Introduction

          In the early Church there was a tension in theology between the doctrine of the divine transcendence, that is, the idea that God stands wholly outside of His creation, and of God's immanence.  God is both sustainer and redeemer, and so, He pervades all of contingent reality through the out flowing of His uncreated Energies, and as a consequence, the world exists only in Him.  The full flowering of this doctrinal distinction occurred because of the 14th century controversies between St. Gregory Palamas and the Scholastic philosopher and theologian Barlaam of Calabria.  This theological tension had existed in the Eastern Church from the very beginning and influenced the development of Eastern Catholic theology to a greater degree than the theology of the Western Church, which was influenced more by the ideas of Augustine of Hippo.

          In the East the divine transcendence and the divine immanence were seen as a paradox, and both concepts were affirmed in an absolute way.  In reference to the divine transcendence the apophatic theology of neo-Platonism was one of the tools that was used, although greatly modified to a Christian purpose by the Church Fathers, in order to highlight the fact that God the Father; and later, after the Council of Nicaea, it is more precisely the Divine Essence that is held to be incomprehensible to the human mind, and thus God in essence always remains in a cloud of unknowing. [1]  At the same time the theologians of the East recognized that the divine immanence, which pervades every aspect of the created world as its cause and sustainer, was open to cataphatic description.   In fact, because of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, it became possible to understand in a positive theological sense the inner workings of God’s life, that is, of His personal relations and His uncreated Divine Energies or Operations.

          Clearly, from what has already been said, the uncreated Divine Energies in Eastern theology are seen as manifestations of God in the world, and like the Divine Essence they are transcendent, but unlike God’s Essence they are also immanent.  The Divine Essence and the Divine Energies are distinct, but they cannot be divided, because the Divine Essence is present as a whole within each of the Divine Energies.  At this point it is important to distinguish between the two ways in which God’s Energies flow into the created order:  firstly, His energies flow into creation as its cause and sustainer, and so, He in some sense fills the creation with His glory from the very beginning of time; and secondly, in addition to the causative and sustaining infusion of the Divine Energies, He also manifests Himself in creation through the incarnation of the Word.  In Eastern thought these two modes or ways of God’s relating to the created order are held to be in some way distinct from each other, and the latter mode is held to be the greater of the two because it does not simply sustain creation, but actually elevates the created order, and man in particular, to a real participation in the divine nature.  This second mode of God's being makes possible the deification of man and his adoption as a son of God in the Only Begotten Son of God.

          Creation is naturally external to God, but through the incarnation it is allowed to participate in God's life in a way that exceeds its own created capacities.  In making these distinctions the Fathers of the Church, particularly those in the East, and later the Palamite theologians, wanted to safeguard the transcendence of God as Creator of the universe, while simultaneously highlighting the fact that creation is constantly dependent upon the divine goodness and condescension for its continuation in being.  In other words, they wanted to recognize the divine power constantly sustaining creation, while also emphasizing the radical impact of the doctrine of the incarnation of the Word, and the effects resulting from the incarnation in relation to the created universe, and to man in particular.  It is in the incarnation that God radically associates Himself with His creation, and does so by entering into created reality in a definitive manner, in order to perfect it and elevate it into His own life and glory.

          This being said, I intend in the opening portion of this paper to focus on the three ways that man can know God, and which are broken down into the hoti esti (that), the ti esti (what), and the hopos esti (how) of His existence.  After examining the threefold nature of God's self-revelation, I will look at the concepts of the divine transcendence and the divine immanence, that is, at the relationship existing between the Creator and the created, and how this developed into the distinction in the East between the unknowable and inaccessible Divine Essence and the communicable uncreated Divine Energies.  To accomplish this task I will examine the views of St. Athanasius of Alexandria, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, the Cappadocians, the author of the Pseudo-Dionysian writings, and finally I will briefly look at the theology of St. Maximos the Confessor.

          The importance of this twofold distinction in theology, that is, between the Essence and the Energies, is ultimately centered on the Eastern Catholic doctrine of man’s deification by grace, and how, even after man is deified by grace he remains essentially distinct from God.  Finally, I will conclude the paper with a brief examination of the distinction within the uncreated Divine Energies, between those Energies that are unoriginate and those that are originate, and how this helps to defend God's immutability.  Thus the paper should move full circle and in the process show the interconnection between the various strands of the Church’s doctrinal tradition that emphasize the absolute transcendence of God, while simultaneously and paradoxically asserting His complete immanence in the created order.

How God Can Be Known   

          In order to comprehend the Eastern Christian position on the nature of God it is important to begin with an examination of the three ways or methods of knowing God and how each one of these ways is to be properly understood.  In the East, as exemplified in the theology of John Zizioulas, a theological distinction is made between the hoti esti, that is, the fact “that” God exists, and the ti esti, that is, the “what” of God’s existence, and finally the hopos esti, which concerns “how” God exists. [2]  As it concerns the first method or way of knowing God, the hoti esti of God’s existence, this is something that can be understood by man through the light of natural reason.  In other words, it is an experiential knowledge founded upon the created order and not upon the experience of God through the incarnation of the only begotten Son of God, and as a form of rational apprehension through abstraction it can be both apophatic and cataphatic. [3]  So, when a man looks at the created world around him, he can experience the manifestation of God through the uncreated energies present within the world, and in this way he can know "that" God exists, and this experiential knowledge involves a type of natural revelation through the created order, but it does not reveal "what" God is, or "how" God exists; instead, it simply tells him that there is a God.  This type of experiential knowledge is not dependent upon divine revelation in the proper sense of the term, although it is perfected by revelation, and so it is accessible to all men through the right use of their rational abilities.  As St. Gregory of Nyssa says, “. . . with regard to the Creator of the world, we know that He exists, but of His essential nature we cannot deny that we are ignorant.” [4]  This statement of St. Gregory’s leads us into the second of the three ways of knowing God, that is, to the ti esti of God’s existence.

          As indicated above, the ti esti or “what” of God’s existence concerns His Essence, and for the Eastern Fathers the Divine Essence always remains hidden from man in unapproachable light, so much so that the Divine Essence by its very nature is completely incomprehensible (akataleptos) and incommunicable, both at the level of natural knowledge and even with the assistance of divine revelation.  God is and remains totally unknowable and inaccessible in His Essence, because any communication of the Divine Essence to man would involve the annihilation of the human person through the destruction of the hetero-essentiality of God and man.  In reference to God’s Essence, theology is and always must be apophatic, that is, it must always focus on what God is not.  The apophatic nature of theology primarily focuses on the assertion that God is uncreated, because it is this truth that highlights the fact that God is essentially distinct from the world, and as a consequence, that His Essence is completely unknowable and wholly transcendent.

          Now, this focus on God as uncreated must not be thought of as an intellectual definition of what God is, because it in no way defines or illuminates the Divine Essence in itself; and this is because God is superessential, that is, He is beyond being and non-being, and our knowledge cannot move beyond our limited created abilities in order to grasp what being uncreated really entails.  The distinction made by Scholastic theologians between knowledge of God's Essence, albeit to a limited degree, and comprehension of His Essence, is not held to be a valid distinction in Eastern Catholic theology, because the Divine Essence, as both East and West agree, is wholly simple and indivisible, and so to know the Divine Essence in part would involve knowing it completely.  That is why even when we speak of the three Divine Persons (hypostases), or of their enactments of the Divine Essence through the enhypostatic uncreated Energies, we speak of each them as possessing the whole Divine Essence through the divine coinherence (perichoresis).  Thus, each of the Persons is wholly and completely God, just as each of the Divine Energies, which are the natural properties of the Divine Essence, are wholly and completely God, and this truth naturally leads us to the next way or manner of knowing God, that is, to the hopos esti of God’s being.

          The hopos esti or “how” of God’s existence centers on His inner hypostatic relations; in other words, it focuses on the mode of existence proper to God as Trinity of persons.  This type of knowledge involves the condescension of God in the incarnation, and the resulting revelation of the Father through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit.  The Son and the Spirit give man an experiential and personal communion in God’s inner life, but this communion must not be viewed as a type of definitional knowledge, nor as type of mental abstraction, because the vision of God is not so much a knowledge in the order of intellection as it is a communion or union with God through man's personal experience of the uncreated Divine Energies.  It is this energetic mode of being that allows man to come into contact with God in a personal manner through His enhypostatic energies, and in the process this participation elevates man into God's own uncreated life and glory, while at the same time God remains completely and utterly transcendent in His Essence.  The Father condescends to reveal the inner workings of the Triune life and glory through His Son in the power of the Holy Spirit, but in spite of this self-revelation on God’s part, He remains transcendent and incomprehensible (akataleptos), because even the hypostatic relations exceed the finite ability of man to comprehend them.  In other words, God does impart to man a real experience of His existence as the tri-hypostatic God, but the communion given, which is real, must not to be thought of as exhausting God's being, or even worse, as a simple intellectual vision and apprehension of what God is in Himself. [5]  Clearly then, through Christ’s incarnation man gains a real personal experiential communion in the “how” of God’s existence, and this opens up the possibility of cataphatic description, but this experiential communion does not do away with the essential mystery of God’s being in itself, and so the apophatic nature of Trinitarian theology must constantly be borne in mind.

Immanence and Transcendence

          In this part of the paper I will examine the teaching of some of the Eastern Fathers, focusing in particular on how they understood God's transcendence in relation to His Essence, and His immanence in relation to the uncreated Divine Energies that are His manifestations in the world.

St. Athanasius

          St. Athanasius, the great defender of Nicene orthodoxy against the Arians, focused all of his attention upon the distinction between the uncreated Creator and His creation.  The hetero-essentiality of God and the created world is the fundamental doctrinal presupposition underlying all of his thought, and that is why it is the key to understanding the distinction made by Eastern theologians between God’s Essence and His uncreated Energies.  In reference to this fundamental presupposition, Khaled Anatolios explains that for the defenders of Nicene orthodoxy, and in particular for St. Athanasius, the term homoousios was “. . . not to be understood so much as a positive statement telling us something about God’s being, but rather as a negative one, indicating what the Logos is not, namely a creature.” [6] Thus, it was meant to affirm in an absolute way that the Son, like the Father, is uncreated and is therefore wholly separate from creation.  Once this is understood it becomes possible to see that the error of the Arians was in failing to affirm that the Son is uncreated, and that His being co-essential with the Father was required if the incarnation was going to bridge the gulf existing between God and His creation.  Only if Christ is uncreated can He have the power, through the incarnation, to elevate man to a state of existence that is properly supernatural.

          In his polemical writings against the Arians, St. Athanasius, more than any of the early Fathers of the Church, was emphasizing the complete otherworldliness of the Son, that is, that the Son as Creator God is completely transcendent, and like the Father, is essentially separate from the world.  Through the incarnation the Son, as the uncreated Word of God, can bring about communion with the Father, because He brings together in one person the uncreated Creator and the creation.  He totally transcends the world in His divinity, and yet He makes divinity accessible to man by His assumption of human nature and the outflowing of the Divine Energies that that makes possible.  This act of condescension on the part of God was the necessary prerequisite to reestablishing communion between God and man, because for St. Athanasius, that which is higher must stoop down in order to lift up and perfect that which is lower. [7]

          This focus on the uncreated nature of the Word of God is the crux of the argument between St. Athanasius and the Arian heretics.  For St. Athanasius the Son in His essence is uncreated, while for the Arians the Son is not essentially uncreated, but is only the first born creature, the first created being and the cause of all other beings.  The Arians held that God the Father created the Son, and then through the Son He created the world.  But this is impossible from St. Athanasius' perspective, because only God, only that which is uncreated, can cause contingent beings to exist.  As Khaled Anatolios indicates, for St. Athanasius, ". . . the Son is proper to the Father, while all of creation is external to or from outside the Father." [8]   Thus, the Son as Creator must be co-essential with the Father, and like the Father the Son must be hetero-essential in relation to the world that He brings into existence.  The Son in His divinity stands outside the created world as its cause, only entering into it through the Divine Operations or Energies and ultimately through His assumption of human nature in the incarnation.

          St. Athanasius' theology of redemption is intimately connected with the distinction he makes between Christ's participation in the Essence (ousia) of the Father, and man's participation in God.  These two forms of participation are not only different in degree, but are substantially different; for the eternal Son participates in the Essence of the Father through generation, and that is why the Son is co-essential with Him; but man, as a created being, cannot participate in the Essence of the Father because all of created reality exists through an act of the Divine Will alone, thus it is not properly speaking a generation or emanation, but a creation from nothing.  Creation is and remains essentially external to God, and it is external ". . . in the sense that it participates in God from nothing; or, to say it another way, creaturely being is essentially a movement from nothing to God.  And it is this from nothing which renders creation's participation in God external to the Divine Essence." [9]  This distinction in St. Athanasius' thought must be kept in mind, because as he sees it, if man were to participate in the Divine Essence, it would imply that man is by nature divine and there would be no distinction between the Sonship of the Eternal Word of God and man's adoptive sonship through the Word made flesh.  In other words, for St. Athanasius the Son participates in the Father's Essence because the Son is proper to the Father's being, He is homoousios with the Father, while the created order participates in God in a very different way, precisely because it is created, and thus its ". . . participation in God amounts to the grace of deification," but even after creation is deified by grace, it is ". . . still by essence something other than that gift.  It is precisely with reference to this notion that we can understand how it is that creation is external to God." [10]  For St. Athanasius man's deification involves a real participation in God, but not in the Divine Essence, because deified man remains hetero-essential in relation to the Triune God.  Only the eternal Son of God participates in the Divine Essence, and that is why He is not a creature, but is instead the Creator of all that exists.

          In order to defend Christ's full divinity and humanity, St. Athanasius, like later Eastern theologians, makes a distinction between the Divine Essence and the Divine Energies or Operations.  Although clearly he does not use the terminology of later ages to convey this idea, nevertheless he does hold that man cannot participate in the Divine Essence, but can only participate in God through the Son and through those uncreated Energies or Operations of God that flow out from the Divine Essence.  For St. Athanasius God enters into the world through His Energies, that is, through His glory which manifests His presence in the world.  Thus, St. Athanasius sees God as totally transcendent in His Essence, but at the same time he holds that God is fully present in the world, and this presence can be seen when we look at the created world itself, for as St. Athanasius says, ". . . [God] is outside the universe in His essence, but in everything by His power — ordering everything and extending His providence over everything, enlivening all things, individually and collectively containing the universe and not being contained by it.” [11]

          Clearly, for St. Athanasius, God is inaccessible in His Essence, and yet, in His power He pervades all that exists.  This Athanasian distinction, between God’s Essence and His power or Energy, forms the basis of the later Eastern theology of the incomprehensible Divine Essence and the communicable uncreated Divine Energies; but it is important to keep in mind that St. Athanasius is not the only Church Father to make this distinction, and in fact, this doctrinal presupposition was common to the East in general.  Now in order to flesh out this distinction between the uncreated Creator and His creation and how this developed into the doctrine of the distinction between the Divine Essence and the uncreated Divine Energies it will be necessary to look at the writings of some of the other Fathers.

St. Irenaeus

          In the late 2nd century St. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote his five books against the Gnostic heretics and it was in those books that he explained the problems inherent within the Gnostic systems of thought, which tended to be dualist in nature, and then he expounded on the true understanding of Christian doctrine and the relationship between God and the created world.  It is in the last three books of that work that St. Irenaeus focused his attention on the true nature of the Christian doctrines of creation and redemption, and made a distinction between the uncreated Creator and creation.  In other words, he tried to explain how God remains totally and essentially distinct from His creation, while at the same time He also enters into it, both to cause and sustain it in the first place, and through the incarnation to redeem and elevate it to a new order of existence.

          St. Irenaeus, like the theologians who followed in his footsteps, was concerned about protecting God’s essential difference from the created order, while at the same time making man’s participation in the Divine Nature something real and not simply metaphorical.  To do this he distinguished between God’s grandeur, which he held was incommunicable and incomprehensible, and His power, that is, the Son and the Spirit, along with the Divine Operations, which although they are transcendent, are also immanent, because they enter into contact with man and empower him to participate in God’s life.  St. Irenaeus sees the Father as totally transcendent and invisible, but holds that He can be seen through the Son and the Spirit, who together with the Father are the divine principle of creation, for they were always with the Father and it is through them that “He made all things.” [12]

          For St. Irenaeus the divine transcendence can only be bridged by the incarnation of the Word of God, who as the only begotten Son of God is the image of the invisible Father, and the source of all divine knowledge.  The Son becomes the One Man who takes into Himself all men in order that what was torn asunder and deformed by the first man, could be remembered and restored in the New Man.  In committing the original sin the first Adam had failed to protect and maintain the divine likeness given to him by God as a share in the divine life, and in this way he had deformed and disfigured the divine likeness bestowed on him at creation.  This likeness to God is a participation in the Divine life and energy, and is not natural to man, but was a superadded grace given to him contingently.  In failing to pass the test, this sanctifying grace was lost and in the process man’s likeness to God was lost as well.  Through the incarnation of the Son of God the likeness to God destroyed by sin is restored and in the process human nature is perfected. [13]

          In order to participate in this restoration of humanity, man must be regenerated through the sacrament of baptism, which incorporates him into Christ’s Body.  In this way all men become One Man in Christ Jesus and the divine likeness shines forth anew as man shares in the life of God.  This sharing in the power and glory of God is deepened and sustained by the reception of the Holy Eucharist, the sacrament of sacraments, through which man’s incorporation and assimilation into Christ is strengthened and gulf existing between uncreated and created being is overcome.  This bridging of the gap between man and God does not entail an essential identification of man with God, but involves a real participation in God's own glory, while He remains essentially other than the world.  In other words, deification does not involve a confusion of natures, but involves the elevation of human nature to a principle of existence that is truly supernatural, and yet without destroying man's nature in the process.

The Cappadocians

          In St. Basil's letter to Eustathius he makes a distinction between the unknowable Essence of God and His manifestations or Operations in the world.  The former is completely inaccessible to man, while the latter, which are His energetic or active manifestations in the world, are communicable and accessible to man.  As he puts it:

          If it were indeed possible for the divine nature to be contemplated in

          itself; could what is proper to it and what is foreign to it be discovered

          by means of visible things; we should then certainly stand in no need of

          words or other tokens to lead us to the apprehension of the object of the

          enquiry.  But the divine nature is too exalted to be perceived as objects

          of enquiry are perceived, and about things which are beyond our

          knowledge we reason on probable evidence.  We are therefore of

          necessity guided in the investigation of the divine nature by its     

          operations. [14]

What St. Basil is saying here is that the Divine Essence, that is, what God is in Himself, exceeds the human intellect so completely, that it cannot be known by man.  The Divine Nature is not even an object of investigation for man because it is by definition incomprehensible and infinite.  It is the Operations or Energies of God that reveal God to man, and not the Essence.  He goes on to explain that there is ". . . a distinction to be observed between the essence, of which no explanatory term has yet been discovered, and the meaning of the names applied to it in reference to some operation or dignity." [15]

          This same ignorance of the Divine Essence is found in the writings of St. Gregory of Nyssa.  St. Gregory, like St. Basil, sees the Divine Essence as completely transcendent and unknowable but holds that the Divine Operations are accessible to man, for ". . . He who is invisible by nature becomes visible by His energeiai, appearing to us in the particular surroundings of His nature." [16]  Thus, following in the Eastern tradition of distinguishing between the hoti esti and the ti esti of God's existence, St. Gregory of Nyssa holds that God's existence itself is knowable, but that what God is in His Essence, is completely transcendent and unknowable.  St. Gregory of Nazianzen in his orations against the Eunomians also distinguishes between the fact that God's existence can be known, and the fact that His Essence remains incomprehensible at the same time, as he explains:

          Now our very eyes and the Law of Nature teach us that God exists

          and that He is the Efficient and Maintaining Cause of all things: our

          eyes, because they fall on visible objects, and see them in beautiful

          stability and progress, immovably moving and revolving if I may so say;

          natural Law, because through these visible things and their order, it

          reasons back to their Author.  For how could this Universe have come

          into being or been put together, unless God had called it into existence,

          and held it together?  And thus to us also is manifested That which

          made and moves and preserves all created things, even though He be

          not comprehended by the mind. [17]

Clearly, he holds that man can only see the glory of God, that is, the outward manifestation of the divine in the world, but that he cannot see God's essential nature. [18]

          In fact for St. Gregory Nazianzen the idea of comprehending God at all is anathema, as he says:

          [I]n my opinion it is impossible to express Him, and yet more impossible

          to conceive Him.  For that which may be conceived may perhaps be

          made clear by language, if not fairly well, at any rate imperfectly, to any

          one who is not quite deprived of his hearing, or slothful of understanding.

          But to comprehend the whole of so great a Subject as this is quite

          impossible and impracticable, not merely to the utterly careless and

          ignorant, but even to those who are highly exalted, and who love God,

          and in like manner to every created nature. [19]

The idea that a created being can comprehend the Divine Essence is foreign to the Cappadocians; because for them the Essence of God is inaccessible to man, while His manifestations in the world are what are visible and communicable.

Pseudo-Dionysios the Areopagite

          In looking at the writings of Pseudo-Dionysios the Areopagite, some theologians, especially those in the West, have thought that his writings were a return in Christian theology to neo-Platonism and the speculations of Plotinus, but as Lossky points out in his book, this involves a failure to make distinctions between the two systems.  The author of the Pseudo-Dionysian writings is clearly familiar with neo-Platonism and he does use its terminology, but he radically alters its perspective on the divine.  The Pseudo-Dionysian focus is not on the "One" as a unity beyond all distinction; quite the contrary, the primary focus of Pseudo-Dionysios is on the "One" who is a Trinity of persons.  God the Holy Trinity is beyond all being, but this does not involve the destruction of multiplicity, rather it entails the taking up of multiplicity into unity.  It is through these distinctions that God ". . . makes Himself known . . . outside His nature — outside the secret residence enveloped in darkness and ignorance," for it is only "by proceeding outside of Himself in processions or powers which are His manifestations" that man can participate in the divine and thus receive His life and energy. [20]

          Thus, for Pseudo-Dionysios union with God is thought of as being entirely in God, and must not be thought of as a type of intellectual or definitional knowledge of the divine, that is, it must not be conceived of as a type of gnosis, because it actually concerns ignorance of the Divine Essence, and so it is by definition apophatic and not cataphatic.  To be united to God is to exist in the darkness of God.  In other words, man is deified through the indwelling power of the Holy Trinity, and not by knowledge of the inaccessible Divine Essence.  For Pseudo-Dionysios there is no way to know God's Essence because God is more than His being, He is beyond being, and this means that ". . . He is superior to all oppositions between being and non-being." [21]  God's Essence is beyond any type of human comprehension, because it is indivisible by its very nature, and so it cannot be comprehended by a created intellect either in part or as a whole.

St. Maximos the Confessor

          St. Maximos the Confessor also holds that man cannot know the Divine Essence, because it is completely transcendent and exceeds any type of comprehension on the part of man.  As he explains, "We do not know God from His essence.  We know Him rather from the grandeur of His creation and from His providential care for all creatures.  For through these, as though they were mirrors, we may attain insight into His infinite goodness, wisdom and power." [22]  In other words, it is in God's works, which come into existence through His Divine Operations that we come to know God.  In fact the idea of knowing God is itself something that St. Maximos describes in a rather interesting manner, because as he sees it, true knowledge of God comes from recognizing the fact that one cannot have knowledge of God. [23]  Once again there is a distinction between that unknowable Essence of God and His knowable Attributes or Operations, for "Divinity and divine realities are in some respects knowable and in some respects unknowable.  They are knowable in the contemplation of what appertains to God's Essence, and unknowable as regards that essence itself." [24]  St. Maximos affirms the same theological distinction made by St. Basil in his letter to Eustathius, but with even greater precision.

          As far as it concerns man's deification, St. Maximos goes so far as to assert that in some way man, by participating in the uncreated Operations of God, also participates in God's eternity:

          Natures endowed with intelligence and intellect participate in God

          through their very being, through their capacity for well-being, that is

          for goodness and wisdom, and through the grace gives them eternal

          being.  This, then, is how they know God.  They know God's creation,

          as we have said, by apprehending the harmonious wisdom to be

          contemplated in it.  This wisdom is apprehended by the intellect in a

          non-material way, and has no independent existence of its own. [25]

St. Maximos does not clarify exactly what he means by this, but it appears that for him man's participation in the uncreated Energies involves some kind of communication of the natural properties of the Divinity to man, even though deified man remains hetero-essential to God's being even after deification.  This sharing in the properties or qualities of Divinity may be related to the interchange of properties involved in the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum in connection with the assumption of human nature by the Divine Person of the Word, and it should be pointed out that this idea is not peculiar to St. Maximos, because Pope St. Gregory the Great also applied the Christological doctrine of the communication of properties to the Church as a whole in his response to a question sent to him by Eulogius, the Patriarch of Constantinople.  In that letter Pope St. Gregory said, ". . . concerning what is written, 'That the day and hour neither the Son nor the angels know' (Mark xiii. 32), your Holiness has quite rightly perceived that this is most certainly to be referred, not to the said Son with respect to His being the Head, but with respect to His body, which we are." [26]  So it is possible that St. Maximos means what he is saying in respect to man's participation in God's eternity in a similar sense, because the Energies are the enactments of the Divine Essence by the three Divine Persons, but unlike the Essence or the personal subsistence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the uncreated Energies are communicable and can be poured out upon man.

A Summary of the Eastern Patristical Sources Presented

          In the theology of the Eastern Fathers it is the incarnation of the Word that brings man into contact with God in a definitive manner, but this does not involve a participation of man in the Divine Essence, because that would not be adoptive sonship; instead, that would involve man's absorption into God, and that clearly is not what deification is about.  In addition, the distinction between the Essence and the Energies of God is no more of a problem than the distinction made between the persons of the Trinity, for just as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are distinct from each other and yet are not separated from each other, so too the Divine Essence is distinct from the Divine Energies, but simultaneously the whole of the Divine Essence is contained within each Energy.

          Ultimately, the Eastern Church makes this distinction in order to protect God's transcendence while simultaneously asserting His immanence within the created world.  For the Divine Essence is the mode of God's being within Himself, while the uncreated Divine Energies are the mode of God's existence outside Himself.  The Divine Energies are the outward manifestation of God's glory, both after creation, but even prior to creation, because He possesses His glory from all eternity.  The uncreated Divine Energies are the mode of God's being that comes into contact with man, and which by entering into man, deifies him, giving him an existence that exceeds his nature, and which is truly supernatural.  As Lossky says, "By calling Him God, Life, Substance, we mean the deifying, vivifying, substantiating powers by which God communicates Himself while still remaining incommunicable by nature, and makes Himself known while still remaining unknowable in His essence." [27]  Just as the Trinitarian distinctions in the Godhead imply no separation or division in God, so too the distinction between the Divine Essence and the uncreated Divine Energies implies no separation or division in the Godhead, for the Divine Essence is wholly simple and indivisible.

The Uncreated Energies: Originate and Unoriginate

          In this last section of the paper, which I must leave open to further revision as I continue my investigation of this topic, I will briefly touch on the theology of St. Gregory Palamas who in the Eastern Catholic tradition is held to be the man who gave final terminological precision to the understanding of how men ". . . become partakers of the Divine Nature," through the uncreated Divine Energies. [28]  It should be noted that the Western theological tradition since the Scholastic period has never accepted the distinction between the Divine Essence and the Divine Energies, because it views the distinction as in some sense compromising the unity and simplicity of God; but this viewpoint follows from a misreading of the Palamite tradition, which holds that the distinction between the Divine Essence and God's Energies is not a separation or division in God, but a way of understanding how God exists in Himself and how He exists outside Himself.

          The Scholastic theologians of the 14th and succeeding centuries thought that Palamite theology was in some way making the uncreated Energies of God into another person in the Trinity, and thus from their perspective they thought that Gregory had fallen into a form of polytheism, but this is clearly not the case.  What Gregory did, was to distinguish in God between His Essence, i.e., the inner nature of God, and His Energies, i.e., His Operations or Attributes. [29]

          As Palamas says, the Divine Essence possesses ". . . the faculties of knowing, of prescience, of creating, of embracing all things in itself; . . . the power of deification, and, in a word, all such faculties." [30]  But as Gregory goes on to point out, although the whole of the Divine Essence is in each Energy or Operation, no one Energy can exhaust the Divine Essence.  So, as he sees it, there must be a distinction between the Divine Essence, which is wholly transcendent and incommunicable, and the Divine Energies, which are transcendent and incomprehensible, while they are simultaneously immanent and communicable, because they are the manifestations of the divine in the world.  He unequivocally affirms that both the Divine Essence and the Divine Energies are uncreated; and that the Divine Essence, and many of the Divine Energies are unoriginate, although he does accept that some of the uncreated Divine Energies are originate in that they came into being in time, and some of the uncreated Divine Energies will even cease to exist.  The fact that some of the Divine Energies are originate and possess only a limited temporal duration is one of the proofs that Palamas gives for why there must be a distinction in God between His Essence and His Energies or Operations.

          Palamas explains that many of the Energies as natural properties of God are both uncreated and unoriginate, while others are uncreated and yet originate, at least as it concerns their manifestation (phanerosis). [31]  A few examples of unoriginate Energies that he enumerates are things like; the will of God, His foreknowledge, and His self-contemplation.  As he says, ". . . was there ever a moment when God began to be moved toward contemplation of Himself?  Never!" [32]  But he then points out that in God's relationship to the created world, there are certain uncreated Energies which are not unoriginate, an example being God's creative power itself, which only flows out from Him when He begins to create.  Some of the Divine Energies (even some that are unoriginate) will cease to exist at some point, again — as indicated above — at the level of manifestation (kata ten phanerosin); [33] an example of this being God's prescience (i.e., His foreknowledge), because once the new eternal age arrives and temporal duration ends the manifestation (phanerosis) of this unoriginate property will end as well since there will be no new events in eternity.

          If one identifies the Divine Energies with the Divine Essence, as is common in the West, it becomes problematic for theology because one must ultimately deny that God is essentially immutable.  But if God's Essence and His Energies are distinct, but without admitting a division in God, this problem fades away.  So it would be erroneous to confuse the Divine Essence with the uncreated Divine Energies, even though the Energies are themselves essential Operations of God, and even though the Divine Essence is present as a whole in each of the Energies.  The Energies are, to put it simply, a mode of being of the Divine Essence.  Gregory also states that the Divine Essence is the source (but not in a temporal sense) of the uncreated Energies, whether originate or unoriginate, and this is why even though they are distinct from God's Essence they are still essential to His nature and cannot be thought of as separate from Him.  In other words, one can admit a distinction between the Divine Essence and the Divine Energies, but one can never admit a division or separation between them.

          What Palamas asserts in reference to deification is that man is not deified by participating in the Divine Essence, because God is ultimately superessential, and is thus beyond being, and so as far as this is concerned, God's essence is beyond any possibility of the creatures comprehension or participation. [34]  In fact if man were to participate in the Divine Essence it would involve his annihilation because the Divine Essence is indivisible and so one cannot participate in it in part, but only in full, and this would involve the destruction of man's individuality.  Thus, it is only at the level of the Energy of God that man can actually participate in divinity.  God in His superessentiality remains beyond man, beyond his comprehension, but God does infuse His Energies into man and these Energies are an uncreated quality that is essential to God Himself.  Gregory is asserting something that seems paradoxical, because he is saying that God is utterly transcendent in His Essence; and yet, in His Energies, which are truly divine and in which the whole of God's Essence is in some sense present, He is really immanent.  So, as Gregory sees it, man is not brought into contact with the Essence of God by being deified; instead, man is infused with the Divine Energies, and so he really participates in the divine glory without being absorbed by it.

Conclusion

          The idea that the beatific vision involves man’s seeing God in His Essence entails an intrinsic contradiction, that is, the idea that one can know the indivisible Divine Essence in part; but this of course is not possible, for to know the Divine Essence would involve knowing it completely, since it is wholly simple and cannot be divided into parts.  In the Eastern tradition, if a man were to see the Divine Essence it would necessitate his annihilation, and not his deification, because it would involve the total destruction of man’s hetero-essentiality in relation to God; or worse than this, it would involve the addition of human hypostases to the Trinity, which destroys God's immutability.  Eastern Catholic thought holds that the process of man’s deification does not remove the essential distinction between the uncreated Creator and His creation; instead, the distinction between the uncreated and the created remains, and is in fact completely insurmountable at the level of essence.

          The gulf between God and man can only be overcome by a participation in the uncreated Divine Energies that flow out from the Divine Essence, and which really do impart to man a share in the divine life.  Clearly then, the Divine Energies as the natural properties of the Divine Essence, are distinct from the Essence but not separated or divided from it.  They are the personal (enhypostatic) manifestations and operations of the three Divine Hypostases as their connatural acts.  In addition, the Trinitarian nature of Christian faith presupposes the primacy of the Divine Persons in theology over any theology of the Divine Essence, for it is precisely God’s Triune life that Christ came to reveal to man in the incarnation, and not God's Essence.  In order for man's deification to be more than a simple metaphor, it is necessary to posit a distinction between the Divine Essence and the uncreated Divine Energies, and to hold that the Divine Energies as the enhypostatic operations of the three Divine Persons, that is, as their visible and accessible manifestations and actions in the world, are what empower man to participate in God's life and glory.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Works Cited:

Books:

Khaled Anatolios.  Athanasius:  The coherence of his Thought.  (London:  Routledge, 1998).

Vladimir Lossky.  The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church.  (Crestwood, NY:  St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1998).

Vladimir Lossky.  The Vision of God.  (Crestwood, NY:  St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1983).

St. Gregory Palamas.  The Triads.  The Classics of Western Spirituality.  Translated by Nicolas Gendle.  (New York:  Paulist Press, 1987).

G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, Kallistos Ware (Editors).  The Philokalia:  The Complete Text compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth.  (Boston:  Faber and Faber, 1984).  4 Volumes.

Alexander Roberts (Editor).  Ante-Nicene Fathers.  (Peabody:  Hendrickson Publishers, 1994).  10 Volumes.

Philip Schaff (Editor).  The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers.  (Peabody:  Hendrickson Publishers, 1994).  28 Volumes.

Journal Articles:

Aristotle Papanikolaou.  "Divine Energies or Divine Personhood:  Vladimir Lossky and John Zizioulas on Conceiving the Transcendent and Immanent God."  Modern Theology 19:3 (July 2003):  pages 357-385.

Christos Yannaras.  "The Distinction Between Essence and Energies and its Importance for Theology," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 19 (1975):  pages 232-245; the online version of this article can be found at:  http://www.geocities.com/trvalentine/orthodox/yannaras.html.

Works Consulted:

Books:

Jean Cardinal Danielou.  From Glory to Glory:  Texts from Gregory of Nyssa's Mystical Writings.  (New York:  Charles Scribner's Sons, 1961).

Tikhon Pino.  Essence and Energies:  Being and Naming God in St. Gregory Palamas.  (London and New York:  Routledge, 2023)

Dumitru Staniloae.  Orthodox Dogmatic Theology:  The Experience of God.  (Brookline, MA:  Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2000).  2 Volumes.

John Zizioulas.  Being as Communion.  (Crestwood, NY:  St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2002).

Biblical Translation:

The Bible:  Revised Standard Version.  (New York:  American Bible Society, 1971).  

Abbreviations used in citations for some multi-volume works:

          ANF:  Ante-Nicene Fathers

          NPNF:  Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers

Steven Todd Kaster

Franciscan University of Steubenville

Theology 603:  Historical Foundations

Dr. Stephen Hildebrand

27 April 2004 (the most recent revision of this paper was completed on 17 March 2024)

_____________________________________

End Notes:

[1]  See Christos Yannaras, "The Distinction Between Essence and Energies and its Importance for Theology," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 19 (1975):  pages 232-245; the online version of this article can be found at:   http://www.geocities.com/trvalentine/orthodox/yannaras.html.  To reduce the Divine Essence to something comprehensible, even if only in part, which itself is a problematic idea, reduces God's Essence to something abstract and definitional, and as Christos Yannaras puts it, ". . . the rejection of the distinction between essence and energy means exclusion of catholic-personal experience and priority of the intellect as the way of knowledge, reducing truth to a coincidence of thought with the object of thought (adaequatio rei et intellectus), an understanding of nature and person as definitions resulting from rational abstraction:  the persons have the character of relations within the essence, relations which do not characterize the persons but are identified with the persons in order to serve the logical necessity of the simplicity of the essence.  Thus, finally, God is accessible only as essence, i.e., only as an object of rational search, as the necessary first mover who is unmoved, that is pure energy, and whose existence must be identified with the self-realization of the essence.  The world is the result of the first mover, even as the grace of God is the result of divine essence.  The only relation of the world with God is the connection of cause and effect, a connection that organically disengages God from the world:  the world is made autonomous and subjected to intellectual objectification and to (useful) expediency."  Clearly, this way of seeing God reduces Him to His Essence, and means that He really cannot have any contact with His creation, because the created world is by definition hetero-essential in relation to Him; and as a result, He only comes into contact with it through various created effects.  Thus, for those who refuse to make a distinction, without a separation, between the Divine Essence and the uncreated Divine Energies, ". . . God is defined only in terms of His essence; whatever is not essence does not belong to God; it is a creature of God, the result of the divine essence.  Consequently, the energies of God are either identified with essence, which is active (actus purus), or else any external manifestation of theirs is regarded as necessarily hetero-essential, i.e., a created result of the divine cause," and as Yannaras goes on to point out, "This means that, in the final analysis, the theosis of man, his participation in the divine life, is impossible, since even grace, the sanctifier of the saints, is itself an effect, a result of the divine essence.  It is created, even though supernatural, as western theologians have rather arbitrarily defined it since the ninth century."  To hold that created realities can bridge the gap between the uncreated God and His creation is to fall back into a form of Arianism, which held that the Son Himself was created.  The only difference between Arianism and the more modern idea of created grace, is that the Son is affirmed as co-essential with the Father and thus He is uncreated, but the grace that He bestows is somehow held to be a created reality; and so once again, like the Arians, it is a created being or substance that acts as the intermediary between God and man, and man's deification becomes impossible because a created reality simply cannot deify man.

[2]  See Aristotle Papanikolaou, "Divine Energies or Divine Personhood:  Vladimir Lossky and John Zizioulas on Conceiving the Transcendent and Immanent God," Modern Theology 19:3 (July 2003):  pages 373-378.

[3]  Apophasis involves negation, i.e., saying what God is not, in order to gain a deeper grasp of the incomprehensibility (akataleptos) of God; while cataphasis involves making positive assertions about God, based on the relative perfections found within the natural world, and which ultimately posit the existence of an absolute perfection.

[4]  Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), Series 2, Volume 5, page 257.

[5]  See Yannaras, "The Distinction Between Essence and Energies and its Importance for Theology," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 19 (1975):  pages 232-245.  The Scholastic reduction of the vision of God and the process of deification itself to an act of intellection is problematic, because "The first foundation of the truth of God is not achieved through the experience of the Church, which is an experience of personal relationship with the person of the Incarnate Logos, a relationship which is realized in the Holy Spirit and which reveals the Logos as witnessing to the Father.  Rather, this first foundation is entirely anthropocentric, with an intellectual leap seeking to understand the divine essence in itself, its attributes and its objective relationships.  And this rationalistic conception of essence not only obliges one to an ontic understanding of essence which overlooks the mode of being of the essence, but also leads by logical necessity either to the identification of essence and energy or to the essential separation of nature from the energies.  The problematic of energy is reduced to a procedure of logical proof which refers the mystery of divine existence to the syllogistically necessary idea of a creating and moving cause of creation or a causal grace (causalité de Grâce) which contributes to the moral improvement of man," but which fails to truly deify him ontologically; instead, it reduces deification to a human act of intellect and will.

[6]  Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius:  The coherence of his Thought, (London:  Routledge, 1998), page 96.

[7]  See Khaled Anatolios, page 130.  Khaled Anatolios points out that for St. Athanasius the incarnation is a necessity, not in the sense that God needs it, but in the sense that creation needs it.  A simple act of the Divine Will would not heal the already existing creation, but would in some sense bypass or destroy it in favor of a new creation essentially different than that in existence now, and so to redeem this creation it is necessary that God Himself enter into it in order to restore it.  As Anatolios says, "When creation did not exist, God brought it into being by a mere nod and an act of the will.  But having come into being, it was fitting that God should redeem creation by a direct interaction with it."  He then quotes a statement made by St. Athanasius in the treatise De Incarnatione:  "'In the beginning, when nothing existed at all, only a nod and an act of the will were needed for the creation of the universe.  But when humanity had been made and what needed healing was not the non-existent, but what had come into being, the healer and the Saviour had to come among those who had already been created to cure what existed," Khaled Anatolios then adds, "This is actually an intriguing argument insofar as it suggests that creation's very being renders inappropriate a redemption by fiat, which is conceived as a redemption ex nihilo.  In other words, God's way of redeeming creation takes seriously creation's being already in existence, and relates to it by interacting with it as something already existing, rather than simply creating its redemption from nothing."  For St. Athanasius redemption is not merely the forgiveness of sins, but involves the union of created being with the uncreated Creator.

[8]  Khaled Anatolios, page 102.

[9]  Khaled Anatolios, page 108.

[10]  Khaled Anatolios, page 108.

[11]  Khaled Anatolios, page 77.

[12]  Khaled Anatolios, page 22; cf., Alexander Roberts (Editor), Ante-Nicene Fathers, (Peabody, MA:  Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), Volume 1, page 488.

[13]  Alexander Roberts, ANF, Volume 1, page 532.  St. Irenaeus' anthropology sees the fall of man as the loss of the indwelling divine Spirit, and thus for him redemption involves the restoration of the indwelling of God, which in the process restores man to God's likeness.  As he explains:  ". . . when the Spirit here blended with the soul is united to [God's] handiwork, the man is rendered spiritual and perfect because of the outpouring of the Spirit, and this is he who was made in the image and likeness of God.  But if the Spirit be wanting to the soul, he who is such is indeed of an animal nature, and being left carnal, shall be an imperfect being, possessing indeed the image [of God] in his formation (in plasmate), but not receiving the similitude through the Spirit; and thus is this being imperfect."

[14]  Philip Schaff, NPNF, Series 2, Volume 8, page 231.

[15]  Philip Schaff, NPNF, Series 2, Volume 8, page 231

[16]  Vladimir Lossky, The Vision of God, (Crestwood, NY:  St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1983), page 85.  This is a quotation from St. Gregory of Nyssa's "6th Homily on the Beatitudes."

[17]  Philip Schaff, NPNF, Series 2, Volume 7, page 290.

[18]  See Philip Schaff, NPNF, Series 2, Volume 7, page 289.  In his 28th Oration St. Gregory Nazianzen speaks about what true contemplation and theology involve and what is revealed to man in the process.  In the Oration he points out that it is not God in His Essence that is revealed, but the glory or manifestation of God that man sees, as he says:  "I was running to lay hold on God, and thus I went up into the Mount, and drew aside the curtain of the Cloud, and entered away from matter and material things, and as far as I could I withdrew within myself.  And then when I looked up, I scarce saw the back parts of God; although I was sheltered by the Rock, the Word that was made flesh for us.  And when I looked a little closer, I saw, not the First and unmingled Nature, known to Itself — to the Trinity, I mean; not That which abideth within the first veil, and is hidden by the Cherubim; but only that Nature, which at last even reaches to us.  And that is, as far as I can learn, the Majesty, or as holy David calls it, the Glory which is manifested among the creatures, which It has produced and governs.  For these are the Back Parts of God, which He leaves behind Him, as tokens of Himself like the shadows and reflection of the sun in the water, which show the sun to our weak eyes, because we cannot look at the sun himself, for by his unmixed light he is too strong for our power of perception.  In this way then shalt thou discourse of God; even wert thou a Moses and a god to Pharaoh; even wert thou caught up like Paul to the Third Heaven, and hadst heard unspeakable words; even wert thou raised above them both, and exalted to Angelic or Archangelic place and dignity.  For though a thing be all heavenly, or above heaven, and far higher in nature and nearer to God than we, yet it is farther distant from God, and from the complete comprehension of His Nature, than it is lifted above our complex and lowly and earthward sinking composition."  Thus, it is not God's Essence that man sees in seeing God, but is the uncreated glory of God which shines out from His Essence and which pervades all of creation with His light.

[19]  Philip Schaff, NPNF, Series 2, Volume 7, pages 289-290.

[20]  Vladimir Lossky, The Vision of God, pages 123-124.

[21]  Vladimir Lossky, The Vision of God, page 123.

[22]  G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, Kallistos Ware (Editors), The Philokalia:  The Complete Text compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth, (Boston:  Faber and Faber, 1984), Volume 2, page 64.

[23]  G. E. H. Palmer, The Philokalia, Volume 2, page 64.   As he says, "When the intellect is established in God, it at first ardently longs to discover the principles of His essence.  But God's inmost nature does not admit of such investigation, which is indeed beyond the capacity of everything created.  The qualities that appertain to His nature, however, are accessible to the intellect's longing; I mean the qualities of eternity, infinity, indeterminateness, goodness, wisdom, and the power of creating, preserving and judging creatures.  Yet of these, only infinity may be grasped fully; and the very fact of knowing nothing is knowledge surpassing the intellect, as the theologians Gregory of Nazianzos and Dionysios have said."  From this it is clear that God's Essence remains unknown to man, because he cannot participate in the Essence of God; instead, man knows and participates in the qualities of God, that is, he participates in Divine Energies or Operations; and it is in recognizing that one does not know the Essence of God that one experiences a real participation in God that exceeds the powers of the intellect.

[24]  G. E. H. Palmer, The Philokalia, Volume 2, page 101.

[25]  G. E. H. Palmer, The Philokalia, Volume 2. page 86.

[26]  Philip Schaff, NPNF, Series 2, Volume 13, page 48.

[27]  Vladimir Lossky, The Vision of God, page 101.

[28]  2nd Peter 1:4.

[29]  See Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, (Crestwood, NY:  St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1998), page 80.  As Lossky indicates:  "One may say, to use a common expression, that the Energies are attributes of God; provided, that is, that one remembers that these dynamic and concrete attributes, have nothing in common with the concept-attributes with which God is credited in the abstract and sterile theology of the manuals."

[30]  St. Gregory Palamas, The Triads, The Classics of Western Spirituality, Translated by Nicolas Gendle, (New York:  Paulist Press, 1987), page 93.

[31]  Palamas does not say that the divine energy per se, that is, in itself, begins and ends; rather, he asserts that its manifestation (phanerosis) can have a beginning or an end, for as he explains in his treatise against Akindynos:  "The essence of the Spirit is completely hidden, while the energy of the divine Spirit, manifested (φανερουμένη) through its effects, begins and ceases at the level of manifestation (κατὰ τὴν φανέρωσιν), without the creatures, as we have said, attaining to eternality.  [. . .]  But the energy of God does not, for this reason, begin and cease unqualifiedly (πάντως).  For God, who is always active, has an unceasing (ἄπαυστον) energy, ever seeing all things and providing for all things.  For my Father until now is working, and I am working (John 5:17)."  See the Antirrhetics against Akindynos 6.21.78, (A. Kontogiannes and B. Phanourgakes, editors, PS 3:35–506); this quotation is taken from the book by Tikhon Pino entitled, Essence and Energies:  Being and Naming God in St. Gregory Palamas, (London and New York:  Routledge, 2023), page 89.  Moreover, St. Gregory Palamas, somewhat earlier in his Antirrhetics against Akindynos, further clarified what he meant when he spoke about the divine energies being manifested, because when recounting some of Christ's miracles in the Gospels he explained:  "For giving life (τὸ ζωοποιεῖν) started and stopped when the child came back to life (Matthew 9:25), but giving life is not for that reason a created energy of God.  And the paralytic, having received remission of sins (Matthew 9:2), no longer had need, for that purpose, of that which brought this about (τοῦ ἐνεργοῦντος).  For in such things, starting and stopping belongs to manifestation (τῆς φανερώσεως), but not the energy itself, which is a divine power manifested through creatures (without the latter attaining to eternality), for the power is effortless (ἀκάματος)."  See the Antirrhetics against Akindynos 6.20.75, (A. Kontogiannes and B. Phanourgakes, editors, PS 3:442.29–443.6); quotation taken from Tikhon Pino, page 92.

[32]  St. Gregory Palamas, The Triads, The Classics of Western Spirituality, Translated by Nicolas Gendle, (New York:  Paulist Press, 1987), page 94.

[33]  See note 31.

[34]  As St. Gregory of Nyssa puts it in his homily on the Canticle of Canticles:  "In [the Bride's] search she surveys the entire angelic army.  And not finding among the good things there the object of her quest, she reasons thus with herself:  Is it possible that my Beloved can be comprehended?  'Have you seen Him whom my soul loveth?'  [The angelic hosts] only answer to the question is silence; and by their silence they show that what she seeks is incomprehensible to them.  And after she has gone about the entire supramundane city by the operation of her mind, and has not recognized her Beloved even among things spiritual and immaterial, then at last she gives up all she has found; for she realizes that what she seeks can be understood only in the very inability to comprehend His essence, and that every intelligible attribute becomes merely a hindrance to those who seek to find Him.  This is why she says:  'When I had a little passed by them' (Cant. 3:4), I abandoned all creatures and passed by all that is intelligible in creation; and when I gave up every finite mode of comprehension, then it was that I found my Beloved by faith."  Jean Cardinal Danielou, From Glory to Glory:  Texts from Gregory of Nyssa's Mystical Writings, (New York:  Charles Scribner's Sons, 1961), page 202.

Copyright © Steven Todd Kaster