Greek Patristic Research Articles

Beyond the Realistic‐Ethical Distinction in Deification: Reconsidering Norman Russell’s Assessment of Gregory of Nyssa

AbstractThe notion of deification (θεοποίησις) or divinization (θέωσις), a fundamental theme in Eastern Orthodox theology, has long fascinated theologians from different traditions. In spite of the general interest in this theme, scholarship has fallen short on several accounts. One issue is that the intrinsic relationship between the ‘realistic’ and ‘ethical’ senses of deification has defied clear explanation. This failure is exemplified by Norman Russell’s The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (2004), where the obscured relationship also yields an inaccurate assessment of Gregory’s theology. Revisiting Gregory’s notion of deification, this article proposes a new account for the intrinsic relationship between the ‘realistic’ and ‘ethical’ senses of deification, and suggests a revision of Russell’s reading of Gregory.

УКРАЇНСЬКІ ПЕРЕКЛАДИ ДАВНЬОГРЕЦЬКОЇ ЛІТЕРАТУРИ:ЗДОБУТКИ ТА ПЕРСПЕКТИВИ

The article presents the history of Ukrainian translations of ancient Greek literature and describes the translation work of Ukrainian classical philologists, poets and prose writers. The reception of literary works of antiquity is represented by texts of different styles, poetic schools and Ukrainian language of different periods, which demonstrate the glorious tradition of domestic translation studies. It is noted that Ukrainian translations have a long history (from the first translation in 1788 and the first textbook in 1809); they were published in separate periodicals, collections, almanacs, as well as complete books and in textbooks and anthologies. Ukrainian translations of literature in the ancient Greek language of the аrchaic, сlassical and Hellenistic periods are analyzed. Translations of poetry (epic, elegy, iambic, monodic and choral lyrics, tragedy, comedy, folk lyrics, mimiyamb, epilium, bucolic, idyll, epigram) and prose (fable, historiography, philosophy, rhetoric, fiction, ancient novel, New Testament and Septuagint, early Christian patristic) are described. Significant in the history of translations are the achievements of the brilliant connoisseur of antiquity I. Franko. The high level of linguistic and stylistic assimilation of ancient Greek prose and poetic texts is demonstrated by the creative style of such outstanding translators as Borys Ten, V.Svidzinsky, M. Bilyk, G. Kochur, A. Smotrych, V. Derzhavуn, V. Samonenko, P. Striltsiv, A. Tsisyk, Y.Mushak, A. Biletsky, V. Maslyuk, J. Kobiv, Y. Tsymbalyuk, L. Pavlenko.The glorious traditions are continued by well-known antiquaries, writers and poets, among whom A. Sodomora has a prominent place. At the level of world biblical studies there are four translations of the Holy Scripture in Ukrainian (P. Kulish, I. Pulyuy, I. Nechuy-Levytsky, I. Ogienko, I. Khomenko, R. Turkonyuk). Іt is summarized that despite numerous Ukrainian translations of various genres of ancient Greek literature there is a need to create a corpus of translations of ancient Greek historiography, rhetoric, philosophy, natural science texts, Greek patristic.

Veterum vestigia patrum: The Greek Patriarchs in the Manuscript Culture of Early Medieval Europe

This article draws attention to the availability of Latin translations of Greek patristic literature in western reading communities before the year 800 through a survey of the contents of hundreds of surviving manuscripts from the Merovingian and Carolingian periods. An examination of the presence of the translated works of eastern church fathers in the 8th-century florilegium known as The Book of Sparks ( Liber scintillarum) and monastic library catalogs from the early 9th century corroborates the impression left by the manuscript evidence. Taken together, these sources allow us to gauge the popularity of particular eastern authors among Latin readers in early medieval Europe and to weigh the influence and importance of Greek patristics in the western monastic tradition.

The Contribution of the Greek Patristic Idea to the Teaching of “Lumen Gentium” on the Nature of the Church

e nature of the Church was expressed in Dogmatic Constitution on the Church“Lumen gentium” by numerous pictures and new expressions. ey refer to theBible and patristics. It is necessary to place special attention on two expressions.ese are: the mystery of the Church and the new people of God. e SecondVatican Council used these expressions to name two of titles of chapters of Lumengentium.In this article, the speeches of the Greek Fathers of the Church are detailedanalysed. e Council document refers to them in glosses only. ` numbers –4 in each chapter – contain references to Greek patristics. Totally, in +7 glossesto chapter I and II the Constitution refers to +5 Greek Fathers of the Church andto the anonymous patristic text of Didache. In the final part of this work thedevelopment of the patristic period was summarized in a chronological aspect.It began with Didache, then Irenaeus and John Chrysostom, and finally Johnof Damascus. In comparison to the whole Constitution with reference to thenature of the Church (as the mystery and new people of God) there is very littlepatristic inspiration.In this article, speeches of the Fathers of the Church were not only analysed,but also compared to council texts. anks to this, we see it as a shortanthology of patristic ideas.

Acquiring Incorruption: Maximian Theosis and Scientific Transhumanism

Several theologians have pointed to resonances between the Greek Patristic doctrine of deification or theosis and recent transhumanist narratives: both discourses indicate death as the final enemy of humankind and invest heavily in a hoped-for transcendence of life as we know it. These resonances will be investigated further by comparing the approach to human nature found in Maximus the Confessor and in the prominent transhumanists Nick Bostrom and John Harris. In addition to sharing with transhumanists a disavowal of death and a trajectory towards transcendence, Maximus also shares a view of human nature that is more dynamic and open-ended than is commonly attributed to his Late Antique context. On the other hand, Maximus also insists on the persistence of this dynamic nature in its integrity even into the eschaton. He does so for a number of reasons that should give Christians pause about any rhetoric that calls for an abandonment of human nature: (1) that theosis depends precisely on sharing a human nature with Christ; (2) that our vocation as mediators in creation depends on our physical bodies as the locus of shared existence with the material world; and (3) that corruption has a providential use in binding us together with our neighbors and in cultivating virtue as we strain for the incorruptible and supernatural gift of theosis.

Book Review: The One and the Three: Nature Person and Triadic Monarchy in the Greek and Irish Patristic Tradition

Book Review: The One and the Three: Nature Person and Triadic Monarchy in the Greek and Irish Patristic Tradition

Negative Theology in Contemporary Interpretations

The tradition of negative theology has very deep roots which go back to the Late Greek Antiquity and the Early Christian period. Although Dionysius is usually regarded as “the Father” of negative theology, yet he has not initiated a revolution in the religious philosophy, but rather brought together various elements of thinking regarding the knowledge of God and built a system which is a synthesis of Platonic, neo-Platonic and Christian ideas. The aim of this article is to illustrate the views of some more modern theologians on the nature, types and levels of apophaticism in the Greek Patristic tradition, trying to establish the role that negation can play in facilitating man’s attaining to the knowledge of God.

Life Is a Stage: Neoplatonic Participation and Imitation in Gregory of Nazianzus’s Oration 45

Life Is a Stage:Neoplatonic Participation and Imitation in Gregory of Nazianzus’s Oration 45 Athanasius Murphy, O.P. Introduction The character Jacques in Shakespeare’s As You Like It famously said that all the world is but a “stage”: “And all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.”1 In his Oration 45, on the holy Pascha, Gregory of Nazianzus treats his listeners as if they are on a similar stage, as he encourages them to imitate and participate in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ in their daily lives.2 But there is ambiguity as to how the hearers of Gregory’s preaching actually participated and imitated in the Paschal mysteries of Christ’s life. Some have asked for greater precision when discussing Gregory’s use of participation and imitation. In his review of Andrew Hofer’s treatment of Christ’s paradigmatic suffering in Christ in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus, Lewis Ayres seeks such clarity: “Where are we imitating, where are we participating, and precisely what difference does it make that our imitation is ‘framed’ by participation? Hofer is most certainly onto some very important [End Page 1153] themes, but there is still more to be said.”3 In partial answer to Ayres’s questions, this article will attempt to provide context and clarity as to how Gregory speaks of participation and imitation in his preaching on the holy Pascha.4 Participation and Imitation in Late Antiquity Participation in its late-antiquity context has been described as the process by which what is lower is made “real and becomes related to other (peer or higher) realties, by somehow receiving its intrinsic reality from what is higher.”5 Imitation, as understood by classicists and scholars in patristics, has been described as a pattern of thought in which people sought to represent and identify themselves with exemplary figures from the past.6 The patristic use of participation and imitation language has often been categorized under the theology of deification.7 In his work The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, Normal Russell offers different kinds of patristic models of deification, some of which refer to participation: the nominal, the analogical, and the metaphorical, with the metaphorical being characteristic of the ethical and the realistic. He says that participation (methexis) in God is behind the realistic approach, whereas attaining likeness (homoiosis) is behind the ethical. The ethical approach, which is derived from attaining likeness to Christ, is also spoken of as an imitation of Christ both interiorly and exteriorly in a person’s life. Even with a delineation of [End Page 1154] these different approaches, Russell advocates for a spectrum of participatory language, rather than a wooden separation of categories.8 He concludes his brief introduction by saying that there are four basic approaches: nominal, analogical, ethical, and realistic.9 It is in the realistic approach that we find the participation model, and in the ethical approach that we find the imitation model. According to Russell, in the realistic-participatory sense, complete and total deification occurs only in the humanity of Christ, since it alone is “mingled” with the divinity of the Logos. Human beings, since they are not God, are not deified in the realistic approach, but they are nevertheless called to an imitative ascent of their soul toward God and to a transformation of their lives through the sacraments. For Russell, Christianity is essentially the “imitation of the incarnate life of Christ, who deified the body which he assumed in order to enable us to return to the likeness we have lost.”10 Christ’s humanity fully participates in his divinity so that we human beings can imitate the Godhead, whose likeness we once had. The believer’s imitation is both external and internal, consisting of overcoming the passions, putting on Christ in baptism, and the practice of virtue. But, according to Russell, for Gregory Nazianzen and the other Cappadocians, the Christian’s deification was never more than a figure of speech to express his imitation in the likeness of God...

The Reformer Johannes Honterus and Orthodoxy: “Early Ecumenism”

Abstract On the occasion of the commemoration of 500 years since the Reformation, this article, entitled “Reformation and Orthodoxy”, calls attention to the personality of Johannes Honterus (1497-1549), the Lutheran reformer of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Transylvania, and reviews his relationship to Orthodoxy, a relationship which may be referred to as “Early Ecumenism”. Johannes Honterus, one of the most important personalities of the Transylvanian Saxons, was an outstanding scholar who had studied in Vienna, Krakow, Regensburg and Basel. He became the founder of the first school and the first publishing house in Brasov (Kronstadt), and – as Senior Pastor – was the reformer of his native town and eventually all of Transylvania (1547). Honterus had close contacts to Christian-Orthodox Romanians from surrounding areas, and in his publishing house not only Latin, Greek and German textbooks were published, as well as the two most important works about the Reformation in Brasov and the whole of Transylvania, but also – about 1540 –, among others, the so called Christian-Orthodox „Edition of Nilus“, with extracts from the Greek Patristic Literature by Evaragius Ponticus, Gregory of Nazianz and Thalassus. His dialogue with Orthodox visitors to his town inspired his work for the Lutheran Reformation among the Transylvanian Saxons. From 1556 to 1583, Honterus had in his publishing house the most important Orthodox publisher of the 16th century, Deacon Coresi. This “early ecumenism” became the basis for the well-known tradition of religious tolerance in Transylvania.

Феномен свободы в контексте человеческой личности в греческой патристике

Феномен свободы в контексте человеческой личности в греческой патристике

Book Review: The One and the Three: Nature, Person and Triadic Monarchy in the Greek and Irish Patristic Tradition. By Chrysostom Koutloumousianos

Book Review: The One and the Three: Nature, Person and Triadic Monarchy in the Greek and Irish Patristic Tradition. By Chrysostom Koutloumousianos

Reform: Spirituality and the person of Jesus: Christian holiness and deification (theosis)

A return to the theme of the divine potential of humankind has been a feature of recent theological reflection. Found consistently in the Greek Patristic tradition, in Augustine and in Thomas, it faded from the scene as the result of a series of historical circumstances in Western Christianity, challenged by Martin Luther and the Reform. The subsequent return to the sources ( ressourcement) that marked the thought and practice of the Reformers and the post-Reformation period in the Catholic tradition has led to its recovery. A New Testament portrait of Jesus of Nazareth provides solid grounds for a Christian anthropology pointing to the divine potential of humankind.

From Conversion according to Paul and “John” to Theosis in the Greek Patristic Tradition

This paper investigates the question of deification in two groups of New Testament texts, i.e. the Pauline Epistles and the “Johannine literature” (fourth Gospel and Epistles of “John”), as well as the Greek patristic tradition. Though a specialized vocabulary referring to deification is missing from these groups of texts, Greek fathers used a very sophisticated combination of Pauline and “Johannine” concepts for the development of their respective theologies of deification. This study tries to explain why the patristic theologies of deification are so closely emulating Paul and “John” and it detects a common line that runs through the background of Paul and “John” as well as the patristic notion of theosis, namely the experience of the beginnings of the Christian life as an ontological transformation, i.e. conversion.

Philip Melanchthon and the Cappadocians: A Reception of Greek Patristic Sources in the Sixteenth Century, by H. Ashley Hall

Philip Melanchthon and the Cappadocians: A Reception of Greek Patristic Sources in the Sixteenth Century, by H. Ashley Hall

Book Review: Greek Patristic Insights for a Modern Age

Book Review: Greek Patristic Insights for a Modern Age

Divine Freedom in the Greek Patristic Tradition

Divine Freedom in the Greek Patristic Tradition

The Relationship Between Soul and Spirit in Greek and Latin Patristic Thought

The Relationship Between Soul and Spirit in Greek and Latin Patristic Thought

The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition – By Norman Russell

The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition – By Norman Russell

The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition, Oxford Early Christian Studies– By Norman Russell

The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition<i>, Oxford Early Christian Studies</i>– By Norman Russell

The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition. Norman Russell

<i>The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition</i>. Norman Russell