“As he was putting on his sandals he saw another man who was also putting on his sandals, and this monk said to him, ‘Is it on my account that you are going away? Because I go before you wherever you are going.’”

— from the Desert Fathers

But I’ve also noticed that while this is a fun (in a nerdy sense) topic to read, it’s not spiritual reading. It’s not food for the soul. As I thought this morning about my preference for study and knowledge over purification of heart, I received in my email this excerpt from the Desert Fathers:

A brother once went out on a pilgrimage from the monastery of Abba Poemen, and came to a hermit, who lived in love towards all and received many visitors. The brother told the hermit stories of Abba Poemen. And when he heard of Poemen’s strength of character, he longed to see him.

The brother returned to Egypt. And after some little time, the hermit rose and went from his country to Egypt to see the brother who had visited him: for he had told him where he lived. When the brother saw the hermit, he was astonished, and very glad. The hermit said to him, “Of your charity towards me, take me to Abba Poemen.” And the brother rose up and showed him the way to the elder.

And the brother told Abba Poemen this about the hermit, “A great man of much charity, and particular honor in his own province, has come here wanting to see you.” So the elder received him kindly. And after they had exchanged greetings, they sat down.

But the hermit began to talk of the Holy Scripture, and of the things of the spirit and of heaven. But Abba Poemen turned his face away, and answered nothing. When the hermit saw that he would not speak with him, he was distressed and went out. And he said to the brother who had brought him there, “My journey was useless. I went to the elder and he does not deign to speak to me.”

The brother went to Abba Poemen, and said, “Abba, it was to talk with you that this great man came here, a man of much honor in his own land. Why did you not speak to him?” The elder answered, “He is from above, and speaks of the things of heaven. I am from below, and speak of the things of the earth. If he had spoken with me on the soul’s passions, I would willingly have replied to him. But if he speaks of the things of the spirit, I know nothing about them.”

So the brother went out and told the hermit, “The reason is that the elder does not easily discuss Scripture. But if anyone talks to him about the soul’s passions, he answers.”

Then the hermit was stricken with penitence, and went to the elder and said, “What shall I do, Abba? My passions rule me.” And the elder gazed at him with gladness and said, “Now you are welcome. You have only to ask and I will speak with understanding.” And the hermit was much strengthened by their discourse, and said, “Truly, this is the way of love.” And he thanked God that he had been able to see so holy a man, and returned to his own country.”

Ah, thanks. I can take a hint.

— St. Peter of Damaskos.

By the time St Paul wrote his New Testament advice to elders and overseers, the Church had been growing explosively for several decades. At the end of the first century, Ignatius wrote about how the orders of clergy interacted in his experience. What did normal Christian leadership look like in the worship of the first-century Church? On his way to martyrdom in 107 AD, the eyewitness experience and exhortations of Bishop Ignatius of Antioch give a unique perspective.

The value of his insight lies not in prescribing how Church ought to be done, but in his assumptions of how Church actually is done throughout first-century Asia Minor.

The Diaconate in Ignatius’ Epistles

by Anastasios D. Salapatas

Introduction: Ignatius and his writings

Ignatius is an exceptional figure of Christianity, “a man of intense devotion”¹, who lived and offered his episcopal ministry in the years of the so-called primitive Church.

Ecclesiastical History has only preserved a few biographical elements about Ignatius; most of them come from his own writings. But his Epistles are not historical-biographical texts. Thus, they contain only very few details about Ignatius.

From what we know he had been the second bishop of Antioch, starting his ministry at about 70 A.D. It is certain that he had met with some of the Apostles. The social environment in which he was brought up might have been Greek, or at least influenced by Greek culture (this is a conclusion we reach by studying his writings).

During the years of the Roman persecution by Emperor Trajan, Ignatius was arrested and was brought to Rome in order to receive martyrdom. The common view today is that he was put to death at the Roman Stadium called Colosseum², sometime between the years 107 and 117.

He called himself Theophoros³, which is a very distinctive title for Christians and means the “God-bearer”. The title signifies the close spiritual relationship that he had with Christ. His memory is commemorated in the Eastern Orthodox Church on 20th December and in the Roman on the 1st of February.

At his last days before he died he wrote seven Epistles. These are as follows: to the Ephesians, to the Magnesians, to the Trallians, to the Romans, to the Philadelphians, to the Smyrnaeans and to Polycarp. The first four were written from Smyrna and the remaining three from Troas, in Asia Minor⁴.

The Epistles of Ignatius, written at a relatively early date, “have played an important role in the theological reflections of the Church and represent a central point of contention in the scholarly discussions of Christian origins”⁵.

The significance of the Epistles is so great, basically because in them we find the first clear and direct reference to the threefold ministry and the settlement of the ecclesiastical authority, the centre of which is the bishop⁶.

These texts are of great importance to all of Christendom and because of them Ignatius has been acknowledged as “the first great theologian of the post-apostolic period and the first Father and Teacher of the Church”⁷.

I. The purpose of the various diaconal references in Ignatius’ epistles

It is true that the Epistles of Ignatius are full of references to the diakonos and to the diaconal function in the early Church. But it is also true that those references do not constitute the central theme in any of the Epistles.

The diaconal theme appears in these texts as part of the greater discussion concerning the ecclesiastical authority and the threefold ministry. Diaconal references may be found in all the Epistles except that addressed to the Romans.

For the first time in the history of the Church the three ranks of priesthood are clearly mentioned together⁸, in exactly the same order as we know them today. Diakonos is placed on the lowest level, or on the first rank of the Christian ministry, while presbyteros is on the second and the episkopos on the third and obviously the highest.

Ignatius is very clear on this matter of the Church ministry. He makes a great contribution to Ecclesiastical History by:

1. offering the names of the titles of the three officers (diakonos, presbyteros, episkopos)⁹,
2. presenting their functions, liturgical and pastoral, as they are found in his time¹⁰,
3. making the point that they are different in function and distinct among themselves¹¹,
4. interpreting the threefold Church ministry as the earthly and visible ministry which resembles the heavenly prototype¹², and
5. emphasising the idea of unity in the Church, in accordance with the unity experienced within the Holy Trinity¹³.

Ignatius firmly believes that deacons, presbyters and bishops are “appointed according to the will of Jesus Christ”¹⁴. He supports the view that deacons, presbyters and bishops are definitely a separate category of people, called to minister to the faithful. With his “prophetic voice”¹⁵ Ignatius calls the lay people to pay attention¹⁶ to them.

Therefore it becomes quite clear that the diaconal references in Ignatius are obviously offered as part of his theory of the ecclesiastical authority and the Christian ministry.

II. Episkopos-Diakonos relationship according to Ignatius

There are many interesting passages in Ignatius’ Epistles, where references may be found to the spiritual and even pastoral and liturgical relationship between episkopos and diakonos. Some of them are symbolic, others are realistic.

The bishop Ignatius calls the deacons his “fellow slaves”¹⁷ and this is obviously a very important symbolic expression, which shows how highly the bishop regarded his deacons. The word “syndoulos” means that they are both (bishop and deacon) following the same spiritual path; they believe and follow the same Christ and to Him they are both spiritually answerable.

The deacon is “subject to the bishop”¹⁸. A big discussion could open here. In our case we prefer only to point out some of the questions. Which are the areas in which the deacon is subject to the bishop? Is it on the administrative level? Is it connected to the pastoral work and responsibility that the deacon might have had? Or is it related to the diaconal liturgical function?

The actual fact is that the deacon in all these Ignatian writings seems to have been an “assistant to the bishop”¹⁹. He does the will of the bishop as Jesus did the will of the Father²⁰. At the same time he is regarded by Ignatius as “most dear to him”²¹, who has been “entrusted with the service of Jesus Christ”²².

According to W.R. Schoedel, “There is an especially close bond between bishop and deacon in Ignatius”²³. He interprets this relationship by suggesting that this may reflect an earlier stage in the development of the ministry when these two offices had not yet merged with the presbyterate. But other factors probably suffice to explain the special attention given to deacons by Ignatius: their active role in practical matters; in particular, their service to Ignatius personally; and a special concern on Ignatius’ part to support those whose position sometimes put them in “difficult situations”²⁴.

As far as the relationship between the deacon and the presbyters is concerned there is only one reference²⁵ in Ignatius’ writings, where the diakonos appears to be responsible “to the presbytery”²⁶. This relationship has not been defined very well “presumably because this is not the essential mark of the office”²⁷.

III. Diakonos: Model of Christ

In Ignatius text references are found of the diakonos being a model of Jesus Christ Himself²⁸. It is quite obvious that Ignatius loves his deacons and regards them very highly.

The diakonos, who is closely working with his bishop, is “respected”²⁹ as Jesus Christ, having been “entrusted with the service of Jesus Christ”³⁰.

According to Ignatius the episkopos is set over the people “in the place of God”³¹, being “a type of the Father”³². The presbyters are also compared with the apostles³³.

In all the relevant references the diakonos appears to be a model, or a “symbol”³⁴, or even a “representation”³⁵ of Christ. This idea seems to have been based on the New Testament. Our Lord, speaking about Himself and His ministry on earth, states that “the Son of Man came not to be served (diakonHthHnai) but to serve (diakonHsai)”³⁶. Thus, He regarded Himself as a diakonos of the Church and of the people, offering therefore a diaconal prototype to the Christian Church.

It could also be suggested that the diakonos, as an ecclesiastical figure who represents Christ, according to Ignatius, appears to have been more important than the presbyter, at least in the Church of Antioch, although he (the diakonos) certainly stands in the third place³⁷ of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

It is interesting to note that the Ignatian view of the diakonos being a model of Jesus Christ, is also found in some other early Christian writings, such as The Letter of Polycarp to the Phrlippians38, Didascalia Apostolorum³⁹ and Apostolic Constitutions⁴⁰.

At a later stage diakonos becomes the model of an angel. This is due to the liturgical development of the office. Saint John Chrysostom⁴¹ and Theodore of Mopsuestia in Catecheses⁴² are clearly stating that the diakonos as he wears his orarion⁴³ during the Church Services is like a flying angel. He also moves “between the sacred and the profane bearing messages”⁴⁴ like the angels.

Conclusions

Ignatius Theophorus, the bishop of Antioch, is a great figure of the ancient Christian Church. He is the first most important theologian after the Holy Apostles. By studying his Epistles the modern scholar may find in them many details regarding the actual life of the Church in Ignatius’ era.

Among the main themes in Ignatius’ written thoughts are the ecclesiastical authority and the three ranks of the Christian priesthood. The diaconate which is the first and the lowest rank of priesthood is clearly mentioned in Ignatius’ texts, although this is not his central theme.

The holy writer considers the diakonos and his diaconal ministry to be of a great value for the Church of Antioch and beyond. He, as the bishop of Antioch, is closely co-operating with the deacons in order to secure the best possible ministry for his flock.

Ignatius is related spiritually to the deacons, according to his own writings, in exactly the same way as God the Father is related to Jesus Christ. Thus, the diakonos is considered as a model of Jesus, who according to the New Testament had been the first diakonos of the Church.

The diakonos is always following the orders of his bishop, being answerable to him. But there is no clear reference in Ignatius’ texts as to the actual functions, pastoral, liturgical, or any other, of the diakonos. Finally, there is no direct mention to the deaconesses.

Originally published in “Theologia,” Vol.70 [1999], Issue 2-3, pp. 513-520

Notes

1. Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, Penguin Books, London 1988, p.30.
2. Styl. Papadopoulou, Patrologia, vol.É, Athens 1982, p.178. E. W. Barnes (in The Rise of Christianity, London 1948, p.261) believes that “the story of the martyrdom of Ignatius is edifying legend, not contemporary history”, suggesting that this is “the invention of a hagiographer”, because “of Ignatius himself little is known”.
3. Pan.ChrHstou, “Ignatios”, in ThreskeutikH kai HthikH Egkyklopaideia, vol. 6, Athens 1965, col. 705.
4. M.W. Holmes (ed.), The Apostolic Fathers Apollos-Leicester 1989, p.80.
5. W. R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary on the Letters, Philadelphia 1985, p.1.
6. DHm. Mpalanou, Patrologia, Athens 1930, p.43ff.
7. Styl. Papadopoulou, op. cit., p. 178.
8. A.D. Salapatas, “The Diaconate in the Eastern Orthodox Church” in Diaconal Ministry, Past, Present & Future, edited by Peyton G. Craighill, Rhode Island 1994, p.41.
9. Trall. 3,1; Trall.7,2; Smyrn. 8,1; Polyc. 6,1.
10. Iak. PHlilH, H ChristianikH IerosynH, Athens 1988, pp. 289-294.
11. Meth. Phougia, Genesis kai Anaptysis tHs ChristianikHs IerosynHs, Athens 1972, p.79.
12. Magn. 6,1; Trall. 2 & 3,1. J. Pelilis, op. cit., p. 265.
13. According to Hans von Campenhausen, ?Just as Christ was united to his Father, so must Christians be subject to their presbyters and deacons and all of them to the bishop…?. (Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power in the Church of the First Three Centuries London, p. 100).
14. J.R. Wright , “The Emergence of the Diaconate”, in Liturgy (Journal of the Liturgical Conference), vol.2, No 4, Washington D.C. 1982, p.20.
15. L. Goppelt , Apostolic and Post-Apostolic Times, London 1970, p. 193.
16. Philad. 7,1.
17. “syndoulos”, in Ephes. 2,1; Magn.2; Philad. 4; Smyrn 12,2. BibliothHkH EllHnon Pateron kai EkklHstiastikon Syggrapheon, “Ignatios o Antiocheias”, vol. 2, Athens 1955, p. 261ff.
18. Magn.2.
19. James Ì. Âarnett, The Diaconate – A Full and Equal Order, New York 1981, p. 50.
20. Magn. 6,1; Trall. 3,1.
21. “ton emoi glykytaton”, in Magn. 6,1.
22. Magn. 6,1.
23. W.R. Schoedel, op.cit., p.46.
24. Ibid.
25. Magn 2.
26. The particular term used here by Ignatius is “presbytery” not “presbyters”, although this does not seem to have any great significance.
27. J.V. Collins, Diakonia: Re-interpreting the Ancient Sources, New York-Oxford 1990, p. 240.
28. W.R. Schoedel, op.cit, pp. 113-4.
29. Trall. 3,1.
30. Magn. 6,1.
31. Ibid.
32. Magn. 13,2; Trall. 3,1; Smyrn. 8,1.
33. Trall. 2,2 & 3,1; Philad 5,1; Smyrn. 8,1.
34. J.M. Barnett, op.cit., pp. 50-1.
35. Ibid.
36. Matt.20,28; Mark 10,45.
37. Smyrn. 8,1; Polyc. 6,1.
38. Polyc. Phil. 5,3.
39. R.N.Connoly, Didascalia Apostolorum, Oxford 1929, p.88.
40. Apostolic Constitutions 2,26,5.
41. Pant.Chanoglou, Diakonikon, Edessa 1989, p.214.
42. A.Mingana (ed.), Commentary of Theodore of Mopsuestia on the Lord’s Prayer and on the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, Cambridge 1933, p. 84.
43. Diaconal stole.
44. R.F.Grein, The Renewal of the Diaconate and the Ministry of the Laos, Rhode lsland 1991, p. 9.

From the life of John the Almsgiver, Patriarch of Alexandria from 610-619. He is commemorated on November 12.

During the lifetime of this saintly patriarch, the Persians came and laid waste to Syria and took its inhabitants captive. Those who escaped from the hands of the godless Persians ran for aid to the person of the thrice blessed patriarch…

He accordingly gave immediate orders that the wounded and sick should be put to bed in hostels and hospitals which he himself had founded, and that they should receive care and be free to leave as each of them should choose. To those who were well but in need, and came to the daily distribution, he gave one loaf apiece to the men and two loaves apiece to the women and children as being weaker members.

Now some of the women who came begging for alms wore ornaments and bracelets, and those who were entrusted with the distribution reported this to the patriarch.

Then he who was really gentle and of a cheerful countenance, put on a grim look and a harsh voice and said, “If you wish to be distributors for humble John – or rather for Christ! – then obey unquestioningly the divine command which says, ‘Give to everyone that asks of you.’ … If indeed the money given were mine and had come into existence with me, then I might do well to be tightfisted with my own possessions. But since the money given happens to be God’s, where His property is in question, He wishes for His commands to be followed absolutely. For if it is by God’s will that I, an unworthy servant, am the dispenser of His gifts, then if the whole world were to be brought together in Alexandria and ask for alms, they would not strain the holy Church nor the inexhaustible treasures of God.”

— Leontius, Life of St. John the Almsgiver, 7-8

From a letter of St Basil to his friend Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium, about how to receive into communion with the Church converts who have received a form of baptism outside the Chruch.

As to your enquiry about the Cathari, a statement has already been made, and you have properly reminded me that it is right to follow the custom obtaining in each region; because those who at the time gave decision on these points, held different opinions concerning their baptism. But the baptism of the Pepuzenes seems to me to have no authority; and I am astonished how this can have escaped Dionysius, acquainted as he was with the canons.

The old authorities decided to accept that baptism which in no way errs from the faith. Thus they used the names of heresies, of schisms, and of unlawful congregations. By heresies they meant men who were altogether broken off and alienated in matters relating to the actual faith; by schisms men who had separated for some ecclesiastical reasons and questions capable of mutual solution; by unlawful congregations gatherings held by disorderly presbyters or bishops or by uninstructed laymen. As, for instance, if a man be convicted of crime, and prohibited from discharging ministerial functions, and then refuses to submit to the canons, but arrogates to himself episcopal and ministerial rights, and persons leave the catholic Church and join him, this is unlawful assembly. To disagree with members of the Church about repentance, is schism. Instances of heresy are those of the Manichaeans, of the Valentinians, of the Marcionites, and of these Pepuzenes; for with them there comes in at once their disagreement concerning the actual faith in God. So it seemed good to the ancient authorities to reject the baptism of heretics altogether, but to admit that of schismatics, on the ground that they still belonged to the Church.

As to those who assembled in unlawful congregations, their decision was to join them again to the Church, after they had been brought to a better state by proper repentance and rebuke; and so, in many cases, when men in orders had rebelled with the disorderly, to receive them on their repentance, into the same rank. Now the Pepuzenes are plainly heretical, for, by unlawfully and shamefully applying to Montanus and Priscilla the title of the Paraclete, they have blasphemed against the Holy Ghost. They are, therefore, to be condemned for ascribing divinity to men; and for outraging the Holy Ghost by comparing Him to men. They are thus also liable to eternal damnation, inasmuch as blasphemy against the Holy Ghost admits of no forgiveness. What ground is there, then, for the acceptance of the baptism of men who baptize into the Father and the Son and Montanus or Priscilla? For those who have not been baptized into the names delivered to us have not been baptized at all.

The Cathari are schismatics. But it seemed good to the ancient authorities, I mean Cyprian and our own Firmilianus, to reject all these, Cathari, Encratites, and Hydroparastatae, by one common condemnation, because the origin of separation arose through schism, and those who had apostatized from the Church had no longer on them the grace of the Holy Spirit, for it ceased to be imparted when the continuity was broken. The first separatists had received their ordination from the Fathers, and possessed the spiritual gift by the laying on of their hands. But they who were broken off had become laymen, and, because they are no longer able to confer on others that grace of the Holy Spirit from which they themselves are fallen away, they had no authority either to baptize or to ordain. And therefore those who were from time to time baptized by them, were ordered, as though baptized by laymen, to come to the church to be purified by the Church’s true baptism.

Nevertheless, since it has seemed to some of those of Asia that, for the sake of management of the majority, their baptism should be accepted, let it be accepted. We must, however, perceive the iniquitous action of the Encratites; who, in order to shut themselves out from being received back by the Church have endeavoured for the future to anticipate readmission by a peculiar baptism of their own, violating, in this manner even their own special practice. My opinion, therefore, is that nothing being distinctly laid down concerning them, it is our duty to reject their baptism, and that in the case of any one who has received baptism from them, we should, on his coming to the church, baptize him. If, however, there is any likelihood of this being detrimental to general discipline, we must fall back upon custom, and follow the fathers who have ordered what course we are to pursue. For I am under some apprehension lest, in our wish to discourage them from baptizing, we may, through the severity of our decision, be a hindrance to those who are being saved. If they accept our baptism, do not allow this to distress us. We are by no means bound to return them the same favour, but only strictly to obey canons. On every ground let it be enjoined that those who come to us from their baptism be anointed in the presence of the faithful, and only on these terms approach the mysteries. I am aware that I have received into episcopal rank Izois and Saturninus from the Encratite following. I am precluded therefore from separating from the Church those who have been united to their company, inasmuch as, through my acceptance of the bishops, I have promulgated a kind of canon of communion with them.

The late Fr John Romanides was a somewhat polarizing personality, due to the strength and bluntness of his assertions. Yet his themes are rarely far from the patristic writings that formed him. Here he  points to the essential interdependence of authentic doctrine and a Gospel that works to save souls.

Some people are convinced that sacred tradition is guarded by episcopal synods. But contemporary synods in the Orthodox Church are not like the local or ecumenical councils of bishops in the age of the early Christians, because the early councils were composed of bishops who had mastered the Church’s therapeutic method. Their aim in coming together as a council was not merely to safeguard the Church’s doctrine and liturgical order, as is the case today.

No, their aim was to preserve and protect the Church’s therapeutic method. So a proper bishop is a master of the therapeutic method of the Church. During those early years, the work of a bishops’ synod was absolutely vital, more so than today. Their task was to preserve and protect the Church’s therapeutic method and curative treatment.

But when the bishops’ synod would safeguard this method, they would struggle along two fronts. The inner front involved taking care to safeguard sound ascetic culture and practices within the Church. The outer front consisted in safeguarding doctrinal teachings for the cure of the soul. Another aspect of the inner front was protecting dogmas from heresies, which always have their source in people who have not mastered the proper therapeutic method. Whenever an innovation appears within the Church, it always means, from the very moment it appears, that the person introducing the innovation not only fails to view doctrine properly, but he also fails to be in a healthy spiritual state.

Some of the greatest Fathers of the Church were systematizers who situated their understanding of doctrine in the context of the therapeutic method. These include St. John of Damascus, St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Symeon the New Theologian, and St. Dionysius the Areopagite, among others. We should also mention the disciples of St. Gregory Palamas. Moreover, we also find all these basic principles present and organized in the works of St. Ignatius the God-bearer, because this is an unbroken tradition dating back to the first century. The same basic principles are also present throughout St. Paul’s epistles, as well as throughout the entire Old and New Testaments. If we have the proper criteria, we can discover the presence of these basic principles and locate them in texts that contain them.

St. Macarius of Egypt carefully explains these issues by setting forth a coherent body of principles. He claims that Christians who do not have noetic prayer are not intrinsically different from believers in other religions. The only factor that makes such Christians different from believers of other religions is that these Christians intellectually believe in Christ and merely accept Christian doctrine, while the believers in other religions do not accept Christian doctrine. But such Christians do not gain anything from this kind of intellectual faith, because it does not heal them or purify their hearts from the passions. In terms of healing the human personality, they remain without benefit and with behavior that does not differ from that of non-Christians. This can be seen in their way of life.

Consider an Orthodox Christian whose soul is sick, but who not only fails to struggle to be healed, but does not even imagine that the Church has an effective therapeutic strategy for curing his sickness. What is the difference between such a nominal Orthodox Christian and a Muslim, for example?

Does doctrine make him different?

But what good is doctrine when it is not used as a pathway towards healing? What good is doctrine when it is merely kept hung up in the closet so that it can be worshiped? In other words, what is the point of worshiping the letter of the law and ignoring the spirit, hidden within the letter?

— From Patristic Theology by Fr. John Romanides (Lecture 58, On Councils)

A few disclaimers are in order. First of all, this is probably the only article by Gary North I will ever repost, and I endorse none of his political writings. Second, no disrespect is intended to the memory of Ronald Reagan; I may take issue with his politics, but mocking someone with Alzheimer’s would be despicable. Finally: my reason for posting this is to highlight the relationship between salvation, grace, understanding, and what it means to be a member of Christ. 

My own tradition, Eastern Orthodoxy, baptizes and communes infants as full members of the community of faith, in expectation that the young person will grow into the faith as it is taught and lived around him. However, most other Christian traditions, while they may baptize infants or not, reserve the Eucharist for adults. In this article I think the author brings up some meaningful questions that arise from our various traditions’ practices of Communion.

THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF RONALD REAGAN: A LITERARY INVESTIGATION
(2003 version)
by Gary North

Ronald Reagan is afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease. Most of us fear this disease as we grow older because the older we get, the more likely we will be its victims.

Mr. Reagan is a member in good standing in Bel Air Presbyterian church (PCUSA), and has been for decades. The theological question arises: Should he be allowed to take the Lord’s Supper?

Why should this question arise? Because of the centuries-old tradition in Presbyterianism that anyone who does not understand what the theological meaning of the Lord’s Supper is not allowed to partake. This principle is almost universally applied to young children. It is also applied to people with Down’s Syndrome.

Why isn’t it applied to Alzheimer’s victims? One possible reason: “The victim’s correct understanding years ago still counts judicially.” But this does not answer these theological questions:

1. Why does someone who doesn’t understand today allowed to partake?
2. How can we be sure the person was ever truly saved, since confession of faith is judicial evidence of such salvation?
3. Isn’t a participant supposed to examine himself before partaking, as Paul requires in I Corinthians 11?

The fact that pastors prefer not to deal publicly with this problem doesn’t make it go away.

What about you? Will you be allowed to partake? If not, doesn’t that mean you have been excommunicated? Excommunication is defined as cut off from Holy Communion, i.e., the Lord’s Supper. Not only must you worry about Alzheimer’s, are you also to worry about being unofficially excommunicated?

To help you understand the theological issues in this controversial topic, I offer this hypothetical dialogue, which would never take place in a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in the USA. But it might happen in your congregation with someone less famous than Mr. Reagan. If it wouldn’t, be grateful, but you owe it to yourself find out why it wouldn’t. If it wouldn’t happen mainly because Ronald Reagan is an important person, then you are at risk unless you are an equally important person. So, you might consider showing this essay to your pastor. See if he disagrees with it, and why.

The following discussion is between Reagan’s pastor and his legal guardian at the time of the fictitious incident.

* * * * * * * * *

Pastor: I have invited you to my office to discuss the matter of Mr. Reagan’s membership in this congregation.

Guardian: Is there something wrong?

Pastor: Well, frankly, there is. Mr. Reagan has Alzheimer’s disease.

Guardian: Yes. He has had it for some time.

Pastor: I suppose the elders should not have waited so long to deal with this.

Guardian: Deal with what?

Pastor: The fact that Mr. Reagan no longer understands theology.

Guardian: What has his understanding of theology got to do with his membership?

Pastor: He is a communicant member. Or, I should say, he was a communicant member. He is no longer.

Guardian: What do you mean?

Pastor: The elders voted him a non-communing member at last week’s meeting.

Guardian: On what authority?

Pastor: On the authority of Book of Order.

Guardian: Where does it say that you can refuse to offer the Lord’s Supper to him without a trial?

Pastor: Well, it doesn’t actually say this, but we posses this authority.

Guardian: On what basis?

Pastor: Because we are authorized to determine at what age a child is eligible for communing membership. The Book of Order is quite clear about this: G-5.0100, “The Meaning of Membership, Section c.”

http://www.pcusa.org/oga/publications/01_FOG.pdf

Guardian: He is not a child.

Pastor: On the contrary, he is a child. He has the mentality of a toddler.

Guardian: But he is 91 years old.

Pastor: In years, yes. In mental ability, he is about three years old.

Guardian: But baptized adults are entitled to the Lord’s Supper.

Pastor: Mental adults are entitled to the Lord’s Supper. Mental children are not.

Guardian: I have never heard such an interpretation before.

Pastor: That’s because the elders of this congregation have just discovered this principle.

Guardian: But it’s not part of Presbyterian law.

Pastor: It’s part of a well-established traditional interpretation of Presbyterian theology. The basis of the prohibition against toddlers’ taking communion has always been this: the toddlers’ inability to understand theology. Toddlers don’t understand what communion means. Neither does Mr. Reagan.

Guardian: You’re saying that access to the Lord’s Supper is based on a person’s IQ.

Pastor: Well, we wouldn’t want to put it that way.

Guardian: But that’s the implication of what you’re saying. “No brains, no communion.”

Pastor: Well, yes, I suppose that is our position.

Guardian: He understood communion before he got Alzheimer’s.

Pastor: But he doesn’t understand any longer.

Guardian: But doesn’t his intelligence carry over legally?

Pastor: How? He doesn’t understand the meaning of communion. So, he cannot search his heart before he takes communion, as Paul requires in I Corinthians 11.

Guardian: Well, I can do this for him, now that I’m his legal guardian and trustee. So can the elders, if I fail in my duty.

Pastor: I’m afraid your argument doesn’t apply. If we accepted its logic in your case, we would have to accept it for toddlers and infants.

Guardian: Why?

Pastor: Because it’s the same argument, judicially speaking. You’re saying that a legal guardian who is a member of this congregation and is mentally competent can judge the moral state of his or her mentally incompetent ward. If we were to accept your argument regarding Mr. Reagan, we would have to accept it for the parents of every toddler. The parents would say that the child has not done anything so evil since the date of the last communion that the child should be denied access to the Lord’s Supper.

Guardian: But he hasn’t done anything deserving of excommunication.

Pastor: But he has.

Guardian: What has he done?

Pastor: He got Alzheimer’s.

Guardian: Are you saying that a disease is grounds for excommunication?

Pastor: This disease is grounds for exclusion from the Lord’s Table. Also any other disease or head injury that lowers a person’s IQ to the level of a toddler.

Guardian: Then contracting such a disease is the same, judicially speaking, as committing adultery.

Pastor: No, I’m not saying that.

Guardian: No, I guess you aren’t. That’s because someone can repent from committing adultery. A person can’t raise his IQ. You’re saying that Alzheimer’s is a legal basis for permanently excommunicating a person, but adultery isn’t.

Pastor: Well, now you put it that way, I agree with you. I hadn’t thought of that.

Guardian: There is a whole lot that you haven’t thought of.

Pastor: Like what?

Guardian: Like the fact that anyone can get Alzheimer’s. Like the fact that you are condemning in advance millions of old people to excommunication. Like the fact that you are bringing despair to millions of spouses who are married to people with Alzheimer’s. You are also raising a specter of separation from the Lord’s Table to every Presbyterian, who must now fear the day that he will be treated the way you are treating Mr. Reagan, should they contract this terrible disease.

Pastor: Well, that’s what we tell parents of toddlers.

Guardian: Parents of toddlers have hope that their children will get smarter as they grow older. Their pain is bearable, especially because your interpretation is backed up by tradition.

Pastor: Parents of low IQ children have to live with this despair, and it’s permanent. They don’t complain. They know that Presbyterians have always accepted this risk as a cost of being Presbyterians.

Guardian: But why should this be? Why should you treat Down’s Syndrome victims as sinners who are forever cut off from the communion table?

Pastor: Because they are stupid.

Guardian: You mean intelligence is a matter of saving grace?

Pastor: Oh, no. We wouldn’t say that.

Guardian: You already have. You are saying a lot worse. You are saying that having a low IQ is worse than committing adultery, because repentance is possible for adulterers.

Pastor: Being excluded from the communion table isn’t the same as excommunication.

Guardian: Really? How is it different?

Pastor: Because you have to be convicted of a sin in order to be officially excommunicated.

Guardian: But what’s the difference in the objective result? In both cases, the person is cut off from the Lord’s Table. Excommunication is considered the supreme negative sanction that the church can impose. Why isn’t it a negative sanction for a Down’s Syndrome child to be cut off from the Lord’s Supper?

Pastor: Because there has been no trial.

Guardian: What kind of view of the Lord’s Supper are you teaching here? Are you people Baptists?

Pastor: That is a terrible thing to accuse anyone of being, unless he’s a Baptist.

Guardian: Well, that’s the view of the Lord’s Supper that you’re defending. You’re saying that the Lord’s Supper is one thing for one person, and another thing for someone else. It’s whatever a person thinks it is. It has no judicially valid authority in its own right.

Pastor: I don’t follow you.

Guardian: If being denied access to the Lord’s Supper is a negative sanction for an adulterer, then it’s also a negative sanction for a Down’s Syndrome victim.

Pastor: But this isn’t a negative sanction for the Down’s Syndrome victim.

Guardian: Why not?

Pastor: Because there has been no trial.

Guardian: There doesn’t need to be a trial. My point is that the same negative sanction applies to both the Down’s Syndrome victim and the adulterer. If the sanction is the same for one, it’s the same for the other. It’s not just what the participants think it is. The Westminster Confession of Faith is clear about this. It’s right here in Chapter XXI. Let me read it to you.

These sacraments, both of the Old Testament and of the New, were instituted by God not only to make a visible distinction between his people and those who were without the Covenant, but also to exercise the faith of his children and, by participation of these sacraments, to seal in their hearts the assurance of his promise, and of that most blessed conjunction, union, and society, which the chosen have with their Head, Christ Jesus. And so we utterly condemn the vanity of those who affirm the sacraments to be nothing else than naked and bare signs. No, we assuredly believe that by Baptism we are engrafted into Christ Jesus, to be made partakers of his righteousness, by which our sins are covered and remitted, and also that in the Supper rightly used, Christ Jesus is so joined with us that he becomes the very nourishment and food of our souls. . . .

Therefore, if anyone slanders us by saying that we affirm or believe the sacraments to be symbols and nothing more, they are libelous and speak against the plain facts.

Pastor: I’m not saying that the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper has no independent power on its own authority. I’m not a “memorial only” theologian.

Guardian: Then why do you deny access to the Lord’s table for a member in good standing?

Pastor: Because a member in good standing has to have an IQ over 80.

Guardian: Why?

Pastor: So he can understand what’s going on.

Guardian: You think a Down’s Syndrome person doesn’t understand that he is not being allowed to participate, when everyone else in the church is taking the elements except those people nobody talks to — adulterers, thieves, and child molesters?

Pastor: Yes, that’s what I’m saying, at least the victims of extreme Down’s Syndrome.

Guardian: His parents understand, and they act on his behalf. They can decide that he has not committed an excommunicable sin. You should support their decision.

Pastor: They don’t have the authority to act on his behalf. He has to be responsible. He has to act on his own authority.

Guardian: I was right. You’re a Baptist.

Pastor: I deeply resent that accusation.

Guardian: I apologize. You’re only half-Baptist. If a parent who is a member in good standing can act on behalf of the child when it comes time to baptize the child, then why not allow the parent to make the same representative decision in the case of the Lord’s Supper?

Pastor: Because that’s what Presbyterianism has done for centuries.

Guardian: So, you’re saying that Presbyterians are half- Baptists. Presbyterians draw a judicial line at the Lord’s Table, and say to parents, “Your authority ends here.” Then you treat their young children just as you treat excommunicated adults. Meanwhile, the Baptists stand on the sidelines and taunt you. “You don’t really believe in all that representation stuff. You hold the same view that we do regarding the Lord’s Supper. There has to be an age of accountability. The difference is, we take baptism as seriously as you take the Lord’s Supper. We close access to baptism to toddlers and morons and people with Alzheimer’s.”

Pastor: But the child isn’t missing out. Not really.

Guardian: Of course he is missing out. The Confession says that “in the Supper rightly used, Christ Jesus is so joined with us that he becomes the very nourishment and food of our souls.” I ask you: Is it a positive sanction to be able to take the Lord’s Supper?

Pastor: I think I see where you’re going with this.

Guardian: Good. Then you have not yet developed Alzheimer’s.

Pastor: You’re trying to get me to say that the Lord’s Supper is a means of grace or something like that.

Guardian: Well, isn’t that what answer 96 of the Shorter Catechism says? “The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament, wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine, according to Christ’s appointment, his death is shewed forth; and the worthy receivers are, not after a corporal and carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their spiritual nourishment, and growth in grace.”

Pastor: Yes, but answers 96 and 97 say that these benefits are limited to worthy receivers. “It is required of them that would worthily partake of the Lord’s Supper, that they examine themselves of their knowledge to discern the Lord’s body, of their faith to feed upon him, of their repentance, love, and new obedience; lest, coming unworthily, they eat and drink judgment to themselves.” Toddlers, morons, and Alzheimer’s victims are not worthy.

Guardian: Nobody is worthy except Jesus Christ.

Pastor: Of course, of course. But there are worthy members and unworthy members.

Guardian: Is an infant worthy?

Pastor: That’s a trick question.

Guardian: Only for Presbyterians with tricky answers.

Pastor: An infant is worthy to be baptized, but not to take the Lord’s Supper.

Guardian: What is the difference?

Pastor: The judicial authority of his parents. In the sacrament of baptism, the parents are worthy on his behalf, but not in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

Guardian: Where does it say that in the Confession or the Catechisms?

Pastor: It doesn’t. It’s implied.

Guardian: Where does it say that in the Bible?

Pastor: It doesn’t. It’s implied.

Pastor: Where does it say that Alzheimer’s victims are unworthy?

Pastor: It doesn’t. It’s implied.

Guardian: So, the elders of this congregation added together a series of implications, and they concluded that Mr. Reagan just had to be excommunicated.

Pastor: I wish you wouldn’t use that word.

Guardian: Then what word would you use? If being officially denied access to the Lord’s Supper isn’t excommunication, what is it?

Pastor: We like to think of it as “safety-first righteousness.”

Guardian: It’s more like “righteousness, emeritus.”

Pastor: Mr. Reagan is still righteous, in a childish sort of way.

Guardian: Toddlers are righteous in an Alzheimer’s sort of way.

Pastor: That’s it, exactly.

Guardian: Infants are baptized in an Alzheimer’s sort of way.

Pastor: No, that’s completely different. Infants are baptized in a judicially representative way. Their parents speak on their behalf.

Guardian: Then the sacramental issue is the competence and judicial standing of the parents.

Pastor: Yes, but only with respect to infant baptism, not young child communion.

Guardian: Then toddlers are denied access to the Lord’s Table in an Alzheimer’s sort of way.

Pastor: Very well put.

Guardian: What about an Alzheimer’s victim who commits adultery?

Pastor: What about him?

Guardian: Is this an excommunicable sin?

Pastor: Yes.

Guardian: But what if he didn’t know that the other person was not his spouse? After all, he has Alzheimer’s.

Pastor: Well, in that case, it wouldn’t be an excommunicable sin.

Guardian: But it would be for the woman who deceived him.

Pastor: Yes, but not for him.

Guardian: Then the only difference between the adulterer and the Alzheimer’s victim is that the adulterer knew what she was doing.

Pastor: Yes.

Guardian: Then the moral and judicial difference between the two kinds of sexual contact outside of marriage is that the deceiver, who lures the Alzheimer’s victim into adultery, is legally responsible.

Pastor: I don’t like where this line of reasoning is headed.

Guardian: I’ll bet you don’t.

Pastor: You’re trying to get me to say that the person with legal authority in the case of adultery is the mentally competent decision-maker, not the mentally incompetent person who obeys the words of the person he believes is in authority.

Guardian: You have got it, exactly.

Pastor: And then you’re going to go from the representative authority of the decision-making adulterer to the representative authority of a decision-making parent.

Guardian: You have got it, exactly.

Pastor: You’re trying to make access to the Lord’s Table as much a matter of representative parental authority as baptism is.

Guardian: You have got it, exactly.

Pastor: Well, I’m not going to say that.

Guardian: Why not?

Pastor: Because it doesn’t sound Presbyterian to me.

Guardian: Neither does excommunicating a person with Alzheimer’s.

Pastor: But that is the logical implication of Presbyterianism.

Guardian: It is the logical implication of a particular Presbyterian tradition. But it is not the logical implication of the doctrine of parental representation in the Presbyterian doctrine of baptism.

Pastor: You’re trying to confuse me.

Guardian: Not too difficult a task.

Pastor: You’re implying that Presbyterianism is theologically schizophrenic: that its doctrine of representation regarding parental authority in baptism is in conflict with the Presbyterian tradition of denying parental authority in the Lord’s Supper.

Guardian: I’m not implying it. I’m inferring it. They are in conflict.

Pastor: You want me to believe that Mr. Reagan should not be excluded from the Lord’s Table even though he has the mind of a toddler or a Down’s Syndrome child.

Guardian: Correct.

Pastor: But if I drew that conclusion, I would have to open the Lord’s Table to toddlers and Down’s Syndrome victims.

Guardian: Correct.

Pastor: And all this is based on the theology of judicial representation.

Guardian: Yes. That’s an important Presbyterian doctrine. Let’s begin with Adam.

Pastor: Let’s not.

Guardian: Then let’s begin with the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ.

Pastor: Let’s not.

Guardian: Then where should we begin?

Pastor: With Presbyterian tradition.

Guardian: You want to substitute ecclesiastical tradition for the Bible and covenant theology?

Pastor: I didn’t say that.

Guardian: But that’s what is implied by what you did say. You are saying that an ecclesiastical tradition that is inconsistent at this point with the doctrine of judicial representation — covenant theology, in other words — carries more authority than covenant theology.

Pastor: Tradition is important.

Guardian: It isn’t that important. Or was Luther wrong in 1517? Was Calvin wrong in 1536? Was the Reformation a mistake?

Pastor: You’re making this more complicated than it is.

Guardian: No, you’re making it more complicated than it is. The doctrine of representation is not all that complicated. Adam sinned on our behalf. Jesus Christ died on our behalf. Parents speak on behalf of their infants. If the concept of “on behalf” is abandoned, then Christianity loses its judicial character. And Presbyterianism is nothing if not judicial.

Pastor: You’re trying to persuade me to begin with the doctrine of judicial representation.

Guardian: No, I’m trying to persuade you to end up with the doctrine of judicial representation that you officially begin with as a Presbyterian. You keep ending up a Baptist. If Mr. Reagan had wanted to be a Baptist, he would have joined a Baptist church. There are surely a lot more voters who are Baptists than there are Presbyterians. He took Presbyterianism seriously. I’m asking you to take Presbyterianism seriously.

Pastor: I’ll have to think about this.

Guardian: Good. I would suggest that you and the elders put his excommunication on hold until you make up your mind.

Pastor: This will have to go to a committee.

Guardian: Somehow, that does not come as a surprise.

###

PAEDOCOMMUNION

Two decades ago, Rev. Ray Sutton and James Jordan each wrote a brief paper, “Presuppositions on Paedocommunion,” and “Theses on Paedocommunion,” respectively. That’s a fancy word for young child communion.

The same judicial is at stake as with Reagan. If a child can be lawfully separated from the Lord’s Supper merely because he doesn’t understand it, what about Down’s Syndrome victims and Alzheimer’s victims?

The two authors concluded that the Lord’s Supper should be open to young children. Their conclusion was accepted by the Reformed Episcopal Church, which Sutton later joined. It has been ignored by most Presbyterians and other Protestants. Here are their articles on the subject. They download slowly.

ftp://entrewave.com/freebooks/docs/a_pdfs/newslet/geneva/82s1.pdf

ftp://entrewave.com/freebooks/docs/a_pdfs/newslet/geneva/82s2.pdf

These papers were circulated widely, but rarely referred to publicly. They never became the focus of a formal debate in Presbyterian circles.

In 1983, David Chilton wrote an essay in dialogue form, “Conversations With Nathan.”

http://freebooks.entrewave.com/freebooks/docs/a_pdfs/cc_4.pdf

It covered the same theological issue. It was even more ignored than the Sutton-Jordan papers. I imitated Chilton’s educational approach in my essay: a dialogue.

CIRCULATE THIS ESSAY

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Let’s assume that Jesus was God, as the Nicean Council determined. What purpose would Jesus’ death serve?

About 318 AD, Athanasius (the future bishop of Alexandria) wrote an article called “On the Incarnation of the Word” which has become a classic answer to this question. Athanasius wrote, “He became man that we might become divine; and He revealed Himself through a body that we might receive an idea of the invisible Father; and He endured insults from men that we might inherit incorruption.”

Athanasius writes that man doesn’t exist apart from God. Man is increasingly corrupted by rebellion and alienated from God, the source of life. As a result, “as they had at the beginning come into being out of non-existence, so were they now on the way to returning, through corruption, to non-existence again.” This isn’t a law in a juridicial sense, but an observation, like the observed laws of nature. Following scripture, Athanasius calls this “the law of death.”

A Person of the Godhead, whom John’s Gospel calls &rldquo;The Word,” entered the world. He prepared a body for Himself in the virgin. Then as a human He surrendered himself to death, and rose up again by divine power into new and unending life. In this way he abolished the “law of death” and returned man back to incorruption.

The nature of man is now united to the nature of God. That’s what was accomplished by the incarnation, passion and resurrection of Christ. Now humans have a capax dei, a capacity for God, and by participating in His nature, can repent and experience the righteousness, love and life of God as their own.

Athanasius’ teaching here is one of the main reasons the Nicene council later agreed that Christ cannot be other than divine. If Christ is God, of the same kind as the Father, then Christ is capable of uniting us to the life of the Godhead, by being at once God and man. Hence the image in John and in Romans of the life of God in us. If Christ is merely an angel or demigod or something other than YHWH by nature, then in Him we remain unconnected to the Creator.

If Christ is not God, then the eternal life of God is not in us.

The Arians had no Gospel that could address man’s ontological alienation from God; the Jesus of their doctrine was no more than a moral example, not a Savior.

He who possesses the word of Jesus is truly able to hear even His very silence, that he may be perfect, and may both act as he speaks, and be recognised by his silence. There is nothing which is hid from God, but our very secrets are near to Him. Let us therefore do all things as those who have Him dwelling in us, that we may be His temples, and He may be in us as our God, which indeed He is, and will manifest Himself before our faces. Wherefore we justly love Him.
— Letter to the Ephesians, c.107 AD

“The relationship between Christ and His people is a substantial union — a union of our human nature with His resurrected and glorified human nature. This is not merely a moral union, a kind of pleasant fellowship with Christ. Baptism into Christ produces a dynamic union of substance with Him.”  — Orthodox Study Bible, notes on Leviticus, pg. 144

via Anonymous God-blogger

To speak of humility (mukkaka or makkikuta) meant to Isaac to speak of God, for God in his vision is primarily the One who is ‘meek and lowly in heart’. God’s humility was revealed to the world in the Incarnation of the Word. In the Old Testament, God remained invisible to and unattainable by everyone approaching him. But when he clothed himself in humility and hid his glory under human flesh, he became both visible and attainable:

Humility is the raiment of the Godhead. The Word who became human clothed himself in it, and he spoke to us in our body. Everyone who has been clothed with humility has truly been made like unto Him who came down from his own exaltedness and hid the splendor of his majesty and concealed his glory with humility, lest creation be utterly consumed by the contemplation of him.

Every Christian is called to imitate Christ in humility. In acquiring humility, a person becomes like the Lord and clothes himself in Christ:

Wherefore every man has put on Christ when he is clothed with the raiment wherein the Creator was seen through the body that he put on. For the likeness in which he was seen by his own creation and in which he kept company with it, he willed to put on in his inner man, and to be seen therein by his fellow servants.

There was a monk from Rome [probably Abba Arsenius] who lived at Scetis near the church. He had a slave to serve him. The priest, knowing his bad health and the comfort in which he used to live, sent him what he needed of whatever anyone brought to the church. Having lived twenty five years at Scetis, he had acquired the gift of insight and became famous.

One of the great Egyptians heard about him and came to see him, thinking he would find him leading a life of great corporal austerity. He entered and greeted him. They said the prayer and sat down. Now the Egyptian saw he was wearing fine clothing, and that he possessed a bed with both a blanket and a small pillow. He saw that his feet were clean and shod in sandals. Noticing all this, he was shocked, because such a way of life is not usual in that district; much greater austerity is ordinarily the rule.

Now the old man had the gift of insight, and he understood that his visitor was shocked, and so he said to him who served him, “We will celebrate a feast today for the abba’s sake.” There were a few vegetables, and he cooked them and at the appointed hour, they rose and ate. The old man had a little wine also, because of his illness; so they drank some.

When evening came, they recited the twelve psalms and went to sleep. They did the same during the night. On rising at dawn, the Egyptian said to him, “Pray for me,” and he went away without being edified.

When he had gone a short distance, the old man, wishing to edify him, sent someone to bring him back. On his arrival he received him once again with joy and asked him, “Of what country are you?” He said, “Egypt.” “And of what city?” “I am not a city dweller at all.” “And what was your work in the village?” “I was a herdsman.” “Where did you sleep?” He replied, “In the field.” “Did you have anything to lie upon?” He said, “Would I go and put a bed under myself in a field?” “But how did you sleep?” He said, “On the bare ground.” The old man said next, “What was your food in the fields, and what wine did you drink?” He replied, “Is there food and drink in the fields?” “But how did you live?” “I ate dry bread, and, if I found any, green herbs and water.” The old man replied, “Great hardship! Was there a bath house for washing in the village?” He replied, “No, only the river, when we wanted it.”

After the old man had learnt all this and knew of the hardness of his visitor’s former life, he told him his own former way of life when he was in the world, with the intention of helping him. “I, the poor man whom you see, am of the great city of Rome and I was a great man in the palace of the emperor.” When the Egyptian heard the beginning of these words, he was filled with compunction and listened attentively to what the other was saying. He continued, “Then I left the city and came to this desert. I whom you see had great houses and many riches and having despised them I have come to this little cell. I whom you see had beds all of gold with coverings of silk, and in exchange for that, God has given me this little bed and this skin. Moreover, my clothes were the most expensive kind and in their stead I wear these garments of no value. Again, at my table there was much gold and abundance, and instead of that, God has given me this little dish of vegetables and a cup of wine. There were many slaves to serve me, and see how in exchange for that, God troubles this old man to serve me. Instead of the bath house, I throw a little water over my feet and wear sandals because of my weakness. Instead of music and lyres, I say the twelve psalms and the same at night. Instead of the sins I used to commit, I now say my little rule prayer. So then, I beg you, abba, do not be shocked at my weakness.”

Hearing this, the Egyptian came to his senses and said, “Woe to me, for after so much hardship in the world, I have found ease; and what I did not have before, that I now possess. While after so great ease, you have come to humility and poverty.” Greatly edified, he withdrew, and he became his friend and often went to him for help. For he was a man full of discernment and the good fragrance of the Holy Spirit.

•••

After reading the lives and struggles of great ascetics, I am sometimes encouraged to pursue my own repentance with intention; and sometimes saddened that my struggles are so much more pedestrian. My little rule of prayer, and the small inconveniences of a layman’s fasting practice are pretty unimpressive next to the hardships the ascetics of the desert gladly embraced.

This story reminds me of the widow’s mite; she’s praised, not because she gave much, but because she gave all she had. The place to question my self-discipline is not in comparison to anybody else’s performance, but in how much my heart and intention are affected by my own struggle. I’m going to be judged by an infinite standard, Christ Himself, so how I measure up to the saints is less relevant than how much Grace I make room for here and now.

Contents

• Introduction
• A Brief Life of Pelagius
• The Letter to Demetrias
  • History and Text
  • Content and Analysis
• Conclusion
• Endnotes
• Bibliography

by Deacon Geoffrey Ready

Originally published at the now-defunct orthodoxireland.com website. Far from a defense of what has become known as “Pelagianism,” this article seeks to define what Pelagius actually said for himself and to read him in his own context.

Few churchmen have been so maligned as Pelagius in the Christian West. For nearly 1,500 years, all that anyone has known of the British monk’s theology has come from what his opponents said about him — and when one’s opponents are as eminent as Augustine and Jerome, the chance of getting a fair hearing is not great. Consequently, it has been easy to lay all manner of pernicious heresies at Pelagius’s doorstep. Only in the last couple of decades have scholars been able to recover and examine Pelagius’s works directly. What they have found is that very little of what has historically passed for “Pelagian” heresy was actually taught by him.

This “rehabilitation” of Pelagius by Western scholars calls for an Orthodox Christian response. Indeed, through ecumenical contact and dialogue with Western Christians, Orthodox theologians have come to appreciate the immense impact that Augustine has had in shaping the landscape of Western Christianity; and the divergence of the Augustinian trajectory of theology from the Apostolic and Patristic Tradition has been carefully charted. It is surely time, then, for an evaluation of Augustine’s chief opponent, Pelagius. We may even find in the British monk’s criticism of Augustinian ideology a voice sympathetic to Orthodox concerns.

There is no denying that Orthodox Christians have traditionally called Pelagius a heretic. Yet no Eastern Fathers were acquainted with him, and condemnations of Pelagianism were included in the Oecumenical Synod of Ephesos only under Western influence. As we shall see, on the couple of occasions during his lifetime that Pelagius was actually tried at local councils in the East, the evaluation was positive. This paper picks up where those councils left off, though a thorough evaluation of Pelagius lies well beyond its scope. We shall begin the process by analysing herein the Letter to Demetrias, in which many of Pelagius’s principal views are set out.

A Brief Life of Pelagius

Tracing the life of Pelagius is not easy. No one wrote his biography, nor are there many autobiographical details in his works. There are no accounts of the controversies from an objective historian, and little commentary exists from friendly or neutral sources. Nonetheless, scholars are confident they have pieced together an accurate portrait of Pelagius’s life.

The first we know of Pelagius is in Rome where he came in early 380s. He was almost certainly from Britain, where he was born around 350.[1] There he received a very good education, with extensive training in the Scriptures, as well as in both Latin and Greek Patristic writings. He inherited in his theological formation the Romanised Celtic tradition, “with its emphasis on faith and good works, on the holiness of all life and the oneness of all.”[2] Consequently, once in Rome, he became impatient with the moral laxity that surrounded him. The Christianisation of the Empire was not making true Christians of people, he believed, only “conforming pagans.” He began preaching with the fervent desire to lead everyone to live an authentic Christian life according to the Gospel. Pelagius believed that the grace and renewing power of baptism had brought the opportunity to struggle on the path to perfection; but instead, he saw Christians squandering their baptism and “lapsing back into their old, comfortable habits of self-indulgence and careless pursuit of Mammon.”[3] The main focus of his preaching was never theological, but practical moral advice.

In Rome, Pelagius gradually gathered around himself a large and influential circle of loyal adherents, including educated aristocrats, many of them women, as well as many clergy. Though he did not belong to any religious community and never sought ordination, Pelagius was often called a monk, a testimony to his holy life. Even Augustine described him as “a holy man, who, I am told, has made no small progress in the Christian life.”[4] Gleaning what they could from his writings, commentators have described Pelagius as “a cultivated and sensitive layman,” “an elusive and gracious figure, beloved and respected wherever he goes,” always “silent, smiling, reserved,” certainly a “modest and retiring man.”[5]

The first hint of theological controversy came around 405, when Pelagius heard someone reading from Augustine’s Confessions, “Give me what you command and command what you will.” This verse annoyed Pelagius very much; he believed this and other Augustinian teachings contradicted the traditional Christian understanding of grace and free will, turning man into a “mere marionette, a robot.”[6] Soon after, he wrote his famous Commentary on the Pauline Epistles, in which he set out his opposition to such Augustinian doctrines as the inherited guilt of original sin, rigid predestination, and the necessity of baptism to spare infants from hell.

With Alaric the Visigoth threatening Rome with attack in the year 409, Pelagius departed for Palestine, where he was greeted with hostility by Augustine’s theological ally, Jerome. Jerome had been busy fighting Origenism, and when he heard that Pelagius was teaching that a baptised Christian was able to live a sinless life, if he so willed, he reacted strongly. For him, this doctrine of impeccantia (sinlessness) sounded like the Stoic notion of apatheia which Origen had adopted. So Jerome managed to have Pelagius formally charged with heresy, and the British monk was brought before Bishop John of Jerusalem at the Synods of Jerusalem and Diospolis in the year 415. At these two synods, Pelagius admitted to having taught this doctrine, but disassociated himself from the more extreme views of Celestius, a lawyer whom he had met in Rome. He quoted Scripture on the necessity of grace and anathematised those who denied that it was essential. The Synod of Diospolis therefore concluded:

since we have received satisfaction in respect of the charges brought against the monk Pelagius in his presence and since he gives his assent to sound doctrines but condemns and anathematises those contrary to the faith of the Church, we adjudge him to belong to the communion of the Catholic Church.[7]

After his acquittal, Pelagius wrote two major treatises which are no longer extant, On Nature and On Free Will. In these, he defends his position on sin and sinlessness, and accuses Augustine and Jerome of being under the influence of Manicheanism. Their doctrine of original sin restored evil to a Manichean status, and their predestinarianism was tantamount to Manichean fatalism.

Unsurprisingly, Jerome and Augustine were not convinced by the conclusions at Jerusalem and Diospolis. They decided to direct all their energies to attacking Pelagius and the British monk soon found himself “out-manoeuvred and out-gunned.”[8] Under the influence of Augustine, the bishops of Africa appealed to Pope Innocent I, and after some time, he declared that Pelagius and Celestius were to be excommunicated unless they renounced their “heretical” beliefs. Innocent died a month later, and his successor Zosimus reversed the judgement. The African bishops stood fast, though, and between 416 and 418, several councils of Carthage passed numerous canons against the tenets of what had become known as “Pelagianism.”[9]

Today, historians of the Church realise that Pelagius was not condemned simply on theological grounds. Rather, Pelagius’s teaching was seen as a threat, a “potentially dangerous source of schism in the body social and politic.”[10] His central message that there is only one authentic Christian life, the path to perfection, left no room for nominal Christians. If he had gone off into the Syrian or Egyptian desert, he would probably have been a revered “abba.” Instead, he clashed with the comfortable Christianity which had become the basis of unity in the Imperial Church, and, as a result, he has gone down as the West’s chief heresiarch.

Around the time of his condemnation by the councils of Carthage, Pelagius disappeared. He is thought to have died not long after 418 somewhere near the Eastern Mediterranean, possibly in Egypt, though some have speculated that he may have returned to Britain.[11]

At the Oecumenical Synod of Ephesos in 431, those who failed to disassociate themselves from “the opinions of Celestius” were excommunicated. This canon clearly resulted from the direct influence of Cyril of Alexandria and other African bishops, rather than from the theological reflection of the whole Church. Thus, as one commentator has said, it was as “a matter of courtesy rather than a result of reasoned debate” that the Eastern Church overruled the earlier decisions in favour of Pelagius at local Eastern Synods at Jerusalem and Diospolis.[12]

The Letter to Demetrias: History and Text

Pelagius was in Palestine when, in 413, he received a letter from the renowned Anician family in Rome. One of the aristocratic ladies who had been among his followers was writing to a number of eminent Western theologians, including Jerome and possibly Augustine, for moral advice for her daughter, Demetrias. The latter was a young woman of 14, who, though recently engaged to be married, had chosen to take a vow of virginity. Demetrias’s mother wanted her to receive the very best instruction as she began her new life. Evidently, the request was fervently made, for in his response, the Letter to Demetrias, Pelagius admits to having been persuaded by the “remarkable force of her heartfelt desire” (1:2).[13]

Pelagius rose to the dual challenge of not only writing for an aristocratic audience but doing so in direct competition with his illustrious theological adversaries. The Letter to Demetrias has been called “one of the jewels of Christian literature.”[14] One modern commentator describes the impression given by the letter, the impression which Demetrias herself must have received, as that

of an older, wiser friend, writing with deep feeling and sincerity from his own lifetime of experience and commending the values and obligations which he himself prizes above all else in other words, of that same simple, devout Christian teacher whom she had once known as a child in Rome and heard expounding the mysteries of the scriptures to her elders, one whose judgement she could respect and trust, one who believed what he said and practised what he preached, one whose sole concern was to be about his Father’s business. And as she read his advice, no doubt she would have in her mind’s eye a picture of a rather eccentric, distinctly overweight, elderly gentleman, dressed in the simple habit of a monk, strict in his teaching and his behaviour, but capable of impressing the elite of Rome by his enthusiasm and example.[15]

In addition to giving us insight into the practical moral advice which was the centre of Pelagius’s teaching, this letter provides us with the “most complete and coherent account” of his views of natural sanctity and man’s moral capacity to choose to live a holy life.[16]

As with all of Pelagius’s writings, the textual history of the Letter to Demetrias is complicated by his condemnation as a heretic. After the Synod of Ephesos in 431, it became a crime to be in possession of any Pelagian works, so they were transmitted under others’ names. The great irony of this letter is that for centuries it was considered to be one of the works of Jerome and was included in his corpus of writings.[17] Later, the letter would be ascribed to various followers of Pelagius like Celestius and Julian of Eclanum. Today, however, the authenticity of the Letter to Demetrias as a work of Pelagius is not seriously questioned. Textual analysis indicates that its style and vocabulary are typically Pelagian. Moreover, modern scholars point out that Augustine himself knew the letter to have been written by Pelagius, something he mentions in his refutation of it in his work of 417, On the Grace of Christ.[18]

The Letter to Demetrias: Content and Analysis

The first half of the Letter to Demetrias is an exposition of Pelagius’s views of human nature. The monk explains why he begins this way:

Whenever I have to speak on the subject of moral instruction and the conduct of a holy life, it is my practice first to demonstrate the power and quality of human nature and to show what it is capable of achieving (2:1).

The moral life of purity, for Pelagius, can only be achieved by drawing upon both “the good of nature and the good of grace” (9:1); this will be the dominant theme of his exhortation.

Pelagius’s reflections on the human person are not unlike those of the Eastern Fathers. They share the same starting point of moral reflection, that is, the innate goodness of man because God has created him in His image and likeness. Pelagius writes, “you ought to measure the good of human nature by reference to its Creator” (2:2). For Pelagius as well as the Fathers, creation in the image of God means creation with free will, as free, self-determining persons:

Moreover, the Lord of Justice wished man to be free to act and not under compulsion; it was for this reason that ’he left him free to make his own decisions’ (Sir 15:14) and set before him life and death, good and evil, and he shall be given whatever pleases him (2:2).

As with the Fathers, Pelagius has contempt for that “ignorant majority” which believes that because man is able to do evil, he has not been created truly good. In fact, Pelagius says, if man were created to do good “on compulsion and without possibility of variation” — as these people would have preferred — there would be no real humanity, and no real virtue or goodness (3:1). Here we can see that the heart of Pelagius’s objections to Augustine and Jerome is not a question of abstract theology, but practical spirituality: those who deny the free will of man make futile the moral life.

This innate goodness of the human person, Pelagius argues, was not destroyed in the Fall. Man continues to carry in his nature the goodness of creation, a kind of natural grace or “natural sanctity” (4:2). Pelagius goes to great lengths to demonstrate this, offering first as evidence the fact that many pagans have been “chaste, tolerant, temperate, generous, abstinent and kindly, rejecters of the world’s honours as well as its delights, lovers of justice no less than knowledge” (3:3). His central argument, though, is from the Old Testament; he produces a lengthy roll-call of the patriarchs and Old Testament saints (5:1ff) whose examples of holiness prove that it is possible to follow the commandments. Again, Pelagius emphasises the practical moral implications of this doctrine of human goodness:

We can never enter upon the path of virtue, unless we have hope as our guide and companion and if every effort expended in seeking something is nullified in effect by despair of ever finding it (2:1).

There is nothing that Pelagius abhors more than people forsaking the path to life because it is too hard or difficult, because “we are but men, we are encompassed by frail flesh” (16:2). To deny, as Augustine and Jerome did, man’s innate goodness and capacity to live a holy life is not only moral pessimism, it is real blasphemy: for it means that God does not know what he has done or commanded, or that he does not remember the human frailty which he created, or that God has “commanded something impossible” and therefore seeks not our salvation but our punishment and damnation (16:2).

Pelagius also argues against the Augustinian view of the Fall and man because it undermines the reality of sin as a moral choice. The view of his opponents that there is something in nature which compels human beings to sin strikes Pelagius as “blaming nature” for what is really the choice of free human persons. He writes:

If it should be thought to be nature’s fault that some have been unrighteous, I shall use the evidence of the scriptures, which everywhere lay upon sinners the heavy weight of the charge of having used their own will and do not excuse them for having acted only under the constraint of nature (7).

For Pelagius, in the “books of both Testaments [...] all good, as well as all evil, is described as voluntary” (7). This is most easily demonstrated in the case of brothers like Cain and Abel, or Jacob and Esau, who share the same nature. The monk explains, “when merits differ in the same nature, it is will that is the sole cause of an action” (8:1). Therefore, the Fall of man could not have corrupted nature to the point of making of the entire human race the Augustinian massa peccati (mass of sin) unable to do anything but sin. The effect of the Fall must rather be conceived in more “environmental” terms. Pelagius writes:

Nor is there any reason why it is made difficult for us to do good other than that long habit of doing wrong which has infected us from childhood and corrupted us little by little over many years and ever after holds us in bondage and slavery to itself, so that it seems somehow to have acquired the force of nature (8:3).

For the British monk, it was not true to say as Augustine did that all men sinned in Adam and thus inherit his guilt; human beings of their own free will simply imitate Adam and re-enact the Fall in themselves.

Most of what Pelagius argues against Augustine and Jerome can be found in the teaching of the Eastern Fathers. Certainly, the assertion that it is possible to live a holy life after the Fall, as evidenced by the saints of the Old Testament, is a familiar Patristic theme. Moreover, the Eastern Fathers nowhere teach the necessity of sin, emphasising, as Pelagius does, the rôle of human free will. Nor do any of the Fathers propose a doctrine of original sin like that of Augustine which disturbed Pelagius so much. Nevertheless, in his polemics against those who denied human moral freedom, Pelagius develops perhaps too high a view of human free will. As the Orthodox moral theologian, Fr Stanley Harakas, has noted, the Fathers generally distinguished between the innate self-determination (autexousion) of rational beings and the freedom (eleutheria) which is a property only of the “condition reached in Theosis where there is no conflict or struggle in acting in a fully human, divine-like fashion.”[19] Pelagius does seem to confuse these two, anticipating a little too much of real freedom in human self-determination. Furthermore, in his argument against human moral depravity, Pelagius neglects somewhat the effects of mortality and corruption after the Fall which, as the Fathers insist, evoke a tendency (though not a compulsion) towards sin. Finally, to bring it totally in line with Patristic teaching, Pelagius’s understanding of sin would need to be broadened to encompass the concept of “involuntary sin” — the evil acts and events in which we participate, yet do not will.

Still, contrary to caricatures drawn of him, Pelagius does not have a naive and overly optimistic vision of human perfection.[20] The great effort he expends in defending the goodness of human nature is only to show what a wonderful creation has been wasted by sin, to demonstrate “how great is that treasure in the soul which we possess but fail to use” (6:3). It is instructive to recall Pelagius’s response, at the Synod of Diospolis, to one of the principal charges brought against him by Jerome — the belief that “a man can be without sin, if he wishes.” Pelagius answered:

I did indeed say that a man can be without sin and keep the commandments of God, if he wishes, for this ability has been given to him by God. However, I did not say that any man can be found who has never sinned from his infancy up to his old age, but that, having been converted from his sins, he can be without sin by his own efforts and God’s grace, yet not even by this means is he incapable of change for the future.[21]

While he was totally committed to the possibility of a completely sinless life, Pelagius was thus reluctant to admit anyone had ever achieved it.

Despite the oft-cited charge of his critics that he denied the need for redeeming grace,[22] Pelagius clearly emphasises its necessity for the moral life. The first step in the path to moral perfection is baptism, which is a genuine rebirth.[23] After his long roll-call of Old Testament saints, Pelagius writes:

Even before the law was given to us, as we have said, and long before the arrival of our Lord and Saviour some are reported to have lived holy and righteous lives; how much more possible must we believe that to be after the light of his coming, now that we have been instructed by the grace of Christ and reborn as better men (8:4).

This theme of baptismal rebirth is taken up again as a direct exhortation to the young Demetrias:

Consider, I beseech you, that high rank with which you have been made glorious before God and through which you were reborn in baptism to become a daughter of God (19:1).

Like the Fathers, Pelagius teaches that redemption in Christ enables man to co-operate with God in the ascetical struggle toward deification.[24] Yet he departs somewhat from the Patristic Tradition in failing properly to indicate how the grace of redemption works. While Augustine clearly teaches that grace works within the heart of man, Pelagius is never definite about an infused grace. He speaks of being “instructed by the grace of Christ,” of being “purified and cleansed by his blood, encouraged by his example to pursue perfect righteousness” (8:4). These kinds of statements, along with his tendency sometimes to write about “meriting” grace (cf. 25:3), have left Pelagius open to the charge that his understanding of grace is too rationalistic and external.[25]

Notwithstanding possible deficiencies in his theology of grace, Pelagius’s vision of the moral life is far from restricted to external holiness; he directs a lot of his attention to the development of the interior life. Virtues, he writes, “do not come from outside but are produced in the heart itself” (10:4). Nor is it acceptable simply to perform virtuous acts; they must transform the inner person so that we “desire righteousness as strongly as we desire food and drink when hungry or thirsty” (12). Furthermore, Pelagius says that

the habit of doing good must be exercised and strengthened by the practice of constant meditation; only the best things must occupy the mind, and the practice of holy conduct must be implanted at a deeper level (13).

This focus on the interior life must begin at the outset of the path to holiness, with a thorough self-examination: “Let us approach the secret places of our soul” (4:1), Pelagius exhorts his reader.

In the second half of the Letter to Demetrias, Pelagius proceeds to give the young virgin practical advice on the spiritual path she has chosen. It is in this practical realm that Pelagius shines most brightly: his spiritual direction is traditional, yet sharply relevant; the medicine is tough, but administered gently. The spiritual fervour and depth of the teaching are clear evidence of his advanced degree in the ascetical life. This is inspirational teaching at its very best, the kind one only finds in the great Fathers of the Church.

As with all of the Fathers, Pelagius’s writing is permeated with quotations from and allusions to the Bible. It is no surprise that one of his main pieces of advice for Demetrias is to attend to the Scriptures. He tells her: “Read the holy scriptures in such a way that you never forget that they are the words of God” (23:2). Many of Pelagius’s themes are familiar ones from Scripture and the early Fathers. He presents the moral life as a choice between two ways, the path to life and the path to destruction. He writes:

You must avoid that broad path which is worn away by the thronging multitude on their way to their death and continue to follow the rough track of that narrow path to eternal life which few find (10:3).

Another dominant theme from Scripture is Pelagius’s stress that progress in the spiritual life is all-important. There is no standing still, he says; so “if we do not want to go back, we must run on” (27:4). Commenting on the parable of the talents, he writes:

He who hides in a napkin a talent which he has received is condemned by the Lord as a useless and good-for-nothing servant: it is culpable not only to have diminished that talent but also not to have increased it (15).

No hour should go by for a Christian, he insists, without some measure of spiritual growth (23:1).

Pelagius also warns Demetrias about numerous traps and pitfalls in the spiritual life. He tells her carefully to distinguish between vices and virtues: for while they are always contrary to each other, they are “linked in some cases by such resemblance that they can scarcely be distinguished at all” (20:1). This problem often afflicts neophytes who are anxious to live the virtuous life. Pelagius writes:

For how many reckon pride as liberty, adopt flattery as humility, embrace malice instead of prudence and confer the name of innocence on foolishness, and, deceived by a misleading and most dangerous likeness, take pride in vices instead of virtues? (20:1)

He tells her most especially to be wary of false humility. It is easy, he says, to look humble through “verbal fictions” and “feigned gestures,” but “endurance of insult reveals the truly humble” (20:1). “Let there be no sign of pride, arrogance or haughtiness in you” (20:2), he exhorts. “Beware of flatterers like your enemies” (21:1), he goes on to say, for they lead people to think of their reputation rather than their conscience. These are wise words indeed, reminiscent of the advice of the desert Fathers, for they are the product of the same authentic spiritual experience.

Pelagius also shares the maximalistic approach of the Fathers to the spiritual life. “Do everything,” he says bluntly. “We are not to select some of God’s commandments as if to suit our own fancy but to fulfil all of them without exception” (16:1). But as any good elder, he gears himself to the special needs of his novice, tempering his message with pastoral dispensation and concern. At one point, for instance, he urges her to combine her fasting with works of mercy; but he then excuses her for a time from the works of mercy, directing her grandmother and mother to do them for her, so that she can devote all her “zeal and care” to the ordering of her spiritual life (22:1). Elsewhere he urges her not to go to extremes with any of her spiritual disciplines: “immoderate fasting, overenthusiastic abstinence and vigils of extravagant and disproportionate length are [...] evidence of lack of restraint,” he says; the result may be that “it becomes impossible thereafter to perform such works even in a moderate way” (23:3). Thus, “with good practices as well as bad whatever exceeds the bounds of moderation becomes a vice instead of a virtue” (24:1). The reason for moderation is clear: “the body has to be controlled, not broken” (21:2). Furthermore, simplicity in the spiritual life guards the heart against feelings of pride and success. He writes: “Poor clothing, cheap food, wearisome fasts ought to quench pride, not nourish it” (21:2). Throughout the letter, this tempering of severe demands with loving moderation displays Pelagius’s genuine empathy with his spiritual child.

Pelagius’s discussion of virginity in the Christian life is further demonstration of his spiritual maturity. To be sure, he betrays at times the Western tendency to divide the spiritual life into ordinary commandments and “counsels of perfection.” He says that in the Scriptures, “evil things are forbidden, good things are enjoined; intermediate things are allowed, perfect things are advised” (9:2). For instance, “marriage is allowed, so is the use of meat and wine, but abstinence from all three is advised by more perfect counsel” (9:2). But unlike many Western theologians, he vigorously stresses the fundamental unity of the spiritual life. He writes:

In the matter of righteousness we all have one obligation: virgin, widow, wife, the highest, middle and lower stations in life, we are all without exception ordered to fulfil the commandments, nor is a man released from the law if he proposes to do more than it demands (10:1).

Pelagius tells Demetrias that her vow of virginity does not exempt her from the fullness of demands of the Christian life; he warns her not to be deceived by those who adopt chastity “not along with righteousness but in its place” (10:2). Righteousness, he insists, “is enjoined on everyone without exception” (9:2).

The ascetical struggle towards holiness and perfection in which Pelagius instructs Demetrias to engage is a difficult path involving both overcoming the passions and battling against demonic powers. Here again his teaching is perfectly consonant with all the Fathers. In describing how to resist the enemies of our soul, he once more emphasises human free will to accept or reject their temptations:

They indeed can give counsel but it is ours to choose or reject their suggestions, for they harm us not by compelling but by counselling, and they do not extort our consent from us but court it (25:4).

Pelagius quotes from Matthew 15:19, “Out of the heart of man come evil thoughts,” to show that the origin of sin is the evil image or thought in the human heart. These evil thoughts paint “every single deed on the tablet of the heart, as it were, before doing it” (26:2). Therefore, the Christian must learn to discern thoughts in his heart. The mind[26] must become careful and watchful, trained to differentiate between bad and good thoughts, “so that it either nourishes good thoughts or immediately destroys bad ones” (26:2). When the soul is “illuminated by divine speech” and “occupied with heavenly thoughts,” the devil quickly flees (26:2). The key, therefore, is to watch carefully to protect the heart against the first stirrings of evil:

All your care and attention must be concentrated on keeping watch, and it is particularly necessary for you to guard against sin in the place where it usually begins, to resist temptation at once the very first time it appears and thus to eliminate the evil before it can grow and spread (26:3).

Pelagius follows here the Patristic teaching about watchfulness (nepsis) and guarding of the heart, though he does not develop the mystical dimension, the healing rôle of the prayer of the heart. Indeed, the one apparent weakness of his spiritual “system” is his lack of full attention to prayer; but that is a difficult matter to judge, since we have no reason to suppose he was trying to be systematic and all-encompassing in this short letter. At any rate, prayer is certainly both the implied means and end of a spiritual life whose goal he describes as “a soul continuously clinging to God” (23:2).

The great English monk and scholar St Bede once quoted several passages from the Letter to Demetrias saying that it contains “much excellent moral instruction but is marred by the author’s failure to emphasise the need to rely on divine grace rather than free will and strength of mind.”[27] Yet if we remember that Pelagius was not a systematic theologian but a moral reformer, and that his theological argumentation was made in reaction to writings that he believed undermined the authentic Christian spiritual life, we may perhaps more easily forgive his few exaggerations and omissions than did Bede. In fact, since on most of his points of disagreement with Augustine, Pelagius upholds the Patristic Tradition of the Church, and since in his practical spiritual advice he is entirely harmonious with Church teaching, this much-maligned British monk would appear to be no more heretical than many venerable Fathers. When that is considered along with his indisputable holiness of life — attested to not only by the depth of his spiritual writings but by Augustine himself! — can we help but to wonder if we have long-neglected a great saint of the Church?

Pelagius’s lonely and thankless struggle against the novel doctrines of Augustine and Jerome was eventually taken up by monks in southern Gaul. They were alarmed to hear of the “Pelagian controversy,” especially Augustine’s teaching on election and predestination, which they believed to be “contrary to the opinion of the Fathers and the common view of the Church.”[28] They saw the Augustinian theological system as a threat to grace as synergy, as a partnership between God and man. Their champion was St John Cassian, a disciple of St John Chrysostom. Together with his supporters, St Vincent of Lérins and St Faustus of Riez, he upheld the Patristic Tradition against Augustinianism and its proponents, especially Prosper of Aquitaine, as well as against the extreme “Pelagians” who indeed denied the necessity of God’s grace for salvation. These noble Gallic monks were later branded “Semi-Pelagians,” and their doctrine of synergy was condemned at the Synod of Orange in 529. This council rejected Augustinian predestination but accepted much of Augustine’s theology of sin and grace, definitively setting the Western Church on a path diverging from the Apostolic and Patristic Orthodox Tradition.

Endnotes

Pelagius is frequently referred to as either British or a “Scot” (a term, usually derisive, which meant “Irish”). John Ferguson, “In Defence of Pelagius,” in Theology (Vol. 83, March 1980), p. 115. The name “Pelagius” is probably the Greek form (pelagios, “of the sea”) of the Welsh name Morgan or Morien. H. Forthomme Nicholson, “Celtic Theology: Pelagius,” in An Introduction to Celtic Christianity, James P. Mackay, ed. (T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 1989), p. 386. [Return]

Nicholson, p. 388. [Return]

B.R. Rees, Pelagius: A Reluctant Heretic (The Boydell Press: Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1988), p. 20. [Return]

B.R. Rees, The Letters of Pelagius and His Followers (The Boydell Press: Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1989), p. 2. [Return]

Rees, Reluctant Heretic, p. xii. [Return]

Ferguson, “In Defence,” p. 115. He comments: “This, in the end, was the issue. Pelagius did not say that we could be saved by our own efforts. He did insist that we have still freely to turn to the saving grace of God.” [Return]

Rees, Reluctant Heretic, p. 138. [Return]

Ibid., p. 17. [Return]

Ferguson, “In Defence,” p. 117. [Return]

Rees, Reluctant Heretic, p. 20. [Return]

Ferguson presents the compelling idea that Pelagius found refuge first in Lérins and then in Wales (p. 392). Wherever the venerable monk ended up, it is almost certain that he remained in communion with the Church. [Return]

Rees, Reluctant Heretic, p. xv. [Return]

All references to the text of the Letter to Demetrias are to the translation by B.R. Rees, contained in The Letters of Pelagius and His Followers, pp. 35-70. [Return]

Georges de Plinval, as cited by Rees, Letters of Pelagius, p. 34. [Return]

Rees, Letters of Pelagius, p. 35. [Return]

Ibid., p. 32. [Return]

Ibid., p. 33. Equally ironic is the fact that another of Pelagius’s writings, his statement of faith and defence of the Nicene Trinitarian and Christological doctrines, the Libellus Fidei, has only been preserved because the Vatican, until recently, believed it to be one of Augustine’s sermons. William E. Phipps, “The Heresiarch: Pelagius or Augustine?,” in The Anglican Theological Review (Vol. 62, April 1980), p. 125. [Return]

Rees, Letters of Pelagius, p. 33. [Return]

Fr Stanley Harakas, Toward Transfigured Life (Light and Life Publications: Minneapolis, 1986), p. 34. [Return]

As one commentator has noted, “Pelagius is not more optimistic about human nature than his opponents; he is more pessimistic. To say that there is a right way to choose and we do not choose it is ’a really harsh and bitter word for sinners’.” Ferguson, “In Defence,” p. 118. [Return]

Rees, Reluctant Heretic, p. 136. [Return]

We are disappointed to read that an otherwise brilliant theologian, Fr Michael Azkoul, dismisses Pelagius as having “denied the necessity of Grace and true Faith for salvation.” The Teachings of the Holy Orthodox Church, Vol. I (Dormition Skete Publications: Buena Vista, Colorado, 1986), p. 227. Here and elsewhere Fr Azkoul fails to distinguish between Pelagius himself and later “Pelagianism.” In effect, Pelagius himself was more “semi-Pelagian” than “Pelagian”! [Return]

It must be remembered that Pelagius never disputed the necessity of baptism, nor did he reject infant baptism. What he argued against was Augustine’s teaching that infants needed to be baptised in order to remit inherited guilt and that unbaptised babies were damned to hell. [Return]

Pelagius often refers in his writings to the doctrine of “synergy” established by St Paul; cf. Romans 8:28, “We know that in everything God works for good with (synergeo) those who love him.” This paradox of grace and free will — so misunderstood by Augustine — Pelagius championed at the Synods of Jerusalem and Diospolis (to the satisfaction of the Eastern bishops), quoting I Corinthians 15:10, “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me.” Phipps, pp. 130-131. [Return]

Cf. Vigen Guroian’s statement that “Orthodoxy speaks of an imitatio Christi but does not accept or express in this a Pelagian rationalism. The old Adam is not capable on his own power to imitate Christ perfectly and fashion himself into a new Adam.” Incarnate Love: Essays in Orthodox Ethics, p. 15. [Return]

Pelagius surely refers to the nous, not the brain. [Return]

Rees, Letters of Pelagius, p. 33. [Return]

Ibid., p. 6. [Return]

Azkoul, Fr Michael, “Peccatum Originale: the Pelagian Controversy,” in Patristic and Byzantine Review. Vol. 3, no. 1, 1984.

Azkoul, Fr Michael, The Teachings of the Holy Orthodox Church. Vol. I. Dormition Skete Publications: Buena Vista, Colorado, 1986.

Chadwick, Henry, The Early Church. Penguin Books: London, 1967.

Evans, Robert Franklin, Pelagius: Inquiries and Reappraisal. The Seabury Press: New York, 1968.

Ferguson, John, Pelagius: A Historical and Theological Study. W. Heffer and Sons: Cambridge, 1956.

Ferguson, John, “In Defence of Pelagius,” in Theology. Vol. 83, March 1980.

Harakas, Fr Stanley, Toward Transfigured Life: The Theoria of Eastern Orthodox Ethics. Light and Life Publishing: Minneapolis, 1983.

Meyendorff, Fr John, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes. Fordham University Press: New York, 1979.

Nicholson, M. Forthomme, “Celtic Theology: Pelagius,” in An Introduction to Celtic Christianity, James P. Mackay, ed. T & T Clark: Edinburgh, 1989.

Phipps, William E., “The Heresiarch: Pelagius or Augustine?”, in The Anglican Theological Review. Vol. 62, April 1980.

Rees, B.R., The Letters of Pelagius and His Followers. The Boydell Press: Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1991.

Rees, B.R., Pelagius: A Reluctant Heretic. The Boydell Press: Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1988.

From Athonite Flowers: Seven Contemporary Essays on the Spiritual Life by Monk Moses. The author was born in Athens, Greece and has been living the monastic life on Mount Athos since 1975. He is the Elder of the Kalyvi of St. John Chrysostom at the Skete of St. Panteleimon of the Koutloumoussiou Monastery. He devotes much of his time to studying the lives of saints and poetry, to writing articles and books.

Toward the end of the eighteenth century, St. Kosmas Aitolos foretold that a time would come when a person would have to travel for days to meet another person whom he could embrace as a brother. We are living in an age where this is already happening. Contemporary man, in his loneliness, experiences pathological anxiety, anguish and suffering. He is tormented and, in turn, torments others.

Why? This essay will attempt an answer by bringing the fragrance of community found in the desert to the loneliness and the desolation found in cities.

Contemporary Loneliness

Loneliness is the absence of communication and relationship- the inability to develop and maintain associations with others. Contemporary culture and the structures of society, the mass media reflecting prevailing ideologies, even children’s games, lead to social alienation, political estrangement and personal isolation. The individual person begins, early on, to be possessed by an overwhelming feeling of inadequacy, to lose the meaning and purpose of life, to live without principles and discipline, to be constantly suspicious and in doubt.

Alone and insecure, anxious and disorderly, modern man and particularly the contemporary young person attempts to build bridges, to raise flags, to shout slogans. But without a guide or with bad guides he is readily disillusioned and becomes hard and aggressive, a plaything for political exploiters and power-hungry anarchists. The desire for freedom becomes the bitter death of his freedom.

The young, who earlier had declared that they would never compromise with anyone, are now themselves compromised. They take refuge in demonstrations and sit-ins, becoming rebellious in an effort to relieve themselves of the weight of their loneliness, not realizing that they are thrusting themselves into an even more unbearable slavery.

It is particularly unfortunate that all this is happening where least expected even with young people of good education, exceptional intelligence, energy and talent. Unsatisfied with material prosperity and disillusioned by the hypocrisy of their elders, these young people struggle for simpler life, for quality in life, for a better way of life but unfortunately they do not manage to make the right beginning.

Modern art is a good example of the spiritual alienation that we see. Instead of shedding light and opening windows toward others and toward heaven it tends to shut us in and to plunge us, ever deeper, into obscurity and darkness.

It is not long before isolated man begins to talk to himself, to the irrational animals, to the shadows that surround him, and to the dead. By now he is seriously sick. Melancholy, phobias, suspicion and mistrust have made him a psychopath. A most appropriate observation characterizes our time as the century of the psychiatrist. According to World Health Organization statistics for 1985 there are more than 400 million people in the world suffering from deep depression, with about 400,000 committing suicide each year. And these statistics refer only to the developed countries!

In his isolation man is plagued relentlessly by egotism and pride which are the natural parents of his loneliness.

Humility — An Antidote to Loneliness

If egotism and pride foster this kind of loneliness, then true humility — even though the term is misused and loses meaning among those who merely talk about it — produces the climate in which this loneliness is not permitted to thrive. Behold how the desert that good mother, excellent philosopher and theologian speaks about holy humility, silence and peace.

The humble person, according to Abba Poimen, is comfortable and at peace wherever he may find himself.

Abba Isaac tells us that he who makes himself small in everything will be exalted above all. And his discerning voice continues:

“Hate honor and you will be honored indeed. He who runs after honors causes honor itself to be banished from him. But if you merely disdain yourself hypocritically in order to appear humble, God will reveal you.”

In the Gerontikon, which contains a wide variety of spiritual writings from the Fathers, it is repeatedly made clear that:

“The humble-minded and lowly in heart is not the one who cheapens himself and talks about humility, but the one who endures joyfully the dishonors which come from his neighbor.”

In another place the Gerontikon states that:

“The person honored more than he deserves is actually harmed, while the person who is not honored at all by his fellow human beings will be honored in heaven by God.”

Abba Poimen gives us this advice:

“Every possible sorrow that comes to you can be overcome with silence.”

Abba Isaiah agrees with him:

“Until your heart is at peace through prayer, make no effort to explain anything to your brother.”

In studying the writings of the holy fathers of the desert, one can easily observe a common mind, a common noble spirit, a humaneness, an understanding, a wisdom. These are dew drops of the Holy Spirit, which fall in the arid desert after long struggles, which make fragrant flowers grow among the communities of faithful committed totally to God, and which make fragrant the souls of those who truly thirst for God.

Abba Isaiah, that great mind, notes with particular grace and subtlety:

“He who humbles himself before God is capable of enduring every insult. The humble person is not concerned about what others say about him. The person who bears the harsh word of a rude and foolish man for the sake of God is worthy of acquiring peace.”

Abba Mark, on this important topic — our relationship with ourselves and with others, in which we find ourselves stumbling on a daily basis — goes on to note the following:

“When you become aware of the thought in your mind dictating human glory, you should know for sure that this thought is preparing you for shame. And if you discern someone praising you hypocritically, expect also his accusation some time soon.”

And with the daring precision of a surgeon of the soul, the holy Abba continues:

“When you see someone crying over the many insults he has received, you should know that, because he was overcome by vainglory, he is now unknowingly reaping the crop of evils in his heart. He who loves pleasure is grieved by accusations and abuse. On the other hand, he who loves God is grieved by praises and other superfluous remarks. The degree of our humility is measured by slander. Don’t think that you have humility when you cannot forbear even the slightest accusation.”

Abba Zosima goes even further:

“Remember the one who has ridiculed you, who has grieved you, who has wronged you, who has done evil to you, as your physician, your healer. Christ sent him to heal you; don’t remember him with anger.”

Evagrios considered those who spoke badly of him as benefactors.

The divine wisdom of these physicians of the desert has tremendous significance to our topic. It has been said that these remarks are addressed by monks and for monks, but this is a superficial view. The epidemic of loneliness and depression that we are discussing results from proud minds lacking in humility, from failed interpersonal relationships, from unsatisfied egotistical aspirations, from self-aggrandizement, praise-seeking and self-love. This loneliness is strong enough to weaken a person and to make him sick. But love is stronger, capable of healing and regenerating the whole world.

Man has an irrepressible need to communicate, but communication must be properly developed. Initially, we must strike up a conversation a sincere, honorable and courageous conversation with our unknown self. We must rediscover in the very depths of our soul the hidden innocence of our childhood years. Next we must learn to have unmasked face-to-face conversation with the only, true living friend our heavenly Father and God. Only then will we be able to effectively communicate with others, whoever they are — the worst, the best, the neighbors, the distant, our brothers and sisters in Christ. In this manner the webs of loneliness are removed, the inaccessible and sunless dungeons of the heart are illumined, the shell of our ego is broken. When we have rejected the loneliness of miserable, self-centered egotism we can begin to rejoice, to be free, to breathe, to live.

Natural Loneliness: A Sanctuary of Knowledge of Self and of God

There is another type of loneliness — natural loneliness which is not pathological but creative, life-giving, full of grace. It is exemplified by the natural separation of monastics from the world. It is a loneliness to which we all should devote much time. We must be able to withdraw ourselves from the noisy crowds which are so superficial, so distracting, and so counterproductive in a withdrawal which is healthy, beautiful and good. It is important that we learn to shut off the constant communication with the many, which does not allows us to be alone with our self and as a consequence, we are not able to be with the One who is always waiting, the incarnate Logos and God. We must make the time and find the way for this other kind of sacred communication of natural loneliness. And we must pursue this knowledgeably, with an orderly, disciplined program.

Please keep in mind that we are not talking about those who seek to escape from preoccupations with the world in order to find rest, to view beautiful sunsets, to gaze at star-studded skies. Such activities are not spiritual. Neither are we talking about those who seek to meditate using techniques of doubtful origins to achieve dubious results. Nor are we discussing those who devote fleeting moments to superficial daydreams and who presume to have repented when they feel sentimental emotions as they remember indiscretions of their past. And we certainly are not talking about the well-meaning but naïve who think the spiritual life of sacred quietude consists of strolling at the sea shore with a komboschoini (prayer beads) in hand. Furthermore, we are not referring to the spiritual tourists who visit holy places and converse boldly with holy persons, but who do not deny their ego nor sacrifice their will. Activities such as these are only superficial attempts to escape from life, through shallow day-dreaming and capricious imagination.

What we are talking about is sacred quietude achieved with ascetic effort which liberates us from the loneliness of the world, even though we find ourselves in a noisy city or a disorderly household. We are talking about the persistence and the patience which help us probe the deepest roots of our existence and understand its limits, and which dispel the darkness that tires and discourages us.

We need to learn to pray. We need vigils constant vigilance in a posture of immobility and calmness.

When I am near God what do I have to fear? He has guided me to where I may be guided by him. Despairing of friends and acquaintances — sorely disappointed with the arts, the technologies, the ideologies — disenchanted with social chatter and vacuous etiquette — I come to the privilege of ultimate despair. I become aware that, in my nakedness, God himself is there to vest me with authentic hope. And in this miracle the blessed Panaghia and all the saints are present to lend their support.

In this natural loneliness — this divine loneliness — I find relief. The actor’s masks which I had felt obliged to put on or which had been put on me have been discarded. It had been a dreadful state. Every night I needed to go to another gathering, to be part of another group, for I had to be included somewhere. I was constantly changing my mask. Now, however, by turning inward I begin to live, to become aware that I am a child of God, to unveil my unique and irreplaceable identity, my face, my person. I begin to observe the activities of the passions. I can see my strengths and my limitations. I am redeemed from errors, fantasies, excesses, and languid apathy.

A firm resolve helps guide our steps to this lonely sanctuary of knowledge of self and of God. In this sanctuary the loneliness the aloneness which had been feared becomes a delight. For the person who is with God can never be alone since he is in dialogue with himself and with God. Here we find ourselves with less individualism, and greater love for others. We find tears for the pain and suffering of our brothers and sisters, and strength for greater efforts that will help them. For the voice which arises from the depths of the lone person cuts through the clouds and reaches the Triune God, who always listens and always responds.

The Divine Loneliness of Man in Communion with God

The man in communion with God knows how to make his voice more fervent and to rejoice while standing in second place. He knows how to be a friend even with the stranger and to be satisfied with little. Moreover, he knows how to become tired in his diligent efforts and how to wash with tears those who are grasping and prodigal. And he knows how to do these things without complaint or dissatisfaction, even if abandoned by relatives, friends, colleagues.

Far from the tumultuous crowds and the confusion of the public arena, in the privacy of your room, choose freely and without coercion. It may appear that you are not offering anything to others and that you are being self-centered, particularly when others are saying that they need you, as they suffer from painful loneliness. This loneliness which you have chosen for yourself is an arduous task, requiring great strength, heroism, persistence. It is a long and endless undertaking. And sometimes it can be preparation for a return to those whom you have left out of your life, although this should never be the purpose of your ascetic commitment.

All the saints of our Church, the most fervent and active missionaries, even the Lord himself in his earthly life, experienced the mystery of divine loneliness. Remember those great personalities, the prophets of the Old Testament Moses, Elijah, Isaiah and John the Forerunner.

Returning to our century, we find it tragically alone, in despair, pessimistic. In spite of efforts to the contrary, the world is in conflict with everyone and everything countries, governments, races, colleagues, parents, friends, children, books, lessons, work. And being in conflict with itself it is also in conflict with God, to whom it never speaks, never says anything.

The most painful loneliness is to be next to your spouse and yet be unable to transmit your inner feelings, even as external messages are transmitted instantaneously from one hemisphere to another. It is painful loneliness for married couples to keep secrets from each other for years. It is painful when dialogue is non-existent between children and parents, between children and teachers, between children and clergy. There is no more cruel loneliness than for a family to sit for hours in front of the television without speaking a word among themselves. We live in a difficult time. Loneliness is at an all-time high. Man is lost. God is silent.

In this loneliness, in this desolation of the cities, in this apparent absence of God, man is called to gather his thoughts, to come to his senses, to put aside his many worldly preoccupations and to retire to his place of prayer speechless, naked, a child so that God may speak to him, clothe him, and endow him with spiritual maturity. Then his loneliness will become the divine loneliness of liberation and he will achieve a sense of fullness. Only such radical loneliness leads to a fundamental understanding and experience of God, destroying every hesitation, doubt and torment.

In this sacred loneliness man finds himself face-to-face with his existential poverty and the fear of death which it provokes. Yet, even here, there is the danger that he may choose procrastination as a solution and, for a time, set his panic-stricken self at ease. He may resume running back and forth endlessly, expanding social activities, and seeking a variety of entertainments a program of extreme busyness. Other people, other things, work and extensive involvements may serve as a cover for his spiritual impoverishment for a time. And he may continue wandering aimlessly, driven by circumstances, tormented, flirting with one thing and another, fighting, being torn and finally annihilated.

A life of work without the liberation of communion with God is slavery. The struggle for excessive wealth is an incurable, tormenting disease. Fear of the future can stimulate greed, miserliness, hoarding. And God can be easily forgotten.

Here is what Abba Markos says, on how man can avoid the slavery of misguided work and instead become a free servant of God:

“The one who casts off anxious cares for ephemeral things and is freed from their every need, will place all his trust in God and in the eternal good things. The Lord did not forbid the necessary daily care for our physical well-being; but he indicated that man should be concerned only for each day. To limit our needs and cares to what is absolutely necessary is quite possible through prayer and self-control, but to eliminate them altogether is impossible.”

In the discerning remarks of Abba Markos which continue, let me call your attention to a subtle point which applies to many faithful:

“The necessary services which we are obliged to carry out, we must of course accept and carry out, but we must let go of those other purposeless activities and prefer rather to spend our time in prayer, particularly when these activities would lead us into the greed and luxury of money and wealth. For the more one can limit, with the help of God, these worldly activities and remove the material which feeds them, the more will one be able to gather his mind from such anxious wanderings. If again someone, out of weak faith or some other weakness, cannot do this, then, at least, let him understand well the truth and let him try, as much as he can, to censure himself for this weakness and for still remaining in this immature condition. For it is far better to have to give an account to God for omissions rather than for error and pride.”

Let me repeat this last point:

“It is far better to have to give an account to God for omissions rather than for error and pride!”

A drama is played out in man wherein he continuously and intently seeks peace and knowledge externally. But when he comes to his senses he realizes that true hospitality exists in an unexpected place. For it is precisely within himself that he discovers and experiences the particularity of his personhood. It is here that the divine loneliness of liberation, based on the knowledge of his individual personality, is to be found. It is here, in mystical quietude, that he measures, decides, and takes on his responsibilities.

Achieving the mystical experience of what we are, what we should seek, and what we can do, involves troublesome effort which, nevertheless, is critical. It is within us that we rescue ourselves from the loneliness of ego and where we find the way to the light and joy of communion.

Much of the world is governed by sophistry, wisdom has been ostracized, and decency has been lost. Lies and deception abound, revisionism has made history counterfeit, the Gospel is misinterpreted, schoolbooks are political tools mouthing the ideologies of those in power. There is a tendency to mimic false western ideologies, including sentimental pietism and painless social neochristianitiy. The life of the Church and its life-giving Sacred Traditions are ignored.

The only refuge is for each of us to set up our own sanctuary wherever we can. To a world which considers deception to be intelligence and honor to be weakness, we must dare say “Do not touch me!” We must choose to remain voluntarily and responsibly alone, even though such aloneness requires great courage in a society which aggressively seeks our applause and urges us into amalgamation. The weariness over vanities, bitterness, constant motion and joyless joys that has filled our lives, helps us come to the realization that this is the best form of resistance to the general disorientation.

By restoring our inner world, we increase our resistance, and in time become invincible to, the organized attacks of evil. By placing our whole life at God’s feet and seeking the authentic life he wants us to live we begin to have a foretaste of immortality, where we are never alone but in the company of Christ and his saints. All loneliness is dispelled by inner self-sufficiency.

And it may help you to know that there are many, out of sight, who are assisting you with their prayers. These are the monastics, dedicated totally to God, who keep vigil. Even though you have not met them they pray for you, with arms raised and with knees and knuckles callused by their prostrations.

The Supreme Loneliness of Believers Today

It has been said that each person carries his own loneliness. The mentally unbalanced individual has a dangerous loneliness. The sick person has an agonizing loneliness. One who has unjustly accumulated wealth has a bitter and ugly loneliness. But the believer carries a permanent, incurable and supreme loneliness, the loneliness of the way to salvation.

We have become accustomed to referring to the loneliness of late evening, of mourning, of living abroad. And each of us deals with our own individual circumstances as best we can. But, how long will we continue to go around in circles, examining the subject externally yet never entering its reality? Standing before the eternal enigma of existence, when will we the sons and daughters of God by grace and participation, created in his image and likeness, the children of light when will we dare to cast aside worldly ideas and discussions and, standing face to face before God, make the decision to fundamentally change our lives?

Our movements remain uncertain. We talk about God, yet God remains someone we do not really know. We desire to be with God, we advance toward him, yet at the last minute we find an escape route and evade him.

We love ourselves excessively, beyond measure. We are unwilling to bear God. We are afraid of him, and we try to deceive him — although in fact we only deceive ourselves — with excuses which appear to be convincing. We have come to love our deceptions to the point of no longer being ashamed of them. And yet God himself never tires of seeking us out discreetly, reminding us of his presence in our sufferings and in our joys, in our mistakes and in our victories.

It is necessary for believers to begin again the way of the Lord. Let us abandon the crowds and their excited shouting; let not their words entice and influence us. The way of the Lord is narrow, uphill, demanding, lonely, but it is also salutary, as he himself has promised us. The believer must at last attach himself with love to what is essential to his personal existence, setting aside decisively and irrevocably the secondary and superfluous.

The message of the Book of Revelation is truly awesome. The lukewarm believers will be spewed out of the mouth of God! (Rev. 3:15-16) The term used is most expressive of God’s dissatisfaction with those who are indecisive and ambiguous, neither hot nor cold.

To be in the company of God is both a joy to God and the greatest liberating blessedness to man. But reconciliation with God cannot be detached from reconciliation with ourselves and with our brothers and sisters. These always go together the friend of God is a friend of himself and of others.

The relationships that result have no room for conceit or isolation. Love of God must never degenerate into Pharisaism, nor love of neighbor into sterile duty. Openness in three directions — toward self, God and neighbor — is achieved symmetrically, with balance, with knowledge, with freedom and with love.

The great fourth century teacher of the desert, Abba Isaiah, reminds us that

“the pathological love of self and of others is an obstacle to our relationship with God.”

Cicero used to say that

“a great city is a great loneliness!”

This loneliness produces boredom, lack of appetite, pessimistic bitterness, a constant looking to the future and doing nothing today, dissatisfaction, a desire to escape, cowardice. These conditions, collectively referred to by the ascetic literature as accidia, mercilessly plague many, including the careless monastic.

Here is how St. Maximos the Confessor, the great Byzantine theologian, speaks about accidia:

“All of the powers of the soul are enslaved by accidia, while almost all of the other passions are also and immediately aroused by it, because, of all the passions, accidia is the most burdensome.”

St. John of the Ladder, who knows profoundly even the most subtle movements of the soul, described accidia to monks who inquired with characteristic harshness:

“Accidia is the breakdown of the soul, the disorientation of the mind, negligence of ascetic practice, hatred of monasticism, love of worldliness, irreverence toward God, forgetfulness of prayer.”

Evagrios mentions that this unbearable condition of the soul devastates its victim,

“who does not know what to do anymore, seeing the time not passing and wondering when the mealtime will come which seems delayed.”

Antiochos, who lived in the seventh century, is even more vivid and precise in his definition of accidia:

“This condition brings you anxiety, dislike for the place where you are living, but also for your brothers and for every activity. There is even a dislike for Sacred Scripture, with constant yawning and sleepiness. Moreover, this condition keeps you in a state of hunger and nervousness, wondering when the next meal will come. And when you decide to pick up a book to read a little, you immediately put it down. You begin to scratch yourself and to look out of the windows. Again you begin to read a little, and then you count the number of pages and look at the titles of the chapters. Finally, you give up on the book and go to sleep, and as soon as you have slept a little you find it necessary to get up again. And all of these things you are doing just to pass the time.”

St. John of Damascus says that this struggle is very heavy and very difficult for monks.

St. Theodore of Studion says that the passion of accidia can send you directly to the depths of Hades.

Dostoyevski, who had a patristic mind, offered a solution to this problem when he had the Starets Zosima tell us we must make ourselves responsible for the sins of the whole world:

“This understanding of our salvation through others helps us to realize that love is not exhausted only in doing good, but in making the agonies and the sufferings of others our very own. The monks pray daily for the salvation of the whole world. Created in the image of God, we are all his, we are all brothers, his children. Loneliness is abolished in God. We are all ‘members of each other’ according to St. Paul. Thus, our sins and our virtues have a bearing upon the others, since, as we have said, we are all members of one body. Accidia provides a reason for more fervent prayer, and the difficulties are an opportunity for spiritual maturity and progress.”

Let me repeat. Separation from the world, maligned by some as desertion, is courageous and necessary, a resistance to the general leveling of all things. Man finds his authenticity, the beauty of his uniqueness, within the sacred silence of quietude, standing apart from the crowd. His suffering in solitude prepares him to return to the common and familiar, revitalized and ready for whole-hearted service.

Abba Alonios once said:

“Unless a man can bring himself to say to his heart that he alone and God are present in this place, he will never find peace and rest of soul.”

St. John Chrysostom said: “Quietude in solitude is no small teacher of virtue.” Elsewhere he also said:

“No matter where you are, you can set up your sanctuary. Just have pure intentions and neither the place, nor the time will be an obstacle, even without kneeling down, striking your chest or raising your arms to heaven. As long as your mind is fervently concentrated you are totally composed for prayer. God is not troubled by any place. He only requires a clear and fervent mind and a soul desiring prudence.”

St. Makarios of Egypt, in his spiritual homilies, becomes a little more affectionate:

“Even if you find yourself poverty stricken of spiritual gifts, just have sorrow and pain in your heart for being outside of his kingdom, and as a wounded person shout to the Lord and ask him to make you also worthy of the true life.”

Further on, he says:

“God and the angels grieve over those who are not satisfied with heavenly nourishment.”

Finally, St. Makarios makes this significant and remarkable observation:

“Everything is quite simple and easy for those who desire to be transfigured spiritually. They need only to struggle to be a friend of God and pleasing to him, and they will receive experience and understanding of heavenly gifts, an inexpressible blessedness, and a truly great divine wealth.”

Being inexperienced in these more profound spiritual conditions, I should simply work in the beloved desert to uproot my passions. But there is a need to speak of men I have seen and heard, who live on the peaceful mountain sides of the sacred Athonite peninsula, who experience the mysteries of God. They are charismatic monks consumed by heaven, bearing Christ in their hearts and loving God, devotees of quietude, of solitude, thunderous workers of silence, alone but without loneliness, who, in their solitude, remember the loneliness of the whole world. While some in the world suffer involuntarily sleeplessness and others spend their nights without love in strange places, the monks of Mt. Athos keep a voluntary vigil, praying for the health, mercy and salvation of the whole world.

An amazing book by a contemporary hermit, which circulated recently, describes the famous ascetic of Mt. Athos, Hatzi-Georgis, as a faithful friend of quietude in the caves of the desert, an honorable and noble fighter, a great faster who found his rest in vigils, in prayer and in solitude. The desert did not make him wild and harsh like itself. On the contrary it refined and beautified him. His reverend biographer writes as follows:

“Hatzi-Georgis had much innocent love for all. He was always peaceful, tolerant and forgiving. He had a great heart and that is why he had room for everything and everyone, just as they were. In a sense he had been rendered incorporeal. Living the angelic life on earth he became an angel and flew to heaven, for he held on to nothing neither spiritual passions nor material things. He had thrown everything away and, consequently, flew very high.”

The Elder Gerasimos, the hesychast from Katounakia, remained for seventeen years, as noted by his fellow ascetic, at the peak of Prophet Elijah struggling with demons and the elements. He remained an immovable pillar of patience. His tears were flowing constantly. He completed his carefree and quiet life in the sweetness of the constant vision of Christ.

Another hesychast from Katounakia, Fr. Kallinikos, loved pain, toil and quietude beyond measure. He bathed in his tears and perspiration. The last forty-five years of his life he passed in seclusion, praying without ceasing. His face attained the grace of shining like that of Moses when he descended from Mt. Sinai.

The spiritual Father Ignatios had the peculiar habit of closing the shutters of his cell so that he would not notice the coming of the new day, but could continue his prayers. It was his custom to beseech his visitors in this manner:

“Love God who has loved you!”

He would sometimes forget to wash, to comb himself, to eat, but prayer beads were always in his hand and prayer always on his lips and heart. When he lost his eyesight, he became even brighter. He was fragrant in life and he was also fragrant after falling asleep in the Lord.

The remarkable priest and father confessor, Fr. Savvas, from the Little St. Anna, drew his strength from the daily Divine Liturgy which he celebrated in tears. During Liturgy, and during his all night vigils, he would take hours to commemorate thousands of names.

This is the nature of the community of the desert silent, praying, serene, blessed. This is the life of the desert. If a monk does not possess an intense spiritual life and a constant vigilance, he will certainly fall into a myriad of temptations. Accidia will lead him to a barren isolation when, mocked by angels and demons, he will become the worse of the worst, and the loneliness of the desert will become unbearable for him.

Summing Up the Paradoxes

The cities become more and more desolate and they will continue in this direction, while the deserts will become inhabited and will again blossom. No one who remains unrepentant will be able to block the repentance of the willing, the prayer of the faithful, the supplication of the poor. No one can prevent the free person from self-imprisonment, self-exile, from living the mystery of the living God. This miracle is experienced in martyrdom and in humility, where the Orthodox way of life always blossoms in quietude, in silence, in anticipation. We are called to experience the transcendence of Christianity, which is not so much the abolition of evil as it is the honorable acceptance of ourselves and of others, living the wealth of poverty, the health of illness, the blessing of tribulation, the power of weakness, the joy of patience, the victory of defeat, the honor of dishonor, the freedom of seclusion, the majesty of meekness, the resistance to death, the incarnation of God, the deification of man. And we should expect all these spiritual realities, not from the authority of the leaders of this world, but from the authority we exercise over ourselves, and from the creation of healthy and bright spiritual hearths which we call parish, family, cell, workshop, office, auditorium, room.

In this way, though the desolation and loneliness of the cities will continue to exist, it will not penetrate into our hearts. In this way the world can be changed, not from without, but from within and from above.

Do not consider great the missionary to Africa or the significant inventor. Great is the little person who forbears the madness, the injustice, the persecution, the pain of his neighbor and of his own life. According to Abba Isaac, the person who recognizes and overcomes his passions is greater than the person who raises the dead.

All who seek redemption from pathological anxiety, from sorrow and sadness, from emptiness and loneliness are invited to a rendezvous with themselves and with God. And when you do meet, remember the humble person who has offered these thoughts.