Posts Tagged eastern orthodox tradition
The Didaché: The Lord’s Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Gentiles (1st century)
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, First Thoughts, Patristic Pearls, Theology on April 18, 2025
The Didaché (Greek: Διδαχή, romanized: Didakhé, lit. ’Teaching’), also known as The Lord’s Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Gentiles is a brief anonymous early Christian treatise written in Koine Greek. Only relatively recently discovered in 1873, “few manuscript discoveries in modern times have created the stir caused by the discovery and publication of the Didache in the late nineteenth century. ” (Bart Ehrman). Many scholars once dated the text to the early second century, but most scholars now assign the Didaché to the first century. The community that produced the Didaché could have been based in Syria, as it addressed the gentiles but from a Judaic perspective, at some remove from Jerusalem, and shows no evidence of Pauline influence. The text, parts of which constitute the oldest extant written catechism, has three main sections dealing with Christian ethics, rituals such as baptism and Eucharist, and organization.
Author J.B. Heard tells us: “The “teaching of the twelve” clearly marks a state of transition in which the importance of a sacramental system and sacerdotal order is beginning to dawn on the Christian consciousness; but as yet the new theology, as it was then considered, had not taken dogmatic form. It nestled behind the phrase διδαχή; it has not as yet been formulated. It is only a δόξα [doxa], or private opinion, which in the end, as a δόγμα [dogma] would put on the air of authority, and enforce itself under the threat of an Anathema.”
The Ekklesía of the first-century Didaché was still very much one of First Thoughts.
Didaché Notes: Translations of the Didaché are readily available online. It is very short (under 10 pages) and is really worth the read. Below are my notes and highlights.
Chap. 1.2 The path of life consists of three Commandments: Love God, Love your neighbor as yourself, and the Golden Rule. (First Thoughts)
Chap. 1.3 Further exhortations from the Sermon on the Mount. (First Thoughts)
Chaps. 2 – 4 Ethical Injunctions (First Thoughts)
Chaps 7-10 Rituals of the Ekklesía:
—– Chap. 7. How to Baptize (First Thought)
—– Chap. 8.1 How to fast (First Thought)
—– Chap. 8.2 How to pray (Πάτερ ἡμῶν. Our Father- (First Thought))
—– Chaps. 9 – 10 How to celebrate the communal thanksgiving meal or Eucharist (First Thoughts)
Chap. 11 How to deal with itinerant Christian teachers, apostles, and, especially, prophets indicating their special status before God (First Thoughts). Note the alignment with Paul’s list of ministries in 1Cor.12:28.
Chaps. 14 – 15 Further instructions for communal worship, including election of bishops and deacons… “for these also conduct the ministry of the prophets and teachers among you.” (the rationalization of an After Thought?!) The nascent arrival of earthly institutional organization, administration, and control can be sensed.
Chap. 16 an apocalyptic scenario as the 1st century Ekklesía realized that the Parousia may not be as imminent as they had previously believed.
Christian Theology: Greek East and Latin West Contrasted *
Posted by Dallas Wolf in First Thoughts, Patristic Pearls, Theology on April 8, 2025
Theology is at its best and purest stage when it is intuitive [noetic]; it is based on our spiritual instincts [nous]; its only logic is that best of all logic, when there is one single step, as it has been well said, from the premise to the conclusion.
Eastern Greek theology set out with the doctrine of God in His relation to man. Conversely, Western Latin theology adopted the opposite doctrine of man in his relation to God.
The difference is more than verbal, whether we make man or God the starting-point of our inquiries on this subject. Setting out with man [the Latin model], we have to take him as we find him, blind and insensible to spiritual things. We have to find an explanation for this strange fact – we have to begin with a theory of original sin, a tradition of the fall, and the problem of evil in general. We get out of our depth all at once in a kind of theodicee [theodicy], which lands us at last in a dilemma which no thinker has yet to overcome, and which J.S. Mill admitted to be logically insoluable. Either God is all-goodness, but not all-mighty, or He is all-mighty, but not all-goodness. Pelagians and Augustinians, Arminians and Calvinists, have beaten their wings against the bars of this cage ever since Latin theology replaced Greek [in the Latin West], as it did soon after Augustine’s day, and we are no nearer a solution than ever.
On the other hand, setting out, as the Greeks did, at the other end of the problem, all unfolds itself in a simple and natural order, and there is no room for these gloomy afterthoughts which have made earth a prison-house, and evil a kind of Manichaean partner with good in the government of the universe. Let us notice the order in which the early Fathers of the Alexandrian school [Greek] approached the problem. Their point of departure was the general Fatherhood of God, – of a God, let us add, who was not so much transcendent as immanent in the world [e.g., the Incarnation and His energaeia]. The opening verses of the Gospel of St. John is the key to all that is distinctively Hellenistic in contrast with the Latin or magisterial conception of God. The Logos is σπερματικόσ, or germ-like, in the world: that Logos in man becomes reason or thought in its two-fold manifestation of speech and action. At a loss for a Latin equivalent for the Greek Logos, the Latin mind lost hold of the primitive and deep significance of the thought that there was a Wisdom which was one with God, and yet had its habitation with the children of men.
The Latins, lacking the Logos doctrine, never could see the true grounds of the incarnation which were laid deep in the original and unchangeable relations of God to men… In this point of view Latin theology never has been “rational” in the sense that the early and best type of Greek theology harmonized reason and revelation. To the Hellenistic mind there was no strained reconciliation between reason and faith… The contrast between the two theologies, for which we have to thank Aquinas, the one known as natural and the other as revealed, never so much as occurred to Greek thought when at its best and earliest stage.
History may be said to contain two chapters, and only two – one in which man seeks after God and loses himself in the search; and a second, in which God seeks after man, and seeks, as the shepherd after the lost sheep, until He finds it.
* Excerpted from Alexandrian and Carthaginian Theology Contrasted, John B. Heard. T&T Clark, Edinburgh 1893. Brackets [ ] mine.
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.
The Seven Sacraments, or Mysteries of the Christian Church
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, New Nuggets, Theology on April 2, 2025
The inward life of the Christian Church is mystical (or sacramental). The word “mysteries” (Greek mysteria) is the term used in the Orthodox East; “sacraments” (Latin sacramenta), the term used in the Latin West. So, how and when did Western Latin and Eastern Orthodox come to identify and accept the seven sacraments, or mysteries of the Christian Church?
One might reasonably assume that the seven Sacraments (Mysteries) were determined early in the period of the united Church (AD 33 – 1054). That assumption would be false.
One of the renowned teachers of the united Church, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (6th Century) listed six sacraments in his work The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy (ca. AD 500): baptism, Eucharist, confirmation, priesthood, the consecration of monks, and rites for the dead.
Two centuries later, another early teacher revered East and West, John of Damascus (675-749), mentions only two sacraments: Baptism together with the corresponding chrismation and the Eucharist (Communion), the only two mysteries identified in the New Testament and instituted by Jesus.
Clearly, there was no unanimity on the identity or number of sacraments/mysteries in the first 1,000 years of the unified Christian Church, nor at the time of the Great East-West Schism of 1054.
In the post-Schism Latin West, Peter Lombard (1100-1164), in his fourth Book of Sentences (d.ii, n.1), enumerated the seven sacraments. This list of sacraments was accepted by the Western Latin Roman Church at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.
49 years later, during the Second Ecumenical Council of Lyons in 1274, Eastern Greek theologians, under Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos (in his Profession of Faith), accepted the seven Latin Sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation (Chrismation), Eucharist, Penance, Priesthood, Marriage, and Anointing of the Sick.
So, clearly, neither the Seven Holy Sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church nor the Seven Holy Mysteries of the Eastern Orthodox Church are First Thoughts of God, but mostly, save two, distant Afterthoughts of Man, codified a thousand years after Jesus and the Apostolic age.
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.
Woman Wisdom: Chokmah, Sophia, Wisdom in the Old Testament
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, First Thoughts, Theology, Women in Early Christianity on March 29, 2025
“Woman Wisdom” was well established in the Hebrew literature of the Old Testament long before the New Testament era. The patriarchal (some might say misogynistic) leaders of the post-Apostolic Christian Church, especially after the 2nd century, so completely suppressed this idea of the feminine personification of God, that they had to invent the cult of Mary in the 5th and 6th centuries to redress the obvious, embarrassing imbalance!
If you want to explore the beautiful ancient Hebrew tradition of the Feminine emanation of the Godhead (called Chokmah in Hebrew, Sophia in Greek, and Wisdom in English), try the following:
- Proverbs 1-9, (10th c. BC)
- Sirach (AKA Ecclestiasticus) 24, (200-175 BC)
- Wisdom of Solomon 7-9, (100 BC-100 AD)
In the interest of full disclosure, my male noetic intuition has always experienced both Wisdom (Chokmah) and the Holy Spirit (Ruach) as female. In case you think that’s in error or heretical, let me point out that in Hebrew both Chokmah and Ruach are feminine nouns.
Nous: Noesis and Dianoia
Posted by Dallas Wolf in First Thoughts, The "Nous" (series) on March 26, 2025
Noesis refers to immediate, intuitive understanding or insight, while dianoia involves discursive thinking, particularly in mathematical and technical contexts. Essentially, noesis is about direct apprehension, whereas dianoia is a more analytical and reasoned thought process.
In the Christian Latin West, the Enlightenment (17th – early 19th century) enthroned and focused almost entirely on the discursive, analytical, reasoning mind. So complete was that focus on the sensory, reasoning faculty (dianoia), that it literally came to define “mind” in the Western world. It still does.
The Greek East, although influenced heavily by the Enlightenment, did not lose their ancient distinction between noesis, direct apprehension, and dianoia, reasoned thought. To them, mind was “nous” (a term unknown in the West), and included both the noetic and the dianoetic faculties of the human mind.
In Eastern Christian culture, the noetic faculty is considered more mature than the dianoetic, because by noesis humans can instantly and intuitively apprehend God and truth of things spiritual whereas dianoia is focused on a dualistic understanding of the material, sensory world. It is no accident that noesis and dianoia both share the same Greek root; nous.
So, I guess one could say that both the Latin West and Greek East defined “mind” correctly; the West just lost the better half of theirs.
Silence
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, Hesychasm - Jesus Prayer, Theology on March 24, 2025
“No wonder that silence is probably the foundational spiritual discipline in all the world’s religions at the more mature levels. At the less mature levels, religion is mostly noise, entertainment, and words. Catholics and Orthodox Christians prefer theatre and wordy symbols; Protestants prefer music and endless sermons.”
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.
Women Leaders in the 1st Century Apostolic Church
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, Women in Early Christianity on March 20, 2025
“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28
| Woman | Reference | Comment |
| Phoebe | Romans 16:1-2 | “a deacon [minister] of the church” |
| Priscilla (or Prisca) | Rom 16:3-5, 1 Cor 16:19 | Founded at least two home churches with Aquila |
| Junia | Rom 16:7 | “prominent among the apostles” |
| Nympha | Col 4:15 | Started church in her house |
| Lydia | Acts 16:14, 15, 40 | Started church in her house |
| Apphia | Philem 2 | House church in her home |
| Mary, Mother of Jesus | Acts 1:14 | Present at first meetings of church |
| Euodia, Syntyche | Phil 4:2-3 | “for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel” |
| Four daughters of Philip | Acts 21:8/9 | Prophetesses |
Full Scripture References:
- “I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon [minister] of the church at Cenchreae,…” Romans 16:1
- “Greet Prisca and Aquila, who work with me in Christ Jesus…” Romans 16:3
- “Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house, greet you warmly in the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 16:19
- “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.” Romans 16:7
- “Give my greetings to the brothers and sisters in Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house.” Colossians 4:15
- “A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household were baptized , she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful in the Lord, come and stay at my home.” And she prevailed upon us.” Acts 16:14, 15
- “After leaving the prison they went to Lydia’s home, and when they had seen and encouraged the brothers and sisters there, they departed.” Acts 16:40
- “… to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house.” Philem 2
- “All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.” Acts 1:14
- “I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of one mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel,…” Philippians 4:2, 3
- “The next day we left and came to Caesarea; and we went into the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the seven, and stayed with him. He had four unmarried daughters who had the gift of prophecy.” Acts 21:8, 9
Note: Other women mentioned include Julia, Mary, the mother of Rufus, Nereus’ sister, Persis, Tryphaena, and Tryphosa, but we know nothing more about them.
First Thoughts 