Chapter Two
Anthropos, Cosmos, and
Theos According to the
Orthodox Catholic Tradition
and the Alchemico-Hermetic
Tradition: Two Divergent
Triadologies.
According to the Orthodox
Fathers of the Church,
theology’s proper beginning
point is not any concept of
God, however intellectually
satisfying or emotionally
compelling such an idea may
be. Rather, the Orthodox
begin with the reality of
the Incarnation of Christ,
the Son of God. “God became
man that man may become as
God.”11 The
Son is the perfect image of
God the Father. We know that
the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit are three divine
Hypostases or Persons
because those masters of the
spiritual life who have
become united to the Holy
Trinity in this life all
report the same thing: They
have become united to the
Holy Trinity through a
sharing in the divine
resplendence or glory (Gr.doxa), which,
though being from Three, is
also One.
However, Orthodox spiritual
life has nothing in common
with individualism or
pietism, for no one can
baptize himself, and no one
can be perfected apart from
the communal life of the
Divine Liturgy. One begins
as a hearer, as a babe who
must begin with milk before
he can have solid food. The
milk is the opening stages
of ascesis in
the form of 1) obedience to
a spiritual father who is a
doer, one who teaches from
experience of God, and 2)
participation in the Holy
Sacraments of the Church,
the Sacrament par
excellence being
the Holy Eucharist, where
the communicant receives the
Body and Blood
of God into his body. The
higher stage that
constitutes “solid food” is
direct experience of the
uncreated glory of God,
though the friend of God
never rises above the need
for repentance and the
Sacraments, but rather lives
out these aspects of
Orthodox life more fully.
Such a communion, far from
being magical, is in
actuality the only Way (Heb. Torah) that
delivers man from idolatry:
“There are two ways, one of
life and one of death.”
“Thou shalt have no other
gods before me.”12
So, if man does not come to
know God through concepts,
then how does man ever know
God at all? Man is created
in the image of God, which
means that his life is meant
to be an eternal journey
toward the divine. This
journey is possible because
man’s center is his
God-created nous, or
inner man (eso
anthropon).13 The
nous is never equated with
the brain or the rational
mind (dianoia) by
the Orthodox Fathers; it is
precisely this confusion of
the noetic with the merely
rational that characterizes
the Augustino-Platonic
tradition of the Christian
West. The nous is
also designated as the heart (kardia) by
the Orthodox Fathers.14 This
spiritual heart is man’s
unique organ of communion
with the uncreated energies
of God. These energein of
God are not a part of
God, nor are they an
intermediary between man and
God. Neither are God’s
energies anything other than
the very Life, Light, and
Love of the Father, Son and
Holy Spirit. These energies
are God’s going out of
Himself toward creation in
an act of love (kenosis, self-emptying)
to save creation from
corruption through communion
with His incorrupt life. The
recipient of God’s energies
does not receive a part of
God, because God is not
composite, but rather man
receives the body of Christ,
which is a
mystico-noetic—and for that
very reason eminently realistic—communication
of the life of the Holy
Trinity.15Nor
are the divine energies anhypostatic, but rather are
the true resplendence of
God, distinguished from the
divine essence but not
separate from it.
The suffusion of the divine
energies throughout all of
creation is the overflowing
of divine love. This
descent of the Hand of God
into the heart of man is the
new thing under the sun for which
St. Solomon, the prophets,
and all of the sages of
every era have
pined. God
divides Himself undividedly
to enter the heart of each
and every man who will
co-operate with Him to
perfect selfless love
therein. Accordingly, the
true significance of man
being “in the image of God”
is that man has been created
already conformed to God in
such a way that he can—with
the aid and sustenance of
divine grace, that is,
synergistically and
ascetically—love in the
exact way that God loves His
creation, that is, freely
and selflessly (the only
difference being that man is
not uncreated by nature, as
is the Holy Trinity, but
rather man becomes uncreated
by grace or energy).16
Strictly speaking, only
Christ is the Image of God;
man is the image of the
Image. There is a dual
aspect of the image of God
in man: Man was created in
the image and
likeness of
God. The image of God in
man, considered by itself,
is a given, for Christ, the
Second Adam, through His
Incarnation reconstituted
the human nature shared by
every man. However, the
“likeness of God” is not a
given, but rather is a task,
a Way to be followed, to be
lived within. Man transcends
himself non-dialectically by
emptying himself of all
self-concern andeudaemonia [well-being]
through a co-working with
God’s uncreated grace, a
grace that is not opposed to
creation. It bears
repeating: God’s uncreated
glory does not coerce
creation into acting
as a God-serving automaton,
but rather ceaselessly calls
man (the little cosmos) and
all of creation (the big
cosmos) into a deeper and
deeper union with Him, “from
glory to glory.”17
Because the teachings of the
Church Fathers are not
conditioned by the dubious
logic of the “dialectic of
oppositions,” they can,
without any inconsistency,
proclaim that God’s Hand
(his energies) can come down
to the heart of man without
any resultant development or
division in the Godhead. The
experience of the Orthodox
Fathers of the Church is
identical to that of the
friends of God of the Old
Testament. For example, the
Three Holy Children—St.
Shadrach, St. Mechach, and
St. Abednego—were seen in
the fiery furnace with a
fourth Person, the Lord of
Glory (Christ) who suffered
there with them, sustaining
them through His grace.
Likewise, St. Solomon,
standing in the Holy of
Holies of the
newly-consecrated Temple,
marveled that God could at
the same time be both beyond
and above all of creation,
and also come and dwell
between the cherubim atop
the Ark of the Covenant.18
Unlike the
Hellenistic/hermetic
tradition, which posits an
analogy between the life
processes of creation and a
supposed principle of
dialectical development in
the essence of God, the
Orthodox tradition holds
that salvation is deliverance
from the dialectical
meanderings of fallen
creation. To state things starkly,
the Orthodox view of man
begins with God and views
man as an icon of the Godman
without any rationalistic
analogy being allowed.
Orthodox anthropology is
thus Hebraic rather than
Hellenistic.19
In keeping with its
Hellenistic basis, the
Gnostic anthropology of
hermeticism takes man as its
starting point: An intuitive
feeling—”the call”—provides
the Gnostic with an
unquestionable certitude
that he or she is actually a
part of God, albeit a lower
emanation of Him.20 Starting
from his human fear of
extinction and his desire
for self-fulfillment and
immortality, the Gnostic
projects his eudaemonistic
passions into the divine
sphere: Man ceases to be a
willing subject distinct
from other persons and becomes
himself a theo-cosmological
process which allows
God to know Himself.21 Put
succinctly, there are three
levels in the
Gnoseo-hermetic scheme: 1) Anthropos (Man),
2) Cosmos (World),
and 3) Theos (God).
All three of these levelsare God,
though the first two are
lower emanations or
manifestations of the divine
essence.22
The foregoing discussion of
the Orthodox and hermetic
anthropologies is shown to
have a great relevance for
alchemy if we refocus our
attention on the Orthodox
and hermetic attitudes
toward matter. For the
Orthodox, God created the
world “very good,” and He
also created the world in
such a way that its material
sphere—its matter—is
conformable to the
incorruption of the noetic
realm, the realm of God’s
uncreated glory. Most
importantly, matter is made
to be imbued with God’s
life, not as something
foreign to it, but as its
own true telos; in this
sense, to speak of the
alchemical process of
changing matter into spirit
is inhuman and docetistic,23involving
the obliteration of creation
rather than its deification.
With the creation of man,
matter and nous/spirit were
shown for what they truly
are: perfective, non-opposed
creations of God which,
forever entwined, are
intended to ascend from
non-defective goodness to
greater and greater levels
of perfection in God’s
energies, which energies are
His very life.24 To
safeguard the path to union
with God and to avoid
idolatry and blasphemy, the
Orthodox Fathers of the
Church distinguished three
categories that apply both
to the uncreated and to the
created:
Essence (Gr. ousia), which
answers the question, “What
is it?”
Person (Gr. hypostasis), which
answer the query, “Who is
it?”
Operation or energy (Gr. energeia), which
answers the question, “What
does it do?”25
These categories do not
stand as analogies of being
between God and creation,
but instead serve to set the
correct boundary between the
divine and the created.
By contrast, the
Gnoseo-hermetic view holds
that the created world is a
pale imitation of a truly
real realm of Forms. These
“ideas” are incorporeal,
unchanging and rational.
Since an ideal/real
oppositional dialectic is
presupposed, two
superficially distinct
cosmological attitudes
result: Some gnoseo-hermetic
texts denigrate matter as an
evil cesspool ruled by
demons, while others hold
the world to be good. However, even
the seemingly positive
Gnostic assessment of the
world is just another form
of matter-hatred (docetism26),
since what is held
to be “good” in the world is
what is hidden within or
behind matter. In
other words, matter is a
husk, an unreal shadow that
contains (or hides) “good”
reality.27 The
cellophane wrapper is good
because one can see through
it to the candy it contains.
We all know what happens to
the wrapper afterwards.
Hopefully the underlying
dialectic of oppositions is
recognized here, in that
motion, matter and unreality
is here being opposed to
stasis, form and reality.
The dualism of this
gnoseo-hermetic view of
matter complements the
“process dualism” (my term)
which lies behind the
alchemical trinity. The
latter is the yin-yang
dualism of “two contrary
principles” of which Tenney
L. Davis writes, and to
which we above alluded. In
the following section our
examination of alchemical
trinitarian imagery will
attempt to illustrate how
these two dualisms interact
in medieval textual
illustrations.
************************************
11. St. Athanasius the
Great, De
Incamatione 54.
12. “There
are two ways”: The Didache,
in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 10
vols., A. Roberts and J.
Donaldson, eds. (New York,
1926 [1885-1887]),
1.148.”Thou shalt have no
other gods before me”:
Exodus 20.3.
13. For an excellent
introduction to the Orthodox
teachings on the nous, see
John Chryssavgis, Ascent
To Heaven: The Theology of
the Human Person According
to Saint John of the Ladder (Brookline,
MA: Holy Cross Orthodox
Press, 1989), 70-124.
14. For the identification
of the nous and the heart in
Orthodox spirituality, see
John McGuckin, Standing in
Cod’s Holy Fire: The
Byzantine Tradition (London:
Dar-ton, Longman and Todd,
2001), 56ff.
15. See Kelley, Realism
of Glory, 40-42.
16. The Orthodox teaching
about man being created “in”
or “according to” the image
of God contrasts with the
Western Christian view which
followed Blessed Augustine’s
formulation that man is the
image of God, a created
reflection of God’s essence.
For a sophisticated
discussion of Orthodox and
Augustinian “imago Dei”
theology see M. Aghiorgoussis (now Met.
Maximos of Pittsburgh),
“Applications of the Theme
‘EIKON THEOU’ (Image of God)
according to Saint Basil the
Great,” Greek
Orthodox Theological Review 21.3
(Fall 1976): 265-288.
17. “But
we all, with open face
beholding as in a glass the
glory of the Lord, are
changed into the same image
from glory to glory, even as
by the Spirit of the Lord”
(2 Corinthians 3:18). Even
though the Orthodox
spiritual life is concerned
preeminently with experience
of God, and even though the
Orthodox do not mistake
words such as prayers and
sacred writings for
communion with God in His
glory, words are nonetheless
central to spiritual life as
images or symbols that call
the worshipper to communion
with God (Gr. symbolon: “bringing
unlike things together”). It
must be stipulated, however,
that though the Orthodox
proclaim the realism, or
reality of God’s glory in
the heart of His holy ones,
they never reify the
uncreated, ineffable Light.
The danger is that terms
like “glory” and ”energy,” the
more they are handled and
circumscribed in our
reasoning and through our
lips, begin to represent
God’s love as a concept, as
something already “known
about.”
18. Daniel
3.25: “He answered and said,
Lo, I see four men loose,
walking in the midst of the
fire, and they have no hurt;
and the form of the fourth
is like the Son of God”; I
Kings 8.27: “But will God
indeed dwell on the earth?
behold, the heaven and
heaven of heavens cannot
contain thee; how much less
this house that I have
builded?”
19. For a discussion of the
Hebraic/Hellenistic
anthropology from an
existentialist viewpoint see
William Barrett, Irrational
Man: A Study in Existential
Philosophy (1958;
rpt, New York: Anchor Books,
1990), 61 -119.
20. On “the call” in
Gnosticism see Werner Foerster, Gnosis: A
Selection of Gnostic Texts,
2 vols.,
trans, and ed. R. McL Wilson
(Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1972): “The central factor
in Gnosis, the ’call,’
reaches man neither in
rational thought nor in an
experience which eliminates
thought. Man has a special
manner of reception in is
‘I.’ He feels
himself ’addressed’and
answers the call. He feels that
he is encountered by
something that already lies
within him, although
admittedly entombed. It is
nothing new, but rather the
old which only needs to be
called to mind it is like a
note sounded at a distance,
which strikes an echoing
chord in his heart” (1.2).
21. John S. Romanides, The
Ancestral Sin, trans,
with an introduction by
George S. Gabriel
(Ridgewood: Zephyr, 2002).
See especially chapter one,
entitled “Creation, the
Fall, and Salvation in Greek
Philosophy in General”
(41-49), where Fr. John
analyzes the
happiness-centeredness of
the Hellenistic mind: “The
immutable and inactive One
of Greek philosophy is
rather a projection of the
human thirst for a secure
understanding of the meaning
of existence itself and for eudaemonia. It
is the object of man’s
intellectual desire for an
entirely natural certainty
of salvation but without a
real revelation and the
gradual saving energy of God
in the world. It is also a
self-centered principle
imaginatively constructed
according to the desires of
man” (47).
22. For a stimulating
discussion of this
tripartite gnoseology in the
context of the writings of
Paracelsus see Elizabeth Ann
Ambrose, “Cosmos,
Anthropos, and Theos: Dimensions
of the Paracelsian
Universe,” Cauda
Pavonis 11.1
(1992): 1-7. For an engaging
(but ultimately
unconvincing) discussion of
gnoseo-hermetic cosmology
which strives to contrast a
supposedly positive hermetic
attitude toward the world
with a negative Gnostic
view, see R. van den
Broek, ”Gnosticism and
Hermetism in Antiquity: Two
Roads to Salvation,” in Gnosis
and Hermeticism from
Antiquity to Modern Times, ed.
R. van den Broek and Wouter
J. Hanegraaff (Albany, NY:
State University of New York
Press, 1998), 1-20, esp.
9-11.
24. Here “nous/spirit”
refers not to the uncreated
energies of God, but rather
to the created “spirit of
man” which is not a divine
“spark” or “piece of God” as
the Gnostics would have it.
25. Farrell, God,
History and Dialectic, 28.
26. Joseph P. Farrell, in an
unpublished typescript in
the author’s possession
entitled “Partial Listing of Christologies of
Classical Heresies and
Gnostics,” notes that
docetists ”begi[n] with the
assertion that matter is
crude and evil; and so
conclud[e] that Christ was
pure spirit; the physical
appearance was an optical
illusion and mere semblance (dokesis); Christ
was merely God masquerading
as man”(4; unnumbered
pages).
27. Section two will make
apparent why, from a certain
point of view, alchemico-hermetic texts
seem to praise matter. To
anticipate my later
argument, matter is
“honored” by alchemists
because it is believed to
have been divided,
developed, and
“scissioned”from
the ”aither,” the materia
prima, which
is uncreated and which
contains every divine
attribute. See the
Introduction for background
on the slightly different
context and meaning of
“aither”as it was used in
Greco-Egyptian alchemy.
Titus Burckhardt gives us a
sense of the ambiguous,
because literally otherworldly, attitude
toward matter found in
alchemy specifically and
Hermeticism generally: “In
this view, matter remains an
aspect or function of God.
It is not something
separated from spirit, but
its necessary complement. In
itself it is no more than
the potentiality of taking
on form, and
all perceptible objects in
it bear the stamp of its
active counterpart, the
Spirit or Word of God.
“It is only for modern man
that matter has become a
thing and no longer the completely
passive mirror of the Spirit’
(Alchemy: Science of the
Cosmos, Science of the
Soul, tr.
William Stoddart [Louisville,
KY: Fons Vitae, 1997],
58-59, emphasis added).
Here ”ousia”or nature is
spirit; matter is reduced to
a different ontological
category, namely, “function/will/energeia,”
which lacks a sentient,
thelemic existence since
everything it does is
done by someone above who
has a nature, that is, who
exists and subsists. This
ambiguity toward matter seen
as the husk containing
divine light is reflected in
the later American version
of hermeticism—American
“nature religion”—which
denies the reality of the
concrete world in order to
serve “the world” (Albanese, Republic
of Mind, 25).
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