1. Microcosm and mediator
In any dialogue between
theology and science, there is one basic truth which
as Christians we must keep continually in view.
Spirit and matter are not mutually exclusive. On the
contrary, they are interdependent; they
interpenetrate and interact. When speaking,
therefore, of the human person, we are not to think
of the soul and the body as two separable «parts»
which together comprise a greater whole. The soul,
so far from being a «part» of the person, is an
expression and manifestation of the totality of our
human personhood, when viewed from a particular
point of view. The body is likewise an expression of
our total personhood, viewed from another point of
view - from a point of view that, although different
from the first, is complementary to it and in no
respect contrary. «Body» and «soul» are thus two
ways of describing the energies of a single and
undivided whole. A truly Christian view of human
nature needs always to be unitary and holistic.
It is true that, in our daily experience, we often
feel within ourselves not undivided unity but
fragmentation and conflict, with soul and body in
sharp opposition to one another. It is this that St
Paul expresses when he exclaims: ¼ wretched man that
I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this
death?' (Romans 7:24). St John Climacus (7th
century) voices the same perplexity when he says of
his body: «He is my helper and my enemy, my
assistant and my opponent, a protector and a
traitor. ...What is this mystery in me? What is the
principle of this mixture of body and soul? How can
I be both my own friend and my own enemy?»(1).
But if we feel within ourselves this dividedness and
warfare between our soul and our body, that is not
because God has made us that way, but because we are
living in a fallen world, subject to the
consequences of sin. God for His part has created us
as an undivided unity; it is we human beings who
through our sinfulness have undermined that unity,
although it is never altogether destroyed.
Whenever, therefore, we find passages in the Bible
or the Fathers which seem to affirm an antagonism
and division between body and soul, or which appear
to condemn the body as evil, we have to ask
ourselves: To what level of human existence does the
text in question refer? Is the author speaking about
the fallen or the unfallen condition of humankind?
Is he talking about the body in its natural state,
as created by God, or does he have in view our
present situation, subject to sin, whether ancestral
or personal -a situation that is in fact altogether
contranatural? When St Paul speaks about «the body
of this death» (Romans 7:24), he means our fallen
state; when he says, «Your body is a temple of the
Holy Spirit... Glorify God in your body» (1
Corinthians 6: 19-20), he is speaking about the body
as it was when originally created by God, and as it
can be once more when we are redeemed in Christ.
Similarly, when St John Climacus terms the body
«enemy», «opponent» and «traitor», he has in view
the body in its present state of fallen sinfulness;
but when he calls the body «helper», «protector» and
«friend», he is referring to its true and natural
condition, whether unfallen or redeemed. When
reading Scripture or the Fathers, we have always to
place each statement about the body-soul
relationship in its specific context, and to allow
for this crucial distinction of levels.
However acutely we may feel the inner antagonism
between our physicality and our spiritual yearning,
let us never lose sight of the fundamental wholeness
of our personhood, as created in the divine image.
This wholeness is vividly emphasised in a text
attributed to the second-century author Justin
Martyr:
What is a human being but a rational creature
constituted from a soul and a body? So, then, the
soul by itself is not a human being? No; it is the
human being's soul. And the body is not to be
regarded as a human being? No; it is just the human
being's body. A human being is neither the body or
the soul on its own, but only that which is formed
from the combination of the two(2).
The unknown author of this text thinks in
dichotomistic terms, affirming a contrast simply
between soul and body. The Fourth Ecumenical Council
(Chalcedon, 451) speaks in a similar way when it
states that Jesus Christ is «complete (teleios) in
Godhead and complete in Manhood, truly God and truly
Man, [formed] from a rational soul and a body». On
other occasions the Fathers use a trichotomist
scheme, speaking of body (soma), soul (psyche) and
spirit (pnevma), or of body, soul and intellect
(nous). Both the dichotomist and the trichotomist
schemes can claim support from the tradition of the
Church, and there is no basic contradiction between
them. For our present purpose it is sufficient to
note that, whichever scheme we prefer, the same
primary truth is to be affirmed. Our human nature is
complex, but it is one in its complexity. There is
within us a diversity of aspects or faculties, but
this is a diversity-in-unity.
The true character of our human personhood, as a
complex whole, a unity-in-diversity, is admirably
expressed by St Gregory of Nazianzus, «the
Theologian» (ca. 329-90)(3).
He distinguishes two levels in created reality, the
spiritual and the material. Angels belong only to
the spiritual or non-material level; although
according to many Patristic authors God alone is to
be considered non-material in an absolute sense, yet
in comparison with the rest of creation angels may
indeed be termed «bodiless» (asomatoi) in a relative
sense. Animals, on the other hand, exist solely on
the material and the physical level. Uniquely in
God's creation we human beings exist on the two
levels at once, belonging to both the spiritual and
the material realm. Accordingly, St Gregory applies
to human nature such terms as «mingling» (krama) and
«mixture» (mixis).
As «mixed» beings we may not stand at the highest
point in the created world; that position is usually
assigned to the angels, although there are in fact
some Fathers such as St Gregory Palamas (1296-1359)
who are inclined to assign to human beings a place
above the angelic orders, precisely by virtue of our
«mixed» character(4). Yet,
even if we human beings are not at the summit of
creation, we are certainly at the crossroads. We
humans are the bridge and meeting point between the
spiritual and the material. As St Gregory the
Theologian puts it, each of us is «earthly yet
heavenly, temporal yet immortal, visible yet
intelligible, midway between majesty and lowliness;
one selfsame being, but both spirit and flesh». In
this way, each is a «second cosmos, a great universe
within a little one»; we contain within ourselves
the diversity and complexity of the total creation.
It is significant that, in St Gregory's
understanding, the «great universe» is not the world
around us, the outer space that is measured in
millions of light years, but the world that is
within us, the inner space of the human heart.
Moreover, continues St Gregory, because we are not
only an image of the world but an image of God, we
are capable not simply of uniting the spiritual and
the material -of rendering the material spiritual,
and of rendering the spiritual incarnate- but it is
our vocation also to attain «deification» (theosis),
thereby uniting ourselves and the whole created
world with God.
The human person is in this way called to be both
microcosm and mediator. But we cannot fulfil this
vocation as unifiers and bridge-builders -we cannot
unite matter and spirit, the earthly and the
heavenly- unless we each see our own self as a
single, undivided whole. If we reject our body as
alien to our true personhood, if we sever our links
with our material environment, then we cease to
express our true character as microcosm and we are
no longer able to mediate. «One selfsame being»,
says St Gregory; and this is all-essential.
This truth is underlined with great clarity by St
Maximus the Confessor(5). If
according to the account of creation in Genesis 1
Adam, was created last of all, after the rest of the
created cosmos, that is because the human person is
-as St Maximus puts it- «a natural bond of unity»,
mediating and drawing together all the different
levels of the outside world, because related to them
all through the different aspects of his own being.
In the words of St Maximus, each of us is «a
laboratory (ergastirion) that contains everything in
a most comprehensive fashion», and so «it is the
appointed task of each one of us to make manifest in
ourself the great mystery of the divine intention:
to show how the divided extremes in created things
may be reconciled in harmony, the near with the far,
the lower with the higher, so that through gradual
ascent all are eventually brought into union with
God». Having united all the levels of creation with
each other, then -through our love for God (a key
concept in St Maximus) and through the gift of
theosis which God in His divine love confers upon
us- we finally unite created nature with the
uncreated, «becoming everything that God Himself is,
save for identity of essence».
In the thought of St Maximus, as in that of St
Gregory of Nazianzus, the corollary of all this is
abundantly clear. We cannot mediate if we are
ourselves fragmented; we cannot unify unless we are
at unity within ourselves. Only if we accept our
physical body as integral to our humanness can we
bring together into harmony the spiritual and the
material, and offer them together to God their
Creator. «I beseech you», says St Paul, «to present
your bodies as a living sacrifice to God» (Romans
12:1). Unless we have first by God's grace made our
body into a true temple of the Holy Spirit and
offered it to God, we cannot as mediators offer back
the material world to God. St Maximus is emphatic
about this need to «glorify God in the body». «The
body is deified along with the soul», he writes(6);
«by nature we remain entirely human in our soul and
in our body, but by grace we become entirely God in
our soul and in our body»(7).
«The body», affirms St Gregory Palamas in similar
terms, «once it has rejected the appetites of the
flesh, no longer drags the soul downwards but is
raised together with it, so that the whole human
being becomes spirit»(8).
Only if we spiritualise our own body (without
thereby dematerializing it) can we spiritualise the
creation (without thereby dematerializing it). Only
on a holistic view of human personhood, which
regards body and soul as an undivided unity, does it
become possible for us to carry out our uniquely
human vocation as mediators.
When we speak in this way of the human person as
mediator, we have of course to add that in the
ultimate sense there is only one mediator: Jesus
Christ, the «God-man» or Theanthropos. He is the
mediator; we can only mediate in and through Him.
2. The human mystery
At this point in our
discussion, it will be prudent to issue three words
of caution.
First, we understand only a very small part of
ourselves. This is true for theology, as it is true
also for physiology and psychology. However far we
carry our inquiries into human nature, there remains
always much more that we cannot yet put into words,
that has to remain unsaid. Our self-analysis,
however penetrating, is never exhaustive. «What is
this mystery in me?» asks St John Climacus, in words
that we have already quoted(9).
Yes, indeed: the greatest mystery in the entire
world is the human person. The Greek Fathers,
moreover, give a specific reason for this
mysterious, indefinable character of our nature: the
human being is fashioned in God's image and likeness
(Genesis 1: 26-27). Our personhood is a created icon
of the uncreated God: and from this it follows,
according to St Gregory of Nyssa (died ca. 394),
that -since God the Archetype is beyond our
comprehension- so also is God's living icon, the
human being(10). In our
discourse about human persons, as in our discourse
about God, there needs always to be an apophatic
dimension; negative theology requires as its
counterpart negative anthropology. As theologians,
then, and equally as scientists, let us be
circumspect in what we assert about ourselves, for
all our statements are no more than provisional. The
knowledge that we have of ourselves falls far short
of the knowledge that God has of us; as the Psalmist
observes, «His knowledge is too wonderful for us,
and we cannot attain to it».
In the second place, the words that we customarily
use to describe our human personhood have almost
always altered their meaning, in subtle yet
significant ways, since the era of the New Testament
and the Early Church. Can we be confident that we
today mean by «soul» exactly what St Paul meant by
psyche in the first century, or St Gregory the
Theologian in the fourth? Almost certainly we
cannot. Many of the key terms concerning human
nature -not only «soul» (psyche) but equally
«intellect» (nous), «passion» (pathos), and «heart»
(kardia), to mention only a few examples- carry
different connotations today from those which they
possessed in the past. To assess the meaning of such
terms, we have to analyse carefully the way in which
they are employed on specific occasions. When I was
working on the English translation of The Philokalia
with my friends, the late Gerald Palmer and the late
Philip Sherrard, we regularly found that the most
problematic Greek words were those referring to
human nature, and we were often dissatisfied with
the English equivalents that we proposed. So also,
in many instances, were the critics who reviewed our
translation; but, if they proposed alternatives
-which usually they did not- these raised further
difficulties, perhaps as serious as those involved
in our own renderings. What T.S. Eliot says in East
Coker about words in general applies particularly to
words about human personhood:
...a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling.
Thirdly, while acknowledging the great benefits to
either side that may be gained through a dialogue
between science and theology, we have to recognize
the profound difference in scope and method between
the two. Whereas science relies upon observation and
experiment, theology starts from the data of
revelation. And whereas science is limited to the
present fallen condition of our human nature,
theology embraces within its scope -albeit only
tentatively and with a constant apophatic reserve-
the unfallen as well as the fallen state of the
created world. It has to be kept in mind that in our
present experience we know only the situation of the
body in its fallen state; and it is of this alone
that science speaks. But the body as we now know it
is not at all the same as the body in the state in
which God intends it to be. It lies largely beyond
our present imagination to envisage the transparency
and radiance, the lightness and sensitivity that our
material bodies -along with the rest of the material
creation- will possess in the surpassing glory of
the Age to come.
We have spoken a little time ago about the human
person as mystery and about the need for apophatic
reserve. In this connection it is noteworthy how few
are the definitions concerning human nature in the
Creed and in the dogmatic decrees of the Seven
Ecumenical Councils. Our Orthodox teaching
concerning human personhood belongs for the most
part to the realm of theologoumena rather than
dogmata (it should of course be remembered and
theologoumena stand on a far higher level than the
private opinions of individual theologians). Only on
two occasions, so far as I am aware, do the Creeds
and the Ecumenical Councils speak directly and in
authoritative terms about human nature; and
significantly on both occasions they are concerned
with the unity of our personhood.
1. The Nicene Creed -or, more exactly, the expanded
version of the Creed of 325 endorsed by the First
Council of Constantinople (381)- affirms in its
final clause: «We await the resurrection of the
dead». Body and soul, that is to say, are separated
at the moment of our physical death, but this
separation is only temporary. We look forward,
beyond physical death, to the Last Day when the two
will once more be reunited. As Christians we
believe, not simply in the immortality of the soul,
but in the ultimate survival of the entire person,
soul and body together.
2. A second, and less obvious, affirmation
concerning human nature is to be found in the first
of the Fifteen Anathemas directed against Origen,
which were adopted at (or perhaps immediately
before) the Second Council of Constantinople (553),
the Fifth Ecumenical Council: «If anyone maintains
the mythical pre-existence of souls ... let him be
anathema»(11). Soul and
body, in other words, come into existence at the
same time, as a single unity, and they grow to
maturity together. They are strictly interdependent.
Although many of the Greek Fathers were profoundly
influenced by Platonism, the anathema against Origen
clearly indicates that there were limits to this
Platonic influence. Orthodox Christianity rejects
the picture of human nature presented by Plato in
the myth of Er (Republic, Book X). According to the
Christian view the human person is not a soul
temporarily enclosed in a body, but an integral
unity of soul and body together. The body is not a
transient dwelling-place or tomb, not a piece of
clothing that we shall in due course discard, but it
is from the first beginnings of our human existence
an indispensable and enduring expression of our
total personhood.
These two ecumenical affirmations, then, underline
the unity of our personhood, both at its initial
coming-into-being -there is no pre-existence of the
soul- and at its final end, when soul and body,
divided at death in a manner profoundly contrary to
nature, will be forever restored to their primal
oneness in the Age to come. So at the consummation
of all things the words of the prophet will be
fulfilled: «Death is swallowed up in victory»
(Isaiah 25:8; compare 1 Corinthians 15:54).
3. «It is raised a spiritual body»
In this way the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and the Fifth Ecumenical Council bring us back to our central theme. Alike in the sphere of human personhood and in the cosmos as a whole, spirit and matter are not opposed, not mutually exclusive, but complementary and interdependent. They interpenetrate. Let us briefly review the outstanding examples of such interpenetration, first as expressed in Scripture, and second as affirmed in the Tradition of the Church(12).
Scripture
1. At His
Incarnation, Christ the divine Logos assumes into
Himself the totality of our human nature; He has a
genuinely human body and a genuinely human soul (for
the soul of Christ, see above all Matthew 26:38 and
Mark 14:34). His divine glory permeates both aspects
of his humanness -not only His soul but equally His
body- as can be seen supremely at His
Transfiguration upon Mount Tabor (Matthew 17:1-8;
Mark 9:2-8; Luke 9:28-36). When the three disciples
behold Christ's face shine as the sun and His
vesture become dazzling white, what they see is
human nature, our physical nature, rendered godlike
and deified. To quote from the liturgical texts for
Orthros: «You have put on Adam in his entirety, Ï
Christ, and changing the nature that had previously
grown dark, You have filled it with glory and
deified it by the alteration of Your form»(13).
At the moment of Christ's Transfiguration, the
materiality of His body is not abolished but it is
rendered spiritual, becoming totally a vehicle of
the presence and power of the Holy Spirit: «You were
revealed as a non-material fire that does not burn
up the materiality of the body»(14).
What is more, it is not only Christ's face but His
body foreshadows the transformation of all material
things at the Last Day(15).
2. The interaction between spirit and matter,
revealed by the Saviour on Tabor, is evident also in
His appearances after the Resurrection. Christ has
still a physical body, bearing the wounds of His
Passion (John 20:20-28); returning from the dead. He
has the same material body as he had when He
suffered on the Cross(16).
The risen Lord is not a ghost, not a disembodied
phantom, but He has flesh and bones, and He eats and
drinks in the presence of His disciples (Luke
24:39-43). Yet at the same time His body has
changed. It passes through closed doors (John
20:19); He has «another form» (Mark 16:12), so that
He is not immediately recognized by the two
disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:16) or by
the apostles beside the Lake of Tiberias (John
21:4). In the forty days between His Resurrection
and His Ascension, Jesus is not continuously present
in a visible manner to His followers, but from time
to time He appears suddenly and then once more
withdraws. His resurrection body continues to be
genuinely physical, but it has been released from
the limitations of materiality as we normally
experience it, dwelling as we do in a fallen world.
It has become a spiritual body - spiritual, yet
still material.
3. The condition of Christ's body after His
resurrection helps us to understand what will be the
condition of the bodies of the redeemed at the
resurrection of the dead on the Last Day. We shall
be changed in our physicality, just as He was
changed when He rose on the third day: «Jesus Christ
will transfigure the body of our humiliation, so as
to conform it to His own glorious body» (Philippians
3:21). The risen Christ is in this way our model and
forerunner; He is the «first fruits» and we are the
harvest (1 Corinthians 15: 20-24). What has already
happened to Him -and to the Mother of God- will
happen by God's grace and mercy (so we pray) to all
of us at the Second Coming. In this connection St
Paul uses exactly the phrase that we have already
had occasion to employ, «spiritual body» (soma
pnevmatikon): «What is sown is perishable, what is
raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour, it
is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is
raised in power. It is sown a natural (psychikon)
body, it is raised a spiritual (pnevmatikon) body»
(1 Corinthians 15: 42-44). Here as always we should
remember that «spiritual» does not signify «dematerialised»
but «filled with the power of the Holy Spirit». Our
«spiritual body» at the Final Resurrection will not
be a non-material or metaphorical body, but a body
that, while still remaining physical, is totally
interpenetrated by the glory of God.
There are, needless to say, many questions about the
resurrection body which in the present state of our
knowledge we cannot answer. With good reason St
Paul, when speaking of the Final Resurrection,
employs the word «mystery»: «Behold, I speak to you
of a mystery» (1 Corinthians 15:51). We have to
admit frankly that we do not understand the exact
connection between the human body as it now is and
the human body as it will be in the Age to come.
What will happen, we are often asked, to those who
are born with defective bodies (or minds), or who
die before they have grown to maturity? With what
kind of body will they rise from the dead? We cannot
claim to give a precise answere, for «at the present
moment we see only puzzling reflections in a mirror»
(1 Corinthians 13:12). But concerning two things we
may be confident. First, like the risen Christ, we
shall have what is in some sense the same physical
body -the same and yet different: for it will be
transformed and glorified (1 Corinthians 15:51-53).
Second, in the Age to Come all our pain will be
healed, all our defects made good, all our
brokenness repaired; every tear will be wiped from
our eyes, and there will be no more mourning and
crying and pain, for Christ will make all things new
(Revelation 21: 4-5)(17).
Holy Tradition
The interpenetration of spirit and matter -and
likewise the transfiguration of our physical bodies
and of all material things by the uncreated energies
of God- are clearly affirmed not only in Scripture
but in the continuing experience of the Church.
1.ln the sacraments or «mysteries» of the Christian
life -preeminently in Baptism, Chrismation, the
Eucharist, and the Anointing of the Sick- we bless
material things such as water, bread, wine and oil;
and through this blessing they are transformed into
effective signs that confer spiritual grace.
Sacraments are thus precisely an example of matter
rendered spiritual, and in each of them the saving
power of the Spirit is transmitted to us in and
through our physical bodies. The Christian East
continues to resist any diminution in the
materiality of these sacramental signs. Baptism is
conferred by immersion, except in case of emergency;
leavened bread is used at the Eucharist, not wafers;
the wine at Holy Communion is always red, and its
material character is emphasised by the addition of
hot water.
2. Among the «mysteries» there is one in particular
which involves the interdependence of spirit and
matter, and that is the sacrament of marriage.
Adopting a unitary view of human nature, in the
wedding service we ask that the couple may be
granted «concord of soul and body». The body, with
its sexuality that is expressed at many different
levels, is blessed by God in its entirety and made
holy. «Among those who are sanctified», states
Clement of Alexandria, «even the seed is holy»(18).
3. The Holy Icons, although on a different level
from the consecrated elements at the Eucharist, are
also an instance of matter rendered spiritual. In
his defence of the icons, what St John of Damascus
(ca. 675-759) emphasises is above all the
spirit-bearing potentialities of material things:
I do not worship matter, but I worship the Creator
of matter, Who has been pleased to enter matter and
has through matter effected my salvation. I shall
not cease to venerate matter, for it was through
matter that my salvation came to pass. ...Do not
insult matter, for it is in no way despicable;
nothing that God has made is to be despised.
...Matter is filled with divine grace(19).
4. A further example of the interaction between
matter and spirit is provided by the discipline of
fasting. Ascetic fasting does not signify a
repudiation of the goodness of material objects; on
the contrary, food and drink are a gift from God, to
be received with joy and thanksgiving. We fast, not
in order to express our disdain for material things,
but so as to raise those things to the level of the
Spirit. Through fasting, our food and drink -instead
of being merely a way of satisfying physical hunger-
become a means of communion with God. Eating and
drinking are through fasting rendered personal.
5. If fasting brings about the spiritualization of
the body, so also in another way does the gift of
tears. Through grace-given weeping the bodily senses
are made spiritual, and our human physicality is
purged and refined, although not rejected. Tears
signify not the mortification of the body but its
transfiguration.
6. The interplay and reciprocity of spirit and
matter, of soul and body, are evident also in the
physical technique employed by the Hesychasts in
combination with the recitation of the Jesus Prayer.
By adopting a particular bodily posture and by
regulating the rhythm of their breathing, the monks
of 14th century Athos were seeking in a positive
manner to harness their physical energies to the
task of prayer. There are obvious dangers here, but
St Gregory Palamas rightly defends the physical
technique by appealing to a holistic view of human
personhood. «Glorify God in your body» (1
Corinthians 6:20); through such methods the body is
treated, not as a lump of inert matter to be ignored
and repressed, but as the messenger and friend of
the soul, the temple of the Holy Spirit.
7. The spiritualization of the body is evident above
all in the vision of the divine Light granted to the
saints in prayer. Here once more we may take St
Gregory Palamas as our sure guide. At the
Transfiguration of Christ on Tabor, the light which
shone from His face was not a created light of the
senses but the uncreated energies of God; yet the
three disciples saw this uncreated Ligth through
their bodily eyes. They saw it, that is to say, not
by virtue of the normal power of sense-perception,
but by virtue of the power of the indwelling Spirit
which had transformed their senses. This Taboric
mystery, according to Palamas, has continued in the
life of the Church. The saints of God do not merely
contemplate the divine light inwardly within their
soul, but their bodies also shine in an outward and
physical fashion with the uncreated glory that they
contemplate; and this glory may sometimes be seen by
others through their bodily eyes, as the light of
Tabor was seen by Peter, James and John upon the
mountain. In this way the transfigured bodies of the
saints, even in this present life, manifest the
final glory of the resurrection body in the Age to
come. The eschatology of Palamas is thus not a
futurist but an inaugurated eschatology. «If in the
Age to come», he writes, «the body will share with
the soul in ineffable blessings, it must certainly
share in them, so far as possible, here and now»(20).
In all these examples, then, alike from the New
Testament and from the life of the Church, it is
fully evident that spirit and matter are not to be
set in opposition, nor yet to be juxtaposed in a
purely external manner, but they are to be seen as
interpenetrating and interactive. There is between
the two a constant perichoresis, a mutual
coinherence that brings healing and salvation. The
glory of God's Holy Spirit is not only an invisible
but a physical glory. Matter, when taken up into
Christ, is not merely dead particles but living
presence. This conviction that matter is not inert
«stuff» but dynamic energy is something that the
natural sciences share with the mystical theology of
the Orthodox Church. On the basis of this common
conviction, we have everything to gain from
listening to each other. Whether we are theologians
or scientists, can we not pursue together in
creative co-operation our continuing exploration of
the human mystery, about which at present we both of
us have such a partial and imperfect understanding?
Notes
1. The Ladder of Divine Ascent
15 (PG 88:901C-904A). On John Climacus's theology of
the human body, see Christos Yannaras, Ç ìåôáöõóéêÞ
ôïõ óþìáôïò (Athens, 1971); also my introduction to
Colm Luibheid and Norman Russell (translators), John
Climacus: The Ladder of Divine Ascent (The Classics
of Western Spirituality: New York, 1982), pp. 28-32.
2. On the Resurrection 8 (PG 6:
1585B).
3. Oration 38:11.
4. See Georgios I. Mantzaridis,
The Deification of Man: St Gregory Palamas and the
Orthodox Tradition, translated by Liadain Sherrard
(St Vladimir's Seminary Press: Crestwood, 1984), pp.
19-20.
5. Ambigua 41 (PG91:
1305A-1308B).
6. Gnostic Centuries 2:88 (PG
90: 1168A).
7. Ambigua 1: (1088C).
8. Triads 2:2:9
9. See note 1.
10. On the creation of the
human person 11 (PG44: 153D, 156B).
11. On the anti-Origenist
anathemas, see Aloys Qrillmeier and Theresia
Hainthaler, Christ is Christian Tradition 2:2 (Mowbray:
London, 1995), pp. 403-4
12. In
speaking thus of Scripture and Tradition, I do not
intend to separate and contrast them as two
«sources»; for they form together a single and
undivided whole.
13. First Canon, Canticle 3:1.
14. Second Canon, Canticle
4:3. Compare the Burning Bush (Exodus 3:2).
15. On the ecological
significance of Christ's Transfiguration, see the
collective volume Metamorphosi, edited by Kostis
Kyriakidis (Akritas: Athens, 1984).
16. Indeed, His body will
still bear the marks of His Passion when He returns
to earth at His Second Coming (see Zechariah 12:10;
John 19:37). Although glorified, His human flesh
still bears witness to His suffering and death. As
Leon Bloy has well said, «Souffrir passe, avoir
souffert ne passe jamais»; suffering passes, but the
fact of having suffered remains always with us. That
is true even of God Incarnate.
17. For further discussion of
the resurrection body, see my book The Inner Kingdom
(St Vladimir's Seminary Press: Crestwood, 2000), pp.
37-41.
18. Stromateis 2:6.
19. On Icons 1:16 and 1:36.
20. The Tome of the Holy
Mountain 6.