The Perfect Imitatio: C.S. Lewis, Hagiography, & Literature

A couple of months ago, I mentioned a promising book by Thomas J. Heffernan entitled, Sacred Biography: Saints & Their Biographers in the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, I still have not read it through, but I continue to find good things throughout the first chapter, ‘From Logos to Canon: The Making of a Saint’s Life’. Here is one of Heffernan’s many insightful comments on the hagiographic tradition:

The author must also construe a life which will illustrate the exemplary behavior of the subject—what we should call the ethical dimension—to a community which has definite expectations concerning the outcome of this biographical record. . . . Thus, the new sacred model reclaims past models and in turn is authenticated by them as these past lives are reintroduced in the present. By virtue of this constitutive or ethical imperative, the individual sacred biography continually renews for the faithful a tradition of great antiquity. . . . In this pattern of figural repetitions the singular character of sacred biography—what makes it different from, say, the way Dante uses Vergil—lies in the medieval understanding that the saint’s life is the perfect imitatio Christi. Hence these repetitive mimetic patterns have as one of their primary objects the reconstitution of the divine in new historical dress. [1]

The Saint’s life as ‘the perfect imitatio Christi’, of course, reminded me of St Justin of Chelje’s ‘Introduction to the Lives of the Saints’: ‘Therefore, the Lives of the Saints are nothing else but the life of the Lord Christ, repeated in every saint to a greater or lesser degree in this or that form.’ [2] But the literary dimension of Heffernan’s comments in this passage reminded me of an underappreciated [3] essay of C.S. Lewis entitled, ‘Christianity & Literature’. Observing that in the New Testament—including St Paul’s teaching in I Thess. 1:6 that Christians are ‘to imitate St Paul and the Lord’ and in I Cor. 11:1 that they are ‘to imitate St Paul as he in turn imitates Christ’—‘the art of life itself is an art of imitation’, Lewis asks, ‘can we, believing this, believe that literature, which must derive from real life, is to aim at being “creative,” “original,” and “spontaneous”’? [4] He then goes on, courageously, to observe:

Applying this principle to literature, in its greatest generality, we should get as the basis of all critical theory the maxim that an author should never conceive himself as bringing into existence beauty or wisdom which did not exist before, but simply and solely as trying to embody in terms of his own art some reflection of eternal Beauty and Wisdom. Our criticism would therefore from the beginning group itself with some existing theories of poetry against others. It would have affinities with the primitive or Homeric theory in which the poet is the mere pensioner of the Muse. It would have affinities with the Platonic doctrine of a transcendent Form partly imitable on earth; and remoter affinities with the Aristotelian doctrine of μίμησις and the Augustan doctrine about the imitation of Nature and the Ancients. It would be opposed to the theory of genius as, perhaps, generally understood; and above all it would be opposed to the idea that literature is self-expression. [5]

[1] Thomas J. Heffernan, Sacred Biography: Saints & Their Biographers in the Middle Ages (NY: Oxford U, 1992), p. 20.

[2] St Justin (Popovich), ‘Introduction to the Lives of the Saints’, tr. M.J., Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ, tr. & ed. Fr Asterios Gerostergios, et al. (Belmont, MA: Institute for Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies, 1994), p. 36.

[3] At least by Leland Ryken: he calls it ‘an inferior essay’ with no explanation (Triumphs of the Imagination: Literature in Christian Perspective [Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1979], p. 225).

[3] C.S. Lewis, ‘Christianity & Literature’, The Collected Works of C.S. Lewis (NY: Inspirational, 1996), p. 176.

[4] Ibid., p. 177.

The Grammar of Sanctity—The Title of St Gregory's Vita Patrum

When I first came across the translation by Fr Seraphim (Rose) of the Vita Patrum of St Gregory of Tours, I recall noting the following comment in a little preface with the names of Fr Herman and Fr Damascene appended to it: ‘One book especially dedicated to his native ascetic strugglers whom he even knew personally, he called Vita Patrum, or The Life of the Fathers, as if these many men led one life before God—the ultimate Christian virtue of oneness of soul.’ [1] It struck me—and thus stuck with me—as a point fundamental to Orthodox ecclesiology, which I had seen expressed as well by St Justin (Popovich):

Christians are those through whom the holy Divine-human life of Christ is continued from generation to generation until the end of the world and of time, and they all make up one body, the Body of Christ—the Church: they are sharers of the Body of Christ and members of one another (I Cor. 12:27, 12-14, 10:17; Rom. 12:5; Eph. 3:6). The stream of immortal divine life began to flow and still
flows unceasingly from the Lord Christ, and through him Christians flow into eternal life. [2]

But for some strange reason, I all but forgot about St Gregory’s own statement about his in the Prologue to the Vita Patrum. He writes:

There are those who ask whether we should speak of the life of the saints or of their lives. Agellius and several other philosophers wished to speak of the lives. But the author Pliny, in the third book of his Art of Grammar, expresses himself thus: ‘The ancients spoke of the lives of each of us; but the grammarians do not believe that the word life has a plural.’ Therefore, it is manifestly better to say the Life of the Fathers rather than the Lives of the Fathers, because although there is a diversity of merits and virtues among them, nevertheless one life of the body sustains them all in this world. [3]

I was happily reminded of this wonderful passage by an interesting book I recently picked up at Half Price Books called Sacred Biography: Saints & Their Biographers in the Middle Ages, by Thomas J. Heffernan. Heffernan quotes the final sentence and then makes a series of comments:

Gregory’s conclusion is most important as it reveals his understanding of the relationship between theological truth and language. Notice that his argument moves beyond purely grammatical concerns into the realm of theology. The precedents of Gellius, Pliny, and the grammarians notwithstanding, the essential reason for his choice of the singular when composing a book of more than one life is based on the developing Christian idea that the saints share collectively in the luminous life of the incarnate Christ. In sum, sanctity is derived from the sacred, which is radically singular (see Eph. 5:8-14 and Rom. 12:3-10). [4]

Gregory subordinates grammaticality, and with it language’s ability to represent reality, to the exigencies of religious truth. Language, it appears can be employed in discourse to depict contexts which violate both the normative view of things (e.g., Gregory’s use of the singular rather than the plural) and its own syntactic structures so that it may be a handmaiden to theology. . . . [5]

Gregory of Tours presented his explanation of his choice of title with little rhetorical embellishment, and we can infer that he believed the meaning of his remarks to be obvious. Of course, it is anything but obvious to a modern reader. Such an understanding of the dimensions of the self (what Gregory would have expressed with the reflexive pronoun seipsum) and language’s capacity to reflect such concerns is alien. Gregory’s point here is of seminal importance in the genre of medieval saints’ lives. It reflects an understanding of sanctity, and of language’s responsibility in representing the essence of the holy, that is crucial to sacred biography and the mentality of these writers. In Gregory’s view narrative can reflect both actual circumstances and metaphysical truth. [6]

Heffernan’s is a very promising book. In a brief preface, he tells us his interest in the subject was first aroused by ‘the sheer number of lives of the saints which survived in manuscript. Surely, I thought, such numbers were an indication of importance; I promised myself to look into this.’ [7] But he laments:

Of all the genres that survive from the Middle Ages, only the lives of the saints, arguably the richest in terms of extant records, are still treated by literary historians as documents for source studies (Quellenkritik) and little else. The genre has until recently fallen through the net of scholarly research, avoided by the historians because it lacks ‘documentary’ evidential status and by the literary historians because saints’ lives are rarely works of art. [8]

[1] Herman Podmoshensky & Hieromonk Damascene (Christensen), ‘Preface’, Vita Patrum: The Life of the Fathers, by St Gregory of Tours, tr. Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose) (Platina, CA: St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1988), p. 10.

[2] St Justin (Popovich), ‘Introduction to the Lives of the Saints’, Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ, tr. Fr Asterios Gerostergios, et al. (Belmont, MA: Institute for Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies, 1994), p. 42.

[3] St Gregory, p. 163.

[4] Thomas J. Heffernan, Sacred Biography: Saints & Their Biographers in the Middle Ages (NY: Oxford U, 1992), p. 7.

[5] Ibid., p. 8.

[6] Ibid., p. 11.

[7] Ibid., p. vii.

[8] Ibid., p. 17.

'O Revealer of Unfathomable Mysteries'—St Isaac the Syrian

Today, 28 January on the Church’s calendar, we celebrated the memory of St Isaac the Syrian (7th c.). Archimandrite Justin (Popović) writes, ‘Among the most outstanding of these holy philosophers [i.e., the Church Fathers] was the great ascetic, Isaac the Syrian.’ [1] Archimandrite Placide (Deseille) tells us, ‘He is viewed by all Christendom as a saint and a spiritual author of the first rank.’ [2] Olivier Clément calls St Isaac ‘One of the greatest spiritual figures of the Christian East where his influence has never ceased to make itself felt . . . .’ [3] Finally, according to Photios Kontoglou, ‘Saint Isaac, you might say, had wisdom sit like a golden bee on his mouth. Not the futile and bewildered wisdom of the clever, but the unfading wisdom, the source of incorruption, which truly liberates the man who possesses it.’ [4] Here is the account of his life in the Prologue:

Born in Nineveh, he began at an early age to live the ascetic life in the monastery of Mar-Matthew near Nineveh. When he became known for his holy life and miracles, he was chosen as bishop of Nineveh and forced to accept this state. But after only five months he left his episcopate and fled secretly to the desert monastery of Rabban-Shapur. He was the author of many works, of which about a hundred sermons on the spiritual life and asceticism, written mainly from his own experience, have come down to us. He was without equal as a writer and guide in the spiritual life. He entered into rest at a great age at the end of the seventh century. [5]

In his introduction to the hesychastic tradition, Fr Placide rounds out the picture somewhat:

[St Isaac’s] knowledge of the Scriptures and tradition rapidly earned him the repute of a master. . . . [6]

. . .

Filled with meekness, radiant peace, and humility, he nourished himself only with three pieces of bread and a few raw vegetables per week. His great asceticism and intense study caused him to lose his sight, but the other monks devoted themselves to writing down his teachings. They nicknamed him Didymus the Second. . . . [7]

Though St Isaac is often referred to without any qualification as a ‘Nestorian’, the renowned translator of the Homilies, Dana Miller, argues that the characterisation of the 7th-c. Persian Church as ‘Nestorian’ is a gross oversimplification, and that, at any rate, St Isaac’s ‘confession of our Lord’s incarnation is entirely orthodox’. [8] Fr Placide notes that ‘there is no trace of Nestorianism in his writings’, and that ‘Unlike the writings of Evagrius of Pontus, Isaac’s work did not have to be expurgated.’ [9] Thus, his example is certainly no evidence that a heretic can be venerated as a Saint in the Orthodox Church, but rather an illustration of the Church’s great latitude and pastoral condescension when it comes to the complexities of schism and heresy when they are still in the process of hardening.

Much has been said by readers about the great profundity of St Isaac’s spiritual teaching. Indeed, St Ignatius (Brianchaninov) classes it among those works written expressly for hesychastic ‘solitaries’, allowing the reading of St Isaac to coenobites only ‘after some considerable time’ and extensive reading in the ‘books written [specifically] for coenobitic monks’. [10] In his review of Archbishop Hilarion’s book on St Isaac, [11] Dana Miller writes:

His books were meant for fellow ascetics, for people who devote their every effort to being physically and mentally disassociated from the world we know and to being physically and mentally joined to another, very different world. It is a kind of accident that we can pick up a copy of Isaac as we idle away hours in a local bookstore. I doubt very much that Isaac ever foresaw this and I am uncertain whether or not he would be pleased. [12]

Indeed, St Isaac himself illustrates just how far we still have to go to attain the real end of his ascetic program—knowledge of God:

There is a knowledge that precedes faith, and there is a knowledge born of faith. Knowledge that precedes faith is natural knowledge; and that which is born of faith is spiritual knowledge. What is natural knowledge? Knowledge is natural that discerns good from evil, and this is also called natural discernment, by which we know to discern good from evil naturally, without being taught. . . . Those who have been deprived of it are inferior to rational nature, but those who possess it stand aright in their soul’s nature, and do not have any deficiency in those things that God has granted their nature to honour its rationality. . . . The honour belonging to rational nature is the discernment that tells good from evil, and those who have destroyed it are justly compared to ‘mindless cattle’ (Ps. 48:12), which have no rational and discerning faculty. With this discernment it is possible for us to find the pathway of God. This is knowledge that is natural; this is the predecessor of faith; and this is the pathway to God. [13]

St Isaac says ‘this is the predecessor of faith’! Yet how many of us are still ‘mindless cattle’ with no discernment? And we dare to delve into the deepest teachings of this man whose eye, in Kontoglou’s words, ‘scans the sun and remains undazzled’? Wisely, Kontoglou warns us, ‘Let no one, however, off-handedly approach this priceless ark, but with fear and trembling, because it would not be right for anyone who has ruined his palate with the foul and poisonous liquors of this world to refresh himself here.’ [14] And let us not think that we are sufficiently qualified for this study because we are educated. Further on Kontoglou writes:

Nevertheless, most of the educated are only going to admire from the outside the masterful way these sayings are turned, the odd glints they give off, a few of the soaring high points and paradoxes; they will not be able, however, to see the inner riches and the mother-of-pearl depths of this entrancing abyss; they will remain strangers, unable to taste that blissful delight. The key to this prolific mind and this deep soul is given to the humble man, and to the man who searches by the light of faith, but not to the expert. To all but these this spiritual paradise is locked, and all who are confident of entering by their knowledge remain sitting outside the gate, like Adam. [15]

Yet I do think there are passages where something is thrown to us that is sufficiently ‘practical’ that we may find immediate profit. As just one example, I offer this from Sebastian Brock’s translation of ‘The Second Part’, Chapter IV:

3. Varieties of (different) prayers indeed greatly help a mind which is harassed by distraction: from them, and by means of the strength resulting from them, the mind feels compunction and (so) acquires sweet prayer, prolonged kneeling, intercession for creation, and extended supplications which are set into motion from within. This happens to him because, with each single word which he encounters in these (prayers), he is like someone who is awoken out of sleep: he encounters in them astounding insights all the time, seeing that these very words are the result of the gift of grace and (so) possess a hidden power. Thus he is continually assisted through being occupied by them and through reading them. [16]

It seems to me that, having already opened the Triodion and standing upon the threshold of the Great Fast, we are faced with a unique opportunity to realise the truth of these words. Let us indeed find continual assistance ‘through being occupied by’ the words of the Triodion ‘and through reading them’.

I have quoted a couple of my favourite passages of St Isaac here and here, and in last year’s post on the Saint (here) I quoted still more. In that post I also considered Dostoevsky’s debt to St Isaac, upon which Archimandrite Vasileios of Iveron has written a profound spiritual meditation [17] and concerning which Kontoglou memorably writes:

I have not come across anything anything written about Saint Isaac in any book from Europe. We have left him to be forgotten like a light hidden under a bushel. But there was an Orthodox fellow, a Russian, Dostoyevsky, who wrote about him in one of his books; I thought of it the other day when this book was being printed. No theologians remembered him, just this sinful fellow, a no-gooder, a gambler, a soul curried like leather from agony, the prodigal son. But for him they killed the fatted calf: ‘The publicans and the harlots go before you into the Kingdom of the Heavens.’ [18]

I consider Fr Justin’s ‘Theory of Knowledge of St Isaac the Syrian’ a crucial exposition of Orthodox gnoseology, [19] and highly recommend Archimandrite Vasileios’s Abba Isaac the Syrian, [20] though Fr Alexander (Golitzin) is not exaggerating too much when he says Fr Vasileios ‘sings Isaac’s praises to the point of near incoherence’. [21] In conclusion, here is the Troparion of the Saint:

Dismissal Hymn of Saint Isaac
Plagal of First Tone. Let us worship the Word

He that thundered on Sinai with saving laws for man * hath also given thy writings as guides in prayer unto monks, * O revealer of unfathomable mysteries; * for having gone up in the mount * of the vision of the Lord, thou wast shown the many mansions. * Wherefore, O God-bearing Isaac, entreat the Saviour for all praising thee. [22]

[1] Archimandrite Justin (Popović), ‘The Theory of Knowledge of St Isaac the Syrian’, tr. Mother Maria (Rule), Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ, ed. Fr Asterios Gerostergios (Belmont, MA: Institute for Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies), p. 120. See also, Archimandrite Justin (Popović), ‘The Theory of Knowledge of St Isaac the Syrian’, tr. Mother Maria (Rule), Man & the God-man (Alhambra, CA: Sebastian, 2009), p. 69.

[2] Archimandrite Placide (Deseille), Orthodox Spirituality & the Philokalia, tr. Anthony P. Gythiel (Wichita, KS: Eighth Day, 2008), p. 27.

[3] Olivier Clément, The Roots of Christian Mysticism: Text & commentary, tr. Theodore Berkeley, OCSO, rev. Jeremy Hummerstone (London: New City,1995), p. 345.

[4] Photios Kontoglou, ‘Encomium’, The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, tr. Dana R. Miller (Boston: HTM, 1984), p. lviii.

[5] St Nicholas (Velimirović), The Prologue from Ochrid, Vol. 1, trans. Mother Maria (Birmingham: Lazarica, 1986), p. 106.

[6] Fr Placide, p. 26.

[7] Ibid., p. 27.

[8] Dana R. Miller, ‘Epilogue’, Ascetical Homilies, p. 514.

[9] Fr Placide, p. 27.

[10] St Ignatius (Brianchaninov), The Arena: An Offering to Contemporary Monasticism, tr. Archimandrite Lazarus (Moore) (Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Monastery, 1991), p. 22.

[11] Archbishop Hilarion (Alfeyev), The Spiritual World of Isaac the Syrian (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 2000).

[12] Dana R. Miller, ‘Review of The Spiritual World of Isaac the Syrian by Archbishop Hilarion (Alfeyev)’, here.

[13] St Isaac the Syrian, Hom. 47, Ascetical Homilies, p. 226.

[14] Kontoglou, p. lviii.

[15] Ibid., p. lix.

[16] St Isaac the Syrian, ‘The Second Part’, Chapters IV-XLI, tr. Sebastian Brock, Vol. 555 of Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium (Louvain: Peeters, 1995), p. 2.

[17] Archimandrite Vasileios (Gondikakis) of Iveron, ‘Απο τον Αββά Ισαάκ στον Ντοστογιέβσκι’, Φώς Χριστού Φαίνει Πάσι (Karyes, Mt Athos: Holy Monastery of Iveron, 2002), pp. .

[18] Kontoglou, p. lx.

[19] See n. 1, above.

[20] Fr Vasileios, Abba Isaac the Syrian: An Approach to His World, tr. Elizabeth Theokritoff (Montréal: Alexander, 1999).

[21] Hieromonk Alexander (Golitzin), ‘Review of The Spiritual World of Isaac the Syrian by Archbishop Hilarion (Alfeyev)’, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, Vol. 46, No 2-3, 2002, pp. 285-290 (here).

[22] The Great Horologion, tr. Holy Tranfiguration Monastery (Boston: HTM, 1997), p. 402.

'I Have Always Imagined That Heaven Will Be a Kind of Library'

It is time for a new book update, particularly since a long-desired volume arrived yesterday which sealed the deal: Alexandros Papadiamandis, The Boundless Garden: Selected Short Stories, Vol. I (Limni, Greece: Denise Harvey, 2007). As my professor has published numerous things on Papadiamandis, including a book hopefully soon to be published in English by my friend Herman Middleton (Anestis Keselopoulos, Greece’s Dostoyvesky: The Theological Vision of Alexandros Papadiamantis, trans. H. Middleton [Thessaloniki: Protecting Veil, forthcoming]; read about it here), I deemed it politic to familiarise myself with him a bit. Also, from what I’ve read, Papadiamandis just sounds wonderful. See, for example, Felix Culpa’s posts on this book here and here, the latter featuring a link to an online text of one of the stories. But one can also read a review in the TLS, or the posts at biblicalia, The Ochlophobist, or This Side of Glory. Actually, I may be the last Orthodox blogger to acquire and read this book. My tremendous gratitude is due to Fr Luke Hartung for graciously sending this copy, which has muscled its way to the top of my reading list. Order your own from him here (if that doesn’t work, try ordering it directly from the publisher here).

But there is more, dear readers, and indeed, I hardly know where to start! Perhaps with another complimentary review copy: Dionysios Farasiotis, The Gurus, the Young Man, and Elder Paisios, trans. and adapt. Hieromonk Alexis (Trader), ed. Philip Navarro (Platina, CA: St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2008). Guru is another book that I have acquired shockingly belatedly. In 2004 I actually met the author himself, who was sent to me after everyone else I knew declined to work on editing the original translation. Of course, I was not able to accept the job either, and in the end Farasiotis was persuaded to have it re-translated. This was done by my friend, Fr Alexis, an American monk at Karakallou on the Holy Mountain and the translator of Fr Romanides’s Patristic Theology. The editing of Fr Alexis’s translation was then undertaken by my very good friend, Philip Navarro. I read a good chunk of the original, nearly unreadable translation, and have also looked into the Greek edition a bit (an unattractive book rather hidden at the bottom of one of my less visible bookcases). Furthermore, I contributed directly to the ‘Suggestions for Further Reading’ at the end. But I did not yet have a copy of the completed book until a couple of weeks ago, when Abbot Gerasim of the St Herman of Alaska Monastery (who tells me he must ‘keep on eye on his Logismoi’!), graciously sent me a review copy. Anyway, for those who don’t know, Guru is the story of a young man who was drawn into ‘Eastern’ religions, even travelling to India to become the disciple of several gurus. After many fascinating and terrifying experiences, he was finally brought back to the Orthodox Faith through the prayers and witness of Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain, one of the great elders of the twentieth century.

Next, there are a few books I’ve discovered at local used bookshops for ridiculously low prices in the field of biblical studies. As a frequent reader of biblicalia and the Voice of Stefan, I find myself constantly wishing I had more biblical studies works, and so when I see them, I have a difficult time resisting. First, there is Amos N. Wilder, Early Christian Rhetoric: The Language of the Gospel (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999), constituting Wilder’s Haskell Lectures for 1961-1962 at Oberlin College. Yes, it’s a bit old, but it only cost a few dollars and the topic is certainly one that fascinates me.

Second, I finally acquired a much-needed book on the parables of our Lord (important to my thesis)—Klyne R. Snodgrass, Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008). Esteban tells me that if one is only going to buy one book on the parables, this is the one to buy. The list price is $50 and you can buy it on Amazon for $31.50, but I got mine at Aladdin for less than $25 (thanks, Dad!). One of the most interesting things to me is the inclusion with each parable of ‘Helpful Primary Source Material’, including parallels in early Jewish and Greco-Roman writings.

Next, as my posts on the Prophet Job had me newly interested in that book, I eagerly bought The Voice Out of the Whirlwind: The Book of Job, Materials for Analysis, ed. Ralph E. Hone (SF: Chandler, 1960) for $2.95. Although it would probably be dated as a work of critical scholarship, the book remains valuable since it is primarily an anthology of essays on Job by various literary figures, including Kierkegaard, Bacon, Blake, Goethe, and Frost, but also theologians like Calvin and Reinhold Niebuhr.

Lastly, a friend gave me an old copy of William Hersey Davis, Beginner’s Grammar of the Greek New Testament (NY: Harper, 1923). I already had a copy of H.E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament (NY: Macmillan, 1963), but I figured, one can always use more grammars!

Next, I finally got a copy (for $3.95) of Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading, rev. ed. (NY: Touchstone, 1972), as part of my efforts to acquire more books on education in anticipation of my daughter beginning her formal studies at a Trivium school this Fall.

Then for $6 I found one of the books that caught my attention in Martin Jaffe’s footnotes—Steven T. Katz, ed., Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis (NY: Oxford U, 1978). According to Jaffe, it is an ‘excellent resource for reviewing the state of “mysticism” in academic discourse’, and he continues, ‘I have been deeply influenced by the arguments of several contributors to this volume about the error of defining “mysticism” by its alleged “experiential component” rather than by publicly available information derived from social institutions and texts’ (Inner-Worldly Monasticism: Towards a Model of Rabbinic-Halakhic Spirituality [Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 2006], p. 12, n. 1). On Jaffe’s book, see this post.

When I bought Adler’s book, I also got a cheap copy of the third volume in Fr Alexander’s St Symeon the New Theologian series, On the Mystical Life—The Ethical Discourses, Vol. 3: Life, Times, and Theology, written, trans., and ed. Hieromonk Alexander (Golitzin) (Crestwood, NY: SVS, 1997). While the first two volumes contain Fr Alexander’s translations of St Symeon, the third consists of a study of—you guessed it—St Symeon’s life, times, and theology. I read most of it in one sitting and was quite taken with it. Among other interesting points, Fr Alexander discusses the tension between the charismatic authority of elders and the institutional authority of the clergy. I continue to hang on Fr Alexander’s every word.

At the same shop that I found many of these others—OKC’s brand-new Half-Price Books—a copy turned up of Fr John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends & Doctrinal Themes (NY: Fordham U, 1979). Better yet, it is a (now) crème-coloured edition, rather than the new purple one I used to see (and refrain from buying) at Borders. It almost looks like it belongs next to my Institute for Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies books!

Finally, I have saved the very best for last. Prompted in no small part by Kevin Edgecomb’s breathtaking description of it here, featuring a complete list of the ‘Hypotheses’, I used the money I was recently paid for a proof-reading job by Bishop Maxim to purchase the paperbacks of The Evergetinos: A Complete Text, 4 vols., trans. Archbishop Chrysostomos, et al. (Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 2008). Read Kevin’s post if you want a good reason to order your own. I will just confine myself to one point. Archimandrite Justin (Popović) of blessed memory has written (‘Introduction to the Lives of the Saints’, trans. M.J., Orthodox Faith and Life in Christ, trans. Fr Asterios Gerostergios, et al. [Belmont, MA: Institute for Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies, 1994], p. 47):

And what else are the Lives of the Saints but the only Orthodox pedagogical science. For in them in a countless number of evangelical ways, which are completely worked out by the experience of many centuries, it is shown how the perfect human personality, the completely ideal man, is built up and fashioned, and how with the help of the holy mysteries and the holy virtues in the Church of Christ he grows into ‘a perfect man, according to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’ (Eph. 4:13). . . .

If you wish, the Lives of the Saints are a sort of Orthodox Encyclopedia.

While this is a striking truth, demonstrated and illumined by long and frequent reading of the Saints’ Lives themselves, it can be difficult to see at first. One must read carefully and attentively, sifting through the countless stories to discern precisely what the lesson to be learned is. The Evergetinos makes this much, much easier. Carefully chosen and arranged according to the schema of ‘Hypotheses’ by the Blessed Paul of the Evergetis Monastery, this book is nothing less than a literal textbook of Orthodox ‘moral philosophy’, to use St Nicodemus’s expression (‘Prologue’, Evergetinos, Book I, p. xxxiii). Really, all English-speaking Orthodox Christians should get a copy of this amazing spiritual classic, published in an outstanding, beautiful edition by the CTOS.

St Athanasius, Fr Louth, Plato, & Mirrors

In his lecture on the Sinai Codex Theodosianus (about which I’ve blogged here), Fr Justin mentioned something he’d found in Fr Andrew Louth explaining how some of the Fathers’ uses of the imagery of a mirror, as well as that of St Paul in I Cor. 13:12, presupposed the understanding of mirrors described by Plato in Timaeus 46A-C (see Desmond Lee, trans., Timaeus and Critias [London: Penguin, 1977], pp. 63-4, where there is a very helpful diagram). The specific context of the reference was Fr Justin’s description of St John Damascene’s 2nd Treatise on the Divine Images 20 (Fr Andrew Louth, trans., Three Treatises on the Divine Images, by St John of Damascus [Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary, 2003], p. 75). Not remembering having read this before, I believe I asked Fr Justin about where he’d found it in Fr Louth, and he was unable to remember.

But as I was looking for some material on St Athanasius last night, I came across the following in The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition, From Plato to Denys (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981), pp. 79-80, which I give as a sort of appendix to the original Fr Justin post:

But, in Contra Gentes, Athanasius introduces a metaphor for the soul’s resemblance to God which might have helped him to bridge the gap between Origenist mystical theology and one firmly based on the insights of Nicene orthodoxy. He speaks of the soul ‘being a mirror in which it can see the image of the Father’ (Contra Gentes 8). And later in the same work he says: ‘So when the soul has put off every stain of sin with which it is tinged, and keeps pure only what is in the image, then when this shines forth it can truly contemplate as in a mirror the Word, the image of the Father, and in him meditate on the Father, of whom the Saviour is the image’ (C.G. 34). This idea of the soul as a mirror which, when pure can reflect the image of God seems to be original to Athanasius. (There are faint hints of it in Theophilus and Plotinus, but nothing as clear and definitive as we find in Athanasius.)

To understand this metaphor we must first appreciate the way in which the Greeks understood mirror images. According to Plato, who discusses the question in an appendix to the Timaeus (46A-C), what happens when we see an image in a mirror is that the light from the eye meets the light from the thing seen on the surface of the mirror, and these two sets of rays of light mingle there, forming the mirror image that we see. So the mirror image actually exists, it is formed on the surface of the mirror; it is not, as in our modern understanding of these phenomena, an illusion caused by rays of light being reflected by the surface of the mirror. It is important to
realize this, for otherwise it is difficult to see that when the Fathers spoke of the soul reflecting the image of God like a mirror they were using an analogy to explain how the soul is the image of God. So self-knowledge involves knowledge of God, because God has made the soul to reflect His image. The idea of the soul as a mirror reflecting God is thus for the Fathers (though not for us with our different understanding of how mirrors work) a metaphor that sees the soul as a real, though dependent, image of God and also suggests that this image of God in the soul is perceived in self-knowledge.

So Athanasius’ metaphor of the soul as a mirror in which God is reflected suggests that there is a real similarity between the soul and God, and preserves the notion that self-knowledge is itself a way of knowing God. But it does this without suggesting that there is a natural kinship between the soul and God. There is no ontological continuity between the image in the mirror and that of which it is the image; so, in the case of the soul reflecting the image of God, this similarity discloses a much deeper dissimilarity at the level of substance. On this understanding, theopoiesis, divinization, will not mean the rediscovery of any kinship between the soul and God, but rather that, as it is purified, the soul more accurately reflectsthe image of God, or becomes more truly that image. We haven, then, an adaptation of a familiar Platonist theme, while the fundamental insight of Nicene orthodoxy into the radical significance of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo is not at all blurred. Athanasius himself did not develop this idea, but he bequeathed to his successsors a metaphor to describe the soul’s resemblance to God of which they would make good use.

'The Confession of Faith is the Greatest of Virtues'

When I began to reread Fr Justin’s ‘Life of St Photios’ on Wednesday in order to write my post on that Saint, the very first paragraph I read struck me (Fr Justin [Popovich], ‘The Life of St Photios’, trans. Ronald Wertz, On the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, by St Photius the Great, trans. Holy Transfiguration Monastery [NY: Studion, 1983], p. 33):

Our God-bearing Fathers, who governed all things in the Church of God in a proper and God-pleasing manner, have left to us as a sacred heritage the God-given teaching, just as they themselves had received from the Holy Apostles, that the confession and defense of the True Orthodox Faith is the greatest of virtues. No other virtue, they tell us, is so great before God and so profitable for the Church. For the Truth is God, and love and confession of God’s Truth—that is to say, the True Faith of the Church—frees, enlightens and saves us men. This holy teaching is proclaimed especially by those holy Fathers who spent their entire lives struggling to preserve Christ’s true and saving Faith, by which alone men are saved and enter eternal life. This holy tradition of the Fathers, confirmed, as it is, and testified to by their entire lives, offers the greatest lesson for our own generation, a generation which, lacking zeal ‘for the love of the Truth’, has grown cold and hardened in its indifference toward the correct Faith.

Of course, Fr Justin says this extraordinarily well, and with great boldness, but it’s something I managed to put together rather clumsily some years ago when asked to write a paper on ‘Ethos and Dogma in the Philokalia’. It seemed to me that these two categories can be seen in terms of a number of different relationships: dogma as the context of ethos, ethos as a type of dogma, dogma as a type of ethos, and ethos as a path to dogma. Fr Justin seems to be stating something like the third of these relationships. For me, this one appeared in two aspects: one of these of lesser significance, in which the ethical character of the practice of dogma is more accidental to the nature of dogma itself, and the other of greater significance, in which this ethical character is more proper to dogma.

The first aspect of this idea is in regard to ‘the confession and defense of the True Orthodox Faith’ (in Fr Justin’s words) by the average believer who is still struggling to undergo purification of the passions. For such people, the confession of the Faith, just the simple act of reciting and believing the Creed, is an ethical act exercising the virtue of humility. According to St Peter of Damascus (The Philokalia: The Complete Text, Vol. III, trans. G.E.H. Palmer, et al. [London: Faber, 1995], p. 138):

The person who has received the grace of spiritual knowledge knows that all things are ‘wholly good and beautiful’ (Gen i, 31); but he who possesses only the first glimmerings of such knowledge should recognize in all humility that he is ignorant and, as St John Chrysostom advises, he should admit on every occasion, ‘I do not know’....It is on this account that with firm faith and by questioning those with experience we should accept the doctrines of the Church and the decisions of its teachers, both concerning the Holy Scriptures and concerning the sensible and spiritual worlds.

But this is not all. According to Fr Justin ‘the confession and defense of the Truth Orthodox Faith’ is itself a virtue, not merely an act performed as an exercise of another virtue. It seems to me that this is true primarily in the sense of the second kind of faith that St Peter describes in his ‘Treasury of Divine Knowledge’, ‘the faith of contemplation [θεωρία] or spiritual knowledge [γνώσις]’ (Philokalia III, p. 213). In her wonderful book, Conversations With Children: Communicating Our Faith (Essex: Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, 2001), pp. 294-295, Sister Magdalen of Essex writes:

Why do ‘I believe’ in the Creed I recite? Initially, because the saints have told me; but this answer must eventually change, so that each of you will say ‘I believe’ because you have become pure in heart, and have seen God for yourself; you have become a bearer of the Holy Tradition ‘which has been entrusted to you’, able to enrich its expression.

It seems to me that when this is attained, as it is by the Saints, the vision and knowledge of God, which is the proper activity of the intelligent part of the soul, and the confession of Faith become one, as the second flows from the first. The confession of Faith becomes the virtue of Faith itself.

Please forgive me, all, for speaking of things beyond my ken. I was really struck by the passage I quoted from Fr Justin, and wanted to post it, but I felt like I had to offer some of my own thoughts about it too, drawn from other things I’ve read.

St Photius the Magus?

In the fascinating book, Scribes & Scholars, by L.D. Reynolds and N.G. Wilson, there is a very interesting aside about St Photius: ‘Jealousy and spite gave rise to a tradition that, rather like Faust, he achieved his knowledge by making a bargain with a Jewish magician, giving up his Christian faith in return for success, learning, and riches’ (Scribes & Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek & Latin Literature, 2nd ed. [Oxford: Clarendon, 1974], p. 55). It is a tradition repeated, though likely not without irony, by Milorad Pavić under the entry for ‘Cyril’ in his novel, Dictionary of the Khazars: A lexicon novel (Male Edition), trans. Christina Pribićević-Zorić (NY: Vintage, 1989), pp. 60-1:

Another of Constantine’s [St Cyril’s] instructors, the famous philosopher and later Patriarch Photius, who taught him grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, and philosophy, was called the Christian Aristotle and, along with Leo the Mathematician, helped to launch the humanistic renaissance in which the Byzantine world once again considered itself a descendant of ancient Hellenic lineage. Photius practiced hermetic and proscribed sciences, astrology and magic; the Byzantine emperor called him ‘Khazar face’, and there was a legend circulating at court that in his youth Photius had sold his soul to a Hebrew sorcerer.

In his ‘Life of St Photios’, Fr Justin (Popovich) has a brief footnote that also refers to this. He connects it with the classicism of Leo and St Photius (‘The Life of St Photios’, trans. Ronald Wertz, On the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, by St Photius the Great, trans. Holy Transfiguration Monastery [NY: Studion, 1983], p. 37, n. 14):

In the course of the ninth century, certain intellectual circles in Constantinople were greatly influenced by classical literature and were often critical of Christian writings. Those who were particularly enamored of classical antiquity were often accused of sorcery because of their use of astrology, and even St Photios was falsely accused by an adversary of having renounced Christ so that he could surpass all men in wisdom.

I have not seen the primary sources that refer to this, or else I would of course post them, but I thought it would be interesting at least to compare these three references. I would also like to post some observations I've made in my thesis on St Photius's reading of 'fiction' in the Bibliotheca, but it may take some time to get them properly prepared for a blog post. I'm quite certain I can't do it today!

'A Radiant Beacon of Wisdom Hid in God'—St Photius the Great

Today, 6 February on the Church’s calendar, we commemorate St Photius the Great (810-891), Patriarch of Constantinople. I don’t see any need to recount his whole life—one can find Despina White’s account here (though watch out: her date for his birth, claim that he was a professor, and apparently much else, are questionable), Francis Dvornik’s here (same problems with the date and career, though he has the excuse of having written before Lemerle), and Sergei Bulgakov’s here. Besides, there are a number of more incidental things upon which one might focus with interest.

It is a commonplace to remark upon St Photius’s learning. In the first place we have the testimony of Nicetas of Paphlagonia, his contemporary and ‘fiercest enemy’ (Fr Justin [Popovich], ‘The Life St Photios’, trans. Ronald Wertz, On the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, St Photius the Great, trans. Holy Transfiguration Monastery [NY: Studion, 1983], p. 35):

In worldly wisdom and reasoning, he was viewed as the most capable person in the Empire. He had studied grammar and poetry, rhetoric and philosophy, the healing arts, and almost every other worldly science. In all of these he not only surpassed all others of his time, but even competed with learned men of earlier times [and, we are tempted to add, of later ones!]. He succeeded in all things, and all things benefitted him: his natural capabilities, his diligent learning, and his wealth by which every book was able to find its way to him.

It is an assessment that is unanimously echoed by modern scholars. Fr Andrew Louth calls St Photius ‘the most famous scholar of the ninth century’ and his learning ‘immense’ (Greek East and Latin West: The Church AD 681-1071, Vol. III in The Church in History [Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary, 2007], p. 158, 159). Anthony-Emil Tachiaos calls him a man ‘of broad and sound scholarship, whose knowledge encompassed the whole spectrum from classical literature to theology, philosophy, and applied sciences’ (Cyril and Methodius of Thessalonica: The Acculturation of the Slavs [Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary, 2001], p. 27). L.D. Reynolds and N.G. Wilson are in awe of St Photius (Scribes & Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek & Latin Literature, 2nd ed. [Oxford: Clarendon, 1974], p. 56):

The sudden appearance of so distinguished a person after the obscurity that had previously reigned is remarkable; it is all the more strange that nothing is known of the identity of his tutors, nor of the sources from which he was able to acquire knowledge of so many rare texts.

Reynolds and Wilson note that St Photius’s Bibliotheca, or Myriobiblos (a translation of much of which can be found here), ‘in which Photius shows himself the inventor of the book-review’, is extremely value for its descriptions of the contents of many books that are no longer extant: ‘that applies for example to some twenty of the thirty-three historians he discusses’ (p. 55). They also credit St Photius and his salon, coupled perhaps with the formal university in Constantinople, with initiating ‘a practically continuous tradition of classical studies in Byzantium’ (p. 57), which is of course the source of most of the classical works now in existence. The Codex Clarkianus, for instance, a manuscript of Plato commissioned by one of St Photius’s disciples, is an important authority for Platonic texts.

But it might be noticed that Nicetas’s description of St Photius’s learning, and with it those of many recent scholars, is quite secular in tone. It is easy to forget that we are speaking of a man whom we Orthodox regard as holy. Fr Justin follows up his quotation of this passage from Nicetas with an account of St Photius’s intellectual activities that place them in their true, spiritual light (pp. 35-6):

After having studied literature, mathematics, and Aristotelian philosophy, as well as other disciplines, Photios pursued the divine science of the Holy Scriptures and the theology of the Holy Fathers of the Church under the wise and learned men of his time. He himself says that he learned theology from a wise and experienced ‘elder’.

[Later in this paragraph, Fr Justin has the following footnote:] For St Photios and the Byzantines, the pursuit and acquisition of knowledge could not be accomplished without prayer and spiritual ascesis. The ultimate goal was always union with God and θέωσις (deification). Consequently, knowledge for its own sake had little validity, since outside the truth kept by the whole Church, personal experience was deemed to be deprived of all certainty and objectivity, being rather a mingling of truth and of falsehood. Instead of assimilating the wisdom of God to man’s mode of understanding and anthropocentric categories, one was expected to look for a profound change, an inner transformation that enabled one to experience divine wisdom. That St Photios, the Byzantines, and the Church Fathers in general actively pursued secular learning and indeed were highly educated, manifests their attitude that secular knowledge could be useful but required spiritual discernment.

Of course, those of us who are children of the Slavic churches owe St Photius another debt. It was he who, having contributed directly to the education of St Cyril, the Apostle to the Slavs (Tachiaos, p. 27), encouraged his career and that of his brother St Methodius, and finally sent them on their mission, first, to the Khazars in southern Russia, and second, to the Slavs of Moravia. Fr Justin writes:

To that end [i.e., the spreading of Christ’s Gospel among people who had not yet heard it], he, together with the Emperor, sent the two renowned Thessalonian brothers Constantine (his pupil and friend who was later renamed Cyril) and Methodios, a monk from Mt Olympos in Bithynia, to the Khazars in the south of Russia. There these blessed brothers preached the Holy Gospel with success, so that by 860 many of those pagans accepted the Faith. Thus St Photios began to Christianize the great Russian nation, sending them their first bishop and pastor.

A little later, when emissaries of the Moravian Prince Ratislav came to Constantinople to request of the Emperor and Patriarch a preacher of the Gospel and clergy who knew the Slavonic language, so that the evangelical Faith and customs could be established among the Slavs in Moravia, the holy Patriarch and the Emperor sent to them the same holy brothers (863). Thus they became the spiritual parents of all the Slavic peoples everywhere, for Cyril and Methodios and their disciples spread the Gospel of Christ not only among the Slavs of Moravia, but throughout the entire Balkans and surrounding areas. (Fr Justin, p. 48)

Anyway, Felix Culpa has linked to an interesting article on St Photius as an exemplar of tolerance by Met. Emilianos (Timiades). But I’ll let what I’ve already said suffice for my tribute to St Photius the Great, with the possibility that perhaps I’ll post a tidbit or two later. In closing, I’ll leave you with an Apolytikion in his honour taken from Constantine Cavarnos’s St Photios the Great: Philosopher and Theologian (Belmont, MA: Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1998), p. 45:

As a radiant beacon of wisdom hid in God
and a defender of Orthodoxy revealed from on high,
O great Photios, blest adornment of the Patriarchs,
thou didst refute the innovations of the boastful heresy,
O light of the Holy Churches,
which do thou keep from all error,
O luminary of the East.

Fr Justin of Chelje on St Isaac the Syrian & Gnoseology

[Note: per Esteban's comment below and a subsequent phone conversation with him, I have edited this post to avoid referring to Fr Justin explicitly by the title 'Saint'. As Esteban points out, he has not yet been glorified, and as there appears to be some confusion on this point—not least in my own mind!—I thought it best to observe some precision in that regard.]

I first discovered Fr Justin (Popovich) of Chelje in the inaugural issue of Divine Ascent (Vol. 1, No. 1, Great Lent 1997), where there was a brief Life of Fr Justin (pp. 12-16), three hymns in his honour (p. 17), a list of some of his more important writings (p. 18), a translation of his essay, ‘The Inward Mission of Our Church Bringing About Orthodoxy’ (pp. 19-25), and an interview about Fr Justin with Fr Peter Milosevich, ‘Father Justin Popovch: The Hidden Conscience of Orthodoxy’ (pp. 40-48). The effect of all of this material, on me at any rate, was tremendous. When I finally saw the volume, Orthodox Faith and Life in Christ, trans. Fr Asterios Gerostergios, et al. (Belmont, MA: Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1994), at the Conciliar Press bookshop in Ben Lomond of all places, I snapped it up.

Aside from ‘The Inward Mission of Our Church’, which is found on pp. 21-31, I was similarly effected by the ‘Introduction to the Lives of the Saints’ (pp. 32-50) and ‘The Theory of Knowledge of St Isaac the Syrian’ (pp. 117-68). As a recent convert from Protestantism, I think it is safe to say these essays had a profound effect on my understanding of Orthodoxy. They certainly changed my reading habits. Besides extolling the virtues of this wonderful book, I thought I would use the occasion of having celebrated the memory of St Isaac the Syrian yesterday to quote two excerpts from the latter essay.

Truth is objectively given in the person of Christ, the God-man. But the way in which this becomes subjective—that is, the practical side of the Christian theory of knowledge—was fully developed by the Fathers, those experienced, holy, and evangelical philosophers. Among the most outstanding of these holy philosophers was the great ascetic, Isaac the Syrian. In his writings, with a rare understanding based on experience, he traces the process of the healing and purification of man’s organs of knowledge, his growth in understanding, and his progressive path through experience to the apprehension of eternal Truth. In the philosophy of St Isaac the Syrian, based on the experience of grace, the principles and methodology of the Orthodox theory of knowledge have found one of their most perfect expressions. I shall now try to sketch out this theory of knowledge, or gnoseology. (p. 120)

Then, in his conclusion, Fr Justin writes (p. 163):

There is no doubt that knowledge progresses through man’s virtues and regresses through the passions. Knowledge is like a fabric woven by the virtues on the loom of the human soul. The loom of the soul extends through all the visible and invisible worlds. The virtues are only powers creating knowledge; they are the principles and source of knowledge. By transforming the virtues into constituent elements of his being through ascetic endeavor, a man advances from knowledge to knowledge. It could even be possible to say that the virtues are the sense organs of knowledge. Advancing from one virtue to another, a man moves from one form of comprehension to another.