SYNAXIS the Symposium Journal

SYNAXIS the symposium journal

n. a periodical gathering published by eighth day institute

Theophany 2019 Vol. 6, No. 1 U.S. $15

EROS AND THE MYSTERY OF GOD On the Body, Sex & Asceticism

EROS & THE MYSTERY OF GOD ON THE BODY, SEX & ASCETICISM

EDITED BY Erin Doom

EIGHTH DAY INSTITUTE WICHITA, KS 2019 SENIOR EDITOR & DESIGNER Erin Doom BOOK REVIEW EDITORS The Eighth Day Books Crew SYNAXIS is published to promote the renewal of culture through faith and learning. Published by Eighth Day Institute, 2836 E. Douglas, Wichita, KS, 67214, Synaxis is a tri-annual publication, published in conjunction with the annual Eighth Day Symposium in January, the annual Florovsky Week in July, and the annual Eighth Day Books Anniversary celebration at the Inklings Oktoberfest in October. Subscriptions are automatically included with all levels above the “Donor” level of Eighth Day Memberships (see inside back cover for details).

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With tears Abba Zosimas said, “O mother, filled with the spirit, by your mode of life it is evident that you live with God and have died to the world. The Grace granted to you is apparent—for you have called me by name and recognized that I am a priest, though you have never seen me before. Grace is not recognized by one’s orders, but by gifts of the Spirit, so give me your blessing, for I need your prayers.” ~The Life of St. Mary of Egypt TABLE of CONTENTS the LETTERS et alia A Unique Community of Inquiry & Fellowship by Hans Boersma 2 The Past, the Present & the Future by Joshua Sturgill 2 A Statement on Cultural Renewal by Ralph Wood 3 the DIRECTOR’S DESK Renewing Language: Eros, Body, Sex & Asceticism as Glorious Words by Erin M. Doom 6 Neo-Patristic Synthesis: A New Theological Mission by Erin M. Doom 8 Neo-Patristic Synthesis: An Ascetic & Philokalic Endeavor by Erin M. Doom 14 Veronica by Joshua Sturgill 17 the ESSAYS The Hatred of Purity by Frederica Mathewes-Green 20 The Ascetics of Authenticity by Ben T. Davis 22 God Is Agape & Eros: Benedict XVI’s Message for a Made World by Matthew Umbarger 25 Deus Caritas Est: God Is Love by Pope Benedict XVI 27 Notes Towards a DeOinition of Patriarchy by Joshua Sturgill 32 Christianity & Sex by Christopher Dawson 34 Same-Sex Eroticism: A Scriptural Perspective by Edith M. Humphrey 41 The Mystery of Love by Alexander Schmemann 46 the REVIEWS Christianity & Eros Revisited: Making Love as Sacramental Act by Hans Boersma 54 The Mysteries of Attraction by Christopher Lasch 56 Theosis & Eros, Celibacy & Marriage by Adam Cooper 59 Figural Reading: A Disruptive Christian Practice by Geoffrey R. Boyle 62 Solomon’s Erotic Imagination by Scott Cairns 63 TABLE of CONTENTS the INKLINGS and friends Marriage & the Modern Mind by G. K. Chesterton 66 Romantic Theology by Charles Williams 69 The Erotic Hero by W. H. Auden 72 Going to Church by Coventry Patmore 73 the FATHERS The First Homily on the Song of Songs by Origen 76 Exposition of the Song of Songs by St. Gregory the Great 77 Homily One: Song of Songs 1:1-4 by St. Gregory of Nyssa 80 A Compendium on the Song of Songs by Alcuin of York 85 Homily Two: Song of Songs 2:4-7 by Origen 87 Theology of the Body: On the Song of Songs by Pope St. John Paul II 89 On Charity by St. Maximus the Confessor 92 Hymn 16 by St. Symeon the New Theologian 94 the TRADITION Song of Songs 1:1-7 by Solomon 96 The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony: Orthodox Christian Services 96 The Life of St. Mary of Egypt by St. Sophronius of Jerusalem 101 The Synodical Letter: Christological Profession by St. Sophronius of Jerusalem 106 the ECUMENICAL WORD Thoughts After Lambeth: Ecumenism & Cultural Renewal by T. S. Eliot 110 Listen & Translate: Two Gifts to Ecumenism by W. H. Auden 111 A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say. --Italo Calvino

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Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company. ~Lord Byron 2 SYNAXIS 6.1 WINTER CAMPAIGN LETTER No sense beating around the bush: you need to become a donor! When you support the Eighth A Unique Community Day Institute, you’re taken up into a unique of Inquiry & Fellowship community of inquiry and fellowship. Not yet convinced? Go and visit Wichita! When you d attend one of the Eighth Day events you’ll never Hans Boersma want to leave. Why not? The Eighth Day folks A. D. 2018 don’t just talk about sacramental ontology. They practice it. NOT TOO long ago, a friend asked me, “What’s your favorite place to go to for a conference?” I didn’t have to think about the answer. “Wichita, Kansas,” I immediately responded. Anyone who has ever attended one of the events put on by the Eighth Day Institute will straightaway nod in agreement. Of course, the answer would be WINTER CAMPAIGN LETTER Wichita, Kansas. The reason? Wichita is the place where The Past, the Present & the Future contemporary saints mingle with the saints of d old. It’s an absolutely lovely place, where the line Joshua Sturgill between heaven and earth becomes strangely A. D. 2018 thin. Whenever I listen to Erin Doom hold forth on Georges Florovsky or when I browse the OUR FIRST tasks were stripping old carpet stacks of Warren Farha’s Eighth Day Books, I feel and tile off the floors and hanging a ladder from like the Unicorn: “I have come home at last! This the ceiling to prepare the space we'd already is my real country! I belong here.” decided would be called The Ladder. Back then, You’ll know what I mean when you attend an our working title was The St. John of Damascus Eighth Day Symposium. Unfeigned hospitality Institute, which would have The Ladder as its and genuine friendship, depth of genuine headquarters and primary gathering place. Now, theological conversation across traditions, beer of course, the walls are flush with icons, and meals, sacred icons and otherworldly chants photographs, and paper copies of famous —it’s all part of what makes a Symposium in heroes. But when we held our first Hall of Men, Kansas unlike any other get-together. In other the walls were bare, and our few icons (still there!) words, it’s not just the things they officially sat expectantly on the mantle, waiting to be organize; it’s rather the unfailing intuition of joined by a cloud of witnesses. Before the Eighth what truly matters—theologically, culturally, Day Symposium, before the Sisters of Sophia or aesthetically, and socially. the Inklings Festival, and before a website chock- And, lest I be misunderstood, let me spell it full of content, we were just a few friends out: the importance of the Eighth Day Institute discussing Erin Doom’s vision of cultural renewal isn’t just that it gives visitors a taste of heaven on starting locally and bringing like-minded folks earth. No, the activities, events, and publications into a timeless conversation. give our culture a glimpse of what life together can To have continued in this vision, despite all be like. That’s why, when you visit the Eighth Day the cultural and financial obstacles, is a testament Institute, you don’t just thank God for a great both to Erin’s tenacity and to the courage of the event; you end up praying that the Eighth Day EDI community. The surrounding culture is, if Institute may reach numerous hearts and minds. anything, more chaotic and distorted than it was a decade ago. Yet the work of renewal continues.

EIGHTH DAY INSTITUTE visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 3

Just as at the beginning, Eighth Day Institute is turned into a ‘cult’ in the bad sense. As G. K. about the people and the hope of a safe and Chesterton observed, the Church has already thriving place for family, spiritual maturity, survived the collapse of two civilizations, the history, hope. My own course has taken me in Greco-Roman and the Medieval. We are now and out of Wichita over the last several years, but living in the ruins of a third collapsed civilization I always feel that EDI is an anchor—a bit of —the modern West. We are witnessing the truth sanity in a rather insane world. of Oswald Spengler’s prophecy in his famous Please consider giving to the work of Eighth book of 1922, The Decline of the West, although Day Institute. Give what you can: prayer, money, Walker Percy much preferred a literal and livelier time, presence. Wherever you happen to be, you rendering of the German: Die Untergang des can always pray for God’s protection and Abendlands: The Going Under of the Evening Land. inspiration. The planning, ﬁnancing, and “Renewing culture” in the usual sense of the execution of EDI’s projects—like the Symposium phrase means reading and discussing important or Feast Days or the print and digital publications books, visiting art galleries, attending dramatic —require the prayerful involvement of productions, and the like. Thus do we become committed people both locally and abroad. more sophisticated and “cultured.” This usually There has never been a time we didn't need help means that we join what is now called “the of some kind—and never a time when we had to winning side of history,” by villainizing the shut down the work because help didn't deplorables and divinizing the righteous. In come! When we were stripping ﬂoors and neither case, does the Church have any essential painting walls, we had no idea what God would role. The evening land of the modern West bring us in the next few years. But we knew it continues its rapid plunge into the abyss. The old would be good, and we knew it would be divides between left and right, sacred and secular, important for the health of our souls. From even church and state, remain rather much the hopeful beginnings to the possibilities of the same. present, EDI’s full story hasn't yet been told. How Eastern Orthodoxy has the unique advantage will you be part of our future? of not being crippled by these late Western divisions. It seeks always to build up its own religious culture so as to weld soul (church) and body (nation) into a seamless whole. Hence the Slavophilia of both Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn. This is no longer possible in our secular setting, except by ruthless coercion. Hence the attempt of A STATEMENT ON the Eighth Day Institute to renew our culture in a radical new sense—i.e., to help make it possible CULTURAL RENEWAL for the Gospel to be heard, received, and d embraced afresh, unblocking the doors that both Ralph Wood western Christians and secularists have thrown A. D. 2018 up. To adopt a phrase from Dorothy Day for the Catholic Worker Movement, it seeks “to make it easier for people to be good.” CULTURE is a word related both to cult and to Yet we are not meant to read this phrase in agriculture—i.e., to religious devotion and the the moralistic sense of doing good, for we can “do cultivation of the crops. In the former sense, it good” without God, thus prompting us to cluck pertains to all those things that do not in self-congratulation for not needing God, and bear directly on such matters as civil society, thus opening ourselves to a deadly secularity, government, nationhood, patriotism, even whether of the right or the left. It’s an altogether civilization itself—although all of these may be

RENEWING CULTURE THROUGH FAITH & LEARNING 4 SYNAXIS 6.1

different thing to be good in a Christian way. This requires our radical participation in the very life of God via liturgical worship and all the things that it trenches upon. Not least of these is our ecumenical engagement with major cultural artifacts; i.e., great books and other artistic masterpieces. We undertake such labor so as to discern the points at which they reflect, complement, but also sometimes clash with holy things. In all three cases, we seek to renew our culture with meat and drink it hungers and thirsts for. Thus Eighth Day Institute does not seek “to make the world a better place,” but to help shift the balance between good and evil, seeking to tilt our culture more toward the former. This shift is finely figured in the Russian cross with its slanted lower bar. The left arm signals the malefactor who cast the final trajectory of his life downward, alas, in rejection of divine life. The right arm, by contrast, symbolizes the good thief who tilted his life upward, albeit in the last moment, toward eternally renewed participation in God’s own life.

Contending for the Faith: The Church’s Engagement with Culture by Ralph Wood There are those who contend we live in a ‘post-cultural age’ of such widespread individualism and rapid ethnic amalgamation that the only remaining universal value is self-fulfillment. Ralph Wood goes even farther to say that ours is “an anti-cultural era: an era that is rejecting, with increasing vehemence, even the most basic requirements of life together and life before God.” He maintains it is the Church’s task not “to create a counter-culture, so much as a new culture based on one so ancient and nearly forgotten that it looks freshly minted.” Addressing issues of education, worship, the arts, apologetics, politics and even the idea of romance, Wood means to show us that our faith is not centered in private and inner experience. Rather, it is based in an outer, public life—“a life displayed in Scripture and Tradition and practiced in the Church.” Dialoguing with the likes of Russell Kirk, Mark Noll, Richard Niebuhr, John Howard Yoder, Karl Barth, Jaroslav Pelikan, and a host of literary greats—Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Mark Twain, and Emily Dickinson—Wood measures our culture through the focus of the cross, “the narrowest of apertures” opening onto “the widest of worlds.” He affirms the good and decries the evil, calling on Christians to make their own apologia by way of the Gospel. 230 pp. paper $34.95

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This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church. ~St. Paul 6 SYNAXIS 6.1 RENEWING LANGUAGE the image of God, to have been called to grow in the likeness to God, or in Pauline language, to be Eros, Body, Sex & Asceticism transformed from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18), or As Glorious Words in Petrine language, to participate in the very nature of God (1 Pet. 1:4). d We have a mission to our fallen world. It’s a Erin M. Doom biblical mandate. I believe it is our responsibility A. D. 2019 to both articulate and demonstrate through our lives the glorious vision of what it means to be LAST YEAR, at the 8th annual Eighth Day human creatures of God, male and female. G. K. Symposium, we explored the theme of friendship: Chesterton captures this responsibility best in a “Strangers & Society: Cultivating Friendship in a book that provoked our 2nd annual Symposium Fractured Age.” I’m convinced friendship is one back in 2012: of the greatest needs of our day. It’s why my priest Fr. Paul O’Callaghan wrote an entire book The only way to discuss the social evil is to get at on the subject: The Feast of Friendship. It’s also why once to the social ideal. We can all see the national madness; but what is national sanity? I have called Eighth Day Press published it. If you don’t yet this book “What Is Wrong with the World?” and have a copy, you really should get one. the upshot of the title can be easily and clearly The theme for this year’s Symposium builds stated. What is wrong is that we do not ask what on last year. And in terms of engaging our is right. current culture, I think it is even more important: “Eros & the Mystery of God: On the Body, Sex & Eros. Body. Sex. Asceticism. Today these words Asceticism.” are pregnant with negative connotations. This is Orthodox theologian Metropolitan Kallistos unfortunate. Each and every one of them should Ware recently suggested that the most important intimate something positive, even glorious. But question for Orthodox theology in the twentieth we as Christians have failed to pass down the century was ecclesiology, i.e., “What is the Church?” traditional biblical understanding of these words, While this remains an important theme for the the glorious and divine nature of each one of twenty-ﬁrst century, he goes on to remark: them. We have failed miserably at asking what is right. We’ve failed to demonstrate the glory of The key question in Orthodoxy today is not only what it means to be human, whether married or “What is the Church?,” but also and more celibate. I hope the Symposium this weekend, fundamentally “What is the human person?” and the content in this issue of Synaxis, will make What does it imply to be a person-in-relation a humble contribution to redeeming these words, according to the image of God the Holy Trinity? What does it mean to attain “deiﬁcation” through to restoring the glorious vision of what it means incorporation into Christ? Obviously the two to be human. questions, “What is the Church?” and “What is So, taking our cue from Metropolitan Kallistos the human person?” are intimately linked: for it is —and from Fr. Paul who coined this year’s main only within the Church that human persons theme—we’ve organized a stellar line-up of become authentically themselves. presenters to explore the human person within the context of these four key words: eros, body, I wholeheartedly agree with Metropolitan Kallistos. sex, and asceticism. The nature of human personhood is the single most important question the world is wrestling with today. It is therefore also the most vital I MUST admit I was exceedingly thrilled when I question for all Christians to be considering. We began receiving the lecture titles from our speakers. must contemplate what it means to have been Many of them are looking back to the Fathers as created male and female, to have been made in a resource for addressing these issues. And as so

SYNAXIS visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 7 many of you already know, I believe this is THE But asceticism isn’t just about the body. It’s key to cultural renewal. I’m convinced it’s our only also a ladder of divine ascent. It’s how we conquer hope for successfully navigating the murky waters our passions, thereby opening the way for a deeper of our secular age. In fact, under the spell of Fr. union of erotic love between the human and the George Florovsky’s call for this sort of path to divine. This is the message of that most sublime, renewal, I am so convinced of it that I’ve included nuptial poem in scriptures: the Song of Songs. here in the Director’s Desk two pieces from my Check out the section “The Fathers” to learn dissertation. I offer them to you as a way to help how the Fathers interpreted this book. It’s also you better understand Fr. Florovsky and his the message of St. Paul’s eloquent—but influence on me and the mission of Eighth Day controversial for 21st century folks who can’t help Institute. I offer them to help you capture more but breathe the poisonous air of our secular age clearly the driving impulse behind all of the work —passage in Ephesians on the sacrament of at Eighth Day Institute…including this particular marriage, which according to Paul is “a great Symposium and the coming 2nd annual Florovsky mystery” because he isn’t just speaking about the Week (June 5-8). marriage of male and female but about “Christ As I write this, it is the feast day of St. Anthony and the Church” (Eph. 5:32). Be sure to check the Great (d. 356). He is one of my great heroes. out the section “the Tradition”, which contains He was the first hero I ever presented at the Hall the Orthodox marriage service, and the essay by of Men, way back in November of 2008. His Fr. Alexander Schmemann in “the Essays”, which icon sits on our makeshift iconostasis—the provides a beautiful reflection on that service. fireplace mantle at our headquarters, the Ladder. As is my annual custom, I’ll end this opening He was the hero of our second Symposium festal piece with the message of two Fathers, one banquet. I’ve read the story of his life by St. ancient and one living: Athanasius many times, with many different Christianity of the past is often criticized as people. And I look forward to reading it many having been opposed to the body; and it is quite more times. If there ever was an early Christian true that tendencies of this sort have always life that should be made into a Hollywood movie, existed. Yet the contemporary way of exalting the it would be St. Anthony’s. All of that is said to body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure “sex,” has begin ending this Symposium reflection by become a commodity, a mere “thing” to be connecting Anthony to our conference theme. bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes Asceticism—literally athletic training for the a commodity. This is hardly man's great “yes” to spiritual life—is too frequently perceived to be an the body. On the contrary, he now considers his unhealthy attitude toward and treatment of the body and his sexuality as the purely material part body. After spending twenty years of what we of himself, to be used and exploited at will. Nor would call hard-core asceticism while enclosed in does he see it as an arena for the exercise of his an abandoned fort—serious fasting, continual freedom, but as a mere object that he attempts, as he pleases, to make both enjoyable and harmless. prayer, singing the Psalms, signing the cross, Here we are actually dealing with a debasement combatting demons, etc.—you would imagine the of the human body: no longer is it integrated into body of St. Anthony to be frail and emaciated. our overall existential freedom; no longer is it a But in St. Athanasius’ account we read that his vital expression of our whole being, but it is more friends “were amazed to see that his body had or less relegated to the purely biological sphere. maintained its former condition, neither fat from The apparent exaltation of the body can quickly lack of exercise, nor emaciated from fasting and turn into a hatred of bodiliness. Christian faith, combat with demons, but he was just as they had on the other hand, has always considered man a known him before his withdrawal.” Asceticism, unity in duality, a reality in which spirit and then, is actually a pathway to transfiguring the matter compenetrate, and in which each is body. brought to a new nobility. True, eros tends to rise

THE SYMPOSIUM JOURNAL 8 SYNAXIS 6.1

“in ecstasy” towards the Divine, to lead us beyond Florovsky, we are like Siamese twins who have ourselves; yet for this very reason it calls for a path been dangerously separated. We belong together. of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing. And it is only through rediscovering our common ~Pope Benedict XVI roots in the Fathers that we can stand together in The most intense of pleasurable activities (I mean a common mission. Indeed, the Church does have the passion of erotic love) is set as a figure at the a theological mission, which is central to very fore of the guidance that the teachings give: Florovsky’s neo-patristic synthesis. so that by this we may learn that it is necessary for In a 1937 review of Florovsky’s Ways of the soul, fixing itself steadily on the inaccessible Russian Theology, Nicholai Berdyaev spent thirteen beauty of the divine nature, to love that beauty as pages thrashing Florovsky’s book. According to much as the body has a bent for what is akin to it Berdyaev, Florovsky merely condemned Russia’s and to turn passion into impassibility, so that past as a pseudomorphosis, as a long history of when every bodily disposition has been quelled, western captivity. And in doing so he failed to our mind within us may boil with love, but only in offer a solution. But, as Dobbie-Bateman the Spirit, because it is heated by that “fire” that commented, Berdayev was “wide of the mark,” the Lord came to “cast upon the earth.” ~St. Gregory of Nyssa perhaps because he did “not fear secularization.” Fr. George, on the other hand, “sees in Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the secularization a failure of the church.” Indeed, Holy Spirit, both now and ever and unto the ages Florovsky makes just such a claim: “If our of ages. Amen. culture, which we used, rather complacently, to regard as Christian, disintegrates and falls to Feast of St. Anthony the Great pieces, it only shows that the seed of corruption Anno Domini 2019, January 17 was already there.” But Florovsky’s highly indeterministic view of history would not allow him to disregard this fact. Instead, his Ways was a critique in a diptych that included a positive, constructive proposal for the solution, namely the neo-patristic synthesis. But even in Ways, he made it clear that there was NEO-PATRISTIC SYNTHESIS action to be taken: “Returning to the fathers […] does not mean abandoning the present age, A New Theological Mission escaping from history, or quitting the field of d battle. Patristic experience must not only be Erin M. Doom preserved, but it must be discovered and brought A. D. 2016 into life.” He continues, with an ecumenical impulse underlying his proposed action: The modern world has arisen from Christianity and will Orthodox thought must perceive and suffer the turn back to it. ~Florovsky, Commenting on western trials and temptations, and, for its own Bultmann at 1967 Conference sake, it cannot afford to avoid and keep silent over them. The entire western experience of temptation FR GEORGE Florovsky’s neo-patristic synthesis and fall must be creatively examined and is an ecumenical endeavor with missiological transformed; …Only such a compassionate co- implications for Christian theology. Florovsky experience provides a reliable path toward the emphasized the common ground that East and reunification of the fractured Christian world and the embrace and recovery of departed brothers. West have in the patristic tradition of the first It is not enough to refute or reject western errors thousand years. We have a common ancestry in the or mistakes—they must be overcome and surpassed baptized Hellenistic world and, according to

FLOROVSKY WEEK visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 9

through a new creative act. This will be the best was an invitation to enter battle, but a battle of antidote in Orthodox thought against any secret the spirit, an “unseen warfare.” and undiagnosed poisoning. Orthodox theology has been called upon to answer non-Orthodox The “Apostolic Preaching” and Vishenskii’s questions from the depths of its catholic and ascetic approach through unseen warfare were unbroken experience and to confront western not, for Florovsky, an outdated, superstitious non-Orthodoxy not with accusations but with approach of the past, but rather a model to be testimony: the truth of Orthodoxy. followed. In fact, the early Christian approach to the So not only is there a responsibility to examine pagan Empire is precisely the model Florovsky the trajectory of Western history, as Charles advocated. For in Florovsky’s eyes, that world Taylor has so masterfully done for us in his —“when the seed was sown and germinated in magnum opus A Secular Age, but East and West the untransfigured world through the sanctified need a “compassionate co-experience” of the first sowing”—was not totally dissimilar from our “fractured Christian world.” And an exaggeration own. and rejection of western errors will not do; they must be overcome. And they must be overcome At that time the bearers of the Good News had to through a “new creative act,” which we can justly speak most often precisely to untransfigured hearts, exchange with terminology Florovsky will later to the dark and sinful consciences of the “pagans” coin, through a “neo-patristic synthesis.” And For to whom they were sent and who sat in darkness Florovsky, this synthesis is motivated by a mission. and in the shadow of death. The godless and “unbelieving” world of the present is in a certain A missionary impulse can be found throughout sense precisely the pre-Christian world revived, in Florovsky’s writings. The New Testament, he all its variegated interweaving of pseudo-religious, argues, has a “missionary background” that skeptical, and antireligious attitudes. should not be overlooked. “‘The Apostolic Preaching,’ therein embodied and recorded, had According to Florovsky, the world desperately a double purpose: the edification of the faithful needed to be reconverted to Christianity, and this and the conversion of the world. Therefore the is precisely what had to be preached. Indeed, a New Testament is not a community-book in the reconversion of our world, for Florovsky, “is the same exclusive sense as the Old Testament surely only way out of that impasse into which the was. It is still a missionary book.” And what we world has been driven by the failure of Christians find in the New Testament is that the Church has to be truly Christian.” a mission: “men are called to be Christ’s witnesses: Florovsky’s insistence on preaching a His Messengers and Apostles. The Church is reconversion, however, was both a sacramental essentially a missionary institution.” We should be and a theological task. As a sacramental task, the thankful for those who have gone before us, but Church is to introduce the world to the new life we must remember that we too are implicated in in Christ, which is experienced in His Body, the that missionary enterprise: “one should not be Church. too easily satisfied with what has been done by The Church is more than a company of preachers, others. So much has been left not done by us.” In or a teaching society, or a missionary board. It has Ways, he illustrates the missionary spirit in Ivan not only to invite people, but also to introduce Vishenskii, a 17th century Russian whose writings them into this New Life, to which it bears witness. demonstrated a concern with the “fundamental It is a missionary body indeed, and its mission predicament” of his day: field is the whole world. But the aim of its missionary activity is not merely to convey to the worldliness of the contemporary Church and people certain convictions or ideas, not even to the lowering of the Christian standard. Vishenskii’s impose on them a definite discipline or a rule of approach to the problem was thoroughly ascetical. . . . life, but first of all to introduce them into the New His was not simply a call for passive resistance. It Reality, to convert them, to bring them through

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their faith and repentance to Christ Himself, that an ecumenical audience. He cannot retire into a they should be born anew in Him and into Him narrow shell of some local tradition—simply by water and the Spirit. Thus the ministry of the because his Orthodox, i.e. the Patristic, tradition Word is completed in the ministry of the is not a local one, but basically an ecumenical Sacraments. one. And he has to use all his skill to phrase this ecumenical message of the Fathers in such a way He also insisted on a theological role for the as to secure an ecumenical, a truly universal Church as a missionary institution in a world appeal. This obviously cannot be achieved by any similar to that of the early Christians. According servile repetition of the Patristic letter, as it cannot to Florovsky, it is theology that must “witness be achieved by a Biblical fundamentalism either. before such a world.” But servility is alien both to the Bible and to the Fathers. They were themselves bold and courageous Theology is called upon not to judge but to heal. and adventurous seekers of the Divine truth. To One must enter into the world of doubts, walk truly in their steps means to break the new subterfuges, and self-deceptions in order to respond ways, only in the same field as was theirs. No to doubts and reproaches. But one must enter into renewal is possible without a return to the sources. this unsettled world with the sign of the cross in one’s heart and the prayer of Jesus in one’s mind, In contrast to a servile repetition of the Patristic for this is a world of dizzying mysteries where letter or a Biblical fundamentalism, the theologian everything is double, crumbling in a certain play has three primary tasks. First, one must reacquire of reflections, as if surrounded by mirrors. The the archaic language of Bible. We must “bend theologian is summoned to testify in the world. our thought to the mental habits of the biblical But how is theology to be a witness? How can it language and relearn the idiom of the Bible.” heal the doubts and deceptions of the world? Second, one must learn the ancient idiom of the How should a theologian testify? The passage ancient Patristic Church. Just as one needs a provided gives a good starting point, a suggestion command of the original Biblical language to that affirms Florovsky’s philokalic sensibility: first interpret the Scriptures’ message accurately in a and foremost with prayer, with the sign of the new language to a new people, the same is cross in one’s heart and the Jesus Prayer on one’s required for the interpretation of Christian lips. But this is only one part of the answer. dogma. As Florovsky explains it, As a missionary institution, Florovsky also to render it in a modern tongue, we must argued that the Church has an unavoidable command the original language, in which it has apologetic duty, which requires a theological been first uttered. Unless we can do so, we would knowledge. As he put it, “to undertake apologetics always be poor interpreters. We would depend without a fundamental knowledge of the slavishly upon some conventional dictionary, in appropriate sciences or command of their methods, which certain “correspondences” between the while relying and becoming dependent upon isolated and detached “words” in two idioms are popular literature, was the most dangerous course registered and fixed. This isolation inevitably of all. Such second or third-hand apologetics betrays both the musical phrase and the whole could never be convincing.” He would articulate style of composition. The best dictionary is not it a decade later, at the opening of St. Vladimir’s yet the living language. And language lives just when it is spontaneously used, and not when it is Seminary, in a description of the difficult nature used simply for class-composition. This was the of theological education, which also reiterated reason for including the sacred languages of the aspects of his neo-patristic synthesis: Scripture into the regular theological curriculum, the task of a contemporary Orthodox theologian and every reliable minister of the Word is expected is intricate and enormous. He has much to learn to be able to check all modern “translations” and still before he can speak with authority. And interpretations, otherwise his interpretation would above all he has to realize that he has to speak to be inadequate. The same applies to dogma. In order to interpret the mind of the ancient Church,

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i.e., the mind of the Fathers, we have to be making a more explicit connection between Patristically-minded ourselves. Otherwise, we Florovsky’s neo-patristic synthesis and the charge would be in danger of inventing new meanings, to testify before the world. instead of interpreting the old. Is this suggestion Like Charles Taylor, Florovsky is a problem that we learn the idiom of the ancient Church solver. In Florovsky’s words, really ridiculous? Are there not in our time many who endeavor to learn the language of the great My interest has always been in problems. I Reformers, to rediscover and regain it as their wanted to be a philosopher from the very mother tongue and to use it, in the modern beginning. What very early mattered to me most environment, for preaching and theological was to have a responsible world view, and to be thinking? In fact there are not a few who do really able to defend it. For this I knew I would have to speak the idiom of Luther and Calvin in our day, study science, but not science only. and do not mind being out of date for that. Just as there are many in the Church of Rome who In his discussion of the philosophical awakening use the idiom of St. Thomas. As matter of fact in in Russia at the turn of the twentieth century, our troubled age almost everyone is ambitious not Florovsky presents an outline of the task of to speak in theology a vulgar and debased philosophical dogmatics offered by Alesksei contemporary idiom but to use something nobler Vvedenskii, a conservative professor of the and elaborate. Why should we not try to use the Theological Academy. It’s fundamental method idiom of the Fathers? Why should the idiom of involved searching behind every dogma for the the fourth and ﬁfth centuries be eliminated from question to which that dogma responded: the contemporary Tower of Babel? First, one must establish the positive witness of Returning to the sources, however, is not limited the Church from Scripture and Tradition, “and to just the Bible and the Fathers. The liturgical here a mosaic of texts is never sufﬁcient but only Tradition must also be included: an organic growth of knowledge.” Then dogma comes alive and discloses itself in its entire But it must be a return to the sources, to the Well speculative depth—as a divine answer to human of living water, and not simply a retirement into a questions, as a divine Amen and as a witness of library or museum of venerable and respectable, the Church. It appears as a “genuine self- but outlived relics And this: Lex orandi is, and must understanding” which is spiritually unthinkable to be, not only a pattern or authority for the lex contradict. Dogmatic theology, when it confronts credendi, but above all a source of inspiration. It is, the questions of the present, must constantly re- and ought to be, not so much a binding and create dogmas afresh so that the dark coals of restricting authority, as a life in the Spirit, a living traditional formulas are transformed into the experience, a communion with the Truth, with illuminating jewels of true faith. In such a the living Lord, who is not only an authority, but presentation of the speculative problems of the Truth, the Way and the Life. The true theology theology the philosophical and historical methods can spring only out of a deep liturgical experience. go hand in hand. The historical method, for its It must once more, as it has be in the age of the part, leads back to the speculative faith of the Fathers, a witness of the Church, worshiping and Fathers. preaching, and cease to be merely a school- exercise of curiosity and speculation. This The method thus begins with the established liturgical approach to Theology has always been witness of the Church in Scripture and Tradition, the distinctive mark of the Orthodox Church. and only then confronts the questions of the age. Florovsky affirmed this methodology in a 1963 letter to Dobbie Bateman. Florovsky tells of a NOW THAT Florovsky has established the student in his Patristic seminar admitting that the missionary nature of the Church and the three seminar students “enjoy immensely the reading primary educational tasks of the theologian who of the Fathers.” But they wanted to know what is called to testify before the world, we’ll end by kind of authority the Fathers possess. According

THE FLOROVSKY JOURNAL 12 SYNAXIS 6.1 to Florovsky’s account, the quite revealing Florovsky himself also had early on designated conversation continued as follows: Germany as “the ‘heart’ and the ‘capital’ of world culture” constituted by the “Romano-Germanic Are we supposed to accept from them even that in world.” In the crisis of German Idealism, he which they obviously were “situation-conditioned” perceived not “only a German affair,” but “a world and probably inaccurate, inadequate, and even event,” “a revolutionary change in the whole of wrong? My answer was obviously, No. Not only European history,” which required a response from because, as it is persistently urged, only the Orthodox thought. Thus, Florovsky’s call for a consensus patrum is binding—and, as to myself, I do return to the Fathers and a neo-patristic synthesis not like this phrase. The “authority” of the must not be seen merely as a program for the Fathers is not a dictatus papae. They are guides and renewal and restoration of Orthodox thought, witnesses, no more. Their vision is “of authority,” nor simply as a new turn in the Russian not necessarily their words. By studying the philosophical search alone, but simultaneously also Fathers we are compelled to face the problems, and an attempt at an Orthodox response to the then we can follow them but creatively, not in the problematics of Western modernity. mood of repetition. I mentioned this already in the brief preface to my Eastern Fathers of the IVth Baker later concludes: Century, and provoked a fiery indignation of the United with the new Russian religious thinkers late Dom Clément Lialine. So many in our time such as Soloviev and Bulgakov in their concern are still looking for authoritative answers, even for a complete religious-philosophical synthesis, before they have encountered any problem. I am though in disagreement as to philosophical sources fortunate to have in my seminars students who are and principles, Florovsky’s defense of the “traditional studying fathers because they are interested in synthesis” accents particularly the “speculative” creative theology, and not just in history or value of the Fathers’ theology in response to archaeology. philosophical problems, and the need for the So again, we first study the Fathers. And not just dogmatician to search out the specific questions their words, for we must acquire their vision by which lie behind the patristic answers. Together immersing ourselves in their writings. In short, we with the dogma which is its source and summit, the historic theology of the Fathers constitutes in must acquire the “mind of the Fathers.” Only essence an integral Christian philosophy. then can we face the problems, whatever they may be, in our age. Furthermore, we address the But the Fathers who successfully create a religious- problems by following the Fathers creatively, not philosophical synthesis, according to Florovsky, by merely parroting their texts. This is the heart are more than merely theologians. They are teachers, of Florovsky’s neo-patristic synthesis. “teachers of the Church,” doctors Ecclesiae, oi didiaskoloi But one final point, needs to be made. Florovsky’s tes oikoumenes. In catholic transfiguration, personality neo-patristic synthesis is commonly presented in receives strength and power to express the life and opposition to Russian religious philosophy. This is consciousness of the whole. And this not as an simply not true. A revision of this common impersonal medium, but in creative and heroic action. narrative leads us to our main point in discussing We must not say: “Every one in the Church attains Florovsky’s neo-patristic synthesis as a new the level of catholicity,” but “every one can, and must, theological mission. Fr. Matthew Baker articulates and is called to attain it.” Not always and not by this connection best: everyone is it attained. In the Church we call those who have attained it Doctors and Fathers, because the full significance of Florovsky’s later formulation from them we hear not only their personal profession, of “neo-patristic synthesis” cannot be divorced but also the testimony of the Church; they speak to us from the historical context of Idealism and Russian from its catholic completeness, from the completeness religious philosophy whose metaphysics he had of a life full of grace. This “catholic mentality” sought to oppose. Just as the Slavophiles had begun constitutes the incomparable methodological value or to search for a new religious synthesis to overcome authority of patristic writings. Western problematics in philosophy and culture,

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While not everyone attains such catholicity, the dimension, as well as the inherent dangers if not fact that Florovsky suggests they can and must, implemented correctly: indicates the possibility of new Fathers in every age. Indeed, that is precisely what he argued for One can hardly gauge the fullness of the Church in his lecture on St. Gregory Palamas for the by the standards of Kant, Lotze, Bergson, or 600th anniversary of his death. Florovsky Schelling; there is something tragicomical in the criticized both East and West for being influenced very idea. What is necessary is not a recasting of by a Protestant historiography of decay: “it dogmatic formulas from an archaic idiom into a doesn’t make much difference if we restrict the modern one, but rather a creative return to this “archaic” experience, in order to once more relive normative authority of the Church to one its thought and reinclude it into the unbroken century, or to five, or to eight. There should be no fabric of catholic fullness. All earlier attempts at restriction at all.” He concludes, “The Church is such “recasting” or transcribing unfailingly still fully authoritative as she has been in the ages resulted in “betrayal”—i.e., reinterpretation in past, since the Spirit of Truth quickens her now terms known to be inadequate. no less effectively as in ancient times.” In contrast to such Holy Fathers, Florovsky In Florovsky’s address at the opening of St. critiques Soloviev and Khomiakov for beginning Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in with modern philosophical categories. Their 1949, he discussed the Russian impulse for system, he argues “was an attempt to re-shape renewal that occurred, first with the publication afresh the dogmas of Christian belief and Tradition of the Philokalia by St. Paisy, then with the in the categories of modern philosophy …” In translation of the Bible directed by Filaret of contrast to this sort of system, which he notes was Moscow, and then in the return of Russian taken up by Soloviev’s successors (i.e., Florensky “philosophers to the Church and their attempt to and Bulgakov), re-interpret precisely the Patristic tradition in one should oppose another: the task of theology modern terms, to restate the teaching of the lies not so much in translating the Tradition of Church as a complete philosophy of life.” He faith into contemporary language, into the terms went on to describe this effort in positive terms, of the most recent philosophy, but lies rather in unlike what we would expect from the way such discovering in the ancient patristic tradition the Russian philosophers are typically pitted against perennial principles of Christian philosophy; this Florovsky’s neo-patristic synthesis: task lies not in controlling dogma by means of contemporary philosophy but rather in re-shaping It was a noble endeavor, and a daring and philosophy on the experience of faith itself so that courageous one. There is no need to conceal all the experience of faith would become the source the dangers of this venture or the failures of those and measure of philosophical views. The weakest who run the risk. Unfortunately, this reinterpretation side of Soloviev and his school was precisely this was unnecessarily linked with the adoption of misuse of the speculative process which can German idealistic philosophy, of Hegel, Schelling, enchain, and often even deform, Tradition and and Baader, and very much of unhealthy mysticism the experience of faith. has crept into the schemes constructed by Vladimir Soloviev, the late Father Sergius Boulgakov, We have now moved from considering the Father Paul Florensky, and perhaps most of all questions confronted by the early Christian the late Nicolas Berdiaev. There is no need to Fathers, to which their dogmatic definitions were endorse their findings and speculations. But it is addressed, to the contemporary confrontation high time to walk in their steps. with questions of our own age, which will require It is not insignificant that Florovsky used his now- yet another “recreation of those dogmas.” Florovsky famous, but widely misunderstood, expression encapsulates his neo-patristic synthesis at the end “neo-patristic synthesis” in this address, while of Ways, noting both its creative and catholic praising his one-time confessor Fr. Sergius

HONORING EXEMPLARS OF CULTURAL RENEWAL 14 SYNAXIS 6.1 Bulgakov, who had been so controversial for his NEO-PATRISTIC SYNTHESIS sophiological speculations. Nor is the title of the address insignificant: “The Legacy and the Task An Ascetic & Philokalic Endeavor of Orthodoxy Theology.” Fr. Matthew Baker d perfectly summarizes Florovsky’s neo-patristic Erin M. Doom synthesis with this lecture title. Theological A. D. 2016 synthesis for Florovsky, is both a historically given legacy from the past (the If we approach the Fathers through the Philokalia, we synthesis or syntheses already achieved by enter the world of the Fathers from a particular direction, acknowledged Fathers, which remain determinative so to speak. We do not, at first, encounter the great preachers, precisely as a continued reference-point for the or the great thinkers; we may later advance to them, but present) they are not the first we meet on the way of the Philokalia. and a historical task laid upon the Church in We meet first those who have lived the Christian life with response to contemporary needs and problems in an uncompromising directness, we meet those who devoted every age (the synthesis to be achieved by the their lives to prayer and communion with God. “Fathers” of the present epoch). ~Andrew Louth Florovsky’s clarified neo-patristic synthesis IS the answer to the key questions of our secular age. FLOROVSKY’S patrologies include a significant And as he suggested in that same 1949 address to section dedicated to asceticism, sufficiently the seminary he would go on to academically significant to merit its own volume in the fourteen shape in such significant ways, our goal must be, volumes of Florovsky’s Collected Works. And as in Florovsky’s words: Andrew Louth notes, Florovsky’s “conception of patristics has a breadth that would have been to show and to prove that a modern man can and unusual at the time he delivered the [St. Sergius must persist in his loyalty to the traditional faith patristic] lectures: monasticism and asceticism are and to the Church of the Fathers without for him theological topics, not just phenomena compromising his freedom of thought and belonging to church history.” The long opening without betraying the needs or requests of the portion of these lectures is dedicated to defending contemporary world. asceticism through a survey of the “ascetic ideal” in the New Testament, all as a critique of the Lutheran theologian Anders Nygren, particularly against his work Agape and Eros. Florovsky begins his argument with Christ: “When our Lord was about to begin His ministry, He went into the desert. Our Lord had options, but He selected—or rather, ‘was lead by the Spirit,’ into the desert. . . . And there—in the desert—our Lord engages in spiritual combat, for He ‘fasted forty days and forty nights.’” Florovsky concludes his opening argument by declaring that “We are to follow our Lord in every way possible. ‘To go into the desert’ is ‘to follow’ our Lord.” He goes on to reflect on the desert: When St. Antony goes into the desert, he is “following” the example of our Lord—indeed, he is “following” our Lord. This in no way diminishes

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the unique, salvific work of our Lord, this in no salvation, any movement of human will and soul way makes of our Lord God, the God-Man, a toward God, as a pagan distortion of Agape, as mere example. But in addition to His redemptive ‘Eros.’” And it is this theological view that leads to work, which could be accomplished only by our Nygren’s “rejection of monasticism and other Lord, our Lord taught and set examples. And by forms of asceticism and spirituality so familiar to “following” our Lord into the desert, St. Antony the Christian Church from its inception.” In sharp was entering a terrain already targeted and contrast, Florovsky believes that “in freely creating stamped by our Lord as a specific place for spiritual warfare. There is both specificity and man, God willed to give man an inner spiritual “type” in the “desert.” In those geographical freedom.” He further explains: regions where there are no deserts, there are In no sense is this a Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian places which are similar to or approach that type position. The balanced synergistic doctrine of of place symbolized by the “desert.” It is that type the early and Eastern Church, a doctrine of place which allows the human heart solace, misunderstood and undermined by Latin isolation. It is the type of place which puts the human heart in a state of aloneness, a state in Christianity in general from St. Augustine on— which to meditate, to pray, to fast, to reflect upon although there was always opposition to this one’s inner existence and one’s relationship to in the Latin Church—always understood that ultimate reality—God. And more. It is a place God initiates, accompanies, and completes where spiritual reality is intensified, a place where everything in the process of salvation. What it spiritual life can intensify and simultaneously always rejected—both spontaneously and where the opposing forces to spiritual life can intellectually—is the idea of irresistible grace, become more dominant. It is the terrain of a the idea that man has no participating role in battlefield but a spiritual one. And it is our Lord, his salvation. not St. Antony, who has set the precedent. This same tension plays out between Florovsky In addition to Florovsky’s recognition of the and Karl Barth. For Barth, “Willing, achieving, reality of unseen spiritual warfare, we see here creative, sovereign man as such cannot be Florovsky’s emphasis on freedom, both in the considered as a participator in God’s work.” But God-Man, who chose to engage in spiritual for Florovsky, man must freely respond to God’s combat—“Our Lord had options, but He selected” call. Listen to Florovsky’s remark while guest —and in humans, like all of us, who must choose lecturing at one of Barth’s seminars in 1931: to follow the precedent set by Christ. For Florovsky, this freedom is connected to his view of history. Revelation is always a Word addressed to man, a Rowan Williams notes that Florovsky’s summons and an appeal to man. . . . The highest “emphasis on historical creativity, history as a objectivity in the hearing and understanding of Revelation is achieved through the greatest pattern of free acts, leads naturally to a critique exertion of the creative personality, through of all theologies that undervalue the historical spiritual growth, through the transfiguration of Jesus: for Florovsky, the category of podvig (roughly the personality, which overcomes in itself “the equivalent to ‘achievement,’ even ‘exploit,’ and wisdom of flesh,” ascending to “the measure of common in speaking of ascetic saints) is central to the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). understanding Christ, as in understanding all From man it is not self-abnegation which is human actions.” Williams concludes that Jesus’ demanded but a victorious forward movement, death must be His own free act; His “whole not a self-destruction but a rebirth or existence must be the triumph of freedom in the transformation, indeed a theosis. Without man world if we are to be liberated for proper historical Revelation would be impossible—because no one action.” This is precisely what creates the would be there to hear and God would then not disagreement between Florovsky and Nygren. speak. And God created man so that man would Nygren “identifies any participation of man in his hear His words, receive them, and grown in them and through them become a participator of

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“eternal life.” The Fall of man did not alter the is intended “for the general benefit of the Orthodox.” original intention of God. Man has not lost In his introduction Nikodimos maintains that St. completely the capacity of hearing God and Paul’s injunction, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. praising Him. 5:17), is addressed not merely to hermits in caves and on mountain tops but to married Christians Man not only has a participating role in salvation, with responsibilities to family, to farmers, merchants, but his “creative personality” must hear and and lawyers, even to kings and courtiers living in understand God’s Revelation by means of the palaces. “greatest exertion”! George Williams echoes Rowan Williams, noting that Florovsky uses the Great saints such as St Nikodimos and St. Makarios, distinctive phrase “ascetic achievement” (podvig) to or the many heroes in Florovsky’s Ways of Russian express his emphasis on human freedom: “Freedom Theology who helped restore a patristic style to within man’s creatureliness is compounded of Russian theology, all participated in and advocated faith, love, grace, decision, and strenuousness. what Andrew Louth has described as a “philokalic The model of the free man is the prophet, the style, or tenor, of theology.” Louth describes it in Virgin, the martyr, the ascetic, and the saint.” this way: Florovsky also applied this concept of podvig It seems likely that it was in response to his to the scholar. For Florovsky, scholarship could encounter with the Dobrotolubiye [Philokalia]that the also be an “ascetic achievement.” Describing the Slavophile Ivan Kireevsky came to speak of the Russian Aleksandr V. Gorskii (1812-1875), Fathers as bearing “testimony as eyewitnesses” Florovsky says: “His personal example was a and speaking of “a country they have been to.” A testimony and a reminder that scholarship is an sense of the patristic tradition as our inheritance exploit [podvig] and a service.” He describes the as Christians seems to me central to the Philokalia, work of theologians engaging in philosophy in a and in several ways: objectively, there is a sense of similar manner: “the Fathers of the Church made who the Fathers are, and the inclusion of St. Maximos and St. Gregory Palamas, in particular, a great effort [podvig] to create a new system makes it clear that the great patristic witnesses capable of giving a translation of faith into rational revered by us Orthodox—the great hierarchs and terms.” Consider the biblical and patristic universal teachers, St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory translation work of Philaret of Moscow, or the the Theologian, and St. John Chrysostom, Sts. translations and writings of the ascetic Fathers in Athanasios and Cyril of Alexandria, St. Gregory the Philokalia by St. Nikodimos the Hagiorite and of Nyssa, celebrated by the Church, together with St. Makarios of Corinth (as well as St. Theophan St. Maximos, in the latter part of January (with the Recluse, after them), who viewed their scholarly St. Photios not far away)—are prominent in this work as a missionary and ascetic endeavor. Their their native land, but remembered alongside work was not only a podvig in and of itself, but it ascetics and mystics who live out the theology was conducted with a desire to inspire a podvig they proclaimed; but subjectively there is the among its readers, which would lead to unceasing sense of the Fathers as precisely our fathers (and prayer. According to Kallistos Ware, in principle) mothers, those to whom we owe our faith, those who have nurtured us in the Faith. they looked upon this patristic heritage not as an Furthermore, we participate in this tradition not archaeological survival from the distant past, but just by learning (though learning is important, as as a living guide for contemporary Christians. In St. Nikodimos’s example makes clear, but by editing the Fathers, they had such a practical praying, by living out the theology we discern and purpose in view. It was their hope that the proclaim. The Philokalia—as both text and life— Philokalia and other such publications would not initiates us into a participation in the divine life, simply gather dust on the bookshelves of scholarly the divine energies, by … a process of specialists, but would be read by the laity as well puriﬁcation, illumination, and perfection. That as by monastics and clergy. As the two editors terminology, that process, is also applied by the stated on the title page of the Philokalia, the book Fathers to the activation and practice of the

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spiritual senses, the ways in which we perceive by Yet I feel now a breaking. I feel feeling, sensing, the movement of the Holy Spirit, I cannot survive the torture of this tension in ourselves, in others, in the world. What we are I feel the eyes of judges keeping count seeing here is something that goes beyond reading of all my thoughts, all my decision. I have and understanding and is more like participation two Native Lands, two Choices. And though and assimilation. I love the Greek, I must also love (not merely It is precisely this type of “philokalic style, or tolerate) the Latin. I must be heroic tenor of theology” to which Florovsky’s neo- in both worlds; I am watched from both. patristic synthesis calls us to return and to For the sake of others, I would sacrifice creatively revive in our own age. However, as my first love for the second. But secretly Louth indicates, this does not mean a rejection of this sacrifice would be for my relief, and not learning. For it was only through the scholarly for others’ benefit. work of St. Nikodimos, St. Makarios, and others So what I ask, dear Mother, is your strength that this philokalic tenor could be revived. And it and consolation. I see you stand so patiently is precisely such a philocalic tenor, achieved in your Icon, holding the life-drenched cloth: through podvig, that is required of theologians stained with mucus, blood, hair and skin—stained today, especially those engaged in any attempt at in short, with suffering: the Latin: clean white a neo-patristic synthesis. linen, and the Greek: the vivisection. My temptation is to wash the cloth, and to collect and preserve the blood in some other good container —wouldn’t these decisions, in some way be proper and commendable? This way, the cloth could be used again, could be active, and the blood preserved, contained in holy stillness? VERONICA But silently you hold the cloth. Patiently and mildly d as if the ruining of human thought and labor Joshua Sturgill weren’t already grief enough, as if the dripping A. D. 2019 blood and mucus weren’t already a terror of human violence. I know. I know. I wish Our venerable mother among the saints, they say to know: how the cloth and blood are now fused your name must be a fiction, a folk etymology that this meeting of geometry and chaos But I ask you by name: receive this prayer was planned before the weaving of time. The plan and swiftly aid me in my quiet calamity, you and labor of human effort has no higher use who bear a name of incompatible tensions: than to be stained by the Human Blood of God. a name of Latin in fact; but an Image Without the Cloth, the Face could not be revealed of the Greek. I, too, stand in the midst Without the Face, the Cloth would have of tensions, a soul-rending incompatibility no eternal Use—this Use it dearly longs for. I am without identity, exposed, unable to answer the daily charges against me. I live Help me, dear mother. I have the task in a world of Veritas (more often, virtuality) but not the strength to be both the Latin a world where outside demands must meet and the Greek, to be matter yet spirit, labor on outside terms. Facts like bricks and asphalt yet stillness, to live my exile gladly, all the while wall me in from all directions. Yet from within longing for the living country of my native land. I live a spacious certainty, a city of light Amen. and living things, with icon-lined and tree-lined streets, a city of my heart’s longing and her Home.

COMMEMORATING CHRIST & THE SAINTS 18 SYNAXIS 6.1

The Philokalia 4 volumes (of projected 5) compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth; translated from the Greek and edited by G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware The Philokalia is a collection of texts written between the fourth and fifteenth centuries by thirty-six spiritual masters of the Orthodox Christian tradition. Compiled by Sts. Nikodemos and Makarios of Mt. Athos and published in 1782, with other versions and variations published thereafter (e.g., Slavonic, Russian, Romanian, and Finnish), The Philokalia has had an influence far greater than that of any book other than the Bible in the recent history of the Orthodox Church. In the Introduction (which is essential to read before entering into the text itself) Metropolitan Kallistos Ware poses the question of what determined the choice of texts contained in The Philokalia, and offers the following explanation: “‘Philokalia’ itself means love of the beautiful, the exalted, the excellent, understood as the transcendent source of life and the revelation of Truth. It is through such love that, as the subtitle of the original edition puts it, ‘the intellect is purified, illumined, and made perfect.’” As such, “The Philokalia is an itinerary through the labyrinth of time, a silent way of love and gnosis through the deserts and emptinesses of life, especially of modern life, a vivifying and fadeless presence…” Volume One contains the earliest writings of the entire corpus, including selections from Isaiah the Solitary, Evagrios Ponticus, St. John Cassian (this selection includes one of the earliest descriptions of the “Eight Vices,” which evolved in Western spirituality into the Seven Deadly Sins), St. Mark the Ascetic (a text of special note: On Those who Think that They Are Made Righteous by Works), St. Hesychios the Priest, St. Neilos the Ascetic, St. Diadochos of Photiki (St. Nikodemos claimed that his On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination reveals “the deepest secrets of the virtue of prayer”) and St. John of Karpathos. 378 pp. paper $19.95 Volume Two is dominated by a selection from the writings of St. Maximos the Confessor, whose theological and spiritual depth and precision is increasingly recognized among contemporary theologians, both within and without the Orthodox tradition. Included are his Four Hundred Texts on Love, Two Hundred Texts on Theology Written for Thalassios, and On the Lord’s Prayer. The aforementioned Thalassios is represented here by a short work, On Love, Self Control, and Life in Accordance with the Intellect. This volume also contains A Discourse on Abba Philimon (late sixth century), the earliest text to mention the Jesus Prayer in its standard form, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.” 414 pp. paper $21.00 Volume Three presents to us St. Philotheos of Sinai, Ilias the Presbyter, a spiritual predecessor of St. Gregory Palamas, St. Peter of Damaskos (eleventh century), whose Treasury of Divine Knowledge occupies more space in The Philokalia than any other writer save Maximos, and St. Symeon Metaphrastis’ Paraphrase of the Homilies of St. Makarios of Egypt. Its themes of unseen warfare in the human heart, of synergeia or co-operation between divine grace and human will, and the possibility of conscious assurance of the indwelling grace of the Holy Spirit, foreshadow the spirituality of St. Symeon the New Theologian. 379 pp. paper $19.00 Volume Four begins with the writings of St. Symeon “the New Theologian” (this title placing him in the select company of St. John the Evangelist and St. Gregory Nazianzen), specifically his One Hundred Fifty Three Practical and Theological Texts. Next come three treatises from St. Symeon’s disciple and biographer, Nikitas Stithatos. This volume culminates with “the two Gregories” of the fourteenth century: St. Gregory of Sinai and St. Gregory Palamas, who together (though “in the flesh” independently) articulated and defended the validity of the experience of those who through unceasing prayer and stillness (hesychia) saw the uncreated light of the Godhead. St. Gregory Palamas’ important One Hundred Fifty Chapters and Declaration of the Holy Mountain in Defense of Those who Devoutly Practice a Life of Stillness are presented here. 457 pp. paper $21.00

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“To sift the meaning is the glory of kings” (Pr. 25:2). For they are kings who have learned how to rule over and judge their bodies, that is, the promptings of the flesh. ~St. Gregory the Great 20 SYNAXIS 6.1 THE HATRED OF PURITY We told each other that Christians deserved this treatment because they were stuffy and d judgmental. But the Jesus Freaks on campus Frederica Mathewes-Green weren’t like that. They looked like our fellow A. D. 2018 hippies, and were humble, cheerful, and generally amiable. We found that irritating. I would say, BACK IN my college days, when dinosaurs “There’s something wrong with those Christians. roamed the earth, I was a hippie and a spiritual They’re too clean.” seeker. The range of spiritual options on campus was broad, and I sampled a bit of everything: I THINK what was bugging me was their purity. Ananda Marga Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, Hare There’s something about purity that attracts the Krishna, Transcendental Meditation. I say I was malicious delight of those who don’t share it. a “seeker,” but that’s not exactly right; I didn’t Even when purity is just minding its own business, expect to reach a destination. I was, more it still makes for an irresistible target. accurately, a spiritual explorer, always traveling The appreciation of purity hasn’t increased toward a new horizon. over the intervening decades; on the contrary, it There’s something about that era that I don’t seems like everything has been sexualized. If it’s not understand, though. My friends and I savored all specifically sexualized, it’s crude. I stopped the more-esoteric religions, but for some reason shopping for greeting cards some years ago (I just we hated Christianity. We ridiculed it automatically, make my own), because it seemed like every one I reflexively. The Jesus Freak movement had arrived picked up was organized around a fart joke. I on campus and, when I ran into newly born- stopped going out to see new movies, because again students, I enjoyed trying to shake their gross-out scenes are so likely to suddenly jump faith. I’d tell them that the myth of a dying-and- out. When this coarsening began, a couple of rising god isn’t unique to Christianity, but appears decades ago, it seemed flatly juvenile, as if in religions around the world. I savored any everything was being marketed at 13-year-old opportunity for unsettling them and sowing doubts. boys. In time, that passed. I don’t mean the crudity; Christianity roused in us a kind of malicious what passed was the sense that it was juvenile. delight, though I don’t know why. Somebody Now it’s marketed at everybody. donated stacks of the paperback New Testament, Perhaps the biggest factor in this general Good News for Modern Man, and they were placed decline is the overwhelming amount of porn now in all the dorm lobbies. My friend George, at his available. Pastors like my husband are all too dorm, tore them up. When bystanders objected, aware of the way pornography destroys marriages, he said, “It’s a bad translation.” We thought this friendships, families—in short, destroys people. It was hilarious—a witty bit of revolutionary theater. is addictive, of course; it’s designed to be. It is And we felt, for some reason, that Christians cumulative, of course, and when addicts become deserved this kind treatment. We told each other inured to shocking images, they are hit with that it would do them good. I don’t remember something more shocking still. The overall trend how hearing their faith mocked and insulted was is toward increasing degrees of violence. supposed to help them. But something stirring When author Martin Amis was researching inside made us want to embarrass or sadden them. an article about the porn industry some years Other religions didn’t stir up this zestful cruelty; ago, he had to watch some sample videos. He only Christians roused this desire to wound and later commented that, during that time, “I kept gloat. The hostility was so inexplicable, yet so worrying about something. I kept worrying that intense, that you’d almost think it was related to I’d like it.” Porn targets, he said, the “near-infinite some unseen spiritual battle. chaos of human desire,” and if you unknowingly

SISTERS OF SOPHIA visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 21 harbor some sexual demon, “sooner or later porn That’s why people who do see the beauty in will identify it” and bid it come forth. sexual purity, who try to practice it and encourage Given all the varieties of sexual upheaval others, can find themselves unexpectedly cast as today, critics tend to focus on gay marriage, saying the bad guy in a stranger’s drama. No wonder that it destroys traditional marriage. But in terms those who value purity tend to do so quietly, of sheer numbers, porn is overwhelmingly more keeping their beliefs within the context of home, destructive. Also, in terms of sheer numbers, men church, and community. Purity has become a are much more likely than women to be enslaved deeply unpopular opinion, fit only for religious by it. But that doesn’t mean they alone suffer its oddballs. effects. And yet, in other contexts, we all value purity. When I’m out with my little granddaughters, Don’t we want purity to be top priority at the I’m aware that nearly any man we pass could local dairy? On a stroll through Whole Foods, have terrible images burned into his brain. That’s how many times do you see the word “Pure” on the world they will have to live in. When they’re a packaging? Dozens of magazines have “Pure” in little older, they may unknowingly date such men. their title, apparently believing that it sells They may unknowingly marry one. (Remember, magazines. About the only thing our fractured the next step is violence.) All their lives, my nation agrees on is the necessity of guarding granddaughters will be walking through a porn- nature’s purity. saturated community. Everyone understands the beauty of purity in But that considers only the impact on them. other contexts. So why is sexual purity the What about the effect on the men themselves? exception? Why does it elicit a zesty, flavorful What is it like to feel that your mind is no longer hate, and a desire to wound and sadden those who under your control, that you can no longer stop love it? the rushing thoughts that repulse and frighten you? Oddly enough, in the Orthodox Church we Yet it’s so easy to begin. At the University of hold up as an example—literally, on our iconostases Maryland a few years ago, two student groups, —a man who was killed for denouncing sexual Christian and atheist, held a debate. At one point impurity. In his icon, St. John the Baptist stands the pastor made a reference to porn, and suddenly on a desert landscape, with a bowl at his feet the room was filled with hooting and applause. I displaying his severed head. A scroll tumbles open was shocked; I guess I’m just naïve. I didn’t know from his hand: this was something young men are proud of. But O Word of God, that brief reference to porn got the most See what they suffer, enthusiastic audience response of the evening. Those who censure the faults of the ungodly; Unable to bear rebuke, THAT BRINGS us back to the question of Behold, Herod has cut off my head, why purity would be hated. Those who continue O Savior. to think, quaintly, that it is beautiful and worthy King Herod was “unable to bear rebuke” for of honor are no threat to anybody’s freedom; marrying his brother’s wife; St. John was unable their private opinion doesn’t matter to anyone to stop rebuking. We know how that story ends else. We are at a rare (perhaps unique) moment in for St. John. But for King Herod nothing changed. history, in which everyone is free to seek any kind He had not found St. John’s words persuasive, of sex they want. The old moral standards are and continued in marriage with Herodias till his long gone, and the prudes and scolds who guarded death. them have disappeared. Yet there’s still a craving Might anything persuade people to honor to find someone to cast in that role, some sexual purity, if they don’t instinctively sense its disapproving square to shock. It’s not really value? Persuasive words are hard to find, and rebellion if no one’s trying to stop you. even attempting to find them makes us look like

WALKING WITH WOMEN OF WISDOM 22 SYNAXIS 6.1 tasty targets. Meanwhile, the world keeps THE ASCETICS advertising the availability of everything they desire. What could ever change this situation? OF AUTHENTICITY Well, to take a very long view, there’s the fact d that it’s false advertising. Wanting sex is not the Ben T. Davis same thing as having it. Every year, a fresh batch A. D. 2019 of 20-year-olds rolls off the conveyor belt, and every year everyone else looks a year older. Time SEVERAL years ago I completed an endurance is relentless. Attractiveness is fleeting. The two- event known as an Ironman. For twelve hours I faced world maintains a simultaneous barrage of endured deep, strenuous pain as I swam 2.4 ads for snacky, fatty foods, which may be irresistibly miles, biked 112 miles, and ran a marathon— comforting in the wake of rejection, but make the 26.2 miles. By the time I crossed the finish line I physique even less competitive. had traversed 140.6 grueling miles in 98-degree Some years ago I noticed that there was a heat, battling an unceasing 25-mile-per-hour word that, if I said it during a speech, the audience cross-wind. Since then I have been asked: “Why would freeze. The word is “loneliness.” Having did you do it?” The only answer I have been able no obligations to anyone means no one has any to muster is this: I wanted to be authentic. obligations to you, and the possible repercussions Authenticity is difficult to define. Broadly grow more terrible with each accumulating year. speaking we can say that authenticity is the Sexual liberation has set us free, like an astronaut modern notion that one is free to be the person who cuts through his lifeline. Those annoying one wants to be according to one’s desires and prudes and scolds of earlier days represented, not moral ideals. It involves being true to oneself and their own whims, but their community’s consensus realizing the fullness of one’s personal capacities. on the bounds of acceptable behavior. The price For me, completing an Ironman was a significant of being in a community is reckoning with those way to express my freedom and stretch my expectations. The price of not being in a community capacities. I wanted to live on my own terms; I is despair. thought completing an Ironman was an authentic It’s a very long view, and in the short term act of my self-expression. we’re not likely to be any more successful than St. With a measure of wisdom, I can now say I John was. Even attempting to present the beauty learned an important lesson in that time of my of sexual purity will likely attract only that life that remains with me still: authenticity takes mysterious cruelty. But we can continue to exhort practice. To be the person I sincerely want to be, and encourage each other, and try our best not to I have to submit myself to an arduous process of let the team down. We can also be very selective training, discipline, and self-denial. To be authentic about the material we allow into our minds, I have to be ascetic. because it’s very hard to get it out again. There’s Asceticism has little purchase in our culture. no better advice than this: For moderns, it is associated with obscure religious Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever practices or self-punishment. But this common is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, view betrays an ignorance of asceticism that whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if should be overcome by closer investigation. there is anything worthy of praise, think about Behind the word “asceticism” we find the these things. (Phil. 4:8) Greek word askein, which means “to exercise” or “to train.” For ancient Greeks, askein was characteristic of athletes who endured rigorous training in order to participate in competition. Eventually the word became canonical among Greek philosophers who broadened its use to

HALL OF MEN visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 23 include the training of one’s intellect. The soul, Scientists can never have known old monks, like the body, needed to be trained for a particular wise, shrewd, unerring in judgment, and yet set of skills that prepared one for the good life. aglow with passionate insight, so very tender in Asceticism, then, was the liberating force that their humanity. What miracle enables these semi- freed the athlete as well as the philosopher to lunatics, these prisoners in their own dreams, discover an authentic way of being human. these sleepwalkers, apparently to enter more Today, however, the nature of this relationship deeply each day into the pain of others? An odd sort of dream, an unusual opiate which, far from has changed. The muscular discipline that once turning him back into himself and isolating him made authenticity a component of virtue is from his fellows, unites the individual with reduced to lazy self-infatuation. Authenticity no mankind in the spirit of universal charity! (Da longer requires ascetic practice, in other words; it Capo Press, 2002, p. 104) only requires a will to act. In some instances, the endless pursuit of authenticity is a prison—an Through asceticism and solidarity, this fellowship “iron cage,” as Max Weber put it—that modernity of suffering pilgrims becomes an authentic witness has constructed to confine the good life to to the life-giving power of Christ’s resurrection. immediate gratification. Early in the Church’s history some Christians The Christian tradition gives us an alternative went into the desert to test the strength of their vision of reality. In baptism a particular identity is baptized identity. In his article on “Asceticism as conferred that is essentially one of discipline, Healing Art,” David Fagerberg tells us these sacrifice, and radical charity. In turn, Christians desert Christians “wanted to see what it would are reoriented to an authentic way of being in the take to order a life to God” (churchlife.nd.edu). In world. Separated at the birth of modernity, time they found the desert to be a healing place authenticity and asceticism are reunited again in for their wounded souls. Seeking wisdom, others the Christian faith. went to them asking for “a word” on which they The baptized life, as David Jasper calls it, is could build their life. In reply they received an “ascetic reversal” (The Sacred Body, p. 34). stories focused on particular healing practices the John’s Gospel tells us, “Those who love their life monks had tried. As Fagerberg observes: “One lose it, and those who hate their life in this world put more emphasis on fasting; another on will keep it for eternal life” (Jn. 12:25). Baptism Scripture reading and vigils; all of them emphasized begins a journey marked by cruciform participation prayer, and all of them agreed that since charity in Christ’s kenotic life. In Christ, Christians is the goal, an opportunity to practice charity experience a beautiful death. Paradoxically, out should trump whatever asceticism you have of death they participate in Christ’s resurrection scheduled for that afternoon” (ibid.). Over time, life, which is characterized by joy, shalom, and rich liturgical and theological traditions developed beatitude. from the lives and practices of these desert monks. Christianity cultivates an ascetics of authenticity The desert became a sacred space where one that takes one out of the iron cage of self-obsession could wage war against the devil with the sword and sets one’s feet in a “broad place” (Ps. 18:19) of prayer and in turn be refreshed by deep of delight and self-donation. This “broad place” is communion with God. where idols are transformed into icons; humans St. Maximus the Confessor (590-662), an become intimations of the sacred. erudite monk who helped refine the ascetic A poignant passage from Georges Bernanos’ tradition, might be considered the Ironman of novel The Diary of a Country Priest reveals the the Christian life. He embodies the ascetics of beauty of such an authentic life. In a moment of authenticity for he knew the only way to be reflection on the true nature of prayer, the young authentically human—that is, to be transformed priest says, into the likeness of Jesus Christ—is through self- abnegation. For Maximus, theosis requires kenosis.

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In his first Century on Theology and the Incarnation, In The Ascetic Life, a deep meditation on the Maximus writes: “Baptized in Christ through the meaning of the ascetics of authenticity, St. Spirit we receive the first incorruption according Maximus speaks about continuous devotion to to the flesh. Keeping the original incorruption God: spotless by giving ourselves to good works and by It is impossible for a mind to devote itself perfectly dying to our own will, we await the final to God, except it should possess these three incorruption bestowed by Christ in the Spirit.” virtues: love, self-mastery, and prayer. Love tames Baptism is the touchstone of the authentic anger; self-mastery quenches concupiscence; Christian life. Living into the glory of our baptism, prayer withdraws the mind from all thoughts and however, requires a recalibration of the will. presents it, stripped, to God Himself. These are Recalibration comes through slow, graced, ascetic the three virtues that comprise all the virtues; practices such as fasting, silence, rigorous prayer, without these the mind cannot devote itself to charity, and ingesting the Scriptures. The strength God. (Ancient Christian Writers, No. 21, p.114) found in these practices is not instantaneous; each That the reorientation of our souls to the will of practice is like a muscle that is slowly transformed God requires more discipline, sacrifice, and over time. Muscles cannot grow stronger unless strength of endurance than any feat of human they learn to work under pressure. The same is accomplishment says something remarkable true of the soul. It gets stronger as it meets about the Christian life. To cultivate the virtues resistance. Maximus speaks of will be the most difficult task But to put it this way risks missing Maximus’s of our lives, to be sure. But the telos to which all larger vision of creation. In Maximus’s theology, our labors point is worth more than any treasure Christians are a grand choir in the magnificent we can imagine. At the end of that journey we cathedral of creation, participating in the divine gain the wisdom of knowing that the ascetics of liturgy of the cosmos. The form of their authenticity is only possible Coram Deo. participation is mimetic: Christians imitate the angelic hosts of heaven in their praise and adoration of the Holy Trinity. It is also communal: Christians don’t just imitate the angels; they also join them and the whole company of heaven as they sing an eternal hymn of thanksgiving. Out of this cosmic vision comes the ascetic virtues necessary for our participation, the highest of which is theologia, communion with God in contemplative prayer. St. Maximus is a well-traveled guide for people who are seeking to live authentically in modernity. His cosmic liturgy offers us a thicker vision of reality that is therapeutic for our restive souls. But in Maximus’s vision, we do not escape the desert. There is no theosis without kenosis. In order to see the beauty of Christ we must embrace the horrific ugliness of his Cross—which itself possesses a haunting beauty. “For,” as St. Paul says, “if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we will certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His” (Rom. 6:5).

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GOD IS AGAPE & EROS secular music and film, including the sex-infused lyrics on the radio. An impressionable thirteen- Pope Benedict XVI’s Message for year-old boy, I nodded in agreement and Our Mad Nietzschean World rededicated my life to Christian contemporary music. I surrendered all. d But I now realize that most of my peers did Matthew Umbarger not. Not long after that week of camp, most of A. D. 2019 my peers fell prey to the Nietzschean account of Christianity’s corruption of eros. The Church 167. To vigorous men intimacy is a matter of shame— was a spoilsport that didn’t want them to have and something precious. fun. Lessons in youth group about the mysterious “red line” in dating that we were forbidden to 168. Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die cross only strengthened this impression. By the of it, certainly, but degenerated to Vice. time we were in college, most of us who had ~Friedrich Nietzsche remained in the Church (and many of us did!) were just as sexually experimental as our CHRISTIAN mysticism is dependent upon unchurched friends, and the result was shame some familiarity with eros, defined by Pope over the precious intimacies that we had Benedict XVI in Deus Caritas Est as “that love experienced. Eros was poisoned and degraded for between man and woman which is neither us. All that remained was our deeply prized vice. planned nor willed, but somehow imposes itself It is no great surprise that Nietzsche’s upon human beings.” But for eros to function accusation of eros-poisoning against Christianity healthily, it has to be allied to the more profound, is couched in a work that opens by calling into self-giving love of agape. The cultural forces of question our very capability to actually know puritanism on the one hand and of libertinism on Truth. Madness! But this madness is a major the other have been struggling for many generations tributary to the relativism that so defines our now to completely divorce these loves from one culture today. When the inaccessibility of Truth another. itself is deemed axiomatic, all can be redefined You and I live in a Nietzschean world, friend, according to our personal whims, including our and from an opposing, Chestertonian perspective, selves and the forces we find at work in those that means that we live in a mad world. Because selves. That encompasses love in all its forms. we Christians remain largely ignorant of the One of those forms is eros. It never appears Nietzschean forces at work in our culture, we find under that name in the New Testament (perhaps ourselves pre-occupied with the symptomatic because at that time the pagan culture surrounding grass fires smoldering at arm’s length, unaware of the early Church had imbued it with so many their philosophical source: the blazing inferno false notions that any attempt to use the term for encroaching closer and closer to our cultural a holy purpose would have been liable to create homes. In matter of fact, to a great degree, the confusion). But it does appear in the text of the madness has infected us as well. Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old I have known (and if I want to be honest, I Testament. have been) the sort of Christian targeted in the There are, of course, the “usual suspects” two statements made above: ashamed of intimacy associated with this Greek root in the Septuagint. and afraid of eros; attempting to defeat it rather Many of the prophets use the plural of erastos and than redeem it. There were plenty of well- erastes as denominators for Israel’s illicit lovers. meaning but misguided Puritans in my early Ezekiel couples (no pun intended) erastes and spiritual formation. I remember, for instance, a erastos with another word for sexual activity that camp counselor who warned us of the evils of has no positive connotations at all: porneia. That

EIGHTH DAY EVENTS IN PRINT 26 SYNAXIS 6.1 these words occur in the plural underlines the substantially made one with Him I may never promiscuous nature of these false religious and have full rest nor true bliss; that is to say, until I be political relationships in violation to the exclusive so fastened to Him that there stands absolutely covenant relationship with Israel’s God. nothing between my God and me” (my translation). But there are also positive images of eros in It is amazing to me to discover that there is a the Septuagint. Esther 2:17, in the only literalistic precedent for such provocative language in use of the root in the Bible, employs the verbal biblical texts that were composed before the form to tell us that King Ahasuerus loved Esther. Christian era. And it is this erotic love that results in their marriage, Reflecting on this, authentic spiritual experience and consequently, the salvation of the Jewish will be greatly impoverished if it is forced to people. expunge eroticism from its mystical vocabulary. The two most positive occurrences of the eros (This is only one reason why young Christians root appear in the wisdom literature. In Proverbs need to be introduced to the right sort of secular 4:6 the narrator instructs his son to love his love songs instead of being force-fed second-rate instruction. In the greater context of this book, I Christian rock and hip-hop). Pope Benedict XVI think that it is likely that the teacher’s instruction recognizes the power of eros to beckon us is meant to be analogous, if not identical, to Lady heavenward, acknowledging that it provides a Wisdom, the unifying figure of the work. In any “certain foretaste of the pinnacle of our existence, case, in the next place that we find the verbal of that beatitude for which our whole being yearns” form of eros in the wisdom literature, the author (Deus Caritas Est 4). But the converse is true, as is explicitly professing his love for Lady Wisdom. well: human erotic relationships that are forced to “I loved her and sought her from my youth, and I bear the burden of mystical encounter will desired to take her for my bride, and I became inevitably wear down; we will leave each old flame enamored of her beauty” (Wisdom 8:2, RSVCE). to look for a new one, attempting to rekindle The word in italics is erastes, literally, “a lover.” something we remember as a distant memory. It Meditating on passages such as John 1:1 and will never be possible to assuage that spiritual 1 Corinthians 1:24, the early Church Fathers nostalgia with new romantic encounters, because came to identify Lady Wisdom as the Second what we are haunted with is not anything we have Person of the Holy Trinity who would come to yet personally experienced in this life. We want be hypostatically united with the humanity of the intimacy with the Lover of Our Souls that Our Lord Jesus Christ in the mystery of the was lost when we were expelled from the Garden. Incarnation. Taking this into account shows what I have to conclude that the Christianity a remarkable text Wisdom 8:2 really is. For in this Nietschze accuses of poisoning eros is not the Old Testament passage the language of erotic Christianity of the mystics, but of the half-Gnostic love is applied to unmediated union with God’s Puritans, who were equally suspicious of bodily Word. In other words, the erotic element transforms sensations and mystical encounters with God. a straightforward contemplation of God’s wisdom Unfortunately, there are huge swathes of Christians into a mystical text. In fact, a few verses down, in for whom Nietschze’s charge proves damning. verse 4, Wisdom Herself is granted the title Ironically, the sort of Christian who might prove “initiate in the knowledge of God.” The word to be easy prey for Nietschze is exactly the sort of translated “initiate” by the RSVCE is mystis, i.e., Christian that has been wearing himself out “mystic.” against the erotic impulses in his life. Mystics will Of course, the language of eros is not foreign be largely unaffected, because what Nietschze to mystical texts. There is a striking example in says, for them personally, has very little basis in the fifth chapter of Julian of Norwich’s Showings. reality. “But what the Maker, the Keeper, and the Lover We live in a mad, Nietschzean world. It is truly are to me I cannot tell, for until I am Nietschzean in two respects. First of all, we have

CATECHETICAL WORD FROM THE FATHERS visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 27 to admit that Nietschze’s portrayal of puritanical “Love Shack.” I have begun to think about the Christianity is in many respects well-deserved; driver of this car. Eros is a lot of fun, and you there has been undoubtedly an attempt to poison obviously want him along for the ride, but only a eros by a good many well-meaning Christians. madman would give him the keys. Agape will get But the rest of the world, perhaps the majority of us to our destination safely. Authentic, biblical, it, is Nietschzean in that it has adopted his orthodox Christianity insists that both eros and aggressive stance towards the Church and its agape come on this journey with us. It is madness teachings on human sexuality. Ultimately, the to choose one in opposition to the other. “liberated” eros of this Nietschzean world will cave in upon itself and degrade into vice just as surely as the poisoned eros of puritanical Christianity. The irony is that for eros to flourish, it has to be subject to careful discipline. Once again, Pope Benedict XVI provides wise counsel in what is, ultimately, a genuinely positive DEUS CARITAS EST assessment of romantic love: “eros tends to rise ‘in ecstasy’ towards the Divine, to lead us beyond God Is Love ourselves; yet for this very reason it calls for a d path of ascent, renunciation, purification and Pope Benedict XVI healing” (ibid., 5). A. D. 2005 In the same encyclical, based on a passage from Pseudo-Dionysius’ The Divine Names, Pope GOD IS love, and he who abides in love abides Benedict XVI demonstrates that God’s love is in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn. 4:16). characterized not only by the self-donative love These words from the First Letter of John express we generally associate with Him, agape, but with with remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian the seeking, desiring love of eros. Because both faith: the Christian image of God and the loves have their source in God, both come to resulting image of mankind and its destiny. In the humankind as gift, and participating in each of same verse, Saint John also offers a kind of them is in reality a participation in God’s being. summary of the Christian life: “We have come to And, though this is not explicitly said in his know and to believe in the love God has for us.” masterful encyclical, I think the ultimate message We have come to believe in God's love: in these for our mad, Nietschzean world is this: for eros to words the Christian can express the fundamental be the exquisite gift that it is meant to be, it must decision of his life. Being Christian is not the always be embedded in agape. The two go together; result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the they are not opposed. Without agape, eros becomes encounter with an event, a person, which gives the pleasure-obsessed hedonist flitting from one life a new horizon and a decisive direction. Saint tryst to another, always seeking a new and more John’s Gospel describes that event in these words: ultimate, though ultimately transitory experience. “God so loved the world that He gave His only Agape tames eros, and makes it a genuine expression Son, that whoever believes in Him should … have of faithfully willing the good of the other, of eternal life” (3:16). In acknowledging the centrality authentic love. And this is why the Suffering of love, Christian faith has retained the core of Christ is not only an image of agape, but also of Israel’s faith, while at the same time giving it new eros, as the powerful icon of Christ the Bridegroom depth and breadth. The pious Jew prayed daily states so eloquently. the words of the Book of Deuteronomy which I conclude with a bit of frivolity. In the B-52s’ expressed the heart of his existence: “Hear, O overtly erotic Love Shack, Fred Schneider tells us Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord, and you about his car, “as big as a whale,” headed to the shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,

EARLY CHRISTIAN TEXTS FOR SPIRITUAL TRAINING 28 SYNAXIS 6.1 and with all your soul and with all your might” (6:4-5). he now considers his body and his sexuality as the Jesus united into a single precept this commandment purely material part of himself, to be used and of love for God and the commandment of love exploited at will. Nor does he see it as an arena for neighbor found in the Book of Leviticus: “You for the exercise of his freedom, but as a mere shall love your neighbor as yourself ” (cf. Mk. 12:29-31). object that he attempts, as he pleases, to make Since God has first loved us (cf. 1 Jn. 4:10), love is both enjoyable and harmless. Here we are actually now no longer a mere “command”; it is the dealing with a debasement of the human body: response to the gift of love with which God draws no longer is it integrated into our overall existential near to us. . . . freedom; no longer is it a vital expression of our whole being, but it is more or less relegated to the 5. [T]here is a certain relationship between love purely biological sphere. The apparent exaltation and the Divine: love promises infinity, eternity—a of the body can quickly turn into a hatred of reality far greater and totally other than our bodiliness. Christian faith, on the other hand, has everyday existence. Yet the way to attain this goal always considered man a unity in duality, a reality is not simply by submitting to instinct. Purification in which spirit and matter compenetrate, and in and growth in maturity are called for; and these which each is brought to a new nobility. True, also pass through the path of renunciation. Far eros tends to rise “in ecstasy” towards the Divine, from rejecting or “poisoning” eros, they heal it to lead us beyond ourselves; yet for this very and restore its true grandeur. reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, This is due first and foremost to the fact that purification, and healing. man is a being made up of body and soul. Man is truly himself when his body and soul are intimately 6. Concretely, what does this path of ascent and united; the challenge of eros can be said to be purification entail? How might love be experienced truly overcome when this unification is achieved. so that it can fully realize its human and divine Should he aspire to be pure spirit and to reject promise? Here we can find a first, important the flesh as pertaining to his animal nature alone, indication in the Song of Songs, an Old Testament then spirit and body would both lose their dignity. book well known to the mystics. According to the On the other hand, should he deny the spirit and interpretation generally held today, the poems consider matter, the body, as the only reality, he contained in this book were originally love-songs, would likewise lose his greatness. The epicure perhaps intended for a Jewish wedding feast and Gassendi used to offer Descartes the humorous meant to exalt conjugal love. In this context it is greeting: “O Soul!” And Descartes would reply: highly instructive to note that in the course of the “O Flesh!” Yet it is neither the spirit alone nor book two different Hebrew words are used to the body alone that loves: it is man, the person, a indicate “love.” First there is the word dodim, a unified creature composed of body and soul, who plural form suggesting a love that is still insecure, loves. Only when both dimensions are truly indeterminate, and searching. This comes to be united, does man attain his full stature. Only thus replaced by the word ahabà, which the Greek is love—eros—able to mature and attain its version of the Old Testament translates with the authentic grandeur. similar-sounding agape, which becomes the typical Nowadays Christianity of the past is often expression for the biblical notion of love. By criticized as having been opposed to the body; contrast with an indeterminate, “searching” love, and it is quite true that tendencies of this sort this word expresses the experience of a love which have always existed. Yet the contemporary way of involves a real discovery of the other, moving exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to beyond the selfish character that prevailed earlier. pure “sex,” has become a commodity, a mere Love now becomes concern and care for the “thing” to be bought and sold, or rather, man other. No longer is it self-seeking, a sinking in the himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly intoxication of happiness; instead it seeks the man's great “yes” to the body. On the contrary,

EIGHTH DAY BOOKS & CULTURE visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 29 good of the beloved: it becomes renunciation and as the distinction between possessive love and it is ready, and even willing, for sacrifice. oblative love (amor concupiscentiae – amor benevolentiae), It is part of love’s growth towards higher to which is sometimes also added love that seeks levels and inward purification that it now seeks to its own advantage. become definitive, and it does so in a twofold sense: In philosophical and theological debate, these both in the sense of exclusivity (this particular distinctions have often been radicalized to the person alone) and in the sense of being “for point of establishing a clear antithesis between ever.” Love embraces the whole of existence in them: descending, oblative love—agape—would each of its dimensions, including the dimension of be typically Christian, while on the other hand time. It could hardly be otherwise, since its promise ascending, possessive or covetous love—eros— looks towards its definitive goal: love looks to the would be typical of non-Christian, and particularly eternal. Love is indeed “ecstasy,” not in the sense Greek culture. Were this antithesis to be taken to of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a extremes, the essence of Christianity would be journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed detached from the vital relations fundamental to inward-looking self towards its liberation through human existence, and would become a world self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery apart, admirable perhaps, but decisively cut off and indeed the discovery of God: “Whoever seeks from the complex fabric of human life. Yet eros and to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his agape—ascending love and descending love—can life will preserve it” (Lk. 17:33), as Jesus says never be completely separated. The more the throughout the Gospels (cf. Mt. 10:39; 16:25; Mk. two, in their different aspects, find a proper unity 8:35; Lk. 9:24; Jn. 12:25). In these words, Jesus in the one reality of love, the more the true nature portrays His own path, which leads through the of love in general is realized. Even if eros is at Cross to the Resurrection: the path of the grain first mainly covetous and ascending, a fascination of wheat that falls to the ground and dies, and in for the great promise of happiness, in drawing this way bears much fruit. Starting from the depths near to the other, it is less and less concerned with of His own sacrifice and of the love that reaches itself, increasingly seeks the happiness of the fulfillment therein, He also portrays in these words other, is concerned more and more with the the essence of love and indeed of human life itself. beloved, bestows itself and wants to “be there for” the other. The element of agape thus enters 7. By their own inner logic, these initial, somewhat into this love, for otherwise eros is impoverished philosophical reflections on the essence of love and even loses its own nature. On the other hand, have now brought us to the threshold of biblical man cannot live by oblative, descending love faith. We began by asking whether the different, alone. He cannot always give, he must also receive. or even opposed, meanings of the word “love” Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive point to some profound underlying unity, or love as a gift. Certainly, as the Lord tells us, one whether on the contrary they must remain can become a source from which rivers of living unconnected, one alongside the other. More water flow (cf. Jn. 7:37-38). Yet to become such a significantly, though, we questioned whether the source, one must constantly drink anew from the message of love proclaimed to us by the Bible original source, which is Jesus Christ, from whose and the Church’s Tradition has some points of pierced heart flows the love of God (cf. Jn. 19:34). contact with the common human experience of In the account of Jacob’s ladder, the Fathers love, or whether it is opposed to that experience. of the Church saw this inseparable connection This in turn led us to consider two fundamental between ascending and descending love, between words: eros, as a term to indicate “worldly” love eros which seeks God and agape which passes on and agape, referring to love grounded in and the gift received, symbolized in various ways. In shaped by faith. The two notions are often that biblical passage we read how the Patriarch contrasted as “ascending” love and “descending” Jacob saw in a dream, above the stone which was love. There are other, similar classifications, such

A CATALOG OF BOOK REVIEWS & ESSAYS 30 SYNAXIS 6.1 his pillow, a ladder reaching up to heaven, on and earth, who is thus the God of all. Two facts which the angels of God were ascending and are significant about this statement: all other gods descending (cf. Gn. 28:12; Jn. 1:51). A particularly are not God, and the universe in which we live striking interpretation of this vision is presented has its source in God and was created by Him. by Pope Gregory the Great in his Pastoral Rule. He Certainly, the notion of creation is found elsewhere, tells us that the good pastor must be rooted in yet only here does it become absolutely clear that contemplation. Only in this way will he be able to it is not one god among many, but the one true take upon himself the needs of others and make God Himself who is the source of all that exists; them his own: “per pietatis viscera in se infirmitatem the whole world comes into existence by the caeterorum transferat.” Saint Gregory speaks in this power of His creative Word. Consequently, His context of Saint Paul, who was borne aloft to the creation is dear to Him, for it was willed by Him most exalted mysteries of God, and hence, having and “made” by Him. The second important descended once more, he was able to become all element now emerges: this God loves man. The things to all men (cf. 2 Cor. 12:2-4; 1 Cor. 9:22). divine power that Aristotle at the height of Greek He also points to the example of Moses, who philosophy sought to grasp through reflection, is entered the tabernacle time and again, remaining indeed for every being an object of desire and of in dialogue with God, so that when he emerged love—and as the object of love this divinity moves he could be at the service of his people. “Within the world—but in itself it lacks nothing and does [the tent] he is borne aloft through contemplation, not love: it is solely the object of love. The one while without he is completely engaged in helping God in whom Israel believes, on the other hand, those who suffer: intus in contemplationem rapitur, foris loves with a personal love. His love, moreover, is infirmantium negotiis urgetur.” an elective love: among all the nations He chooses Israel and loves her—but He does so precisely 8. …Fundamentally, “love” is a single reality, but with a view to healing the whole human race. with different dimensions; at different times, one God loves, and His love may certainly be called or other dimension may emerge more clearly. Yet eros, yet it is also totally agape. when the two dimensions are totally cut off from The Prophets, particularly Hosea and Ezekiel, one another, the result is a caricature or at least described God’s passion for His people using an impoverished form of love. And we have also boldly erotic images. God’s relationship with Israel seen, synthetically, that biblical faith does not set is described using the metaphors of betrothal and up a parallel universe, or one opposed to that marriage; idolatry is thus adultery and prostitution. primordial human phenomenon which is love, Here we find a specific reference—as we have but rather accepts the whole man; it intervenes in seen—to the fertility cults and their abuse of eros, his search for love in order to purify it and to but also a description of the relationship of fidelity reveal new dimensions of it. This newness of between Israel and her God. The history of the biblical faith is shown chiefly in two elements love-relationship between God and Israel consists, which deserve to be highlighted: the image of at the deepest level, in the fact that He gives her God and the image of man. the Torah, thereby opening Israel’s eyes to man’s 9. First, the world of the Bible presents us with a true nature and showing her the path leading to new image of God. In surrounding cultures, the true humanism. It consists in the fact that man, image of God and of the gods ultimately remained through a life of fidelity to the one God, comes to unclear and contradictory. In the development of experience himself as loved by God, and discovers biblical faith, however, the content of the prayer joy in truth and in righteousness—a joy in God fundamental to Israel, the Shema, became which becomes his essential happiness: “Whom increasingly clear and unequivocal: “Hear, O do I have in heaven but You? And there is nothing Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord” (Dt. 6:4). upon earth that I desire besides You … for me it There is only one God, the Creator of heaven is good to be near God” (Ps. 73:25, 28).

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10. We have seen that God’s eros for man is also God and man remain themselves and yet become totally agape. This is not only because it is bestowed fully one. As Saint Paul says: “He who is united to in a completely gratuitous manner, without any the Lord becomes one spirit with Him” (1 Cor. 6:17). previous merit, but also because it is love which 11. The first novelty of biblical faith consists, as forgives. Hosea above all shows us that this agape we have seen, in its image of God. The second, dimension of God’s love for man goes far beyond essentially connected to this, is found in the image the aspect of gratuity. Israel has committed of man. The biblical account of creation speaks “adultery” and has broken the covenant; God of the solitude of Adam, the first man, and God’s should judge and repudiate her. It is precisely at decision to give him a helper. Of all other creatures, this point that God is revealed to be God and not not one is capable of being the helper that man man: “How can I give you up, O Ephraim! How needs, even though he has assigned a name to all can I hand you over, O Israel! … My heart recoils the wild beasts and birds and thus made them within me, my compassion grows warm and fully a part of his life. So God forms woman from tender. I will not execute my fierce anger, I will the rib of man. Now Adam finds the helper that not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not he needed: “This at last is bone of my bones and man, the Holy One in your midst” (Hos. 11:8-9). flesh of my flesh” (Gn. 2:23). Here one might detect God’s passionate love for His people—for hints of ideas that are also found, for example, in humanity—is at the same time a forgiving love. It the myth mentioned by Plato, according to which is so great that it turns God against Himself, His man was originally spherical, because he was love against His justice. Here Christians can see a complete in himself and self-sufficient. But as a dim prefigurement of the mystery of the Cross: punishment for pride, he was split in two by Zeus, so great is God’s love for man that by becoming so that now he longs for his other half, striving man He follows him even into death, and so with all his being to possess it and thus regain his reconciles justice and love. integrity. While the biblical narrative does not The philosophical dimension to be noted in speak of punishment, the idea is certainly present this biblical vision, and its importance from the that man is somehow incomplete, driven by standpoint of the history of religions, lies in the nature to seek in another the part that can make fact that on the one hand we find ourselves before him whole, the idea that only in communion with a strictly metaphysical image of God: God is the the opposite sex can he become “complete.” The absolute and ultimate source of all being; but this biblical account thus concludes with a prophecy universal principle of creation—the Logos, primordial about Adam: “Therefore a man leaves his father reason—is at the same time a lover with all the and his mother and cleaves to his wife and they passion of a true love. Eros is thus supremely become one flesh” (Gn. 2:24). ennobled, yet at the same time it is so purified as Two aspects of this are important. First, eros is to become one with agape. We can thus see how somehow rooted in man’s very nature; Adam is a the reception of the Song of Songs in the canon seeker, who “abandons his mother and father” in of sacred Scripture was soon explained by the order to find woman; only together do the two idea that these love songs ultimately describe represent complete humanity and become “one God’s relation to man and man’s relation to God. flesh.” The second aspect is equally important. Thus the Song of Songs became, both in Christian From the standpoint of creation, eros directs man and Jewish literature, a source of mystical towards marriage, to a bond which is unique and knowledge and experience, an expression of the definitive; thus, and only thus, does it fulfill its essence of biblical faith: that man can indeed deepest purpose. Corresponding to the image of enter into union with God—his primordial a monotheistic God is monogamous marriage. aspiration. But this union is no mere fusion, a Marriage based on exclusive and definitive love sinking in the nameless ocean of the Divine; it is becomes the icon of the relationship between a unity which creates love, a unity in which both God and his people and vice versa. God’s way of

RENEWING CULTURE THROUGH FAITH & LEARNING 32 SYNAXIS 6.1 loving becomes the measure of human love. This In some sense, we can sympathize with the close connection between eros and marriage in culture. Maleness is certainly more associated the Bible has practically no equivalent in extra- with aggression and violence than femaleness. biblical literature. Sexual assault in the workplace is (statistically) perpetrated by men. Men, especially young men, are associated with school shootings and gang violence. Christians should concede these facts. Where we differ, then, is on where we locate the cause of violence. Culture blames patriarchy. Christians should blame the failure of patriarchy. NOTES TOWARDS THE We face a difficult task in attempting to recover something of the traditional understanding DEFINITION OF PATRIARCHY of masculinity and maleness. As an aid to this d recovery, we could begin by articulating as clearly Joshua Sturgill as we can among ourselves what is and what is A. D. 2019 not genuine patriarchy. Perhaps the negative definition is needed first. We can state immediately that patriarchy is HOW MIGHT Christians think about the not a conspiracy of men united for the purpose of difficult and divisive topic of patriarchy? exploiting and oppressing women. Patriarchy is In current political and cultural discussions, not an organization dedicated to concentrating patriarchy is purely negative. The word is used all social power in the hands of men. Patriarchy is (without precision) as a category for defining and not a relic of outdated modes of thought. We dismissing any form of social organization in acknowledge that oppression certainly happened, which men are systematically given positions of and does happen, at various times and places. We authority. To label a society or organization also acknowledge that while human beings can be “patriarchal” is, in current terms, to condemn generally violent toward one another, male and reject that society or organization as oppressive, violence has the potential to be far more ignorant, and resistant to progress. devastating. This understanding of patriarchy is consistent However, we also assert that oppression and with the general appraisal of maleness in our violence are not inherently patriarchal. From a media, a portrayal which we might describe from traditional point of view, violence breaks out its two extremes. On one hand, we are told explicitly when patriarchy collapses. A system that that masculinity is an illness linked to extreme perpetuates male dominance at the expense of aggression and violence. On the other hand, men women and children is anti-patriarchal. Anti- —especially fathers—are portrayed in media as patriarchal because it would be composed, not of ignorant, immature or ridiculous. These twin spiritually healthy men, but of materially greedy evils, we could call them “toxic masculinity” and men who were more concerned for their own “sentimental ineptitude,” are presented to us comfort than for the nurture and protection of simultaneously. Fearing male power, we entertain their families—and, by extension, the health of ourselves with images of powerless men. their whole culture. From this perspective, many Everyone who participates in American cries of “down with patriarchy!” might be culture accepts and believes these two poles of amended “down with false patriarchy!” or, if we the rejection of the male to some degree. We are dare, replaced with “bring back genuine patriarchy!” so saturated with statistics and stereotypes which So what is true and authentic Patriarchy? A reinforce a negative image of maleness that even comprehensive definition would take several Christians and others who would consider themselves traditional in their views are affected.

EIGHTH DAY SYMPOSIUM visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 33 essays, but for the purpose of a good beginning, societies throughout history demonstrates the we could start here: success of patriarchy within those societies. Civilizations that have great longevity— Patriarchy is a form of governance within a society China, India, Persia, Greece—all have embedded which regulates and channels masculine energy patriarchal structures. These are also the societies toward the creative, the sustaining, and the sacred. in which the ideas of the sacred and transcendent More could be added or explained. But taking have found their richest expressions. each phrase of this definition singly we might With our definition still in mind, let us be imagine the conversation reestablished (at least, clear. Patriarchy is still a human institution. It fails among Christians) on more positive and pragmatic because it is fallible, and it is abused because it is ground. effective. We might even ask if patriarchy is Patriarchy is a form of governance. Patriarchy necessary. Are there other sustainable cultural does, in fact, involve rulership and stewardship. It norms? Can we have society without patriarchy? implies structures, roles, and ranks in order to Patriarchy is not necessary, and there are and govern effectively. It may or may not involve have been non-patriarchal societies. What hereditary offices. It may or may not have roles complicates the question, however, is that, if we reserved exclusively for men. Monarchy, for are honest, we have to admit that what we call instance, is a patriarchal institution, but women “culture” is precisely the result of a supportive may rule. patriarchy within a society. This is not because Patriarchy operates within a society. A purely only men produce culture; it is because the patriarchal society is not possible. Thus it may be contribution men make has the potential to be most accurate to speak of ‘the patriarchal highly creative or highly destructive. Genuine element’ of a culture, rather than to speak of patriarchy encourages foresight and creativity ‘patriarchal culture’. Patriarchy is never the and discourages immediacy and consumerism. culture itself. This is because cultures that can When male creativity flourishes to a high degree sustain themselves for centuries must have and female creativity is not impeded by cultural creative roles for both men and women. Within a instability, then a culture blooms with art, society, the patriarchy might be compared to the literature, music, poetry, and science. Healthy skeleton of a body. The skeleton gives the body children are born and healthy minds are structure through rigidity, but muscles provide educated and maintained. movement and organs provide health. We do not know and can’t foresee all the Patriarchy regulates and channels masculine consequences of completely removing patriarchy energy. What we see in the world around us—from where patriarchy was once established. But it terrorism to road rage—is acknowledged to be the does appear that the dissolution of patriarchy result of particularly male aggression. Patriarchy is leads to the situation we face today in American a system in which men regulate other men and society. Ironically, we seem to be crying “down keep them accountable to certain standards of with the patriarchy” long after true patriarchy is behavior. Again, because male violence can be gone or decayed beyond recognition; and we are destructive on a mass scale, it is mature males in danger of inventing patriarchy where there is who must guide and correct immature males. No none in order to feel that we have achieved some amount of classroom-style education or sitcom- measure of control over the encroaching chaos. style entertainment will curb male energy if it It may be too late to ask the world around us becomes unstable in a society. to accept or even consider the idea of a genuine Patriarchy strives for the creative, the sustaining, and patriarchy. The word is firmly encrusted with the sacred. As far as we know, the most successful hate and contempt for history, religion, family, and stable cultures have been patriarchal. A authority—in short, all that which is genuinely survey of sustainable, art-and-literature-producing human in our past, good and ill. If we are to

A MERE CHRISTIAN GATHERING 34 SYNAXIS 6.1 guess what will replace these things, we must of this process. It is in the outlying territories of wonder if it will be some kind of post-human, our civilization, in Russia on the one hand, and in post-cultural monstrosity. North America on the other, that its success has Meanwhile, whatever is lovely, whatever is been greatest and that its results can be most pure, whatever is genuinely patriarchal, whatever easily studied. In Russia the change is being is truly feminine, whatever is in your garden, carried through consciously and deliberately by whatever is cultured and gendered and lives free the power of the government in the face of the from the oppression of technology—think on passive resistance of a society which still rests these things. largely on the foundations of a primitive peasant culture. In America, on the other hand, it is the unfettered development of the new economic forces which has produced the change, and public opinion and social authority still attempt to preserve as far as possible the moral and social traditions of the older culture. But in spite of this CHRISTIANITY & SEX important difference, there is a curious similarity between the two societies. In both cases there is d the same cult of the machine and the same Christopher Dawson tendency to subordinate every other side of human A. D. 1930 life to economic activity. In both the individual is subjected to a ruthless pressure which produces a WESTERN civilization at the present day is standardized type of mass civilization. And finally passing through a crisis which is essentially we see in both societies the breaking down of the different from anything that has been previously family as a fixed social unit and the rise of a new experienced. Other societies in the past have type of morality, based upon the complete changed their social institutions or their religious emancipation of sexual relations from the old beliefs under the influence of external forces or social restrictions. Although America has not the slow development of internal growth. But gone so far as Russia, where marriage is now a none, like our own, has ever consciously faced the purely voluntary arrangement terminable on the prospect of a fundamental alteration of the beliefs demand of either party, it has rendered divorce and institutions on which the whole fabric of exceedingly easy. . . . social life rests. Underneath the self-conscious Of all the symptoms of change that I have activity of the ruling classes the daily life of the mentioned this breakdown of the traditional majority of men went on unchanged. The morality is undoubtedly the most important, for it statesmen of the past would no more have thought involves a profound biological change in the life of altering the fundamental social and moral of society. A society can undergo a considerable relations than of interfering with the course of transformation of its economic conditions and yet the seasons. But on the contrary the change preserve its vital continuity, but if a fundamental which is actually taking place in the modern social unit like the family loses its coherence and world leaves no aspect of social life or moral life takes on a new form this continuity is destroyed unaffected. Civilization is being uprooted from its and a new social organism comes into existence. foundations in nature and tradition is being This is not always recognized by the advocates of reconstituted in a new organization which is as the new morality. . . . artificial and mechanical as a modern factory. The European society of the past, like every In Western Europe, however, the traditions of other strong and healthy society, has always rested the older culture, although greatly weakened, are on the foundation of marriage. It is, however, still strong enough to prevent the full development incompatible with the complete mechanization of

SYNAXIS visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 35 social life which is the characteristic feature of the are to be found stated in their most incisive and new type of civilization. For if the primary social paradoxical form in the writings of Diderot, La unit is a natural biological group which is defended Mettrie, and their friends. In Protestant lands, by the strongest moral and religious sanctions, however, and above all in England and America, society can never become sheer mechanism, nor the revolt against tradition did not extend to moral can the economic organization of the state absorb principles. Indeed, the leaders of “advanced the whole life of the citizen. If, on the other hand, thought” and particularly the feminists were marriage is transformed into a temporary usually persons of exceptionally strict traditional arrangement for the satisfaction of the sexual morality, while the Victorian agnostics professed impulse and for mutual companionship, which is an unbounded admiration for the ethical ideals not intended to create a permanent social unit, it of the religion which they combated on intellectual is clear that the family loses its social and economic grounds. importance and that the state will take its place as Today all this is changed. The attack on the guardian and educator of the children. Society tradition has shifted to the sphere of morals, and will no longer consist of a number of organisms, men no longer believe that it is possible to throw each of which possess a limited autonomy, but over the religious doctrines of Christianity, and will be one vast unity which controls the whole yet preserve the moral and social traditions of life of the individual citizen from the cradle to the European civilization intact. Consequently our grave. civilization is now faced with a definite issue. We Hence it is easy to understand the reasons for have to choose between two contradictory ideals the hostility of the Communist, and even of the —on the one hand, that of the traditional milder type of socialist, represented by Mr. Bernard Christian morality which finds its most complete Shaw, to the traditional code of sexual morality expression in Catholicism—on the other, the ideal and to the old form of marriage, since the of a purely hedonist morality, which involves destruction of these is an indispensible condition unrestricted freedom in sexual relations and the for the realization of their social ideals. But this reorganization of marriage and the family. . . . does not altogether explain the strength of the The Church maintains the original and modern attack on marriage and morals. The inalienable rights of the family against the claims ordinary follower of the new ethics is not necessarily of the modern state to override them. Leo XIII an admirer of the ideals of social mechanization writes: “No human law can abolish the natural and mass civilization. He or she is often just the and original right of marriage, ordained by God’s reverse—an individualist and a rebel who is in authority from the beginning. . . . Hence we have revolt against every kind of social discipline and the Family, the society of a man’s house, a society external compulsion. He seeks not mechanism limited in number, but no less a true society but freedom, and his hostility to marriage springs anterior to every kind of state and nation, invested from a romantic idealization of sex and a desire with rights and duties of its own totally independent to free his emotional life from all social constraints. of the civil community” (Rerum Novarum, 1891). The intellectual propaganda against the traditional Hence, as Leo XIII pointed out elsewhere, in morality which is so evident in England today is, his encyclical on marriage (Arcanum Divinum, 1880), in fact, the tail-end of the great liberal assault on the alteration by the state of the fundamental authority and social tradition which had its origins laws that govern marriage and family life will in the eighteenth century. In Catholic countries ultimately lead to the ruin of society itself. No the moral aspects of the liberal revolt were evident doubt the state will gain in power and prestige as from the beginning. The Encyclopedists attacked the family declines, but state and society are not the moral code of Christianity even more fiercely identical. In fact the state is often most omnipotent than its theological doctrines, and all the stock and universal in its claims at the moment when arguments of the modern English sex reformers society is dying, as we see in the last age of the

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Roman Empire. As the vital energy of society remains bound to its elaborate and cumbrous declined, the machinery of bureaucratic mechanism of tribal custom. administration grew more vast and more The patriarchal family on the other hand complicated, until the wretched provincial was makes much greater demands on human nature. often glad to abandon his household and take It requires chastity and self-sacrifice on the part refuge in the desert or among the barbarians in of the wife and obedience and discipline on the order to escape from the intolerable pressure part of the children, while even the father himself exercised by the ubiquitous agents of the has to assume a heavy burden of responsibility bureaucracy. and submit his personal feelings to the interests At the present day we have reason to ask of the family tradition. But for these very reasons ourselves whether modern civilization is not the patriarchal family is a much more efficient threatened with a similar danger owing to the organ of cultural life. It is no longer limited to its absorption of the whole of human life in the primary sexual and reproductive functions. It artificial order of bureaucracy and industrialism. becomes the dynamic principle of society and the The introduction of the new moral code would source of social continuity. Hence too it acquires remove the last obstacle to the complete a distinctively religious character, which was mechanization of society and lead to the final absent in matrilinear societies, and which is now supersession of the independent family by the expressed in the worship of family hearth or the state. No amount of governmental organization sacred fire and the ceremonies of the ancestral can supply the place of the natural reserves of cult. The fundamental idea in marriage is no vitality on which social health depends. If the longer the satisfaction of the sexual appetite, but, Catholic theory of society is true, the supersession as Plato says: “the need that every man feels of of the family means not progress, but the death clinging to the eternal life of nature by leaving of society, the end of our age and the passing of behind him children’s children who may minister European civilization. . . . to the gods in his stead” (Laws, 773F). The institution of the family inevitably creates This religious exaltation of the family a vital tension which is creative as well as painful. profoundly affects men’s attitude to marriage and For human culture is not instinctive. It has to be the sexual aspects of life in general. It is not conquered by a continuous moral effort, which limited, as is often supposed, to the idealization involves the repression of natural instinct and the of the possessive male as father and head of the subordination and sacrifice of the individual household; it equally transforms the conception impulse to the social purpose. It is the fundamental of womanhood. It was the patriarchal family error of the modern hedonist to believe that man which created those spiritual ideals of motherhood can abandon moral effort and throw off every and virginity which have had so deep an influence repression and spiritual discipline and yet preserve on the moral development of culture. No doubt all the achievements of culture. It is the lesson of the deification of womanhood through the worship history that the higher the achievement of a culture of the Mother Goddess had its origin in the the greater is the moral effort and the stricter is ancient matrilinear societies. But the primitive the social discipline that it demands. The old type Mother Goddess is a barbaric and formidable of matrilinear society, though it is by no means deity who embodies the ruthless fecundity of devoid of moral discipline, involves considerably nature, and her rites are usually marked by less repression and is consistent with a much laxer licentiousness and cruelty. It was the patriarchal standard of sexual behavior than is usual in culture which transformed this sinister goddess patriarchal societies. But at the same time it is not into the gracious figures of Demeter and capable of any high cultural achievement or of Persephone and Aphrodite, and which created adapting itself to changed circumstances. It those higher types of divine virginity which we

FLOROVSKY WEEK visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 37 see in Athene, the giver of good counsel, and of alien elements, above all from the servile class. Artemis, the guardian of youth. Thus the ancient world lost its roots in the family The patriarchal society was in fact the creator and in the land and became prematurely withered. of those moral ideas which have entered so deeply The reconstitution of Western civilization into the texture of civilization that they have was due to the coming of Christianity and the become a part of our thought. Not only the names reestablishment of the family on a new basis. of piety and chastity, honor and modesty, but the Though the Christian ideal of the family owes values for which they stand are derived from this much to the patriarchal tradition which finds source, so that even where the patriarchal family such a complete expression in the Old Testament, has passed away we are still dependent on the it was in several respects a new creation that moral tradition that it created. Consequently, we differed essentially from anything that had find that the existing world civilizations from previously existed. While the patriarchal family in Europe to China are all founded on the tradition its original form was an aristocratic institution of the patriarchal family. It is to this that they which was the privilege of a ruling race or a owed the social strength which enabled them to patrician class, the Christian family was common prevail over the old cultures of matrilinear type to every class, even to the slaves. Still more which, alike in Europe and in Western Asia, in important was the fact that the Church insisted China and in India, had preceded the coming of for the first time on the mutual and bilateral the great classical cultures. Moreover, the stability character of sexual obligations. The husband of the latter has proved to be closely dependent belonged to the wife as exclusively as the wife to on the preservation of the patriarchal ideal. A the husband. This rendered marriage a more civilization like that of China, in which the personal and individual relation than it had been patriarchal family remained the cornerstone of under the patriarchal system. The family was no society and the foundation of religion and ethics, longer a subsidiary member of a larger unity— has preserved its cultural traditions for more than the kindred or gens. It was an autonomous self- 2,000 years without losing its vitality. In the classical contained unit which owed nothing to any power cultures of the Mediterranean world, however, outside of itself. this was not the case. Here the patriarchal family It is precisely this character of exclusiveness failed to adapt itself to the urban conditions of and strict mutual obligation which is the chief the Hellenistic civilization, and consequently the ground of objection among the modern critics of whole culture lost its stability. Conditions of life Christian morality. But, whatever may be thought both in the Greek city-state and in the Roman of it, there can be no doubt that the resultant Empire favored the man without a family who type of monogamous and indissoluble marriage could devote his whole energies to the duties and has been the foundation of European society and pleasures of public life. Late marriages and small has conditioned the whole development of our families became the rule, and men satisfied their civilization. No doubt it involves a very severe sexual instincts by homosexuality or by relations effort of repression and discipline, but its upholders with slaves and prostitutes. This aversion to would maintain that it has rendered possible an marriage and the deliberate restriction of the achievement which could never have been equaled family by the practice of infanticide and abortion under the laxer conditions of polygamous or was undoubtedly the main cause of the decline matrilinear societies. There is no historical of ancient Greece, as Polybius pointed out in the justification for Bertrand Russell’s belief that the second century B.C. And the same factors were Christian attitude to marriage has had a equally powerful in the society of the Empire, brutalizing effect on sexual relations and has where the citizen class even in the provinces was degraded the position of women below even the extraordinarily sterile and was recruited not by level of ancient civilization: on the contrary, natural increase, but by the constant introduction women have always had a wider share in social

RETURNING TO THE SOURCES FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY 38 SYNAXIS 6.1 life and a greater influence on civilization in Europe This explains the anomalies of the Victorian than was the case in Hellenic or oriental society. period both in England and America. It was And this is in part due to those very ideals of essentially an age of transition. Society had already asceticism and chastity which Bertrand Russell entered on a phase of intense urban industrialism, regards as the source of all our troubles. For in a while still remaining faithful to the patriarchal Catholic civilization the patriarchal ideal is ideals of the old Puritan tradition. Both Puritan counterbalanced by the ideal of virginity. The morality and industrial mass economy were excessive family for all its importance does not control the and one-sided developments, and when the two whole existence of its members. The spiritual side were brought together in one society they inevitably of life belongs to a spiritual society in which all produced an impossible situation. authority is reserved to a celibate class. Thus in The problem that faces us today is, therefore, one of the most important aspects of life the not so much the result of an intellectual revolt sexual relation is transcended, and husband and against the traditional Christian morality; it is due wife stand on an equal footing. I believe that this to the inherent contradictions of an abnormal is the chief reason why the feminine element has state of culture. The natural tendency, which is achieved fuller expression in Catholic culture and even more clearly visible in American than in why, even at the present day, the feminine revolt England, is for the Puritan tradition to be against the restrictions of family life is so much abandoned and for society to give itself up passively less marked in Catholic society than elsewhere. to the machinery of modern cosmopolitan life. In Protestant Europe, on the other hand, the But this is no solution. It leads merely to the Reformation, by abandoning the ideal of virginity breaking down of the old structure of society and and by the destruction of monasticism and of the loss of the traditional moral standards without independent authority of the Church, accentuated creating anything which can take their place. As the masculine element in the family. The Puritan in the decline of the ancient world, the family is spirit, nourished on the traditions of the Old steadily losing its form and its social significance, Testament, created a new patriarchalism and and the state absorbs more and more of the life made the family the religious as well as the social of its members. The home is no longer a center basis of society. Civilization lost its communal of social activity; it has become merely a sleeping and public character and became private and place for a number of independent wage earners. domestic. And yet, by a curious freak of historical The functions which were formerly fulfilled by development, it was this Puritan and patriarchal the head of the family are now being taken over society which gave birth to the new economic by the state, which educates the children and order which now threatens to destroy the family. takes responsibility for their maintenance and Industrialism grew up, not in the continental health. Consequently the father no longer holds a centers of urban culture, but in the most remote vital position in the family: as Mr. Bertrand Russell districts of rural England, in the homes of says, he is often a comparative stranger to his nonconformist weavers and ironworkers. The children who know him only as “that man who new industrial society was entirely destitute of the comes for weekends.” Moreover the reaction communal spirit and of the civic traditions which against the restrictions of family life, which in the had marked the ancient and the medieval city. It ancient world was confined to the males of the existed simply for the production of wealth and citizen class, is today common to every class and left every other side of life to private initiative. to both sexes. To the modern girl marriage and Although the old rural culture, based on the motherhood appear not as the conditions of a household as an independent economic unit, was wider life, as they did to her grandmother, but as passing away forever, the strict ethos of the Puritan involving the sacrifice of her independence and family continued to rule men’s lives. the abandonment of her career.

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The only remaining safeguards of family life laws of reason, can be met only by the equally in modern urban civilization are its social prestige objective reality of spirit. Although sex cannot be and the sanctions of moral and religious tradition. rationalized, it can be spiritualized, for man finds Marriage is still the only form of sexual union in religion a force which is capable of taking which is openly tolerated by society, and the possession of the will no less completely than ordinary man and woman are usually ready to physical passion. Of course the very idea of sacrifice their personal convenience rather than spiritual reality is today generally rejected. The to risk social ostracism. But if we accept the rationalist regards it as a metaphysical delusion, principles of the new morality, this last safeguard while to Mr. Lawrence it is itself the offspring of will be destroyed and the forces of dissolution will rationalism, an abstraction of “the white mind.” be allowed to operate unchecked. It is true that To the religious mind, however, spiritual reality is Mr. Russell, at least, is willing to leave us the not an ideal or a metaphysical abstraction, it is a institution of marriage, on condition that it is living Being—Deus fortis vivus. And even those strictly demoralized and no longer makes any who refuse all objective validity to this belief, demands on continence. But it is obvious that cannot deny its tremendous psychological these conditions reduce marriage to a very potency, for experience shows that it is the one subordinate position. It is no longer the exclusive power in the world that is stronger than self- or even the normal form of sexual relations; it is interest and sensuality, and that it is capable of entirely limited to the rearing of children. For, as transforming human nature and altering the Mr. Russell is never tired of pointing out, the use course of history. The real danger of religion is of contraceptives has made sexual intercourse not that it is too weak or too abstract to affect independent of parenthood, and the marriage of human conduct, but rather that it is so absolute the future will be confined to those who seek and uncompromising that nature may become parenthood for its own sake rather than as the crushed and overwhelmed: natural fulfillment of sexual love. But under these oppressa gravi sub religione circumstances who will trouble to marry? Marriage Quae caput a coeli regionibus ostendebat will lose all attractions for the young and the Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans. pleasure-loving and the poor and the ambitious. The energy of youth will be devoted to contraceptive [crushed under heavy Religion love and only when men and women have become which was displaying its head from the regions of the sky prosperous and middle-aged will they think seriously lowering with a horrible force over mortals. of settling down to rear a strictly limited family. . . . ~Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, I.63-65] The true alternative to social suicide is not This is no imaginary danger. We have in sexual communism, but the restoration of the Buddhism the example of a great world religion family. . . . When the age of transition has passed, which has founded itself on the radical denial of if our civilization has survived the crisis, the family life and which regards birth and sexual desire as will no longer be left to sink or swim in the unmitigated evils. Nor is this attitude peculiar to economic current, it will be re-established not as Buddhism. It was equally characteristic of the an economic unit, but in its higher function as the Gnostic and Manichaean movements which were primary organ of social life and the guardian of the most dangerous rivals of early Christianity cultural tradition. The more we realize that the and it affected the Christian mind itself through prosperity of society depends not on economic the apocryphal Gospels and Acts, and many production but on the quality of the population, other subterranean channels. the greater will be the importance of the family Nevertheless this tendency never captured the which is the only true guardian of the race… Church. She insisted from the first that “marriage There is a Catholic solution. The concrete is honorable in all and the marriage bed undefiled.” reality of sex, which is too strong for the abstract Although Catholicism conquered the world by its

THE FLOROVSKY JOURNAL 40 SYNAXIS 6.1 ideals of virginity and martyrdom, it never denied of instinctive desire, nor is it an abstract moral the good of marriage or the good life. If the union of wills. It is the physical expression or asceticism of the monks of the desert appears to incarnation of a spiritual union in which the us purely negative and hostile to life, we must sexual act has become the vehicle of a higher remember that it was only by a complete break creative purpose. It is for this reason that marriage with the old world—by going out into the is regarded by the Church as a type and a wilderness and making a fresh start—that it was sacramental participation of the central mystery possible to realize the independence and autonomy of the Faith—the marriage of God and Man in of Christian ideals. Above all sex had to be the Incarnation. As humanity is saved and deified rescued from the degradation and vulgarization by Christ, so the natural functions of sex and that had overtaken it in the decadence of reproduction are spiritualized by the sacrament Graeco-Roman society, and this could only be of marriage. accomplished by a drastic process of discipline At first sight this doctrine may seem infinitely and purgation. Catholicism stood for the existence removed from the realities of life and of little of absolute spiritual values in a disillusioned and assistance to the practical moralist. But if we hopeless world, and consequently it had to assert once renounce the vain attempt to rationalize these values by the sacrifice of every lesser good, sexual life, we must be prepared to find in sex a not only the good of marriage, but the good of mysterious element which is akin to the ultimate life itself. The essentially positive character of the mysteries of life. The religious significance of sex Christian ideal could only be completely realized has always been felt by man. Primitive religion when the struggle with the pagan world was over, regarded it as the supreme cosmic mystery, the and consequently it is in the lives of saints such as source of the life and fruitfulness of the earth; Francis of Assisi and Philip Neri rather than St. while the higher religions also made it the basis Anthony or St. Symeon Stylites that we may find of their view of life whether in a pessimistic the fullest expression of Christian asceticism—an sense, as in Buddhism, or, as in China, in the asceticism which is fundamentally humane and metaphysical idea of a rhythmic order pervading friendly to life. It involves a heroic sacrifice of the the life of the universe. Christianity went a step natural life of sex and of the family to the service further by attributing a positive spiritual significance of God and the Christian people, but it is in no to sex and thus gave to Western civilization a sense a denial of the values that it has transcended. higher ideal of love and marriage than any other Moreover Catholicism is not content simply culture has known. If these characteristically to accept marriage as a natural good: from the European ideals are to survive, it is essential to first it has regarded marriage as possessing a preserve a spiritual basis for sexual life. Romanticism positive spiritual value and significance—as a attempted to accomplish this by making a religion means of supernatural grace. This sacramental of sex and exalting passion itself into the place of view of marriage finds its basis in the celebrated a spiritual ideal, but in doing so, it lost its hold passage of the Epistle to the Ephesians which alike on spiritual principles and physical realities. compares the union of man and woman in The true way of spiritualizing sex is not to idealize marriage to the union of Christ and the Church our emotions and to hide physical appetite under —a passage which is strangely ignored by Mr. a cloud of sentiment, but rather to bring our Russell when he declares that St. Paul never sexual life into relation with a more universal reality. “suggests that there may be any positive good in The romantic idealization of passion and the marriage or that affection between man and wife rationalist attempt to reduce love to the satisfaction may be a beautiful and desirable thing.” In fact, it of physical desire alike fail to create that permanent is precisely in the mystery of love that St. Paul basis of sexual life which can only be found in a finds the meaning of marriage. It is not merely a spiritual order which transcends the appetites and physical union of bodies under the blind compulsion the self-will of the individual. It is only when a man

EIGHTH DAY COLLOQUIUM visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 41 accepts marriage as something greater than himself, a we are first of all people of Christ, we are also sacred obligation to which he must conform people of the Book. It is most particularly in the himself, that he is able to realize all its spiritual Bible that the supreme glory of our Lord is shown and social possibilities. so that the Church can together know the One Hence the restoration of the religious view of who is the Truth, and therefore worship together. marriage, which is the Catholic ideal, is the most To read scripture as it is meant to be read, we important of all the conditions for a solution of begin with an understanding of its character. It is our present difficulties. Its importance cannot be not a static deposit of precepts to be mined, but a measured by practical considerations, for it vibrant collection of books by which the Church means the reintroduction of a spiritual principle is taught, and by which she is identified. The story of into the vital center of human life. scripture can be understood in five great acts: Act Western civilization today is threatened with 1 tells us about a creator God; Act 2 speaks of his the loss of its freedom and its humanity. It is in good creation gone askew by death, corruption danger of substituting dead mechanism for living and sin; Act 3 presents the call of the nation Israel culture. Hedonism cannot help, nor yet rationalism. to be a light to the world; Act 4 shows how that It can be saved only by a renewal of life. And this calling was fulfilled in a surprising and crucial is impossible without love, for love is the source of way in the coming, life, death, resurrection, and life, both physically and spiritually. But if physical ascension of Jesus the Christ; Act 5, in which we desire is separated from its spiritual principle and find ourselves, describes the ongoing life and made an end in itself, it ceases to be love and it healing mission of the Church through the Holy no longer gives life. It degenerates into sterile lust. Spirit in this world. We await the finale of this It is only when it is spiritualized by faith that it drama, but are given, in the Scriptures, wonderful becomes vivifying love and participates in the intimations of God’s purposes for His people and mystery of creation. Love requires faith, as life the entire cosmos. requires love. The loss of faith ultimately means The Bible came to us in human words, not merely moral disorder and suffering, but the particular to time and place. Some have used this loss of social vitality and the decay of physical human element to detract from the Bible’s life. authority, and to leash or neutralize its words on difficult subjects. Far be this from us! Rather, we *Christopher Dawson, Christianity and Sex (London: discern in the Bible’s many forms—narrative, law, Faber & Faber, 1930). gospel, psalm, epistle, apocalypse—God’s coming to be with us, for us and in us. Let us learn this story intimately, so that we can repeat it with human lips to others, and so that we can play our authentic part in it. This “we” factor is essential! The scripture implies, and indeed states explicitly, that the Word is heard not privately, but by the SAME-SEX EROTICISM whole community, past and present. When we as today’s faith community recognize, understand, A Scriptural Perspective and pass on what has been revealed, we are using d the God-given faculty of reason. Our experience Edith M. Humphrey and reason are not actual “authorities” as we A. D. 2003 understand scripture or decide about present concerns. Instead, experience (especially the A FAITHFUL reading of scripture is crucial to common experience of the Church) is our context, understanding the issue before us. Scripture is, of the place where we receive God’s love and wisdom; course, key to the thinking of the Christian. While reason is a “tool” or means of interpreting what

EQUIPPING LEADERS FOR A SECULAR AGE 42 SYNAXIS 6.1 we hear. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, How do the scriptures speak of human and steeped in the written Word of God, we sexuality? We take our cue from the Lord Jesus, measure the helpfulness of current ideas against a who answered questions about human relations long established understanding of God, the world, by going back to the creation narrative. There we and humanity, to see if they stand up to the test. learn that our created sexual differences are key As members of Christ’s Body, we are ourselves to our identity as human beings. The solemn actors in a divinely conceived drama. While our declaration of Genesis 1:27 stresses both difference “lines” are not wholly prescribed for us, our role and unity: “So God created adam in his image, in is not to improvise with abandon, mindless of the the image of God He created him, male and story line. In reading the scriptures together, and female He created them.” Sexual distinctions and by honoring the “actors” who have gone before complementarity are part of God’s good—very us, we keep within our memories and hearts the good! (cf. Gn. 1:31)—creation, though sexuality, central, major “part” in the drama—God’s part! along with other facets of human life, has been As those who have received the Spirit, we will deeply affected by sin. So powerful is this want to share in the mind of Christ, understanding communion of male and female that the Bible the word personally, but not autonomously or treats marriage as a mirror of God’s love for His individualistically. The Church has, from the people. This understanding of marriage is beginning, struggled over difficult matters. Her accentuated in the New Testament, where it is reflection and solemn decisions about ethical and celebrated as an icon of Christ’s mysterious love theological matters should be acknowledged as for the Church. Another surprise in the N.T. is that carrying authority for us younger brothers and celibacy comes to be honored there as a faithful sisters in the same family. Together with God’s way of celebrating God’s goodness. Marriage is a whole Church, past and present, we are called to wonderful echo of God’s communion with us; discern God’s voice and will, in humility and in celibacy stands as a potent reminder that here not confidence that the Holy Spirit was active, is all our needs can be met by another human being, active, and will be active in our midst. that we are designed for something more than The human authors of the scriptures, moved this age. In Matthew 19 and Mark 10, Jesus by the Divine Author, wrote in particular historical affirms both celibacy and monogamous marriage contexts. But this fact should not be used as a —“What God has joined together let no one put pretext for bypassing explicit teaching or asunder.” Our generation has already seen an perspectives which our age finds difficult. Rather, assault on God’s order by the tragic prevalence of in each case, we are to read all the pertinent texts divorce in the Church. It would seem that the carefully. Even where we conclude that a passage tumultuous call for us to “bless” so-called same- is particular to a moment in the history of God’s sex “unions” is a new way of “putting asunder” people (e.g. prohibition of pork, or head coverings what God has joined! Jesus, asked about marriage for women), we must respect the underlying by his Jewish contemporaries, had no need to theological or ethical truths. Some commands speak explicitly about homoeroticism (this had have an enduring claim (e.g. the command not to not entered their minds!). The Genesis creation murder) because they are essentially linked to account to which He refers speaks clearly about what has been revealed in the salvation story God’s intent for human partnership between about the world, our nature, and the nature of male and female. God. A faithful reading of scriptures thus means What Jesus did not need to explicitly address that we seek to understand how the passages that is certainly addressed by His apostle, St. Paul, we are reading, and the questions that we are who lived and worked in a Gentile context. Like presently asking, fit into the great forgiving, Jesus, St. Paul teaches that there are two Christian healing, and life-giving drama that has been lifestyles—marriage is so honorable that a godly initiated by God himself. partner may hope to influence an unbelieving

FEASTS visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 43 spouse; singleness is a special gift to the community Nor were the biblical writers ignorant of of the Church. Throughout 1 Corinthians, Paul homoeroticism, though they did not express the shows how our most intimate inter-relationships phenomenon in the psychological language of may become part of God’s medicine. However, our day. Indeed, in St. Paul’s time, there were neither an unlawful heterosexual relationship some who celebrated homoerotic relations as a (such as incest) nor a same-sex union can ultimately good thing. Some prominent Gentiles thought fulfill this role. Paul speaks about “freedom” in and acted this way, but neither the Hebrew the area of food, but never suggests that incest or people nor the early Christians agreed. The Bible other types of sexual immorality could be an speaks with one voice about homoerotic activity authentic expression of freedom in Christ. This is —from the story of Sodom, to the “Holiness because marriage, by its very character, requires Code” of Leviticus, to the lists of dark behaviors faithful complementarity, not the intimacy of same in the epistles, the word is, “Don’t!” The biblical types nor casual intimacy. In Christ, our sexuality, writers adopt a decisive counter-cultural stand expressed in a monogamous physical union, or against an activity that Greek and Roman poets expressed chastely by single persons in means valorized. It makes little difference whether such other than those that are erotic, becomes a powerful sexual behavior is directed by nature, by nurture, factor in helping us to be healed, and to grow up or by a combination of these two. St. Paul himself into what we are meant to be. Amidst current is well aware of the compulsive nature of sin, and assumptions that sexuality is for the purpose of self- puts forth the gospel as God’s means of dealing gratification, the Church is called to signal to the with enslaved expressions of sinfulness as well as world an entirely different attitude. Paul was sins that are deliberately chosen. Jesus Christ is scandalized that the Corinthians were allowing a the center of healing as well as of acquittal, our member of their church to engage in incest (1 Cor. Physician as well as our gracious Judge. To say 5). We have our own scandal today, and need again that the apostle would change his mind if he to hear Paul’s words—“Do not be deceived!” knew the “findings” of psychological sciences Frequently pro-gay lobbies in the Church regarding homosexuality is to ignore that the speak about same-sex eroticism as if the Bible has Bible understands well our brokenness and our little to say regarding it, and as if the biblical inclination to destructive behavior. writers were naïve. They refer to, say, the institution Both the Lord Jesus and St. Paul, then, describe of slavery, and suggest that we have moved beyond erotic expression as something blessed by God the limited understanding of the early Church. uniquely within the institution of a faithful These arguments betray an arrogance with regards marriage. Jesus makes clear that “from the to the Biblical text, and miss the mark. To begin beginning … God made them male and female” with, homoerotic behavior is not analogous to and so defines marriage for our confused age as slavery, nor even to the ministry of women in the the union of two differently gendered human beings. Church, for that matter. Though some portions In Romans 1:18-32, the apostle Paul also of the epistles deal with slavery as a given in the hearkens back to the creation story (and to the ancient world, 1 Timothy 1:10 lists slave-trading story of the Fall). Here Paul presents us with a as a vice, and Paul invites slaves to take freedom progression: lack of honor and thanksgiving to when they can. What the scriptures have to say God has led to ignorance and idolatry, which has about women in ministry is, in my view, complex, led to lustful hearts, which has led to the but to link this debate with the homosexuality degradation of the body. The most foundational issue is a “category confusion.” As my colleague example of this degradation is homoeroticism Robert Gagnon has put it “being a woman is not (including lesbianism), because this presents a a condition directly linked to sinful behavior, as is primal breach in the “male and female” humanity homoerotic desire” (Robert Gagnon, Homosexuality that God declared to be very good. Homoeroticism, and the Bible). then, is pictured as symptomatic of the first

COMMEMORATING CHRIST & THE SAINTS 44 SYNAXIS 6.1 rebellion against God. It, along with other symptoms show that Paul’s meaning is all-too-clear. He uses such as covetousness, murder, strife, gossip, deceit, these words to refer to homoerotic behavior in disloyalty and pride, show that human beings have, general, not simply to “boy prostitution” or “forced” together, turned away from the God of glory. relations, or “homosexual activity between naturally Notice that Paul is not talking here about heterosexual partners,” as some want to argue. individual persons who have homoerotic desires, In line with the New Testament, early Christian but of the phenomenon itself, which is an indicator communities retained this same view regarding of our fallen human nature. Together, the human sexual immorality, including same-sex erotic family has turned away from the Creator, refusing activity. Right up to the mid-twentieth century, to give thanks. We bear, as a race, the wounds of Christian theologians including Chrysostom, those who will not rejoice in what God has made, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin and Karl Barth have and in who we are. Homoerotic activity, because understood homoerotic behavior as a sign of the of its character against nature does not affirm God’s disruption of the good created order, and as a sin created order as given to us—that is, He has made which calls for repentance, restoration, and us “male and female.” So, in homoerotic action, as healing. Sometimes, of course, leaders in the in other wrong paths, we show that humanity has Church have fallen prey to self-justification, and forgotten the true God of creation. It seems that have vilified those engaging in same-sex sin as the first sin of Adam and Eve was neither pride worse than those indulging in other sins. The nor simple disobedience, but lack of gratitude! New Testament is quick to correct us if we are The result is ignorance, idolatry, degradation of self-righteous, without softening its words against body and mind, and finally the confusion of evil homoerotic behavior itself. “And such,” said St. for good—“they not only do them but even applaud Paul, “were some of you. But you have been others who practice them” (1 Cor. 1:32). In the washed.” (Please let me add a quick word on Corinthian letters, St. Paul singles out sexual what “healing” might entail—for some, it may immorality as a sin that can affect the whole person, well mean reorientation, and we have friends who and urges his hearers to flee from it (1 Cor. 6:18). have testified to this; for others, celibacy will be He also details both active and passive homoerotic the path of healing, offering a path of witness to activity in a list of vices which the Corinthians many who think that sexual expression is a once practiced before their turn to Christ, and necessity for a fulfilled life. I am profoundly which they must now eschew (1 Cor. 6:9-11). grateful to my brothers and sisters in Christ who Some recent commentators, through special struggle with same-sex desire but witness in their pleading, seek to reinterpret or to limit St. Paul’s lives to the sufficiency of Christ; they remind me use of two terms for homosexual agents—those that we cannot yet imagine all that God has in who are malakoi, and those who are arsenokoitai. store for us, and that His grace is sufficient to The latter term arsenokoitai is a word found only in meet us in our brokenness. Nor will He leave us Paul, but clearly a compound derived from the there—we await “temples” that will take up into old Greek Leviticus (Lev. 20:13) which speaks of glory these “tents” in which we now dwell.) “those who lie with a male as with a female.” The Thus we can summarize the Church’s faithful term malakoi is less technical, and means literally reading of the Scripture in this way: those “soft ones”; it is found in other Greek documents struggling with homoeroticism are to be included to refer to those exhibiting various types of sexual in the community of faith, along with the rest of indulgence, but often refers explicitly to the passive us sinners. God’s grace is extended to all. However, partner in a homoerotic relationship. Those in anyone who joins the household of God should doubt should research for themselves the more know that it is a place of transformation, discipline, general cultural use of this term, as documented and learning—not a place to be falsely comforted or in, for example, the standard Greek dictionaries. indulged. Christ’s Body is to be truly inclusive, Careful and non-biased studies of these words extending to all her members the benefits of

INKLINGS OKTOBERFEST visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 45 membership, including confession, repentance, the Church. What will the Church do when it forgiveness, and healing. Jesus’ gospel remains: prays against itself ? A house divided cannot Repent, for the rule of God is at hand! stand. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who learned the depth The prophet Jeremiah knew a day like ours: of God’s grace in a dark time, speaks powerfully They have treated the wound of my people to us about ethics, reality, and truth: “If one is to carelessly, saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is say how a thing really is, i.e., if one is to speak no peace. Thus says the Lord: Stand at the truthfully, one’s gaze and one’s thought must be crossroads, and look and ask for the ancient paths, directed towards the way in which the real exists where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find in God and through God and for God” (Ethics, ET rest for your souls. But they said, “We will not 1955, p. 365). Bonhoeffer thus sends us back to walk in it.” How can you say, “We are wise, and Romans 1 and further back to Genesis 1-3, that the law of the Lord is with us,” when, in fact, the we might see God’s world, the creation, and false pen of the scribes has made it into a lie? The human sexuality as they really are. God’s creation wise shall be put to shame, and taken; since they is good, though flawed: His purpose is to redeem, have rejected the word of the Lord, what wisdom heal, and glorify it. is there in them? They have treated the wound of But there are some who will not see it this way. my people carelessly, saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. For the hurt of my poor Instead they want us to put skewed human people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken experience in place of Jesus, Paul, and the historic hold of me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there Church, and to declare that we have transcended no physician there? ~Jeremiah 6:14-16; 8:8-22 the clear voice of Scripture on this issue. In place of the communion of saints and the teaching of “You therefore, beloved, beware that you are not the apostles they put a new gospel of so-called carried away with the error of the lawless and inclusivity, and tell us to bless what needs to be lose your own stability…Rather be attentive to healed. What would it mean for the Anglican the word as to a lamp shining in a dark place” (2 communion to acknowledge a person involved in Pet. 3:17; 1:19). same-sex eroticism as a godly example? What would it mean to bless same-sex erotic arrangements? It *Originally presented September 22, 2003, to the National would be to declare that these so-called “unions” Evangelical Anglican Conference in Britain are in themselves pictures or icons of God’s love, to say that they display the salvation story, to rejoice that they are glorified or taken up into God’s own actions and being. It would be to declare that they have a significant and fruitful part in creation, and that they are symbols of the in-breaking and coming rule of God, in which the Church now shares and in which we will eventually participate fully. It would be to “speak a good word” about this sort of relationship, explicitly declaring it to be a condition in which the way of the cross and the way of new life come together. Precisely here, the Church would be saying, you can see the love of God in human form, and the glory of humanity. It would be to name God as the one who blesses an act for which in fact repentance is required. So we would replace God with an idol, and so we would rend

THE PEN, THE PIPE & THE PINT 46 SYNAXIS 6.1 THE MYSTERY OF LOVE world,” a fallen and distorted marriage, and that it need not to be blessed and “solemnized”—after a d rehearsal and with the help of the photographer Alexander Schmemann —but restored. This restoration, furthermore, is in A. D. 1963 Christ and this means in His life, death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven, in the Pentecostal “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ inauguration of the “new eon,” in the Church as and the Church” ~Ephesians 5:32 the sacrament of all this. Needless to say, this restoration infinitely transcends the idea of the IN THE Orthodox Church matrimony is a “Christian family” and gives marriage cosmic sacrament. It may be asked why, of the many and universal dimensions. “states” of human life, in the great variety of Here is the whole point. As long as we visualize man’s vocations, only this “state” has been singled marriage as the concern of those alone who are out and understood as a sacrament? Indeed, if it being married, as something that happens to them is simply a divine sanction of marriage, the bestowing and not to the whole Church, and, therefore, to of spiritual help to the married couple, a blessing the world itself, we shall never understand the for the procreation of children—all this does not truly sacramental meaning of marriage: the great make it radically different from any other act for mystery to which St. Paul refers when he says, which we need help and guidance, sanction and “But I speak concerning Christ and the Church.” blessing. For a “sacrament” implies necessarily We must understand that the real theme, “content,” the idea of transformation, refers to the ultimate and object of this sacrament is not “family,” but event of Christ’s death and resurrection, and is love. Family as such, family in itself, can be a always a sacrament of the Kingdom. In a way, of demonic distortion of love—and there are harsh course, the whole life of the Church can be termed words about it in the Gospel: “A man’s foes shall sacramental, for it is always the manifestation in be those of his own household” (Mt. 10:36). In time of the “new time.” Yet in a more precise this sense the sacrament of matrimony is wider way the Church calls sacraments those decisive than family. It is the sacrament of divine love, as acts of its life in which this transforming grace is the all-embracing mystery of being itself, and it is confirmed as being given, in which the Church through for this reason that it concerns the whole Church, a liturgical act identifies itself with and becomes and—through the Church—the whole world. the very form of that Gift. But how is marriage Perhaps the Orthodox vision of this sacrament related to the Kingdom which is to come? How is will be better understood if we begin not with it related to the cross, the death, and the resurrection matrimony as such, and not with an abstract of Christ? What, in other words, makes it a “theology of love,” but with the one who has sacrament? always stood at the very heart of the Church’s life Even to raise these questions seems impossible as the purest expression of human love and within the whole “modern” approach to marriage, response to God—Mary, the Mother of Jesus. It and this includes, often enough, the “Christian” is significant that whereas in the West Mary is approach. In the numberless “manuals of marital plainly the Virgin, a being almost totally different happiness,” in the alarming trend to make the from us in her absolute and celestial purity and minister a specialist in clinical sexology, in all cozy freedom from all carnal pollution, in the East she definitions of a Christian family which approve a is always referred to and glorified as Theotokos, the moderate use of sex (which can be an “enriching Mother of God, and virtually all icons depict her experience”) and emphasize responsibility, savings, with the Child in her arms. There exist, in other and Sunday School—in all this there is, indeed, words, two emphases in mariology, which, no room for sacrament. We do not remember although they do not necessarily exclude one today that marriage is, as everything else in “this another, lead to two different visions of Mary’s

SISTERS OF SOPHIA visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 47 place in the Church. And the difference between Church is the Bride of Christ (“…for I have them must be kept in mind if we want to espoused you to one husband, that I may present understand the experience of the veneration of you as a chaste virgin to Christ” ~2 Cor. 11:2). Mary which has always been that of the Orthodox This means that the world—which finds its Church. We hope to show that this is not so much restoration and fulfillment in the Church—is the a specific “cult of Mary,” as a light, a joy, proper bride of God and that in sin this fundamental to the whole life of the Church. In her, says an relationship has been broken, distorted. And it is Orthodox hymn, “all creation rejoices.” in Mary—the Woman, the Virgin, the Mother— But what is this joy about? Why, in her own in her response to God, that the Church has its words, shall “all generations call me blessed?” living and personal beginning. Because in her love and obedience, in her faith This response is total obedience in love; not and humility, she accepted to be what from all obedience and love, but the wholeness of the one eternity all creation was meant and created to be: as the totality of the other. Obedience, taken in the temple of the Holy Spirit, the humanity of itself, is not a “virtue”; it is blind submission and God. She accepted to give her body and blood— there is no light in blindness. Only love for God, that is, her whole life—to be the body and blood the absolute object of all love, frees obedience of the Son of God, to be mother in the fullest and from blindness and makes it the joyful acceptance deepest sense of this world, giving her life to the of that alone which is worthy of being accepted. Other and fulfilling her life in Him. She accepted But love without obedience to God is “the lust of the only true nature of each creature and all the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride creation: to place the meaning and, therefore, the of life” (1 Jn. 2:16), it is the love claimed by Don fulfillment of her life in God. Juan, which ultimately destroys him. Only In accepting this nature she fulfilled the obedience to God, the only Lord of Creation, womanhood of creation. This word will seem strange gives love its true direction, makes it fully love. to many. In our time the Church, following the True obedience is thus true love for God, the modern trend toward the “equality of the sexes,” true response of Creation to its Creator. Humanity uses only one-half of the Christian revelation is fully humanity when it is this response to God, about man and woman, the one which affirms when it becomes the movement of total self- that in Christ there is neither “male nor female” giving and obedience to Him. But in the “natural” (Gal. 3:28). The other half is ascribed again to an world the bearer of this obedient love, of this love antiquated worldview. In fact, however, all our as response, is the woman. The man proposes, the attempts to find the “place of woman” in society woman accepts. This acceptance is not passivity, (or in the Church) instead of exalting her, belittle blind submission, because it is love, and love is woman, for they imply too often a denial of her always active. It gives life to the proposal of man, specific vocation as woman. fulfills it as life, yet it becomes fully love and fully Yet is it not significant that the relation between life only when it is fully acceptance and response. God and the world, between God and Israel, His This is why the whole creation, the whole Church chosen people, and finally between God and the —and not only women—find the expression of cosmos restored in the Church, is expressed in their response and obedience to God in Mary the the Bible in terms of marital union and love? Woman, and rejoice in her. She stands for all of This is a double analogy. On the one hand we us, because only when we accept, respond in love understand God’s love for the world and Christ’s and obedience—only when we accept the essential love for the Church because we have the experience womanhood of creation—do we become ourselves of marital love, but on the other hand marital true men and women; only then can we indeed love has its roots, its depth and real fulfillment in transcend our limitations as “males” and “females.” the great mystery of Christ and His Church: “But I For man can be truly man—that is, the king of speak concerning Christ and the Church.” The creation, the priest and minister of God’s creativity

WALKING WITH WOMEN OF WISDOM 48 SYNAXIS 6.1 and initiative—only when he does not posit himself this fulfillment in “this world” sex is the paradoxical, as the “owner” of creation and submits himself— the tragic affirmation and denial. The Orthodox in obedience and love—to its nature as the bride Church, by celebrating the seemingly “nonscriptural” of God in response and acceptance. And woman feasts of Mary’s nativity and of her presentation ceases to be just a ‘female’ when, totally and in the temple reveals, in fact, a real faithfulness to unconditionally accepting the life of the Other as the Bible, for the meaning of these feasts lies her own life, giving herself totally to the Other, she precisely in their recognition of the Virgin Mary becomes the very expression, the very fruit, the as the goal and the fulfillment of the whole history very joy, the very beauty, the very gift of our of salvation, of that history of love and obedience, response to God, the one whom, in the words of of response and expectation. She is the true the Song of Songs, the king will bring into his daughter of the Old Testament, its last and most chambers, saying: “Thou are all fair, my love, beautiful flower. The Orthodox Church rejects there is no spot in thee” (Sg. 4:7). the dogma of the Immaculate Conception Tradition calls Mary the new Eve. She did precisely because it makes Mary a miraculous what the first Eve failed to do. Eve failed to be a “break” in this long and patient growth of love woman. She took the initiative. She “proposed,” and expectation, of this “hunger for the living and she became “female”—the instrument of God” which fills the Old Testament. She is the procreation, “ruled over” by man. She made gift of the world to God, as is so beautifully said herself, and also the man whose “eve” she was, the in a hymn of the nativity: slaves of her “femininity” and the whole of life a Each of Thy creatures brings thanksgiving unto dark war of sexes in which “possession” is in fact Thee; the violent and desperate desire to kill the shameful The angels offer the sun, lust that never dies. But Mary “took no initiative.” The heavens its star, In love and obedience she expected the initiative The wise men their gifts, of the Other. And when it came, she accepted it, The shepherds their marveling… not blindly—for she asked “how shall this be?”— And we—the Virgin Mother. but with the whole lucidity, simplicity, and joy of And yet it is God alone who fulfills and crowns love. The light of an eternal spring comes to us this obedience, acceptance, and love. “The Holy when on the day of annunciation we hear the Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the decisive: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it Highest shall overshadow thee. For with God unto me according to thy word” (Lk. 1:38). This nothing shall be impossible” (Lk. 1:35-37). He is indeed the whole creation, all of humanity, and alone reveals as Virgin the one who brought to each one of us recognizing the words that express Him the totality of human love. our ultimate nature and being, our acceptance to Mary is the Mother. Motherhood is the be the bride of God, our betrothal to the One fulfillment of womanhood because it is the who from all eternity loved us. fulfillment of love as obedience and response. It is Mary is the Virgin. But this virginity is not a by giving herself that love gives life, becomes the negation, nor a mere absence; it is the fullness and source of life. One does not love in order to have the wholeness of love itself. It is the totality of her children. Love needs no justification; it is not self-giving to God, and thus the very expression, because it gives life that love is good: it is because the very quality of her love. For love is the thirst it is good that it gives life. The joyful mystery of and hunger for wholeness, totality, fulfillment— Mary’s motherhood is thus not opposed to the for virginity, in the ultimate meaning of this word. mystery of her virginity. It is the same mystery. At the end the Church will be presented to Christ She is not mother “in spite” of her virginity. She as a “chaste virgin” (2 Cor. 11:2). For virginity is reveals the fullness of motherhood because her the goal of all genuine love—not as absence of virginity is the fullness of love. “sex,” but as its complete fulfillment in love; of

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She is the Mother of Christ. She is the fullness An obvious sign of this was the divorce of of love accepting the coming of God to us— matrimony from the Eucharist. giving life to Him, who is the Life of the world. All this explains why even today the Orthodox And the whole creation rejoices in her, because it rite of matrimony consists of two distinct services: recognizes through her that the end and fulfillment the betrothal and the crowning. The betrothal is of all life, of all love is to accept Christ, to give Him performed not inside the Church, but in the life in ourselves. And there should be no fear that vestibule. It is the Christian form of the “natural” this joy about Mary takes anything from Christ, marriage. It is the blessing of the rings by the diminishes in any way the glory due to Him and priest and their exchange by the bridal pair. Yet Him alone. For what we find in her and what from the very beginning this natural marriage is constitutes the joy of the Church is precisely the given its true perspective and direction: “O Lord fullness of our adoration of Christ, of acceptance our God,” says the priest, “who hast espoused the and love for Him. Really, here is not “cult of Church as a pure Virgin from among the Gentiles, Mary,” yet in Mary the “cult” of the Church bless this Betrothal, and unite and maintain these becomes a movement of joy and thanksgiving, of Thy servants in peace and oneness of mind.” acceptance and obedience—the wedding of the For the Christian, natural does not mean either Holy Spirit, which makes it the only complete joy self-sufficient—a “nice little family”—or merely on earth. insufficient, and to be, therefore strengthened and We can now return to the sacrament of completed by the addition of the “supernatural.” matrimony. We can now understand that its true The natural man thirsts and hungers for fulfillment meaning is not that it merely gives a religious and redemption. This thirst and hunger is the “sanction” to marriage and family life, reinforces vestibule of the Kingdom: both beginning and exile. with supernatural grace the natural family virtues. Then, having blessed the natural marriage, Its meaning is that by taking the “natural” marriage the priest takes the bridal pair in a solemn into “the great mystery of Christ and the Church,” procession into the church. This is the true form of the sacrament of matrimony gives marriage a new the sacrament, for it does not merely symbolize, meaning; it transforms, in fact, not only marriage but indeed is the entrance of marriage into the as such but all human love. Church, which is the entrance of the world into It is worth mentioning that the early Church the “world to come,” the procession of the people apparently did not know of any separate marriage of God—in Christ—into the Kingdom. The rite service. The “fulfillment” of marriage by two of crowning is but a later—although a beautiful Christians was their partaking together of the and beautifully meaningful—expression of the Eucharist. As every aspect of life was gathered reality of this entrance. into the Eucharist, so matrimony received its seal “O Lord and God, crown them with glory by inclusion into this central act of the community. and honor!” says the priest after he has put And this means that, since marriage has always crowns on the heads of the bridal pair. This is, had sociological and legal dimensions, these were first, the glory and honor of man as king of simply accepted by the Church. Yet, like the whole creation: “Be fruitful and multiply and replenish “natural” life of man, marriage had to be taken the earth, and subdue and have dominion…” into the Church, that is, judged, redeemed and (Gn. 1:25). Each family is indeed a kingdom, a transformed in the sacrament of the Kingdom. little church, and therefore a sacrament of and a Only later did the Church receive also the “civil” way to the Kingdom. Somewhere, even if it is authority to perform a rite of marriage. This only in a single room, every man at some point in meant, however, together with the recognition of his life has his own small kingdom. It may be hell, the Church as the “celebrant” of matrimony, a and a place of betrayal, or it may not. Behind first step in a progressive “desacramentalization.” each window there is a little world going on. How

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evident this becomes when one is riding on a train Christ. And this means crucifixion and suffering. at night and passing innumerable lighted windows: A marriage which does not constantly crucify its behind each one of them the fullness of life is a own selfishness and self-sufficiency, which does “given possibility,” a promise, a vision. This is not “die to itself ” that it may point beyond itself, what the marriage crowns express: that here is is not a Christian marriage. The real sin of marriage the beginning of a small kingdom which can be today is not adultery or lack of “adjustment” or something like the true Kingdom. The chance “mental cruelty.” It is the idolization of the family will be lost, perhaps even in one night; but at this itself, the refusal to understand marriage as moment it is still an open possibility. Yet even directed toward the Kingdom of God. This is when it has been lost, and lost again a thousand expressed in the sentiment that one would “do times, still if two people stay together, they are in anything” for his family, even steal. The family a real sense king and queen to each other. And has here ceased to be for the glory of God; it has after forty odd years, Adam can still turn and see ceased to be a sacramental entrance into His Eve standing beside him, in a unity with himself presence. It is not the lack of respect for the family, which in some small way at least proclaims the it is the idolization of the family that breaks the love of God’s Kingdom. In movies and magazines modern family so easily, making divorce its almost the “icon” of marriage is always a youthful couple. natural shadow. It is the identification of marriage But once, in the light and warmth of an autumn with happiness and the refusal to accept the cross afternoon, this writer saw on the bench of a public in it. In a Christian marriage, in fact, three are square, in a poor Parisian suburb, an old and poor married; and the united loyalty of the two toward couple. They were sitting hand in hand, in silence, the third, who is God, keeps the two in an active enjoying the pale light, the last warmth of the unity with each other as well as with God. Yet it is season. In silence: all words had been said, all the presence of God which is the death of marriage passion exhausted, all storms at peace. The whole as something only “natural.” It is the cross of life was behind—yet all of it was now present, in Christ that brings the self-sufficiency of nature to the silence, in this light, in this warmth, in this its end. But “by the cross joy (and not ‘happiness’!) silent unity of hands. Present—and ready for entered the whole world.” Its presence is thus the eternity, ripe for joy. This to me remains the vision real joy of marriage. It is the joyful certitude that of marriage, of its heavenly beauty. the marriage vow, in the perspective of the eternal Then secondly, the glory and the honor is Kingdom, is not taken “until death parts,” but that of the martyr’s crown. For the way to the until death unites us completely. Kingdom is the martyria—bearing witness to

The Ladder of Divine Ascent by St. John Climacus Read chapter 18 of this manual, '”On Insensitivity,” and experience honest terror; or chapter 28, “On Prayer,” and be reminded how limited and solitary our conception of prayer is, when we come across the following: “Prayer is by nature a dialog and a union of man with God. Its effect is to hold the world together ... prayer is the mother and daughter of tears...” The work of the seventh-century abbot of St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai, The Ladder is probably the single most important text in the spiritual literature of Eastern Christendom. Read in monastic refectories and churches every year during Lent, The Ladder is a text of utmost seriousness and earnestness. Psychological subterfuge and self-delusion are surgically stripped away, leaving the reader two choices: run away or repent. Introduction by Bishop Kallistos Ware.

274 pp. cloth, third revised Holy Transfiguration edition, $42.50 301 pp. paper, Classics of Western Spirituality edition with introduction by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, $26.95

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Hence the third and final meaning of the THE EXSTASIE crowns: they are the crowns of the Kingdom, of that ultimate Reality of which everything in “this d world”—whose fashion passeth away—everything John Donne has now become a sacramental sign and A. D. 1633 anticipation. “Receive their crowns in Thy Kingdom,” says the priest, as he removes them WHERE, like a pillow on a bed from the heads of the newlyweds, and this means: A pregnant bank swell’d up to rest make this marriage a growth in that perfected The violet’s reclining head, love of which God alone is the end and fullness. Sat we two, one another’s best. The common cup given to the couple after Our hands were firmly cemented the crowning is explained today as a symbol of With a fast balm, which thence did spring; “common life,” and nothing shows better the Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread Our eyes upon one double string; “descaramentalization” of marriage, its reduction So to’intergraft our hands, as yet to a “natural happiness.” In the past this was Was all the means to make us one, communion, the partaking of the Eucharist, the And pictures in our eyes to get ultimate seal of the fulfillment of marriage in Was all our propagation. Christ. Christ is to be the very essence of life As ‘twixt two equal armies fate together. He is the wine of the new life of the Suspends uncertain victory, children of God, and communion in it will Our souls (which to advance their state proclaim how, by getting older and older in this Were gone out) hung ‘twixt her and me. world, we are growing younger and younger in And whilst our souls negotiate there, the life which has no evening. We like sepulchral statues lay; As the wedding service is completed, the All day, the same our postures were, bride and bridegroom join hands and follow the And we said nothing, all the day. priest in a procession around the table. As in If any, so by love refin’d That he soul’s language understood, baptism, this procession in a circle signifies the And by good love were grown all mind, eternal journey which has begun; marriage will Within convenient distance stood, be a procession hand in hand, a continuation of He (though he knew not which soul spake, that which has started here, not always joyful, but Because both meant, both spake the same) always capable of being referred to and filled Might thence a new concoction take with joy. And part far purer than he came. This ecstasy doth unperplex, *For the Life of the World (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s We said, and tell us what we love; Seminar Press, 1973), 81-91. Reprinted in 2018 with a We see by this it was not sex, new foreword by Dr. Edith M. Humphrey. We see we saw not what did move; But as all several souls contain Mixture of things, they know not what, Love these mix’d souls doth mix again And makes both one, each this and that. A single violet transplant, The strength, the colour, and the size, (All which before was poor and scant) Redoubles still, and multiplies. When love with one another so Interinanimates two souls, That abler soul, which thence doth flow, Defects of loneliness controls.

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We then, who are this new soul, know Because such fingers need to knit Of what we are compos’d and made, That subtle knot which makes us man, For th’ atomies of which we grow So must pure lovers’ souls descend Are souls, whom no change can invade. T’ affections, and to faculties, But oh alas, so long, so far, Which sense may reach and apprehend, Our bodies why do we forbear? Else a great prince in prison lies. They’are ours, though they’are not we; we are To’our bodies turn we then, that so The intelligences, they the spheres. Weak men on love reveal’d may look; We owe them thanks, because they thus Love’s mysteries in souls do grow, Did us, to us, at first convey, But yet the body is his book. Yielded their senses’ force to us, And if some lover, such as we, Nor are dross to us, but allay. Have heard this dialogue of one, On man heaven’s influence works not so, Let him still mark us, he shall see But that it first imprints the air; Small change, when we’are to bodies gone. So soul into the soul may flow, Though it to body first repair. As our blood labors to beget Spirits, as like souls as it can,

In the World, of the Church: A Paul Evdokimov Reader edited by Michael Plekon and Alexis Vinogradov Jakiim How to introduce Paul Evdokimov? Associated with the “Russian Religious Renaissance” of the first half of the twentieth century, his compatriots include Florensky, Sergius Bulgakov, Afanasiev, Berdyaev, St. Silouan, and St. Tikhon; and other pivotal twentieth-century figures crossed the beautiful path of his expansive and searching mind: Simone Weil, Camus, Heidegger, Sartre, Freud, Jung, Dostoevsky, Merton. Steeped in the history of the Church, conversant with mystery and brilliantly honest, his thought has been described as “liturgical existentialism” without the angst. His own terminology is preferable as one drinks in these representative writings: “A Christian community, if it truly is this, buries itself as a splinter in the body of the world” (which often includes the Church herself). His words pierce, stir, heal, and sing to us. Convinced of “God’s insistence on the impossible,” driven by the “instinct of Orthodoxy” and the “creative path of Tradition” Evdokimov delves into the nature of the Church, her social responsibilities, the eruptive power of holiness, the “absurd” love of God, the charisms of women, eschatology, and much more. His openness to seeing “Christ in all things” invites us to acknowledge: yes, here too Christ speaks! 273 pp. paper $22.00 Ages of the Spiritual Life by Paul Evdokimov Anyone who takes at all seriously historic Christian spirituality—which is at its core monastic spirituality—must sooner or later confront the question: “How can the ascetical life be lived in the world?” How can the rigor of The Ladder of Divine Ascent be taken up by those in secular society, perhaps in the community of marriage? A priest friend recently proposed a winsome answer, essentially saying that Climacus’ instruction was like a melody that had to be transposed into a new key, for a different instrument than that for which it had originally been written. Ages of the Spiritual Life is exactly that transposition, an approach to the classic themes of ascetic spirituality—poverty, chastity, obedience, discernment, silence, vigilance, humility—that renders them in terms accessible to any Christian, without subtracting anything from their demands or their promise. Evdokimov’s pregnant, aphoristic prose should be read slowly and meditatively, with due attention to the amazing way in which scripture is used to interpret scripture, or patristic citation, or even modern philosophical query, and these mutually to enlighten the scripture in turn. Fully faithful to Orthodox teaching yet respectfully cognizant of the unique insights and dangerous tendencies of the modern temper, Evdokimov offers a living, poetic insight into the verities and mysteries of the human condition in the light of Christ. 263 pp. paper $22.00

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When husband and wife are united in marriage, they are no longer seen as something earthly, but as the image of God Himself. ~St. John Chrysostom 54 SYNAXIS 6.1 CHRISTIANITY & EROS reflections on the sacramentality of the sex act in light of Sherrard’s book. Let me begin by saying: REVISITED I was not disappointed—it’s a great read. Sherrard Making Love as Sacramental Act was a twentieth-century Orthodox thinker who drank deeply from the wells of patristic and d contemporary Orthodox thought, who was deeply Hans Boersma suspicious of the separation between nature and A. D. 2018 the supernatural that he thought has bedevilled Western (and especially modern) thought, and FIRST THINGS recently published a piece I who recognized that in order to combat today’s wrote titled “Eight Theses on Sex.” In the first social and cultural problems we must turn to the thesis, I suggested that sexual union is a sacrament resources of the Christian Platonist tradition. In of union with Christ. I took my cue from Saint short, Sherrard was a sacramental thinker— Paul’s statement in Ephesians 5 that the one-flesh someone who believed that ordinary things in life relationship between husband and wife is a aren’t as ordinary as they seem. Sherrard’s profound mystery that refers to Christ and the definition of a sacrament makes this clear: “A Church (Eph. 5:31–32). Viewing sexual union as sacrament is the revelation of divine life to the sacramental in character opens the way for creature that participates in it. It is the revelation treating erotic desire, love, and marital life in a of divine life within and through the creature” uniquely Christian perspective. This approach (CE 75). Well-said! implies that sexual union is far more than just a For Sherrard, then, sexual love is sacramental. biological act that exists for purely horizontal That’s one of the main threads (perhaps the main ends—say, for the purpose of pleasure or having one) that runs through the book. The “sexual children. Treating the sex act as a sacramental act energy” that flows between two people from the takes it (as well as the erotic desire in which it is opposite sex comes from God: “It is the radiating, grounded) beyond its purely this-worldly, natural magnetizing, vibratory current which courses being. Even the sex act (or, perhaps I should say, through the whole living fabric of human life,” especially the sex act) isn’t a purely natural act. which is “divine in origin,” and which “is polarized Inasmuch as it is sacramental in character, it is in the sexual character of human and other life,” intimately linked to the otherworldly, heavenly “polarized into male and female, active and reality of Christ. The earthly act of lovemaking passive” (CE 77). This sexual energy is sacramental participates in the heavenly realm of love; or, we in character, not because it leads to offspring; could say, the love of the triune God becomes rather, claims Sherrard, it “derives its sacramental sacramentally present in the sexual act. (For my quality from the fact that its own origin is divine understanding of the created order as sacramental and its own nature is sacred” (CE 77). These are in character, see Boersma, Heavenly Participation: powerful words—Sherrard points us beyond a The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry, 2011, pp. 19– merely natural, this-worldly understanding of 39.) By making love, husband and wife thus bear sexual love and of marriage. For Sherrard, sexual witness to the intimacy between heaven and love is erotic in character, and eroticism is not earth, the union between Christ and His Church. something to avoid but rather to celebrate as The couple reveal something of the love of God divine in origin and sacramental in character. Himself because their act of lovemaking makes And yet, is Sherrard sacramental enough? Is present the kingdom of God. his affirmation of eros and sexual desire sufficiently My friends at the Eighth Day Institute recently robust? Does he provide a theological antidote to recommended to me Philip Sherrard’s 1976 book the late modern crisis in sexual morality? Christianity and Eros: Essays on the Theme of Sexual Unfortunately the answer is negative on each Love, and in this short essay I want to offer some count. The reason becomes clear when we ask:

CATECHETICAL WORD FROM THE FATHERS visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 55 what exactly is it that Sherrard thinks is sacramental mired in self-delusion: it ignores the obvious harm in character? The answer is most emphatically caused by untrammelled self-expression and is not: the physical sex act. Sherrard has a deeply oblivious to the self-directed aspect that is an ambivalent, even negative view of “making love” inescapable part of our erotic expressions. The (an expression he dislikes; CE 1). He is highly Church Fathers rightly remind us that physical critical of the Western tradition’s focus on the desire, sexual union, and even having children are genital act. This fixation has treated the sex act as not ultimate. They are merely penultimate to the the consummation of the marriage sacrament ultimate satisfaction we obtain in the vision of God. (because it is the sex act that leads to procreation), I love it, therefore, that Sherrard consistently and the result is a “hopelessly idealized” view of reminds us that this world is not our home; we sexual intercourse (CE 29). For Sherrard—and should primarily be focused, not on the world but here he selectively draws from Gregory of Nyssa, on the kingdom to come. “Christianity,” Sherrard Maximus the Confessor, Vladimir Soloviov, Dmitry rightly insists, “is concerned with the transfiguration Merezhkovsky, and Nikolai Berdyaev—the sex of the world,” so that “there must be a basic—and act is “at best an imperfect and all too often a on one level tragic—conflict between most crude and inhuman form of sexual participation in the kingdom ‘not of this world’ communion between man and woman” (CE 29). and the biological continuation of the human The sex act has to do with our animal nature. race in this world …” (CE 24). Sherrard has a Sherrard seems comfortable with the position of point, therefore, when he cautions against treating Berdyaev and others, which treats animal sexuality procreation as the purpose of marriage. It is one and genital intercourse as opposed to sexual love of its aims (something Sherrard could be much (CE 64–65). (Sherrard does subject Soloviov, more forthcoming about!), but not the most Merezhkovsky, and Berdyaev to some critique ultimate one. The ultimate aim of marriage is life [CE 70–71], but he has deeply imbibed their with God—beatific vision and deification (CE 15). thought, and he himself sharply distinguishes Sexual love aims at a supernatural end. between physical intercourse and sexual love, Moreover, Sherrard is exactly right in pointing treating only the latter as sacramental.) The sex out that not every sexual expression, and not act is the result of our fallen condition; it is every marriage, is equally true to its calling—not emphatically not sacramental in character. In short, equally sacramental, one could say. Participation Sherrard regards “sexual energy” as sacramental, comes in varying degrees—and so does but intercourse as a negative expression of our sacramentality. Though the language of ‘degrees’ animality. On Sherrard’s understanding, the sex is mine (not Sherrard’s), it is clear that Sherrard act is not about sexual love. thinks of the sacramental character of sexual love This sharp separation between sexual love and as often being underdeveloped, and only sometimes the sex act (with only the former being sacramental (“rarely,” he asserts) coming into full bloom. in character) is a problem, I think. But before I go Sherrard even claims—and here I must part ways there, let me reiterate that there’s much in with him—that it is only when a couple’s love Sherrard’s approach that’s deeply attractive. I and complementarity reach beyond the physical, have long been convinced that Saint Gregory of emotional, and intellectual to the spiritual that Nyssa is on to something when he links the sex marriage becomes sacramental. Sherrard isn’t act with animal passions (though it’s not clear to convinced a marriage is (fully) sacramental simply me why Sherrard applauds this in Nyssen and by virtue of a contract, a sex act, or even the chastises Augustine for it). Eros is an ambivalent presence of children. Only when a man and a attraction—and sexual desire and sexual woman are joined “in their spiritual natures” intercourse inevitably contain a self-directed does marriage become a sacramental reality (CE element. The contemporary celebration of erotic 90). As long as there’s no genuine reciprocity and desire and of sexual (i.e., genital) expression is

EARLY CHRISTIAN TEXTS FOR SPIRITUAL TRAINING 56 SYNAXIS 6.1 polarity on the higher levels, “the full chord of doesn’t seem to work out or if they don’t truly the sacrament” has not been struck (CE 92). end up sharing at a spiritual level? Sherrard is Sherrard’s sharp distinction between physical remarkably cavalier about the marriage covenant desire and the sex act, on the one hand, and what itself and about linking marriage to children. he terms “sexual love,” on the other hand, leads Sacramentality goes all the way down: it to problems. It never quite becomes clear to me includes physical, erotic desire, the marriage what exactly the spiritual, erotic (but deﬁnitely covenant, physical intercourse, and the gift of non-physical) “sexual love” between male and children. If it’s true that sacramentality comes in female looks like. Sherrard does not explain how degrees, then God is sacramentally present in all this spiritual, sexual attraction between male and of this. Sherrard certainly is right in wanting to female functions. What need is there to use the recover eros as an integral element of a sacramental word ‘sexual’ for a union that reaches beyond the ontology. But by separating the sex act from physical, emotional, and intellectual complementarity sexual love, he fails to acknowledge that all of of male and female? (Unlike Sherrard, Gregory God’s good creation participates sacramentally in of Nyssa never uses the language of human his eternal, heavenly purpose for us. Fair enough, beings—or God—being bi-sexual or androgynous. spiritual union is of a higher kind than physical For Gregory, both God himself and human union. But even way down in the hierarchy of beings as they are meant to be ‘in Christ’ are being, we can discern something of the creator’s non-sexual. Human beings leave their gendered intentions for us. Lovemaking, too, is sacramental and sexual characteristics behind.) Sherrard participation in the love of God. never speaks positively about physical attraction or about the sex act. Nor does he refer to the product, children, in a positive way. The reason is clear. If only “sexual love” is sacramental, then the physical sex act (and whatever results from it) falls under deep suspicion. It’s hard to discern sacramental redemption in any of this. THE MYSTERIES OF Sherrard aims to recover a sacramental ontology. Unfortunately, he does not push it far as ATTRACTION he should—namely, to include the physical sex d act. As a result, he runs the real danger of being Christopher Lasch co-opted by modernity. Sherrard writes appreciatively A. D. 1993 of changes in more recent Catholic thought on sexuality and argues that “the most positive sign” THE AUTHOR of a number of admirable of a deepened Christian approach to marriage books, not a few of which deal with the emerging “is evident in the attempt to separate the purpose ideal of romantic love in early modern art and of marriage from procreation, or at least to give literature, Jean H. Hagstrum, has surpassed the relational and unitive aspects of marriage himself in Esteem Enlivened by Desire: The Couple priority over its procreational aspects” (CE 37). from Homer to Shakespeare (1992), which ranges over Really? Why this artificial separation of procreation more than ten centuries (amply fulﬁlling the from sex? Can we not treat both procreation and promise of its subtitle) in search of a usable past the relational aspect of marriage as sacramentally —an “available heritage concerning the loving participating in the kingdom to come? And if couple.” To some extent he has also reversed everything in marriage centers on the relational himself, since he now seeks to correct the impression aspect (so that marriage really isn’t truly sacramental left by his earlier studies, that romantic love came until the spouses attain full spiritual unity), what to be associated with marriage only in the modern prevents them from divorcing when the relation world. His new book contests this widely accepted

THE ACADEMY visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 57 interpretation, which Hagstrum attributes to the men, in the insight that eros could be a “force for belated discovery that “love and marriage do not civility” as well as disruption. From the beginning, always go together like a horse and carriage.” it would seem, the West was able to imagine that Ever since this disconcerting fact “dawned on us marriage might rest on sexual attraction and disillusioned moderns … it has been a continuing mutual respect, instead of on the sexual scholarly preoccupation to discover just when subordination that was taken as the norm elsewhere romantic love came into Western culture.” The in the world. prevailing consensus—that it came relatively late Imagination was often at odds with practice, (in the cruder version of this thesis, only with the to be sure, but we should not therefore conclude “rise of the middle class”)—issues decidedly that married love was to be found only in works bedraggled, if not altogether demolished, from of art. A play like Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, this determined assault. Hagstrum argues, would have meant nothing to Hagstrum does not deny that many authors, its audience “had not the oikos [Greek household] both classical and Christian, took a disparaging been a place much desired by both men and view of marriage, emphasizing the wife’s women.” That wives could resort to a sexual strike subordination, the dangerous power of female as a form of political protest implied, in the words sexuality, and the incompatibility of sexual passion Hagstrum borrows from Sir Kenneth Dover, that with the mundane ends marriage was meant to “the marital relationship was much more important serve. Xenophon spoke for a longstanding tradition in people’s actual lives than we would have in the ancient world when he defined the purpose inferred simply from our knowledge of the law.” of marriage as legitimate offspring and the The “erotic ideal”—the union of esteem and maintenance of the household economy. In the sexual desire—deserves to be considered “one of Christian world, an equally strong tradition viewed the great achievements of Western culture,” marriage as an acceptable but hardly exalted according to Hagstrum. “But that union did not alternative to sexual promiscuity, morally much come easily,” he adds. “Esteem had to be divorced inferior to virginity. Sexual passion had its from an all-male contest, and sexuality from the champions, of course, but it was thought unsuitable stigma of sin or excess.” The first of these for man and wife. In ancient Greece, it was developments could have occurred only in a culture associated with love between men and boys; in willing to countenance the possibility that women the Middle Ages, with adulterous love between (and more particularly wives) were good for men and women. Hagstrum’s thesis is not impaired something besides reproduction and household by the recognition that married love had very labor. As for the second, it received support from little place in the dominant tradition of Western the tradition of Christian naturalism, as Hagstrum patriarchy. calls it—the refusal to condemn matter as evil or His claim, though it is supported by an to equate salvation with a disembodied imposing structure of erudition, is more modest: spirituality—which tempered the fear of sexuality that a counter-tradition, already present in Homer’s that was also present (even dominant) in account of the homecoming that concludes the Christianity. The central importance of the Odyssey, encouraged a “softening of male power Incarnation, in Christian doctrine, always stood in patriarchy,” hedged in that power with in the way of Platonizing and Gnosticizing “civilizing limitations,” idealized marriage as the influences that might otherwise have aligned union of desire and esteem, and held up sexual Christianity with those religions that aspire to equality as the precondition of erotic friendship. Nirvana, the extinction of desire. In Christianity Hagstrum thinks this “vision of marital love,” in a as well as Judaism, the love of God was often culture that has long been supposed to be without evoked with an abundance of sexual imagery, the it, owed a good deal to the influence of women, effect of which was not only to displace or sublimate which made itself felt, even in works written by sexual desire but also to give it a certain legitimacy.

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Hagstrum’s open and unapologetic admiration out to our own situation.” This procedure carries for Western achievements, it hardly needs to be the danger of reading the past too much in the said, goes against current grain. A man of irenic light of present concerns, and Hagstrum does not temper, Hagstrum prefers to emphasize his always avoid it. There are times when his view of obligations to other scholars rather than his history takes on a Whiggish tinge, as when he objections to their work; so it is left mostly to a congratulates Boccaccio for writing stories that reviewer to point out that his own work takes are “modern in feeling,” deplores the way in which issue not merely with prevailing interpretations of medieval conventions continued, during the the history of love but, at a deeper level, with the Renaissance, to act as a “dragging, traditional whole trend of recent scholarship in the humanities. chain on … progress,” or complains that The Although he is clearly sympathetic to feminism, Tempest (almost alone among Shakespeare’s plays in he does not subscribe to the kind of feminism that upholding a very orthodox, unimaginative view of sees nothing in history except the eternal oppression marriage) “does not put Shakespeare on the of women and swallows up all distinctions, all frontier of the emergent.” An insistently moralizing cultural variations, in the one all-encompassing, criticism, as is well known, can interfere with our undifferentiated, monolithic category of willingness to take imaginative works on their own “patriarchy.” Hagstrum’s work likewise stands terms. Thus Hagstrum misses the satiric intent ﬁrmly opposed to the cynicism (which runs behind Boccaccio’s depiction of the conventional through so much of the revisionist scholarship on marriage between ill-assorted couples and makes the Renaissance, for example) that seeks to reduce him out to be a reformer instead, the author of an every expression of idealism to the self-interested “attack” on the institution of arranged marriage. pursuit of power. Far more worldly than those Admirers of Boccaccio’s artistry are likely to be who aspire to cosmopolitan status by importing put off by Hagstrum’s observation that the their ideas from Paris, he is undismayed by the gap Decameron, notwithstanding its “modern” feeling, between ideals and reality, often taken to signify “falls short of [upholding] a satisfying ethical the irrelevance of ideals, because he recognizes norm.” Yet this ethical interrogation of a text, even their power to criticize and even alter reality. His if the norm in question is too much defined by the book deals with “our literary and artistic heritage,” “emergent,” is vastly preferable to a style of criticism not with “historical reality as such,” but he does that reflects ethical judgment as completely beside not make the current assumption that art has no the point. connection with reality at all or, alternately, that Hagstrum’s literary history of romantic love, reality represents nothing more than the “social because it seeks ethical guidance from the past construction” of artists and critics. He rejects the and not just a better understanding of our notion that literary works never refer to anything ancestor’s foibles, amounts also to a defense of beyond themselves and that it is pointless, therefore, romantic love, written with a heartbreaking to expect moral instruction from a work of art. awareness that lifelong marriage no longer serves When he refers to art and literature as our as the standard to which erotic practice ought to “heritage,” Hagstrum reduces to a single word aspire. Not only marriage but romantic love itself everything that distinguishes him from current has fallen out of favor. Love at ﬁrst sight, we are fashion. He sees the past as a source of moral told again and again, provides a shaky basis for wisdom, not just as a record of follies presumably marriage. Shared hobbies and tastes, a mutual outgrown in our more enlightened (if disillusioned) commitment to compromise, and a willingness to age. He believes in the “ethical imagination,” the admit that things never stay the same are more exercise of which demands that “we respond likely to endure when passion cools. Lovers should correctly and historically when we weigh not demand too much of each other. They must alternatives, suspend easy belief, and project the allow for the possibility that one of them will dynamics of a work of art into a future that reaches probably outgrow the other. To expect fidelity,

EIGHTH DAY INSTITUTE visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 59 permanence, undying attachment is to court “mysteriously,” far from reassuring us, seems to disappointment. Friendship, homosexual or clinch the case against romantic love. We dislike heterosexual, seems more reliable to us than love, mystery. We crave what we can control—even if just because it is less demanding and intense. the price we pay for control is drastic shrinkage Friendship easily coexists with sex (these days, at of our imaginative and emotional horizon. least with safe sex) but not with eros, the “decoration of sexual impulse by art and thought.” We like *Originally published in Commonweal (26 February our sexual impulse unadorned, put securely in its 1993): 22-24. Review of Esteem Enlivened by Desire: The place among the “facts of life.” Couple from Homer to Shakespeare by Jean H. Hagstrum. Sex with us is a science, while art and thought Reprinted in Women and the Common Life: Love, Marriage have turned to other themes, including the and Feminism, edited by Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn (New inevitable misunderstandings between men and York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997), 32-38. women, their essential incompatibility, the instability of all attachments, and the unreliability of everything in the world except sharp, small, immediate, and more or less interchangeable pleasures. Even the “joy of sex” is now shadowed by AIDS. The sense of sexuality as a dangerous, THEOSIS & EROS, dark, and unpredictable presence in human life— CELIBACY & MARRIAGE all the more so in its “decorated” forms—has returned to us in full force. The idea that anything d so disruptive could lead to lasting relationships— Adam Cooper & Carl E. Olson that eros could be a stabilizing, let alone a civilizing A. D. 2014 influence—strikes us as a consummate piece of mystification. One hears talk, more wistful than DR. ADAM G. Cooper recently corresponded ironic, about the wisdom of arranged marriages with Carl E. Olson, editor of Catholic World Report, —all in all, it is said, a better solution than romance about his newest books—Naturally Human, to the intractable problem of male-female union. Supernaturally God: Deification in Pre-conciliar To explain the twentieth-century revulsion Catholicism and Holy Eros: A Liturgical Theology of against romantic love lies beyond the scope of the Body—and his research into salvation, liturgy, Hagstrum’s enterprise, already ambitious enough theosis, the meaning of the body, and the crucial without this added burden. The hint of an relationship between celibacy and marriage. explanation, however, lies in his very formulation of the romantic ideal. The elaboration of the CWR: At first glance, these two books might sexual impulse in works of art, he observes, makes appear to be about two rather different topics: us “understand that the passion aroused early soteriology and liturgy. But would it be accurate and mysteriously carries over into a calm and to say that each, in its own way, focus on shared fruitful married life.” Elsewhere he speaks of the topics, including the nature of man, the purpose “notion that suddenly and mysteriously induced of existence, and the end (or End) to which each erotic love … brings long satisfactions to the of us is oriented? couple and also to most of those who witness its Dr. Cooper: Yes, that’s a fair observation. formation and wish it well.” It is precisely the Much of my writing has tended to revolve belief that a “sudden, overwhelming attraction” around theological anthropology in one shape or establishes “unshakable bonds” that the modern another. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to mind (or is it the postmodern mind?) finds so say that it revolves around Christology, from shocking. The assertion that this process operates

RENEWING CULTURE THROUGH FAITH & LEARNING 60 SYNAXIS 6.1 which a good deal of my thinking about what it would find. I just knew the three figures represented means to be human and bodily emerges. very different streams or traditions in contemporary Catholic theology. CWR: Naturally Human, Supernaturally God is rather What surprised me was this convergence, unique in that it takes a topic—deification— revolving around human deification in Christ. usually discussed from a biblical perspective or a Perhaps I am naïve, but it seems to me that here patristic foundation, and examines it in the is at least one way towards healing and overcoming writings of three great twentieth-century Catholic some of the many unnecessary polarities that theologians: Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., afflict the post-Vatican Catholic Church, as well Karl Rahner, S.J., and Henri de Lubac, S.J. How as offering a fruitful point of dialogue with other did you first become interested in the topic of ecclesial traditions. deification? And how did you end up writing about Garrigou-Lagrange, Rahner, and de Lubac CWR: You acknowledge that you think de and their theological work about deification? Lubac’s thinking and writing about deification, Dr. Cooper: My interest in deification goes while controversial in some ways, is the best of way back to the first year of my Lutheran the three. Why? seminary education, where I had the chance to Dr. Cooper: Maybe because of my own read Irenaeus and Origen for a research paper. I formation in biblical and patristic theology, de was struck by the centrality of this idea in their Lubac speaks a language that is most familiar to respective works. At that time quite a bit of work me, and that rings true from what I know of was also being done by the Finnish Lutherans on authentic Christian tradition, spread over space deification in Luther’s theology, so I was able to and history. draw some tenuous links. He also speaks what I would call a more Several years later I found myself studying universal Christian language, one that is not deification and the body in the writings of St. narrowly bound by the categories of Neo- Maximus the Confessor. To master Maximus on scholastic or Transcendental philosophy. That may this topic one needs to master the whole Greek sound subjective, but I think de Lubac’s theology patristic tradition. Soon after becoming Catholic, has also been more clearly corroborated by I realized how much I stood in need of orientation magisterial teaching in the last forty years or so. in twentieth-century Catholic theology. So I chose a theme I already knew well from the Fathers— CWR: Another shared theme of these two books deification—and set out to discover whether and is what you describe as the “cruciform humility” how it had featured in pre-Vatican II Catholic of Christ and those who share in His divine life. theology. It turned out to be a really worthwhile What is the place and role of the cross in what project. you call “holy eros” and the “liturgical theology of the body?” CWR: What are some of the common points of Dr. Cooper: The cross to me is everything. emphasis among the three theologians? And in It’s the defining center of God and human history. what ways did they differ? Why is it important to Failure to come to grips with what happened study both the points of agreement and of there in our Lord’s bleeding and broken body disagreement? results in a vague, abstract, evanescent theology Dr. Cooper: All three theologians locate the entirely lacking power to change lives. heart and center of human meaning and A theology of the cross does not simply mean fulfillment in Christ, the incarnate God. That that the cross is important. It requires the may come as a surprise to some who think that paradoxical reversal of all worldly perspectives, Garrigou-Lagrange is too neo-scholastic or that and the discovery of life in death, power in Rahner is too modern. I didn’t know what I weakness, honor in humility, salvation in judgment.

EIGHTH DAY SYMPOSIUM visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 61

Christianity proclaims a glorious salvation, but it our ultimate end in the marriage of the Lamb is not found in this life except under the veil of and the Bride. In a hidden yet real way sacramental blood, tears, humility, and surrender to death. marriages already participate in the redemptive grace of this Christ/Church union. But celibacy CWR: How can the theology of the body equip for the sake of the kingdom more manifestly Catholics to better understand and participate in embodies and anticipates the ultimacy of heavenly Liturgy? What misunderstandings about worship fulfillment. In their lives and teaching both Jesus and adoration can be countered by a deeper and Paul subordinate marriage to discipleship and comprehension of the sign and symbolism of the the kingdom. human body? Marriage thus needs the witness of celibacy Dr. Cooper: Christian faith is not first of all to prevent it from appearing as god, as ultimate. a mental event. It is born in the body, and shaped Celibacy on the other hand needs marriage to by what we do with and in the body. Our bodies indicate its relational, nuptial meaning and erotic furthermore are not just neutral, mute instruments, trajectory. but already inscribed with meaning and purpose, already indicating something about the shape of CWR: There is currently a strong push in human and spiritual fulfillment. In the Liturgy, Western culture to erase or dismiss the differences which is nothing less than the body language of between men and women, as well as to redefine Christ in the world, all these dynamics come marriage. How can the theology of the body and together. a better understanding of the nuptial nature of The Church in worship is a living, breathing Christ’s relationship with the Church help the body. Its communion with God is physically Church in defending and lauding that which is mediated. Sensitivity to the meaning of our own truly masculine and feminine, as well as bodies, especially what John Paul II called the presenting the nature of authentic marriage? body’s “nuptial” dimension, as well as to the Dr. Cooper: Every true union presupposes “physicality” of the Church’s Liturgy, goes a long difference. This is true at the level of the way towards strengthening effective participation Trinitarian communion, the hypostatic union of in and understanding of Christian worship. Christ’s two natures, the union of Christ and the Church, and the union of human persons in CWR: Celibacy has often been presented as a marriage. Bodily, sexual difference iconically discipline with an ancient heritage. But what are signals this fact. We can ignore it, but we cannot the theological roots and meanings of celibacy? erase it. And how can they help us to better understand This is why proposals to redefine marriage in marriage and the nuptial relationship? generic, non-sexually specific terms, amount in Dr. Cooper: Our Lord is a virgin. So is His fact to an anthropological devolution. With this Mother. In His virginal conception and incarnate anthropological genericism goes a more or less virginal life “nature is innovated afresh” (to use a subtle eradication of the iconic nature and function phrase of Maximus the Confessor). This means of human sexuality, its symbolic capacity to that in Christ’s bodily virginity, which even now is disclose divine mysteries. The body and sexuality enclosed within the Trinitarian communion, lose their inherent, divinely-inscribed meaning something new enters the sphere of salvation and transparency. They instead become playthings, history, revealing and effectively realizing a new pure instruments, subject to the arbitrary and more ultimate meaning for marriage and manipulations of human will. sexuality. According to the Creator’s plan marriage is CWR: You conclude Holy Eros with a short not just a means for human reproduction. Rather chapter on the “prophetism” of the body. In what it bears a paradigmatic status, directing us toward way does the use of our bodies—in marriage, in

A MERE CHRISTIAN GATHERING 62 SYNAXIS 6.1 worship, and so forth—give witness to divine truths FIGURAL READING and realities? Dr. Cooper: The holy prophets of Israel A Disruptive Christian Practice were more than just mouthpieces or disinterested d conduits for the powerful divine word. This word Fr. Geoffrey R. Boyle gripped them and took hold of them. It burned A. D. 2018 inside them, it weighed constantly upon their hearts, it overturned their lives and histories. Above EPHRAIM Radner’s recent book, Time and the all this word effectively enacted the realities of Word: Figural Reading of the Christian Scriptures, is which it spoke. about divine providence and the Christian life In marriage, and most poignantly in conjugal formed under the word of God. The cover image union, the bodies of the spouses function similarly. —The Ancient of Days by William Blake— Their bodies do not just communicate information, beautifully illustrates what Radner does with his but effectively enact new realities. The language words: setting all things within the hand of God. of the body in marriage is, like the language of This is a book about history and hermeneutics, the prophets, a performative language, an effective how the Lord draws us into Himself through the word-deed. This of course implies the possibility text of Scripture as His own, creative and of falsification. The language of the body can be redemptive voice. falsified. The body can be used to tell sexual lies. It is not an easy book. Radner’s grasp of For the prophets, fidelity to the word of God philosophy—both ancient and modern—can was paramount. On it turned the wellbeing of overwhelm. At his fingertips are just as easily the Israel and the history of the world. For spouses, Anglican Divines, medieval Rabbinic interpretation, and indeed for all, fidelity to the God-inscribed and modern Pentecostalism. He goes in depth language of the body is no optional extra, a with Wycliffe and Bernard of Clairvaux, Origen useful possibility worthy of consideration. On it and Augustine, even showing his familiarity with turns the wellbeing of God’s people, and the somewhat obscure Lutherans like Matthias Flacius future of society. Illyricus and Salomon Glassius. The intellectual breadth is vast and its critical depth is incredibly *Originally published at www.catholicworldreport.com, careful. Radner, a well-loved professor at Wycliffe Oct. 2, 2014 College in the University of Toronto, is a true renaissance scholar, recognizing that life doesn’t exist in clearly defined and easily separated categories; neither does Scripture. Challenging though it is, this book is for the Church. His goal is “to locate figural reading as a kind of common sense, if disruptive, Christian practice” (113). Ultimately, he writes as a preacher; and it’s with a mind toward his experience on the African mission field that he brings his task to bear on the everyday Christian. Figural reading, he says, was simply the natural, common sense reading up until the 16th century. It’s a reading that draws from the whole canon of Scripture, natural to the notion of Scriptura Scripturae interpres (Scripture interprets Scripture). Ultimately, God speaks through His Word. Such a reading receives the “everything” of God’s act

SYNAXIS visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 63 in creation, which he clearly identifies as Christ SOLOMON’S EROTIC the Word (7). It presumes a unity of the Scriptural, two-Testament witness, the inspiration of the Holy IMAGINATION Spirit, and the self-disclosure of God’s action upon d humanity for the sake of drawing man into the Scott Cairns life of God—“into the text where God’s word, in A. D. 1998 all his creative omnipotence, does its work of self- giving and conformation” (263). He lays out not Oh, give me the kisses of your mouth, so much a method, as a discussion of the character For your love is more delightful than wine. and nature of Scripture, as well as the chronological Your name is like finest oil— complexity encountered while attempting to Therefore do maidens love you. describe the historical meaning of the text. Draw me after you, let us run! Radner seeks to enlarge our reception of The king has brought me to his chambers. Scripture—not as an object, but as subject, an Let us delight and rejoice in your love, agent that does what it says. What it says and Savoring it more than wine— does, Radner argues, is “essentially Christological. Like new wine. . . . It will always show Christ, express Christ, reflect ~The Song of Songs 1:2-4 Christ, or lead to Christ” (280). And this because, “somehow,” the Word and the words are “the same.” (That’s my favorite part of the book!) To what purpose is the extravagant beauty of the Radner concludes with an appendix of four body? To what purpose the lush accompaniment figural sermons: Aelfric of Eynsham on Palm of two bodies drawn into a single contemplation? Sunday (10th century); John Donne’s Sermon XIII Solomon, our greatest poet and our king, could on John 8:15, “I judge no man” (17th century); John not for all his wisdom come to final Jasper on Exodus 15:3, “The Lord is a man of understanding—for which we are grateful both to war” (19th century); and one of Radner’s own on Solomon and to the Lord—but came instead to the Good Samaritan. chance elaboration cast in song. This book is one of the best recent contributions to the character of Scripture and The woman (consider her form and consider how we might best engage the Word through what to Solomon would have seemed her implicit preaching and hearing, receiving and being willingness) stood before him only once, and, formed thereby. because she was unaccustomed to such attention and because he was stunned into uncharacteristic *An earlier version of this review first appeared at www.ctsfw.edu humility, she stood before him only briefly before she retrieved her robe from where it lay at her feet, slipped back into it, and, promising to return when she was feeling a little braver, exited the tent.

Such modest exposure may not seem much, but for Solomon it proved plenty. And subsequently all of creation—the labor of bees, spice-scented evergreens, the heartrending, frolicking leap of twin dear—spun into serving a manner of expression whose sole outcome was to utter its own insufﬁciency. For though his song exceeds all

THE SYMPOSIUM JOURNAL 64 SYNAXIS 6.1 songs in addressing the beauty of the woman, it falls silent at its conclusion, as it must, having offered only another manner of poverty in lieu of the woman, which it could not touch.

*Originally published in Recovered Body (New York: George Braziller, 1998). Reprinted by Eighth Day Press.

Love’s Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life selected, adapted, and translated by Scott Cairns Not your conventional anthology of spiritual writings. The poet, convinced that “the originals were all poetry, though they were not all verse,” has chosen to render them all verse, thus magnifying the inner meaning of texts venerated for centuries. Nor is the selection itself conventional. Sure, some of the writers you would expect: St. Paul, Augustine, Francis and Clare, Lady Julian of Norwich, John of the Cross, Therese of Lisieux. But Cairns’ gift to the reader is to bring to light relatively unknown writers like Melito of Sardis or Syncletica of Alexandria, Isaac the Syrian and Angela of Foligno, Nicephorus the Hesychast and Nil Sorsky. Likewise, he exposes the pervasive poetic beauty of writers often only considered theologians: Irenaeus, Origen, Athanasios, Ephraim the Syrian, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzos, Gregory of Nyssa, Denys the Areopagite, and more. Those who have encountered Scott Cairns’ poetry will recognize in these “translations” some of his distinctive phrases, and cadences, those who haven’t will quite possibly be intrigued enough to do so. But anyone attending this collection will be introduced to or reminded of a multitude, vastly diverse in time and place, bearing common witness to the relentless and ecstatic love of God and the real possibility of our participation in it. 142 pp. paper $21.95 Short Trip to the Edge: A Pilgrimage to Prayer by Scott Cairns; revised second edition Whether according to the publisher’s plan or a coincidence timed from above, Short Trip arrived, so appropriately, on the first day of Great Lent. And like children at Christmas, we couldn’t wait to open it. Scott Cairns, poet, teacher, and friend, offers the hard-won fruit of his own inner and outer journeys—among them several to the revered center of Orthodox monasticism, Athos—so that we might catch a glimpse of authentic prayer; that seeing we might desire it, and desiring someday become it. Advice is always given in the voice, confessional and humorously self-effacing, of one who considers himself the reader’s fellow-pilgrim. It is as far removed as imaginable from sentimental or sham pieties, avoiding easy judgment or premature adulation of the monks and pilgrims encountered, instead revealing a winsome luminosity visible in their very fragile humanity. As in the best of memoir, the author’s self-disclosure is as much an encounter with the place and persons of his pilgrimage as with himself. 256 pp. paper $16.99

The Spiritual Life and How to Be Attuned To It by St. Theophan the Recluse A Russian spiritual director and father to many during his life, St. Theophan is now becoming the same to a new generation through English translation. The Spiritual Life is a new translation of a work originally titled, A Study in the Science of the Soul. It is made up of Theophan’s letters of direction to a young woman as she becomes serious about seeking God. He ranges widely from the theoretical (the nature of the body, its relationship with the intellect, soul, and spirit) to the very practical (“Get a notebook!” “Stand a day.”) Incorporated in all of his work is a faithfulness to the ascetic and spiritual teachings of the Orthodox tradition, adapted to the needs of layperson “in the world.” 320 pp. paper $24.95

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All human loves become Christian only when the little rivulets of our many affections, desires, passions, and utopias converge into the burning torrent of the love of God. ~Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis 66 SYNAXIS 6.1 MARRIAGE & THE chip pieces off it and exhibit them as specimens, called “hard cases”; they treat every example of MODERN MIND the rule as an exception to the rule; but they d never look at the rule. They never ask, even in the G. K. Chesterton name of history or human curiosity, what the A.D. 1932 thing is, or why it is, or why the overwhelming mass of mankind believes that it must be. Let us I HAVE been requested to write something about begin with the alphabet, as one does with infants. Marriage and the Modern Mind. It would perhaps Marriage, humanly considered, rests upon a be more appropriate to write about Marriage and fact of human nature, which we may call a fact the Modern Absence of Mind. In much of their of natural history. All the higher animals require current conduct, those who call themselves much longer parental protection than do the “modern” seem to have abandoned the use of lower; the baby elephant is a baby much longer reason; they have sunk back into their own than the baby jellyfish. But even beyond this natural subconsciousness, perhaps under the influence of tutelage, man needs something quite unique in the psychology now most fashionable in the nature. Man alone needs education. I know that drawing-room; and it is an understatement to say animals train their young in particular tricks; as that they act more automatically than the animals. cats teach kittens to catch mice. But this is a very Wives and husbands seem to leave home more in limited and rudimentary education. It is what the the manner of somnambulists. hustling millionaires call Business Education; that If anybody thinks I exaggerate the mindlessness is, it is not education at all. Even at that, I doubt of modern comment on this matter, I am content whether any pupil presenting himself for to refer him to the inscription under a large Matriculation or entrance into Standard VI, photograph of a languishing lady, in the newspaper would now be accepted if flaunting the stubborn now before me. It states that the lady has covered boast of a capacity to catch mice. Education is a herself with glory as the inventor of “Companionate complex and many-sided culture to meet a complex Divorce.” It goes on to state, in her own words, and many-sided world; and the animals, especially that she will marry her husband again if he asks the lower animals, do not require it. It is said that her again; and that she has been living with him the herring lays thousands of eggs in a day. But, ever since she was divorced from him. If mortal though evidently untouched by the stunt of Birth- muddle-headedness can go deeper than that, in Control, in other ways the herring is highly modern. this vale of tears, I should like to see it. The The mother herring has no need to remember newspaper picture and paragraph I can actually her own children, and certainly therefore, no see; and stupidity so stupendous as that has never need to remember her own mate. But then the been known in human history before. The first duties of a young herring, just entering upon life, thing to say about marriage and the modern are very simple and largely instinctive; they come, mind, therefore, is that it is natural enough that like a modern religion, from within. A herring people with no mind should want to have no does not have to be taught to take a bath; for he marriage. never takes anything else. He does not have to be But there is another simple yet curious trained to take off a hat to a lady herring, for he illustration of modern stupidity in the matter. never puts on a hat, or any other Puritanical And that is that, while I have known thousands of disguise to hamper the Greek grace of his people arguing about marriage, sometimes movements. Consequently his father and mother furiously against it, sometimes rather feebly in have no common task or responsibility; and they favor of it, I have never known any one of the can safely model their union upon the boldest disputants begin by asking what marriage is. and most advanced of the new novels and plays. They nibble at it with negative criticism; they Doubtless the female herring does say to the male

SYNAXIS visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 67 herring, “True marriage must be free from the Children know exactly what is meant by having dogmas of priests; it must be a thing of one really come home; and the happier of them keep exquisite moment.” Doubtless the male herring something of the feeling as they grow up. But they does say to the female herring, “When Love has cannot keep the feeling for ten minutes, if there is died in the heart, Marriage is a mockery in the an assumption that Papa is only waiting for home.” Tommy’s twenty-first birthday to carry the typist This philosophy, common among the lower off to Trouville; or that the chauffeur actually has forms of life, is obviously of no use among the the car at the door, that Mrs. Brown may go off higher. This way of talking, however suitable for the moment Miss Brown has “come out.” herrings, or even for rats and rabbits, who are That is, in practical experience, the basic idea said to be so prolific, does not meet the case of of marriage; that the founding of a family must the creature endowed with reason. The young of be on a firm foundation; that the rearing of the the human species, if they are to reach the hill immature must be protected by something patient possibilities of the human culture, so various, so and enduring. It is the common conclusion of all laborious, so elaborate, must be under the mankind; and all common sense is on its side. A protection of responsible persons through very small minority of what may be called the idle long periods of mental and moral growth. I know Intelligentsia have, just recently and in our corner there are some who grow merely impatient and of the world, criticized this idea of Marriage in irrational at this point; and say they could do just the name of what they call the Modern Mind. as well without education. But they lie; for they The first obvious or apparent question is how could not even express that opinion, if they had they deal with the practical problem of children. not laboriously learnt one particular language in The first apparent answer is that they do not deal which to talk nonsense. The moment we have with it at all. realized this, we understand why the relations of At best, they propose to get rid of babies, or the sexes normally remain static; and in most the problem of babies, in one of three typically cases, permanent. For though, taking this argument modern ways. One is to say that there shall be no alone, there would be a case for the father and babies. This suggestion may be addressed to the mother parting when the children were mature, individual; but it is addressed to every individual. the number of people who at the age of fifty Another is that the father should instantly send really wish to bolt with the typist or be abducted the babies, especially if they are boys, to a distant by the chauffeur is less than is now frequently and inaccessible school, with bounds like a prison, supposed. that the babies may become men, in a manner Well, even if the family held together as long that is considered impossible in the society of as that, it would be better than nothing; but in their own father. But this is rapidly ceasing to be fact even such belated divorce is based on bad a Modern method; and even the Moderns have psychology. All the modern license is based on found that it is rather behind the times. The third bad psychology; because it is based on the latest way, which is unimpeachably Modern, is to imitate psychology. And that is like knowing the last Rousseau, who left his baby on the doorstep of proposition in Euclid without knowing the first. It the Foundling Hospital. It is true that, among the is the first elements of psychology that the people Moderns, it is generally nothing so human or called “modern” do not know. One of the things traditional as the Foundling Hospital. The baby is they cannot comprehend is the thing called to be left on the doorstep of the State Department “atmosphere”; as they show by shrieking with for Education and Universal Social Adjustment. derision when anybody demands “a religious In short, these people mean, with various degrees atmosphere” in the schools. The atmosphere of of vagueness, that the place of the Family can something safe and settled can only exist where now be taken by the State. people see it in the future as well as in the past.

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The difficulty of the first method, and so far, the governess in every schoolroom. Look at the of the second and third, is that they may be real story of States, modern as well as ancient, carried out. The suggestion is made to everybody and you will see a dissolving view of distant and in the hope that it will not be accepted by everybody; uncontrollable things, making up most of the it is offered to all in the hope that it may not be politics of the earth. Take the most populous accepted by all. If nobody has any children, center. China is now called a Republic. In everybody can still be satisfied by Birth-Control consequence it is ruled by five contending armies methods and justified by Birth-Control arguments. and is much less settled than when it was an Even the reformers do not want this; but they Empire. What has preserved China has been its cannot offer any objection to any individual—or domestic religion. South America, like all Latin every individual. In somewhat the same way, lands, is full of domestic graces and gaieties; but Rousseau may act as an individual and not as a it is governed by a series of revolutions. We social philosopher; but he could not prevent all ourselves may be governed by a Dictator; or by a the other individuals acting as individuals. And if General Strike; or by a banker living in New all the babies born in the world were left on the York. Government grows more elusive every day. doorstep of the Foundling Hospital, the Hospital, But the traditions of humanity support humanity; and the doorstep, would have to be considerably and the central one is this tradition of Marriage. enlarged. Now something like this is what has And the essential of it is that a free man and a really happened, in the vague and drifting free woman choose to found on earth the only centralization of our time. The Hospital has been voluntary state; the only state which creates and enlarged into the School and then into the State; which loves its citizens. So long as these real not the guardian of some abnormal children, but responsible beings stand together, they can survive the guardian of all normal children. Modern all the vast changes, deadlocks and disappointments mothers and fathers, of the emancipated sort, which make up mere political history. But if they could not do their quick-change acts of bewildering fail each other, it is as certain as death that “the divorce and scattered polygamy, if they did not State” will fail them. believe in a big benevolent Grandmother, who could ultimately take over ten million children by *Originally published in Sidelights on New London very grandmotherly legislation. and New Yorker and Other Essays (London: Sheed & This modern notion about the State is a delusion. Ward, 1932). It is not founded on the history of real States, but entirely on reading about unreal or ideal States, like the Utopias of Mr. Wells. The real State, though a necessary human combination, always has been and always will be, far too large, loose, clumsy, indirect and even insecure, to be the “home” of the human young who are to be trained in the human tradition. If mankind had not been organized into families, it would never have had the organic power to be organized into commonwealths. Human culture is handed down in the customs of countless households; it is the only way in which human culture can remain human. The households are right to confess a common loyalty or federation under some king or republic. But the king cannot be the nurse in every nursery; or even the government become

ST JOHN OF DAMASCUS AWARD visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 69 ROMANTIC THEOLOGY well-known at the present day, and the present essay may therefore fall into the hands of some d student of the subject who is, like the author, Charles Williams unacquainted with its predecessor. To students A. D. 1924 who do not accept the doctrine of the Incarnation, the suggestions made will probably appear fanciful; THEOLOGY, which is the science of God, is it is at any rate certain, as a compensation, that to generally divided into various classes: Dogmatic, no Christian can they appear as anything but Moral, Pastoral, Ascetic, Mystical. But there is a natural and probable, even if in the end they should side of it which is concerned with so definite an have to be, for one cause or another, rejected. In experience and such exact intellectual deductions a sense, of course, any such study as the present is that it may be convenient to regard it as a class in negligible, as all intellectual formulation of spiritual itself; more especially as it has, on the whole, been experience, and all schematization of it, is rather neglected by experts in other divisions, and negligible. There are lovers, as there are saints, in left to the poets and artists. The name given to all ages, who not only do not know but do not this side of the science might well be Romantic care to know, anything of the work of the mind, Theology. This term does not imply, as will and they are sometimes the greatest lovers and inevitably at first be thought, a theology based saints. No knowledge of Dogmatic Theology is a merely on fantasy and dream, and concerning substitute for a saving faith; nor of Moral Theology itself only with illogical sentimentalities. It is a for the formation of the habit of moral obedience; theology as exact as any other kind, but having nor of Mystical Theology for the practice of for cause and subject those experiences of man communion with God. Nor is any theoretical which, anyhow in discussions of art, are generally doctrine in Romantic Theology the satisfactory termed “Romantic.” The chief of these is romantic equivalent for its practice. But theory may be a love; that is, sexual love between a man and a help to practice, and even sometimes an incentive woman, freely given, freely accepted, and appearing to it. Romantic Theology is no more than a basis, to its partakers one of the most important but the possibility of its sometimes being that is a experiences in life—a love which demands the reason for its formulation. attention of the intellect and the spirit for its Since Romantic Theology is a part of Christian understanding and its service. That there are other Theology it will be understood that this essay is human experiences of this same far-reaching written entirely from the point of view of an nature is undeniable—nature and friendship are orthodox Christian. The Rites and dogmas of perhaps the chief, and these will be touched on in Christianity, as set forth in the Book of Common the last section of this essay. But this book is Prayer of the Church of England, are assumed on concerned almost entirely to make some attempt the one side, as romantic love is assumed on the to formulate, for the help of students, the principles other. Intellectually, such a position implicitly of Romantic Theology as applicable to romantic assumes that the theologies of other religions are love; and it does not profess to do more than mistaken, but it is not, of course, denied that sketch the outlines of the subject. The excuse for romantic lovers in any part or any age of the world its existence is that, though a good deal has been have achieved their proper end under whatever written on the subject, especially by the great love creed they professed. The present business is poets, the author does not know of any book merely the formulation of Christian theology; not which attempts to make a beginning of it as a a denial or correction of others. scientific theological study. That a similar But if this side of the book is limited, the other formulation may exist, somewhere in the vast is universal. Love, as previously defined, is a mass of Christian theology, is only too probable, normal human thing, although its development but if so, it does not appear to be particularly and progress must be modified and defined by

HONORING EXEMPLARS OF CULTURAL RENEWAL 70 SYNAXIS 6.1 the particular habits, social and religious, of its which, driven out by dogma, has returned as a environment. It is, in another sense than that of vaguer but pervading influence. This added to the Vincentian canon, held semper et ubique et ab that necessary asceticism which is the prelude to omnibus [always, everywhere, and by all; shortened the profounder depths of mystical life has resulted from “What is always, what is everywhere, what is in an attitude towards marriage that seems to by all people believed.”]. It has been part of the regard it, though officially calling it a sacrament, work of Christianity in the world to make men as in effect nothing much more than a matter of aware of the spiritual significance of certain morals. Probably this attitude has been strengthened natural experiences. This has been attempted by the celibacy of the clergy, so long and so widely with sacrifice, it has been attempted with death; it maintained. It would be demanding too much of has been attempted very little with romantic love. the theologians, for most of them have been clerics, Yet any human energy that can be so described is to expect them to be sensitive to the meaning and capable of being assumed into sacramental and graces of a sacrament from which they have been transcendental heights—such is the teaching of debarred. In this only of the sacraments are the the Incarnation. Thus the distance between an priesthood not merely unessential in times of ordinary meal and that nourishment which is necessity, but almost unimportant at any time. communicated in the Eucharist should lessen, as Compelled by the Mind of the Church to perform it were, until perhaps to the devout soul every meal the ecclesiastical ceremony of marriage whenever is an actual Eucharist in the theological sense. Nor it is demanded, they find the same Mind declaring would such a progress involve any invasion of the that the celebrants of the sacrament are, always order of the Church, for it would be an additional and everywhere, the two lovers; that the and free grace of God. But much theology has ecclesiastical ceremony, though of the bene esse, is been spent upon this sacrament, whereas comparatively not of the esse, of it; and that in consequence the little has been written upon the other sacrament priest, though a witness terrestrial and celestial, of marriage. In general, the Church has confined whose presence it would be the highest insolence herself to exhorting the newly married pair to not to invite, is hardly more. The position is novel, observe their moral duties and their ecclesiastical, and the result not amazing. and to repudiating divorce more or less strenuously. That the result, the neglect by theology of And yet the universality, the intensity, and (one marriage as a sacrament, is undoubted could be might almost say) the necessity of love, might shown by many quotations [Williams intended to have suggested it as a subject for the most profound add them but this never happened]. consideration. Such consideration the Church These then are the official utterances, or may yet find it possible to give, and that will be rather the utterances of the officials of the Church, the Age of Romantic Theology. It has been which is not quite the same thing. They are prevented from doing so in the past by various concerned largely with such moral matters as causes. For example, during the earliest stage of divorce and birth-control and so forth, a side of the Church her expectation of the immediate the subject with which this essay does not concern return of Christ distracted her mind from a subject itself (except incidentally, so far as divorce is which implied children and the continuance of the concerned, in a few tentative suggestions). And yet world. Again, her inevitable concentration upon something may be gathered from the attitude another world, her existence, so to speak, in that which the Church has taken up on those matters, world and merely partial appearance in this, tends little as its officials (with few and lovely exceptions) to cause her to neglect the affairs of this world; seem to understand it. To them in some way and by consequence to regard with suspicion any divorce and birth-control seem to have existed in sacrament accompanied by and indeed consisting no relation to marriage: awful laws of the Absolute. of human delight. The Church has always, not It is the old error of substituting the very proper unnaturally, been haunted by a Manicheanism negation of certain means for the assertion of the

EIGHTH DAY COLLOQUIUM visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 71 end which is to be attained, not by those means. the Lady Julian of Norwich saw, that in the In marriage, as everywhere else, the Church is providence of God, all things are well even at this concerned with the regeneration of man. This present moment, “all things are most well” (Sixteen regeneration, which will probably take aeons Revelations, 1393); but this is very different from a before it can be dimly foreseen, is not to be well-to-do tradesman’s assurance that everything’s brought about by an evasion of the problem. for the best. So in love it is most certain that the Now divorce and birth-control are both, in effect, lovers are manifest to each other’s eyes in their evasions of the problem. It is the man and the original perfection; but this is not the same thing marriage that is the problem. If you dissolve the as the rather silly convention of romance that marriage, if you artificially dissolve the connection only a pretended criticism of the beloved should between intercourse and birth, you may (with the be allowed a place. The romantic mind must, if it happiest temporal results) evade the problem, but is to be justified, work within the bounds of realism; you have not solved it. It is, on the part of the as indeed love itself does, for of all proverbs that Church, an instinctive grasp of this fact that has which declares that “Love is blind” is surely the made her cling almost with passion to the problem; most foolish. Love can only see the next world by and has made her look such an obstinate fool to virtue of that eyesight which sees and is not afraid everyone else. She may, in a sense, fail to solve the to see the flaws in this; all other vision is blindness, problem; humanly speaking, she has often failed, all other faith superstition. but she will not deny or evade it. There is no That it can go on, this mush of sentimentality, solution except some sort of regeneration, of this glowing romance, is to be doubted. Three transmutation, what you will; and the awful eyes things can happen—perhaps one, perhaps all, that are fixed on eternity see this, though the will. First, there may be a reaction; we may pass “No, no, no” of her outcry sounds more like the off on to some other subject. It is to be hoped we voice of a peevish child or an hysterical woman. shall. Second, we may proceed, with Mr. D. H. Such is the present ecclesiastical position. But Lawrence, over the edge of humanity, into some its unsatisfactory nature is accentuated by the very real but rather awful mysticism, a mysticism present secular position; chiefly, by the flood of already adumbrated by Rossetti and Swinburne. sex literature which has drowned the modern Thirdly, Theology may take the marsh in hand world. Our poetry, our fiction, our drama, our and try to drain it. In such a work this book tries, journalism, are full of it, from Shakespeare and perhaps vainly, to handle a spade. But it does so, Marlowe (who invented it) to the middle page of not with any wish to sentimentalize still further any morning paper. It may be rightly argued that an over-sentimentalized age; but with the hope of with great literature, say Antony and Cleopatra, one canalizing our emotions, leaving the rest of the is concerned with poetry and not with sex. But land dry for the purposes of cultivation of other though this is true of it all separately from crops, and establishing a means of transport by Tamburlaine to The Ring and the Book or Emblems of which such vessels as choose may proceed more Love, it remains also true that the continual choice effectively to their end. of romantic love as a subject has the effect of constantly directing the attention of the mind to *Written in pencil in 1924, publication was rejected romantic love: a constancy of attention which is both times Williams submitted it. But a typed version very bad for an unprincipled mind, and not too (probably by Williams’ sister) was given to Williams’ good for a principled. friend John Pellow. Alice M. Hadfield was allowed to Nor has this concentration of literature upon photocopy it and published it in 2005: Outlines of it been any too good for romantic love itself. There Romantic Theology (Berkeley, CA: Apocryphile Press, 2005). Available for purchase at Eighth Day Books. is in love, as in religion, a hypocrisy, or at any rate a foolish optimism, which is exceedingly like the truth but is not the truth. It is no doubt true, as

EQUIPPING LEADERS FOR A SECULAR AGE 72 SYNAXIS 6.1 THE EROTIC HERO sets to work, and the seduction will not be absolute, i.e., a pure triumph of his will. For that, it is essential d that his victim should have no feelings of her own W. H. Auden towards him, until he chooses to arouse them. Vice A. D. 1948 versa, what is essential for him about her is not her appearance but simply her membership in the THE TWO great modern erotic myths, which class Woman; the ugly and the old are as good as have no parallels in Greek literature, are the myth the beautiful and the young. The Tristan-Isolde of Tristan and Isolde, or the World Well Lost for myth is un-Greek because no Greek could conceive Love, and the countermyth of Don Juan, the of attributing absolute value to another individual, seducer. he could only think in comparative terms, this The Tristan-Isolde situation is this: both possess one is more beautiful than that one, this one has heroic arete in the epic sense; he is the bravest done greater deeds than that one, etc. The Don warrior, she is the most beautiful woman; both Juan myth is un-Greek, as Kierkegaard has pointed are of noble birth. They cannot marry each other out, not because he sleeps with a number of because she is already the wife of his king and women, but because he keeps a list of them. friend, nevertheless they fall in love. In some A Greek could understand seducing a girl versions they accidentally drink a love potion but because one found her attractive and then deserting the effect of this is not really to make them fall in her because one met a more attractive girl and love but rather to make them realize that they forgot the first one; but he could not have understood already have and to accept the fact as predestined doing so for an arithmetical reason, because one and irrevocable. Their relation is not “platonic” had resolved to be the first lover of every woman in the conventional sense, but the barriers of in the world, and she happened to be the next marriage and circumstances give them few integer in this infinite series. opportunities for going to bed together, and on Tristan and Isolde are tormented because each occasion they can never be certain that it they are compelled to count up to two when they will not be the last. The love they feel for each long to be able only to count up to one; Don Juan other is religiously absolute, i.e., each is the other’s is in torment because, however great the number ultimate good so that not only is sexual infidelity of his seductions, it still remains a finite number inconceivable, but all other relations to other and he cannot rest until he has counted up to people and the world cease to have any significance. infinity. Yet, though their relation is the only value that The great enemy of both is time: Tristan and exists for them, it is a torment, because their sexual Isolde dread it because it threatens change, and desire is only the symbolic expression of their real they wish the moment of intense feeling to remain passion, which is the yearning of two souls to unchanged forever, hence the love potion and the merge and become one, a consummation which irremovable obstacle in the situation which serve is impossible so long as they have bodies, so that as defense against change; Don Juan dreads it their ultimate goal is to die in each other’s arms. because it threatens repetition and he wishes each Don Juan, on the other hand, is not an epic moment to be absolutely novel, hence his insistence hero; ideally, his external appearance is that of that for each of his victims it must be her first the man who nobody notices is there because he sexual experience and that he only sleep with her is so utterly commonplace, for it is important to once. the myth that he, the man of heroic will and Both myths are dependent upon Christianity, achievement, should look to the outward eye like i.e., they could only have been invented by a a member of the chorus. society which has been taught to believe a) that If Don Juan is either handsome or ugly, then every individual is of unique and eternal value to the woman will have feelings about him before he God irrespective of his or her social importance

FEASTS visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 73 in the world, b) that dedication of the self to God GOING TO CHURCH is an act of free-choice, an absolute commitment irrespective of feeling, made with infinite passion, d and c) that one must neither allow oneself to be Coventry Patmore ruled by the temporal moment nor attempt to A. D. 1891 transcend it but make oneself responsible for it, turning time into history. 1 Both myths are diseases of the Christian I woke at three; for I was bid imagination and while they have inspired a great To breakfast with the Dean at nine, body of beautiful literature, their influence upon And thence to Church. My curtain slid, human conduct, particularly in their frivolous I found the dawning Sunday fine, watered-down modern versions, which gloss over And could not rest, so rose. The air the fact that both the romantic couple and the Was dark and sharp; the roosted birds solitary seducer are intensely unhappy, has been Cheep’d, “Here am I, Sweet; are you there?” almost wholly bad. Whenever a married couple On Avon’s misty flats the herds divorces because having ceased to be a divine Expected, comfortless, the day, image to each other, they cannot endure the Which slowly fired the clouds above; thought of having to love a real person no better The cock scream’d, somewhere far away; than themselves, they are acting under the spell In sleep the matrimonial dove of the Tristan myth. Whenever a man says to Was crooning; no wind waked the wood, himself, “I must be getting old. I haven’t had sex Nor moved the midnight river-damps, for a week. What would my friends say if they Nor thrill’d the poplar; quiet stood knew,” he is re-enacting the myth of Don Juan. It The chestnut with its thousand lamps; is significant also—it might interest Plato though The moon shone yet, but weak and drear, it would probably not surprise him—that the And seem’d to watch, with bated breath, instances in real life which conform most closely The landscape, all made sharp and clear to the original pattern of both myths are not, in By stillness, as a face by death. either case, heterosexual; the Tristan and Isolde one actually meets are a lesbian couple, the Don 2 Juan a pederast. My pray’rs for her being done, I took Occasion by the quiet hour *Introduction to The Portable Greek Reader (New York: To find and know, by Rule and Book, Viking Press, 1948). Reprinted in Forewords and The rights of love’s beloved power. Afterwords (New York: Random House, year?), 23-25. 3 Fronting the question without ruth, Nor ignorant that, evermore, If men will stoop to kiss the Truth, She lifts them higher than before, I, from above, such light required As now should once for all destroy The folly which at times desired A sanction for so great a joy.

4 Thenceforth, and through that pray’r, I trod A path with no suspicions dim.

COMMEMORATING CHRIST & THE SAINTS 74 SYNAXIS 6.1

I loved her in the name of God, And by the radiance in her face And for the ray she was of Him; I saw she felt she was admired; I ought to admire much more, not less And, through the common luck of love, Her beauty was a godly grace; A moment’s fortunate delay, The mystery of loveliness, To fit the little lilac glove, Which made an altar of her face, Gave me her arm; and I and they Was not of the flesh, though that was fair, (They true to this and every hour, But a most pure and living light As if attended on by Time), Without a name, by which the rare Enter’d the Church while yet the tower And virtuous spirit flamed to sight. Was noisy with the finish’d chime. If oft, in love, effect lack’d cause And cause effect, ’twere vain to soar 6 Reasons to seek for that which was Her soft voice, singularly heard Reason itself, or something more. Beside me, in her chant, withstood My joy was no idolatry The roar of voices, like a bird Upon the ends of the vile earth bent, Sole warbling in a windy wood; For when I loved her most then I And, when we knelt, she seem’d to be Most yearn’d for more divine content. An angel teaching me to pray; That other doubt, which, like a ghost, And all through the high Liturgy In the brain’s darkness haunted me, My spirit rejoiced without allay, Was thus resolved: Him loved I most, Being, for once, borne clearly above But her I loved most sensibly. All banks and bars of ignorance, Lastly, my giddiest hope allow’d By this bright spring-tide of pure love, No selfish thought, or earthly smirch; And floated in a free expanse, And forth I went, in peace, and proud Whence it could see from side to side, To take my passion into Church; The obscurity from every part Grateful and glad to think that all Winnow’d away and purified Such doubts would seem entirely vain By the vibrations of my heart. To her whose nature’s lighter fall Made no divorce of heart from brain. *The Angel in the House, Book I, Canto X, Preludes (Cassell & Company, 1891). 5 I found them, with exactest grace And fresh as Spring, for Spring attired;

The Figure of Beatrice: A Study in Dante by Charles Williams One of the most ambitious and unique interpretations of Dante ever written. Williams tackles the power of the image and the way in which images are integral to our relationship with God and others. Particularly, he examines romantic love as a “method of process towards the inGodding of man” as well as the images of community, poetry, and human learning. Beatrice, according to Williams, is Dante’s way of knowing. “Wherever any love is,” he writes, “and some kind of love in every man and woman there must be—there is either affirmation or rejection of the image in one or other form. If there is rejection—of that Way there are many records. Of the affirmation, for all its greater commonness, there are fewer records.” For Williams, Dante inhabits the latter. 240 pp. paper $21.95

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INKLINGS OKTOBERFEST visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org the FATHERS

Love is outside of all creatures, then again it is also with all things; it is fire, it is dazzling light, it becomes a cloud of light, it becomes itself as a sun. And so as a fire it warms my soul, and inflames my heart, and excites it to desire, and to love, love of the Creator. ~St Symeon the New Theologian 76 SYNAXIS 6.1 FIRST HOMILY ON your inheritance; and a bee must prophesy for you and judge you—Deborah, you understand, THE SONG OF SONGS means “bee”—in order that you may take that d song also on your lips, which is found in the Book Origen of Judges (Jdg. 5). Mount up thence to the Book A. D. Third Century of Kings, and come to the song of David, when he fled “out of the hand of all his enemies and out of the hand of Saul, and said, “The Lord is AS WE HAVE learned from Moses that some my stay and my strength and my refuge and my places are not merely holy, but holy of holies (cf. savior” (2 Kg. 22). You must go on next to Isaiah, Ex. 30:10, Lev. 10:17), and that certain days are so that with him you may say: “I will sing to the not Sabbaths simply, but are sabbaths of Sabbaths: Beloved the song of my vineyard” (Is. 5:1-7). so now we are taught further by the pen of And when you have been through all the Solomon that there are songs which are not songs, then set your course for greater heights, so merely songs, but Songs of Songs. Blessed too is that as a fair soul with her Spouse you may sing he who enters holy places, but far more blest the the Song of Songs too. I am not sure how many man who enters the holy of holies! Blessed is he persons are concerned in it; but, as far as God who observes the sabbaths, but more blest he who has shown me in answer to your prayers, I seem keeps sabbaths of sabbaths! Blessed likewise is he to find four characters—the Husband and the who understands songs and sings them—of Bride; along with the Bride, her maidens; and course nobody sings except on festal days—but with the Bridegroom, a band of intimate much more blest is he who sings the Songs of companions. Some things are spoken by the Songs! And as the man who enters holy places Bride, others by the Bridegroom; sometimes too still needs much to make him able to enter the the maidens speak; so also do the Bridegroom’s holy of holies, and as he who keeps the sabbath friends. It is fitting indeed that at a wedding the which was ordained by God for the people still bride should be accompanied by a bevy of requires many things before he can keep the maidens and the bridegroom by a company of sabbath of sabbaths: so also is it hard to find a youths. You must not look further than those who man competent to scale the heights of the Songs are saved by the preaching of the Gospel. By the of Songs even though he has traversed all the Bridegroom understand Christ, and by the Bride songs in Scripture. the Church “without spot or wrinkle,” of whom You must come out of Egypt and, when the it is written: “that He might present her to land of Egypt lies behind you, you must cross the Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or Red Sea if you are to sing the first song, saying: wrinkle or any such thing, but that she might be “Let us sing to the Lord, for He is gloriously holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27). In the magnified” (Canticle of Moses, Ex. 15:1-21). But maidens who are with the Bride you must though you have uttered the first song, you are recognize those who, although they are faithful, still a long way from the Song of Songs. Pursue do not come under the foregoing description, yet your spiritual journey through the wilderness, are regarded nonetheless as having in some sense until you come to “the well which the kings obtained salvation—in short, they are the souls of dug” (Song of the Well, Num. 21:17f.), so that believers. And in the men with the Bridegroom there you may sing the second song. After that, you must see the angels and those who have come to the threshold of the holy land, that “come unto the perfect man” (Eph. 4:13). We standing on the bank of Jordan you may sing the have thus four groups: the two individuals, the song of Moses, saying: “Hear, O heaven, and I Bridegroom and the Bride; two choirs answering will speak, and let the earth give ear to the words each other—the Bride singing with her maidens, of my mouth” (Dt. 32:1-43)! Again, you must and the Bridegroom with His companions. When fight under Joshua and possess the holy land as

SISTERS OF SOPHIA visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 77 you have grasped this, listen to the Song of Songs it—the heart once and for all sent into exile and make haste to understand it and to join with would not have grasped what it heard because of the Bride in saying what she says, so that you may its slack indifference. For that reason the divine hear also what she heard. And, if you are unable Word speaks to the dull and lukewarm soul and, to join the Bride in her words, then, so that you concerning those things which the soul knows, it may hear the things that are said to her, make secretly inspires a love of which it knows nothing. haste at least to join the Bridegroom’s For allegory supplies the soul separated far companions. And if they also are beyond you, from God with a kind of mechanism by which it then be with the maidens who stay in the Bride’s is raised to God. By means of dark sayings in retinue and share her pleasures. whose words a person can understand something These are the characters in this book, which of his own, he can understand what is not his to is at once a drama and a marriage-song. And it is understand, and by earthly words he can be from this book that the heathen appropriated the raised above the earth. Therefore, through means epithalamium, and here is the source of this type which are not alien to our way of understanding, of poem; for it is obviously a marriage-song that that which is beyond our understanding can be we have in the Song of Songs. The Bride prays known. By that which we do know—out of such first and, even as she prays, forthwith is heard. are allegories made—divine meanings are She sees the Bridegroom present; she sees the clothed and through our understanding of maidens gathered in her train. Then the Bridegroom external speech we are brought to an inner answers her; and, after He has spoken, while He understanding. is still suffering for her salvation, the companions Thus it is that in this book, called the Song of reply that “until the Bridegroom recline at His Songs, we find the words of a bodily love: so that table” (Sg. 1:12) and rise from His Passion, they the soul, its numbness caressed into warmth by are going to make the Bride some ornaments. familiar words, through the words of a lower love is excited to a higher. For in this book are *The Song of Songs: Commentary and Homilies, tr. R. P. described kisses, breasts, cheeks, limbs; and this Lawson (New York: The Newman Press, 1956), holy language is not to be held in ridicule because 266-68. of these words. Rather we are provoked to reflect on the mercy of God; for by His naming of the parts of the body by which He calls us to love we must be made aware of how wonderfully and mercifully He works in us; for He goes so far as to use the language of our shameful loves in order to set our heart on fire with a holy love. Thus in EXPOSITION OF THE humbling Himself by the manner of His speech SONG OF SONGS He raises us in understanding; we learn, from the words of this lower love, with what intensity we d must burn with love of God. St. Gregory the Great But we must be subtle enough to grasp this, A. D. Sixth Century lest when we hear the words of this external love we become fixed in the things of sense, and the WHEN THE human race was thrust out from instrument, which is given to lift us up, should the joys of paradise and had embarked upon the instead weigh us down. We must seek out the pilgrimage of this present life, it became blind of more interior meaning in these bodily, exterior heart, lacking in spiritual insight. Had the divine words, and though speaking of the body, voice spoken to this blind heart, saying, “Seek ourselves be taken, as it were, out of the body. We God” or “Love God”—as the Law has spoken to must come to this sacred marriage-feast of bride

WALKING WITH WOMEN OF WISDOM 78 SYNAXIS 6.1 and bridegroom dressed in a wedding gown, that beings; for if otherwise we hear what is said in a is with the understanding which comes from human way we will not be able to sense the interior charity; this is necessary: for unless we divine character of what we ought to hear. Paul come clothed in this wedding gown, this worthy wished his disciples to be no longer “men” when understanding of charity, we will be cast out from he said to them: “Since there are jealousies and the wedding-feast into the darkness outside—that wranglings among you, are you not men?” (1 Cor. is, into the blindness of ignorance (Mt. 22:1-14). 3:3-4). And the Lord considered His disciples not Through these words of passing desire we must to be any longer mere humans when He asked: cross to the safe ground of invulnerability. The “Who do men say the Son of Man is?” (Mt. words and meanings of sacred Scripture are 16:13). When they answered Him in the words of related as colors and objects are in a picture: and human beings, he insisted: “But you, who do you it would be particularly stupid were a person so to say I am?” (Mt. 16:15). For when He first said attend to the colors of a picture as to ignore what “men” and then added “but you,” He was the picture depicts. For if we give ear to the making a kind of distinction between “men” and words which are the external utterance and “disciples”: that is by inspiring them to things ignore the meaning, this is like attending only to divine, He made them more than men. The the colors while ignoring the thing painted. It is Apostle says: “For anyone who is in Christ there written that “the letter kills, but the spirit gives is a new creation, the old creation has gone” (2 life” (2 Cor. 3:6). For the letter hides the spirit just Cor. 5:17). And we know that at our resurrection as the chaff conceals the wheat. But it is beasts of the body will be so united to the spirit that burden who feed on the chaff; humans feed on everything which was of changeable desire will the wheat. Using human reason, therefore, a be taken up into the power of the spirit. person discards the chaff of beasts and hurries to Therefore, the person who seeks God ought daily eat the wheat of the spirit. To this end, therefore, to imitate His resurrection: so that, just as there it serves a purpose that the mysteries of the letter will then be nothing changeable in the body, so should be concealed under wraps because the now He has nothing changeable in the heart; so wisdom which has to be worked for is all the that in the inner man there may be a new better to taste. For this reason it is written: “The creature, he should trample down anything wise hide their knowledge” (Prov. 10:14), suggestive of the old man and seek out in the because, of course, the spiritual meaning is words of the old only that power of the new. hidden under the cover of the letter. Hence it is For Sacred Scripture is like a mountain, and said again in the same book: “To conceal His the Lord comes from that mountain to bring word, this is the glory of God” (Prov. 25:2). For understanding into our hearts. It is about this God is the more gloriously revealed to the mind mountain that it is said through the prophet: who seeks Him the more He is sought with “God is coming from Lebanon and the Holy One insight and interiority—as will be seen. But could from the mountain thick with cloud” (Hab. 3:3). it be that we are not to try to uncover what God This mountain is thick with meanings and hides in mysteries? Indeed we ought; for the text enshrouded with allegories. But it should be goes on: “to sift the meaning is the glory of understood that if we are to hasten up the kings” (Prov. 25:2). For they are kings who have mountain when the voice of the Lord calls, we learned how to rule over and judge their bodies, are instructed first to wash our clothes and be that is, the promptings of the flesh. Consequently cleansed of every stain of the flesh. To be sure it the glory of kings is to discern meaning; for it is is written that if wild beasts set foot on the the glory of those who live well to discern the mountain they will be stoned (Heb. 12:20). Wild secrets of God’s commands. Therefore, on beasts touch the mountain when they approach hearing the words of human discourse we must, the heavenly heights of sacred Scripture while yet as one might say, become more than human given over to irrational desires and fail to

HALL OF MEN visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 79 understand it as they should, but irrationally twist more worthy than fear He is more pleased to be it to a fleshly interpretation. For if anything called “Father” and “Master”; and as love is which is without wit or is slow of wit is seen on dearer to Him than honor, so God is more this mountain, it is killed by harsh judgments— pleased to be called “Bridegroom” than “Father.” which are like stones. For this mountain is on fire: Thus, in this book, the Lord and the Church are meaning, of course, sacred Scripture which He not called respectively, “Master” and “Servant,” fills with the spirit, and He inflames it with the but “Bridegroom” and “Bride”; so that He may fire of love. Hence it is written: “Your promise is be served not only in fear, nor only in reverence, tried in the fire” (Ps. 118:140, LXX). Hence, too, but also in love and by the exterior words an those who were traveling on a journey heard the inner affection may be stirred. words of God and said: “Were not our hearts When He calls Himself “Master,” He shows burning within us when He explained the that we are created; when He calls Himself Scriptures to us?” (Lk. 24:32). Hence again it is “Father,” that we are adopted children; when He said through Moses: “In his right hand the law is calls Himself “Bridegroom,” that we are on fire” (Deut. 33:2). On the left hand of God we betrothed. It is a greater thing to be betrothed to find the wicked; they may not pass to the right God than to be created and adopted by Him. In hand. On the right hand are the chosen ones of this book, where He is described as God, who are set apart from those on the left. So “Bridegroom,” something more sublime is on God’s right hand the law is on fire: because in suggested, since what is indicated is a treaty of the hearts of the chosen, who are to be placed on marriage. And this language is frequently recalled the right hand, the divine commands are in the New Testament (because the consummated burning, aflame with the fervor of love. Hence marriage of word and flesh and of Christ with this flame burns off all the external rust of age so the Church is celebrated). And so John says, when that He may offer our minds as a holocaust in the the Lord is approaching: “He who has the bride contemplation of God. . . . is a bridegroom” (Jn. 3:29). And the Lord It should also be noted that sometimes in Himself says, “The attendants of the Bridegroom sacred Scripture the Lord calls Himself “Master,” do not fast while the Bridegroom is still with sometimes “Father,” sometimes “Bridegroom.” them” (Mt. 9:15). And so it is told of the Church: When He wishes to be feared, He calls Himself “I have espoused you to Christ so as to give you “Master”; when He wishes to be honored, away as a chaste virgin to this one husband” (2 “Father”; when He wishes to be loved, Cor. 11:2). And again: “so as to make her “Bridegroom.” He says through the prophet: “If glorious, without stain or wrinkle” (Eph. 5:27). I am indeed master, where is my honor? If I am And again, in the Apocalypse of John: “Blessed indeed father, where is my respect?” (Mal. 1:6). are those who are invited to the marriage supper And again He says: “I will betroth you to of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:9). And finally, in the same myself . . . with integrity and justice” (Hos. book, “I saw the bride, newly wed, coming down 2:19-20). Or, most clearly of all: “I have from heaven” (Rev. 21:2). remembered the day of your betrothal in the It is not unrelated that, with its especially desert” (Jer. 2:21). Of course there is no before mystical character, this book is placed third in and after in God: but because He wishes first to order among the works of Solomon. The ancient be feared so that He may be honored and then to fathers spoke of three orders of life: the moral, be honored so that the love of Him is attained, the natural, and the contemplative—which the He also calls Himself “Master” on account of the Greeks called the ethical, the physical, and the fear, “Father” on account of the honor, and theoretical. In Proverbs the moral life is referred “Bridegroom” on account of the love. Thus, to, where it is said: “Listen, my sons, to the through fear we may come to honor and through wisdom [I offer] and pay attention to my [words honoring Him to love. Therefore, as honor is of] prudence” (Prov. 4:1). Ecclesiastes refers to the

REMEMBERING THE HEROES OF OLD 80 SYNAXIS 6.1 natural life in which all things are seen as tending HOMILY ONE towards their end, when it says: “Vanity of vanities and all is vanity” (Ecc. 1:2). But in the Song of Songs 1:1-4 Song of Songs the contemplative life is given d voice, for in them is expressed a longing for the St. Gregory of Nyssa coming of the Lord and for the sight of Him in A. D. Fourth Century person, as when in the words of the Bridegroom it is said: “I have come from Lebanon, I have YOU WHO in accordance with the counsel of come” (Sg. 4:8). The lives of the three Patriarchs, Paul have “taken off ” the old humanity with its Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, represent these deeds and lusts like a filthy garment (Col. 3:9) orders. Abraham received the moral life by his and have clothed yourselves by purity of life in obedience; Isaac represents the natural life by his the lightsome raiment of the Lord, raiment such digging of the well—for to dig wells to the depths as He revealed in His transfiguration on the is to examine diligently by natural reason all the mountain (cf. Mk. 9:2-3), or, rather, you who have things of this world below. But Jacob achieved the “put on” our Lord Jesus Christ Himself (Gal. contemplative life because he witnessed angels 3:27) together with His holy garb and with Him ascending and descending. However, since have been transfigured for impassibility and the natural reasoning does not lead to perfection life divine: hear the mysteries of the Song of without the observations of the moral life, Songs. Enter the inviolate bridal chamber dressed Ecclesiastes is rightly placed after Proverbs. And in the white robes of pure and undefiled because the highest contemplation is not achieved thoughts. If any bear a passionate and carnal unless things lying here below are first despised, habit of mind and lack that garment of the Song of Songs are rightly placed in order conscience that is proper dress for the divine after Ecclesiastes. For the first thing to do is wedding feast, let such persons not be imprisoned establish virtue; thereafter, to come to see all by their own thoughts and drag the undefiled things which are present as though they were words of the Bridegroom and Bride down to the absent; and in the third place, to look with a pure level of brutish, irrational passions; let them not heart upon those things which are above and because of these passions be constrained by within. Out of the rungs of these books he indecent imaginings and get cast out of the bright therefore makes a sort of ladder reaching up to cheer of the wedding chamber, exchanging the contemplation of God; so that while as a first gnashing of teeth and tears for the joy within the step we carry out well the honest and worthy bridal chamber (Mt. 22:10-13). tasks of this world, next we despise even these I testify thus as one who is about to treat the honest and worthy tasks, and finally at the top we mystical vision contained in the Song of Songs. gaze upon the very intimate things of God. Thus, For by what is written there, the soul is in a in general terms, in this work the Church speaks certain manner led as a bride toward an of its expectation of the coming of the Lord so incorporeal and spiritual and undefiled marriage that in turn individually each soul may look with God. For He “who wills all to be saved and forward to the indwelling of God in his heart, as to come to the knowledge of truth” (1 Tim. 2:4) if awaiting the arrival of the Bridegroom in the manifests in this work the blessed and most bedchamber. perfect way of salvation—I mean that which comes through love. . . . *Tr. Denys Turner in Eros & Allegory: Medieval Exegesis Let us then come within the holy of holies, of the Song of Songs (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1995), 217-24. that is, the Song of Songs. For we are taught by this superlative form of expression that there is a superabundant concentration of holiness within the holy of holies, and in the same way the

MICROSYNAXIS visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 81 exalted Word promises to teach us mysteries of the Lord’s instruction—just as the Word testifies mysteries by the agency of the Song of Songs. to His disciples that they surpassed the human For although there are many songs within the condition. He said, “Who do human beings say divinely inspired teaching, through which—from that I am? . . . Who do you say that I am?” (Mt. the great David and Isaiah and Moses and many 16:13-15)—and the distinction He thus made in others—we are instructed in noble thoughts their regard separated them out from human about God, from this title we learn that the beings. For truly the person who employs words mystery contained in the Song of Songs of the sort contained in the Song of Songs, whose transcends these songs of the saints by as much as obvious sense refers to fleshly pleasures, not in they stand apart from the songs of profane order to sink down into a sordid sense but by wisdom. Human nature can neither discover nor them to be led to the philosophy that concerns entertain anything greater than this for purposes things divine and to pure thoughts, gives evidence of understanding. This is why, moreover, the most that he is no longer a human being, that his intense of pleasurable activities (I mean the nature is no longer mingled with flesh and blood passion of erotic love) is set as a figure at the very (Mt. 16:7). Having by impassibility become equal fore of the guidance that the teachings give: so to the angels, he exhibits the hoped-for life of that by this we may learn that it is necessary for resurrection to the saints. For after the the soul, fixing itself steadily on the inaccessible resurrection, the body, transmuted into beauty of the divine nature, to love that beauty as incorruptibility, is knit together with the person’s much as the body has a bent for what is akin to it soul, but the passions that now afflict us through and to turn passion into impassibility, so that the flesh do not rise up together with those when every bodily disposition has been quelled, bodies, and a certain peaceable state will succeed our mind within us may boil with love, but only our present life. The “mind of the flesh” (Rom. in the Spirit, because it is heated by that “fire” 8:6-7) will no longer be at variance with the soul that the Lord came to “cast upon the earth.” or “fight against the law of the intellect” (Rom. But of these things—how those who hear the 7:23) by means of the internal battle of our mystic words should dispose their souls—enough passionate motions and lead the weakened soul a has been said. It is surely time to set out, by captive to sin. On the contrary, in that state our discernment of the text, the divine sayings of the nature will be purified of all such things, and Song of Songs themselves. And first of all let us there will be one mind in both parts (I mean the understand the force of the inscription, for it does flesh and the spirit), because every corporeal not seem to me an idle thing that the book is disposition has disappeared from our nature. In attributed to Solomon starting with its very title; just the same way, by this book the Word enjoins rather, this attribution aims to dispose the reader’s his hearers, even though we live in the flesh, not mind to take in something great and divine to turn toward the flesh in our thoughts but to through the words of the text. The testimony look only to the soul and to apply the language of given about Solomon fills everyone with an love, pure and undefiled, to that Good that unequaled sense of awe before his wisdom, and transcends all understanding (Phil. 4:7), that for this reason mention of his name is made Good that alone is truly pleasant and desirable straightaway in the preamble, so that readers may and lovable and whose enjoyment is the ever- have hope of receiving from this book something available opportunity of a yet nobler desiring great and worthy of Solomon’s repute. . . . because by participation in good things it By these prefatory materials let the Word stretches and expands our longing. teach us this one thing: it is not any longer The bride Moses kissed the Bridegroom in human beings who are brought to the shrine of the same way as the virgin in the Song who says, the mysteries of this book. They have been “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,” changed in nature into something more divine by and through the face-to-face converse accorded

EIGHTH DAY EVENTS IN PRINT 82 SYNAXIS 6.1 him by God (as the Scripture testifies [cf. Num. Thus the sequel of the virgin’s request in the 12:8]), he became more intensely desirous of prologue says: “Your breasts are better than wine, such kisses after these theophanies, praying to see and the fragrance of your perfumed ointments is the Object of his yearning, as if he had never better than all spices.” What these words convey glimpsed Him. In the same way, all of the others as we have understood them is no slight or in whom the divine desire was deeply lodged contemptible idea. For we immediately learn by never ceased from desire; everything that came to these statements—that is, from the fact that the them from God for the enjoyment of the Object milk of the divine breasts is superior by of yearning they made into the material and fuel comparison with the wine that brings us gladness for a more ardent desire. And just as now the soul (cf. Ps. 103:15)—that all human wisdom and that is joined to God is not satiated by her knowledge of reality as well as every power of enjoyment of Him, so too the more abundantly discernment and direct apprehension are she is filled up with His beauty, the more incapable, in a comparison, of matching the vehemently her longings abound. For since the simpler fare of the divine teachings. For what words of the Bridegroom are “spirit and life” (Jn. flows from the breasts is milk, and milk is the food 6:63) and everyone who is joined to the Spirit of babes. Wine, however, because of its vigor and becomes spirit (1 Cor. 6:17), while everyone who warmth, becomes the enjoyment of the more is attached to life “passes from death to life” (Jn. mature. Nevertheless, that which is mature and 5:24), according to the Lord’s word, it follows that perfect in the non-Christian wisdom is a slighter the virgin soul longs to approach the fount of the thing than the most childish teaching of the spiritual life. And that fount is the mouth of the divine Word. Hence the divine breasts are better Bridegroom whence “the words of eternal than human wine. life” (Jn. 6:68) as they gush forth fill the mouth And the “fragrance” of the divinely that is drawn to it, just as the prophet does when “perfumed ointments” is lovelier than any sweet drawing spirit through his mouth (cf. Ps. 118:131, scent among the “spices.” This seems to me to LXX). Since, then, it is necessary for the one who point to the following thought. The “spices” we draws drink from the fount to fix mouth to mouth take to be virtues, such as wisdom, temperance, and the fount is the Lord who says, “If anyone justice, courage, prudence, and the like, and each thirst, let him come to me and drink” (Jn. 7:37), it different individual assumes a different scent as follows that the soul, thirsty as she is, wills to he is dabbed with them in accord with his own bring her own mouth to the mouth that pours out power and choice. One has within himself the life, saying, “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of fragrance that comes from temperance or His mouth.” wisdom; another, that which comes from justice … Now the treasure house is named “heart,” or courage or some other quality that is reckoned and from it the breasts acquire their abundance among the virtues; and yet another, the scent that of the divine milk on which, “according to the comes from the mingling of all these “spices.” proportion of faith” (Rom. 12:6), the soul feeds as Nevertheless, none of these can be compared it draws in grace. That is why it says, Your breasts with that absolute virtue of which the prophet are better than wine, by breasts hinting, because of Habakkuk asserts that it encloses the heavens their location, at the heart. For someone who when he says, “His virtue veiled the heavens” conceives of the heart as the hidden and ineffable (Hab. 3:3). This is Wisdom herself and Justice Power of the Godhead will surely not be itself and Truth herself and all things severally. mistaken, and one may reasonably interpret Therefore she says, “The fragrance of your breasts as the beneficent activities of the divine perfumed ointments possesses a grace that is Power on our behalf. Through them God suckles incomparable to the spices known to us.” the life of each individual, bestowing the food Once again, in what comes next, the soul, the that is appropriate to each of those who receive it. Bride, touches on a higher philosophy. When she

EIGHTH DAY BOOKS & CULTURE visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 83 says “Your name is a perfumed ointment emptied the beauty so discerned is great, that which such out,” she makes it manifest that the divine power perception images and hints at is a thousandfold is inaccessible and incapable of being contained greater. But just as erotic love of the material by human thought processes, for to me it seems order does not affect those who are still young (for that by this statement there is conveyed childhood has no place for this passion) and one something like the following: that the Nature that cannot see extremely old people afflicted in this has no boundaries cannot be accurately way, so too in the case of the divine Beauty one comprehended by means of the connotations of still a child, “tossed to and fro and carried about words. On the contrary, all the power of concepts by every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14), and the and all the significance of words and names, even elderly person who has aged and is approaching if they seem to have about them something grand dissolution are both unmoved by this desire. For and worthy of the Divine, cannot attain the such people are not touched by the invisible nature of the Real itself. On the contrary, it is as Beauty, but only a soul of the sort that has passed if by certain traces and hints that our reason through the condition of childhood and has guesses at the Invisible; by way of some analogy arrived at the height of spiritual maturity without based on things it has comprehended, it forms a receiving any “spot or wrinkle or any such conjecture about the Incomprehensible. For thing”—the soul that is neither imperceptive by whatever name we may think up, she says, to reason of youth nor weakened by old age. This make the scent of the Godhead known, the soul our text calls a “young maiden,” and she is meaning of the things we say does not refer to faithful to “the first and great commandment” of the perfume itself. Rather does our theological the law. With her whole heart and strength she vocabulary refer to a slight remnant of the vapor loves that Beauty whose description and form and of the divine fragrance. In the case of vessels explanation the human mind fails to discover. from which perfumed ointment is emptied out, “Young maidens” of this sort, then, who have the ointment itself that has been emptied out is made increase by the practice of the virtues and not known for what it is in its own nature. We have already participated in the mysteries of the make a guess about the perfume that has been inner divine chamber as their youthfulness emptied out on the basis of some faint quality of prescribes, love and delight in the beauty of the the vapor that has been left behind in the vessel. Bridegroom and through love turn to themselves. Here, then, is what we learn from the words: For this Bridegroom returns the love of those the perfumed ointment of the Godhead, who love Him. Speaking in the person of whatever it may be in its own essence, is beyond Wisdom He says, “I love those who love every name and every thought, but the marvels Me” (Prov. 8:17), and then, “With those who love discerned in each name and thought provide Me I share what I possess” (and He is her matter for our theological naming. By their help possession), “and I will fill their treasure houses we name God wise, powerful, good, holy, blessed with good things” (Prov. 8:21). Hence the souls and eternal, and judge and savior and the like. draw to themselves the longing for the And all these refer to some slight trace of the incorruptible Bridegroom, “going after the Lord divine perfume that the whole creation imitates God,” as it is written (cf. Hos. 11:10). within itself, after the manner of a jar for Now what awakens their love is the sweet unguents, by the wonders that are seen in it. scent of the perfume, toward which, as they run “That is why,” she says, “young maidens have unceasingly, they stretch themselves out for what loved you, they have drawn you.” She speaks lies ahead, forgetting what lies behind (cf. Phil. about the source of praiseworthy desire and of 3:13). Hence it says: “We will run after you, the disposition to love. For who is there without toward the fragrance of your perfumed desire for such a Beauty, if only he has an eye ointments.” But it is those who do not yet possess capable of gazing upon its splendor? And while the fullness of virtue and are still immature who

A CATALOG OF BOOK REVIEWS & ESSAYS 84 SYNAXIS 6.1 promise that they will pursue the goal toward the Word, and having brought his own heart, as which the fragrance of the perfumes points them if it were a sponge, up to the fount of life, he was (for it says, “We will run . . . toward the fragrance filled, by an indescribable transmission, with the of your perfumed ointments”); the more perfect mysteries lodged in the Lord’s heart, and he soul, on the other hand, who has more eagerly offers to us the teat that has been filled up by the “been stretched out toward what lies ahead,” Word. He fills us up with the things lodged within already attains the goal for the sake of which the him by the fount of Goodness as, in a loud voice, course is run and is reckoned worthy of the goods he proclaims the eternal Word. For this reason it that the treasure house contains—which is why is fitting that we too turn to him and say “Let us she for her part says, “The king brought me into love your breasts more than wine,” if indeed we his treasure house.” For the soul that has desired have become the sort of people who are youthful, to touch the Good with the tips of her lips and neither immature in heart and mind because of has laid hold on the Beautiful just to the extent childishness yoked with vanity nor yet shriveled that the strength of her prayer indicates (she up and wrinkled by sin in an old age that issues in prayed, one might say, to be made worthy of a destruction. And the reason why we love the kiss through the illumination of the Word), this flowing milk of your teaching is that same soul, empowered by its success in slipping “Righteousness has loved you.” For this is the through to the interior of what thought cannot disciple whom Jesus loved. And Jesus is articulate, cries out her request that her running righteousness. This saying adorns the Lord with a not be confined to the outer courts of the Good name more lovely and more worthy of God than but that by the firstfruits of the Spirit (cf. Rom. that accorded by the prophet David. For David 8:23)—of which she was made worthy by the first says, “Righteous is the Lord God” (Ps. 91:16), gift of grace, that is, by a kiss—she may come to and he in turns names him “Righteousness,” by the inner shrine of paradise and search “the which everything that is crooked is again made depths of God” (1 Cor. 2:10) and, like the great straight. But for us may everything “crooked be Paul, see (as he says) invisible things and hear … made straight, and the rough ways … unspeakable words (cf. 2 Cor. 12:2-4). smooth” (Is. 40:4) by the grace of our Lord Jesus The following expression unveils in the Word Christ, the dispensation of the Church. Those who were To whom be glory to the ages of ages. first made disciples by grace and became “eyewitnesses . . . of the Word” (Lk. 1:2) did not Amen. keep the Good to themselves. Rather did they work the same grace, by transmission, in those *Homilies on the Song of Songs, tr. Richard A. Norris Jr. who were their companions. That is why the (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), 15-45. young women say to the Bride—who because she came face to face with the Word was the first to be filled with good things and to be adjudged worthy of hidden mysteries—“Let us rejoice and be glad in you” (for we share the joy of your exultation); and, “As you love the breasts of the Word more than wine, so too let us imitate you and love your breasts, through which you give ‘babes in Christ’ milk to drink, more than the wine that human beings make.” And in order that we may be perfectly clear about the matter, the sense of what we are saying is this: John, who rested on the Lord’s bosom, loved the breasts of

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A COMPENDIUM ON THE door to heavenly life: even prolonged observance of the Law was not able to do that, as the Apostle SONG OF SONGS makes plain when he says: “the Law can bring d nothing to perfection” (Heb. 7:19). The breasts Alcuin of York are to be understood as referring to the teachers A. D. Eighth Century who give us the milk of knowledge to drink. 3. More fragrant than the finest oils (Sg. 1:2). 1. MAY HE kiss me with the kiss of his mouth (Sg. Therefore the Holy Spirit is compared to ointments, because just as ointment heals a wound, 1:1). The Synagogue longs for God to be made so the Holy Spirit puts vices to flight, nurses souls flesh and runs to meet his arrival with holy clarity. and heals them. The ointments with which the Her voice rings out for the first time in a song of prophets and priests of the Law were anointed love; at that time the holy prophets had over and were good, but better are those by which the again shown her how she should live and had Apostles and their successors were anointed revealed the coming of the one who, “like a visibly. Paul speaks of them as “we whom God has bridegroom coming forth from his marriage bed” anointed and whom God has marked with a sign” (Ps. 18:6), brings a new blessing to the world; but (2 Cor. 1:21). And John: “May the anointing, then, the time for prophecy being past, she began which you have received from him, remain with to desire the presence of her King and Savior you” (1 Jn. 2:21). “Your name is oil poured out.” Himself, and said: “May He kiss me with the kiss of His mouth”; that is, may He not for ever This gives the explanation: for it is no strange appoint angels, not always prophets for my thing if the members give off the perfume of this instruction, may He Himself come at last, who ointment when He Himself took His name from has for so long been promised, may the light of “ointment.” For “Christ” comes from “chrism”; His presence shine upon me and, like a person that is, “one anointed with oil,” and this name is offering a kiss, may He speak comfortingly to me given to all the faithful by the Holy Spirit in in words of His mouth: may He not, that is to say, baptism. And so Peter speaks of “how God has scorn to enlighten me as I question Him about the anointed him by the Holy Spirit and by power” way of salvation. We read that this was brought (Acts 10:38). And in the Psalms we find: “God to fulfillment in the Gospel: “The disciples came has anointed you with the oil of gladness before to Jesus as He sat on the mount, and opening His all your companions” (Ps. 44:7). This oil, the text mouth He taught them saying: Blessed are the says, is not dispensed in drops, but “poured out”; poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” for God does not give him the Spirit in measured (Mt. 5:1). Therefore it says: “May He kiss me with amounts, for he is full of the Holy Spirit. the Kiss of His mouth”—may He delight me “Therefore the maidens have loved you,” they with the touch of His presence, He whom I have being the souls of the elect who have been made heard so often promised by the prophets. new by baptism. 2. For your breasts are more delightful than wine 4. Draw me after you (Sg. 1:3). The Synagogue (Sg. 1:1). The sweetness of the Gospels’ teaching first asked for God to come and then for the kiss is preferable to the sour taste of the Law. “Wine” of peace to be given her; now, knowing that He is the tartness of the knowledge which the Law has come, knowing that He has returned to the gives. Milk denotes a simple Gospel faith. Hence heavens, she desires to follow Him there. But Paul says: “I have given you milk to drink” (1 Cor. since she cannot achieve this by her own powers, 3:2) and milk is food. The breasts of the Bridegroom she begs Him to draw her to Him with whom are more delightful than wine for those to whom she desires to be. “Draw me after You”; that is, a simple Gospel faith has given new life by water because without You we can do nothing, we pray and the Spirit and they also lead through an open as we run towards You that You will strengthen us, with the strong arm of Your protection. For

EARLY CHRISTIAN TEXTS FOR SPIRITUAL TRAINING 86 SYNAXIS 6.1 to run, or at least to finish the course, is beyond 6. Do not gaze upon me because I am swarthy, it is our powers, unless we run with Your guidance and the sun which has burned me (Sg. 1:5). This means, help. So says Paul: I have worked harder than all do not wonder if I am ugly before men, for it is these, though it was not I, rather the grace of the heat of much persecution—or else it is the Christ (1 Cor. 15:10). “Together we will run in love of Christ—which has burned me. “My the aroma of Your ointments.” This means that mother’s sons have fought against me, they put working together with You and enriched by the me in charge of the vineyards, but my own gifts of the Holy Spirit we hurry to our place in vineyards I have not kept.” The bitterness of the heavenly Jerusalem, following You in Your persecution by the children of the Synagogue ascent into heaven. “The King has brought me caused me to neglect the vineyard which is into His chambers,” that is, into the eternal joys Jerusalem, but I am the guardian of many of the heavenly fatherland. The chambers of the vineyards, that is churches, throughout the globe. eternal King are the joys of the heavenly fatherland The Synagogue is the mother of the early Church, and the Church has been brought into them by for it was foretold by the prophet: “Zion, you faith, to be brought more fully into them in their will be called the city, and the mother of cities” reality. “We will rejoice and be glad in You, (Zech. 8:3). mindful of Your breasts which surpass wine.” It 7. Show me, you whom my soul loves, where you feed, is not of ourselves, but in You that we recall how where you lie down at noon, lest I should begin to wander in all things the grace of faith is superior to the after the flocks of your companions (Sg. 1:6). Show me, Law, which is to say, we do not extol ourselves my shepherd, whom I love with all my soul, in for what we have received, but whenever we do whom is my strength and my rest, lest, confused anything well we rejoice in Your mercy and by the fury of temptation, I should find myself remember with what compassion You restore us, looking for where the companions gather, that is, and how You have been pleased to moderate the the heretics. strictness of the Law by the grace of the Gospel 8. If you do not know yourself, O most beautiful faith. “The righteous love You.” No one but the among women, go out, depart, to the tracks of the flocks righteous love You; and no one who does not (Sg. 1:7): if, being in the grip of this kind of love You is righteous. temptation, you do not know yourself to be 5. I am black but beautiful, daughters of Jerusalem betrothed to me, leave my company and take (Sg. 1:4). I am black because of the onslaughts your lead from the behavior of those who have of persecution, but beautiful in adornment of lost their way. “And feed my kids by the tents of virtues. That is, I seem black in the eyes of the the shepherds,” that is, give nourishment to those tormentors, but before God I shine with the lost ones who, because they have followed the dazzling raiment of virtue. “Like the tents of teachings of foolish masters, will be made to Kedar, like Solomon’s hides.” Kedar was the son stand on the left hand. of Ishmael, which means “darkness.” The Church 9. I have compared you, my love, to my team of says that she is black like Kedar, because she is horses, harnessed to Pharaoh’s chariots (Sg. 1:8). Just as so darkened by the attacks of the unbelievers as I have set free the former people from their to have been made an enemy of the whole world. terror of Egypt, so you, my bride, if you will Solomon, by name and in his life, was the trust me, will I free from the hands of your peacemaker, and he made tents for himself out persecutors. of the hides of dead animals; so does the Lord create the Church from those same animals by *Tr. Denys Turner in Eros & Allegory: Medieval Exegesis putting to death in her the desires of the flesh; of the Song of Songs (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, thus is the Church like Solomon’s hides. 1995), 259-62.

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HOMILY TWO you birth. But what does it tell you? It tells you: “You must not have a love that is disordered. You Song of Songs 2:4-7 must not love your father and your mother first d and Me afterwards; you must not be possessed by Origen love of son and daughter more than by love of A. D. Third Century Me. ‘He that loveth father and mother more than Me is not worthy of Me’ (Matt. 10:37). He that loveth son and daughter more than Me is not BRING YE me into the house of wine (Sg. 2:4). The worthy of Me.” Bridegroom stood without, and was received by Examine your consciences concerning your the Bride; that is to say, He reposed between her affection for your father, mother, brother; breasts. The many maidens are not such as to consider what manner of love you bear the Word deserve to have the Bridegroom as their guest; to of God and Jesus, and you will realize forthwith the multitude that is without He speaks in that you love son and daughter more than the parables. How much I fear lest perhaps we Word, and have more affection for your parents ourselves should be these many maidens! than for Christ. Which among us, do you think, “Bring ye me into the house of wine.” Why has progressed so far as to have chief and first of do I stay so long outside? “Behold, I stand at the all his loves that of the Word of God, and to put gate and knock; if any man shall . . . open to me, his children in the second place? After this I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and fashion you must love your wife also. “For no man he with me” (Rev. 3:20). ever hated his own flesh”; but he loves her as his “Bring ye me in.” And now the Divine Word flesh; “they two,” it is said, “shall be two”—not in says the same; see, it is Christ who says: “Bring ye one spirit, but—“shall be two in one flesh” (Eph. me in.” He speaks to you catechumens also: 5:29, 31). Love God too, but love Him not as flesh “Bring ye me in.”—not only “into the house,” but and blood but as Spirit; for “he who is joined to “into the house of wine!” Let your soul be filled the Lord is one spirit” (Eph. 6:12, 1 Cor. 6:17). with the wine of gladness, the wine of the Holy Charity is set in order, therefore, in the Spirit, and so bring the Bridegroom, the Word, perfect. But to the end that there may be order Wisdom, and Truth, into your house. For “bring also in our loves for one another, after our love for ye me into the house of wine” can be said also to God we are commanded to love first our parents, those who are not yet perfect. then our children, and thirdly members of our Set ye in order charity in me (Sg. 2:4). It is a household. But if there is a bad son and a good graceful phrase—“Set ye in order, . . .” For truly retainer, let the domestic take the son’s place in the charity of many is in a state of disorder; they our love. And so it shall come to pass that the accord the second place in their loving to that charity of the saints is set in order. which ought to have the first, and to that which Our Teacher and Lord, moreover, in laying should come second they give the first, and the down commands in the Gospel about charity thing that it behooves them to rank fourth in their added something special to every man’s love, and affection they put third, and the rightful third gave understanding of the order to those who can again comes fourth. But the charity of the saints hear the Scripture, saying, “Set ye in order charity has been set in order. in me.” “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with To understand what is spoken here, “Set ye in thy whole heart and with they whole soul and with order charity in me,” I want to unfold some thy whole strength and with thy whole mind. Thou examples. The Divine Word wants you to love shalt love thy neighbor as thyself ” (Mt. 22:37, 39). father, son, daughter. The Divine Word wants He does not say that thou shalt love God as thyself, you to love Christ, and it does not tell you not to that a neighbor shall be loved with the whole heart, love your children, nor does it tell you that you with the whole soul, with the whole strength, with should not be united in love with those who gave

A VISION FOR CLASSICAL, CATECHETICAL & ECUMENICAL EDUCATION 88 SYNAXIS 6.1 the whole mind. Again, He said: “Love your His left hand is under my head, and His right hand enemies” (Mt. 5:44), and did not add “with the will embrace me (Sg. 2:6). The Word of God has whole heart.” The Divine Word is not disordered, both a left and a right; Wisdom, though it is He does not command impossibilities, and He does multifold in respect of the different subjects to be not say “Love your enemies as yourselves,” but understood, is one in substance. Solomon himself only, “Love your enemies.” It is enough for them taught about the left and right hands of Wisdom, that we love them and do not hate them; but a saying: “For length and years of life are in her neighbor is to be loved “as thyself,” and God “with right hand, and in her left riches and glory” (Prov. thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with 3:16). “His left hand,” therefore, “is under my thy whole mind and with thy whole strength.” head,” that He may cause me to rest, that the If you have understood these things, and have Bridegroom’s arm may be my pillow and the chief carried out what you have understood, you have seat of the soul recline upon the Word of God. done the thing that is commanded in the “His left hand is under my head.” It is not Bridegroom’s saying: “Bring ye me into the house expedient for you to have pillows upon which of wine; set ye in order charity in me.” Which mourning follows. It is written in Ezekiel: “Woe among us, think you, is a man of ordered charity? to them that sew pillows under every elbow!” (Ez. Strengthen me with perfumes (Sg. 2:5). One of the 13:18). Do not sew pillows, do not seek elsewhere translators put “with blossoms.” It is the Bride for rest for your head; have the Bridegroom’s left who is speaking now. “Compass me with apples.” hand under your head and say: “His left hand is With what apples? “As the apple among the under my head.” When you have that, all the timbers of the wood, so is my Nephew among the things His left hand holds will be bestowed on sons.” Therefore “compass me with apples, for I you; you will say with truth: “In His left hand are have been wounded by love.” riches and glory.” How beautiful, how fitting it is to receive a “And His right hand will embrace me.” Let the wound from Love! One person receives the dart right hand of the Bridegroom embrace the whole of fleshly love, another is wounded by earthly of you. “Length indeed and years of life are in His desire; but do you lay bare your members and right hand; and for that reason thou shalt have offer yourself to the “chosen dart,” the lovely long live and many days upon the good land that dart; for God is the archer indeed. Hear what the the Lord thy God will give thee” (cf. Ex. 20:13). Scripture says of this same dart; or rather, that I have entreated you, ye daughters of Jerusalem, you may marvel even more, hear what the dart among the powers and forces of the field (Sg. 2:7).What Himself says: “He hath made me as a chosen does the Bride entreat of the daughters of arrow, and in His quiver He hath kept me. And Jerusalem? “Whether ye have raised and roused He said to me: ‘It is a great thing for Thee to be up love (Sg. 2:7). How long, O daughters of called my servant’” (Is. 49:2f.). Understand what Jerusalem, O maidens, sleeps there in you the the arrow says and in what manner He is chosen love that does not sleep in me, because I have by the Lord. How blessed is it to be wounded by received the wound of love?” But in you, who are this dart! Those men who talked together, saying many, and are also daughters of Jerusalem and to each other: “Was not our heart burning within maidens, the love of the Bridegroom sleeps. “I us in the way, whilst He opened to us the have entreated you,” therefore, “O ye daughters Scriptures?” (Lk. 24:32) had been wounded by of Jerusalem, whether ye have raised,” and not this dart. If anyone is wounded by our discourse, only raised, but also “roused up” the love that is if any is wounded by the teaching of the Divine in you. When the Maker of the universe created Scripture, and can say, “I have been wounded by you, He sowed in your hearts the seeds of love. love,” perhaps he follows both the former and the But now, as it is said elsewhere: “Justice has gone latter. But why do I say “perhaps”? I offer a clear to sleep in her,” so now is love asleep in you, explanation. according to that further saying: The Bridegroom

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“rested as a lion, and as a lion’s whelp” (cf. Is. hypotheses. With regard to its content, apparently 1:21, Num. 24:9). “profane,” the positions are varied. On the one In unbelievers and in those who are of hand its reading has often been discouraged, and doubtful heart, the Divine Word is still asleep; but on the other it has been the source from which He is wakeful in the saints. He sleeps in those the greatest mystical writers have drawn. The who are driven by storms; but He is roused by the verses of the Song of Songs have been inserted voice of those who desire the Bridegroom to into the Church’s Liturgy. Although the analysis awake and save them. When He awakes, calm of the text of this book obliges us to situate its supervenes forthwith; the mountainous waves content outside the sphere of the great prophetic immediately subside, the adverse winds are analogy, it is not possible to detach it from the rebuked, the madness of the waters falls silent. reality of the original sacrament. It is not possible But, when He sleeps, then there is storm and to reread it except along the lines of what is written death and despair (Mt. 8:23ff.) in the first chapters of Genesis, as a testimony of “I entreat you, therefore, ye daughters of the beginning—that beginning which Christ Jerusalem, among the powers and forces of the referred to in His decisive conversation with the field.” Of what field? Surely of that of which the Pharisees (cf. Mt. 19:4). The Song of Songs is smell is of a plentiful field which the Lord hath blessed certainly found in the wake of that sacrament in (Gn. 27:27). which, through the language of the body, the visible sign of man and woman’s participation in *The Song of Songs: Commentary and Homilies, tr. R. P. the covenant of grace and love offered by God to Lawson (New York: The Newman Press, 1956), man is constituted. The Song of Songs demonstrates 294-99. the richness of this language, whose first expression is already found in Genesis 2:23-25. Indeed, the first verses of the Song of Songs lead us immediately into the atmosphere of the whole poem, in which the groom and the bride seem to move in the circle traced by the irradiation of love. The words, movements, and THEOLOGY OF THE BODY gestures of the spouses correspond to the interior movement of their hearts. It is possible to On the Song of Songs understand the language of the body only d through the prism of this movement. In that Pope St. John Paul II language there comes to pass that discovery A. D. 1984 which the first man expressed in front of her who had been created as “a helper like himself ” (Gn. I WOULD like to conclude the topic of human 2:20, 23). As the biblical text reports, she had love in the divine plan with some considerations been taken from one of his ribs (“rib” seems to also indicate the heart). especially about the teaching of Humanae Vitae, This discovery … in the Song of Songs is premising some reflections on the Song of Songs. invested with all the richness of the language of The theme of marital love which unites man human love. What was expressed in the second and woman in a certain sense connects this part chapter of Genesis (vv. 23-25) in just a few simple of the Bible with the whole tradition of the and essential words, is developed here in a full “great analogy.” Through the writings of the dialogue, or rather in a duet, in which the prophets, this flows into the New Testament and groom’s words are interwoven with the bride’s especially into Ephesians (cf. Eph. 5:21-33). and they complement each other. On seeing the The Song of Songs has become the object of woman created by God, man’s first words express many exegetical studies, commentaries and

RENEWING CULTURE THROUGH FAITH & LEARNING 90 SYNAXIS 6.1 wonder and admiration, even more, the sense of feminine trait, giving rise to that state of mind fascination (cf. Gn. 2:23). A similar fascination— that can be defined as fascination, enchantment. which is wonder and admiration—runs in fuller This female “I” is expressed almost without words. form through the verses of the Song of Songs. It Nevertheless, the language of the body, expressed runs in a peaceful and homogeneous wave from wordlessly, finds a rich echo in the groom’s words, the beginning to the end of the poem. in his speaking that is full of poetic transport and Even a summary analysis of the text of the metaphors, which attest to the experience of Song of Songs allows the language of the body to beauty, a love of satisfaction. If the metaphors in be heard expressing itself in that mutual the Song of Songs seek analogy for this beauty in fascination. The point of departure as well as the the various things of the visible world (in this point of arrival for this fascination—mutual world which is the groom’s “own world”), at the wonder and admiration—are in fact the bride’s same time they seem to indicate the insufficiency femininity and the groom’s masculinity, in the of each of these things in particular. “You are all- direct experience of their visibility. The words of beautiful, my beloved, and there is no blemish in love uttered by both of them are therefore you” (Sg. 4:7). The groom ends his song with this concentrated on the body, not only because in itself saying, leaving all the metaphors, in order to it constitutes the source of the mutual fascination. address himself to that sole one through which But it is also, and above all, because on the body the language of the body seems to express what is there lingers directly and immediately that more proper to femininity and the whole of the attraction toward the other person, toward the person. . . . other “I”—female or male—which in the interior …The truth about love, proclaimed by the impulse of the heart generates love. Song of Songs, cannot be separated from the In addition, love unleashes a special experience language of the body. The truth about love enables of the beautiful, which focuses on what is visible, the same language of the body to be reread in but at the same time involves the entire person. truth. This is also the truth about the progressive The experience of beauty gave rise to mutual approach of the spouses which increases through satisfaction. love. The nearness means also the initiation into “O most beautiful among women …” (Sg. the mystery of the person, without, however, 1:8), the groom says, and the bride’s words echo implying its violation (cf. Sg. 1:13-14, 16). back to him: “I am dark—but lovely, O daughters The truth about the increasing nearness of of Jerusalem” (Sg. 1:5). The words of the the spouses through love is developed in the spellbound man are repeated continually. They subjective dimension “of the heart,” of affection return in all five stanzas of the poem, and they and sentiment. This dimension allows one to are echoed in similar expressions of the bride’s. discover in itself the other as a gift and, in a It is a question here of metaphors that may certain sense, to “taste it” in itself (cf. Sg. 2:3-6). surprise us today. Many of them were borrowed Through this nearness the groom more fully from the life of shepherds; others seem to indicate lives the experience of that gift which on the part the royal status of the groom. The analysis of of the female “I” is united with the spousal that poetic language is left to the experts. The expression and meaning of the body. The man’s very fact of adopting the metaphor shows how words (cf. Sg. 7:1-8) do not only contain a poetic much, in our case, the language of the body seeks description of his beloved, of her feminine support and corroboration in the whole visible beauty on which his senses dwell, but they speak world. This is without doubt a language that is of the gift and the self-giving of the person. reread at one and the same time with the heart The bride knows that the groom’s longing is and with the eyes of the groom, in the act of for her and she goes to meet him with the special concentration on the whole female “I” of quickness of the gift of herself (cf. Sg. 7:9-13) the bride. This “I” speaks to him through every because the love that unites them is at one and

EIGHTH DAY SYMPOSIUM visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 91 the same time of a spiritual and a sensual nature. of the poem lead us to reflect on the cause of the It is also on the basis of this love that the rereading search and the restlessness that accompanies the of the significance of the body in the truth comes awareness of belonging to each other. Is this to pass, since the man and woman must together restlessness also part of the nature of the eros? If constitute that sign of the mutual gift of self, it were, this restlessness would indicate also the which puts the seal on their whole life. need for self-control. The truth about love is In the Song of Songs the language of the body expressed in the awareness of mutual belonging, becomes a part of the single process of the mutual the fruit of the aspiration and search for each attraction of the man and woman. This attraction other, and in the need for the aspiration and the is expressed in the frequent refrains that speak of search, the outcome of mutual belonging. the search that is full of nostalgia, of affectionate This interior necessity, this dynamic of love solicitude (cf. Sg. 2:7) and of the spouses’ mutual indirectly reveals the near impossibility of one rediscovery (cf. Sg. 5:2). This brings them joy and person’s being appropriated and mastered by the calm, and seems to lead them to a continual other. The person is someone who surpasses all search. One has the impression that in meeting measures of appropriation and domination, of each other, in reaching each other, in experiencing possession and gratification, which emerge from one’s nearness, they ceaselessly continued to tend the same language of the body. If the groom and toward something. They yield to the call of the bride reread this language in the full truth something that dominates the content of the about the person and about love, they arrive at moment and surpasses the limits of the eros, the ever deeper conviction that the fullness of limits that are reread in the words of the mutual their belonging constitutes that mutual gift in language of the body (cf. Sg. 1:7-8; 2:17). This which love is revealed as “stern as death,” that is, search has its interior dimension: “the heart is it goes to the furthest limits of the language of awake” even in sleep. This aspiration, born of the body in order to exceed them. The truth love on the basis of the language of the body, is a about interior love and the truth about the search for integral beauty, for purity that is free of mutual gift in a certain sense continually call the all stain. It is a search for perfection that contains, groom and the bride—through the means of I would say, the synthesis of human beauty, beauty expressing the mutual belonging, and even by of soul and body. breaking away from those means—to arrive at In the Song of Songs the human eros reveals what constitutes the very nucleus of the gift from the countenance of love ever in search and, as it person to person. were, never satisfied. The echo of this restlessness Following the paths of the words marked out runs through the strophes of the poem: by the strophes of the Song of Songs, it seems I opened to my lover—but my lover had that we are therefore approaching the dimension departed, gone. in which the eros seeks to be integrated, through I sought him but I did not find him; still another truth about love. Centuries later, in I called to him but he did not answer me (Sg. 5:6). the light of the death and resurrection of Christ, I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, if you find Paul of Tarsus will proclaim this truth in the my lover— words of First Corinthians: What shall you tell him? That I am faint with love Love is patient; love is kind. (Sg. 5:8). Love is not jealous; it does not put on airs; it is not So then some strophes of the Song of Songs snobbish. present the eros as the form of human love in Love is never rude; it is not self-seeking; it is not which the energies of desire are at work. In them, prone to anger; the awareness or the subjective certainty of the neither does it brood over injuries. mutual, faithful, and exclusive belonging is rooted. Love does not rejoice in what is wrong but rejoices with the truth. At the same time, however, many other strophes

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There is no limit to love’s forbearance, to its trust, 2. Charity springs from the calm of detachment, its hope, detachment from hope in God, hope from its power to endure. patience and long-suffering; and these from all- Love never fails. ~1 Cor. 13:4-8 embracing self-mastery; self-mastery from fear of God, fear of God from faith in the Lord. Is the truth about love, expressed in the strophes of the Song of Songs, confirmed in the light of 3. He that has faith in the Lord fears punishment; these words of Paul? In the Song of Songs we he that fears punishment masters his passions; he read, as an example of love, that its “jealousy” is that masters his passions endures hardships with “relentless as the nether world” (Sg. 8:6). In the patience; he that endures hardships with patience Pauline letter we read that “love is not jealous.” will have hope in God; hope in God separates the What relationship do both of these expressions mind from every earthly attachment; the mind about love have? What relationship does the love thus separated will have charity towards God. that is “stern as death,” according to the Song of 4. He who loves God prefers knowledge of Him Songs, have with the love that “never fails,” to all things made by Him; and by desire ceaselessly according to the Pauline letter? We will not devotes himself to it. multiply these questions; we will not open the comparative analysis. Nevertheless, it seems that 5. If all things have been made by God and for love opens up before us here in two perspectives. God, He is nobler than all the things made by Him; It is as though that in which the human eros he who deserts God, the incomparably nobler, closes its horizon is still opened, through Paul’s and devotes himself to inferior things shows that words, to another horizon of love that speaks he prefers before God the things made by Him. another language, the love that seems to emerge from another dimension of the person, and 6. He who has his mind fixed upon charity for which calls, invites, to another communion. This God scorns all visible things and even his body as love has been called agape and agape brings the something alien. eros to completion by purifying it. 7. If the soul is nobler than the body and God incomparably nobler than the world He made, he *The Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan that prefers body to soul and the world to God (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 1997), 368-70, who made it differs in no way from idolaters. 373-5. 8. He that turns his mind from charity and constant attention towards God and binds it over to some sensible thing—this is the one that prefers body to soul and created things to God their Maker. 9. If the life of the mind is the illumination of ON CHARITY knowledge; and this springs from charity towards God—beautifully it is said: Nothing is greater d St. Maximus the Confessor than divine charity. A. D. Seventh Century 10. When the mind by the burning love of its charity for God is out of itself, then it has no 1. Charity is a good disposition of the soul, feeling at all for itself nor for any creatures. For, according to which one prefers no creature to the illumined by the divine and infinite light, it has knowledge of God. It is impossible to attain a no feeling for anything that is made by Him, as lasting possession of this charity if one has any the eye of the senses has no perception of the attachments to earthly things. stars when the sun is risen.

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11. All the virtues help the mind towards the grudges against his neighbor—such a man burning of divine love; more than all, pure prayer. worships the creature instead of the Creator. For by this winging its way to God, the mind gets outside all things. 21. He that keeps his body apart from pleasure and disease has it as a fellow helper in the service 12. When through charity the mind is ravished by of better things. divine knowledge, and, outside of creatures, has a feeling of the divine infinity, then, as divine Isaiah 22. He that flees all worldly desires places himself explains, shocked into a sense of its own lowliness, above every worldly grief. it says with conviction the words of the prophet: 23. He that loves God most certainly also loves “Woe is me, because I am struck at heart, because, his neighbor. Such a man cannot keep money, being man and having unclean lips, I live in the but, God-like, distributes it, giving to each one in midst of a people with unclean lips and the king need. the Lord of Sabaoth I have seen with my eyes” (Is. 6:5). 24. He that in imitation of God does almsdeeds knows no difference between evil and good, just 13. He that loves God cannot help loving also and unjust, in regard to the needs of the body, every man as himself, even though the passions but distributes equally to all according to their of those not yet purified disgust him. So then as need, even though for his good intentions he he sees their conversion and betterment, he prefers the virtuous to the bad. rejoices with a boundless and unspeakable joy. 25. God, who is by nature good and without 14. Impure is the impassioned soul, filled with passion, loves all alike as His handiwork; yet the notions of cupidity and hate. virtuous He glorifies as one who for his good will 15. Who sees a trace of hate in his own heart, for is made intimate with Himself, while, because of any fault soever, towards any man soever, is quite His goodness, He shows mercy on the bad, with alien from charity towards God; because charity chastisements in this world to convert him. So towards God in no way suffers hate towards man. also he, who by good will is good and without passion, loves all men alike—the virtuous because 16. He that loves me, saith the Lord, will keep my of his nature and that fellow feeling which causes commandments; and “this is my commandment him to show mercy upon him as upon one that you love one another” (Jn. 14:15, 15:12). He without sense and wandering in darkness. therefore who does not love his neighbor does not keep the commandment. Nor is he that does not *The Four Centuries on Charity, tr. Polycarp Sherwood keep the commandment able to love the Lord. (New York: Newman Press, 1955), 137-40. 17. Happy the man who is able to love all men equally. 18. Happy the man who is attached to no corruptible or transitory thing. 19. Happy the mind that has gone beyond all things and delights unceasingly in the divine beauty. 20. He that takes forethought for the flesh in its lusts and, because of transitory things, bears

THE SYMPOSIUM JOURNAL 94 SYNAXIS 6.1 HYMN 16 and displayed His unspeakable and strange glory to me. d St. Symeon the New Theologian Who therefore shall also come closer to Him? A. D. Eleventh Century Or how shall one be carried up to the immeasurable heights? OH WHAT is the reality that is hidden from When I consider this, He Himself was found every created essence, within me, and what is the rational light that is not seen by flashing forth within my wretched heart, anyone, illuminating me from all directions with immortal and what is this abundant wealth, which no one radiance, in the world shining upon all my members with His rays, has the strength to find entirely or to fully folding His entire self around me He tenderly possess? kisses all of me. For it is inapprehensible to everyone, He gives His whole self to me, the unworthy, uncontainable by the world, and I take my fill of His love and beauty, and it is most desirable above the whole world, and I am filled full of divine pleasure and and it is yearned for, as much as God prevails sweetness. above the whole I partake of the light, and I participate in the of visible reality, which He has prepared. glory, This is why I am wounded by His love (Sg. 2:5), and He illuminates my face like that of the one I insofar as He is not seen by me, I melt away in yearned for (Mt. 17:2), my senses, and all my members become bearers of light. and groaning, I burn in my mind and heart. Then finally I become more beautiful than the I walk about, and I burn, seeking here and there, beautiful, and nowhere do I find the lover of my soul (Sg. I am richer than the rich, and more powerful 5-6). than all the powerful, greater than kings, And I often look around to see the one I desire, and much more honorable than all visible and He, as though invisible, is wholly unseen by creation, me (Mk. 5:32). not only more honorable than the earth, and But when I begin to mourn like one in despair, everyone on earth, but even more than then heaven and everyone in heaven, for I have the He is seen by me and He looks at me, He Who Creator of all things looks upon all things. to Whom is fitting glory and honor now and Amazed, I am astonished at the shapeliness of forever (1 Tim. 1:17). Amen. His beauty, *Divine Eros: Hymns of Saint Symeon the New Theologian and how the Creator stooped down when He (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2010), opened the heavens 91-93.

FLOROVSKY WEEK visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org the TRADITION

The prize in the contest of men is shown by him who has trained himself by the discharge of the duties of marriage; by him, I say, who in the midst of solicitude for his family shows himself Inseparable from the love of God. ~St Clement of Alexandria 96 SYNAXIS 6.1 SONG OF SONGS THE SACRAMENT OF 1:1-7 HOLY MATRIMONY d d Solomon Orthodox Christian Services Ancient Ancient

The Bride Confesses Her Love The Betrothal Service 1. The Song of songs, which is Solomon’s. Priest: Have you, Name, a good, free, and 2. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: unconstrained will and a firm intention to take for thy breasts are better than wine. unto yourself to wife this woman, Name, whom you see here before you? 3. And the smell of thine ointments is better than Bridegroom: I have. all spices: thy name is ointment poured forth; therefore do the young maidens love thee. Priest: Have you, Name, a good, free, and unconstrained will and a firm intention to take The Friends unto yourself to husband this man, Name, whom 4. They have drawn thee: we will run after thee, you see here before you? for the smell of thine ointments: the king has Bride: I have. brought me into closet: let us rejoice and be glad The Priest takes up one of the candles which have been in thee; we will love thy breasts more than wine: placed on the Analogion, lights it and gives it to the righteousness loves thee. Bridegroom, making before him the sign of the Cross as he does so; and having done the same for the Bride, he The Bride begins: Blessed is our God always: now and ever, 5. I am black, but beautiful, ye daughters of and unto ages of ages. . . . Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains Choir: Lord, have mercy. of Solomon. Priest: For the servant of God, Name, and for the 6. Look not upon me, because I am dark, because handmaid of God, Name, who now plight each the sun has looked unfavorably upon me: my other their troth, and for their salvation, let us mother's sons strove with me; they made me pray to the Lord. keeper in the vineyards; I have not kept my own Choir: Lord, have mercy. vineyard. Priest: That He will send down upon them 7. Tell me, thou whom my soul loves, where thou perfect and peaceful love, and His help, let us tendest thy flock, where thou causest them to rest pray to the Lord. at noon, lest I become as one that is veiled by the Choir: Lord, have mercy. flocks of thy companions. Priest: That He will preserve them in oneness of *Brenton Septuagint Translation mind, and in steadfastness of faith, let us pray to the Lord. Choir: Lord, have mercy. Priest: That He will bless them with a blameless life, let us pray to the Lord. Choir: Lord, have mercy. Priest: That the Lord our God will grant unto them an honorable marriage, let us pray to the Lord. Choir: Lord, have mercy. . . .

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Priest: O eternal God, who hast brought into unity hast sent forth Thy truth upon Thine inheritance, those who were sundered, and hast ordained for and Thy covenant unto Thy servants our fathers, them an indissoluble bond of love; who didst bless even Thine elect, from generation to generation: Isaac and Rebecca, and didst make them heirs of Look Thou upon Thy servant, Name, and upon Thy Thy promise: Bless also these Thy servants, handmaid, Name, and establish their betrothal in guiding them unto every good work. For Thou art faith and in oneness of mind, in truth and in love. a merciful God, who lovest mankind, and unto And, O Lord our God, do Thou now bless this Thee we ascribe glory: to the Father, and to the putting-on of rings with Thy heavenly benediction: Son, and to the Holy Spirit: now and ever, and and let Thine Angel go before them all the days unto ages of ages. . . . O Lord our God, who of their life: For Thou are He who blesseth and hast espoused the Church as a pure Virgin from sanctifieth all things, and unto Thee do we ascribe among the Gentiles: Bless this Betrothal, and glory: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the unite and preserve these Thy servants in peace Holy Spirit: now and ever, and unto ages of ages. and oneness of mind. For unto Thee are due all Choir: Amen. glory, honor and worship, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: now and ever, The Marriage Service and unto ages of ages. The Priest shall take the censer and cense round about the Choir: Amen. Analogion, and the bridal pair, and all present, while the following hymn is being sung: Blessed are all they that Then the Priest takes the Ring of the Bride, and Blesses fear the Lord: and walk in His ways. the Groom, making with it the sign of the Cross over him Choir: Glory to Thee, our God; glory to Thee. thrice, touching the head of the Bride with it each time, and saying: The servant of God, Name, is betrothed Priest: Thou shalt eat of the fruit of thy labors: O blessed art thou, and happy shalt thou be. to the handmaid of God, Name. In the Name of Choir: Glory to Thee, our God; glory to Thee. the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Priest: Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine upon the walls of thy house: thy children like a newly- The Priest then places the Ring on the fourth finger of the planted olive-orchard round about thy table. right hand of the Groom. Then the Priest takes the Ring Choir: Glory to Thee, our God; glory to Thee. of the Groom, and Blesses the Bride, making with it the sign of the Cross over her thrice, touching the head of the Priest: Lo, thus shall the man be blessed that Groom with it each time; and saying: The handmaid feareth the Lord: the Lord in Zion shall so bless of God, Name, is betrothed to the servant of thee, that thou shalt see the good things of God, Name. In the Name of the Father, and of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Choir: Glory to Thee, our God; glory to Thee. The Priest places the Ring on the fourth finger of the right Priest: Yea, that thou shalt see thy children’s hand of the Bride. The bridal pair then exchange the children, and peace upon Israel. rings; meanwhile the Priest says the following prayer: Let Choir: Glory to Thee, our God; glory to Thee… us pray to the Lord. Priest: For the servants of God, Name and Name, Choir: Lord, have mercy. who are now being united to each other in the Priest: O Lord our God, bless the betrothal of these community of marriage, and for their salvation, Thy servants, Name and Name, and confirm the let us pray to the Lord. word which they have spoken. Establish them in Choir: Lord, have mercy. the holy union which is from Thee. For Thou, in Priest: That He will bless this marriage, as He blessed the beginning, didst make them male and female, that in Cana of Galilee, let us pray to the Lord. and by Thee is the woman joined unto the man Choir: Lord, have mercy. as a helpmeet. Wherefore, O Lord our God, who

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Priest: That He will make them glad with the sight Grant them fair children, and concord of soul and of sons and daughters, let us pray to the Lord. body; exalt them like the cedars of Lebanon, like Choir: Lord, have mercy. . . . a luxuriant vine, that, having sufficiency in all things they may abound in every good work that Priest: Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, the is good and acceptable unto Thee. And let them Priest of mystical and pure marriage, and the behold their children’s children round about their Ordainer of the law of the marriage of the body, table, like a newly-planted olive orchard, that, the Preserver of immortality, and the Provider of obtaining favor in Thy sight, they may shine like good things; do Thou, the same Master, who in the stars of heaven, in Thee, our Lord and God: the beginning didst make man and set him to be for unto Thee are due all glory, honor, and a King over Thy creation, and didst say: It is not worship: to the Father, who is from everlasting, good for man to be alone on the earth; let Us and to the Son, and to the Life-giving Spirit: make a helpmeet for him; and didst fashion now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Woman, which when Adam beheld, he said: This Choir: Amen. is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman; for this cause shall a Priest: O holy God, who didst create man out of man leave father and mother, and shall cleave the dust and didst fashion his wife and join her unto his wife, and the twain shall be one flesh; and unto him as a helpmeet, for it seemed good to those whom God hath joined together, let no man Thy majesty that man should not be alone upon put asunder. Do Thou now also, O Master, our the earth: Do Thou, the same Lord, extend Thy Lord and our God, send down Thy heavenly hand from Thy holy dwelling-place, and join grace upon these Thy servants, Name and Name; this Thy servant Name, and this Thy handmaid and grant that this Thy handmaid may, in all Name, for by Thee is the husband united unto things, be pleasing unto her husband; and that the wife. Unite them in one mind and one flesh, this Thy servant may love and cherish his wife; and grant unto them fair children for education that they may live according to Thy will. Bless in Thy faith and fear: for Thine is the majesty, them, O Lord our God, as Thou didst bless and Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and Abraham and Sarah. Bless them, O Lord our God, the glory: of the Father, and of the Son, and of as Thou didst bless Isaac and Rebecca. Bless them, the Holy Spirit: now and ever, and unto ages of O Lord our God, as Thou didst bless Joachim and ages. Anna. Bless them, O Lord our God, as Thou didst Choir: Amen. bless Zacharias and Elizabeth. Preserve them, O Lord our God, as Thou didst preserve Noah in the The Crowning Ark. Preserve them, O Lord our God, as Thou The Priest takes up one of the wedding crowns and didst preserve the three Holy Children from the makes it the sign of the Cross, thrice, over the head of the fire. And let that gladness come upon them which Bridegroom, and touches the head of the Bride each time, the blessed Helena had when she found the saying: The servant of God, Name, is crowned unto precious Cross. Remember them, O Lord our God, the handmaid of God Name. In the name of the as Thou didst remember Thy Forty Holy Martyrs, Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. sending down upon them crowns from heaven. Choir: Amen. Remember them, O Lord our God, and the The Priest places the Bridegroom’s crown upon his head, parents who have nurtured them, for the prayers where the Bridegroom’s attendant is, and takes up the other of parents make firm the foundations of houses. crown and makes with it the sign of the Cross, thrive, over Remember, O Lord our God, Thy servants the the head of the Bride, and touches the head of the Bridegroom attendants of the bridal pair, who share in this with it each time, saying: The handmaid of God, joy. Remember, O Lord our God, Thy servant Name, is crowned unto the servant of God Name. Name and Thy handmaid Name, and bless them.

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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall of the Holy Spirit. be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak Choir: Amen. concerning Christ and the Church. Nevertheless let everyone of you in particular so love his wife The Priest takes the Bridegroom’s crown in his right hand, even as himself; and the wife see that she and the Bride’s crown in his left, and exchanges them reverence her husband. thrice, saying: O Lord our God, crown them with glory and with honor. Priest: Peace be to thee that readest. Choir: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. The Apostle Priest: Let us attend! The Gospel Reader: (Prokeimenon:) Thou hast set upon their The people stand; the Priest comes before the Altar, facing heads crowns of precious stones; they asked life the people, with the Gospel Book on the lectern before him, of Thee, and Thou gavest it them. and says aloud: Wisdom! Attend! Let us hear the (Verse:): For Thou wilt give them Thy blessing Holy Gospel. Peace be to all. forever and ever. Thou wilt make them to rejoice Choir: And to thy spirit. with gladness through Thy presence. Priest: The Reading from the Holy Gospel Priest: Wisdom! according to St. John. Reader: The Lesson from the Epistle of the holy Choir: Glory to Thee, O Lord, glory to Thee. Apostle Paul to the Ephesians. Priest: Let us attend! And the third day there was Priest: Let us attend! a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother While the Apostle is being read, the Priest censes round of Jesus was there: and both Jesus was called, and about the Holy Altar, the sanctuary, and all present, in his disciples to the marriage. And when they the accustomed manner. wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, Reader: Brethren, Give thanks always for all They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, things unto God and the Father, in the name of what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet our Lord Jesus Christ; submitting yourselves one come. His mother saith unto the servants, to another in the fear of God. Wives, submit Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. And there yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the were set there six water pots of stone, after the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing even as Christ is the head of the Church: and two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, He is the Savior of the body. Therefore as the Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be up to the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw out to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And love your wives, even as Christ also loved the they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might the water that was made wine, and knew not sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water whence it was: (but the servants which drew the by the word, that He might present it to Himself water knew); the governor of the feast called the a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at or any such thing; but that it should be holy and the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when without blemish. So ought men to love their men have well drunk, then that which is worse: wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife but thou hast kept the good wine until now. This loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even and manifested forth his glory; and His disciples as the Lord the Church: for we are members of believed on Him. His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. For this Choir: Glory to Thee, O Lord, glory to Thee… cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and

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Priest (quietly): O Lord our God, who in Thy saving multiply like unto Jacob, walking in peace, and providence didst vouchsafe by Thy presence in keeping the commandments of God in righteousness. Cana of Galilee to declare marriage honorable: And thou, O Bride: Be thou exalted like unto Do Thou, the same Lord, now also maintain in Sarah; and exult thou like unto Rebecca; and do peace and concord Thy servants Name and Name, thou multiply unto Rachel; and rejoice thou in and grant them to lead an upright and blameless thy husband, fulﬁlling the conditions of the law: life even unto a ripe old age, walking in Thy for so is it well-pleasing unto God. . . . O God, commandments with a pure heart. our God, who didst come to Cana of Galilee, Priest (aloud): For Thou art a merciful God and didst bless there the marriage feast: Bless who lovest mankind, and unto Thee we ascribe also, these Thy servants, who through Thy good glory: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the providence are now united together in wedlock. Holy Spirit: now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Bless their goings and their comings in: replenish Choir: Amen. . . . their life with good things: receive their crowns into Thy kingdom, preserving them spotless,

The Common Cup blameless, and without reproach, unto ages of Priest: O God, who hast created all things by Thy ages. Amen. might and hast made fast the round world, and adornest the crown of all things which Thou hast The Priest then bestows the Nuptial Blessing upon the made: Bless now, with Thy spiritual blessing, this newly-married pair, saying: May the Father, and the Common Cup, which Thou dost give to those who Son, and the Holy Spirit, the all-holy, consubstantial are now united in community of marriage: for and life-giving Trinity, one Godhead, and one blessed is Thy name, and glorified is Thy kingdom, Kingdom, bless you; and grant unto you length of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy of days, fair children, prosperity of life, and Spirit: now and ever, and unto ages of ages. faith: and ﬁll you with abundance of all earthly Choir: Amen. good things, and make you worthy to obtain the blessings of the promise; through the prayers of The Priest gives the newly-wedded pair to drink of the the holy Theotokos, and of all the Saints. Amen. Cup, thrice each in turn, in token of their common life together. When they have partaken, the Bridegroom takes The newly-married pair kiss the Cross and each other, the Bride’s right hand in his left, and followed by their and the Priest says the Dismissal Payer: May He who attendants, they walk three times around the Analogion, by His presence at the marriage feast in Cana of the Priest preceding them and censing as he goes. Galilee did declare marriage to be an honorable Meanwhile, the following hymns are sung: O Isaiah, estate, Christ our true God; through the prayers dance thy joy; for a Virgin was with child and of his all-holy Mother; of the holy, glorious and hath borne a son, Emmanuel, both God and all-laudable Apostles; of the holy, God-crowned man: and Orient is His name; whom magnifying Kings and Saints-equal-to-the-Apostles Constantine we call the Virgin blessed. and Helena: of the holy great Martyr Procopius, Ye holy martyrs, who fought the good ﬁght and of all the Saints, have mercy upon you and and have received your crowns: entreat ye the save you: forasmuch as He is good, and loveth Lord that He will have mercy on our souls. mankind. Glory to Thee, O Christ our God: the Apostle’s Choir: Amen. . . . boast, the Martyr’s joy, whose preaching was the The Removal of the Marriage Crowns consubstantial Trinity. On the eighth day after the wedding, or shortly thereafter, Then the Priest removes their crowns saying: Be thou the bridal pair return to the Church at the proper time, exalted, O bridegroom, like unto Abraham; and and with their attendants come to stand before the Holy be thou blessed, like unto Isaac; and do thou Doors; the Priest gives them lighted candles to hold, and places the wedding crowns upon their heads, saying: O Lord our God, who hast blessed the crown of

EIGHTH DAY COLLOQUIUM visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 101 the year, and permittest these crowns to be laid LIFE OF ST. MARY OF EGYPT upon those who are united to one another by the law of marriage, thereby granting unto them a d reward for continence; for they are pure who are St. Sophronius of Jerusalem united in the marriage which Thou hast made A. D. Seventh Century lawful: Do Thou bless also in the removal of these crowns those who have been united to one another, “IT IS GOOD to hide the secret of a king, but and preserve their union indissoluble; that they it is glorious to reveal and preach the works of may evermore give thanks unto Thine all-holy God” (Tobit 12.7). So said the Archangel Raphael Name, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the to Tobit when he performed the wonderful healing Holy Spirit: now and ever, and unto ages of ages. of his blindness. Actually, not to keep the secret Choir: Amen. . . . of a king is perilous and a terrible risk, but to be Priest: Bow your heads unto the Lord. silent about the works of God is a great loss for Choir: To Thee, O Lord. the soul. And I, in writing the life of St. Mary of Egypt, am afraid to hide the works of God by Priest: These Thy servants having come together in silence. Remembering the misfortune threatened concord, O Lord, and having accomplished the to the servant who hid his God-given talent in the compact of marriage, as at Cana of Galilee, and earth (Mat. 25.18-25), I am bound to pass on the contracted the pledges thereof, ascribe glory unto holy account that has reached me. And let no one Thee: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the think that I have had the audacity to write untruth Holy Spirit: now and ever, and unto ages of ages. or doubt this great marvel—may I never lie about Choir: Amen. holy things! If there do happen to be people who, When the Priest has removed the crowns and taken the after reading this record, do not believe it, may the candles from the bridal pair, he blesses them with the Lord have mercy on them because, reﬂecting on hand cross and dismisses them with the following prayer; the weakness of human nature, they consider they kiss the cross and return to their places in the Church: impossible these wonderful things accomplished May He who by His presence at the marriage by holy people. But now we must begin to tell this feast in Cana of Galilee did declare marriage to most amazing story, which has taken place in our be an honorable estate, Christ our true God: generation. through the prayers of his all-holy Mother; of There was a certain elder in one of the the holy, glorious and all-laudable Apostles; of monasteries of Palestine, a priest of the holy life the holy, God-crowned Kings and Saints-equal- and speech, whose name was Zosimas. He had to-the-Apostles Constantine and Helena: of the been through the whole course of the ascetic life holy great Martyr Procopius, and of all the Saints, and in everything he adhered to the rule once have mercy upon you and save you: forasmuch given to him by his tutors as regard spiritual labors. as He is good, and loveth mankind. He had also added a good deal himself whilst Choir: Amen. laboring to subject his flesh to the will of the spirit. And he had not failed in his aim. He was so renowned for his spiritual life that many came to *Service Book of the Holy Eastern Orthodox Catholic him from neighboring monasteries and some and Apostolic Church according to the use of the even from afar. While doing all this, he never Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North ceased to study the Divine Scriptures. Whether America, 11th edition (New York: Antiochian resting, standing, working or eating food (if the

Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, 2002), 166-82. scraps he nibbled could be called food), he incessantly and constantly had a single aim: always to sing of God, and to practice the teaching of the Divine Scriptures. After training as an ascetic

EQUIPPING LEADERS FOR A SECULAR AGE 102 SYNAXIS 6.1 till he reached the age of 53, he began to be “Forgive me for God’s sake, but I cannot turn tormented with the thought that he was perfect in towards you and show you my face, Abba Zosimas. everything and needed no instruction from anyone, For I am a woman and naked as you see with the saying to himself mentally, “Is there a monk on uncovered shame of my body. But if you would earth who can be of use to me and show me a like to fulfill one wish of a sinful woman, throw kind of asceticism that I have not accomplished? me your cloak so that I can cover my body and Is there a man to be found in the desert who has can turn to you and ask for your blessing.” surpassed me?” Here terror seized Zosimas, for he heard that Thus thought the elder, when suddenly an she called him by name. He realized that she could angel appeared to him and said: “Zosimas, valiantly not have done so without knowing anything of him have you struggled, as far as this is within the if she had not had the power of spiritual insight. power of man, valiantly have you gone through He at once did as he was asked. He took off the ascetic course. But there is no man who has his old, tattered cloak and threw it to her, turning attained perfection. Before you lie unknown away as he did so. She picked it up and was able struggles greater than those you have already to cover at least a part of her body. Then she accomplished. That you may know how many turned to Zosimas and said: “Why did you wish, other ways lead to salvation, leave your native Abba Zosimas, to see a sinful woman? What do land like the renowned patriarch Abraham and you wish to hear or learn from me, you who have go to the monastery by the River Jordan.” not shrunk from such great struggles?” Zosimas did as he was told … and went to the Zosimas threw himself on the ground and River Jordan. . . . [During Lent] Zosimas … went asked for her blessing. She likewise bowed down far, far into the desert with a secret hope of finding before him. And thus they lay on the ground some father who might be living there and who prostrate asking for each other’s blessing. And one might be able to satisfy his thirst and longing… He word alone could be heard from both: “Bless had already walked for 20 days and when the 6th me!” After a long while the woman said to Zosimas: hour came he stopped and, turning to the East, “Abba Zosimas, it is you who must give blessing he began to sing the sixth Hour and recite the and pray. You are dignified by the order of customary prayers. He used to break his journey priesthood and for many years you have been thus at fixed hours of the day to rest a little, to standing before the holy altar and offering the chant psalms standing, and to pray on bent knees. sacrifice of the Divine Mysteries.” And as he sang thus without turning his eyes This flung Zosimas into even greater terror. from the heavens, he suddenly saw to the right of At length with tears he said to her: “O mother, the hillock on which he stood the semblance of a filled with the spirit, by your mode of life it is human body. At first he was confused thinking he evident that you live with God and have died to beheld a vision of the devil. But, having guarded the world. The Grace granted to you is apparent himself with the sign of the Cross and banished —for you have called me by name and recognized all fear, he turned his gaze in that direction and in that I am a priest, though you have never seen me truth saw some form gliding southwards. It was before. Grace is recognized not by one’s orders, naked, the skin dark as if burned up by the heat of but by gifts of the Spirit, so give me your blessing the sun; the hair on its head was white as a fleece, for God’s sake, for I need your prayers.” and not long, falling just below its neck. Zosimas Then giving way before the wish of the elder was so overjoyed at beholding a human form that the woman said: “Blessed is God Who cares for he ran after it in pursuit, but the form fled from the salvation of men and their souls.” him. He followed. At length, when he was near Zosimas answered: “Amen.” enough to be heard, he shouted: “Why do you run And both rose to their feet. Then the woman from an old man and a sinner? Slave of the True asked the elder: “Why have you come, man of God, wait for me, whoever you are, in God’s name.” God, to me who am so sinful? Why do you wish

FEASTS visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 103 to see a woman naked and devoid of every virtue? you have stripped yourself, for Whose sake you Though I know one thing—the Grace of the Holy have exhausted your flesh, do not hide from your Spirit has brought you to render me a service in slave, who you are and whence and how you came time. Tell me, father, how are the Christian peoples into this desert. Tell me everything so the marvelous living? And the kings? How is the Church guided?” works of God may become known. A hidden Zosimas said: “By your prayers, mother, Christ wisdom and a secret treasure—what profit is has granted lasting peace to all. But fulfill the there in them? Tell me all, I implore you. . . . unworthy petition of an old man and pray for the “My native land, holy father, was Egypt. whole world and for me who am a sinner, so that Already during the lifetime of my parents, when I my wanderings in the desert may not be fruitless.” was twelve years old, I renounced their love and She answered: “You who are a priest, Abba went to Alexandria. I am ashamed to recall how Zosimas, it is you who must pray for me and for there I at first ruined my maidenhood and then all—for this is your calling. But as we must all be unrestrainedly and insatiably gave myself up to obedient, I will gladly do what you ask.” sensuality. It is more becoming to speak of this And with these words she turned to the East, briefly, so that you may just know my passion and and raising her eyes to heaven and stretching out my lechery. For about seventeen years, forgive me, her hands, she began to pray in a whisper. Zosimas I lived like that. I was like a fire of public debauch… could not understand anything that she said in her That is how I lived. Then one summer I saw prayers. Meanwhile he stood, according to his own a large crowd of Libyans and Egyptians running word, all in a flutter, looking at the ground without towards the sea. I asked one of them, “Where are saying a word. And he swore, calling God to these men hurrying to?” He replied, “They are witness, that when he thought that her prayer was all going to Jerusalem for the Exaltation of the very long, he took his eyes off the ground and saw Precious and Lifegiving Cross, which takes place that she was raised about a forearm’s distance in a few days.” I said to him, “Will they take me from the ground and stood praying in the air. with them if I wish to go?” “No one will hinder When he saw this, even greater terror seized him you if you have money to pay for the journey and and he fell on the ground weeping and repeating for food.” And I said to him, ”I have no money, many times, “Lord have mercy.” neither have I food. But I shall go with them and And whilst lying prostrate on the ground he shall go aboard. And they shall feed me, whether was tempted by a thought: Is it not a spirit, and they want to or not. I have a body—they shall perhaps her prayer is hypocrisy. But at the very take it instead of pay for the journey.” I was same moment the woman turned around, raised suddenly filled with a desire to go, Abba, to have the elder from the ground and said: “Why do more lovers who could satisfy my passion. I told thoughts confuse you, Abba, and tempt you about you, Abba Zosimas, not to force me to tell you of me, as if I were a spirit and a deceiver in prayer? my disgrace. God is my witness, I am afraid of Know, holy father, that I am only a sinful woman, defiling you and the very air with my words.” though I am guarded by Holy baptism. And I am Zosimas, weeping, replied to her: “Speak on no spirit but earth and ashes, and flesh alone.” for God’s sake, mother, speak and do not break And with these words she guarded herself the thread of such an edifying tale.” with the sign of the Cross on her forehead, eyes, …Seeing my readiness to be shameless, they mouth, and breast, saying: “May God defend us readily took me aboard the boat. Those who were from the evil one and from his designs, for fierce expected came also, and we set sail at once. is his struggle against us.” How shall I relate to you what happened after Hearing and seeing this, the elder fell to the this? Whose tongue can tell, whose ears can take ground and, embracing her feet, he said with in all that took place on the boat during that tears: “I beg you, by the Name of Christ our voyage! And to all this I frequently forced those God, Who was born of a Virgin, for Whose sake miserable youths even against their own will.

COMMEMORATING CHRIST & THE SAINTS 104 SYNAXIS 6.1

There is no mentionable or unmentionable and to sigh from the depths of my heart. And so I depravity of which I was not their teacher. I am stood weeping when I saw above me the icon of amazed, Abba, how the sea stood our licentiousness, the most holy Mother of God. And turning to how the earth did not open its jaws, and how it was her my bodily and spiritual eyes I said: “O Lady, that hell did not swallow me alive, when I had Mother of God, who gave birth in the flesh to entangled in my net so many souls. But I think God God the Word, I know that it is no honor or praise was seeking my repentance. For He does not desire to thee when one so impure and depraved as I the death of a sinner but magnanimously awaits look up to thy icon, O ever-virgin, who didst keep his return to Him. At last we arrived in Jerusalem. thy body and soul in purity. Rightly do I inspire I spent the days before the festival in the town, hatred and disgust before thy virginal purity. But I living the same kind of life, perhaps even worse… have heard that God Who was born of thee became The holy day of the Exaltation of the Cross man on purpose to call sinners to repentance. Then dawned while I was still flying about—hunting help me, for I have no other help. Order the for youths. At daybreak I saw that everyone was entrance of the church to be opened to me. Allow hurrying to the church, so I ran with the rest. When me to see the venerable Tree on which He Who the hour for the holy elevation approached, I was was born of thee suffered in the flesh and on which trying to make my way in with the crowd which He shed His holy Blood for the redemption of was struggling to get through the church doors. I sinners and for me, unworthy as I am. Be my at last squeezed through with great difficulty faithful witness before thy son that I will never again almost to the entrance of the temple, from which defile my body by the impurity of fornication, but the lifegiving Tree of the Cross was being shown as soon as I have seen the Tree of the Cross I will to the people. But when I trod on the doorstep renounce the world and its temptations and will which everyone passed, I was stopped by some go wherever thou wilt lead me.” force which prevented my entering. Meanwhile I Thus I spoke and as if acquiring some hope in was brushed aside by the crowd and found myself firm faith and feeling some confidence in the mercy standing alone in the porch. Thinking that this had of the Mother of God, I left the place where I happened because of my woman’s weakness, I stood praying. And I went again and mingled again began to work my way into the crowd, trying with the crowd that was pushing its way into the to elbow myself forward. But in vain I struggled. temple. And no one seemed to thwart me, no one Again my feet trod on the doorstep over which hindered my entering the church. I was possessed others were entering the church without encountering with trembling, and was almost in delirium. Having any obstacle. I alone seemed to remain unaccepted got as far as the doors which I could not reach by the church. It was as if there was a detachment before—as if the same force which had hindered of soldiers standing there to oppose my entrance. me cleared the way for me—I now entered without Once again I was excluded by the same mighty difficulty and found myself within the holy place. force and again I stood in the porch. And so it was I saw the lifegiving Cross. I saw too Having repeated my attempt three or four the Mysteries of God and how the Lord accepts times, at last I felt exhausted and had no more repentance. Throwing myself on the ground, I strength to push and to be pushed, so I went aside worshipped that holy earth and kissed it with and stood in a corner of the porch. And only then trembling. Then I came out of the church and with great difficulty it began to dawn on me, and went to her who had promised to be my security, I began to understand the reason why I was to the place where I had sealed my vow. And prevented from being admitted to see the life- bending my knees before the Virgin Mother of giving Cross. The word of salvation gently touched God, I addressed to her such words as these: “O the eyes of my heart and revealed to me that it was loving Lady, thou hast shown me thy great love for my unclean life which barred the entrance to me. all men. Glory to God Who receives the repentance I began to weep and lament and beat my breast, of sinners through thee. What more can I recollect

INKLINGS OKTOBERFEST visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 105 or say, I who am so sinful? It is time for me, O And as he was pondering thus he saw the holy Lady to fulfill my vow, according to thy witness. woman appear and stand on the other side of the Now lead me by the hand along the path of river. Zosimas got up rejoicing and glorifying and repentance!” And at these words I heard a voice thanking God. And again the thought came to him from on high: “If you cross the Jordan you will that she could not cross the Jordan. Then he saw find glorious rest.” that she made the sign of the Cross over the waters …With these words I left the porch of the of the Jordan (and the night was a moonlit one, as church and set off on my journey. . . . he related afterwards) and then she at once stepped Zosimas asked her: “How many years have on to the waters and began walking across the gone by since you began to live in this desert?” surface towards him. And when he wanted to She replied: “Forty-seven years have already prostrate himself, she cried to him while still gone by, I think, since I left the holy city.” walking on the water: “What are you doing, Abba, …Zosimas said: “Do not hide from me you are a priest and carrying the divine Gifts!” anything; speak to me without concealing anything.” He obeyed her and on reaching the shore she And she said to him: “Believe me, Abba, said to the elder: “Bless, father, bless me!” seventeen years I passed in this desert fighting wild He answered her trembling, for a state of beasts—mad desires and passions… But when evil confusion had overcome him at the sight of the desires entered me I reminded myself of the vow miracle: “Truly God did not lie when He which I had made, when going into the desert. In promised that when we purify ourselves we shall my thoughts I returned to the icon of the Mother be like Him. Glory to Thee, Christ our God, of God which had received me and to her I cried Who has shown me through this Thy slave how in prayer. I implored her to chase away the thoughts far away I stand from perfection.” to which my miserable soul was succumbing. And Here the woman asked him to say the Creed after weeping for long and beating my breast I and the Lord’s Prayer. He began, she finished the used to see light at last which seemed to shine on prayer and according to the custom of that time me from everywhere. And after the violent storm, gave him the kiss of peace. Having partaken of lasting calm descended. . . . the Holy Mysteries, she raised her hands to heaven Thus concluding her tale she bowed down and sighed with tears in her eyes, exclaiming: before him. And with tears the elder exclaimed: “Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, “Blessed is God Who creates the great and O Lord, according to Thy word; for my eyes have wondrous, the glorious and marvelous without seen Thy salvation.” end. Blessed is God Who has shown me how He …And when another year had passed, he again rewards those who fear Him. Truly, O Lord, went into the desert. He reached the same spot but Thou dost not forsake those who seek Thee!” could see no sign of anyone. So raising his eyes to … [The following year], placing some of the heaven as before, he prayed: “Show me, O Lord, most pure Body and Blood into a small chalice and Thy pure treasure, which Thou hast concealed in putting some grains and dates and lentils soaked the desert. Show me, I pray Thee, the angel in in water into a small basket, he departed for the the flesh, of which the world is not worthy.” desert and reached the banks of the Jordan and Then on the opposite bank of the river, her sat down to wait for the saint. He waited for a long face turned towards the rising sun, he saw the saint while and then began to doubt. Then raising his lying dead. Her hands were crossed according to eyes to heaven, he began to pray: “Grant me, O custom and her face was turned to the East. Lord, to behold that which Thou hast allowed me Running up he shed tears over the saint’s feet and to behold once. Do not let me depart in vain.” kissed them, not daring to touch anything else. And then another thought struck him: “And what For a long time he wept. Then reciting the if she does come? There is no boat; how will she appointed psalms, he said the burial prayers and cross the Jordan to come to me who am so unworthy?” thought to himself: “Must I bury the body of a

THE PEN, THE PIPE & THE PINT 106 SYNAXIS 6.1 saint?” And then he saw words traced on the But I, Sophronius, as soon as I heard it, wrote ground by her head: “Abba Zosimas, bury on this it down. As far as I could, I have recorded everything, spot the body of humble Mary. Return to dust putting truth above all else. May God Who works that which is dust and pray to the Lord for me, amazing miracles and generously bestows gifts on who departed in the month of Fermoutin of those who turn to Him with faith, reward those Egypt, called April by the Romans, on the ﬁrst who seek light for themselves in this story, who day, on the very night of our Lord’s Passion, after hear, read, and are zealous to write it, and may having partaken of the Divine Mysteries.” He grant them the lot of blessed Mary together Reading this the elder was glad to know the with all who at different times have pleased God saint’s name… Then Zosimas thought: “It is time by their pious thoughts and labors. to do as she wished. But how am I to dig a grave And let us also give glory to God, the eternal with nothing in my hands?” …Lifting up his eyes King, that He may grant us too His mercy in the he saw a big lion standing close to the saint’s body day of judgment for the sake of Jesus Christ our and licking her feet. At the sight of the lion he Lord, to Whom belongs all glory, honor, dominion trembled with fear… But guarding himself with the and adoration with the Eternal Father and the sign of the cross, the thought came to him that the Most Holy and Life-giving Spirit, now and power of the one lying there would protect him and always, and through all ages. Amen. keep him unharmed. Meanwhile the lion drew near, expressing affection by every movement. Zosimas said to the lion: “The Great One ordered that her body was to be buried. But I am old and have not the strength to dig the grave … can you carry out the work with your claws? Then we can commit to the earth the mortal temple of the saint.” THE SYNODICAL LETTER While he was still speaking the lion with his Christological Profession front paws began to dig a hole deep enough to bury the body. d Again the elder washed the feet of the saint St. Sophronius of Jerusalem with his tears and calling on her to pray for all, A.D. 634 covered the body with earth in the presence of the lion. It was as it had been, naked and 1. I BELIEVE also concerning this, most holy uncovered by anything but the tattered cloak One, that God the Word, the only-begotten Son which had been given to her by Zosimas and with of the Father, the One who before all ages and which Mary, turning away, had managed to cover times was begotten impassibly from the same God part of her body. Then both departed. The lion and Father, having compassion and benevolent went off into the depth of the desert like a lamb, pity for our human fall, with free will and by the while Zosimas returned to the monastery intent of the Father who begat Him and with the glorifying and blessing Christ our Lord. And on joint and divine consent of the Spirit, although not reaching the monastery he told all the brothers separated from the bosom of the One who begat about everything, and all marveled on hearing of Him, descended to us wretched ones. Indeed, just God’s miracles. And with fear and love they kept as He is of the same intent as the Father and the the memory of the saint. Spirit, so too is He of inﬁnite essence. Admitting …Saint Zosimas died in the same monastery, in no way of a circumscribed nature or, as we do, almost attaining the age of a hundred, and passed of a change of place, knowing how to effect divine to eternal life. The monks kept this story … and activity in accordance with His nature, He enters passed it on by word of mouth to one another. a womb innocent of marriage, radiant with the

SISTERS OF SOPHIA visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 107 purity of virginity, that is, of Mary, holy and bright 4. I say this because it was God who was born of and of godly mind and free of every taint, whether a virgin, the holy Theotokos Mary, and accepted in body or soul or thought. The fleshless One on our account a second birth in time after His becomes flesh; the One who in conformity with the first eternal birth, which was a natural and ineffable divine essence is without shape as far as form and birth from the Father, even though He was born frame are concerned takes on our shape; and the in the flesh, on account of His likeness to us fleshly bodiless One is embodied as we are; and the One beings. Whole is the God who is hymned, whole revealed as always God in truth becomes a human is the same who appeared as a human being; being; and the One who is in the bosom of the perfect is the same God who is acknowledged and eternal Father is disclosed in the womb of His perfect is the same human being who is revealed… mother’s belly; and the timeless One receives a 12. Being born like us, He was fed with milk, and beginning in time. He became all of these things grew, and went through the bodily developments not in illusion, as it seems to the frenzied which the years bring, until He reached mature Manichaeans and Valentinians; but in truth and human stature, and accepted our hunger and in fact, having emptied Himself completely, by a thirst, and incurred the fatigue of journeys like will that was both His Father’s and His own, He us. He likewise performed the activity of walking assumed our human substance completely; I mean like us, accomplished in human fashion, and flesh consubstantial with ours and an intellectual advancing in accord with human essence, gave soul of the same stock as our souls, and a mind proof of His human nature. For this reason He comparable to our mind. In these things He is and also went from place to place as we do, since He is recognized as a human being, and He became had become truly a human being and possessed in truth a human being from the very point of our nature without diminution and was restrained His conception in the all-holy Virgin. He wished by bodily limitation, and bore an appearance to be reckoned as a human being, so that He corresponding to ours. The form of His appearance might cleanse like with like and rescue kin by kin, was bodily, that is, belonging to a body, in and illuminate the cognate by cognate. This is why accordance with which He was conceived and the holy Virgin was taken and sanctified in both molded in the womb, and which He preserved for body and soul, and thus assisted in the incarnation always and will preserve for endless ages. of the Creator because she was pure and undefiled … 13. This is why when He was hungry He was fed, 3. And so from the undefiled and virgin blood of this is why when He was thirsty he was given drink the all-holy and undefiled Virgin Mary the Word and drank as a human being, this is why as a child became truly flesh and truly a human being, even He was carried as He rested in the Virgin’s arms being carried in the virginal womb and fulfilling and reposed on His mother’s bosom, this is why the nine months’ period of gestation. Just as in all when He was tired He sat down, and when He natural respects which do not involve sin, He was needed sleep He slept, even so He felt pain when like us human beings and not despising our mean hit, and when whipped He suffered, and underwent estate, so subject to passion, God was born in a bodily pain when His hands and feet were pierced human body, so too He was in a frame that on the cross. For when He wished He gave His possessed an intellectual and incorporeal soul, a human nature the occasion to activate and suffer frame which He Himself, in Himself and no other, what was proper to it, lest His far-famed animated with an intellectual spirit. And He incarnation be judged some kind of illusion and a preserved His mother as a virgin and showed that hollow spectacle. For He did not take these things she was properly and in truth Theotokos, even if upon Himself against His will or under necessity, the frenzied Nestorius is shattered by this and his although He did submit to them in a natural and army which fights God is in tears, and laments human manner, and did and performed them and mourns and is torn to pieces again with him. with human movements: perish the abominable

WALKING WITH WOMEN OF WISDOM 108 SYNAXIS 6.1 idea! For it was God who endured suffering these the invigoration of the sick, things in the flesh and saved us with His own the restoration of sight to the blind, sufferings and through them awarded us freedom the straightening out of the deformed, from passions. But sometimes the same One the bracing of the paralytics, decided to suffer and operate and act in a human the straight course of the lame, fashion, and resolved to help those who were the resplendent cleansing of the lepers, the prompt satisfying of the hungry, watching, on whose account He had in truth the blinding of the persecutors, become a human being and not when natural and the stilling of the winds, fleshly movements wished to be moved naturally the calm subduing of the sea, to activity, or godless conspirators strove with the bodily walking on the waters, consummate daring to accomplish their plots. For the expulsion of the unclean spirits, He put on a body that was passible and mortal the sudden stirring up of the elements, and corruptible and subject to our natural and the darkening of the sun over all the world, blameless passions, and He permitted it to suffer the spontaneous opening of the tombs, and do what corresponded to its own nature until the rising from the dead after three days, His resurrection from the dead. There He brought the never-ending dissolution of corruption, our passibility and mortality and corruptibility to the unceasing destruction of death, an end and bestowed on us freedom from them. the unimpeded exit, under guard, from the stone and the sealed tomb, 14. Thus in this way He exhibited the humble and the unchecked entry through the locked doors, human things voluntarily and at the same time the wholly astonishing ascension in the body from naturally, remaining God in the midst of them earth into heaven, nonetheless. . . . And having become a human and all deeds comparable to these which surpass being, He submitted to these human elements the nature of speech and the power of voice and voluntarily and not through tyranny or necessity, are more than superior to all human understanding. as sometimes happens to us even against our will, All of these, accomplished beyond human reason but at the precise time and to the extent that He and nature, are confessedly signs of the divine wished, and He Himself consented to yield both essence and nature of God the Word, even if to those things which brought the sufferings and they are effected through the flesh and the body to the sufferings themselves, which were effected and are not achieved apart form the flesh in accordance with nature. Contrast the divine endowed with a rational soul. and luminous and loftiest actions, on the other hand, and those clearly surpassing our mean 15. We shall not as a consequence of these estate, namely the miraculous and the extraordinary considerations conjecture that God the Word is and the emanation of wondrous deeds, such as: fleshless, or teach that He is without body, because He performed deeds superior to the body. Indeed, the conception without seed, the Word truly became incarnate and … took a the leaping of John in the womb, body and is acknowledged as one Son, He who the uncorruptive birth, the undefiled virginity which was intact before brings forth every activity from Himself, both birth and during the birth and after the birth, divine and human, both humble and exceedingly the heavenly message given to the shepherds, great, earthly and heavenly, fleshly and incorporeal, the drawing of the Magi moved by a star, and the visible and invisible, … bearing of gifts which came with it and the *Pauline Allen, Sophronius of Jerusalem and Seventh- adoration, Century Heresy: The Synodical Letter, Texts, Translations, and the knowledge of learning by one who had not Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), studied (“For how is it,” they said, “that He 85-91, 105-111. has learning when He has not studied?”…), the changing of water into wine,

HALL OF MEN visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org the ECUMENICAL WORD

The reconstitution of Western civilization was due to the coming of Christianity and the reestablishment of the family on a new basis. ~Christopher Dawson 110 SYNAXIS 6.1 THOUGHTS AFTER LAMBETH Ecumenism as a Scheme for Complete Reunion I DO NOT imagine for a moment that the Ecumenism & Cultural Renewal “conversations” of the Church of England with d the Free Churches will bear any fruit whatever in T. S Eliot our time; and I rather hope they will not; for any A.D. 1931 fruit of this harvest would be unripe and bitter fruit, untimely nipped. But at the same time I Christianity as the Difficult Way of Discipline & Asceticism cannot cat-call with those who accuse the Church IN THE section on Youth, we may find some of facing-both-ways, and making one profession wise and true sayings, if we have the patience to to the innocent Levantines and Swedes, and look for them. “The best of the younger another to the implacable Methodists. It would generation in every section of the community,” be very poor statesmanship indeed to envisage we are told, “and in every country of the world, any reunion which should not fall ultimately are not seeking a religion that is watered down or within a scheme for complete reunion; and in robbed of the severity of its demands, but a spite of mirth, “reunion all round” is the only religion that will not only give them a sure basis ideal tenable. To the Methodists, certainly, the and an ultimate sanction for morals, but also a Church of England owes a heavy responsibility, power to persevere in reaching out after the ideal somewhat similar to that of the Church of Rome which in their heart of hearts they recognize as towards ourselves; and it would be almost the finest and best.” I wish that this might have effrontery for Anglican bishops to seek an alliance been said in fewer words, but the meaning is with Upsala and Constantinople without seeking sound, and cannot be repeated too often. There some way of repatriating those descended from is no good in making Christianity easy and men who would (I am sure) never have left the pleasant; “Youth,” or the better part of it, is more Church of England had it been in the eighteenth likely to come to a difficult religion than to an century what it is now in the second quarter of easy one. For some, the intellectual way of the twentieth. In such difficult negotiations the approach must be emphasized; there is need of a Church is quite properly and conscientiously more intellectual laity. For them and for others, facing-both-ways: which only goes to show that the way of discipline and asceticism must be the Church of England is at the present juncture emphasized; for even the humblest Christian the one church upon which the duty of working layman can and must live what, in the modern towards reunion most devolves. There are possible world, is comparatively an ascetic life. Discipline risks, which have been seized upon as actualities of the emotions is even rarer, and in the modern when they have been merely potentialities; the world still more difficult, than discipline of the risk of feeling more orthodox when transacting mind; some eminent lay preachers of “discipline” with the Eastern and Baltic Churches, and more are men who know only the latter. Thought, Evangelical when transacting with the Non- study, mortification, sacrifice: it is such notions as conformists. But I do not believe that the bishops these that should be impressed upon the young— have, according to the Report, conceded to the who differ from the young of other times merely Nonconformists in England anything that the in having a different middle-aged generation Eastern authorities could reasonably abhor. On behind them. You will never attract the young by the contrary, the attitude of eminent dissenters, in making Christianity easy; but a good many can their objections still more than in their approval, be attracted by finding it difficult: difficult both to seems to me to indicate that the bishops have the disorderly mind and to the unruly passions. . . . stopped at the right point. The points of difference with the other orthodox churches are simple and direct, and in a near way of being settled. It is easier to agree with a man who

MICROSYNAXIS visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 111 differs from you in blood but less in faith, than to the experiment of attempting to form a civilized agree with one who is of your own blood but less but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will in faith, than to agree with one who is of your fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its own blood but has different ideas: because the collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that irrelevant differences between those of the same the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark blood are less superable than the relevant ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, differences between those of different blood. The and save the World from suicide. problems of dissent between Anglicans and Free Churchmen are (we might just as well admit it) *Excerpted from original publication by Faber & much more complicated than the problem Faber, 1931 (Criterion Miscellany #30). Reprinted in between the Anglicans and the Swedish. Our Selected Essays, 1917-1932 (New York: Harcourt, Brace doctrinal difficulties with Free Churchmen are and Company, 1932). complicated by divisions social, local and political; by traditions of prejudice on both sides; and it is likely that several generations must pass before the problems of theology and hierarchy can be fairly detached and faced. The Lambeth Conference of 1930 has accomplished in this direction this much: that it has determined the LISTEN & TRANSLATE limits beyond which the Church cannot go on commending itself to Free Churchmen; further Two Gifts to Ecumenism concession would be abandonment of the d Church itself, and mere incorporation, as possibly W. H. Auden the most important member, in a loose federation A.D. 1964 of autonomous sects without stability and without significance. . . . WE ARE created animals gifted with intelligence, that is to say, we cannot be content merely to Redeem the Time & Preserve the Faith in a Dark Age experience but must seek to make sense of it, to THE CONFERENCE of 1930 has marked an know what is its cause and significance, to find important state in the direction toward Reunion. the truth behind the brute fact. Though some It has affirmed, beyond previous conferences, the individuals have greater intelligence and curiosity Catholicity of the Church, and in spite of defects than others, the nature of intelligence is identical and dubious statements in detail, the Report will in every individual. It is impossible for something have strengthened the Church both within and to be true for one mind and false for another. without. It has made clearer the limits beyond That is to say, if two of us disagree, either one of which the Church cannot go towards meeting us is right or both of us are wrong. Nonconformity, and the extent to which it is In our relation to one another as intelligent prepared to go to meet the Eastern and Baltic beings, seeking a truth to which we shall both be Churches. This advance is of no small importance compelled to assent, We is not the collective in a world which will obviously divide itself more singular We of tradition, but a plural signifying a and more sharply into Christians and non- You-and-I united by a common love for the truth. Christians. The Universal Church is today, it In relation to each other we are protestants; in seems to me, more definitely set against the relation to the truth we are catholics. I must be World than at any time since pagan Rome. I do prepared to doubt the truth of every statement not mean that Christianity, in spite of certain you make, but I must have unquestioning faith in local appearances, is not, and cannot be within your intellectual integrity. . . . measurable time, “official.” The World is trying

EIGHTH DAY EVENTS IN PRINT 112 SYNAXIS 6.1

Whatever the field under discussion, those among the more thoughtful, there can be few, no who engage in debate must not only believe in matter what church they belong to, who do not each other’s good faith, but also in their capacity regard the series of events in the sixteenth and to arrive at the truth. Intellectual debate is only seventeenth centuries whereby the Western Church possible between those who are equal in learning became divided into Catholics and Protestants and intelligence. Preferably they should have no with capital letters, hating and despising each audience, but if they do have one, it should be an other, as a spiritual tragedy for which all parties audience of their peers. Otherwise, the desire for concerned must bear some of the blame. Looking applause, the wish, not to arrive at the truth but back, there seems no rational reason why the habits to vanquish one’s opponent, becomes irresistible. of reading the Bible and family prayers from Never were the fatal effects of publicity in debate which Protestants have obviously derived so much so obvious as in the sixteenth century. As strength and refreshment could not have been Professor C. S. Lewis has written: added to the sacramental habits from which Catholics have, as obviously, derived so much, The process whereby “faith and works” became a instead of both parties regarding them as stock gag in the commercial theatre is characteristic incompatible. There seems no rational reason why of that whole tragic farce which we call the a return to St. Paul and St. Augustine could not history of the Reformation. The theological have rescued theology from its sterile debate questions really at issue have no significance between Realism and Nominalism without except on a certain level, a high level, of the leading to Calvinism and, as a defense reaction, spiritual life; they could have been fruitfully to the adoption by Rome, understandably but debated only between mature and saintly disputants in close privacy and at boundless still, to my mind, mistakenly, of Thomism as the leisure. Under these conditions formulae might official Catholic philosophy. But history, of possibly have been found which did justice to the course, is not rational nor repeatable. (For me the Protestant assertions without compromising other most mysterious aspect of the whole affair is not elements of the Christian faith. In fact, however, theological or political but cultural. Why was it these questions were raised at a moment when that the peoples and nations who became they immediately became embittered and Protestant were precisely those who, before Christ entangled with a whole complex of matters was born, had been least influenced by the theologically irrelevant, and therefore attracted culture of pagan Rome?) the fatal attention of both government and the That Protestant and Catholic no longer regard mob. It was as if men were set to conduct a each other as monsters is a reason for thanking metaphysical argument at a fair, in competition or God, but also a reason to be ashamed of ourselves (worse still) forced collaboration with the that we, as Christians, have contributed so little to cheapjacks and roundabouts, under the eyes of an armed and vigilant police force who frequently this more charitable atmosphere. If we have changed sides. Each party increasingly learned that it is wicked to inflict secular penalties misunderstood the other and triumphed in on heresy, to keep people in the faith by terror, we refuting positions which their opponents did not have learned it from skeptical rationalists who hold: Protestants misrepresenting Romans as felt, like Earl Halifax, that “Most men’s anger Pelagians or Romans misrepresenting Protestants about religion is as if two men should quarrel for as Antinomians. a lady they neither of them care for.” Even after the burnings stopped, the religious minority, … Even among the most ignorant, there can Catholic or Protestant, still continued to suffer be very few Protestants today who still think that sufficient civil disabilities to ensure that to a great Rome is the Scarlet Woman, or Catholics who extent religious boundaries would coincide with think, like the officer Goethe met in Italy, that state boundaries and prevent the average Protestant Protestants are allowed to marry their sisters. And and Catholic from ever meeting. Defoe says that

EIGHTH DAY BOOKS & CULTURE visit us at www.eighthdayinstitute.org THEOPHANY 2019 113 in the England of his time “there were a hundred social disapproval. I have observed how much thousand fellows ready to fight to the death against more vital, liturgically, both Catholic and Protestant popery, without knowing whether popery was a services become in countries with religiously man or a horse,” and the situation in Catholic mixed populations than in countries which are countries can have been no better. Again, the overwhelmingly one or the other. Then, after this campaign to make the secular authorities grant exchange of compliments, we might reread equal rights to all citizens, irrespective of their together the second chapter of Acts. The gift of religious beliefs, was certainly not headed by tongues: is it not equally a gift of ears? It is just as Christians. Even when equality in law had been miraculous that those in the parts of Libya about granted, class barriers remained which have only Cyrene and strangers from Rome should be able begun to disappear in my own lifetime. Among to listen to Galileans, as that Galileans should be the English middle classes, thanks to the existence able to speak to them. The Curse of Babel is not of old Catholic families whose social status was the diversity of human tongues—diversity is unimpeachable, it might be eccentric or immoral essential for life—but the pride of each of us which to be a Catholic, but it was not infra dig like being makes us think that those who make different a Dissenter. When I was young, for an Anglican verbal noises from our own are incapable of to “go over to Rome” was rather like having an human speech so that discourse with them is out illegitimate baby, an unfortunate event but of the questions, a pride which, since the speech something which can happen in the best families. of no two persons is identical—language is not But for an Anglican to become a Baptist would algebra—must inevitably lead to the conclusion have been unthinkable: Baptists were persons that the gift of human speech is reserved for who came to the back door, not the front. Once oneself alone. It is due to this curse that, as Sir again, the part played by Christians in fighting William Osler said, “Half of us are blind, few of against social injustice and snobbery has not been us feel, and we are all deaf.” That we may learn a conspicuous one. Lastly, whether we desire it or first how to listen and then how to translate are not, we are being brought closer together by the two gifts of which we stand most urgently in simply physical fear. There are large areas of the need and for which we should most fervently pray globe where it is now a serious worldly at this time. disadvantage, and sometimes dangerous, to be a Christian of any kind, and these areas may very *Introduction to The Protestant Mystics, ed. Anne well increase. Freemantle (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1964). When all fleshly and worldly circumstances Reprinted in Forewords and Afterwords (New York: favor a greater mutual understanding, any failure Random House, Year?), 51-53, 76-78. of charity on our part becomes all the more inexcusable. As I write, it is but a few days to Pentecost, the Ecumenical Feast, in which the Pope has proclaimed an Ecumenical Year. As a preliminary we might start by thanking each GLORY BE other, and the modern secular culture against TO THE FATHER, which we both inveigh, for the competition. It is good for a Protestant minister and Catholic priest TO THE SON to know that there is a church of another persuasion round the corner and a movie-house AND TO THE HOLY SPIRIT across the way from them both, to know that they cannot hold their flocks simply because there is FOR ALL THINGS. no other place of worship to attend, or because not attending some place of worship will incur AMEN.

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