...continued from part two.
2. Father John Romanides on the Mystery of the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ
The necessary means of perfection for the deified, but also for the hired hands and slaves, is the crucifixion of desires and the uprooting of self-love through unwavering faith and unconditional obedience to the will of God. Perfection through obedience is valid for the angels before the fall of the devil and demons, since after the fall there is no repentance for them. For humans, obedience is the means of perfection before and after the fall. Obedience, however, is not an end in itself, so that through a servile and exchangeable disposition one may acquire a static, blissful state leading to the perpetuation of a servile or selfish relationship with God. In the stages of the slave and the hired hand, man participates in the perfection of God through the partaking in Christ of the purifying and illuminating grace of the mystery of the Cross, which purifies the passions and the nous and illuminates, sanctifies, justifies and animates the whole man and makes possible, through man's cooperation, obedience unto death to the will of God, through which obedience the grace of God transforms this submissive selfishness into selfless love, and thus man is deified and becomes a friend and co-worker of God, a brother and co-king by the grace of Christ, and an adopted son of the Virgin.
From what has been said, but also from the entire work of Nyssa on the life of Moses as well as from the general teaching of the Fathers, it is clearly seen how perfection according to Christ exists in the Old Testament, which clearly testifies to the existence of righteous friends of God before the law and after the law, just as the New Testament does before the sacrifice on the Cross at Golgotha. This is because the mystery of the Cross, which brings about the reconciliation of man with God and makes him a friend of God, is identified with the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross at Golgotha, as a consequence of the hypostatic union and the resulting counter-transference of the properties, but it is also distinguished from it (the sacrifice at Golgotha) because it pre-exists it and brings about the reconciliation before it, before the Incarnation and even before the Law of Moses.
It must be emphasized that the developed Sacred Tradition of the power of the Cross is the cross, which every deified and faithful person carries. However, this cross is not the possible problems that each person encounters in his life, as many think. On the contrary, the cross is the voluntary struggle that the believer undertakes in order to free himself from the slavery of the devil and sin, through the observance of obedience to the will of God until death, through which he reaches the divine through purification and illumination. The salvation and theosis of people does not consist simply in the crucifixion of the Lord for people and in the action on the predestined of an irresistible grace supposedly emanating from Golgotha, bringing about the appropriation of the fruits (meritorious according to the Western standard) of the sacrifice of the Cross for the satisfaction of hedonistic desires. On the contrary, each believer must be crucified not by chance or by blind or absolute predestination, but voluntarily, of his own and proper will, as Christ was crucified, because only through this voluntary crucifixion is participation in the mystery of the Cross accomplished, which transforms the self-loving man into a friend of God and a god by grace.
Also, an essential part of Holy Tradition is the boldness before God of the saints, who are deified in Christ here and beyond the grave, stemming from the selfless love of deification and friendship with God. And it is in this friendship with God and boldness before God that the people of God hope when they invoke the intercession of the Panagia and the Saints before God. Regarding the mystery of the Cross, namely theosis, based on friendship with God, and the boldness and intercession of the deified before God from it, Christ clearly teaches, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends... I have called you friends, because all things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you, and I remained among you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. I give you this commandment: Love one another."
The fruit here is not the works that Westerners consider meritorious or from an irresistible grace, but the selfless love of the God-fearing, which is crucified like Christ for the neighbor. Good works in themselves are not capable of preparing man to see God as light and to have such boldness before God on behalf of his brothers as Moses and the Apostle Paul, who were willing to give up their personal salvation for the salvation of others. This kind of deified love of the friend of God is that which can "restrain His anger against the Israelites, turning away the judgment of God Himself, so that he would not grieve His friend." These good works in themselves, apart from theosis, are the leaves of the withered fig tree, which, when they do not bear as fruit the love in Christ through theosis, do not lead to the reconciliation and friendship of Christ through the love that does not seek its own, which is the fruit that remains, so that whoever has such fruit and asks of the Father in the name of Christ, it will be given to him.
What has been said about friends and boldness becomes understandable when the general division of the stages of perfection is taken into account, as mentioned in the above verse of Saint Gregory of Nyssa. The slave does the will of God out of fear, the hired hand works for a wage, while the friend always does as an expression of the fruit of selfless love through theosis. Through theosis or illumination or theoptic vision, the friend of God approaches the state of sinlessness, and finally, with the death of his body, he reaches it and ascends infinitely to the higher stages of perfection. So much fruit is borne, and the fruit remains. From the perspective of the world's utilitarianism, however, this fruit can remain hidden from many and appear useless, especially when it is not accompanied by great and benevolent achievements pleasing to the social selfishness of many. True believers, however, know the friends of God, venerate their holy relics, and seek their presence with God, as well as their leadership and direction in their spiritual life.
The abundant fruit of theosis has the dual character of love and truth. Therefore, the deified is the one who truly loves through the love of friendship with God, as well as the one who knows the truth through this love. However, this abundant fruit is not the result of scientific research and speculative and dialectical intelligence, but the exclusive result of the deified's participation in the mystery of the Cross and the Resurrection, that is, the glory and kingdom in Christ. "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life."
He who achieves through the mystery of the Cross and the Resurrection the purification of passions and the nous through deliverance from demonic energies, and who transcends through theosis the illumination of baptism, becoming a friend of Christ, is the theologian and spiritual father par excellence, having been led into all truth by the Paraclete Spirit of Truth, as happened to the Apostles at Pentecost. As we have seen, theosis or the vision of glory and kingdom through the mystery of the Cross is the source and basis of the spiritual and dogmatic infallibility of Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition in the Church and is thus the bearer of the dogmas and the spiritual life in Christ.
Regarding this, Saint Gregory Palamas declares, "Thus the vision of God and the divine mystery of the Cross not only drives away evil passions and the demons that create them from the soul, but also refutes and rejects the cacodox beliefs and their supporters from the enclosure of the holy Church of Christ, in which we have been distinguished to celebrate and proclaim the divine grace and energy of the Cross before the Cross among the fathers."
It must be emphasized that the prophets and apostles do not simply discern the energies or actions of God in history, as some Bible interpreters today claim, but they see and hear and converse with the uncreated energies of God, namely the glory, luminous cloud, pillar of fire, divinity, kingdom and grace of God and through them with the God in them, through sight beyond sight, through hearing beyond hearing, through taste beyond taste, through touch beyond touch, through smell beyond smell, through knowledge beyond knowledge, through understanding beyond understanding, they hear "unspeakable words."
Accordingly, the deified, becoming infallible in matters concerning God and deification, clearly and precisely and not speculatively and dialectically knows the distinction between the uncreated energies of God and the created energies of creatures, including those of the devil and demons, and thus, to a supreme degree for man on this side of the grave, he has the gift of discerning spirits, which is the foundation of dogmatic theology and the spiritual life of the Church in Christ. Those outside the fellowship of those who have this gift of the deified are automatically led into heresy and into a false and misguided spirituality. So that those who have not yet reached theosis may not be misled dogmatically and spiritually, but having and maintaining the engagement of the Spirit and having lit their lamps, they submit to the prophets, apostles and saints, who are by grace gods and christs and fathers by the Spirit, and unhesitatingly accept their statements and meanings about God and purification, illumination and theosis, as the criteria of the dogmatic and spiritual teaching of the Holy Scriptures and the Church, that is, of Holy Tradition.
Although the vision of God through the power of the Cross and the Resurrection is above the senses, the word, and the mind, nevertheless it includes the mind, the word, the passions, and the senses, because the whole man is deified, that is, he is glorified and becomes a god by grace, and through Christ in the Holy Spirit he sees the Father. The fragrance of the holy relics of the saints, along with the miracles wrought by them, is a tangible testimony of their theosis, as well as of the resurrection of the bodies at the end of time.
From this it is clear that the teaching of perfection and theosis in Holy Scripture and the Holy Fathers has no relation to the dispassion of the Stoics and the liberation from the body and passions of the Platonists. The mortification of the passions through the mystery of the Cross is not the liberation of the intellect or the mind from them, but on the contrary the purification and theosis of the passions. Christ, as a perfect man, had and has by nature deified the blameless passions, as those who are deified begin to have by grace and those who are deified will have by grace.
- From the book Dogmatic and Symbolic Theology of the Orthodox Catholic Church, vol. 1.
PART FOUR
2. Father John Romanides on the Mystery of the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ
The necessary means of perfection for the deified, but also for the hired hands and slaves, is the crucifixion of desires and the uprooting of self-love through unwavering faith and unconditional obedience to the will of God. Perfection through obedience is valid for the angels before the fall of the devil and demons, since after the fall there is no repentance for them. For humans, obedience is the means of perfection before and after the fall. Obedience, however, is not an end in itself, so that through a servile and exchangeable disposition one may acquire a static, blissful state leading to the perpetuation of a servile or selfish relationship with God. In the stages of the slave and the hired hand, man participates in the perfection of God through the partaking in Christ of the purifying and illuminating grace of the mystery of the Cross, which purifies the passions and the nous and illuminates, sanctifies, justifies and animates the whole man and makes possible, through man's cooperation, obedience unto death to the will of God, through which obedience the grace of God transforms this submissive selfishness into selfless love, and thus man is deified and becomes a friend and co-worker of God, a brother and co-king by the grace of Christ, and an adopted son of the Virgin.
From what has been said, but also from the entire work of Nyssa on the life of Moses as well as from the general teaching of the Fathers, it is clearly seen how perfection according to Christ exists in the Old Testament, which clearly testifies to the existence of righteous friends of God before the law and after the law, just as the New Testament does before the sacrifice on the Cross at Golgotha. This is because the mystery of the Cross, which brings about the reconciliation of man with God and makes him a friend of God, is identified with the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross at Golgotha, as a consequence of the hypostatic union and the resulting counter-transference of the properties, but it is also distinguished from it (the sacrifice at Golgotha) because it pre-exists it and brings about the reconciliation before it, before the Incarnation and even before the Law of Moses.
It must be emphasized that the developed Sacred Tradition of the power of the Cross is the cross, which every deified and faithful person carries. However, this cross is not the possible problems that each person encounters in his life, as many think. On the contrary, the cross is the voluntary struggle that the believer undertakes in order to free himself from the slavery of the devil and sin, through the observance of obedience to the will of God until death, through which he reaches the divine through purification and illumination. The salvation and theosis of people does not consist simply in the crucifixion of the Lord for people and in the action on the predestined of an irresistible grace supposedly emanating from Golgotha, bringing about the appropriation of the fruits (meritorious according to the Western standard) of the sacrifice of the Cross for the satisfaction of hedonistic desires. On the contrary, each believer must be crucified not by chance or by blind or absolute predestination, but voluntarily, of his own and proper will, as Christ was crucified, because only through this voluntary crucifixion is participation in the mystery of the Cross accomplished, which transforms the self-loving man into a friend of God and a god by grace.
Also, an essential part of Holy Tradition is the boldness before God of the saints, who are deified in Christ here and beyond the grave, stemming from the selfless love of deification and friendship with God. And it is in this friendship with God and boldness before God that the people of God hope when they invoke the intercession of the Panagia and the Saints before God. Regarding the mystery of the Cross, namely theosis, based on friendship with God, and the boldness and intercession of the deified before God from it, Christ clearly teaches, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends... I have called you friends, because all things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you, and I remained among you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. I give you this commandment: Love one another."
The fruit here is not the works that Westerners consider meritorious or from an irresistible grace, but the selfless love of the God-fearing, which is crucified like Christ for the neighbor. Good works in themselves are not capable of preparing man to see God as light and to have such boldness before God on behalf of his brothers as Moses and the Apostle Paul, who were willing to give up their personal salvation for the salvation of others. This kind of deified love of the friend of God is that which can "restrain His anger against the Israelites, turning away the judgment of God Himself, so that he would not grieve His friend." These good works in themselves, apart from theosis, are the leaves of the withered fig tree, which, when they do not bear as fruit the love in Christ through theosis, do not lead to the reconciliation and friendship of Christ through the love that does not seek its own, which is the fruit that remains, so that whoever has such fruit and asks of the Father in the name of Christ, it will be given to him.
What has been said about friends and boldness becomes understandable when the general division of the stages of perfection is taken into account, as mentioned in the above verse of Saint Gregory of Nyssa. The slave does the will of God out of fear, the hired hand works for a wage, while the friend always does as an expression of the fruit of selfless love through theosis. Through theosis or illumination or theoptic vision, the friend of God approaches the state of sinlessness, and finally, with the death of his body, he reaches it and ascends infinitely to the higher stages of perfection. So much fruit is borne, and the fruit remains. From the perspective of the world's utilitarianism, however, this fruit can remain hidden from many and appear useless, especially when it is not accompanied by great and benevolent achievements pleasing to the social selfishness of many. True believers, however, know the friends of God, venerate their holy relics, and seek their presence with God, as well as their leadership and direction in their spiritual life.
The abundant fruit of theosis has the dual character of love and truth. Therefore, the deified is the one who truly loves through the love of friendship with God, as well as the one who knows the truth through this love. However, this abundant fruit is not the result of scientific research and speculative and dialectical intelligence, but the exclusive result of the deified's participation in the mystery of the Cross and the Resurrection, that is, the glory and kingdom in Christ. "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life."
He who achieves through the mystery of the Cross and the Resurrection the purification of passions and the nous through deliverance from demonic energies, and who transcends through theosis the illumination of baptism, becoming a friend of Christ, is the theologian and spiritual father par excellence, having been led into all truth by the Paraclete Spirit of Truth, as happened to the Apostles at Pentecost. As we have seen, theosis or the vision of glory and kingdom through the mystery of the Cross is the source and basis of the spiritual and dogmatic infallibility of Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition in the Church and is thus the bearer of the dogmas and the spiritual life in Christ.
Regarding this, Saint Gregory Palamas declares, "Thus the vision of God and the divine mystery of the Cross not only drives away evil passions and the demons that create them from the soul, but also refutes and rejects the cacodox beliefs and their supporters from the enclosure of the holy Church of Christ, in which we have been distinguished to celebrate and proclaim the divine grace and energy of the Cross before the Cross among the fathers."
It must be emphasized that the prophets and apostles do not simply discern the energies or actions of God in history, as some Bible interpreters today claim, but they see and hear and converse with the uncreated energies of God, namely the glory, luminous cloud, pillar of fire, divinity, kingdom and grace of God and through them with the God in them, through sight beyond sight, through hearing beyond hearing, through taste beyond taste, through touch beyond touch, through smell beyond smell, through knowledge beyond knowledge, through understanding beyond understanding, they hear "unspeakable words."
Accordingly, the deified, becoming infallible in matters concerning God and deification, clearly and precisely and not speculatively and dialectically knows the distinction between the uncreated energies of God and the created energies of creatures, including those of the devil and demons, and thus, to a supreme degree for man on this side of the grave, he has the gift of discerning spirits, which is the foundation of dogmatic theology and the spiritual life of the Church in Christ. Those outside the fellowship of those who have this gift of the deified are automatically led into heresy and into a false and misguided spirituality. So that those who have not yet reached theosis may not be misled dogmatically and spiritually, but having and maintaining the engagement of the Spirit and having lit their lamps, they submit to the prophets, apostles and saints, who are by grace gods and christs and fathers by the Spirit, and unhesitatingly accept their statements and meanings about God and purification, illumination and theosis, as the criteria of the dogmatic and spiritual teaching of the Holy Scriptures and the Church, that is, of Holy Tradition.
Although the vision of God through the power of the Cross and the Resurrection is above the senses, the word, and the mind, nevertheless it includes the mind, the word, the passions, and the senses, because the whole man is deified, that is, he is glorified and becomes a god by grace, and through Christ in the Holy Spirit he sees the Father. The fragrance of the holy relics of the saints, along with the miracles wrought by them, is a tangible testimony of their theosis, as well as of the resurrection of the bodies at the end of time.
From this it is clear that the teaching of perfection and theosis in Holy Scripture and the Holy Fathers has no relation to the dispassion of the Stoics and the liberation from the body and passions of the Platonists. The mortification of the passions through the mystery of the Cross is not the liberation of the intellect or the mind from them, but on the contrary the purification and theosis of the passions. Christ, as a perfect man, had and has by nature deified the blameless passions, as those who are deified begin to have by grace and those who are deified will have by grace.
- From the book Dogmatic and Symbolic Theology of the Orthodox Catholic Church, vol. 1.
PART FOUR
