Psalm 50 (51) The Great Psalm of Repentance

St. Ephrem on Ninevah and Sodom

The use of Scripture in many of the Orthodox Church Fathers puzzles many modern readers. We tend to see reading as something that can be done in two modes: literal or figurative. In addition, we tend to equate literal with “true” and figurative as “not real and thus somehow not quite true.” It’s actually a very limited way of reading reducing meaning to two poor choices. Indeed, there is a “privileging” of the literal – by equating it with “real.” The model is literal equals historical equals objective equals true. It is, if you will, a very “flat-footed” reading that makes many assumptions about the world – most of which would support the notion of the world as a “secular realm.” In this model the question would be: “Are the Scriptures as true as the New York Times?” You can think about that question after you quit laughing.

First off, for the Fathers, “true” means “eschatological.” Things are true as measured by the end of all things. Creation has an end and a goal both of which already reside in the created order. All that exists is moving towards its end and the fulfillment of the truth of its existence. Thus, to be modern and flat-footed, the only “literal” truth has not yet been fully manifest. We live in a world of shadows, icons, hints, and signposts. Thus the Fathers tend to read things looking for something that isn’t always apparent. They are looking for the truth, but often having to look beyond the immediate presentation to find the end of the matter. Comparisons and echoes between two events are key moments in interpretation. This is especially true when the key moment echoes the life, death, resurrection, etc., of Christ – who is the End of all things.

William, one of our readers and a frequent commentator, posted a comment this morning that offered a marvelous example of this Patristic style of interpretation. His example came from St. Ephrem of Syria – one of the greatest hymn writers in the early Church. Parenthetically, it should be noted that a number of the better interpreters of Scripture in the early Church used poetry and hymn-writing as a major means of expression. It’s almost a way of saying that the world exists more like poetry than prose.

St. Ephrem finds a comparison between the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (in the book of Genesis) and the story of the sparing of the city of Ninevah (in the book of the Prophet Jonah). He also sees a comparison between the attitude of Abraham (who asked for God’s mercy on Sodom) and the Prophet Jonah (who was angry because God spared Ninevah).

The saint is not particularly concerned with any question of “did this really happen?” or other concerns that drive modern literal interpretations. The truth of the destruction of Sodom and the sparing of Ninevah is to be found in the Eschaton, when Christ will come to judge all things. And the point of that judgment is, St. Ephrem affirms, to be found in the mercy of God. It is the common teaching of the Orthodox fathers that God is merciful towards all (“not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance”). However not all desire God’s mercy. Christ said:

 And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed (John 3:19-20).

Thus Ephrem sees the same mercy (light) coming to Ninevah and to Sodom. One is glad to receive mercy, but the other hated mercy (the Sodomites surely showed no mercy to their visitors) and found God’s mercy to be as fire and brimstone.

Of course any move away from modern literalism frightens some people for fear that claims for the reality of Christ’s atoning death and resurrection might be weakened. Although the Church sees the written account of the Gospels as “doctrinally shaped” narratives – nonetheless we stand on the ground of a certain literalism in the Gospels. For the Truth Himself, the Alpha and Omega, is among us in the gospel and all that happens around Him is being brought to its “literal” truth. The blind receive their sight because darkness is not the truth. The lame walk and the dead are raised because brokenness and death are not the truth of our existence. Where Christ is judgment has come. Judgment that gives sight and causes to walk. Judgment that raises the dead. But also judgment that reveals traitors and hypocrites and unmasks the false power of the princes of this world.

Thus St. Ephrem’s poetry reveals. As William noted:

…the Ninevites were faced with the same threat that Sodom and Gomorrah faced, but their hearts were different. Ephrem describes the Ninevites’ ashes and sackcloth as being like blood money and an offering that made reconciliation. The tears that flowed from their eyes were met with mercy flowing from heaven, Ephrem writes. God always meets repentance with mercy. Anyway, this describes God’s wrath as something whose very purpose is mercy:

“Give thanks to the One Who sent His anger to Nineveh
that His anger might be a merchant of mercy.
For two treasures His anger opens:
the treasure of the deep and the treasure of the height.
Urgently the fruit [repentance] went up from below to the height.
Urgently mercy rained from above to the deep.
Urgently the blood money went up to the height.
Urgently pity came down from above to the deep.”

It seems that God’s visitation on Sodom and Gomorrah that was a shower of brimstone on unrepentant souls was no different from his visitation on Nineveh that was a shower of mercy on the repentant. Abraham’s prayer didn’t change God, nor did the Ninevites’ sackcloth, because God’s will is always mercy on the repentant. Abraham’s prayer for mercy toward the righteous is in conformity with God’s eternal intent.

Here is another quote from St. Ephrem comparing Jonah with Abraham. It doesn’t necessarily answer any questions, but it’s interesting, and it suggests the difference between Sodom and Nineveh and between a merciful man and an unmerciful one:

“That Sodom not be overthrown Abraham prayed.
That Nineveh be overthrown Jonah hoped.
That man prayed for a city that abused watchers [angels]
This man was angry at a city that made the watchers rejoice.”

“Tears moistened her (Nineveh); mercy shone on her;
weeping rained in her; pity sprouted in her
The King of the height saw and desired
the fruit that a flow of tears grew.
The High One hungered very much for her tears,
since He tasted remorse in her fruits.
He came down and opened the treasury of mercy
to purchase by His mercy the fruits of His servants.”

Thank you William. Thank you St. Ephrem. Thanks be to God.

 

Great Lent – the Second Week

Great Lent began a week ago for the Orthodox. Interestingly the first week of Lent is the hardest week until Holy Week. There are services pretty much every evening and the rules for fasting are stricter. It’s as if you began a race with a sprint only to realize that there are many more laps to go.

Many years ago I was on my high-school track team. I don’t really mean to joke when I say that it was so long ago they had not invented the running shoe. There were only shoes for sprinting – none of these modern, technological marvels that actually support your feet and ankles. My place on the track team was as a miler – but not the really good miler. I was what they called a “rabbit” (named for the mechanical rabbit that greyhounds chase). The starting pistol would go off, and off I would begin at a fairly fierce pace. If the other team took the bait, then they would try to keep up with me and after a couple of laps were exhausted. Then our really good miler, who had been running a sensible pace would kick into greater speed and leave the field behind. If I had a really good race, I might finish third. Generally, I finished tired. Being a rabbit is hard work.

The pace of the first week of Great Lent – though beginning at a rabbit’s speed – is not meant to set the pace for the rest of the fasting season. This second week, we begin to slow down to a pace we can sustain until Holy Week.

How that works varies from person to person. For me, it means fewer services (since I obviously attend all of them). My fasting becomes a little less rigorous.

St. Paul seems to have been fond of sports metaphors. To the Corinthians he wrote:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable (9:24-25).

To stay with St. Paul’s imagery – for what prize are we competing – and against whom are we competing? These are important questions because the answers tell us the reason for running the race. Our prize – as St. Paul notes, is an “imperishable crown.” It is the crown of eternal life – participation in the true Life of God. Our competition is everything that separates us from God. We fast, we pray, we give alms, we forgive our enemies, all in order to allow ourselves to be drawn deeper into the life of God. If in the middle of Lent we begin to fast in order to fast, or to say prayers because “we have to,” etc., we will have already lost the race. There is only one prize – Christ Himself.

And look out for rabbits.

The Sunday of Orthodoxy

The first Sunday of Great Lent is always observed as the “Sunday of Orthodoxy” in our Churches. It marks both the return of the icons to the Churches following the end of the Iconoclast Controversy, but also as a summation of all the Holy Teachings of the faith which Orthodoxy holds and for which many have died. Most of our parishes will have a procession around the Church with adults and children carrying icons. In local parishes the service concludes with a simple proclamation, a small portion of the Synodicon of Orthodoxy (the summary of the faith) proclaimed at the last council.

On a different day, a small assembly occurred in the Holy Land. Three angels gathered at the tent of Abraham and Sarah. Sometime later these same angels would “travel in procession” to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. According to the account in Genesis, when the angels stopped and partook of the hospitality of Abraham and Sarah, they encountered the prayers of this righteous man. He began to beg mercy for the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Beginning with the number fifty, the Lord agreed with him that if only fifty righteous souls could be found in those wicked cities then all of the inhabitants would be spared.

Eventually, Abraham managed to successfully be promised that if only ten could be found the cities would be spared.

Many focus on these stories noting that not even ten righteous souls could be found in these two great cities. But they miss several important points that are buried in the story. For one – the presence of only a few righteous souls is enough to preserve all those around them. Second, God was not troubled that Abraham begged mercy for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.

I draw a few conclusions, or at least questions for our modern world. How many righteous souls must there be for the unrighteous world to be spared? I do not know the answer but I do believe that our wicked world is spared because of God’s mercy and the prayers of the saints among us. And for those who are troubled about the prayers of saints I need only point to Abraham. That great saint literally sought to save the unrighteous through His prayers to the merciful God. That’s the Biblical account.

Though we will celebrate the “Triumph of Orthodoxy” this Sunday and affirm the faith of the Orthodox through the ages, and condemn the errors of heretics – nonetheless, we must remain mindful that it is the task of a saint to pray for the whole world, including the souls of the unrighteous. We must cultivate a heart of mercy, not a heart that looks for justification for triumph over others. I have often thought that the service of the Triumph of Orthodoxy should be offered with tears.

A further question: by whose prayers are you being spared? I know that my unrighteous soul is sustained by the prayers of others. I simply do not know their names (though I have my suspicions). Should any of us be so arrogant as to assume that God’s mercy is not being extended to us through the prayers of others?

As we should with our guardian angels, thanksgiving should be offered for these righteous holy saints.

O Fathers of the Holy Seven Ecumenical Councils, on this day of Triumph, pray for us sinners, and for the whole world!

And Now a Word from St. Isaac the Syrian

Sometimes…while prayer remains for its part, the intellect is taken away from it as if into heaven, and tears fall like fountains of waters, involuntarily soaking the whole face. All this time such a person is serene, still and filled with a wonder-filled vision. Very often he will not be allowed even to pray: this in truth is the state of cessation above prayer when he remains continually in amazement at God’s work of creation – like people who are crazed by wine, for this is ‘the wine which causes the person’s heart to rejoice’…. Blessed is the person who has entered this door in the experience of his own soul, for all the power of ink, letters and phrases is too feeble to indicate the delight of this mystery.

Quoted by Bp. Hilarion Alfeyev in The Spiritual World of Isaac the Syrian

+++

One of St. Isaac’s favorite phrases is “sober inebriation.” It is much like the common phrase “joyful sorrow.” Both bear the inner contradiction that shares something of the character of the God Who is Beyond Knowing actually making Himself known. We cannot have such knowledge and not somehow be raised to heights of sober inebriation and joyful sorrow.

Most Sweetest Jesus, have mercy!

Augustinian Surprises

God is He Whom we know best in not knowing Him. – St. Augustine

It is He about Whom we have no knowledge unless it be to know how we do not know Him. – St. Augustine

Both quotes are from De ordine.

Fr. Thomas Hopko is fond of saying that “We cannot know God – but you have to know Him to know that.” This statement, like those of St. Augustine’s, tease our minds towards higher considerations – particularly in a world that markets God as though he were a candy-bar. The recent spate of bus ads in London are an excellent example. Atheists ran ads suggesting that there “probably is no God” and suggested that people not waste their time. Christians countered with ads that there “probably is only one God – ours – join us!”

Of course some of this is just a sad commentary on modern culture. But it is seems to me that if God ceases to be a mystery then humanity stands no chance. The holy Tradition of the faith teaches us not only that God is a mystery – that all of our dogmatic statements cannot “capture” Him – but also that man is a mystery – “fearfully and wonderfully made.” And the two are connected. Man is a mystery because he is person, created in the image of God.

The great tragedies of the 20th century occurred when various regimes made man to be less than mystery. The material man of Marxism lost all value other than as a tool of productivity. The land that gave the world some of its greatest poets gave its imagination over to the mind of a madman.

Hitler’s reduction of man to “uebermensch” and others to less than human defined man primarily with the image of power. Instead of producing a race of Gods he produced shame in the most educated nation on earth. In all, the 20th century proved Dostoevsky to have been prophetic: “If there is no God, all is permitted.”

There are various ways that modern entities seek to redefine the human. For some we are consumers, objects of manipulation by carefully crafted marketing. For others we are infinitely malleable, not only able “to be all we can be,” but able to be anything we want – whether that includes a different gender or even the features of a wild beast (body sculpting and implants).

Only if we approach man with Biblical fear and wonder will we hold him with proper respect. The human aspect of personhood holds a transcendent quality – an ability to extend itself beyond itself – an ability to love. This is true of the least of our brethren.

But such wonders will remain opaque to the modern eye if the wonder of God does not accompany it. Human imagination, itself a powerful force, will never manage to imagine the wonder of man unless it first is seized by the wonder of God.

Thus we have the Orthodox tradition of “apophaticism,” of learning to know by “not knowing.” It is a theological and spiritual discipline that says “no” to our own limited understanding in order to say “yes” to a revelation that would carry us beyond understanding. Augustine’s statements (which came as a small surprise to me) stand within this spiritual tradition. Time has refined the practice of “not knowing,” presenting it today as a means of sharing in the life of salvation – a strange phenomenon in a world that knows too much.

Vladimir Lossky on Faith

In St. Paul, knowledge of God writes itself into a personal relationship expressed in terms of reciprocity [exchange]: reciprocity with the object of theology (which, in reality, is a subject), reciprocity also with those to whom the theological word is addressed. At its best, it is communion: I know as I am known. Before the development of Christian theology, this mystery of communion appears absent from Greek through: it is found only in Philo, that is to say, in a partially biblical context. Theology, then, is located in a relationship of revelation where the initiative belongs to God, while implying a human response, the free response of faith and love, which the theologians of the Reformation have often forgotten. The involvement of God calls forth our involvement. The theological quest supposes therefore the prior coming of what is quested, or rather of Him Who has already come to us and is present in us: God was the first to love us and He sent us His Son, as St. John says. This coming and this presence are seized by faith which thus underlies, with priority and in all necessity, theological thought. Certainly, faith is present in all walks, in all sciences of the human spirit, but as supposition, as working hypothesis: here, the moment of faith remains burdened with an uncertainty which proof alone could clear. Christian faith, on the contrary, is adherence to a presence which confers certitude, in such a way that certitude, here, is first. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the manifestation of realities unseen (Heb. 11:1). What one quests is already present, precedes us, makes possible our questing itself. “Through faith, we comprehend (we think) how the ages have been produced” (Heb. 11:3). Thus faith allows us to think, it gives us true intelligence. Knowledge is given to us by faith, that is to say, by our participatory adherence to the presence of Him Who reveals Himself. Faith is therefore not a psychological attitude, a mere fidelity. It is an ontological relationship between man and God, an internally objective relationship for which the catechumen prepares himself, and through which baptism and chrismation are conferred upon the faithful: gifts which restore and vivify the deepest nature of man. “In Baptism,” said Irenaeus, “one receives the immutable canon of truth.” It is first the “rule of faith,” transmitted to the initiated. But this regula fidei (Tertullian, Irenaeus) implies the very faculty of receiving it. “The heretics who have perverted the rule of truth,” St. Irenaeus wrote, “preach themselves when they believe that they are preaching Christianity (Adversus haereses, Book III). This faculty is the personal existence of man, it is his nature made to assimilate itself to divine life – both mortified in their state of separation and death and vivified by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Faith as ontological participation included in a personal meeting is therefore the first condition for theological knowledge.

From Introduction to Orthodox Theology, pp. 16-17.

+++

Lossky can be notoriously hard to read – partly because his thought is very careful and condensed. The most striking thing to me in this passage is its conclusion – recognizing that theological faith is participation and personal meeting. His careful distinction between the faith man uses in science, in which there is no certitude but only hypothesis, and faith in the theological realm where it actually becomes the faculty for certitude are absolutely key. In much modern theological writing (non-Orthodox) faith is defined only in the first manner – and incertitude has become something of a moment for celebration. As I have noted earlier, such an approach to faith is the ground of ecumenism – for ignorance need have no boundaries.

This is not the ignorance which Orthodoxy teaches – an ignorance that is the transcending of knowledge in the life of prayer and communion with God. In such an exercise, ignorance is not the lack of something, but instead a fullness. It is from this fullness – a fullness that transcends being itself – that God said, “Let there be light.” It was this fullness that was made known to us in the Word become flesh.

Thus we say of the Mother of God in this first week of Great Lent:

Ineffable is the childbearing of a seedless conception, unsullied the pregnancy of a Virgin Mother, for the birth of God renews natures.  So in all generations we magnify thee in orthodox fashion as the Mother and Bride of God.

Irmos of Ode 9 of the Great Canon

The Word becomes flesh, but in an “ineffable” manner. It cannot be spoken nor described. But, by faith, we may know it (else we could not sing).

It is thus with the whole life of the Church – for the life of the Church is none other than the life of the Living God. We are Baptized into Him, made one with Him. We know Him and faith receives this knowledge in certitude. But such certitude is not easily expressed, except to say, “I know Whom I have believed [faithed]” (2 Timothy 1:12).

Know God or No God

I am not trying to be cute in the title of this post – but I wanted something that might interest browsers in reading. I have stated a number times across my writings that we cannot be argued into the Kingdom of God, nor, indeed is argumentation  part of the salvation process. Argument can be preparatory – reason is not without value – but argumentation is quite often devoid of reason.

I offer a short quote from St. Gregory Palamas:

Do you now understand that in place of the intellect, the eyes and ears, they [the hesychasts] acquire the incomprehensible Spirit and by Him hear, see and comprehend?  For if all their intellectual activity has stopped, how could the angels and angelic men see God except by the power of the Spirit?  This is why their vision is not a sensation, since they do not receive it through the senses; nor is it intellection, since they do not find it through thought or the knowledge that comes thereby, but after the cessation of all mental activity.  It is not, therefore, the product of either imagination or reason; it is neither an opinion nor a conclusion reached by syllogistic argument (Triads, 35).

St. Gregory was speaking most particularly about the monks of Mt. Athos (the Hesychasts), but also about what is and must be normative for the Orthodox Christian life. His point was that what it means to be a Christian is to actually know God to one degree or another – not as an idea or an opinion – but inwardly, truly, hypostatically (I use this in place of “personally” for the moment).

The great debate which drew St. Gregory from his seclusion on Mt. Athos was the contention by Barlaam the Calabrian that all knowledge of God was through Scripture and reason – that ultimately we were only able to affirm by faith the teaching of the Church.

St. Gregory was not only a giant of the spiritual life, but also well accomplished in philosophy. He was able to refute Barlaam through the Fathers as well as the experience of the Church. For St. Gregory, the teaching on the knowing of the unknowable God, is the very heart of the Christian life.

Gregory appeals to the one experience that is real: “’the complete and unadulterated existence in us of Jesus.’”  Meyendorff (the late John Meyendorff of St. Vladimir’s) states, “The presence of God in us is therefore a personal existence and it excludes all definition of the divine Being in the context of an essentialist philosophy.” (From Meyendorff’s A Study of  Gregory Palamas).

The goal of the Christian life is union with God, or in the technical language of the Church, divinization. All that we do as Christians has this goal before it. 

It is not without significance that when St. Gregory was canonized (less than 10 years after his death), his feast day was established, a day to remember him as saint, but also the Second Sunday of Great Lent was declared as the Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas, placing that feast just after the Sunday of Orthodoxy, in which the Orthodox faith as found in the Councils is proclaimed (Gregory’s teachings were included in the “Tomos of Orthodoxy,” the official proclamation of Orthodox belief).

Setting the Feast in Lent also emphasizes the purpose for the ascetical activities we undertake doing the Lenten season. Our fasting, our prayer, our giving of alms, are all directed towards the true knowledge of God – a knowledge that, though transcendent, nevertheless carries us with it into the transcendent life of the true God.

In today’s Christian atmosphere, this places the Orthodox at something of a disadvantage. Other Christians offer teachings that are systems of reason, and engage in techniques honed from the fine art of modern marketing. Orthodoxy must proclaim these things as deviations from the true faith. Fideism, the belief that we can only know God by faith is a serious distortion of the Scriptural teaching on faith. Faith is not a subset of intellection, but, in the words of Vladimir Lossky, an “organ of perception.” To “walk by faith and not by sight” is not to walk about as if our eyes were closed. It is to live life in such a way that the remembrance of God is constantly before us, and the world as we know it in Him takes precedence over all else. 

The gospel as proclaimed by the Orthodox Church is that the risen Christ may indeed be known and may be known to dwell in us. Every Liturgy, every prayer of the Church, every sacrament, exists only to be the place where we know God. Thus the Scriptures refer to the Church as the Body of Christ, the Fulness of Him that filleth all in all, the Pillar and Ground of Truth. 

Such titles sound outrageously boastful to the ears of most Christians. The ignorance inherent in fideism relativizes every claim to truth. Such Christians are inherently ecumenical because they do not think anyone knows any more than anyone else.

Orthodoxy, in its refusal to participate in such ecumenical exercises, appears aloof and arrogant, when in fact it is only seeking to preserve the treasure that was given to it and preserved faithfully for two millennia. 

The task for Orthodox Christians throughout Great Lent and at all times is quite simple and straightforward: know God.

A Word on Comments

I have a task and a purpose in maintaining this blog. It is free and a work of love and an offering to God. It provides a place to write about the Orthodox faith. It also provides a place for reasonable discussion of the topic at hand. 

By the same token, it is not a site that answers all questions about the Orthodox faith because I do not know everything about the Orthodox faith. Nor is it a place for argument, because I believe argument to generally be useless and simply a work of the flesh. 

I have jokingly said in the past that when comments get past 50, very little new or interesting is being said. It is certainly the case that the original article becomes more and more obscured by comments and the work and labor of my own writing is largely nullified. 

Unlike general readers, I am obligated to read every comment and maintain the order of this small creation.

Recently, one article had 187 comments. I have turned comments off on that posting. The discussion while interesting to a few kind souls had long since ceased to have any genuine relationship with the original article and its points. I do not have the time to manage such discussions.

I would ask those who comment to help the conversation stay on track and close to the matter at hand. We serve a good God who works ceaselessly for the salvation of all. This blog, occasionally blessed with playing a role in someone’s conversion, is in no way necessary to the mission of the Church or God’s Kingdom. I need God – but I am not necessary to Him.

Please forgive me as we begin this Lenten season and pray for a blessing on this small internet effort.