Bucharest, Romania, October 29-31,1979, a follow-up of the dialogue held in March of 1977 in Lucerne, Switzerland. Under the Sponsorship of Patriarch Justinian of Romania and Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen of Romania

By Father John S. Romanides

The meeting was chaired jointly by H.E. Metropolitan Damaskinos of Tranoupolis,² Director of the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate at Chambesy, Switzerland and Prof. Shemaryahu Talmon, Chairman of the Jewish Council for Inter-religious Consultations in Israel, Professor of Bible, Institute of Jewish Studies and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The papers presented during the sessions of the first day had been prepared and presented by Prof. Michael Wyschogrod of the City University of New York entitled “Tradition and Society in Judaism” and the Orthodox paper had been prepared by Deacon Elie Jones Golitzin of the Institut Des Sciences Bibliques, Faculte de Theologie; Suisse entitled “The role of the Bible in Orthodox Tradition”.³

Before the meeting began I had distributed a study about the Logos in the Old Testament according to the Fathers of the Orthodox Ecumenical Councils. The Jewish representatives reacted by pointing out that is was the first time that they encountered Christians who could point out Who the Logos is in the Old Testament and also asked permission to reproduce this little paper and distribute it.

The two conference papers on “Bible and Tradition” had essentially such similar positions which made it possible to terminate discussion early. In the light of this I asked whether I may pose a question to the Jewish chairman in the light of the paper I had distributed before the meeting began. My question was, “Is the Angel of the Lord Who appeared to Moses in the burning bush a manifestation of God?” “Of course it is!” came the rapid answer.

I reacted with the following question, “Is He created or uncreated?” Then the reply shot back, “Of course uncreated! We Jews do not believe that God reveals Himself by means of creatures!”

I quickly retorted, “That is our Orthodox doctrine of the Holy Trinity”.

Then the Jewish chairman reacted with, “then why all the philosophical terms like “one essence,” ” three hypostases” and “homoousion”?

I replied that “These terms were reactions to heretics who had been transforming the Church’s doctrine into philosophical systems, whereas,” I continued, “the only purpose of such terms was to guarantee the cure of the center of the human personality by means of the purification of the heart, its illumination and the glorification of the whole person”.

The Jews reacted with the information that this is the Hassidim tradition. Then I asked whether this is also that of the modern Hassidim. They answered that, “as far as we know it probably is”.

But this is not only the tradition of the Hassidim. It was and has been the very foundation of prophethood and apostleship of both the Old and New Testaments and the ongoing life of the Church since Pentecost. The only way one becomes a member of the Body of Christ is by means of the purification of the heart completed by its illumination and glorification both in this life and the next.

I have been a member of WCC General Assemblies since Nairobi 1975 and of Central Committee since Vancouver 1983. I have heard a lot of Protestant claims of being moved by God’s Holy Spirit. However, the only sign of being really moved by the uncreated Holy Spirit of God is this purification, illumination of the heart, and glorification, which is the foundation of the Ecumenical Councils sponsored by New Rome. This therapy cures fantasies, among which religions are capable of being extremely dangerous. This is why the tradition — of the Old and New Testaments and the Ecumenical Councils sponsored by New Rome — is not at all a religion. On the contrary this tradition is the cure of the sickness of Religion.

Although the Jews at this meeting pointed out to us that our Orthodox tradition of the cure of the human personality by means of the purification and illumination of the heart and glorification was that of Old Testament Hasidim, this did not become part of the résumé of our discussions which follows.

“The center of discussion was the relation between Scripture and Tradition with a focus on the interpretation of Scripture in Tradition. It was found that both sides agree that the interpretation that the interpretation of Scripture was always inextricably bound to the text of Scripture since tradition is first and foremost the tradition of revelation. Furthermore, both sides stressed that Scripture and Tradition came into existence in a faithful community which preserves them but also, which interprets and applies them to its ongoing life, as the authority and source of its identity”.

“The text of Scripture and its interpretation are both the result of or part of revelation at whose center is God’s revelation to Moses on Mt Sinai.

“The Jewish tradition of the revelation of the written and oral Torah on Mt. Sinai was found to have a parallel in the Orthodox Christian tradition whereby God revealed on Sinai His uncreated Torah [the Logos] and thus inspired Moses to give His chosen people the created or written Torah”.

“The centrality of God’s revelation of Himself to Moses for Jewish and Orthodox Christian understandings of faith and spirituality became evident from the discussions”.

“It was found that in spite of the well known differences in belief there are nevertheless areas of identity and similarity which would be worthwhile to explore in an ongoing dialogue”.

“It was therefore decided that the subject of investigation for the next meeting would be the subject of the law in the spiritual and social life of the Jewish and Orthodox Christian tradition”.

Footnotes

1. Jewish Participants: 1. Rabbi Balfour Brickner, Union of American Hebrew Congregations: 2. Dr. Andre Chouraqui, Jewish Committee for Inter-religious Consultations of Israel; 3. Michael J. Klein, World Jewish Congress; 4. Dr. Moses Rosen, Chief Rabbi of Romania; 5. Rabbi Elie Sabetal, Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece; 6. Zachariah Shuster, American Jewish Committee; 7. Israel Singer, World Jewish Congress; 8. Prof. Shemaryahu Talmon, Jewish Committee for Inter-religious Consultations; 9. Prof. Michael Wyschogrod, Synagogue Council of America.
   Orthodox Christian Participants: Father Dumitru, Prof. of Old Testament at the Theological Institute of Sibiu, Romania; Bishop Anthony, Vicar of the Patriarchate of Romania, Bucharest; Father Cyril Argenti, Marseilles, France; Prof. Ion Bria, World Council of Churches; Deacon Emilian Conritescu, Theological Institute of Bucharest; Metropolitan Damaskinos of Tranoupolis, Director of the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Chambesy, Switzerland; Deacon Elie Jones Golitzin, Institute des Sciences Bibliques, The Faculty of Theology, Lausanne, Switzerland; Deacon Vassilios Karayannis, Orthodox Center, Chambesy, Geneva; Prof. John S. Romanides, University of Thessaloniki, Greece; Slavco Valcanov Slavov, The Theological Academy of Sofia, Bulgaria.
2. Currently also Metropolitan of Switzerland.
3. Papers evidently not originally programmed but read at this conference were as follows: “Tradition and the Bible in the Orthodox Church,” by Rev. Cyril Argenti from Marseilles, France: “Le role des diversses traditions dans la vie de l’Eglise Orhodoxe,” by Rev. Dumitru, of the Theological Institute of Sibiu, Romania: “Peace and Justice in Biblical Tradition, ” by Cand. theol. Slavco Valcanov Slavov: “Jewish Community in the Light of Jewish Tradition,” by Israel Singer of the City University of New York and The World Jewish Congress.

This article deals with the fundamental difference between Orthodoxy and Western Christianity. Father John Romanides, a professor at the University of Thessaloniki, challenges the common views regarding the causes for the Schism of the Church in the Roman world, and offers this provocative interpretation of the historical background of this tragedy in the history of the Christian Church.

European and American histories treat the alienation between Eastern and Western Christian Churches as though it were inevitable, because of an alleged separation of the Roman Empire itself into “East” and “West,” because of alleged linguistic and cultural differences, and because of an alleged difference between the legal West and the speculative East.1 Evidence strongly suggests that such attempts to explain the separation between East and West are conditioned by prejudices inherited from the cultural tradition of the Franks, and from the centuries-old propaganda of the Frankish (Germanic dominated) Papacy.

The evidence points clearly to the national, cultural, and even linguistic unity between East and West Romans which survived to the time when the Roman popes were replaced by Franks. Had the Franks not taken over the Papacy, it is very probable that the local synod of the Church of Rome (with the pope as president), elected according to the 769 election decree approved by the Eighth Ecumenical Synod in 879, would have survived, and that there would not have been any significant difference between the papacy and the other four Roman (Orthodox) Patriarchates.

However, things did not turn out that way. The Papacy was alienated from the (Orthodox) East by the Franks, so we now are faced with the history of that alienation when we contemplate the reunion of divided Christians. By the eighth century, we meet for the first time the beginnings of a split in Christianity. In West European sources we find a separation between a “Greek East” and a “Latin West.” In Roman sources this same separation constitutes a schism between Franks (a confederation of Germanic Teutonic peoples living on the lower banks of the Rhine who by the sixth century AD conquered most of France, the low countries and what is now Germany. ed) and Romans. One detects in both terminologies an ethnic or racial basis for the schism which may be more profound and important for descriptive analysis than the doctrinal claims of either side.

The Roman Empire was conquered in three stages: by Germanic tribes (the Franks) who became known as “Latin Christianity,” by Muslim Arabs, and finally, by Muslim Turks. In contrast to this, the ecclesiastical administration of the Roman Empire disappeared in stages from West Europe, but has survived up to modern times in the “East Roman Empire” the Orthodox Patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.

The reason for this is that the Germanic – Frankish conquerors of the West Romans (who became known as the “Roman Catholic Church.”) used the Church to suppress the Roman nation, whereas under Islam the East Roman nation, the Orthodox Church, survived by means of the Orthodox Church. In each instance of conquest, the bishops became the ethnarchs of the conquered Romans and administered Roman law on behalf of the rulers. As long as the bishops were Roman, the unity of the Roman Church was preserved, in spite of theological conflicts.

Roman Revolutions and the Rise of Frankish Feudalism and Doctrine

The Franks applied their policy of destroying the unity between the Romans under their rule and the “East Romans,” the Orthodox, under the rule of Constantinople. They played one Roman party against the other, took neither side, and finally condemned both the iconoclasts and the Seventh Ecumenical Synod (786/7) at their own Council of Frankfurt in 794.

In the time of Pippin of Herestal (687-715) and Charles Martel (715-741), many of the Franks who replaced Roman bishops were military leaders who, according to Saint Boniface, “shed the blood of Christians like that of the pagans.”2

The Imperial Coronation – Charlemagne

An unsuccessful attempt was made on the life of (the Roman) Pope Leo III (795-816), the successor of Hadrian. Pope Leo was then accused of immoral conduct. Charlemagne took a personal and active interest in the investigations which caused Leo to be brought to him in Paderborn. Leo was sent back to Rome, followed by Charlemagne, who continued the investigations. The Frankish king required finally that Leo swear his innocence on the Bible, which he did on December 23, (800). Two days later Leo crowned Charlemagne “Emperor of the Romans.” Charlemagne had arranged to get the title “Emperor” in exchange for Leo’s exoneration. Charlemagne caused the filioque (the new line in the Creed that said that the Holy Spirit, “proceeds from the Father and the Son,” instead of the original which read, “proceeds from the Father, to be added to the Frankish Creed, without consulting the pope. When the controversy over this addition broke out in Jerusalem, Charlemagne convoked the Council of Aachen (809) and decreed that this addition was a dogma necessary for salvation. With this fait accomplit under his belt, he tried to pressure Pope Leo III into accepting it.3

Pope Leo rejected the filioque not only as an addition to the Creed, but also as doctrine, claiming that the Fathers left it out of the Creed neither out of ignorance, nor out of negligence, nor out of oversight, but on purpose and by divine inspiration. What Leo said to the Franks but in diplomatic terms, was that the addition of the filioque to the Creed is a heresy.

The so-called split between East and West was, in reality, the importation into Old Rome of the schism provoked by Charlemagne and carried there by the Franks and Germans who took over the papacy.

The Bible and Tradition

A basic characteristic of the Frankish (Germanic-Latin) scholastic method, misled by Augustinian Platonism and Thomistic Aristotelianism, had been its naive confidence in the objective existence of things rationally speculated about. By following Augustine, the Franks and the “Latin” Roman Catholic Church substituted the patristic concern for spiritual observation, (which they had found firmly established in Gaul when they first conquered the area) with a Germanic fascination for metaphysics

In contrast to the Franks the Fathers of the Orthodox Church did not understand theology as a theoretical or speculative science, but as a positive science in all respects. This is why the patristic understanding of Biblical inspiration is similar to the inspiration of writings in the field of the positive sciences.

Scientific manuals are inspired by the observations of specialists. For example, the astronomer records what he observes by means of the instruments at his disposal. Because of his training in the use of his instruments, he is inspired by the heavenly bodies, and sees things invisible to the naked eye. The same is true of all the positive sciences. However, books about science can never replace scientific observations. These writings are not the observations themselves, but about these observations.

The same is true of the Orthodox understanding of the Bible and the writings of the Fathers. Neither the Bible nor the writings of the Fathers are revelation or the word of God. They are about revelation and about the word of God.

Revelation is the appearance of God to the prophets, apostles, and saints. The Bible and the writings of the Fathers are about these appearances, but not the appearances themselves. This is why it is the prophet, apostle, and saint who sees God, and not those who simply read about their experiences of glorification. It is obvious that neither a book about glorification nor one who reads such a book can ever replace the prophet, apostle, or saint who has the experience of glorification.

This is the heart of the Orthodox understanding of tradition and apostolic succession which sets it apart from the “Latin” (in other words, Frankish-Germanic) and Protestant traditions, both of which stem from the theology of the Franks.

Following Augustine, the Franks identified revelation with the Bible and believed that Christ gave to the Church the Holy Spirit as a guide to its correct understanding. This would be similar to claiming that the books about biology were revealed by microbes and cells without the biologists having seen them with the microscope, and that these same microbes and cells inspire future teachers to correctly understand these books without the use of the microscope!

Historians have noted the naïveté of the Frankish religious mind which was shocked by the first claims for the primacy of observation over rational analysis. Even Galileo’s telescopes could not shake this confidence. However, several centuries before Galileo, the Franks had been shocked by the East Roman (Orthodox) claim, hurled by Saint Gregory Palamas (1296-1359), of the primacy of experience and observation over “reason” in theology.

Instruments, Observation, Concepts, and Language

The universe has turned out to be a much greater mystery to man than anyone was ever able to imagine. Indications are strong that it will yet prove to be an even greater mystery than man today can yet imagine. In the light of this, one thinks humorously of the (Latin) bishops who could not grasp the reality, let alone the magnitude, of what they saw through Galileo’s telescope. But the magnitude of Frankish naïveté becomes even greater when one realizes that these same church leaders who could not understand the meaning of a simple observation were claiming knowledge of God’s essence and nature.

The Latin tradition could not understand the significance of an instrument by which the prophets, apostles, and saints had reached glorification.

Similar to today’s sciences, Orthodox theology also depends on an instrument which is not identified with reason or the intellect. The Biblical name for this is the heart. Christ says, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”4

The heart is not normally clean, i.e., it does not normally function properly. Like the lens of a telescope or microscope, it must be polished so that light may pass through and allow man to focus his spiritual vision on things not visible to the naked eye.

In time, some Fathers gave the name nous to the faculty of the soul which operates within the heart when restored to normal capacity, and reserved the names logos and dianoia for the intellect and reason, or for what we today would call the brain. In order to avoid confusion, we use the terms noetic faculty and noetic prayer to designate the activity of the nous in the heart called noera euche.

The heart, and not the brain, is the area in which the theologian is formed. Theology includes the intellect as all sciences do, but it is in the heart that the intellect and all of man observes and experiences the rule of God. One of the basic differences between science and Orthodox theology is that man has his heart or noetic faculty by nature, whereas he himself has created his instruments of scientific observation.

A second basic difference is the following: By means of his instruments, and the energy radiated by or upon what he observes, the scientist sees things which he can describe with words, even though at times inadequately. These words are symbols of accumulated human experience, and understood by those with the same or similar experience.

In contrast to this, the experience of glorification is to see God who has no similarity whatsoever to anything created, not even to the intellect or to the angels. God is literally unique and can in no way be described by comparison with anything that any creature may be, know or imagine. No aspect about God can be expressed in a concept or collection of concepts.

It is for this reason that in Orthodoxy positive statements about God are counterbalanced by negative statements, not in order to purify the positive ones of their imperfections, but in order to make clear that God is in no way similar to the concepts conveyed by words, since God is above every name and concept ascribed to Him. Although God created the universe, which continues to depend on Him, God and the universe do not belong to one category of truth. Truths concerning creation cannot apply to God, nor can the truth of God be applied to creation.

Diagnosis and Therapy

Let us turn our attention to those aspects of differences between Roman and Frankish theologies which have had a strong impact on the development of differences in the doctrine of the Church. The basic differences may be listed under diagnosis of spiritual ills and their therapy.

According to the Orthodox Church, the “East Romans,” Glorification is the vision of God in which the equality of all men and the absolute value of each man is experienced. God loves all men equally and indiscriminately, regardless of even their moral status. God loves with the same love, both the saint and the devil. To teach otherwise, as Augustine and the Franks did, would be adequate proof that they did not have the slightest idea of what glorification was.

According to the Orthodox, God multiplies and divides himself in His uncreated energies undividedly among divided things, so that He is both present by act and absent by nature to each individual creature and everywhere present and absent at the same time. This is the fundamental mystery of the presence of God to His creatures and shows that universals do not exist in God and are, therefore, not part of the state of illumination as in the Augustinian (Frankish Latin) tradition.

According to the Orthodox, God himself is both heaven and hell, reward and punishment. All men have been created to see God unceasingly in His uncreated glory. Whether God will be for each man heaven or hell, reward or punishment, depends on man’s response to God’s love and on man’s transformation from the state of selfish and self-centered love, to Godlike love which does not seek its own ends.

One can see how the Frankish understanding of heaven and hell poetically described by Dante, John Milton, and James Joyce are so foreign to the Orthodox tradition (but in keeping with the “Latin” tradition).

According to the Orthodox, since all men will see God, no religion can claim for itself the power to send people either to heaven or to hell. This means that true spiritual fathers prepare their spiritual charges so that vision of God’s glory will be heaven, and not hell, reward, and not punishment. The primary purpose of Orthodox Christianity then, is to prepare its members for an experience which every human being will sooner or later have.

While the brain (according to the Orthodox) is the center of human adaptation to the environment, the noetic faculty in the “heart” is the primary organ for communion with God. The fall of man or the state of inherited sin is: a) the failure of the noetic faculty to function properly, or to function at all; b) its confusion with the functions of the brain and the body in general; and c) its resulting enslavement to the environment.

Each individual experiences the fall of his own noetic faculty. One can see why the Augustinian (Latin, Frankish) understanding of the fall of man as an inherited guilt for the sin of Adam and Eve is not, and cannot, be accepted by the Orthodox tradition.

There are two known memory systems built into living beings, 1) cell memory which determines the function and development of the individual in relation to itself, and 2) brain cell memory which determines the function of the individual in relation to its environment. In addition to this, the patristic tradition is aware of the existence in human beings of a now normally non-functioning or sub-functioning “memory in the heart”, which when put into action via noetic prayer, includes unceasing memory of God and, therefore, the normalization of all other relations.

When the noetic faculty is not functioning properly, man is enslaved to fear and anxiety and his relations to others are essentially utilitarian. Thus, the root cause of all abnormal relations between God and man and among men is that fallen man, i.e., man with a malfunctioning noetic faculty, uses God, his fellow man, and nature for his own understanding of security and happiness. Man outside of glorification imagines the existence of god or gods which are psychological projections of his need for security and happiness.

That all men have this noetic faculty in the heart also means that all are in direct relation to God at various levels, depending on how much the individual personality resists enslavement to his physical and social surroundings and allows himself to be directed by God. Every individual is sustained by the uncreated glory of God and is the dwelling place of this uncreated creative and sustaining light, which is called the rule, power, grace, etc. of God. Human reaction to this direct relation or communion with God can range from the hardening of the heart, i.e., the snuffing out of the spark of grace, to the experience of glorification attained to by the prophets, apostles, and saints.

This means that all men are equal in possession of the noetic faculty, but not in quality or degree of function. It is important to note the clear distinction between spirituality, which is rooted primarily in the heart’s noetic faculty, and intellectuality, which is rooted in the brain. Thus:

1. A person with little intellectual attainments can rise to the highest level of noetic perfection.
2. On the other hand, a man of the highest intellectual attainments can fall to the lowest level of noetic imperfection.
3. One may also reach both the highest intellectual attainments and noetic perfection. Or
4. One may be of meager intellectual accomplishment with a hardening of the heart.

Saint Basil the Great writes that “the in-dwelling of God is this – to have God established within ourself by means of memory. We thus become temples of God, when the continuity of memory is not interrupted by earthly cares, nor the noetic faculty shaken by unexpected sufferings, but escaping from all things this (noetic faculty) friend of God retires to God, driving out the passions which tempt it to incontinence and abides in the practices which lead to virtues.”5

Saint Gregory the Theologian points out that “we ought to remember God even more often than we draw our breath; and if it suffices to say this, we ought to do nothing else…or, to use Moses’ words, whether a man lie asleep, or rise up, or walk by the way, or whatever else he is doing, he should also have this impressed in his memory for purity.”6

Saint Gregory insists that to theologize “is permitted only to those who have passed examinations and have reached theoria, and who have been previously purified in soul and body, or at least are being purified.”7

This state of theoria is two fold or has two stages: a) unceasing memory of God and b) glorification, the latter being a gift which God gives to His friends according to their needs and the needs of others. During this latter state of glorification, unceasing noetic prayer is interrupted since it is replaced by a vision of the glory of God in Christ. The normal functions of the body, such as sleeping, eating, drinking, and digestion are suspended. In other respects, the intellect and the body function normally. One does not lose consciousness, as happens in the ecstatic mystical experiences of non-Orthodox Christian and pagan religions. One is fully aware and conversant with his environment and those around him, except that he sees everything and everyone saturated by the uncreated glory of God, which is neither light nor darkness, and nowhere and everywhere at the same time. This state may be of short, medium, or long duration. In the case of Moses it lasted for forty days and forty nights. The faces of those in this state of glorification give off an imposing radiance, like that of the face of Moses, and after they die, their bodies become holy relics. These relics give off a strange sweet smell, which at times can become strong. In many cases, these relics remain intact in a good state of preservation, without having been embalmed. They are completely stiff from head to toe, light, dry, and with no signs of putrefaction.

There is no metaphysical criterion for distinguishing between good and bad people. It is much more correct to distinguish between ill and more healthy persons. The sick ones are those whose noetic faculty is either not functioning, or functioning poorly, and the healthier ones are those whose noetic faculty is being cleansed and illumined.

These levels are incorporated into the very structure of the four Gospels and the liturgical life of the Church. The Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke reflect the pre-baptismal catechism for cleansing the heart, and the Gospel of John reflects the post-baptismal catechism which leads to theoria by way of the stage of illumination. Christ himself is the spiritual Father who led the apostles, as He had done with Moses and the prophets, to glorification by means of purification and illumination.8

One can summarize these three stages of (Orthodox) perfection as a) that of the slave who performs the commandments because of fear of seeing God as a consuming fire, b) that of the hireling whose motive is the reward of seeing God as glory, and c) that of the friends of God whose noetic faculty is completely free, whose love has become selfless end because of this, are willing to be damned for the salvation of their fellow man, as in the cases of Moses and Paul.

THE FILIOQUE

Historical Background

The Franks deliberately provoked doctrinal differences, between the East Romans, (the Orthodox) and the West Romans, (the Roman Catholics) in order to break the national and ecclesiastical unity of the original Roman nation. Because of this deliberate policy, the filioque question took on irreparable dimensions. However, the identity of the West Romans and of the East Romans as one indivisible nation, faithful to the Roman Christian faith promulgated at the Ecumenical Synods held in the Eastern part of the Empire, is completely lost to the historians of Germanic background, since the East Romans are consistently called “Greeks” and “Byzantines.”

Thus, the historical myth has been created that the West Roman Fathers of the Church, the Franks, Lombards, Burgundians, Normans, etc., are one continuous and historically unbroken “Latin” Christendom, clearly distinguished and different from a mythical “Greek” Christendom. The frame of reference accepted without reservation by Western historians for so many centuries has been “the Greek East and the Latin West.”

A much more accurate understanding of history presenting the filioque controversy in its true historical perspective is based on the Roman viewpoint of church history, to be found in (both Latin and Greek) Roman sources, as well as in Syriac, Ethiopian, Arabic, and Turkish sources. All these point to a distinction between Frankish and Roman Christendom, and not between a mythical “Latin” and “Greek” Christendom. Among the Romans, Latin and Greek are national languages, not nations. The Fathers are neither “Latins” nor “Greeks” but Romans.

Having this historical background in mind, one can then appreciate the significance of certain historical and theological factors underlying the so-called filioque controversy. This controversy was essentially a continuation of the Germanic or Frankish effort to control not only the Roman nation, now transformed into the serfs of Frankish feudalism, but also the rest of the Roman nation and Empire.

The historical appearance of Frankish theology coincides with the beginnings of the filioque controversy. Since the Roman Fathers of the Church took a strong position on this issue, as they did on the question of Icons (also condemned initially by the Franks), the Franks automatically terminated the patristic period of theology with Saint John of Damascus in the East (after they accepted the Seventh Ecumenical Synod) and Isidore of Seville in the West. After this, according to the Franks, the Roman Empire no longer can produce Fathers of the Church because the Romans rejected the Frankish filioque. In doing so, the Romans withdrew themselves from the central trunk of Christianity (as the Franks understood things) which now becomes identical with Frankish Christianity, especially after the East Franks expelled the Romans from the Papacy and took it over themselves.

From the Roman viewpoint, however, the Roman tradition of the Fathers was not only not terminated in the eighth century, but continued a vigorous existence in the East, as well as within Arab-occupied areas. Present research is now leading to the conclusion that the Roman Patristic period extended right into the period of Ottoman rule, after the fall of Constantinople New Rome. This means that the Eighth Ecumenical Synod (879), under Photios, the so-called Palamite Synods of the fourteenth century, and the Synods of the Roman Patriarchates during the Ottoman period, are all a continuation and an integral part of the history of Patristic theology. It is also a continuation of the Roman Christian tradition, minus the Patriarchate of Old Rome, which, since 1009 after having been captured, ceased to be Roman and became a Frankish institution.

Without ever mentioning the Franks, the Eighth Ecumenical Synod of 879 condemned those who either added or subtracted from the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, and also those who had not yet accepted the Seventh Ecumenical Synod.

It must first be emphasized that this is the first instance in history wherein an Ecumenical Synod condemned heretics without naming them. In this case the heretics are clearly the universally feared Franks. It is always claimed by Protestant, Anglican, and Latin scholars that since the time of Hadrian I or Leo III, through the period of John VIII, the Papacy opposed the filioque only as an addition to the Creed, but never as doctrine or theological opinion. Thus, it is claimed that John VIII accepted the Eighth Ecumenical Synod’s condemnation of the addition to the Creed and not of the filioque as a teaching.

However, both Photios and John VIII’s letter to Photios testify to this pope’s condemnation of the filioque as doctrine also. Yet the filioque could not be publicly condemned as heresy by the Church of Old Rome. Why? Simply because the Franks were militarily in control of papal Romania, and as illiterate barbarians were capable of any kind of criminal act against the Roman clergy and populace. The Franks were a dangerous presence in papal Romania and had to be handled with great care and tact.

Yet the Romans in the West could never support the introduction of the filioque into the Creed, not because they did not want to displease the “Greeks,” but because this would be heresy. The West Romans knew very well that the term procession in the Creed was introduced as a parallel to generation, and that both meant causal relation to the Father, and not energy or mission.

This interpretation of the filioque is the consistent position of the Roman popes, and clearly so in the case of Leo III. The minutes of the conversation held in 810 between the three apocrisari of Charlemagne and Pope Leo III, kept by the Frankish monk Smaragdus, bear out this consistency in papal policy.9 Leo accepts the teaching of the Fathers, quoted by the Franks, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, as taught by Augustine and Ambrose. However, the filioque must not be added to the Creed as was done by the Franks, who got permission to sing the Creed from Leo but not to add to the Creed.

When one reads these minutes, remembering the Franks were a dangerous presence in Rome capable of acting in a most cruel and barbarous manner if provoked, then one comes to the clear realization that Pope Leo III is actually telling the Franks in clear and diplomatic terms that the filioque in the Creed is a heresy.

In the light of the above, we do not have the situation usually presented by European, American, and Russian historians in which the filioque is an integral part of so–called “Latin” Christendom with a “Greek” Christendom in opposition on the pretext of its introduction into the Creed. (The addition to the Creed was supposedly opposed by the popes not doctrinally, but only as addition in order not to offend the “Greeks.”) What we do have is a united West and East Roman Christian nation in opposition to an upstart group of Germanic races who began teaching the Romans before they really learned anything themselves. Of course, German teachers could be very convincing on questions of dogma, only by holding a knife to the throat. Otherwise, especially in the time of imposing the filioque, the theologians of the new Germanic theology were better than their noble peers, only because they could read and write and had, perhaps, memorized Augustine.

The Theological Background

At the foundation of the filioque controversy between Franks and Romans lie essential differences in theological method, theological subject matter, spirituality, and, therefore, also in the understanding of the very nature of doctrine and of the development of the language or of terms in which doctrine is expressed.

When reading through Smaragdus’ minutes of the meeting between Charlemagne’s emissaries and Pope Leo III, one is struck not only by the fact that the Franks had so audaciously added the filioque to the Creed and made it into a dogma, but also by the haughty manner in which they so authoritatively announced that the filioque was necessary for salvation, and that it was an improvement of an already good, but not complete, doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit. This was in answer to Leo’s strong hint at Frankish audacity. Leo, in turn, warned that when one attempts to improve what is good he should first be sure that in trying to improve he is not corrupting. He emphasizes that he cannot put himself in a position higher than the Fathers of the Synods, who did not omit the filioque out of oversight or ignorance, but by divine inspiration.

The question arises, “Where in the world did the newly born Frankish theological tradition get the idea that the filioque is an improvement of the Creed, and that it was omitted from creedal expression because of oversight or ignorance on the part of the Fathers of the Synod?” Since Augustine is the only representative of Roman theology that the Franks were more or less fully acquainted with, one must turn to the Bishop of Hippo for a possible answer. I think I have found the answer in Saint Augustine’s lecture delivered to the assembly of African bishops in 393. Augustine had been asked to deliver a lecture on the Creed, which he did. Later he reworked the lecture and published it. I do not see why the Creed expounded is not that of Nicaea-Constantinople, since the outline of Augustine’s discourse and the Creed are the same. Twelve years had passed since its acceptance by the Second Ecumenical Synod and, if ever, this was the opportune time for assembled bishops to learn of the new, official, imperially approved creed. The bishops certainly knew their own local Creed and did not require lessons on that. In any case, Augustine makes three basic blunders in this discourse and died many years later without ever realizing his mistakes, which were to lead the Franks and the whole of their Germanic Latin Christendom into a repetition of those same mistakes.

In his De Fide et Symbolo,10 Augustine makes an unbelievable naive and inaccurate statement: “With respect to the Holy Spirit, however, there has not been, on the part of learned and distinguished investigators of the Scriptures, a fuller careful enough discussion of the subject to make it possible for us to obtain an intelligent conception of what also constitutes His special individuality (proprium).”

Everyone at the Second Ecumenical Synod knew well that this question was settled once and for all by the use in the Creed of the word procession as meaning the manner of existence of the Holy Spirit from the Father which constitutes His special individuality. Thus, the Father is unbegotten, i.e. derives His existence from no one. The Son is from the Father by generation. The Holy Spirit is from the Father, not by generation, but by procession. The Father is cause, the Son and the Spirit are caused. The difference between the ones caused is the one is caused by generation, and the other by procession, and not by generation.

In any case, Augustine spent many years trying to solve this non-existent problem concerning the individuality of the Holy Spirit and, because of another set of mistakes in his understanding of revelation and theological method, came up with the filioque.

It is no wonder that the Franks, believing that Augustine had solved a theological problem which the other Roman Fathers had supposedly failed to grapple with and solve came to the conclusion that they uncovered a theologian far superior to all other Fathers. In him the Franks had a theologian who improved upon the teaching of the Second Ecumenical Synod.

A second set of blunders made by Augustine in this same discourse is that he identified the Holy Spirit with the divinity “which the Greeks designate theotes” and explained that this is the “love between the Father and the Son.”11

The third and most disturbing blunder in Augustine’s approach to the question before us is that his theological method is not only pure speculation on what one accepts by faith (for the purpose of intellectually understanding as much as one’s reason allows by either illumination or ecstatic intuition), but is a speculation which is transferred from the individual speculating believer to a speculating church, which, like an individual, understands the dogmas better with the passage of time.

Thus, the Church awaits a discussion about the Holy Spirit “Full enough or careful enough to make it possible for us to obtain an intelligent conception of what also constitutes His special individuality (proprium).”

The most amazing thing is the fact that Augustine begins with seeking out the individual properties of the Holy Spirit and immediately reduces Him to what is common to the Father and Son. However, in his later additions to his De Trinitate, he insists that the Holy Spirit is an individual substance of the Holy Trinity completely equal to the other two substances and possessing the same essence as we saw.

In any case, the Augustinian idea that the Church herself goes through a process of attaining a deeper and better understanding of her dogmas or teachings was made the very basis of the Frankish propaganda that the filioque is a deeper and better understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. Therefore, adding it to the Creed is an improvement upon the faith of the Romans who had allowed themselves to become lazy and slothful on such an important matter. This, of course, raises the whole question concerning the relationship between revelation and verbal and iconic or symbolic expressions of revelation.

For Augustine, there is no distinction between revelation and conceptual intuition of revelation. Whether revelation is given directly to human reason, or to human reason by means of creatures, or created symbols, it is always the human intellect itself which is being illumined or given vision to. The vision of God itself is an intellectual experience, even though above the powers of reason without appropriate grace.

In contrast to this Augustinian approach to language and concepts concerning God, we have the Patristic position expressed by Saint Gregory the Theologian against the Eunomians. Plato had claimed that it is difficuIt to conceive of God but, to define Him in words is an impossibility. Saint Gregory disagrees with this and emphasizes that “it is impossible to express Him, and yet, more impossible to conceive Him. For that which may be conceived may perhaps be made clear by language, if not fairly well, at any rate imperfectly…”12

The most important element in Patristic epistemology is that the partial knowability of the divine actions or energies, and the absolute and radical unknowability and incommunicability of the divine essence is not a result of philosophical or theological speculation, as it is in Paul of Samosata, Arianism, and Nestorianism, but of the personal experience of revelation or participation in the uncreated glory of God by means of vision or theoria. Saint Gregory defines a theologian as one who has reached this theoria by means of purification and illumination, and not by means of dialectical speculation. Thus, the authority for Christian truth is not the written words of the Bible, which cannot in themselves either express God or convey an adequate concept concerning God, but rather the individual apostle, prophet, or saint who is glorified in God.

Because the Franks, following Augustine, neither understood the Patristic position on this subject, nor were they willing from the heights of their majestic feudal nobility to listen to “Greeks” explain these distinctions, they went about raiding the Patristic texts. They took passages out of context in order to prove that for all the Fathers, as supposedly in the case of Augustine, the fact that the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit means that the Holy Spirit derives His existence from the Father and Son.

The Fathers always claimed that generation and procession are what distinguish the Son from the Holy Spirit. Since the Son is the only begotten Son of God, procession is different from generation. Otherwise, we would have two Sons, in which case there is no only begotten Son. For the Fathers this was both a biblical fact and a mystery to be treated with due respect. To ask what generation and procession are is as ridiculous as asking what the divine essence is. Only energies of God may be known, and then only in so far as the creature can receive.

In contrast to this, Augustine set out to explain what generation is. He identified generation with what the other Roman Fathers called actions or energies of God which are common to the Holy Trinity. Thus, procession ended up being these same energies. The difference between the Son and the Spirit was that the Son is from one and the Holy Spirit from two.

When he began his De Trinitate,13 Augustine promised that he would explain why the Son and the Holy Spirit are not brothers. After completing his twelfth book, his friends stole and published this work in an unfinished and uncorrected form. In Book 15.45, Augustine admits that he cannot explain why the Holy Spirit is not a Son of the Father and brother of the Logos, and proposes that we will learn this in the next life.

In his Rectractationun, Augustine explains how he intended to exiain what had happened in another writing and not publish his De Trinitate himself. However, his friends prevailed upon him, and he simply corrected the books as much as he could and finished the work with which he was not really satisfied.

What is most remarkable is that the spiritual and cultural descendants of the Franks are still claiming that Augustine is the authority par excellence on the Patristic doctrine of the Holy Trinity!

Whereas no Greek-speaking Roman Father ever used the expression that the Holy Spirit proceeds (ejkporeuvetai) from the Father and Son, both Ambrose and Augustine use this expression. Since Ambrose was so dependent on such Greek-speaking experts as Basil the Great and Didymos the Blind, particularly his work on the Holy Spirit, one would expect that he would follow Eastern usage.

It seems, however, that at the time of the death of Ambrose, before the Second Ecumenical Synod, the term procession had been adopted by Didymos as the hypostatic individuality of the Holy Spirit. It had not been used by Saint Basil (only in his letter 38 he seems to be using procession as Gregory the Theologian) or by Saint Gregory of Nyssa before the Second Ecumenical Synod. Of the Cappadocian Fathers, only Saint Gregory the Theologian uses very clearly in his Theological Orations what became the final formulation of the Church on the matter at the Second Ecumenical Synod.

Evidently, because Augustine transformed the doctrine of the Holy Trinity into a speculative exercise of philosophical acumen, the simple, schematic and biblical nature of the doctrine in the East Roman (Orthodox) tradition had been lost sight of by those stemming from the scholastic tradition.

Thus, the history of the doctrine of the Trinity has been reduced to searching out the development of such concepts and terminology as three persons or hypostases, one essence, homoousios, personal or hypostatic properties, one divinity, etc.

The summary of the Patristic theological method is perhaps sufficient to indicate the nonspeculative method by which the Fathers theologize and interpret the Bible. The method is simple and-the result is schematic. Stated simply and arithmetically, the whole doctrine of the Trinity may be broken down into two simple statements as far as the filioque is concerned. (1) What is common in the Holy Trinity is common to and identical in all three persons or hypostases. (2) What is hypostatic, or hypostatic property, or manner of existence is individual, and belongs only to one person or hypostasis of the Holy Trinity. Thus, we have tav koinav and tav ajkoinwvnhta, what is common and what is incommunically individual.

Having this in mind, one realizes why the West and East Romans did not take the Frankish filioque very seriously as a theological position, especially as one which was supposed to improve upon the Creed of the Second Ecumenical Synod.

However, the Romans had to take the Franks themselves seriously, because they backed up their fantastic theological claims with an unbelievable self-confidence and with a sharp sword. What they lacked in historical insight, they made up with “nobility” of descent, and a strong will to back up their arguments with muscle and steel.

In any case, it may be useful in terminating this section to emphasize the simplicity of the Roman position and the humor with which the filioque was confronted. We may recapture this Roman humor about the Latin filioque with two syllogistic jokes from the Great Photios which may explain some of the fury of Frankish reaction against him.

“Everything, therefore, which is seen and spoken of in the all-holy and consubstantial and coessential Trinity, is either common to all, or belongs to one only of the three: but the projection (probolhv) of the Spirit, is neither common, nor, as they say, does it belong to any one of them alone (may propitiation be upon us, and the blasphemy turned upon their heads). Therefore, the projection of the Spirit is not at all in the lifegiving and all-perfect Trinity.”14

In other words, the Holy Spirit must then derive His existence outside of the Holy Trinity since everything in the Trinity is common to all or belongs to one only.

“For otherwise, if all things common to the Father and the Son, are in any case common to the Spirit, …and the procession from them is common to the Father and the Son, the Spirit therefore will then proceed from himself: and He will be principle (arche) of himself, and both cause and caused: a thing which even the myths of the Greeks never fabricated.”15

Keeping in mind the fact that the Fathers always began their thoughts about the Holy Trinity from their personal experience of the Angel of the Lord and Great Counselor made man and Christ, one only then understands the problematic underlying the Arian/Eunomian crisis, i.e., whether this concrete person derives His existence from the essence or hypostasis of the Father or from non-being by the will of the Father. Had the tradition understood the method of theologizing about God as Augustine did, there would never have been an Arian or Eunomian heresy. Those who reach glorification (theosis) know by this experience that whatever has its existence from non-being by the will of God is a creature, and whoever and whatever is not from non-being, but from the Father is uncreated. Between the created and the uncreated, there is no similarity whatsoever. Before the Cappadocian Fathers gave their weight to the distinction between the three divine hypostases and the one divine essence, many Orthodox Church leaders avoided speaking either about one essence or one hypostasis since this smacked of Sabellian and Samosatene Monarchianism. Many preferred to speak about the Son as deriving His existence from the Father’s essence and as being like the Father in essence (homoiousios). Saint Athanasios explains that this is exactly what is meant by coessential (homoousios).16 It is clear that the Orthodox were not searching for a common faith but rather for common terminology and common concepts to express their common experience in the Body of Christ.

Equally important is the fact that the Cappadocians lent their weight to the distinction between the Father as cause and the Son and the Holy Spirit as caused. Coupled with the manners of existence of generation and procession, these terms mean that the Father causes the existence of the Son by generation and of the Holy Spirit by procession and not by generation. Of course, the Father being from no one derives His existence neither from himself nor from another. Actually, Saint Basil pokes fun at Eunomios for being the first to say such an obvious thing and thereby manifest his frivolousness and wordiness. Furthermore, neither the essence nor the natural energy of the Father have a cause or manner of existence. The Father possesses them by His very nature and communicates them to the Son in order that they possess them by nature likewise. Thus, the manner by which the uncaused Father exists, and by which the Son and the Holy Spirit receive their existence from the Father, are not to be confused with the Father’s communicating His essence and energy to the Son and the Holy Spirit. It would, indeed, be strange to speak about the Father as causing the existence of His own essence and energy along with the hypostases of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

It also must be emphasized that for the Fathers who composed the creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople neither generation nor procession mean energy or action. This was the position of the heretics condemned. The Arians claimed that the Son is the product of the will of God. The Eunomians supported a more original but bizarre position that the uncreated energy of the Father is identical with His essence, that the Son is the product of a simple created energy of God, that the Holy Spirit is the product of a single energy of the Son, and that each created species is the product of a special energy of the Holy Spirit, there being as many created energies as there are species. Otherwise, if the Holy Spirit has only one created energy, then there would be only one species of things in creation. It is in the light of these heresies also that one must appreciate that generation and procession in the Creed in no way mean energy or action.

However, when the Franks began raiding the Fathers for arguments to support their addition to the Creed, they picked up the categories of manner of existence, cause and caused, and identified these with Augustine’s generation and procession, thus transforming the old Western Orthodox filioque into their heretical one. This confusion is nowhere so clear than during the debates at the Council of Florence where the Franks used the terms cause and caused as identical with their generation and procession, and supported their claim that the Father and the Son are one cause of the procession of the Holy Spirit. Thus, they became completely confused over Maximos who explains that for the West of his time, the Son is not the cause of the existence of the Holy Spirit, so that in this sense the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Father. That Anastasios the Librarian repeats this is ample evidence of the confusion of both the Franks and their spiritual and theological descendants. For the Fathers, no name or concept gives any understanding of the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Saint Gregory the Theologian, e.g., is clear on this as we saw. He ridicules his opponents with a characteristic taunt: “Do tell me what is the unbegotteness of the Father, and I will explain to you the physiology of the generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit, and we shall both of us be frenzy-stricken for prying into the mystery of God’’17 Names and concepts about God give to those who reach theoria understanding not of the mystery, but of the dogma and its purpose. In the experience of glorification, knowledge about God, along with prayer, prophecy and faith are abolished. Only love remains (1 Cor. 13, 8-13; 14,1). The mystery remains, and will always remain, even when one sees God in Christ face to face and is known by God as Paul was (I Cor. 13.12).

The Significance of the Filioque Question

Smaragdus records how the emissaries of Charlemagne complained that Pope Leo III was making an issue of only four syllables. Of course, four syllables are not many. Nevertheless, their implications are such that Latin or Frankish Christendom embarked on a history of theology and ecclesiastical practice which may have been quite different had the Franks paid attention to the “Greeks.”

I will indicate some of the implications of the presuppositions of the filioque issue which present problems today.

1. Even a superficial study of today’s histories of dogma and biblical scholarship reveals the peculiar fact that Protestant, Anglican, Papal, and some Orthodox theologians accept the First and Second Ecumenical Synods only formally. This is so because there is at least an identity of teaching between Orthodox and Arians, which does not exist between Orthodox and Latins, about the real appearances of the Logos to the Old Testament prophets and the identity of this Logos with the Logos made flesh in the New Testament. This, as we saw, was the agreed foundation of debate for the determination of whether the Logos seen by the prophets is created or uncreated. This identification of the Logos in the Old Testament is the very basis of the teachings of all the Roman Ecumenical Synods.We emphasize that the East Roman (Orthodox) Fathers never abandoned this reading of the Old Testament theophanies. This is the teaching of all the West Roman Fathers, with the single exception of Augustine, who, confused as usual over what the Fathers teach, rejects as blasphemous the idea that the prophets could have seen the Logos with their bodily eyes and, indeed, in fire, darkness, cloud, etc.The Arians and Eunomians had used, as the Gnostics before them, the visibility of the Logos to the prophets to prove that He was a lower being than God and a creature. Augustine agrees with the Arians and Eunomians that the prophets saw a created Angel, created fire, cloud, light, darkness, etc., but he argues against them that none of these was the Logos himself, but symbols by means of which God or the whole Trinity is seen and heard.Augustine had no patience with the teaching that the Angel of the Lord, the fire, the glory, the cloud, and the Pentecostal tongues of fire, were verbal symbols of the uncreated realities immediately communicated with by the prophets and apostles, since for him this would mean that all this language pointed to a vision of the divine substance. For the bishop of Hippo this vision is identical to the whole of what is uncreated, and could be seen only by a Neoplatonic type ecstasy of the soul, out of the body within the sphere of timeless and motionless eternity transcending all discursive reasoning. Since this is not what he found in the Bible, the visions therein described are not verbal symbols of real visions of God, but of creatures symbolizing eternal realities. The created verbal symbols of the Bible became created objective symbols. In other words, words which symbolized uncreated energies like fire, etc., became objectively real created fires, clouds, tongues, etc.
2. This failure of Augustine to distinguish between the divine essence and its natural energies (of which some are communicated to the friends of God), led to a very peculiar reading of the Bible, wherein creatures or symbols come into existence in order to convey a divine message, and then pass out of existence. Thus, the Bible becomes full of unbelievable miracles and a text dictated by God.
3. Besides this, the biblical concept of heaven and hell also becomes distorted, since the eternal fires of hell and the outer darkness become creatures also whereas, they are the uncreated glory of God as seen by those who refuse to love. Thus, one ends up with the three-story universe problem, with God in a place, etc., necessitating a demythologizing of the Bible in order to salvage whatever one can of a quaint Christian tradition for modern man. However, it is not the Bible itself which needs demythologizing, but the Augustinian Franco-Latin tradition and the caricature which it passed off in the West as “Greek” Patristic theology.
4. By not taking the above-mentioned foundations of Roman Patristic theology of the Ecumenical Synods seriously as the key to interpreting the Bible, modern biblical scholars have applied presuppositions latent in Augustine with such methodical consistency that they have destroyed the unity and identity of the Old and New Testaments, and have allowed themselves to be swayed by Judaic interpretations of the Old Testament rejected by Christ himself. Thus, instead of dealing with the concrete person of the Angel of God, Lord of Glory, Angel of Great Council, Wisdom of God and identifying Him with the Logos made flesh and Christ, and accepting this as the doctrine of the Trinity, most, if not all, Western scholars have ended up identifying Christ only with Old Testament Messiahship, and equating the doctrine of the Trinity with the development of extra Biblical Trinitarian terminology within what is really not a Patristic framework, but an Augustinian one. Thus, the so-called “Greek” Fathers are still read in the light of Augustine, with the Russians after Peter Mogila joining in.
5. Another most devastating result of the Augustinian presuppositions of the filioque is the destruction of the prophetic and apostolic understanding of grace and its replacement with the whole system of created graces distributed in Latin Christendom by the hocus pocus of the clergy.

For the Bible and the Fathers, grace is the uncreated glory and rule (basileia) of God seen by the prophets, apostles, and saints and participated in by the faithful followers of the prophets and the apostles. The source of this glory and rule is the Father who, in begetting the Logos, and projecting the Spirit, communicates this glory and rule so that the Son and the Spirit are also by nature one source of grace with the Father. This uncreated grace and rule (basileia) is participated in by the faithful according to their preparedness for reception, and is seen by the friends of God who have become gods by grace.

Because the Frankish filioque presupposes the identity of uncreated divine essence and energy, and because participation in the divine essence is impossible, the Latin tradition was led automatically into accepting communicated grace as created, leading to its objectification and magical priestly manipulation.

On the other hand, the reduction by Augustine of this revealed glory and rule (basileia) to the status of a creature has misled modern biblical scholars into the endless discussions concerning the coming of the “Kingdom” (basileia should rather be rule) without realizing its identity with the uncreated glory and grace of God.19

In the patristic tradition, all dogma or truth is experienced in glorification. The final form of glorification is that of Pentecost, in which the apostles were led by the Spirit into all the truth, as promised by Christ at the Last Supper. Since Pentecost, every incident of the glorification of a saint, (in other words, of a saint having a vision of God’s uncreated glory in Christ as its source), is an extension of Pentecost at various levels of intensity.

This experience includes all of man, but at the same time transcends all of man, including man’s intellect. Thus, the experience remains a mystery to the intellect, and cannot be conveyed intellectually to another. Thus, language can point to, but cannot convey, this experience. The spiritual father can guide a person to, but cannot produce, the experience which is a gift of the Holy Spirit.

When, therefore, the Fathers add terms to the biblical language concerning God and His relation to the world like hypostasis, ousia, physis, homoousios, etc., they are not doing this because they are improving current understanding as over against a former age. Pentecost cannot be improved upon. All they are doing is defending the Pentecostal experience which transcends words, in the language of their time, because a particular heresy leads away from, and not to, this experience, which means spiritual death to those led astray.

For the Fathers, authority is not only the Bible, but the Bible plus those glorified or divinized as the prophets and apostles. The Bible is not in itself either inspired or infallible. It becomes inspired and infallible within the communion of saints because they have the experience of divine glory described in the Bible.

The presuppositions of the Frankish (“Latin”) filioque are not founded on this experience of glory. Anyone can claim to speak with authority and understanding. However, we Orthodox follow the Fathers and accept only those as authority who, like the apostles, have reached a degree of Pentecostal glorification.

Within this frame of reference, there can be no institutionalized or guaranteed form of infallibility, outside of the tradition of spirituality which leads to theoria, mentioned above, by St. Gregory the Theologian.

What is true of the Bible is true of the Synods, which, like the Bible, express in symbols that which transcends symbols and is known by means of those who have reached theoria. It is for this reason that the Synods appeal to the authority, not only of the Fathers in the Bible, but also to the Fathers of all ages, since the Fathers of all ages participate in the same truth which is God’s glory in Christ.

For this reason, Pope Leo III told the Franks in no uncertain terms that the Fathers left the filioque out of the Creed neither because of ignorance nor by omission, but by divine inspiration. However the implications of the Frankish filioque were not accepted by all Roman Christians in the Western Roman provinces conquered by Franco-Latin Christendom and its scholastic theology. Remnants of Roman biblical orthodoxy and piety have survived and all parts may one day be reassembled, as the full implications of the Patristic tradition make themselves known, and spirituality, as the basis of doctrine, becomes the center of our studies.

Notes

1. The European and Middle Eastern parts of the Roman Empire were carved out of areas which, among other linguistic elements, contained two bands, the Celtic and the Greek, which ran parallel to each other from the Atlantic to the Middle East. The Celtic band was north of the Greek band, except in Asia Minor, where Galatia had the Greek band to the east, the north, and the south. Northern Italy itself was part of the Celtic band and Southern Italy a part of the Greek band (here called Magna Graecia) which in the West covered Southern Spain, Gaul, and their Mediterranean islands. Due consideration should be given to the fact that both the Celtic and Greek bands were east and west of Roman Italy. The Romans first took over the Greek and Celtic parts of Italy and then the Greek and Celtic speaking peoples of the two bands. The Celtic band was almost completely Latinized, whereas the Greek band, not only remained intact, but was even expanded by the Roman policy of completing the Hellenization of the Eastern provinces initiated by the Macedonians. The reason why the Celtic band, but not the Greek band, was Latinized was that the Romans were themselves bilingual in fact and in sentiment, since in the time of their explosive expansion they spoke both Latin and Greek, with a strong preference for the latter. Thus, one is obliged to speak of both the Western and Eastern parts of European Romania in terms of a Latin North and a Greek South, but certainly not of a Latin West and a Greek East, which is a Frankish myth, fabricated for the propagandistic reasons described in Lecture I, which survives in text books until today. Indeed, the Galatians of Asia Minor were in the fourth century still speaking the same dialect as the Treveri of the province of Belgica in the Roman diocese of Gaul. (Albert Grenier, Les Gaulois [Paris, 1970], p. 115.) That the Latin West/Greek East division of Europe is a Frankish myth is still witnessed to today by some 25 million Romans in the Balkans, who speak Romance dialects, and by the Greek-speaking inhabitants of the Balkans and the Middle East, who call themselves Romans. It should be noted that it is very possible that the Galatians of Asia Minor still spoke the same language as the ancestors of the Waloons in the area of the Ardennes when the legate of Pope John XV, Abbot Leo, was at Mouzon pronouncing the condemnation of Gerbert d’Aurillac in 995

2. Migne, PL 89:744.

3. For a review of the historical and doctrinal aspects of this question, see J. S. Romanides, The Filioque, Anglican Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Discussions, St. Albans 1975 – Moscow 1976 (Athens, 1978).

4. Matthew 5.8.

5. Epistle 2.

6. Theological Oration 1.5.

7. Ibid. 1.3.

8. On the relations between the Johanine and Synoptic gospel traditions see my study, “Justin Martyr and the Fourth Gospel,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 4 (1958-59), pp. 115-39.

9. PL 102.971 ff. For interpretation of these minutes and related matters see my E Dogmatike kai Symbolike tes Orthodoxou Katholikes Ekklesias, pp. 340-78.

10. 19.

11. Ibid.

12. Theological Orations, 2.4.

13. 11.3.

14. J. N. Karmiris, Ta Dogmatika kai Symbolika Mnemeia tes Orthodoxou Katholikes Ekklesias, Athens 1966, Vol. 1, p. 325.

15. Ibid, p. 324.

16. De Synodis, 41.

17. Theological Orations, 5.8.

18. Besides the works mentioned in footnotes above, see my study, “Justin Martyr and the Fourth Gospel,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 4 (1958-59), 115-39

In regard to the doctrine of original sin as contained in the Old Testament and illuminated by the unique revelation of Christ in the New Testament, there continues to reign in the denominations of the West–especially since the development of scholastic presuppositions–a great confusion, which in the last few centuries seems to have gained much ground in the theological problematics of the Orthodox East. In some circles this problem has been dressed in a halo of mystifying vagueness to such an extent that even some Orthodox theologians seem to expect one to accept the doctrine of original sin simply as a great and profound mystery of faith (e.g., Androutsos, Dogmatike , pp. 161-162). This has certainly become a paradoxical attitude, especially since these Christians who cannot point their fingers at this enemy of mankind are the same people who illogically claim that in Christ there is remission of this unknown original sin. This is a far cry from the certitude of St. Paul, who, of the devil himself, claimed that “we are not ignorant of his thoughts” (noemata). ¹

If one is to vigorously and consistently maintain that Jesus Christ is the unique Savior Who has brought salvation to a world in need of salvation, one obviously must know what is the nature of the need which provoked this salvation. ² It would, indeed, seem foolish to have medical doctors trained to heal sickness if there were no such thing as sickness in the world. Likewise, a savior who claims to save people in need of no salvation is a savior only unto himself.

Undoubtedly, one of the most important causes of heresy is the failure to understand the exact nature of the human situation described by the Old and New Testaments, to which the historical events of the birth, teachings, death, resurrection and second coming of Christ are the only remedy. The failure to understand this automatically implies a perverted understanding of what it is that Christ did and continues to do for us, and what our subsequent relation is to Christ and neighbor within the realm of salvation. The importance of a correct definition of original sin and its consequences can never be exaggerated. Any attempt to minimize its importance or alter its significance automatically entails either a weakening or even a complete misunderstanding of the nature of the Church, sacraments and human destiny.

The temptation facing every inquiry into the thought of St. Paul and the other Apostolic writers is to approach their writings with definite, although many times unconscious, presuppositions contrary to the Biblical witness. If one approaches the Biblical testimony to the work of Christ and the life of the primitive community with predetermined metaphysical notions concerning the moral structure of what most would call the natural world, and, by consequence, with fixed ideas concerning human destiny and the needs of hte individual and humanity in general, he will undoubtedly take from the faith and life of the ancient Church only such aspects as fit his own frame of reference. Then, if he wishes to be consistent in representing his own interpretation of the Scriptures as authentic, he will necessarily proceed to exaplain away everything extraneous to his concepts as secondary and superficial, or simply as the product of some misunderstanding on the part of certain Apostles or a group of Fathers, or even the whole primitive Church in general.

A proper approach to the New Testament teaching of St. Paul concerning original sin cannot be one-sided. It is incorrect, for example, to emphasize, in Romans 5:12, the phrase, eph’ho pantes hemarton , by trying to make it fit any certain system of thought concerning moral law and guilt without first establishing the importance of St. Paul’s beliefs concerning the powers of Satan and the true situation not only of man, but of all creation. It is also wrong to deal with the problem of the transmission of original sin within the framework of dualistic anthropology while at the same time completely ignoring the Hebraic foundations of St. Paul’s anthropology. Likewise, and attempt to interpret the Biblical doctrine of the fall in terms of a hedonistic philosophy of happiness is already doomed to failure because of its refusal to recognize not only the abnormality but, more important, the consequences of death and corruption.

A correct approach to the Pauline doctrine of original sin must take into consideration St. Paul’s understanding of (1) the fallen state of creation, including the powers of Satan, death and corruption, (2) the justice of God and law, and (3) anthropology and the destiny of man and creation. These divisions are not meant to suggest that each topic is to be dealt with here in detail; rather, they shall be discussed only in the light of the main problem of original sin and its transmission according to St. Paul.

I. Fallen Creation

St. Paul strongly affirms the belief that all things created by God are good. ³ Yet, at the same time, he insists on the fact that not only man, ⁴ but also all of creation has fallen. ⁵ Both man and creation are awaiting the final redemption. ⁶ Thus, in spite of the fact that all things created by God are good, the devil has temporarily ⁷ become the “god of this age.” ⁸ A basic presupposition of St. Paul’s thought is that althought the world was created by God and as such is good, yet now there rules in it the power of Satan. The devil, however, is by no means absolute, since God has never abandoned His creation. ⁹

Thus, according to St. Paul, creation as it is is not what God intended it to be–”For the creature was made subject to vanity…by reason of him who hath subjected the same.” ¹⁰ Therefore, evil can exist, at least temporarily, as a parasitic element alongside and inside of that which God created originally good. A good example of this is one who would do the Good according to the “inner man,” but finds it impossible because of the indwelling power of sin in the flesh. ¹¹ Although created good and still maintained and governed by God, creation as it is is still far from being normal or natural, if by “normal” we understand nature according to the original and final destiny of creation. governing this age, in spite of the fact that God Himself is still sustaining creation and creating for Himself a remnant, ¹² is the devil himself. ¹³

To try to read into St. Paul’s thought any type of philosophy of a naturally well balanced universe with inherent and fixed moral laws of reason, according to which men can live with peace of mind and be happy, is to do violence to the apostle’s faith. For St. Paul, there is now no such thing as a natural world with an inherent system of moral laws, because all of creation has been subjected to the vanity and evil power of Satan, who is ruling by the powers of death and corruption. ¹⁴ For this reason all men have become sinners. ¹⁵ There is no such thing as a man who is sinless simply because he is living according to the rules of reason or the Mosaic law. ¹⁶ The possibility of living according to universal reason entails, also, the possibility of being without sin. But for Paul this is a myth, because Satan is no respecter of reasonable rules of good conduct ¹⁷ and has under his influence all men born under the power of death and corruption. ¹⁸

Whether or not belief in the present, real and active power of Satan appeals to the Biblical theologian, he cannot ignore the importance that St. Paul attributes to the power of the devil. To do so is to completely misunderstand the problem of original sin and its transmission and so misinterpret the mind of the New Testament writers and the faith of the whole ancient Church. In regard to the power of Satan to introduce sin into the life of every man, St. Augustine in combating Pelagianism obviously misread St. Paul. by relegating the power of Satan, death, and corruption to the background and pushing to the foreground of controversy the problem of personal guilt in the transmission of original sin, St. Augustine introduced a false moralistic philosophical approach which is foreign to the thinking of St. Paul ¹⁹ and which was not accepted by the patristic tradition of the East. ²⁰

For St. Paul, Satan is not simply a negative power in the universe. He is personal with will, ²¹ with thoughts, ²² and with methods of deception, ²³ against whom Christians must wage and intense battle ²⁴ because they can still be tempted by him. ²⁵ He is active in a dynamic manner, ²⁶ fighting for the destruction of creation and not simply waiting passively in a restricted corner to accept those who happen to rationally decide not to follow God and the moral laws inherent in a natural universe. Satan is even capable of transforming himself into an angel of light ²⁷. He has at his disposal miraculous powers of perversion ²⁸ and has as co-workers whole armies of invisible powers. ²⁹ He is the “god of this age,” ³⁰ the one who deceived the first woman. ³¹ It is he who led man ³² and all of creation into the path of death and corruption. ³³

The power of death and corruption, according to Paul, is not negative, but on the contrary, positively active. “The sting of death is sin,” ³⁴ which in turn reigns in death. ³⁵ Not only man, but all creation has been yoked under its tyrannizing power ³⁶ and is now awaiting redemption. Creation itself shall also be delivered from the slavery of corruption. ³⁷ Along with the final destruction of all the enemies of God, death–the last and probably the greatest enemy–will be destroyed. ³⁸ Then death will be swallowed up in victory. ³⁹ For St. Paul, the destruction of death is parallel to the destruction of the devil and his forces. Salvation from the one is salvation from the other. ⁴⁰

It is obvious from St. Paul’s expressions concerning fallen creation, Satan, and death, that there is no room in his thinking for any type of metaphysical dualism, of departmentalization which would make of this world and intermediary domain which for man is merely a stepping stone leading either into the presence of God or into the kingdom of Satan. The idea of a three story universe, whereby God and His company of saints and angels occupy the top floor, the devil the basement, and man in the flesh the middle, has no room in Pauline theology. For Paul, all three orders of existence interpenetrate. There is no such thing as a middle world of neutrality where man can live according to natural law and then be judged for a life of happiness in the presence of God or for a life of torment in the pits of outer darkness. On the contrary, all of creation is the domain of God, Who Himself cannot be tainted with evil. But in His domain there are other wills which He has created, which can choose either the kingdom of God or the kingdom of death and destruction.

In spite of the fact that creation is of God and essentially good, the devil at the same time has parasitically transformed this same creation of God into a temporary kingdom for himself. ⁴¹ The devil, death, and sin are reigning in this world and not in another. Both the kingdom of darkness and kingdom of light are battling hand to hand in the same place. For this reason, the only true victory possible over the devil is the resurrection of the dead. ⁴² There is no escape from the battlefield. The only choice possible for every man is either to fight the devil by actively sharing in the victory of Christ, or to accept the deceptions of the devil by wanting to believe that all goes well and everything is normal. ⁴³

II. The Justice of God and Law

It is obvious, according to what has been said about St. Paul’s views concerning the non-dualistic nature of fallen creation, that for Paul there cannot exist any system of moral laws inherent in a natural and normal universe. Therefore, what man accepts as just and good according to his observations of human relationships within society and nature cannot be confused with the justice of God. The justice of God has been revealed uniquely and fully only in Christ. ⁴⁴ No man has the right to substitute his own conception of justice for that of God. ⁴⁵

The justice of God as revealed in Christ does not operate according to objective rules of conduct, ⁴⁶ but rather according to the personal relationships of faith and love. ⁴⁷ “The law is not made for a just man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners…” ⁴⁸ Yet the law is not evil, but good ⁴⁹ and even spiritual. ⁵⁰ However, it is not enough. It is of a temporary and pedagogical nature, ⁵¹ and in Christ must be fulfilled ⁵² and surpassed by personalistic love, according to the image of God’s love as revealed in Christ. ⁵³ Faith and love in Christ must be personal. for this reason, faith without love is empty. “Though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.” ⁵⁴ Likewise, acts of faith bereft of love are of no avail. “Though I bestow all my goods and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.” ⁵⁵

There is no life in the following of objective rules. If there were such a possibility of receiving life by living according to law, there would be no need of redemption in Christ. “Righteousness should have been by the law. ” ⁵⁶ If a “law was given capable of giving life” ⁵⁷ then salvation, and not a promise, was bestowed upon Abraham. ⁵⁸ But life does not exist in the law. It is rather of essence of God, “Who alone hath immortality.” ⁵⁹ Only God can bestow life and this He does freely, according to his own will, ⁶⁰ in His own way, and at the time of His own choosing. ⁶¹

On the other hand, it is a grave mistake to make the justice of God responsible for death and corruption. Nowhere does Paul attribute the beginnings of death and corruption to God. On the contrary, nature was subjected to vanity and corruption by the devil, ⁶² who through the sin and death of the first man managed to lodge himself parasitically within creation, of which he was already a part but at first not yet its tyrant. For Paul, the transgression of the first man opened the way for the entrance of death into the world, ⁶³ but this enemy ⁶⁴ is certainly not the finished product of God. Neither can the death of Adam, or even of each man, be considered the outcome of any decision of God to punish. ⁶⁵ St. Paul never suggests such an idea.

To get at the basic presuppositions of Biblical thinking, one must abandon any juridical scheme of human justice which demands punishment and rewards according to objective rules of morality. To approach the problem of original sin in such a naive manner as to say that tout lecteur sense concilura qu’une penalite commune implique une offense commune , and that thus all share in the guilt of Adam, ⁶⁶ is to ignore the true nature of the justice of God and deny and real power to the devil.

The relationships which exist among God, man and the devil are not according to rules and regulations, but according to personalistic freedom. The fact that there are laws forbidding one from killing his neighbor does not imply the impossibility of killing not only one, but hundreds of thousands of neighbors. If man can disregard rules and regulations of good conduct, certainly the devil cannot be expected to follow such rules if he can help it. St. Paul’s version of the devil is certainly not that of one who is simply obeying general rules of nature and carrying out the will of God by punishing souls in hell. Quite on the contrary, he is fighting God dynamically by means of all possible deception, trying by all his cunning and power to destroy the works of God. ⁶⁷ Thus salvation for man and creation cannot come by a simple act of forgiveness of any juridical imputation of sin, nor can it come by any payment of satisfaction to the devil (Origen) or to God (Rome). Salvation can come only by the destruction of the devil and his power. ⁶⁸

Thus, according to St. Paul, it is God Himself Who has destroyed “principalities and powers” by nailing the handwriting in ordinances, which was against us, to the cross of Christ. ⁶⁹ “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing to them their offences.” ⁷⁰ although we were in sin, God did not hold this against us, but has declared His own justice to those who believe in Christ. ⁷¹ The justice of God is not according to that of men, which operates by the law of works. ⁷² For St. Paul, the justice of God and the love of God are not to be separated for the sake of any juridical doctrine of atonement. The justice of God and the love of God as revealed in Christ are the same thing. In Romans 3:21-26, for example, the expression, “love of God,” could very easily be substituted for the “justice of God.”

It is interesting to note that every time St. Paul speaks about the wrath of God it is always that which is revealed to those who have become hopelessly enslaved, by their own choosing, to the flesh and the devil. ⁷³ Although creation is held captive in corruption, those without the law are without excuse in worshipping and living falsely, because “the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead ⁷⁴–”Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the desires of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves…” ⁷⁵ and again, “God gave them over to reprobate mind.” ⁷⁶ This does not mean that god caused them to become what they are, but rather that He gave them up as being completely lost to corruption and the power of the devil. One must also interpret other similar passages in like manner. ⁷⁷

This giving up by God of people who have already become hardened in their hearts against His works is not restricted to the gentiles, but extends, also, to Jews. ⁷⁸ “For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.” ⁷⁹ And, “For as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. ” ⁸⁰ The gentiles, however, even though they are not under the Mosaic law, are not excused from the responsibility of personal sin, for they, “having not the law, are a law unto themselves, who shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and amongst themselves accusing or else excusing their thoughts.” ⁸¹ At the last judgment, all men, whether under the law or not, whether hearers of Christ or not, shall be judged by Christ according to the Gospel as preached by Paul, ⁸² and not according to any system of natural laws. Even though the invisible things of God “from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, ” there is still no such thing as moral law inherent in the universe. The gentiles who “have not the law” but who “do by nature the things contained in the law” are not abiding by any natural system of moral laws in the universe. They rather “shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness.” Here, again, one sees Paul’s conception of personal relationships between God and man. “God hath shewed it unto them, ⁸³ and it is God Who is still speaking to fallen man outside of the law, through the conscience and in the heart, which for Paul is the center of man’s thoughts, ⁸⁴ and for members of the body of Christ the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit ⁸⁵ and Christ. ⁸⁶

III. The Destiny of Man and Anthropology

Before making any attempt to determine the meaning of original sin according to what has been said thus far, it is necessary to examine St. Paul’s conception of the destiny of man and his anthropology.

(a) The Destiny of Man

It would be nonsense to try to read into Paul’s theology a conception of human destiny which accepts the aspirations and desires of what one would call “natural man” as normal. It is normal for natural man to seek security and happiness in the acquisition and possession of objective goods. The scholastic theologians of the West have often used these aspirations of natural man as proof that he is instinctively seeking after the Absolute, the possession of which is the only possible state of complete happiness, that is, a state wherein it is impossible to desire anything more because nothing better exists. This hedonistic type of approach to human destiny is, of course, possible only for those who accept death and corruption either as normal or, at most, as the outcome of a decision of God to punish. If those who accept God as the ultimate source of death were to really attribute sin to the powers of corruption, they would in effect be making God Himself the source of sin and evil.

For St. Paul, there is no such thing as normality for those who have not put on Christ. The destiny of man and creation cannot be deducted from observations of the life of fallen man and creation. Nowhere does Paul call on Christians to live a life of security and happiness according to the ways of this world. On the contrary, he calls on Christians to die to this world and the body of sin, ⁸⁷ and even to suffer in the Gospel, according to the power of God. ⁸⁸ Paul claims that “all who want to live godly lives in Christ Jesus shall be persecuted.” ⁸⁹ This is hardly the language of one who is seeking security and happiness. ⁹⁰ Nor is it possible to suppose that for Paul such sufferings without love could be considered as the means to reach one’s destiny. This would fall under the category of payment for works and not eh personal relationships of faith and love. ⁹¹

St. Paul does not believe that human destiny consists simply in becoming conformed to the rules and regulations of nature, which supposedly remain unchanged from the beginning of time. The relationship of the Divine Will to human wills is not one of juridical or hedonistic submission of the one to the other (as St. Augustine and the scholastics thought), but rather one of personal love. St. Paul claims that “we are co-workers of God.” ⁹² Our relationship of love with God is such that in Christ there is now no longer need for law. “If ye be led by the Spirit ye are not under the law. ” ⁹³ The members of the body of Christ are not called on to live on the level of impersonal ordinances, but are now expected to live according to the love of God as revealed in Christ, which needs no laws because it seeks not its own, ⁹⁴ but strives to empty itself for others in the image of the love of Christ. ⁹⁵

The love and justice of God have been revealed once and for all in Christ ⁹⁶ by the destruction of the devil ⁹⁷ and the deliverance of man from the body of death and sin, ⁹⁸ so that man may actually become an imitator of God Himself, ⁹⁹ Who has predestined His elect to become “conformed to the image of His Son,” ¹⁰⁰ who did nothing to please Himself but suffered for others. ¹⁰¹ Christ died so that the living should no longer live unto themselves, ¹⁰² but should become perfect men, even “unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” ¹⁰³ Christians are no longer to live according to the rudiments of this world, as though living in this world, ¹⁰⁴ but are to have the same mind as Christ, ¹⁰⁵ so that in Christ they may become perfect. ¹⁰⁶ Men are no longer to love their wives according to the world, but must love their wives exactly “as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it. ” ¹⁰⁷ The destiny of man is not happiness and self-satisfaction, ¹⁰⁸ but rather perfection in Christ. Man must become perfect, as God ¹⁰⁹ and Christ are perfect. ¹¹⁰ such perfection can come only through the personalistic power of divine and selfless love, ¹¹¹ “which is the bond of perfection.” ¹¹² This love is not to be confused with the love of fallen man who seeks his own. ¹¹³ Love in Christ does not seek its own, but that of the other. ¹¹⁴

To become perfect according to the image of Christ is not restricted to the realm of love, but forms and inseparable part of the salvation of the total man and creation alike. Man’s body of humility will be transformed to become “conformed” to Christ’s “body of glory.” ¹¹⁵ man is destined to become, like Christ, perfect according to the body also. “He Who raised Christ from the dead shall bring to life also your mortal bodies by His Spirit which dwells in you.” ¹¹⁶

St. Paul claims that death is the enemy ¹¹⁷ which came into the world and passed unto all men through the sin of one man. ¹¹⁸ not only many, but all of creation became subject to corruption. ¹¹⁹ The subjugation of man and creation to the power of the devil and death was obviously a temporary frustration of the original destiny of man and creation. It is false to read into Paul’s statements about the first and second Adams the idea that Adam would have died even though he had not sinned, simply because the first Adam was made eis psychen zosan –which expression, according to St. Paul’s usage within the context, clearly means mortal. ¹²⁰ Adam could very well have been created not naturally immortal, but if he had not sinned there is no reason to believe that he would not have become immortal by nature. ¹²¹ This is certainly implied by the extraordinary powers St. Paul attributes to death and corruption.

(b) Anthropology of St. Paul

As we have said, for St. Paul, the law is good ¹²² and even spiritual. ¹²³ According to the “inner man” this is obvious. ¹²⁴ But in spite of the fact that he can possess the will to do good according to the law he cannot find the power to do the good ¹²⁵ because he is “carnal and sold under sin.” ¹²⁶ If he himself, according to the “inner man,” wants to do good but cannot, it is no longer he who does the evil, but sin that dwelleth in him. ¹²⁷ So he asks, “O wretched man that I am! who will deliver me from the body of this death?” ¹²⁸ To be delivered from the “body of this death” is to be saved from the power of sin dwelling in the flesh. Thus, “the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has liberated me from the law of sin and death.” ¹²⁹

It is misleading to try to interpret this section ¹³⁰ of Paul according to a dualistic anthropology, which would make the term, sarkikos , refer only to the lower appetites of the body–and especially of the sexual desires–to the exclusion of the soul. The word, sarkikos , is not used by Paul in such a context. Elsewhere, St. Paul reminds married people that they have not authority over their own bodies and so should not deprive one another, “unless it be with consent for a time that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and come together again that Satan may not tempt you for your incontinency. ¹³¹¹³² To the Corinthians he declare that they are an epistle written not with ink, “but with the spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart– en plaxi kardias sarkinais .” ¹³³ Christ was known according to the flesh ¹³⁴ and “God was manifested in the flesh.” ¹³⁵ St. Paul asks whether, if he has planted spiritual things amongst the Corinthians, it is such a great thing if he shall reap the sarkika ¹³⁶. Nowhere does he use the adjective, sarkikos , exclusively in reference to the sexual, or what is commonly called the desires of the flesh in contrast to those of the soul.

It seems that St. Paul attributes a positive power of sin to the sarx as such only in the epistle to the Galatians, who, having begun int he Spirit, now think that they are being perfected in the flesh. ¹³⁷ The sarx here has a will which desires against the pneuma . ¹³⁸ “The works of the flesh are manifest, which a re these; adultery, fornication, uncleanliness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings and such like.” ¹³⁹ Most of these works of the sarkos would require the very active, and even initiative, participation of the intellect, which here is an indication that the sarx , for Paul, is much more than what any dualistic anthropology would be ready to admit. The flesh as such, however, as a positive force of sin, found over- emphasized in Galatians, where Paul is infuriated over the foolishness of his readers, ¹⁴⁰ cannot be isolated from other references, where sin parasitically dwells in the flesh ¹⁴¹ and where the flesh itself is not only not evil, ¹⁴² but that in which God Himself has been manifested. ¹⁴³ The flesh as such is not evil, but has become very much weakened by sin and the enmity which dwells in it. ¹⁴⁴

To understand St. Paul’s anthropology, it is necessary to refer not to the dualistic anthropology of the Greek,s who made a clear cut distinction between soul and body, but rather to the Hebraic frame of references, in which sarx and psyche (flesh and soul) both denote the whole living person and not any part of him. ¹⁴⁵ Thus, in the Old Testament the expression, pasa sarx (all flesh), is employed for all living things, ¹⁴⁶ as well as for man in particular. ¹⁴⁷ The expression, pasa psyche (all souls), is used in the same manner. ¹⁴⁸ In the New Testament, both expressions, pasa sarx ¹⁴⁹ and pasa psyche , ¹⁵⁰ are used in perfect accord with the Old Testament context.

Thus we find that, for St. Paul, to be sarkikos ¹⁵¹ and psychikos ¹⁵² means exactly the same thing. “Flesh and blood (sarx kai haima) cannot inherit the kingdom of God” ¹⁵³ because corruption cannot inherit incorruption. ¹⁵⁴ For this reason, a soma psychikon is “sown in corruption” and raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. ” ¹⁵⁵ “A soma psychikon is sown, and a soma pneumatikon is raised. There is a soma psychikon and there is a soma pneumatikon !” ¹⁵⁶ Both the sarkikon and the psychikon and dominated by death and corruption and so cannot inherit the kingdom of life. This only the pneumatikon can do. “However, the pneumatikon is not first, but the psychikon , and afterward the pneumatikon . The first man is from the earth; earthy; the second man, the Lord, from heaven.” ¹⁵⁷ That the first man became eis psychen zosan (a living soul), for Paul, means exactly that he became psychikon , and therefore subject to corruption, ¹⁵⁸ because “from the earth, earthy…” ¹⁵⁹ Such expressions do not admit of any dualistic anthropology. A soma psychikon “from the earth, earthy,” or a psyche zosa “from the earth, earthy,” would lead to impossible confusion if interpreted from the viewpoint of a dualism which distinguishes between the body and soul, the lower and the higher, the material and the purely spiritual. What, then, would a psyche zosa be, which came from the earth and is earthy? In speaking of death, a dualist could never say that a soma psychikon is sown in corruption. He would rather have to say that the soul leaves the body, which alone is sown in corruption.

Neither the psyche nor the pneuma is the intellectual part of man. To quote I Corinthians 2:11 (tis gar oiden anthropon ta tou anthropou ei me to pneuma tou anthropou to en auto?) or I Thessalonians 5:23 (Autos o Theos tea eirenes hagiasai hymas holoteleis, kai holokleron hymon to pneuma kai he psyche kai to soma amemptos en te parousia toy K.H.I.X. teretheie) does not prove otherwise. One cannot take these expressions in isolation from the rest of Paul’s writings for the sake of trying to make him speak the language of even a Thomistic dualist, as is done, for example, by F. Prat in La Theologie de s.Paul , t.2, pp. 62-63. Elsewhere, in speaking against the practise of certain individuals’ praying publicly in unknown tongues, St. Paul says, “If I pray in an unknown tongue my pnuema prays, but my mind is unfruitful. What is it then? I will pray with the pneuma and I will pray with the mind also.” ¹⁶⁰ Here a sharp distinction is made between the pneuma and the nous (mind). Therefore, for St. Paul, the realm of pneuma does not belong within the category of human understanding. It is of another dimension.

In order to express the idea of intellect or understanding all four evangelists use the word, kardia (heart). ¹⁶¹ The word, nous (mind), is used only once by St. Luke. ¹⁶² In contrast, St. Paul makes use of both kardia ¹⁶³ and nous ¹⁶⁴ to denote the faculty of intelligence. Nous , however, cannot be taken for any such thing as the intellectual faculties of an immaterial soul. Nous is rather synonymous with kardia , which in turn is synonymous with the eso anthropon .

The Holy Spirit is sent by God into the kardia , ¹⁶⁵ or into the eso anthropon , ¹⁶⁶ that Christ may dwell in the kardia . ¹⁶⁷ The kardia and the eso anthropon are the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. Man delights in the law of God according to the eso anthropon , but there is another law in his members which wars against he law of the nous . ¹⁶⁸ Here the nous is clearly synonymous with the eso anthropon , which in turn is the kardia , the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit and Christ. ¹⁶⁹

To walk in the vanity of the nous , with the dianoia darkened, being alienated from the life of God through ignorance, is a result of the “hardening of the heart– dia ten perosin test kardias .” ¹⁷⁰ It is the heart which is the seat of man’s free will, and it is here where man by his own choice either becomes blinded ¹⁷¹ and hardened, ¹⁷² or else enlightened in his understanding of the hope, glory, and power in Christ. ¹⁷³ It is in the heart where the secrets of men are kept, ¹⁷⁴ and it is Christ “Who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the heart.” ¹⁷⁵

It would be absurd to interpret St. Paul’s use of the expressions, eso anthropon and nous , according to a dualistic anthropology by ignoring his use of the word, kardia , which is in perfect accord with the New Testament and Old Testament writers. By using such words as nous and eso anthropon , Paul is certainly introducing new terminology, foreign to traditional Hebraic usage, but he is definitely not introducing any new anthropology based on Hellenistic dualism. St. Paul never refers to either psyche or pneuma as faculties of human intelligence. His anthropology is Hebraic and not Hellenistic.

In both the Old and New Testaments, one finds the expression, to pneuma tes zoes (the spirit of life), but never to pneuma zon (the living spirit). ¹⁷⁶ Also, one finds psyche zosa (the living soul), but never psyche tes zoes (the soul of life). ¹⁷⁷ This is due to the fact that the psyche , or sarx , lives only by participation, while the pneuma is itself the principle of life given to man as a gift from God, ¹⁷⁸ “Who alone hath immortality.” ¹⁷⁹ God gives man of His Own uncreated life without destroying the freedom of human personality. Thus, man is not an intellectual form fashioned according to a predetermined essence or universal idea of man whose destiny is to become conformed to a state of mechanical contentment in the presence of God whereby his will become sterile and immobile in a state of complete self-satisfaction and happiness (e.g., according to the Neo-platonic teaching of St. Augustine and the Roman scholastics in general concerning human destiny). The personality of man does not consist of an immaterial intellectual soul which has life of itself and uses the body simply as a dwelling place. The sarx , or psyche , is the total man, and the kardia is the center of intelligence where the will has complete independence of choice to become either hardened to truth or receptive to divine enlightenment from without. The pneuma of man is not the center of human personality, nor is it that faculty which rules the actions of men, but rather it is the spark of divine life given to man as his principle of life. Thus, man can live according to the pneuma tes zoes or according to the law of the flesh, which is death and corruption. The very personality of man, therefore, although created by God Himself, remains outside of the essence of God,a nd therefore completely free either to reject the act of creation, for which he was not consulted, or to accept the creative love of God by living according to the pneuma , given to him for this purpose by God.

“The mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the spirit is life and peace.” ¹⁸⁰ Those who live according to the flesh shall die. ¹⁸¹ Those who mortify the deeds of the flesh by the spirit shall live. ¹⁸² The spirit of man, however, deprived of union with the vivifying spirit of God, is hopelessly weak against the flesh dominated by death and corruption ¹⁸³–”Who shall deliver me from the body of this death.” ¹⁸⁴ And, “the law of the pneumatos tes zoes (spirit of life) in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” ¹⁸⁵ Only those whose spirit has been renewed ¹⁸⁶ by union with the Spirit of God ¹⁸⁷ can fight the desires of the flesh. Only those who are given the Spirit of God and hear Its voice in the life of the body of Christ are able to fight against sin. “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.” ¹⁸⁸

Although the spirit of man is the principle of life given to him by God, it can still partake of the filthiness of fleshly works. For this reason, it is necessary for Christians to guard against the corruption not only of the flesh, but of the spirit, also. ¹⁸⁹ The union of man’s spirit with the Spirit of God in baptism is no magical guarantee against the possibility of their separation. To become again enslaved tot he works of the flesh may very well lead to exclusion from the body of Christ. ¹⁹⁰ The Spirit of God is given to man that Christ may dwell in the heart. ¹⁹¹ “Now if any an have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His.” ¹⁹² To have the Spirit of God dwelling in the body is to be, also, a member of the body of Christ. To be deprived of the one is to be cut off from the other. It is impossible to be in communion with only part of God. Communion with Christ through the Spirit is communion with the whole Godhead. Exclusion from the One Person is exclusion from all Three Persons.

“The works of the flesh are manifest…” ¹⁹³ “The mind of the flesh is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. ¹⁹⁴ Such people are enslaved to the power of death and corruption in the flesh. They must be saved from the “Body of this death.” ¹⁹⁵ On the other hand, those who have been buried with Christ through baptism have died to the body of sin and are living unto Christ. ¹⁹⁶ They are no longer living according to the desires of flesh, but of the spirit. “The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance–against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” ¹⁹⁷

It is clear that, for St. Paul, the union of man’s spirit with the Spirit of God in the life of love within the body of Christ is life and salvation. On the other hand, to live according tot he desires of the flesh, dominated by the powers of death and corruption, means death–”For the mind of the flesh is death.” ¹⁹⁸ St. Paul is dealing throughout his epistles with the categories of life and death. God is life. The devil holds the reins of death and corruption. Unity with God in the Spirit, through the body of Christ in the life of love, is life and brings salvation and perfection. Separation of man’s spirit from the divine life in the body of Christ is slavery to the powers of death and corruption used by the devil to destroy the works of God. The life of the spirit is unity and love. The life according to the flesh is disunity and dissolution in death and corruption.

It is absolutely necessary to grasp the essential spirit of St. Paul’s usage of the words, sarx , psyche , and pneuma , in order to avoid the widespread confusion that dominates the field of inquiry into Pauline theology. St. Paul is never speaking in terms of immaterial rational souls in contrast to material bodies. Sarx and psyche are synonymous and comprise, together with the pneuma , the total man. To live according to the pneuma is not to live a life according to the lower half of man. On the contrary, to live according to the sarx , or psyche , is to live according to the law of death. To live according to the spirit is to live according to the law of life and love.

Those who are sarkikoi cannot live according to their original destiny of selfless love for God and neighbor, because they are dominated by the power of death and corruption. “the sting of death is sin.” ¹⁹⁹ Sin reigned in death. ²⁰⁰ Death is the last enemy to be destroyed. ²⁰¹ So long as man lives according tot he law of death, in the flesh, he cannot please God ²⁰² because he does not live according to the law of life and love. “The mind of the flesh is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God, neither can it be.” ²⁰³ In order to live according to his original destiny, man must be liberated from “the body of this death.” ²⁰⁴ This liberation from the power of death and corruption has come from God, Who sent His own Son “in the likeness of sinful flesh” to deliver man “from the law of sin and death.” ²⁰⁵ But, although the power of death and sin has thus been destroyed by the death and resurrection of Christ, participation in this victory can come only through dying to this world with Christ in the waters of baptism. ²⁰⁶ It is only by dying in baptism and then continuously dying to the rudiments and ways of the world that the members of the body of Christ can become perfect as God is perfect.

The importance that St. Paul attributes to dying to the rudiments of this world in order to live according to the “spirit of life” cannot be exaggerated. To try to pass off his insistence on complete self-denial for salvation as a product of eschatological enthusiasts is to miss completely the very basis of the New Testament message. If the destruction of the devil, death and corruption is salvation and the only condition for life according to man’s original destiny, then the means of passing from the realm of death and its consequences to the realm of life, in the victory of Christ over death, must be taken very seriously. For Paul, the way from death to life is communion with the death and life of Christ in baptism and a continuous life of live within the body of Christ. This new life of love within the body of Christ, however, must be accompanied by a continuous death to the ways of this world, which is dominated by the law of death and corruption in the hands of the devil. Participation in the victory over death does not come simply by having a magical faith and a general sentiment of vague love for humanity (Luther). Full membership int he body of Christ can come only by dying in the waters of baptism with Christ, and living according to the law of the “spirit of life.” Catechumens and penitents certainly had faith, but they either had not yet passed through death, in baptism, to the new life, or else, once having died to the flesh in baptism, they failed to remain steadfast and allowed the power of death and corruption to regain its dominance over the “spirit of life.”

In regard to St. Paul’s teaching concerning baptismal death to the rudiments of this world, it is interesting to note his usage of the word, soma , to designate the communion of those in Christ who constitute the Church. The word, soma , in both the Old and New Testaments, apart from Paul, is used predominantly to designate a dead person, or corpse. ²⁰⁷ At the Last Supper, our Lord used the word, soma , most likely to designate the fact that He was to pass through death, while his use of the word, haima , was to show his returning to life–since, for the Old Testament, blood is the element of life. ²⁰⁸ Thus, at the Last Supper as at every Eucharist, there is a proclamation and confession of the death and resurrection of Christ. According to the presuppositions set forth by St. Paul concerning baptismal death, it is very possible to describe the Church as the soma of Christ no only because of the indwelling of Christ and the Holy Spirit in the bodies of Christian, but also because all the members of Christ have died to the body of sin in the waters of baptism. Before sharing in the life of Christ, on must first become an actual soma by being liberated from the devil in passing through a death to the ways of this world and living according to the “spirit.” ²⁰⁹

Synthetic Observations

St. Paul does not say anywhere that the whole human race has been accounted guilty of the sin of Adam and is therefore punished by God with death. Death is an evil force which made its way into the world through sin, lodged itself in the world, and, in the person of Satan, is reigning both in man and creation. For this reason, although man can know the good through the law written in his heart and may wish to do what is good, he cannot because of the sin which is dwelling in his flesh. Therefore, it is not he who does the evil, but sin that dwelleth in him. Because of this sin, he cannot find the means to do good. He must be saved from “the body of this death.” ²¹⁰ Only then can he do good. What can Paul mean by such statements? A proper answer is to be found only when St. Paul’s doctrine of human destiny is taken into account.

If man was created for a life of complete selfless love, whereby his actions would always be directed outward, toward God and neighbor, and never toward himself–whereby he would be the perfect image and likeness of God–then it is obvious that the power of death and corruption has now made it impossible to live such a life of perfection. The power of death in the universe has brought with it the will for self-preservation, fear, and anxiety, ²¹¹ which in turn are the root causes of self-assertion, egoism, hatred, envy and the like. Because man is afraid of becoming meaningless, he is constantly endeavoring to prove, to himself and others, that he is worth something. He thirsts after compliments and is afraid of insults. He seeks his own and is jealous of the successes of others. He likes those who like him, and hates those who hate him. He either seeks security and happiness in wealth, glory and bodily pleasures, or imagines that this destiny is to be happy in the possession of the presence of God by an introverted and individualistic and inclined to mistake his desires for self-satisfaction and happiness for his normal destiny. On the other hand, he can become zealous over vague ideological principles of love for humanity and yet hate his closest neighbors. These are the works of the flesh of which St. Paul speaks. ²¹² Underlying every movement of what the world has come to regard as normal man, is the quest for security and happiness. But such desires are not normal . They are the consequences of perversion by death and corruption, though which the devil pervades all of creation, dividing and destroying. This power is so great that even if man wishes to live according to his original destiny it is impossible because of the sin which is dwelling in the flesh ²¹³–”Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” ²¹⁴

To share in the love of God, without any concern for one’s self, is also to share in the life and truth of God. Love, life and truth in God are one and can be found only in God. The turning away of love from God and neighbor toward the self is breaking of communion with the life and truth of God, which cannot be separated from His love. The breaking of this communion with God can be consummated only in death, because nothing created can continue indefinitely to exist of itself. ²¹⁵ Thus, by the transgression of the first man, the principle of “sin (the devil) entered into the world and through sin death, and so death passed upon all men…” ²¹⁶ Not only humanity, but all of creation has become subjected to death and corruption by the devil. ²¹⁷ Because man is inseparably a part of, and in constant communion with, creation and is linked through procreation to the whole historical process of humanity, the fall of creation through on man automatically involves the fall and corruption of all men. It is through death and corruption that all of humanity and creation is held captive to the devil and involved in sin, because it is by death that man falls short of his original destiny, which was to love God and neighbor without concern for the self. Man does not die because he is guilty for the sin of Adam. ²¹⁸ He becomes a sinner because he is yoked to the power of the devil through death and its consequences. ²¹⁹

St. Paul clearly says that “the sting of death is sin,” ²²⁰ that “sin reigned in death,” ²²¹ and that death is “the last enemy that shall be destroyed.” ²²² In his epistles, he is especially inspired when he is speaking about the victory of Christ over death and corruption. It would be highly illogical to try to interpret Pauline thought with the presuppositions (1) that death is normal or (2) that at most, it is the outcome of a juridical decision of God to punish the whole human race for one sin, (3) that happiness is the ultimate destiny of man, and (4) that the soul is immaterial, naturally immortal and directly created by God at conception and is therefore normal and pure of defects (Roman scholasticism). The Pauline doctrine of man’s inability to do the good which he is capable of acknowledging according to the “inner man” can be understood only if one takes seriously the power of death and corruption in the flesh, which makes it impossible for man to live according to his original destiny.

The moralistic problem raised by St. Augustine concerning the transmission of death to the descendants of Adam as punishment for the one original transgression is foreign to Paul’s thoughts. The death of each man cannot be considered the outcome of personal guilt. St. Paul is not thinking as a philosophical moralist looking for the cause of the fall of humanity and creation in the breaking of objective rules of good behavior, which demands punishment from a God whose justice is in the image of the justice of this world. Paul is clearly thinking of the fall in terms of a personalistic warfare between God and Satan, in which Satan is not obliged to follow any sort of moral rules if he can help it. It is for this reason that St. Paul can say that the serpent “deceived Eve” ²²³ and that “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” ²²⁴ Man was not punished by God, but taken captive by the devil.

this interpretation is further made clear by the fact that Paul is insisting that “until the law sin was int he world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression.” ²²⁵ It is clear that Paul here is denying anything like a general personal guilt for the sin of Adam. Sin was, however, in the world, since death reigned even over them who had not sinned as Adam sinned. Sin here is obviously the person of Satan, who ruled the world through death even before the coming of the law. This is the only possible interpretation of this statement, because it is clearly supported elsewhere by Paul’s teachings concerning the extraordinary powers of the devil, especially in Romans 8:19-21. St. Paul’s statements should be taken very literally when he says that the last enemy to be destroyed is death ²²⁶ and that “the sting of death is sin.” ²²⁷

From what has been observed, the famous expression, eph’ho pantes hemarton , ²²⁸ can be safely interpreted as modifying the word, thanatos , which preceeds it, and which grammatically is the only word which fits the context. Eph’ho as a reference to Adam is both grammatically and exegetically impossible. Such an interpretation was first introduced by Origen, who obviously used it with a purpose in mind, because he believed in the pre-existence of all souls whereby he could easily say that all sinned in Adam. The interpretation of eph’ho as “because” was first introduced into the East by Photius, ²²⁹ who claims that there are two interpretations prevalent–Adam and thanatos –but he would interpret it dioti (because). He bases his argument on a false interpretation of II Corinthians 5:4 by interpreting eph’ho , here again, as dioti . But here it is quite clear that eph’ho refers to skensi (eph’ho skenei ou thelomen ekdysasthai) . Photius is interpreting Paul within the framework of natural moral law and is seeking to justify the death of all men by personal guilt. He claims that all men die because they sin by following in the footsteps of Adam. ²³⁰ However, neither he nor any of the Eastern Fathers accepts the teaching that all men are made guilty for the sin of Adam.

From purely grammatical considerations it is impossible to interpret eph’ho as a reference to any word other than thanatos . Each time the grammatical construction of the preposition epi with the dative is used by Paul, it is always used as a relative pronoun which modifies a preceding noun ²³¹ or phrase. ²³² To make an exception in Romans 5:12 by making St. Paul use the wrong Greek expression to express the idea, “because,” is to beg the issue. The correct interpretation of this passage, both grammatically and exegetically, can be supplied only when eph’ho is understood to modify thanatos – kai houtos eis pantas anthropous ho thanatos dielthen eph’ho (thanato) pantes hemarton –”because of which” (death), or “on the basis of which” (death), or “for which (death) all have sinned.” Satan, being himself the principle of sin, through death and corruption involves all of humanity and creation in sin and death. Thus, to be under the power of death according to Paul is to be a slave to the devil and a sinner, because of the inability of the flesh to live according to the law of God, which is selfless love.

The theory of the transmission of original sin and guilt is certainly not found in St. Paul, who can be interpreted neither in terms of juridicism nor in terms of any dualism which distinguishes between the material and the allegedly pure, spiritual, and intellectual parts of man. It is no wonder that some Biblical scholars are at a loss when they cannot find in the Old testament any clear-cut support for what they take to be the Pauline doctrine of original sin in terms of moral guilt and punishment. ²³³ The same perplexity is met by many moralistic Western scholars when they study the Eastern Fathers. ²³⁴ Consequently, St. Augustine is popularly supposed to be the first and only of the early Fathers who understood the theology of St. Paul. This is clearly a myth, from which both Protestants and Romans need liberation.

It is only when one understands the meaning of death and its consequences that one can understand the life of the ancient Church, and especially its attitude toward martyrdom. Being already dead to the world in baptism, and having their life hidden with Christ in God, ²³⁵ Christians could not falter in the face of death. They were already dead, and yet living in Christ. To be afraid of death was to be still under the power of the devil– II Timothy 1:7: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of sound mind.” In trying to convince the Roman Christians not to hinder his martyrdom, St. Ignatius wrote: “The prince of this world would fain carry me away, and corrupt my disposition toward God. Let none of you therefore, who are in Rome, help him.” ²³⁶ The Cyprianic controversy over the fallen during times of persecution was violent, because the Church understood that it was a contradiction to die in baptism and then to deny Christ for fear of death and torture. The canons of the Church, although today generally ignored as an aid to understanding the inner faith of the ancient Church, still remain very severe for those who would reject their faith for fear of death. ²³⁷ Such an attitude towards death is not the product of eschatological frenzy and enthusiasm, but rather of a clear recognition of who the devil is, what his thoughts are, ²³⁸ what his powers over humanity and creation are, how he is destroyed through baptism and the mystagogical life within the body of Christ, which is the Church. Oscar Cullman is seriously mistaken in trying to make the New Testament writers say that Satan and the evil demons have been deprived of their power, and that now leur puissance n’est qu’apparente . ²³⁹ The greatest power of the devil is death, which is destroyed only within the body of Christ, where the faithful are continuously engaged in the struggle against Satan by striving for selfless love. This combat against the devil and striving for selfless love is centered in the corporate Eucharistic life of the local community–”For when you assemble frequently epi to auto (in the same place) the powers of Satan are destroyed and the destruction at which he aims is prevented by the unity of your faith.” ²⁴⁰ Anyone, therefore, who does not hear the Spirit within him calling him tothe Eucharistic assembly for the corporate life of selfless love is obviously under the sway of the devil. “He, therefore, who does not assemble with the Church, has even by this manifested his pride and condemned himself…” ²⁴¹ The world outside of the corporate life of love, in the sacraments, is still under the power of the consequences of death and therefore a slave to the devil. The devil is already defeated only because his power has been destroyed by the birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ; and this defeat is perpetuated only in the remnant of those saved before Christ and after Christ. Both those saved before Christ and after Him are saved by His death and resurrection, and make up the New Jerusalem. Against this Church the devil cannot prevail, and by this fact he is already defeated. But his power outside of those who are saved remains the same. ²⁴² Satan is still “the god of this world,” ²⁴³ and it is for this reason that Christians must live as if not living in this world. ²⁴⁴

Concluding Remarks

The modern Biblical scholar cannot claim to be objective if his examination of Biblical theology is one-sided, or governed by certain philosophical prejudices. The modern school of Biblical criticism is clearly making a false attempt to get at the essential form of the original kerygma, while remaining quite ignorant and blind to the very essence of the Old and New Testament analysis of the fallen state of humanity and creation, especially in regard to its teachings concerning the natures of God and Satan. Thus, one sees the anti- liberal tendencies of modern Protestantism, accepting the method of Biblical criticism and at the same time trying to salvage what it takes to be the essential message of the Gospel writers. yet, in all their pseudo-scientific method of research, writers of this school fail to come to any definite conclusions because they stubbornly refuse to take seriously the Biblical doctrine of Satan, death and corruption. For this reason, such a question as whether or not the body of Christ was really resurrected is not regarded as important–e.g., Emil Brunner, The Mediator . What is important is the faith that Christ is the unique Savior in history, even though very possibly not resurrected in history. How he saves and what he saves men from is presumably a secondary question.

It is clear that for St. Paul the bodily resurrection of Christ is the destruction of the devil, death, and corruption. Christ is the first fruits from the dead. ²⁴⁵ If there is no resurrection there can be no salvation. ²⁴⁶ Since death is a consequence of the discontinuation of communion with the life and love of God, and thereby a captivity of man and creation by the devil, then only a real resurrection can destroy the power of the devil. It is inaccurate and shallow thinking to try to pass off as Biblical the idea that the question of a real bodily resurrection is of secondary importance. At the center of Biblical and patristic thought there is clearly a Christology of real union, which is conditioned by the Biblical doctrine of Satan, death and corruption, and human destiny. Satan is governing through death, materially and physically. His defeat must be also material and physical. Restoration of communion must be not only in the realm of mental attitude, but, more important, through creation, of which man is an inseparable part. Without a clear understanding of the Biblical doctrine of Satan and his power, it is impossible to understand the sacramental life of the body of Christ, and, by consequence, the doctrine of the Fathers concerning Christology and Trinity becomes a meaningless diversion of scholastic specialists. Both Roman scholastics and Protestants are undeniably heretical in their doctrines of grace and ecclesiology simply because they do not see any longer that salvation is only the union of man with the life of God in the body of Christ, where the devil is being ontologically and really destroyed in the life of love. Outside of the life of unity with each other and Christ in the sacramental life of corporate love there is no salvation, because the devil is still ruling the world through the consequences of death and corruption. Extra-sacramental organizations, such as the papacy, cannot be fostered off as the essence of Christianity because they are clearly under the influence of worldly considerations and do not have as their sole aim the life of selfless love. In Western Christianity, the dogmas of the Church have become the object of logical gymnastics in the classrooms of philosophy. What is usually taken as natural human reason is set up as the exponent of revealed theology. The teachings of the Church concerning the Holy Trinity, Christology, and Grace, are no longer the accepted expressions of the continuous and existential experience of the body of Christ, living within the very life of the Holy Trinity through the human nature of Christ, in whose flesh the devil has been destroyed and against whose body (the Church) the gates of death (hades) cannot prevail.

It is the mission of Orthodox theology today to bring an awakening to Western Christianity, but in order to do this the Orthodox themselves must rediscover their own traditions and cease, once and for all, accepting the corroding infiltration of Western theological confusion into Orthodox theology. It is only by returning to the Biblical understanding of Satan and human destiny that the sacraments of the Church can once again become the source and strength of Orthodox theology. The enemy of life and love can be destroyed only when Christians can confidently say, “we are not ignorant of his thoughts. ” ²⁴⁷ Any theology which cannot define with exactitude the methods and deceptions of the devil is clearly heretical, because such a theology is already deceived by the devil. It is for this reason that the Fathers could assert that heresy is the work of the devil.

Footnotes

^{1 II Cor. 2:11}

^{2 St. Athanasius, De Incarnatione Verbi Dei , 4}

^{3 I Tim. 4:4}

^{4 Rom. 5:12}

^{5 Rom. 8:20}

^{6 Rom. 8:21-23}

^{7 I Cor. 15:26}

^{8 II Cor. 4:3}

^{9 Rom. 1:20}

^{10 Rom. 8:20}

^{11 Rom. 7:15-25}

^{12 Rom 11:5}

^{13 II Cor. 4:3}

^{14 I Cor. 15:56}

^{15 Rom. 3:9-12; 5:19}

^{16 Rom. 5:13}

^{17 II Cor. 4:3; 11:14; Eph. 6:11-17; II Thes. 2:8}

^{18 Rom. 8:24}

^{19 Col. 2:8}

^{20 e.g., St. Cyrill of Alexandria, Migne, P.G.t. 74, c. 788-789}

^{21 II Tim. 2:26}

^{22 II Cor. 2:11}

^{23 I Tim. 2:14; 4:14; II Tim. 2:26; II Cor. 11:14; 4:3; 2:11; 11:3}

^{24 Eph. 6:11-17}

^{25 I Cor. 7:5; II Cor. 2:11; 11:3; Eph. 4:27; I Thes. 3:5; I Tim. 3:6; 3:7; 4:1; 5:14}

^{26 II Cor. 11:14; 4:3; Eph 2:2; 6:11-17; I Thes. 2:18; 3:5; II Thes. 2:9; I Tim. 2:14; 3:7; II Tim. 2:25-26}

^{27 II Cor. 11:15}

^{28 II Thes. 2:9}

^{29 Eph 6:12; Col. 2:15}

^{30 II Cor. 4:4}

^{31 II Cor. 11:3; I Tim. 2:14}

^{32 Ibid.}

^{33 Rom. 8:19-22}

^{34 I Cor. 15:56}

^{35 Rom. 5:21}

^{36 Rom. 8:20}

^{37 Rom. 8:21}

^{38 I Cor. 15:24-26}

^{39 I Cor. 15:54}

^{40 Col. 2:13-15; I Cor. 15:24-27; 15:54-57}

^{41 II Cor. 4:3; Gal. 1:4; Eph. 6:12}

^{42 I Cor. 15:1 ff.}

^{43 Rom. 12:2; I Cor. 2:12; 11:32; II Cor. 4:3; Col. 2:20; II Thes. 2:9; II Tim. 4:10; Col. 2:8; I Cor. 5:10}

^{44 Rom. 1:17; 3:21-26}

^{45 Rom. 10:2-4; Phil. 3:8}

^{46 Rom. 3:20; 5:15 ff; 9:32}

^{47 Rom. 9:30-10:10; I Cor. 13:1-14:1; I Tim. 5:8}

^{48 I Tim. 1:9-10}

^{49 I Tim. 1:18}

^{50 Rom. 7:14}

^{51 Gal. 3:24}

^{52 Gal. 5:13}

^{53 Rom. 8:29; 15:1-3; 15:7; I Cor. 2:16; 10:33; 13:1 ff; 15:49; II cor. 3:13; Gal. 4:19; Eph. 4:13; 5:1; 5:25; Phil. 2:5; Col. 3:10; I Thes. 1:6}

^{54 I Cor. 13:2}

^{55 I Cor. 13:3}

^{56 Gal. 3:21}

^{57 Ibid.}

^{58 Gal. 3:18}

^{59 I Tim. 6:16}

^{60 Rom. 9:16}

^{61 Rom. 3:26; Eph. 2:4-6; I Tim. 6:15}

^{62 II Cor. 11:13; I Tim 2:14}

^{63 Rom. 5:12}

^{64 I Cor. 15:26}

^{65 St. Gregory Palamas, Kephalia Physica , 52, Migne, P.G.T. 150-A}

^{66 F. Prat, La Theologie de saint Paul , Paris 1924, t.c. pp. 67-68}

^{67 Rom. 8:20; I Cor. 10:10; II Cor. 2:11; 4:3; 11:3; 11:14; Eph. 2:1-3; 6:11-17; I Thes. 2:18; 3:5; II Thes. 2:9; I Tim. 2:14; 5:14; II Tim. 2:26}

^{68 Col. 2:15; I Cor. 15:24-26; 15:53-57; Rom. 8:21}

^{69 Col. 2:14-15}

^{70 II Cor. 5:19}

^{71 Rom. 3:20-27}

^{72 Rom. 10:3; Phil. 3:8}

^{73 Rom. 1:18 ff}

^{74 Rom. 1:20}

^{75 Rom. 1:24}

^{76 Rom. 1:28}

^{77 e.g., Rom. 9:14-18; 11:8}

^{78 Rom. 9:6}

^{79 Rom. 2:13}

^{80 Rom. 2:12}

^{81 Rom. 2:14-15}

^{82 Rom. 2:16}

^{83 Rom. 1:19}

^{84 Rom. 1:21; I Cor. 4:5; 14-25; Eph. 1:17}

^{85 II Cor. 1:22; Gal. 4:6}

^{86 Eph. 3;17}

^{87 Rom. 8:10; 8:13; II Cor. 4:10-11; 6:4-10; Col. 2:11-12; 2:20; 3:3; II Thes. 1:4-5}

^{88 II Tim. 1:8; 2:3-6; 4:5}

^{89 II Tim. 3:12}

^{90 I Tim 6:7-9}

^{91 I Cor. 13:3}

^{92 I Cor. 3:9}

^{93 Gal. 5:18}

^{94 I Cor. 13:4}

^{95 Phil. 2:5-8}

^{96 Rom. 3:21-28}

^{97 Col. 2:15}

^{98 Rom. 8:24; 66}

^{99 Eph. 5:1}

^{100 Rom. 8:29}

^{101 Rom. 15:1-3}

^{102 II Cor. 5:15}

^{103 Eph. 4:13}

^{104 Col. 2:20}

^{105 I Cor. 2:16; Phil. 2:5-8}

^{106 Col. 1:28}

^{107 Eph. 5:25}

^{108 Phil. 2:20}

^{109 Eph. 5:1}

^{110 Rom. 8:29; I Cor. 10:33; 15:49; II Cor. 3:13; Gal. 4:19; Eph. 4:13; 5:25; Phil. 2:5-8; Col. 1:28; 3:10; 4:12; I Thes. 1:6}

^{111 I Cor. 13:2-3}

^{112 Col. 3:14}

^{113 Phil. 2:20}

^{114 Rom. 14:7; 15:1-3; I Cor. 10:24; 10:29-11:1; 12:25-26; 13:1 ff; II Cor. 5:14- 15; Gal. 5:13; 6:1 Eph. 4:2; Phil. 2:4; I Thes. 5:11}

^{115 Phil 3:21}

^{116 Rom. 8:11}

^{117 I Cor. 15:26}

^{118 Rom. 5:12}

^{119 Rom. 8:20-21}

^{120 I Cor. 15:42-49}

^{121 St. Athanasius, De Incarnatione Verbi Dei , 4-5}

^{122 Rom. 7:12}

^{123 v. 14}

^{124 Rom. 7:22}

^{125 Rom. 7:18}

^{126 Rom. 7:14}

^{127 Rom. 7:20}

^{128 Rom. 7:24}

^{129 Rom. 8:2}

^{130 Rom. 7:13 ff}

^{131 I Cor. 7:4-5}

^{132 Rom. 15:27}

^{133 II Cor. 3:3}

^{134 II Cor. 5:16}

^{135 I Tim. 3:16}

^{136 I Cor. 9:11}

^{137 Gal. 3:3}

^{138 Gal. 5:16-18}

^{139 Gal. 5:19-21}

^{140 Gal. 3:1}

^{141 Rom. 7:17-18}

^{142 I Cor. 9:11; Rom. 15:27; II Cor. 3:3; 4:11; 5:16}

^{143 I Tim. 3:16}

^{144 Rom. 7:17-18; Eph. 2:15}

^{145 Tresmontant, Essai sur la pensee Hebraique , Paris 1953, pp. 95-96}

^{146 Gen. 6:13,17; 7:15,21; Ps. 135:25}

^{147 Gen. 6:12; Is. 40:6; Jer. 25:31; 12:12; Zach. 2:17}

^{148 Jos. 10:28,30,32,35,37; Gen. 1:21,24; 2:7, 19; 9:10,12,15; Lev. 11:10}

^{149 Matt. 24:22; Mk. 13:10; Lk. 3:6; Rom. 3:20; I Cor. 1:23; Gal. 11:16}

^{150 Acts 2:43; 3:23; Rom. 2:9; 13:1; Rev. 16:3}

^{151 Rom. 7:14}

^{152 I Cor. 2:14}

^{153 I Cor. 15:50}

^{154 Ibid.}

^{155 I Cor. 15:42-49}

^{156 I Cor. 15:44}

^{157 I Cor. 15:46-47}

^{158 I Cor. 15:45}

^{159 I Cor. 15:47}

^{160 I Cor. 14:14-15}

^{161 Matt. 13:15; 15:19; Mk. 2:6; 2:8; 3:5; 6:52; 8:17; Lk. 2:35; 24:15; 24:38; Acts 8:22; 28:27; Jn. 12:40}

^{162 Lk. 24:45}

^{163 Rom. 1:21; 1:24; 2:5; 8:27; 10:1,6,8,10; 16:18; I Cor. 4:5; 7:37; 14:25; II Cor. 3:15; 4:6; 9:7; Eph. 4:18; 6:22; Phil 4:7; Col. 2:2; 3:16; 4:8; I Thes. 2:4; II Thes. 2:16; 3:5; I Tim. 1:5; II Tim 2:22}

^{164 I Cor. 14:14-19; 2:16; Rom. 7:23; 12:2; Eph. 4:23; Tit. 1:15}

^{165 II Cor. 1:22; Gal. 4:6}

^{166 Eph. 3:16}

^{167 Eph. 3:17}

^{168 Rom. 7:22-23}

^{169 Eph. 3:16-17}

^{170 Eph. 4:17-18}

^{171 Rom. 1:21}

^{172 Eph. 4:18}

^{173 Eph. 1:18-19}

^{174 I cor. 14:25}

^{175 I Cor. 4:5}

^{176 Tresmontant, op. cit., p. 110}

^{177 Ibid}

^{178 Eccl. 12:7}

^{179 I Tim. 6:16}

^{180 Rom. 8:6}

^{181 Rom. 8:13}

^{182 Ibid}

^{183 Rom. 8:9}

^{184 Rom. 7:24}

^{185 Rom. 8:2}

^{186 Rom. 7:6}

^{187 Rom. 8:9}

^{188 Rom. 8:16}

^{189 II Cor. 7:1}

^{190 Rom. 11:21; I Cor. 5:1-13; II Thes. 3:6; 3:14; II Tim. 3:5}

^{191 II Cor. 1:22; Gal. 4:6; Eph. 3:16-17}

^{192 Rom. 8:9}

^{193 Gal. 5:19}

^{194 Rom. 8:7-8}

^{195 Rom. 7:13-25}

^{196 Rom. 6:1-14}

^{197 Gal. 5:22-24}

^{198 Rom. 8:6}

^{199 I Cor. 15:56}

^{200 Rom. 5:21}

^{201 I Cor. 15:26}

^{202 Rom. 8:8}

^{203 Rom. 8:7}

^{204 Rom. 7:24}

^{205 Rom. 8:1-11}

^{206 Rom. 6:1-14}

^{207 e.g. Matt. 5:29; 10:28; 14:12; 26:12; 27:52, 58,59; Mk. 14:18; 15:43; 15:45; Lk. 12:4; 23:52; 24:3,23; Jn. 2:21; 19:31,38,40; 20:12; Acts 9:40; I Pet. 2:24; Jude 9}

^{208 Westcott, Commentary on the Epistle to Hebrews}

^{209 St. Paul’s usage of the word, soma , is not always consistent; yet it is never used in any dualistic context, to distinguish between body and soul. On the contrary, Paul frequently uses soma as synonymous with sarx (I Cor. 6:16; 7:34; 13:3; 15:35-58; II Cor. 4:10-11; Eph. 1:20-22; 2:15; 5:28 ff; Col. 1:22-24). If his anthropology were dualistic, it would not have been logical to use the term, soma , to designate the church and kephale tou somatos (head of the body) to designate christ. It would have been much more normal to call the Church the body and Christ the soul in the body.}

^{210 Rom. 7:13-25}

^{211 Heb. 2:14-15}

^{212 Gal. 5:19-21}

^{213 Rom. 7}

^{214 Rom. 7:24}

^{215 Athanasius, op. cit, 4-5}

^{216 Rom. 5:12}

^{217 Rom. 8:20-22}

^{218 St. John Chrysostom, Migne, P.G.t. 60, col. 391-692; Theophylactos, Migne, P.G.t. 124, c. 404-405}

^{219 St. Cyrill of Alexandria, Migne, P.G.t. 74, c. 781-785, and especially c. 788- 789; Theodoretos of Cyrus, Migne, P.G.t. 66, c. 800}

^{220 I Cor. 15:56}

^{221 Rom. 5:21}

^{222 I Cor. 15:26}

^{223 II Cor. 11:3}

^{224 I Tim. 2:14}

^{225 Rom. 5:13-14}

^{226 I Cor. 15:26}

^{227 I Cor. 15:56}

^{228 Rom. 5:12}

^{229 Amphilochia, heroteseis, 84, Migne, P.G.t. 101, c. 553-556}

^{230 Ecumenius, extracts from Photius , Migne, P.G.t. 118, c. 418}

^{231 Rom. 9:33; 10:19; 15:12; II Cor. 5:4; Rom. 6;21}

^{232 Phil. 4:10}

^{233 e.g., Lagrange, Epitre aux Romains , p. 117-118; Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 136-137}

^{234 A Gaudel, Peche Originel, Dictionaire de Theologie Catholique , t.xii, premiere partie}

^{235 Col. 3:3}

^{236 Rom. 7}

^{237 Canon 10, First Ecum. Council; Apostolic Canon 62; Canon 1, Council of Angyra, 313-314; Canon 1, Peter of Alexandria}

^{238 II Cor. 2:11}

^{239 Christ et le temps, p. 142}

^{240 St. Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians , ch. 13}

^{241 Ibid., ch. 5}

^{242 Eph. 2:12; 6:11-12; II Thes. 2:8-12}

^{243 II Cor. 4:4}

^{244 Col. 2:20-23}

^{245 I Cor. 15:23}

^{246 I Cor. 15:12-19}

^{247 II Cor. 2:11}