Posts Tagged eastern orthodox theology
Apophatic and Cataphatic Theology: An Issue of Emphasis and Balance
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Contemplative Prayer (series), Ekklesia and church, Essence and Energies (series), First Thoughts, Hesychasm - Jesus Prayer, The Cappadocians, Theology on April 6, 2025
Overview
Apophatic and Cataphatic are two terms used in theology to describe different approaches to understanding God. The Eastern Orthodox and Latin West each use both types. The issue comes down to one of emphasis and balance: The Orthodox East is overwhelmingly Apophatic in approach, while the Latin West is predominantly Cataphatic.
Definitions
Apophatic theology (from Greek: ἀπόφημι apophēmi, meaning “to deny”) uses “negative” terminology to indicate what it is believed the divine is not. It means emptying the mind of words and ideas and simply resting in the presence of God. Apophatic prayer is prayer that occurs without words, images, or concepts. This approach to prayer regards silence, stillness, unknowing and even darkness as doorways, rather than obstacles, to communication with God. Apophatic theology relies primarily on experience and revelation.
Cataphatic theology (from the Greek word κατάφασις kataphasis meaning “affirmation”) uses “positive” terminology to describe or refer to the divine, i.e. terminology that describes or refers to what the divine is believed to be. Cataphatic prayer is prayer that speaks thoroughly, intensively, or positively of God: prayer that uses words, images, ideas, concepts, and the imagination to relate to God. Cataphatic theology relies heavily on logic and reason.
Background
Apophatic theology—also known as negative theology or via negativa—is a theology that attempts to describe God by negation. In Orthodox Christianity, Apophatic theology is based on the assumption that God’s essence is unknowable or ineffable and on the recognition of the inadequacy of human language to describe God. The Apophatic tradition in Orthodoxy is balanced with Cataphatic theology (positive theology) via belief in the Incarnation and the self-revealed energies of God, through which God has revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ. However, Apophatic theology is the dominant traditional Eastern paradigm of an experiential, revealed theology, intimately linking doctrine with contemplation through purgation (catharsis), illumination (theoria), and union (theosis).
Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – 215) was an early proponent of Apophatic theology with elements of Cataphatic. Clement holds that God is unknowable, although God’s unknowability, concerns only his essence, not his energies, or powers. According to Clement’s writings, the term theoria develops further from a mere intellectual “seeing” toward a spiritual form of contemplation. Clement’s Apophatic theology or philosophy is closely related to this kind of theoria and the “mystic vision of the soul.” For Clement, God is both transcendent in essence and immanent in self-revelation.
The Cappadocian Fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus (4th century)) were early exemplars of this Apophatic theology. They stated that mankind can acquire an incomplete knowledge of God in his attributes, positive and negative, by reflecting upon and participating in his self-revelatory operations (energeia). But, the essence of God is completely unknowable.
A century later Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (late 5th century) in his short work Mystical Theology, first introduced and explained what came to be known as Apophatic or negative theology.
Maximus the Confessor (7th century) maintained that the combination of Apophatic theology and hesychasm—the practice of silence and stillness—made theosis or union with God possible.
John of Damascus (8th century) employed Apophatic theology when he wrote that positive (cataphatic) statements about God reveal “not the nature, but the things around the nature.”
All in all, Apophatic theology remains crucial to much of the theology in Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The opposite tends to be true in Western Latin Christianity, with a few notable exceptions to this rule.
Cataphatic theology
In the Latin West a heavily Cataphatic theology, or via positiva, developed, which remains today in most forms of Western Christianity. This type of Cataphatic theology is based on using human reason to make positive statements about the nature of God. It slowly developed from the 5th to the 11th century, emerging as Scholasticism in the Medieval Period (11th-17th centuries). (see entries for Anselm and Thomas Aquinas, below)
Augustine of Hippo (354–430) significantly influenced scholasticism, emphasizing the integration of faith and reason. His ideas laid the groundwork for later Scholastic thinkers who sought to reconcile Christian theology with classical philosophy, particularly through dialectic reasoning. Augustine’s doctrines of the filioque, original sin, the doctrine of grace, and predestination found little support outside of the Western Roman Church. Within the Western Latin church, ‘Augustinianism’ dominated early theology.
Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033 – 1109) is widely considered the father of Scholasticism, endeavoring to render Christian tenets of faith, traditionally taken as a revealed truth, as a rational system. Scholasticism prescribed that Aristotelian dialectic reason be used in the elucidation of spiritual truth and in defense of the dogmas of Faith.
Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225 – 7 March 1274) reflects the mature emergence of this new medieval Scholastic paradigm, which promoted the use of formal intellectual reason, putting it at odds with the predominantly Eastern revealed tradition of hesychastic contemplation. Aquinas’ Summa Theologica (1265–1274), is considered to be the pinnacle of Medieval Scholastic Christian philosophy and theology. The resulting ‘Thomism’ remains the foundation of contemporary Western Latin theology.
Early References to Apophatic Darkness in Christian Mysticism
Posted by Dallas Wolf in First Thoughts, Patristic Pearls, Theology on April 3, 2025
Gregory of Nyssa – from The life of Moses (ca. AD 380)
“luminous darkness” (or dazzling darkness)
(λαµπρός γνόφος)
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite – from The Mystical Theology (ca. AD 500)
“in the brilliant darkness of a hidden silence”
(τὸν ὑπέρφωτον τῆς σιγῆς γνόφον)
“the ray of divine darkness, which is above everything that is”
(τὸν ὑπερούσιον τοῦ θείου σκότους ἀκτῖνα)
Maximus the Confessor – from Two Hundred Chapters on Theology (ca. AD 633), 1.84, 1.85
“The great Moses, having pitched his tent outside the camp, that is, having established his will and intellect outside visible realities, begins to worship God; and having entered the dark cloud, the formless and immaterial place of knowledge, he remains there, performing the holiest rites.”
(Μωϋσῆς ὁ μέγας ἔξω τῆς παρεμβολῆς πηξάμενος ἑαυτοῦ τὴν σκηνήν, τουτέστι, τὴν γνώμην καὶ τὴν διάνοιαν ἱδρυσάμενος ἔξω τῶν ὁρωμένων, προσκυνεῖν τὸν Θεὸν ἄρχεται· καὶ εἰς τὸν γνόφον εἰσελθών, τὸν ἀειδῆ καὶ ἄϋλον τῆς γνώσεως τόπον, ἐκεῖ μένει τὰς ἱερωτάτας τελούμενος τελετάς.)
“The dark cloud is the formless, immaterial, and incorporeal condition containing the paradigmatic knowledge of beings; he who has come to be inside it, just like another Moses, understands invisible realities in a mortal nature; having depicted the beauty of the divine virtues in himself through this state, like a painting accurately rendering the representation of the archetypal beauty, he descends, offering himself to those willing to imitate virtue, and in this shows both love of humanity and freedom from envy of the grace of which he had partaken.”
(Ὁ γνόφος ἐστὶν ἡ ἀειδὴς καὶ ἄϋλος καὶ ἀσώματος κατάστασις, ἡ τὴν παραδειγματικὴν τῶν ὄντων ἔχουσα γνῶσιν· ἐν ᾗ ὁ γενόμενος ἐντός, καθάπερ τις ἄλλος Μωϋσῆς, φύσει θνητῇ κατανοεῖ τὰ ἀθέατα, δι᾿ ἧς τῶν θείων ἀρετῶν ἐν ἑαυτῷ ζωγραφήσας τὸ κάλλος, ὥσπερ γραφὴν εὐμιμήτως ἔχουσαν τοῦ ἀρχετύπου κάλλους τὸ ἀπεικόνισμα, κάτεισιν, ἑαυτὸν προβαλλόμενος τοῖς βουλομένοις μιμεῖσθαι τὴν ἀρετήν, καὶ ἐν τούτῳ δεικνύς, ἧς μετειλήφει χάριτος, τὸ φιλάνθρωπόν τε καὶ ἄφθονον.)
Kenosis: “… but emptied himself [ἐκένωσεν (ekénōsen)], taking the form of a slave,…”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in First Thoughts, Patristic Pearls, The Holy Trinity, Theology on March 31, 2025
Philippians 2:6-11 is probably one of the earliest Christian hymns ever recorded. Within the hymn are the words, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” (Phil 2:6,7). This part of the hymn describes how Christ humbled himself in his divinity in obedience to the will and desire of God in an act of selfless sacrifice, even to death on a Cross, for the salvation and redemption of mankind. It is a powerful image.
The term kenosis comes from the Greek κενόω (kenóō), meaning “to empty out”. When talking about how Christ “emptied himself” in Philippians 2:7, the Greek word used is ἐκένωσεν (ekénōsen). It is the only time the word appears in the New Testament.
The fact that Christ was willing and able to “empty himself” in order to do the will of God the Father is key to His success as both savior and redeemer. Without this “kenosis”, He could not have done, or been either.
Thecla: A Visual Example of Early Christian Equality and Later Inequality of Women
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, Women in Early Christianity on March 24, 2025
Desecration
“In 1906 a small cave was discovered cut into the rock on the northern slope of Bülbül Dag, high above the ruins of ancient Ephesus, just off the mid-Aegean coast of Turkey. To the right of the entrance and beneath layers of plaster, Karl Herold of the Austrian Archaeological Institute uncovered two sixth-century images of Saint Theoklia [sic, Thecla] and Saint Paul. They both have the same height and are therefore iconographically of equal importance.
They both have their right hands raised in teaching gesture and are therefore iconographically of equal authority. But while the eyes and upraised hand of Paul are untouched, some later person scratched out the eyes and erased the upraised hand of Theoklia. If the eyes of both images had been disfigured, it would be simply another example of iconoclastic antagonism since that was believed to negate the spiritual power of an icon without having to destroy it completely. But here only Theoklia’s eyes and her authoritative hand are destroyed. Original imagery and defaced imagery represent a fundamental clash of theology. An earlier image in which Theoklia and Paul were equally authoritative apostolic figures has been replaced by one in which the male is apostolic and authoritative and the female is blinded and silenced. And even the cave-room’s present name, St. Paul’s Grotto, continues that elimination of female-male equality once depicted on its walls.
We take that original assertion of equality and later counter-assertion of inequality as encapsulating visually the central claim of this book in terms of Christianity itself. The authentic and historical Paul, author of the seven New Testament letters he actually wrote, held that within Christian communities, it made no difference whether one entered as a Christian Jew or a Christian pagan, as a Christian man or a Christian woman, as a Christian freeborn or a Christian slave. All were absolutely equal with each other. But in 1 Timothy, a letter attributed to Paul by later Christians but not actually written by him, women are told to be silent in church and pregnant at home (2:8-15). And a later follower of Paul inserted in 1 Corinthians that it is shameful for women to speak in church but correct to ask their husbands for explanations at home (14:33-36).
Those pseudo-Pauline, post-Pauline, and anti-Pauline obliterations of female authority are the verbal and canonical equivalent of that visual and iconographic obliteration of Theoklia’s eyes and hand in that hillside cave. But both defacements also bear witness to what was there before the attack.”
Quote excerpted from: In Search of Paul: How Jesus’s Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom by John Dominic Crossan and Johnathan L. Reed, 2004, HarperCollins, NY, NY. pp. xxii-xiii
____________________________________________________________________________________
Restoration
An artist’s creative restoration of that frescoed point-counterpoint from the Cave or Grotto of St. Paul at Ephesus.
Paul is just as the church’s post-Pauline tradition has always placed him. Theoclia is of equal height, but now with open eyes intact and upraised hand untouched as she was depicted in the sixth century.
The Women Disciples of Jesus
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, Women in Early Christianity on March 22, 2025
Christianity most often focuses on the twelve male disciples as followers of Jesus. We most often overlook the women who followed Jesus. Luke tells us that there were a large group of women who were also followers of Jesus. In fact, Luke lists the women along with the disciples.
8:1 Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, 8:2 as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 8:3 and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.
Mark tells us that the women at the cross were among those who followed Jesus and provided for him.
15:40 There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. 15:41 These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.
Matthew also tells us of women followers at the cross and later at the tomb (cf. John 19:25).
27:55 Many women were also there, looking on from a distance; they had followed Jesus from Galilee and had provided for him. 27:56 Among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. . .
These women “provided for them out of their resources” (Luke 8:3). “Provided” [Gk: diakoneo] means “to serve, wait on, minister to as deacon,” and it was used in the early Christian community to describe “eucharistic table service and proclamation of the word” (Jane Schaberg, Women’s Bible Commentary, 376).
Mary Magdalene “was a prominent disciple of Jesus who followed him in Galilee and to Jerusalem. She is always listed first in groups of named female disciples” (The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 884). She is mentioned in all four Gospel accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion. Mary was one of the women Luke named in chapter 8, not only following Jesus, but serving him from her own means. She stood at the cross with the other woman and saw where Jesus was buried. She was the first to see the Risen Christ. She became known as the “apostle to the apostles”.
In all the Gospel accounts women are the first to the tomb Sunday morning, and they are the first to see the risen Christ and commanded to carry the good news to the disciples. In all four accounts different women are named, but one name is constant in all four gospels: Mary Magdalene. She was the first preacher of the good news of the resurrection to the male disciples.
The tradition that Christ appeared first to women was well established by the end of the second century when Celsus, a pagan critic, discounted the gospel and resurrection by saying that an account given by a hysterical woman could not be trusted (cf. Luke 24:11). Origen, an Early Church Father, responded by saying that there was more than one woman who witnessed the risen Christ, and that none of them were hysterical in the Gospels.
It is ironic, with the low status of women in the Greco-Roman world of that day, that Jesus chose to appear to Mary and the other women; and that “the first Christian preachers of the Resurrection were not men, but women!” (The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 883).
Jesus did not first appear to the “rock” of the church, Peter, or even to the beloved disciple, John. He appeared to Mary and the women who followed him and served him. Mary saw him first, and she received the central tenet of the Christian faith: “He is risen!” She was the first to proclaim the good news, or gospel, of the resurrection. That he appeared to Mary first can only mean that this was by divine appointment and was a deliberate act on His part.
________________________________________________________________________________
Shawna Renee Bound, “Women in the Gospels” in Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: A Biblical Theology of Single Women in Ministry, unpublished thesis, (Copyright © 2002 by Shawna Renee Bound).
Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992).
Gail R. O’Day, “John” in the Women’s Bible Commentary, exp. ed., eds. Carol A. Newsome and Sharon H. Ringe (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998).
Jane Schaberg, “Luke” in the Women’s Bible Commentary, exp. ed., eds. Carol A. Newsome and Sharon H. Ringe (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998).
Women Serving in the “5 Ministries” of the 1st Century Church
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, Women in Early Christianity on March 22, 2025
Ephesians 4:11-13 outlines the five ministries in the 1st Century Church:
“It was he [Christ] who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be shepherds (pastors) and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
Apostle
Junia was considered an Apostle by St. Paul, as was her husband Andronicus (cf. Romans 16:7). The King James Version sounds ambivalent in calling them “of note among the apostles”. The New Revised Standard Version (which I consider usually the most accurate of all translations) has: “They are prominent among the apostles.” The New Century Version probably translates it best: “They are very important apostles.” In the Middle Ages, some writers, because of male chauvinist prejudices, changed “Junia” to “Junias”, making her a man. But, “Junias” was never known as a man’s name in the Graeco-Roman world, while “Junia” was a common name for a woman!
Prophet
Philip’s four daughters were named as prophets (cf. Acts 21:9, also Acts 2:15-18).
Shepherd (Pastor is a later Latin word) and Teacher
Phoebe is recognized as diakonon (minister) of the church at Cenchrea (cf. Rom. 16:1-2). She is referred to as a deacon (Greek: diakonos), not a deaconess — but a deacon in the sense of a preacher, a minister; because Paul uses the same word to describe himself. He calls himself, in a number of instances, a deacon of the new covenant in 2 Corinthians.
Prisca/Priscilla was certainly both a shepherd (pastor) and a teacher in the church, with Aquila her partner, in their house (cf. Acts 18:26, Rom 16:3-5). The German scholar Adolph von Harnack proposed that she was the actual author of the Epistle to the Hebrews!
Evangelist
There is no woman named as an evangelist in the New Testament canon. Only one man is so named, Philip (Acts 21.9). But church history of the first century knows of women evangelists, the most prominent of whom was Thecla, from Iconium in what is now Turkey (St. Thecla’s tomb is at Silifke). She was a disciple of Paul. “The Acts of Paul and Thecla,” while not belonging in the canon of Scripture, is regarded as an accurate historical account of her ministry. The Greek Church gives her title of “Protomartyr among women and equal to the Apostles”.
So, the New Testament names women as occupying four of the five-fold ministries of Ephesians 4 and apostolic church history clearly documents a woman serving in the fifth ministry.
The Apostle Paul: Radical, Conservative, or Reactionary?
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, Theology, Women in Early Christianity on March 21, 2025
The Apostle Paul is a controversial figure. More than half of the New Testament is written by him, about him, or in his name. There is a general consensus among contemporary scholars that the Apostle Paul did not write all 13 New Testament letters attributed to him.
Modern scholarship attributes seven of Paul’s 13 canonical letters as unquestionably authentic:
- Romans,
- Galatians,
- I Corinthians,
- II Corinthians,
- I Thessalonians,
- Philippians, and
- Philemon
Three others are generally considered deutero or (pseudo) – Pauline and are Pauline in theology, with a couple of notable exceptions, but are different in style and much more mainline and conservative in tone than the undisputed letters. They were probably written in the generation after Paul’s death by people very familiar with his teaching. The deutero (or pseudo)-Pauline letters are:
- Colossians,
- Ephesians, and
- II Thessalonians
The last three, the “Pastoral Letters”, are largely considered pseudepigrapha (a bible scholar’s politically-correct term for “forgery”) and were probably written around the beginning of the 2nd century and exhibit patriarchal, sexist, and reactionary social attitudes one would expect of an entrenched Greco-Roman cultural institution (exactly what the early Church was becoming by that time).1,2 The pseudepigraphical letters are:
- I Timothy,
- II Timothy, and
- Titus
What follows are estimates of the percentages of biblical scholars who reject Paul’s authorship of the six books in question:
- 2 Thessalonians = 50 percent;
- Colossians = 60 percent;
- Ephesians = 70 percent;
- 2 Timothy = 80 percent;
- 1 Timothy and Titus = 90 percent.2
In addition to judgments about entire letters, scholars also question the authorship of certain passages in the undisputed letters. Post-Pauline texts are those alleged to have been inserted into a letter after its composition and are generally called scribal “interpolations”.
Among the passages that some scholars label as interpolations are:
- Romans 5:5-7, 13:1-7, 16:17-20, 16:25-27;
- 1 Corinthians 4:6b, 11:2-16, 14:33b-35 or 36;
- 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1; and
- 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16.2,3
Given the above, one could argue that there are really three “Pauls” in the New Testament:
- The Radical Paul of the seven undisputed authentic letters
- The Conservative Paul of the three deutero-Pauline letters
- The Reactionary Paul of the three pseudepigraphical Pastoral Letters
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- The First Paul, Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon, By Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan , 2009 HarperCollins, NY, NY
- Apostle of the Crucified Lord, A Theological Introduction to Paul & His Letters, by Michael J. Gorman, 2004 Wm. B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI / Cambridge, UK
- The Authentic Letters of Paul, A New Reading of Paul’s Rhetoric and Meaning, by Arthur J. Dewey, Roy W. Hoover, Lane C. Mc Gaughy, and Daryl D. Schmidt, 2010 Polebridge Press, Salem, OR
St. Justin Martyr: Synthesizing Philosophy and Faith; the ‘Spermatikos Logos’
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, First Thoughts, Patristic Pearls, The Logos Doctrine (series), Theology on March 17, 2025
St. Justin Martyr (100 -166 A.D.), also known as Justin the Philosopher, was an early Christian philosopher and apologist (Defender of the Faith). He was a Samaritan, born in Flavia Neapolis, Palestine, located near Jacob’s well (cf., John 4). From an early age, he studied Stoic and Platonic philosophers. At the age of 32, he converted to Christianity in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), possibly in Ephesus. Around the age of 35, he became an iterant preacher, moving from city to city in the Roman Empire, in an effort to convert educated pagans to the faith. Eventually, he ended up in Rome and spent a considerable amount of time there, debating and defending the faith. Of all his writings, only three survive: First Apology, Second Apology, and Dialogue with Trypho. St. Justin Martyr was scourged and beheaded in Rome in AD 166, under the reign of Marcus Aurelius, along with six of his followers.
Unlike Tertullian (a 2nd century Roman Carthaginian Christian author), who was opposed to Greek philosophy and viewed it as a dangerous pagan influence on Christianity, Justin Martyr viewed Greek philosophy in a more positive and optimistic light. He believed that Christianity both corrected and perfected philosophy.
While Tertullian refused to build a bridge between faith and philosophy, Justin Martyr was, on the other hand, eager to build a bridge between the two – and the name of that bridge was Logos*.
Logos, a central concept in ancient Greek philosophy, represents the divine reason or rational principle that governs the universe. The concept of Logos predates philosophical Stoicism. However, the Stoics, beginning with Zeno of Citium in the 3rd century BC, developed it into a cornerstone of their philosophical system. This Greek term, often translated as “word,” “reason,” or “plan,” is fundamental to understanding Stoic philosophical cosmology and ethics. In Stoic thought, Logos is not just an abstract principle but an active, generative force that permeates all of reality. To the Stoics, Logos represented:
• Universal Reason: Logos as the rational structure of the cosmos
• Divine Providence: The idea that the universe is governed by a benevolent plan
• Natural Law: Logos as the source of moral and physical laws
• Human Rationality: The belief that human reason is a fragment of the universal Logos
After John the Gospel Writer declared Christ to be the Logos in the prologue to his Gospel (cf., John 1, “In the beginning was the Logos…”) in about AD 90, the idea of Christ as Logos reached full bloom in the second century A.D., thanks to Justin Martyr and other early like-minded Christian philosophers.
Justin embraced the term “Logos” because it was familiar to Christians and non-Christians alike. Justin, in discussing the Logos, uses the expression, ζωτικόν πνεύμα (zotikon pneuma), vital spirit, which imparted reason as well as life to the soul. Justin understood this ζωτικόν πνεύμα as the divine principle in man. For Justin, it is a participation in the very life of the Logos. Therefore, he calls it the σπερματικόσ λόγοσ (spermatikos logos), the ‘seed of the word’, or reason in man.
This was a powerful tool in the hands of apologists like Justin. For by “Christianizing” Greek philosophy and literature, and deeming it a forerunner to Christ, the Christian apologists could easily counter the claims of the pagans who maintained that the Greeks beat the Christians to the punch. After all, the pagans said, the truths that the Christians were proclaiming as new were being taught by Greek philosophers years (read: centuries) before.
Justin maintained that the whole of Logos resided in Christ, but that all people, regardless of time or religion, contained these “seeds” of logos. Justin states,
“We have been taught that Christ is the first-born of God, and we have declared above that He is the Word [Logos] of whom every race of men were partakers; and those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them;” (First Apology, Chapt. 46)
Justin declared that even the pre-Christian philosophers who thought, spoke, and acted rightly did so because of the presence of the spermatikos logos in their hearts. To Justin, there is only one Logos that sows the seeds of spiritual and moral illumination in the hearts of human beings. Justin applied the spermatikos logos to explain that Christ, as the Logos, was in the world before his Incarnation, from the beginning of time, sowing the seeds of the logos in the hearts of all people. In this way, Christ united faith and philosophy. To Justin, Christ is the ultimate source of all wisdom and knowledge, even among pagans. Justin writes:
“For each man spoke well in proportion to the share he had of the spermatic word [spermatikos logos], seeing what was related to it… Whatever things were rightly said among all men, are the property of us Christians… For all the writers were able to see realities darkly through the sowing of the implanted word that was in them.” (Second Apology, Chap. 13)
According to Justin, some virtuous pagans recognized the spermatikos logos within themselves and cultivated it to a large extent. These became the great thinkers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Some, in the manner of Christ, like Socrates and Heraclitus, were even hated and persecuted for their beliefs and actions. Justin tells us the following:
“And those of the Stoic school — since, so far as their moral teaching went, they were admirable, as were also the poets in some particulars, on account of the seed of reason [the Logos] implanted in every race of men — were, we know, hated, and put to death — Heraclitus for instance, and, among those of our own time…others.” (Second Apology, Chap. 8)
People who came before the Incarnation of Jesus Christ all had the spermaticos logos, the “seed” of the Logos, implanted in them. Those Christians who came after the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus Christ had full access to all of Christ, the complete Logos. Those who came before saw through a glass darkly, but those who embrace Jesus Christ in the Christian era experience the fullness of revelation—faith and philosophy synthesized via Christ as Logos.
The Logos reveals all of God because He is God and we Christians had all the fullness of Logos because we had the revelation of Jesus Christ. The pagans did not have that. They had the spermatikos logos, but not the resurrected Christ.
Justin’s Logos was Jesus Christ himself portrayed against the backdrop of the Old Testament “Word of God” and Greek philosophy.
Contemporary Christians can easily agree with Justin Martyr that all people have within them the seeds of the Logos, the spermatikos logos. It is another way of saying that we all are created in the image of God and have an inherent knowledge of him and desire for Him.
Justin Martyr clearly represents an early, inclusive, universal Christianity encompassing all persons and religions; a time before the Church developed into an exclusive, parochial, competitive, religious institution.
Regardless of Tertullian’s fear that synthesizing faith with philosophy would “Hellenize” Christianity, Justin’s efforts ended up doing the precise opposite; faith ended up “Christianizing” Hellenism.
* “In Latin, such is the poverty of the language, there is no term at all equivalent to the Logos.” – John B. Heard. The same is true of English.
Isaac of Nineveh: On Universal Restoration
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Heaven and Hell, Patristic Pearls, Universal Restoration (Apokatastasis) on March 9, 2025
St. Isaac of Nineveh – 7th century ascetic and mystic, born in modern-day Qatar, was made Bishop of Nineveh between 660-680. Especially influential in the Syriac tradition, Isaac has had a great influence in Russian culture, impacting the works of writers like Dostoyevsky.
Isaac composed dozens of homilies that he collected into seven volumes on topics of spiritual life, divine mysteries, judgements, providence, and more. Today, these seven volumes have survived in five Parts, titled from the First Part to the Fifth Part. Only the First Part was widely known outside of Aramaic speaking communities until 1983.
Some scholars argue that Isaac’s views from the Second Part appear to confirm earlier claims that Isaac advocated for universal reconciliation, or apokatastasis.
“God will not abandon anyone.” [First Part, Chap. 5]
“There was a time when sin did not exist, and there will be a time when it will not exist.” [First Part, Chap. 26]
“As a handful of sand thrown into the ocean, so are the sins of all flesh as compared with the mind of God; as a fountain that flows abundantly is not dammed by a handful of earth, so the compassion of the Creator is not overcome by the wickedness of the creatures… If He is compassionate here, we believe that there will be no change in Him; far be it from us that we should wickedly think that God could not possibly be compassionate; God’s properties are not liable to variations as those of mortals… What is hell as compared with the grace of resurrection? Come and let us wonder at the grace of our Creator.” [First Part, Chap. 50]
“It is not the way of the compassionate Maker to create rational beings in order to deliver them over mercilessly to unending affliction in punishment for things of which He knew even before they were fashioned, aware how they would turn out when He created them, and whom nonetheless He created.” [Second Part, Chap. 39]
“This is the mystery: that all creation by means of One, has been brought near to God in a mystery; then it is transmitted to all; thus all is united to Him…This action was performed for all of creation; there will, indeed, be a time when no part will fall short of the whole.” [Third Part, Chap. 5]
“Daily” Bread in the Lord’s Prayer? A Word Study
Posted by Dallas Wolf in First Thoughts, Patristic Pearls, Theology on January 9, 2025
Sources:
1. http://aramaicnt.org/articles/the-lords-prayer-in-galilean-aramaic/
2. Origen of Alexandria (c. 185 – c. 254): On Prayer (Περί Ευχής), Chapter XVII
The Lord’s Prayer is with little debate the most significant prayer in Christianity. Although many theological and ideological differences may divide Christians across the world, it is a prayer that unites the faith as a whole.
Within the New Testament tradition, the Prayer appears in two places. The first and more elaborate version is found in Matthew 6:9-13 where a simpler form is found in Luke 11:2-4, and the two of them share a significant amount of overlap.
The prayer’s absence from the Gospel of Mark, taken together with its presence in both Luke and Matthew, has brought some modern scholars to conclude that it is a tradition from the hypothetical “Q” source (from German: Quelle, meaning “source”) which both Luke and Matthew relied upon in many places throughout their individual writings. Given the similarities and unique character of the Matthaean and Lukan versions of the Lord’s Prayer may be evidence that what we attribute to the Greek of “Q” may ultimately trace back to an Aramaic source.
One of the trickiest problems of translating the Lord’s Prayer into Aramaic is finding out what επιούσιος (epiousios), usually translated as “daily”, originally intended. It is a unique word in Greek, only appearing twice in the all of Greek literature: Once in the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew, and the other time in the Lord’s Prayer in Luke.
This raises some curious questions that have baffled scholars. Why would Jesus have used a singular, entirely unique word? In more recent times, the bafflement has turned to a different possible solution. Jesus, someone known to have spoken Aramaic in a prayer that was originally recited in Aramaic, would not have used the Greek επιούσιος, at all. So, the question has evolved to “What Aramaic word was επιούσιος supposed to represent?” It would have to be something unique or difficult enough that whoever translated it into Greek needed to coin a word to express or preserve some meaning that they thought was important, or something that they couldn’t quite wrap the Greek language around.
The first question to answer is the meaning of the unique koine Greek word ἐπιούσιον (epiousion). To do this, we consult the writings of Origen of Alexandria. Origen was a third century native koine Greek speaker, head of the famed Catechetical School of Alexandria, the greatest theologian of the early church, and first to perform an exegesis of the Lord’s Prayer (ca. AD 240).
Origen begins: ”Let us now consider what the word epiousion, needful, means. First of all it should be known that the word epiousion is not found in any Greek writer whether in philosophy or in common usage, but seems to have been formed by the evangelists. At least Matthew and Luke, in having given it to the world, concur in using it in identical form.”
Origen concludes his in-depth discussion of epiousion, needful, by stating, “Needful, therefore, is the bread which corresponds most closely to our rational nature and is akin to our very essence, which invests the soul at once with well being and with strength, and, since the Word of God is immortal, imparts to its eater its own immortality.”
In Aramaic, the best fit for επιούσιος is probably the word çorak. It comes from the root çrk, which means to be poor, to need, or to be necessary. It is a very common word in Galilean Aramaic that is used in a number of senses to express both need and thresholds of necessity, such as “as much as is required” (without further prepositions) or with pronominal suffixes “all that [pron.] needs” (çorki = “All that I need”; çorkak = “All that you need”; etc.). Given this multi-faceted nature of the word, it’s hard to find a one-to-one Greek word that would do the job, and επιούσιος is a very snug fit in the context of the Prayer’s petition. This might even give us a hint that the Greek translator literally read into it a bit.
The Aramaic word yelip is another possible solution. It is interesting to note that it comes from the root yalap or “to learn.” Etymologically speaking, learning is a matter of repetition and routine, and this connection may play off the idea of regular physical bread, but actually mean “daily learning from God” (i.e. that which is necessary for living, as one cannot live off of bread alone).
Bottom line:
Origen’s understanding of epiousion in his context of needful certainly has no connection or relationship to a simplistic English translation of epiousion as “daily’. Nor is the translation of epiousion as “daily” supported by either hypothetical original Aramaic word çorkak or yelip.
In fact, a translation of epiousion as “daily” makes this petition in the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:11) directly contradict Jesus’ lengthy admonition 14 verses later, starting at Matt 6:25:
25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
26 “Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
32 “For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
The Gospel writers of Matthew and Luke both used the same totally unique Greek word solely in the context of the Lord’s Prayer. There were other frequently used koine Greek words available to express the simple idea of “daily”. Perhaps the unique use of epiousion was not accidental or coincidental, but needed to express the intent of the original Aramaic prayer. Origen may provide the best insight into the intended meaning of ἐπιούσιον as needful of the supra-essential Word of God.
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