Selections from Seminary

Whole theologies have been formed and rampant misunderstandings have deeply entrenched, all on account of this one little Greek word: δικαι- [dikai-]. In Greek, this one root word forms the verbs, nouns, and all other parts of speech, which are then later translated into various words in English: justification, justice, justify, to judge, righteousness, the righteous ones, upright. Our understanding of St. Paul will increase dramatically simply by finding a way to read him with his original word choice, not using two words in English for one concept for St. Paul. In the passages below, all from Romans, every time St. Paul chooses a word built on that Greek root, it will be replaced with “DIKAI”, instead of using an English word, so we do not fill in our English nuance of the word; any lowercase additions on the front or end of DIKAI are to indicate the verb tense or a prefix. I have found it quite beneficial to understanding St. Paul's meaning. [Commentary in red. In verse 4, Paul ...

The Cappodocians, as well as St. Athanasius before them, had to respond to heretical teachings. As a result, their language was necessarily limited to refutation. That does not leave us with a clear affirmation of how to proceed toward the knowledge of God. Basil’s scriptural references, as well as the homilies and other non-polemical writings from Athanasius, the other Cappadocians, and Chrysostom, can give us a fuller picture, using more affirmative language, of how we can begin to know God. The Apostle Peter, at the end of his second epistle, leaves us with a very clear and affirmative charge to continue on into the depths of the knowledge of God: You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Then, 2 Peter starts off running: Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature (ἵνα διὰ τούτων γένησθε θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως), having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. Not only is he speaking of partaking of the divine nature, but clearly connecting that with a practical, lived-out life of virtue, “escaping corruption”. Throughout Peter’s epistles, he develops this lived knowledge of God, which is important to understand when reading the Cappadocians in their response to Eunomius. Peter continues, For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ —importantly, immediately...

The Apostle Peter also builds a connection between our own works and the revelation of Christ: rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts , as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct . Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever. Here, St. Peter brings up the corruptible/incorruptible theme, which in context, when taking both his epistles together, is referring to the life in Christ, the process of uniting ourselves to him, which ultimately is knowing God. And again, we see St. Athanasius making the connection between our own works and participation in God, and like the apostle, us...

In reading all these responses to specific theological problems, we all too easily lose our way trying to understand how much of God we will know and how the whole process works. St. Gregory the Theologian brings us back to the right path: “What God is in nature and essence, ... In my opinion it will be discovered when that within us which is godlike and divine, I mean our mind (νοῦν) and reason (λόγον), shall have mingled with its Like, and the image shall have ascended to the Archetype, of which it has now the desire.” In other words, he is saying, ‘I think we will find that out some day’. However, immediately following those words, he warns that this way of thinking, “as it seems to me, is altogether philosophical speculation ” (Καὶ τοῦτο εἶναί μοι δοκεῖ τὸ πάνυ φιλοσοφούμενον, ἐπιγνώσεσθαί ποτε ἡμᾶς, ὅςον ἐγνώσμευα). The Cappadocians, when speaking affirmatively of the life in Christ and knowing him, see no disconnection in their teaching from that of the Gospels, the Apostles, or ...

St. Basil follows and is followed by fathers of the Church responding with all the same ideas to these dangerous misinterpretations of the faith. We can see themes of right doctrine carried throughout all these storms which fell upon Christ’s faithful, from the Apostles, through the Cappadocians, and beyond. St. Athanasius the Great of Alexandria starts his explanation back at the creation of man, explaining the “further gift” given to man, that is, more than the irrational beasts, “making them according to his own image, giving them a share of the power of his own Word, so that...they might be able to abide in blessedness, living the true life which is really that of the holy ones in paradise.” This focus on the image stamped in man is carried throughout, up to St. John Chrysostom: What then was the tabernacle in which He dwelt? Hear the Prophet say; I will raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen.  It was fallen indeed, our nature had fallen an incurable fall, and needed o...

Out of necessity, St. Basil the Great responds to the Eunomian teaching primarily to negate the fallacies. Meaning, in those responses, and those of the other Cappadocian fathers after him, they are stating more of why those teachings are problematic and less setting forth a full and affirmative understanding of the knowledge of God. St. Basil, himself, mentions the need for a “more accurate” approach to combat Eunomius: “Now marveling at the beautiful things is not difficult, but attaining an accurate comprehension of the things at which one marvels is hard and nearly impossible.” In Basil’s homily on the first two verses of the Gospel of John, he boils down his argument to what the people would need to hear to avoid confusion about such teachings. He points out how St. John’s statement, He was with God in beginning , places “he was” in perfect apposition to “in beginning”, leaving no room for misunderstanding. However, when speaking directly against Eunomius, that is, back in the lan...

What do we know about God? How intimately can we know God? The fathers of the Church had no inclination to speak on these topics of their own volition, until questionable teachings began to arise which threatened the very foundation of life in Christ. We do not need to know the relationship between the persons of the Trinity simply to know the proper title when addressing our prayers to God; our life in Christ is little more than having another human friend if we are not in Christ, and he, in the Father. In the early parts of the fourth century, the Arian teaching threatened the Church. Arius, and those in line with his thought, taught that the Word of God, since he was begotten, was not eternal with the Father. In the years following the First Ecumenical Council, the Arian teaching grew more radical, and in doing so, more obviously problematic. These “neo-Arians” held to “anomoianism”, that is, that not only is the Son and Word not of the same essential being as the Father, but that h...

I just stumbled on this wonderful passage from St. Vincent of Lérins: "I have often then inquired earnestly and attentively of very many men eminent for sanctity and learning, how and by what sure and so to speak universal rule I may be able to distinguish the truth of catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical pravity; and I have always, and in almost every instance, received an answer to this effect: That whether I or any one else would wish to detect the frauds and avoid the snares of heretics as they rise, and to continue sound and complete in the catholic faith, we must, the Lord helping, fortify our own believe in two ways ; first, by the authority of the Divine Law, and then, by the Tradition of the catholic Church." It is interesting to me that finding the one Church is such a pressing topic on St. Vincent's mind back in 434 A.D., when this was written. How much more difficult this is in today's world with such a wide array of variation of faiths which ca...

Could we say that iconoclasm is alive and well in modern America? Are there Catholics or Protestants in a rush to root out inappropriate images of saints and destroy them? Not really—though we could certainly get that impression from slightly-too-zealous anti-Protestant Orthodox Christians. And if I found myself making a case that my Protestant or Catholics friends and family were actually iconoclasts, I would lay most of the blame on myself for trying to make myself out as a victim and martyr. Now, I must say that most of the Protestants I know certainly are not comfortable with icons; they would not even dream of using icons in any way beyond possibly just religious decoration. Catholics? Well, I know a lot less, but I can say that one of my Catholic friends gave me an icon, which he bought at a Catholic retreat. He did not have a problem with icons, and evidently having an icon vender at a diocesan-sanctioned retreat was acceptable. Uncomfortableness or lack of use does not make...

This past Sunday, Bishop Alexis shared a touching homily. I will have to admit, I first started paying attention only because there was a mention of a mistranslation of a very commonly-heard passage: "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word" and I wanted to know what the issue was. To be fair, it is only "very commonly-heard" if you are Orthodox, since it is a key hymn sung in every Vespers service. The rest of you might be thinking I am just exaggerating. ...but I digress. First, there is a distinction between two Greek words for Lord, but I will get to that in a minute. The interesting thing is that this is not question or suggestion toward the Lord; the Shakespearian fling to "now lettest thou thy servant depart" leaves modern listeners in a bit of syntactical no-man's land. We do not know exactly what that means. The ESV hits the meaning well enough, "now you are letting", but not really the tone. And...

I had to learn the names of the Twelve Apostles: not exactly a part of our Synoptic Gospels class, but also not something that Archbishop Michael was willing to allow us to not know. The grade is easy: if you can name all twelve Apostles, you get a 100 for that grade. If you cannot name all of them, you get a 0. He actually mentioned that it would be good to know the names of all of The Seventy, that is the 70 Apostles Jesus sent out, as well, but "that was asking too much". It was when he was talking about The Seventy that I first started thinking that it would not be too hard to learn them all if you had a fun song. I saw somebody singing the periodic table once, and if that is possible with all the weird element names, the strange-to-us first-century saints names must be doable. I mentioned to one of my classmates that we should sing the Apostles' names to some tune. Once they mentioned that Abp. Michael was a Broadway fan, it was a done deal. It had to be done. I ...

St. Basil the Great went so far as to apologize for using his own words to speak of the spiritual life, that is, instead of using only those words found in the Scriptures themselves. This is a love for the Scriptures that many of us would not so readily associate with a Church father from the 4th century. Yet, his love for Christ and his dogged adherence to the faith of the Apostles were key ingredients into the making of one of the most important defenders of Christianity at a time when the Church was very much under attack by those who would twist those beloved Scriptures to mean something quite different. His own family background speaks volumes. His maternal grandfather was a martyr. His paternal grandmother is a canonized saint, St. Macrina, who seems to have been quite influential in the spiritual formation of her grandchildren. Not much information is available for St. Macrina's husband, St. Basil's grandfather, but there is reference to him as an "unbending victi...

If there is anybody in Christian history that Protestants love to hate, it’s the Emperor Constantine. Now, I never had people bring him up to me as the one who "changed Christianity", but quite consistently, in the experience of other Orthodox Christians I have talked to about this, Constantine is certainly an issue that comes up frequently. Brief history lesson...Emperor Constantine is most well known for the Battle at Milvian Bridge in the year 312. According to two (somewhat contradictory) accounts, Constantine saw the chi-rho (☧) symbol, which is the Greek abbreviation for “Christ”, in the sky, and heard the words, “in this sign, conquer”. Having placed the symbol on his shields, he defeated Emperor Maxentius on the field of battle, and soon after consolidated total control of the Roman Empire. The following year, Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, which granted leniency toward the Christian religion, which is often misunderstood as making Christianity the...

We—we men and women isolated in this one time and one perspective—all too easily drift to extremes in faith. Extremes are not necessarily negative or harmful, but often become so, especially when applied not to the individual as a personal act of piety, but rather to others. Extreme views and practices are as old as the Church, and quite obviously, when we take even a quick glance at the various Christian churches around us today, there are plenty of extremes today, as well. I should share a quick disclaimer: as long as I am writing about a particular tendency that you, the reader, would agree to be extreme, it is easy to readily agree. However, when I mention a tendency that hits a little closer to home, it will be much harder to see that particular tendency as extreme. I will finish this article off with Orthodoxy, to make sure and hit close to home for myself, too, and let you be the judge. And since these past several posts have focused on the application of history to our presen...

There have always been heresies threatening the Church. And what is a heresy? That may seem like an obvious question, but in the light of today’s protection of rights, the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and then the staggering array of various “brands” of Christianity, the “heretic” label is much less often applied now. That is probably a good thing. I certainly cannot think of many of examples of heretic name-calling turning out to anybody’s benefit, increasing pride on one side and anger on the other...or maybe both anger and pride on both sides. It is easy to look back at the ecumenical councils of the first few centuries of legalized Christianity and interpret back into history our ideas of heresy name-calling. What should be said first, because it is an easy misunderstanding in the light of the awful, systematized tortures of later, non-Orthodox Christianity, is that those who were excommunicated were only excommunicated. That is, they were no longer allowed in the comm...

In my last couple posts, I jumped a little further along the path of history than I expected. I love St. Ignatius (and as a shameless plug to go and read his epistles, I must at least briefly say that the much bigger reason to read his epistles is not so much that he emphatically states the authority of the bishop, but the relentless spirit of his letters: charging toward Rome, toward his martyrdom, in a desire to be an offering to Christ). I should back up fifty years or so and look through the Acts of the Apostles. One thing that has always stuck out to me in the book of Acts (or the “Acts of the Apostles”) is the multitude of references to Jewish religious practice, meaning, the continuation within the Christian Church of Jewish religious practice. It is all too easy to read Acts with our modern glasses and not quite know when we are accidentally imposing a different meaning on the words we are reading. As a benign example: picturing your friend going “fishing” would be quite diff...

Having taken St. Ignatius of Antioch as my patron saint, my mind immediately goes to him when looking for answers about what the early Church was like. St. Ignatius Theophoros was a bishop in the city of Antioch, likely consecrated a bishop by St. Paul, and most definitely a disciple of St. John the Apostle and Gospel-writer. So, here we have a direct disciple of one of the Twelve, who speaks very emphatically about the office of bishop and some of the bishop's responsibilities. In St. Ignatius’s Epistle to the Smyrneans, he says: See that ye all follow the bishop , even as Christ Jesus does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles. Do ye also reverence the deacons , as those that carry out [through their office] the appointment of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist , which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, the...

Why should we study the history of the Church? Is it just a matter of gaining knowledge about what happened and when? Isn’t history simply a collection of facts? Or could we actually gain spiritual benefit from studying Church history? There is one additional matter to tend to before we launch out in search of answers to those questions. If I have noticed nothing else in my limited study of history, it is this: it is easy, even accidentally, to latch on to a particular situation out of context and to understand it in a faulty way, especially when I have an underlying motive in mind. Therefore, lest I inadvertently use some parcel of knowledge to prove a particular point, I strive to not only present the facts, but also to continually ask the question of what brought that about. At least, I will try to remember to ask myself. As a history professor back in college tended to remind us, “History makes no sharp turns.” The Apostles did not suddenly set up the Church as we see it today ...