Kingdom

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Holy Spirit, Kingdom of Heaven, St. Ambrose, St. Basil the Great, St. Ireneus, Trinity, Worship

Yesterday I made what might be considered an audacious claim: sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, Orthodox Christians bring with them the Kingdom of Heaven everywhere they go. This statement, however, is not pulled out of thin air — it is based upon the writings of the Fathers of the Church and the way Orthodox Christians worship.

Let me begin explaining how it is that Orthodox Christians might take the Kingdom where ever they are by quoting St. Irenaeus in his treatise Against the Heresies (3:24:1):

Where the Church is, there is the Holy Spirit and the fulness of grace.

Let me continue by examining a couple of statements made by St. Ambrose in the seventh chapter of the first book of his treatise On the Holy Spirit. Firstly, he cites the angel that descends upon the water at the pool near the Sheep Gate (Bethesda) in the fifth chapter of John (5:4). He states:

What did the Angel declare in this type but the descent of the Holy Spirit, which was to come to pass in our day, and should consecrate the waters when invoked by the prayers of the priest? That Angel, then, was a herald of the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as by means of the grace of the Spirit medicine was to be applied to our infirmities of soul and mind. The Spirit, then, has the same ministers as God the Father and Christ. He fills all things, possesses all things, works all and in all in the same manner as God the Father and the Son work.

If it is true that the Holy Spirit has the same ministers as God the Father and God the Son because He is God, than the Father and the Son fill all things, possess all things and work all and in all because they are God like the Holy Spirit. St. Ambrose goes on to say:

The Apostle found nothing better to wish us than this, as He himself said: ‘We cease not to pray and make request for you that ye may be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding walking worthily of God’ (Col. 1:9). He taught, then, that this was the will of God, that rather by walking in good works and words and affections, we should be filled with the will of God, Who puts His Holy Spirit in our hearts. Therefore if he who has the Holy Spirit is filled with the will of God, there is certainly no difference of will between the Father and the Son.

We who are filled with the will of the Spirit are also filled with the will of the Father and the Son.

Taking these statements together, it is easy to expand upon St. Ireneaus and claim that where the Church is, there is the Father and the Son as well as the Holy Spirit. Now note the first words said by Christ in His ministry (Matt. 4:17):

Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

The Kingdom of Heaven is the presence of Christ, for He says (Matt. 12:28):

If I cast out demons by the Spirit, surely the Kingdom of God has come upon you.

Note how this reinforces what St. Ambrose said above — where the Spirit is, so is the Son.

This same Spirit is described in the Anaphora of the Liturgy of St. Basil thusly:

The spirit of truth the gift of Sonship, the pledge of our future inheritance, the first fruits of eternal blessings, the life giving power, the source of sanctification through whom every rational and spiritual creature is made capable of worshiping You and giving You eternal glorification, for all things are subject to You.

Taken together, all of these things lead to the conclusion made by Alexander Schmemann is his book The Eucharist (p. 36):

In other words, where there is the Holy Spirit, there is the Kingdom of God.

Since Orthodox Christians are sealed with the Holy Spirit, there is the Kingdom of God, there is the Father, there is the Son — where ever they may go. Amen.

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Diversity

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Gospel, Holy Spirit, St. Ambrose, St. Ireneus

In the middle of the second century A.D., a Syrian Christian by the name of Tatian produced the Diatessaron (from the Greek meaning one through four). It was his attempt to create a single composite gospel by combining and harmonizing the texts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This work was ultimately rejected by the Church. Indeed, St. Irenaeus, in the third book of his Against the Heresies, insists on four Gospels:

It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the ‘pillar and ground’ (1 Tim. 3:15) of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh. From which fact, it is evident that the Word, the Artificer of all, He that sits upon the cherubim, and contains all things, He who was manifested to men, has given us the Gospel under four aspects, but bound together by one Spirit.

Note that last line — bound together by one Spirit. If we limit ourselves to one Gospel or attempt to harmonize the four into one, we limit God’s ability to speak to us through Scripture. Consider the following passage from the fifth chapter of the first book of St. Ambrose’s On the Holy Spirit:

The Holy Spirit, through Whom the things that are good are ministered to us, is never evil. Whence two evangelists in one and the same place, in words in differing from each other, have made the same statement, for you read in Matthew: ‘If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children; how much more shall your Father, Who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask Him.’ (7:11). But according to Luke you will find it thus written: “How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?’ (11:13). We observe, then, that the Holy Spirit is good in the Lord’s judgment by the testimony of the evangelists, since the one has put good things in the place of the Holy Spirit, the other has named the Holy Spirit in the place of good things. If, then, the Holy Spirit is that which is good, how is He not good?

If St. Ambrose were limited to just one Gospel (harmonized or no), he would be unable to make this comparison and therefore this argument on the goodness of the Holy Spirit. This goodness is revealed by having two different voices speak about the same thing. The Spirit reveals Himself through this diversity and thus demonstrates the unity of the Gospel. In turn, this reveals the unity and diversity that exists, not only within the Church, but in the Godhead — one in essence and in three persons. Amen.

Partakers of His Life

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America, Christmas, Cross, Holy Spirit, St. Athanasius, St. Gregory Palamas, St. Ireneus, Worship

I think the most significant idea to come out of the third paragraph of St. Gregory Palamas’ Homily Fifty-Eight on the Saving Nativity According to the Flesh of Our Lord and God and Savior (and, indeed, out of everything that we’ve read so far of this sermon) is an idea that may very well be alien to the modern American mind.

That is why he who beheld things in a divine manner saw and foretold that all those anointed by God were partakers of His life. For it is the property of God alone not to partake of the lives of others but to be partaken of, and to have as partakers those who rejoice in the Spirit.

Modern man is far removed from the practice of anointing. It was a mainstay in ancient cultures as a means of healing (see James 5:14-15). In other words, oil was not merely something to fry foods in, it was also seen as medicinal. This is why oil and anointing play such large roles in Baptism and Chrismation. God is healing His broken creation. The means of this healing is an actual partaking and participation in God Himself. At their chrismation (where they are anointed with myrrh), Orthodox Christians are sealed with the Holy Spirit Himself. In a literal sense, we become the tabernacle — the place where God resides. This, in turn, allows us to partake of Christ Himself in the eucharist.

In the notes of the Mount Thabor annotated edition of Gregory Palamas’ homilies, the editors cite St. Ireneus who stated in Against the Heresies V:

The Word of God, Jesus Christ our Lord: who, on account of His boundless love became what we are, so that we might become what He is.

The means by which this happens is the Holy Spirit. Note how the Holy Spirit is not only present at the major events in Christ’s ministry, but leads Christ and prepares His way. Just take a look at the events surrounding the Baptism of Christ. The Spirit fills St. John the Baptist, who prepares the way for Christ (Matt 3:3). The Holy Spirit descends upon Christ in the form of a dove (Matt 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22), thus preparing Christ for His ministry. Then immediately, Christ heads out to the desert for forty days lead by the Holy Spirit (Matt 4:1; Mark 1:12; Luke 4:1). In this same way, it is the Spirit that not only leads us to Christ, but is our access to Him.

In defending the divinity of the Holy Spirit in his Letter to Serapion, St. Athanasius notes the various ways the three persons of God are described throughout Scripture. The Father is called Fountain: “They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water” (Jer 2:13). The Son is described as flowing waters (River): “the river of God is filled with waters” (Ps 65:10). Finally we are said to Drink of the Holy Spirit: “we have all been given to drink of the Spirit” (1 Cor 12:13).

In other words, God the Father is the Fountain of Life who, out of love, sends us the river of life (the Son). We, in turn, drink of the Holy Spirit. This also means that we drink in Christ: “they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ” (1 Cor 10:4). In so doing, we become the children of God: “You have received the Spirit of sonship” (Rom 8:15) and “For those who did accept Him, He gave power to become children of God” (Jn 1:12). As the children of God, we participate in the love of the Father.

To put it yet another way, God so loves the world that He sent us His Only-Begotten Son. Christ went to the Cross and Tomb so that we might be sealed with the Holy Spirit, who then leads us to participate in the Divine Liturgy, where we pray:

Once again we offer to You this spiritual worship without the shedding of blood, and we ask, pray, and entreat You: send down Your Holy Spirit upon us and upon these gifts here presented.

And make this bread the precious Body of Your Christ. Amen.

And that which is in this cup the precious Blood of Your Christ. Amen.

Changing them by Your Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. Amen. — Anaphora from the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom

We then partake of the Body and Blood of Christ through the Eucharist, through which we participate in the love of the Father.

Thus, God created us in His image and likeness so that we could become like God by participating in the Trinity just as He does. Christ became a babe in a manger specifically for this purpose — that we partake of His life. This becomes manifest every time we participate in the Divine Liturgy. We do not merely gather to give praise to God and give Him thanks for all that He does for us. We gather to partake in the life of the Trinity.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with all of you. — Anaphora from the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom

Amen.

The Forefeast of the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple

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Christmas, Entrance into the Temple, Gospel of Judas, New Testament, Protoevangelium, St. Ireneus, Theotokos, Worship

By blossoming forth the only Ever-virgin as fruit, today holy Anna betroths us all to joy, instead of our former grief; on this day she fulfills her vows to the Most High, leading her with joy into the Lord’s holy temple, who truly is the temple and pure Mother of God the Word. — Apolytikion of the Forefeast of the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple

I am going to pause today from St. Gregory Palamas to speak about an oft neglected part of our preparation for Christmas — the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple. Today is the Forefeast of this celebration where we commemorate, as declared in the Apolytikion, Anna fulfilling her promise to God to dedicate her daughter Mary as a Temple Virgin. This act itself prefigures Mary’s own role in the history of salvation as the temple of God the Word — a reality without which Christmas doesn’t happen.

Of course, one of the first questions our Protestant friends might ask (if we are not asking it ourselves) is where does this story come from? The answer, in part, is the Protoevangelium of James. I say in part, because this text bubbles up out of Tradition (more on that in later). We find the Church acknowledging aspects of this text in its services (including the Conception of the Theotokos on Dec. 9, the Nativity of the Theotokos on Sept. 8 and the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple on Nov. 21). We can therefore accept these elements that show up in the services with confidence.

The Protoevangelium of James is not part of the NT canon for one simple reason — it does not deal with the apostolic kerygma of Christ crucified and risen. Yet, the Church still recognizes the book as significant by celebrating the Mariological feasts recorded in it. In other words, the term Apocrypha (meaning hidden or spurious) is a misnomer in the case of the Protoevangelium of James.

This means that the formation of the Biblical canon as we have received it today is not as simplistic as one might be led to believe (though it is rather simple). Christians have been writing about their faith since beginnings of the Church. It took almost three centuries for there to be a consensus as to what belonged in the NT Canon and what was simply good for reading.

Please Note: there were a number of texts also written by the heterodox which were rightly rejected by the Church (the Church has every right to determine what is and isn’t Christian). An example of one of these rejected works is the Gospel of Judas, which the Orthodox Church had known about for over a millennium through the writings (and righteous rejection) of St. Ireneaus when the book was recently “discovered.”

Some examples of the books that the Church sees as good for reading include the Epistles of Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas, both of which were popular enough to be read in the services of the early Church.

In other words, the formation of the NT canon was a process — something that came out of the Tradition of the Church, where Tradition is understood to be the collective experience of the Church. We should not be ashamed of this reality. In fact, we should embrace it. The issue of whether or not the Gentiles should be circumcised was dealt with in a very similar manner. Please note how the Council of Jerusalem declares their decision:

For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us — Acts 15:28

The Bible vs. Tradition is a false dichotomy. We celebrate the Forefeast of the Entry of the Theotokos today to remind us that through the Theotokos — the temple of God the Word — and the child that she bore, we, too, have been made into the temple of God. We have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit Himself, and it is He that has guided us from the beginning. Amen.

Hiding from the Truth

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Atheists, Church and State, Communism, Gnosticism, History, Soviet Union, St. Ireneus, Truth

Recently, His Grace Demetrios of Mokissos, Chancellor of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago wrote a letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune. He was responding to a story that ran on June 17 entitled “Secularists spreading the word to skip church.” He very correctly calls into question their declared motivation to spark a public conversation because they, as His Grace states, “resort to tactics that preclude debate and insult the very people they seek to engage.”

This letter reminded me of my history professor in college. His specialty was Russian history and he had done doctoral work at Moscow State University at the height of the Cold War. One of the stories he told us continues to amaze me to this day and stands as a cautionary tale. Soviet Russia was famous for erasing history. People were removed from photos, news stories and history books the moment they no longer toed the party-line or disagreed with those in power. In such an environment, studying history is not possible, because history does not really exist. All that matters is the propaganda of the moment; however, the USSR also had a need to attract Western scholars with their hard currency. Thus, locked away under armed guards were the unaltered documents that chronicled the history of Soviet Russia. My professor would study in this room with an armed Soviet soldier on the other side of the door.

These armed guards were necessary because the information gathered behind those locked and guarded doors was dangerous. When compared to history, to actual events and the truth, communism had and has no answers. In any real debate, given an honest examination of history and not a bunch of showy propaganda, communism had no chance of winning the argument. Thus, it shut the opposition up through the threat of imprisonment and death. They were more than happy to carry out such threats. Indeed, we probably will never know the true number of victims, but conservative estimates range in the tens of millions.

Thus, whenever someone or some group resorts “to tactics that preclude debate and insult the very people they seek to engage,” I think of my history professor. I find myself questioning whether or not these people actually want a debate. My gut feeling is that they actually don’t. I say this because I was once one of those secularists who happily spoke out against Christianity and lamented friends “lost” to the clutches of the Church; however, whenever I would honestly engage the historical record, I found that the arguments I so desperately held onto fell away like so much chaff in the wind. A major turning point in my life was when I sought out the Gnostics in order to prove that they were the real expression of Christianity suppressed by a power-hungry Church authority. I necessarily found St. Ireneus, one of our primary witnesses to Gnosticism in the early Church. In the end, I was forced to acknowledge that this great Christian apologist spoke the Truth.

Thus, I challenge those secularists who think they want to engage in a real conversation about Christianity to actually read the words of Christians throughout the ages. I dare them to seek those documents that proclaim our point of view. I invite them to understand history from a Christian perspective. If they are truly interested in engaging the Church, these are the things secularists would do, instead of “spreading the word to skip church.” Instead, they should point to the historical record and show all of us how Christianity has not made the world a better place. Otherwise, they are no better than the Soviets who cowardly hid the truth behind the barrel of a gun.

The New Atheists: Reason’s Greetings

Tags

Atheists, Christmas, St. Ireneus

Normally, I really like the Discovery Channel and the National Geographic Channel. They produce some of my favorite shows on television. During the days leading up to Christmas and Easter, however, they transform themselves into vehicles for the message of the New Atheists. Both channels produce shows with titles such as, “Who Was Jesus?,” “In Search of Jesus’ Tomb” and “The Real Jesus.” They present Christianity as some kind of conspiracy that has kept secrets from all of us for two thousand years and that a parade of scientists are going to reveal the real story. If there are any biblical scholars interviewed on these shows, they are those that do not read the bible as a believer.

One major thing all of these shows fail to understand or deliberately censor is that Christianity has never been a secretive religion. Everything we believe and do is public. In fact, one of our earliest witnesses to the liturgical practices of the early church is St. Justin the Martyr who wrote an open letter to the Emperor of Rome! In addition, Christianity rejected those expressions of Christianity that did want to have secrets — such as the “secret knowledge” of the Gnostics.

These shows will drag out writings found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Codex to prove that Christianity suppressed dozens, if not hundreds of different versions of the Gospel. What they won’t tell you is that we have known about these texts for almost two thousand years, because our main witnesses to them prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi Codex were Christians. St. Ireneus, for example, quotes the Gnostics and then explains why their writings and beliefs do not reflect what the Apostles passed down to us about Christ and our faith. St. Ireneus learned his faith on the lap of St. Polycarp, who was converted by St. John the Evangelist, the author of the Gospel according to John. If these shows wanted to be fair and wanted to find these answers, they could because they’ve been public since the beginning of Christianity. The problem, I believe, is that they don’t want to.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is imitating their fellow non-believers in London. They’ve put up anti-Christmas billboards. The most telling of these is one that declares “Reason’s Greetings.” In the face of our faith, the only way atheists can maintain their world-view is to reduce the human person to reason. If we disregard feelings, emotion, the miracle of the cell, and the wonder of bio-mechanics we can disregard all those things about being human that point us in the direction of God. In fact, we can make ourselves into gods — if we think it, we can make it happen. Science becomes a vehicle to control the world.

The great irony in all of this is that the fallen world is not reasonable. It defies our control. In a world where suffering, decay and death are pervasive, the only thing that really makes any sense is Christ born, crucified and risen. This is why some of the most educated, scientific and reasoned minds in history have come to the conclusion that there is indeed a God and He loves us so much that He sent His Only-Begotten Son so that we might have eternal life in Him. Amen.