I think this goes with the idea of the "acquisition of the Holy Spirit."
The Difference Between Orthodox Spirituality and Other Traditions
by Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos
Some stuff...
A fundamental teaching of the Holy Fathers is that the Church is a "Hospital" which cures the wounded man. In many passages of Holy Scripture such language is used. One such passage is that of the parable of the Good Samaritan: "But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion . So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, and gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, 'Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you" (Luke 10:33-35).
In this parable, the Samaritan represents Christ who cured the wounded man and led him to the Inn, that is to the "Hospital" which is the Church. It is evident here that Christ is presented as the Healer, the physician who cures man's maladies; and the Church as the true Hospital. It is very characteristic that Saint John Chrysostom, analysing this parable, presents these truths emphasised above.
Man's life "in Paradise" was reduced to a life governed by the devil and his wiles. "And fell among thieves," that is in the hands of the devil and of all the hostile powers. The wounds man suffered are the various sins, as the prophet David says: "my wounds grow foul and fester because of my foolishness" (Psalm 37). For "every sin causes a bruise and a wound." The Samaritan is Christ Himself who descended to earth from Heaven in order to cure the wounded man. He used oil and wine to "treat" the wounds; in other words, by "mingling His blood with the Holy Spirit, he brought man to life." According to another interpretation, oil corresponds to the comforting word and wine to the harsh word. Mingled together they have the power to unify the scattered mind. "He set him in His own beast," that is He assumed human flesh on "the shoulders" of His divinity and ascended incarnate to His Father in Heaven.
Then the Good Samaritan, i.e. Christ, took man to the grand, wondrous and spacious inn - to the Church. And He handed man over to the innkeeper, who is the Apostle Paul, and through the Apostle Paul to all bishops and priests, saying: "Take care of the Gentile people, whom I have handed over to you in the Church. They suffer illness wounded by sin, so cure them, using as remedies the words of the Prophets and the teaching of the Gospel; make them healthy through the admonitions and comforting word of the Old and New Testaments." Thus, according to Saint Chrysostom, Paul is he who maintains the Churches of God, "curing all people by his spiritual admonitions and offering to each one of them what they really need."
In the interpretation of this parable by Saint John Chrysostom, it is clearly shown that the Church is a Hospital which cures people wounded by sin; and the bishops and priests are the therapists of the people of God.
And this precisely is the work of Orthodox theology. When referring to Orthodox theology, we do not simply mean a history of theology. The latter is, of course, a part of this but not absolutely or exclusively. In Patristic tradition, theologians are the God-seers. Saint Gregory Palamas calls Barlaam [who attempted to bring Western scholastic theology into the Orthodox Church] a "theologian," but he clearly emphasises that intellectual theology differs greatly from the experience of the vision of God. According to Saint Gregory Palamas theologians are the God-seers; those who have followed the "method" of the Church and have attained to perfect faith, to the illumination of the nous and to divinisation (theosis). Theology is the fruit of man's cure and the path which leads to cure and the acquisition of the knowledge of God.
Western theology, however, has differentiated itself from Eastern Orthodox theology. Instead of being therapeutic, it is more intellectual and emotional in character. In the West [after the Carolingian "Renaissance"], scholastic theology evolved, which is antithetical to the Orthodox Tradition. Western theology is based on rational thought whereas Orthodoxy is hesychastic. Scholastic theology tried to understand logically the Revelation of God and conform to philosophical methodology. Characteristic of such an approach is the saying of Anselm [Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093-1109, one of the first after the Norman Conquest and destruction of the Old English Orthodox Church]: "I believe so as to understand." The Scholastics acknowledged God at the outset and then endeavoured to prove His existence by logical arguments and rational categories. In the Orthodox Church, as expressed by the Holy Fathers, faith is God revealing Himself to man. We accept faith by hearing it not so that we can understand it rationally, but so that we can cleanse our hearts, attain to faith by theoria* and experience the Revelation of God.
See the "Salvage Yard" idea anywhere there, Tom? But the blind cannot lead the blind. Wounded healers HAVE to have some measure of healing themselves before they can truly be therapeutic to others. The work of theoria (inseparable from hesychia) is that healing. Heck, even the Orthodox themselves mourn over the fact that not many current bishops and priests even try to SEEK theoria anymore. (Something that got confirmed for me by Fr. Proctor when I went to go see him the other day, interestingly enough) See here.
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Basic prerequisites for ordination
It is certain that the apostles transmitted this priesthood of Christ through a definite sacrament called the Sacrament of Holy Orders. The Church also fixed the canonical prerequisites for anyone to receive this great grace and to exercise this highest function.
One such ordination is that of the deacons in the first Church of Jerusalem. After they chose the seven deacons, writes the Book of Acts, "they set them before the apostles, and when they had prayed they laid hands on them" (Acts 6,6). Here we have the laying on of hands and prayer. St. John Chrysostom, analysing this passage, writes: "He does not tell in what way it was done, but that they were ordained with prayer: for this is the meaning of the laying on of hands: the hand is laid upon the man, but the whole work is of God..." (17).
What must be noted in this case is that they were chosen by the whole body of Christians of the first Church. Several qualifications were set up. The basic qualification was that they had received the Holy Spirit. Concerning the choice of Stephen we read in the Acts of the Apostles: "They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit" (Acts 6,5). Thus they not only received the Holy Spirit at the time of ordination but they had the grace of the Holy Spirit.
Interpreting this, St. John Chrysostom says that he had the grace of the Holy Spirit "from the laver" of baptism. This grace alone was not enough, but ordination by the laying on of hands was also needed: "so that there was a further access of the Spirit" (18). He also says that Stephen received more grace than the other deacons: "For though the ordination was common to him and them, yet he drew upon himself greater grace" (19). This was due to his greater purity and the presence in him of the Holy Spirit.
This shows beyond doubt that the candidates for this great office of the priesthood do not simply wait for the day of their ordination in order to receive the Holy Spirit, but they must previously have opened themselves to the Holy Spirit.
The Church makes a great point of this. We also see this in the pastoral letters of the Apostle Paul. He writes to Timothy: "when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also" (2Tim.1,5). We know very well that the faith is not an abstract teaching, but it is an "understanding and vision of the heart", it is the life of the Holy Spirit in our soul.
The Apostle also writes to his disciple Timothy, whom he himself had ordained bishop: "Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery" (1Tim.4,14). Elsewhere he writes: "This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you..." (1Tim.1,18). St. Theophylaktos offers this interpretation: "The rank of the priesthood, which concerns the instruction and protection of the people, being great and high, requires that the candidate be given approval from above by God. For this reason also in olden times those who became priests and bishops did so by divine prophecies, that is to say, by the Holy Spirit" (20).
Much preparation and many prerequisites are involved in the selection of priests and bishops for that great office. The Apostle exhorts: "If a man is blameless" (Tit.1,6), let him be appointed priest or bishop. He also recommends that such a person should not be "a novice" (1Tim.3,6), not a novice because he must have previous spiritual experience and thus have been baptised to that great office, he must have purified himself, as we shall see later, and only then may he proceed to ordination.
Indeed St. John Chrysostom writes that a priest has to have more attentiveness and spiritual strength even than the hermits themselves. For if the hermits, who are freed from "the city, the market place and its people", are not secure in the spirit, how much more strength and vigour needs to be exercised by the priest in order to be able to "snatch his soul away from all infection and keep its spiritual beauty inviolate". That is why he affirms that the clergy who live in the world need even more purity than the monks (21).
This theme of safeguarding the purity of the priesthood will engage us later. Here we wish rather to emphasise the qualities which the Christian should have if he is to be ordained a priest. For if he himself has not been healed, how will he be able to heal the spiritually weak and sick?
Preparation for the priesthood is one of the dominant themes in the works of St. Symeon the New Theologian. Anyone who has not abandoned the world and been counted worthy to receive the Holy Spirit as were the holy Apostles, who has not undergone purification and illumination and been found worthy to "contemplate the unapproachable light", - "such a man would not dare to accept the priesthood and the authority over souls, or to push himself to accept such!" (22).
We find the same teaching in St. Theognostos. If the priest, he says, has "not been assured by the Holy Spirit" that he is an acceptable intermediary between God and man, he should not "presumptuously dare to celebrate the awesome and most holy mysteries" (23).
When ordination was imminent, the Fathers fled to the mountains, as we see in the life and teaching of St. Gregory the Theologian. In his "Defence of the Flight to Pontos" he seeks to defend this action, and says that no one can undertake to shepherd the spiritual flock unless he has previously become a temple of the living God, "a habitation of Christ in the Spirit", or unless he has traversed "by experience and contemplation" all the titles and powers of Christ, and learned the "hidden wisdom of God in a mystery", - that is to say if he is still a babe "fed with milk" (24).
Certainly the holy Fathers were not unaware of the fact that many were ordained without fulfilling these ideals and were neither purified nor healed. Therefore many of the ordinations originated "not from divine grace, but from human ambition" (25). And indeed it is a well known saying of St. John Chrysostom that "God does not ordain all, but He works through all" (26).
(Digression: Herein is my own personal conviction on the importance on hesychia and the Jesus Prayer that I've been on for some time now. I BELIEVE this. I didn't learn this in seminary...but I sure know it NOW. And God willing, I want to LIVE this. Otherwise, I don't see how I can be a preacher/minister in any real sense. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner! )
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Other stuff...back from the Vlachos page...
The Holy Fathers teach that natural and metaphysical categories do not exist but speak rather of the created and uncreated. Never did the Holy Fathers accept Aristotle's metaphysics. However, it is not my intent to expound further on this. Theologians of the West during the Middle Ages considered scholastic theology to be a further development of the teaching of the Holy Fathers, and from this point on, there begins the teaching of the Franks that scholastic theology is superior to that of the Holy Fathers. Consequently, Scholastics, who are occupied with reason, consider themselves superior to the Holy Fathers of the Church. They also believe that human knowledge, an offspring of reason, is loftier than Revelation and experience.
It is within this context that the conflict between Saint Gregory Palamas and Barlaam should be viewed. Barlaam was essentially a scholastic theologian who attempted to pass on scholastic theology to the Orthodox East.
Barlaam's views - that we cannot really know Who the Holy Spirit is exactly (an outgrowth of which is agnosticism), that the ancient Greek philosophers are superior to the Prophets and the Apostles (since reason is above the vision of the Apostles), that the light of the Transfiguration is something which is created and can be undone (OL's Note: HAYELL, NAW!!! ), that the hesychastic way of life (i.e. the purification of the heart and the unceasing noetic prayer) is not essential - are views which express a scholastic and, subsequently, a secularised point of view of theology. Saint Gregory Palamas foresaw the danger that these views held for Orthodoxy and through the power and energy of the Most Holy Spirit and the experience which he himself had acquired as a successor to the Holy Fathers, he confronted this great danger and preserved unadulterated the Orthodox Faith and Tradition.
This is where it gets straight up PRACTICAL for me, Tom. Any Christian spirituality that tries to MINIMIZE the significance of hesychia or the purification of the nous...I CANNOT get down with anymore.
Not.
At.
All.
What say you, Thomas?
Post Edited (One Love) : 1/13/2010 6:53:01 AM (GMT-6) |