given to us in our age and in such a remarkably open way, perhaps as never before, because it's the antidote what we need in order to keep the faith in our times. We are all of us tempted to say, well, is that really possible? We're running the risk of watering down our understanding of holiness, our understanding of the purpose of our existence, and therefore of everything really is as serious as that. Let's return to our theme and our subject. Yes, the humanism of Erasmus and so forth. This is a challenge to us in our own times, very much so. And it takes different guises, different forms.

The young man, his guru, St Sophrony and Fr Raphael

SPEAKER_00 15:35

I think I told you the story about when I met a I was working in the same office as a man who was a follower of a guru and claimed that he had spiritual experience, even when working, even when speaking, even of the light, the divine light of his guru. There were some Christians in the office, and he was challenging them, saying, you know, what spiritual experiences do you have? You know, what are you? Oh, I'm Roman Catholic. What experience do you have? Do you experience this? Do you experience that? Do you know this? Do you know it by experience? And of course they thought he was crazy. But even though I was a young lad at the time, working during my school vacation for for this particular company, I had enough knowledge from the monastery of St. John the Baptist. The monastery of St. John the Baptist became our parish church, effectively, very early on. So every Sunday we go. And and I used to take the opportunity to ask questions and learn from the monks and the nuns. Of course, going to confession to Saint Seprani, learning from Saint Seffrani, as I observed how he celebrated the divine liturgy and other services, and his advice to me and so forth, his prayers for me. So I guess I was protected. I knew that this young man was not making up what he was saying. He had experiences, and they were real experiences. But what was the answer? How do we respond? It's easier to respond to a theological argument, isn't it? You just you try to find holes in the argument and argue against it. And on the intellectual level, it's relatively easy, but on the experiential level, I found it very difficult to know what's going on. How do we respond? He's having these experiences. What does one do? And I went back to the monastery. I'll share with you that I was praying and I was in agony over these experiences. These were not casual. I didn't have a casual encounter or series of encounters with this young man. This man was intense, and it threw me into an intense period of prayer with much suffering. That's the character of the spiritual struggle, right? Spiritual warfare is that's when you start the real battle. Anyway, thanks be to God, we had Father Sophroni. And it was Father Soffroni, and in particular, it was Father Raphael and Father Soffroni who were able to help me in this situation. Why? Because they said very clearly, something which even I at that time I had never studied theology. I was a teenager. I could understand. And they said to me, Look, man, the highest creation of God is a glory. We human beings, as images of Christ, have a glory. We do possess a glory, a light, if you will, which shines and is brilliant. But it is not the uncreated light of God's glory. It's the created light of our own created glory, which is in the image of the uncreated light. Now these Oriental religious traditions have methods and techniques by which they teach you how to tap into that glory. And the problem is that they mistake that created glory for an uncreated glory. They look at themselves and they think it's divine. Or they look at themselves and they say this light comes, in the case of the young man in question, this light comes from my guru. And it's divine, and so he is divine. And so they mistake the created for the uncreated. Straight out of St. Paul. So There is another level of theology, and that level of theology is experiential, and thanks be to God that we have people who are knowledgeable of the spiritual struggle. And Saint Seffrani is, of course, a master of the spiritual life. Because he's experienced it all. He's been through all the stages. There's nothing new, nothing can surprise him. He knows it all. He knows all the different ways by which the enemy seeks to beguile us. So I wanted to say that in response to this kind of.

Humanism and the exaltation of reason (coupled with New Ageism and self-deification)

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Okay, so humanism, placing the glory of man at the center of the universe, has become in the West an exaltation of reason so that ideas and concepts are preeminent. This is what we have. I mean, there is nothing higher in Western civilization, there is nothing higher than reason. And of course, it's challenged nowadays, perhaps to some significant degree, by that influence from the Oriental religious traditions, which has been coupled with reason. Okay, so you have a kind of Buddhist view of the scheme of things. So it's not just reason. This New Age, whatever it's turned into nowadays, the different forms of it, is becoming mainstream. But it's still an exaltation of the creation over the Creator. It's still a usurpation of the place that belongs only and rightfully only to God. Man is engaged in this form of self-deification, whether it's through reason, whether it's through reason and this metaphysic that is ultimately nihilistic. We'll talk more about that as we go along. But you see, these are important themes because we encounter them in our daily lives and we have to strive against them. We have to strive to preserve the Orthodox faith in ourselves, first of all, so that we can be of help to others.

Dating of Corpus c. 482 (Photios, Creed, Severus in 532)

SPEAKER_00 25:17

So the corpus is written probably around the time of the Henoticon, in 482. This body of work, scholars say, was probably written much later than the historical disciple of Saint Paul in 482. Why? Well, the reason why scholars say this, well there are several reasons. First of all, it's noticeable that these works are never mentioned in the first five centuries of the Christian era. In the Bibliotheca of Saint Pontius the Great, first section, at the very beginning, he mentions a certain Theodore who maintained that the Dionysian corpus is authentic. So Pontius was surprised that this Theodore believed that, yes, these are works of the Dionysius of Acts 17, the disciple of Saint Paul. And of course, Saint Pontius was a great scholar, and he asks the question: well, if the works are authentic, why are they not cited earlier? And I remember Metropolitan Callistos Weir saying something like, when you look at Origen, for example, and how Origen made use of just about everything that was available in his times. If there were such a body of work available around in the third century, surely at least Origen would make some kind of reference, some mention of them, and he would have been fascinated by them. This is the opinion of Metropolitan Callistos, God rest his soul. Another reason comes from the Divine Liturgy. Dionysius' description of the liturgy, for example, the singing of the Creed raises a question, right? When did the Creed enter into the Divine Liturgy? It wasn't there at the beginning. And we know historically that it was introduced into the liturgy by Peter the Fuller, the non-Chalcedonian presbyter of Antioch, Peter the Fuller. So we have a terminus. 476 is the year that it was introduced. So these works must have existed after the introduction of the creed, right? Because it refers to the liturgy with the Creed, the singing of the Creed. And the earliest clear evidence of this corpus, again by non-Chalcedonian writers, it's curious. It's not the Orthodox that first mentioned these writings, it's the non-Chalcedonians. Severus. Severus, the Patriarch of Antioch, at the five hundred and thirty-two colloquy, where the Chalcedonians were led by Hypatius. And when the non-Chalcedonians produced these writings in support of their arguments, Hypatius said, hold a minute. Where did this come from? What is this? So the first to refer to these were the non-Chalcedonians, Severus, and the first to object were the Chalcedonians. So you have 532 as the terminus antequim, the point before which they must have existed. Before the colloquy, the meeting of the non-Chalcedonians with the Chalcedonians, they must have already existed. According to this rationale, right? According to these arguments. Dionysius is later than 476, but earlier than 532. And so he's dated, the corpus is dated around 500.

Vladimir Lossky (1903 – 1958)

SPEAKER_00 31:05

And Vladimir Losky, in his famous essay on the mystical theology of the Eastern Church, says it really doesn't matter when these works were created. What matters is the influence that they have had on the church, the theology, the teaching of the church, whether they are representative of the teachings of the church, and whether they have influenced the church in a traditional way, which we see in Maximus the Confessor and in Simeon the New Theologian, and in Nikitas Stithatus, and in Gregory Palmos. So, can we identify the author? There are all kinds of theories about the authorship of the Dionysian corpus. Even to this day, there is considerable confusion about this question. Hathaway writes a book on Dionysius, and in fact, it's a hierarchy and the definitions of order in the letters of Pseudo-Dionysius, a study in the form and meaning of the Pseudo-Dionysian writings written in The Hague in 1969. And in his introduction, he lists all the opinions as to the authorship of the corpus up to his time, 1969. And there are about thirty-five differing opinions on who the author was. Some say Ammonius Sacchus, the teacher of Origen and Plotinus, others Peter the Iberian from the fourth century, Peter the Fuller, who we referred to earlier, introduced the recitation of the Creed into the liturgy, Severus of Antioch, Sergius of Reshaina, Patriarch of Constantinople, from six hundred and ten, John of Schithopolis is another theory, and Hathaway himself suggests Domasius, who was the last head of the pagan philosophy school at Athens, which was closed by Justinian in five hundred and twenty nine. And I remember that was a theory, the Domasian authorship was quite popular

Sitz im Leben (context and purpose)

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at one time. But let's look now at what the Dionysian corpus can tell us about his Zitz im Laban, his context of his person and purpose. There was a thesis written not long ago in Athens, which challenged all of these theorems. And I remember discussing this thesis with Metropolitan Eerothios of Lakos, who I introduced to the PhD program at the House of Studies. And Metropolitan Ierothias was very interested in this thesis, and he he studied it and took it apart, and really we had a good discussion about it. And these points of view, these theories are by no means conclusive. So let's look at the Zitzimleben.

Neoplatonism and A.H. Armstrong (1909 – 1997)

SPEAKER_00 35:31

For example, what is his relationship with Neoplatonism? Many modern Western scholars read Saint Dionysius as a Neoplatonist, or at least as one who's steeped in Neoplatonist categories. There are basically three approaches. There are those who say that he's a pagan philosopher and he takes on the guise of Dionysius as a result of Justinian's closure of the philosophical schools. There's a scholar called Van Est who follows that line of thinking. And then there are those who say that he is a Christian theologian using pagan philosophy, mainly Neoplatonism, for Christianity, in favor of Christianity, and that's Roque R-O-Q-U-E-S. Probably wrote the best single book on him, but also Fulker and Rorum, Paul Rorum. I believe he taught at Princeton. And Metropolitan Callistos also takes this view that he is in fact a Christian and he's using he's using philosophical language for Christianity in order to communicate with his pagan contemporaries. And there is also the view which says that perhaps Dionysius is simply one who saw no basic incompatibility between Christianity and Neoplatonism. I'm reminded of A. H. Armstrong, who did many things, but he was known as a specialist in Plotinus. He produced the translation for the Loeb Classical Library. He was the editor of later Greek philosophy, Cambridge, a great scholar, but I remember him telling us in a conference that he saw no difference between Christian asceticism and Plotinus, Neoplatonic tradition. And I realized that this is a very strongly held position. And I also saw again people who are intellectuals and who have their opinions and they're respectable on the intellectual level. But on the experiential level, they seem to bear witness to the fact that they really don't know what they're talking about.

Church tradition of “ineffable words” (2 Corinthians 12:4; and cf. 1 Corinthians 13:8-10)

SPEAKER_00 38:54

But the tradition of the church has always attributed these works to Dionysius the Areopagai, and sees his teaching as an elaboration of Saint Paul's teaching, especially of first and second Corinthians, in which Saint Paul speaks of unspeakable words, Arida Rimada in 2 Corinthians twelve, fourteen, and compare one Corinthians thirteen, eight to ten. Charity never faileth, but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail. Whether there be tongues, they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. You know what Saint Paul is saying here, and which is reiterated time and time again in the Dionysian writings.

In the experience of theosis even theology is abolished

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In the experience of theosis, even theology is abolished. In other words, we speak of the teachings of the church, the doctrines of the church as signposts, a roadmap, pointers which help us to take the right direction and to remain within a safe sphere. But when the reality of God is experienced, then you don't need the signposts. You don't need the roadmap. The pointers. You have the reality. And this is what makes Orthodox theology difficult. Very easy to talk about, but challenging to do. Very challenging to live.

Influence on Hymnography

SPEAKER_00 41:32

Furthermore, the hymnography of the church throughout the ages has been deeply influenced by the writings of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite. What are the two kinds of apatheticism? One is basically conceptual,

What are the two kinds of apophaticism?

SPEAKER_00 41:53

meaning you can take, say, that God is unknowable, and you can apply many such epithets to God, right? That he's unknowable, he's invisible, he's unsearchable. What I'm saying is that it's easy to do that on an intellectual level. We can all play that game. How seriously you take the game is is another question. But it is, rather, a superficial understanding, and it's a philosophical or conceptual understanding at best of this form of apophatic theology. The apophatic theology that Dionysius represents, the apophatic theology that Maximus and Palamas and the others represent, going back to earliest times, is not that. It's not an intellectual word game. It's based on this language, in other words, comes out of the genuine, direct, and unmediated encounter with the living God.

Examples of divine Light and divine love & the conjunction of opposites

SPEAKER_00 43:27

So that when, let's say, one who has experience of God as light says, God is light. There's an apophatic character to that. God is love. There's an apophatic character to that, which comes out of experience, the life of prayer, the life of the divine liturgy. Why? Because that love. Light. And that love are totally, radically unlike any other light or love which we know from the created order. So the fathers often they use the conjunction of opposites, don't they, in order to express their experience of the divine

Grace and Eucharist

SPEAKER_00 44:34

mysteries. The grace of God is undividedly divided. The mystery of the divine Eucharist is the same. It's undividedly divided. We experience, we receive the whole of Christ. And when we receive each one of us the whole of Christ, what remains is the whole of Christ. The whole of Christ is present in each particle of Holy Communion. And what remains in the chalice after Holy Communion is the whole Christ. Undividedly divided. This, well, it doesn't make sense, undividedly divide. It's an apophatic statement. But that apophatic statement is not the product of sophisticated syllogisms and philosophizing, philosophical speculation, it's the result of a life lived, experience.

Silouan the Athonite (1866 – 1938) & the self-sacrificial love of Christ

SPEAKER_00 45:50

When Saint Siloan says, if you do not learn to love your enemies, you can never know the grace of God. That could be the product, as Saint Sofrani points out, of a sophisticated theological argumentation. But that's not the basis of what Saint Sylvan's saying. Saint Sylvan's saying what he's saying, because he's experienced that. It's a truth. He's not arguing. It's not an argumentation. It's a statement of fact. We know, he says, we know. The greater the love, the greater the suffering. Christ's love is self-sacrificial in character. And those who follow the way of Christ share the same love. They experience the same love. And so their love is self-sacrificial.

Example of the Martyrs: Ignatius of Antioch (died c. 108)

SPEAKER_00 47:14

I pointed many times to, as an example, the martyrs. Saint Ignatius is a prime example. Saint Ignatius of Antioch. Look at his desire to die for Christ. I mean, it doesn't make sense, right? But this is in the realm of genuine experience of God. A life experiencing the love of God and wanting to respond to that love in kind. Right? That's Dionysius, that outgoing, the thearchy, going out of itself, it's a manifestation of its beauty, seeing the beauty of God, responding to the beauty of God. The only proper response to the beauty of God is to love God in return. And God love is canotic, it's self-sacrificial and so on. That's what we mean by the other form. It's a form of apophaticism, yes, but it's not some alternative theology. It comes from a life of prayer, of union and communion with God. And that is the life of the divine liturgy.

How to discern spiritual states?

SPEAKER_00 48:52

That's a good question. The illustration I gave you earlier from my own experiences was not designed to say that the young man had no experience. On the contrary, he had experience. The question is: what is the nature of that experience? Is it correct? Is it a healthy experience of God, or is it an experience which contains within it some form of deception? And my point was we need spiritual guides, masters of the spiritual life, who help us to discern

Antony the Great (251 – 356): discernment, humility & repentance

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those states. When they asked Saint Anthony the Great, what is the greatest gift? Greatest spiritual gift. He answered, the discernment of the spirits is reported to have said. The discernment of the spirit, discernment, it's not that other experiences can be brushed away. The question is, what is a life-giving experience? What is the experience of God which is saving? These require this whole area requires our life in general. It requires discernment. And we know that the discernment comes from humility. Learning the humility of Christ. And the way we learn the humility of Christ is by following his commandments, striving to live his commandments, and through the practice of genuine obedience in the desire to discover the will of God. And all of that presupposes a genuine spirit of repentance. So, as Brother Zechariah says, there are no recipes as such, but we know that we need discernment in order to navigate our way through this and that claim, and there are many fantastic claims all around us in our own day. All of them claiming to be true. But you shall know them by their fruits, right? What is the purpose? What is the goal? What is the vision?

Church provides context for discernment

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And the church gives us the context for discernment. The life of the church. And the life of the church is constant encouragement to strive after the humble

How to acquire the ethos of the Church?

SPEAKER_00 52:30

way of Christ. How do we acquire the ethos of the church? In the spiritual life, and by the way, I am speaking about theology now. So the two are not mutually exclusive, right? In the spiritual life, it's the little things that matter. The big things we know we tend to be aware of. It's the little things. It's attention to the smaller details of the life of the church, because they are the way by which the ethos of the church is conveyed to us. The ethos of the church is conveyed in those little things.

Sitting at table with Sophrony the Athonite (1896 – 1993)

SPEAKER_00 53:27

So if somebody were to ask, what was your major impression when you sat at table with Saint Sophroni? Or when you met Porphyrius? I mean it's just amazing that we had these in the same generation. Porfirius, Maisius. What was it that struck you most? There are many things, but it's those little things. It's the way they sat, their demeanor, the subtle aspects of their interactions with others. The most subtle aspects are the most striking. You

Porphyios the Hutdweller (1906 – 1991)

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know, with Saint Porphylius, somebody once asked me, we had a stream of a stream of revelation coming from that man. It was amazing. But how many years later, 30, 40 years later, his humble manner, I mean, it's enough to bring you to tears. It really is. It just so difficult to describe because I do believe that they acquired divine characteristics. And that's why it's so difficult to convey to others. But you try your best with human language and communication.

Paying attention to the little things (2 Kings 5:8-15)

SPEAKER_00 55:25

And there is that reading from the Old Testament, it's from the Book of Kings, where he says, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? Do we not have greater rivers in Syria? So if he had asked you to do a great thing, you would do it. Why don't you listen to him? He's asking you to do a humble thing, a small thing. It is all in the context of paying attention to the little things.

Vigilance, increased sensitivity, loss of grace

SPEAKER_00 56:05

And I think this is part of vigilance. With God's help, we become more refined in what we notice and what we don't notice. In the earlier stages of our journey, we were less refined and we didn't notice many things. And the curious thing is that life becomes more painful. Because we become more refined and our heart notices things that previously went unnoticed, we experience greater pain, greater suffering. You say, now why am I so troubled by this? A look, a careless word. Tiny things, small things, right? Why? Why do they hurt me? Why am I struggling now? What has caused me to lose grace? Why do I feel that I'm empty now? What has taken away the grace of God from me? And when we examine ourselves prayerfully, we discover it's a little thing. A little thing. We might not have noticed it here, but our heart noticed it when we were doing this or that, talking with someone, interacting

Learning an ethos: story of Silouan and Sophrony and God’s creation

SPEAKER_00 57:45

with someone. Yes, it's all part of the what I was trying to refer to earlier: learning and ethos, and the attentiveness that is required. Remember the story where Saint Sophrone is walking along a path on Athos with his beloved starrets, and as they were walking, he brushed away a twig or a branch or something that was in the way. And he noticed a little look that Saint Sylvan gave when he saw him brushing away, you know, callously, because the saint's sensitivity was such that he would not treat any part of God's creation that way. And Saint Sophroni immediately

Sophrony describes “hypostatic principle” in Silouan, making significant contribution to theology

SPEAKER_00 58:51

caught that. This is how he learned about the person, the hypostatic principle. It was by observing Saint Silhon. Saint Siloan was the person that he knew who most perfectly resembled, in a concrete way, made Christ present to him in his person. And so when Saint Sophroni writes about the hypostasis, I mean it could be the product of philosophical reasoning again, argumentation, propositions, syllogisms, and so on and so forth, right? But in fact, it's not. Not at all. All Saint Sophroni's doing is in words, he's drawing a picture of his spiritual father, Saint Silar. And he's saying, not that hypostasis is definable, because it's beyond definition, but he's saying, here, these are the characteristics of a human being, a person who has become Christ-like. That's hypostasis. That's a tremendous contribution to patristic literature, patristic wisdom, the life of the church. Because it's so rich, and it fleshes out for us what is the purpose that we should be aiming for, our goal.

Becoming Christ-like And Closing Appeal

SPEAKER_00 1:00:45

What does it mean to become Christ-like? Please subscribe to our channel and share with your friends. Click on the notification bell and on the join button below our video, and become a friend or reader of the Mount Tabor Academy. Support our drive to introduce the theology and spiritual life of the Orthodox Church to the wider community.