Orthodox Monasticism 2 — Origins as Christian Practice

Let us look at the origins of monasticism as a Christian phenomenon. In the Old Testament, we encounter Elijah the Prophet as a type of the monk: he has long, unkempt hair; he is celibate and so on. We find in Scripture at the same time as Elijah, brotherhoods called ‘Sons of the Prophets’. Scripture is silent on the practices of the ‘Sons of the Prophets’, but it is often thought that these brotherhoods were monastic in nature. Elisha the Prophet, chosen by Elijah by divine command as his successor, was also celibate.

Extra-biblically, we know that at about the time of Christ there existed a monastic brotherhood called the Essenes, one that is referred to by Josephus the historian, who says that he spent part of his childhood among them. However, the New Testament is completely silent on the Essenes. Naturally, we do not know why. However, the silence of Scripture on the Essenes suggests to us that they were not accepted by the Christian Church as either Jewish or Christian, or as having some connection to Jesus Christ or St John the Baptist.

Finally, there is St John the Baptist himself. Here Scripture is anything but silent. It is clear that St John the Baptist is a type of a monk: he has unkempt hair; he wears a camel-hair tunic and a belt around his waist; he eats locusts and wild honey; he clearly lived in the desert before his divine prophetic call to preach a baptism of repentance.

In the Acts of the Apostles, the early Christian community is described as living a common life, where everyone gave what they had to the common treasury and received according to their need, eating at a common table. This is usually taken in Orthodoxy to be a divinely inspired model of the coenobitical life. Among the Apostles, most were celibate, especially St Paul, who remarks in one of his epistles that he wishes that all as he is (celibate), but that each has his own gift; and in another place that he who marries does well, but that he who does not does better.

In the Gospel, Jesus Christ himself is unmarried. Moreover, when discussing marriage, our Lord points out that there are those who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of the Heavens. This is interpreted by the Church to mean not those who have physically castrated themselves (this was always forbidden) but those who have adopted celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom of God. In the regard it is well to remember St Paul’s remark that he who marries has to take care to please his wife (and similarly for the woman who marries), whereas he who does not can take care solely to please God (and similarly for the woman who remains single). However, the Gospel passage referred to goes on to say concerning celibacy that it is not for all but for those who to whom it is given, to those, the passage goes on to clarify, who have the strength. Hence we can see that Scripture teaches us that celibacy is better than marriage but not all are able to practise it; and that, moreover, the purpose of celibacy is to free the person to devote his or her time solely to God, to the attainment of the Kingdom of the Heavens.

In the epistles of Paul there are references to ‘widows’ who were enrolled in the Church as such and supported by the Church. These widows are taken to be the precursors of female monastics. At one place St Paul remarks that young widows should remarry because they are not stable in their commitment to permanent chastity and hence put off their commitment to Christ.

In the Acts of the Apostles, Dorcas, who is raised from the dead by Peter, seems to be an example of a widow enrolled by the Church. When Peter comes to the place where Dorcas’ remains are laid out, he is shown the handicrafts which she has made for the Church.

Finally, outside Scripture, the Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria (†45 ad?) , wrote a short work describing the therapeutae and their practices. The therapeutae lived outside Alexandria. It is not known who they actually were, but one theory is that they were very early Christian monastics.

Orthodox Monasticism 1 — Philology and Sources

Let us first discuss the meaning of monk and monasticism from a philological point of view. The words derive from Greek μοναχός, which means ‘alone’. Hence, in the Orthodox Church the original meaning of monk is he who lives alone. Clearly, from what we know about monasticism, this means someone who has renounced the world and marriage and family and retired to the desert. However, St Athanasios the Great in his Life of Anthony states that until St Anthony’s time, monks lived in cells at the edge of town rather than retiring to the desert. We can take this as a practical observation that applies at least to Egypt at the time of St Anthony, about 250 ad.

Let us now look at the origins of monasticism in the Orthodox Church. Let us first look at general social conditions in the Middle East and the Mediterranean Basin in the Late Classical period. There will be these areas that especially interest us: Constantinople, Cappadocia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt.

Syria and the Mediterranean Basin were rather sophisticated, cosmopolitan regions. Clement of Alexandria, writing about 150 ad, refers to Buddhism, as does St Cyril of Jerusalem in his catechisms writing about 350 ad. The briefness of these references indicates that Buddhism was not a serious force in these areas, but it is important to realize that the region was not backwoodsy. There was much more intercourse between the region and the East than is generally realized. Moreover, there were various heresies that were more or less prevalent in the region, for example Manichaeism and Gnosticism. There was much more intercourse throughout the Mediterranean, despite the difficulties of travel, than is generally realized; we can see this from the Acts of the Apostles. The intellectual world of these regions was quite sophisticated, much like in our own day.

We make this remark to set the stage for our consideration of the development of monasticism in Egypt and Syria. It is now advanced by some scholars that St Anthony, for example, in the letters attributed by some to him, was a much more sophisticated and unchristian thinker than is generally supposed. We doubt these scholarly assertions, lacking as they do the phronema or authentic thought-world of the Orthodox Church, but it is well to bear in mind that the region was more sophisticated than we sometimes realize.

Let us now consider sources for our knowledge of Orthodox monasticism. There are three primaries types of source: the lives of saints, including in the early period the Sayings of the Desert Fathers; writings of the saints themselves, especially testaments and Typika (‘rules’) for their monastic foundations; and dogmatic or ascetical treatises by ascetical saints.

Most of the available lives of the saints have been collected and published at least in the original Greek by the Bollandist Fathers. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers has been published in the entirety of the various editions in French. The situation in English is not as good.

The Synaxaria, the collections of lives of the saints, are usually fairly modern editions where the original lives of the saints have been worked over by one or another editor (this is even true of the older Synaxaria). Hence, the critical edition of a saint’s life is to be preferred. However, occasionally, the brief entry in the Synaxarion is the only record we have of a saint’s existence. This is especially true of saints prior to the Edict of Milan, 313 ad. In cases of an ascetical saint prior to the Edict of Milan, the Synaxarion may be the only record we have of ascetical or monastic practice in the period.

The testaments and typika of the Byzantine Empire have been published in the original Greek with English translation by the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, and the entire collection can be found free on-line at http://www.doaks.org/typ000.html.

Many critical editions of ascetical works have been issued in the original Greek with French translation in the series Sources chrétiennes, published by Les Éditions du Cerf (Paris).

There are a number of works in any of the three categories that have been published as separate monographs either as critical editions or otherwise.

Finally, if all else fails, we can look in Migne for an edition of the work that interests us, although the editions published in Migne are not always up to today’s scholarly standards.

In the case of works in Syriac dealing with Syrian monasticism, we have to turn to works now being published in critical editions in the West, perhaps with English translation.

Since we are here interested in the origins of Orthodox monasticism, we here restrict ourselves to sources that apply to the region under discussion. Russian monasticism really starts after 1000 ad, so Russian sources apply to a much later phase of Orthodox monasticism.

New Series on Orthodox Monasticism

We begin today a new series on the nature of Orthodox Monasticism. The posts will be entitled Orthodox Monasticism 1, 2, 3 … The series might occasionally be interrupted by posts on other topics. This is very much a work in progress, so we will often return without notice to earlier posts on this subject to correct, change or expand them.

Wars and Rumours of War

We are like the man in the Gospel who is in doubt on account of wars and rumours of war. We are somewhat concerned and worried about the international situation. One war has just finished, and people say that it is intended to be a prelude to the next. For the next war, serious men of serious power are said actively to be considering the use of nuclear weapons. From thinking the unthinkable, serious and powerful men have today come to consider actively, and perhaps even to plan for actively, the unthinkable.

Some years ago we visited the Elder. It was during a time of war (which war?). The Elder compared one of the belligerents to the Devil. He remarked that he was praying for the war to be contained. And, in fact, the war did stop at a fairly good juncture. The Elder didn't say anything about praying for the belligerent he compared to the Devil to be smashed.

Another Elder is quoted as remarking about that same war that it was inevitable. He also had harsh words for that same belligerent. But the ‘inevitable’ he seems to have meant in this way: nothing anyone could do would prevent that war. It didn’t seem to have the sense that the war was just or necessary.

During World War II, it is said, Elder Sophrony (Sakharov) every day prayed with tears flat on the ground in his cave for the 'least evil side' to prevail—leaving it to God to figure out which side that might be.

It is said that Elder Sophrony's own Elder, St Silouan, who died about a year before the outbreak of World War II, when he thought of or prayed for Europe saw a black cloud hanging over it.

Several Elders on Mt Athos received an ‘information (pleroforia)’ when World War II began, a spiritual ‘information’ which was confirmed some days later when word reached Mt Athos that the war had broken out.

The saintly Elder Joseph the Hesychast, if we remember correctly, experienced great spiritual pain the day of outbreak of World War II, a pain humanly explained only when word reached Mt Athos that the war had broken out.

(Remember, this was before the day of cell phones.)

What are we to make of all this?

It seems to us that we should pray in all seriousness. For what? For ‘our side’ to win? Not really. The days are past of the ‘just war’ that let us smash our enemy without batting an eyelash and with a clear conscience.

The Gospel advises us to pray for all men in authority that we might live our lives in peace, that we might attend to our religious duties in peace. We should pray earnestly for all men in positions of authority on both sides (or on every side) that they might have wisdom (not delusion, fanaticism and messianic ideas) and coolness (not cold-bloodedness, callousness and cynicism). That they might truly fear God and consider well their responsibilities before God for what they plan to do. They are common men, without great intellectual attainments. May they obtain the wisdom from God to plan correctly for their own futures and for the futures of all men, both in this world and in the next. In this world because we cannot always foresee the consequences of our fatemongering fateful decisions; in the next world because God is not mocked, he who said through his own Son that not all those who call out ‘Lord, Lord’ will be saved, but he who does the will of the Father in Heaven as it is taught in the Gospel. It is an act of love to help the blind man find his way. Let us help the blind find their way.

Some Epithets of Mary

There are a number of epithets used of Mary in the Orthodox Church. We would like to look at a number of them.

The first epithet is Panaghia. This epithet means All-Holy, All-Holy One, All-Holy Woman.

The next epithet is Theotokos. This is a difficult word to translate. It literally means she (or, her) who gave birth to God. Theotokos is a very important word theologically, playing a role as it does in the defense of Orthodoxy against the Nestorians, who denied the fullness of the incarnation. Hence, it would be useful to interpret the term correctly when we are translating the services of the Church. We do not think that merely leaving the word in the Greek does justice to what is involved: the untranslated word becomes a sort of proper name, devoid of meaning and content except for a professional theologian.

The sense of Theotokos as it was debated in the Nestorian controversy is that because the person that Mary bore was the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Word of God, he who had taken up human flesh from Mary in taking up a full human nature, Mary is justly to be called she who gave birth to God. It does not have the sense, as some New-Age types would like to think, that Mary is some sort of eternal matrix or ground of being that somehow brought forth the Godhead. The Nestorian position itself is that Mary gave birth to a mere man who was united to the Godhead. This would have made Jesus a man of vastly superior attainments to other men, but still a mere man. This position is actually quite popular in popular modern Western conceptions of Jesus

The next epithet is Mother of God. From the above, this should be clear.

The next epithet is Ever-Virgin. This should also be clear. In contrast with some Protestants, but in agreement with the Roman Catholic Church (or should we say that the Roman Catholic Church maintains the Orthodox tradition?), this means that the Virgin Mary never knew man, even after Jesus’ birth. The Fathers interpret the references in the Gospel to Jesus’ ‘brothers and sisters’ to refer to children that Joseph, a widower, had by a previous marriage.

The next epithet is Unwedded Bride. This is a difficult epithet to translate into English without creating unnecessary connotations. The sense of course is that Mary became the Bride of God—she gave birth to the Son of God—without for all that ever having known man.

Mary

Since August contains the Feast of the Dormition of Mary, the Mother of God, it is dedicated to Mary in the Orthodox liturgical cycle. It therefore behoves us to say something about Mary. We think that it is impossible for us to say anything worthy of the Mother of God, but let us try, we who are unworthy of her, to say something not unworthy of her.

When the Archangel Gabriel approached Mary in Nazareth, he greeted her thus: ‘Hail, you who have been shown grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women.’

What can we say? An angel of God greets a mere woman with these words. And Mary ‘seeing [the angel] was agitated at his word and wondered what sort of greeting this might be.’ And the angel said to her: ‘Do not fear, Mariam, for you have found grace before God.’

And after the angel announced the birth of Jesus by Mary, Mary replied: ‘Behold the maidservant of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word.’

Mary then went quickly to see her kinswoman, Elizabeth. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed: ‘Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And whence comes this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?’

And Mary replied: ‘My soul exalts the Lord and my spirit rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he looked upon the humbleness of his maidservant. For, behold, from now, all generations will call me blessed. For the Mighty One did great things for me and Holy is his Name. And his mercy is to generations of generations, to those who fear him. He made strength with his arm, he scattered the proud in the thoughts of their heart; he deposed strong men from their thrones and humble men he raised up. He filled hungry men with good things and rich men he sent away empty. He defended Israel his servant to remember mercy, just as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed [singular] to the Age.’

We do not know what to add to these Gospel passages that is worthy of Mary. We are like the angel in this troparion:

Gabriel, astonished at the fineness of your virginity and at the exceeding brightness of your purity, cried out to you who bore God: ‘What encomium shall I bring forth to you that is worthy? What shall I name you? I am in wonder and beside myself. Therefore, I cry out to you as I was commanded: Hail, you who have been shown grace!’

May you pray for us, Mary, Mother of God, you who gave birth to God.

The Transfiguration

The Transfiguration (August 6), on Sunday for those of us who follow the new calendar, is similar to the Theophany (January 6) in that it is a revelation of the Holy Trinity. Of course, the Transfiguration has been a very important feast since the Hesychast controversy of the 14^th Century, because of the connection between the light that shone around Jesus on Mt Tabor in the Transfiguration, and the Uncreated Light taught by St Gregory Palamas to come by Grace to the Hesychast. What is important in Orthodoxy is to encounter this Light, this Grace.

How did the Blind Man Receive His Sight?

How did the blind man receive his sight? He received the Holy Spirit.

The Ascension

The Ascension is a very important feast for Orthodox spirituality.

In Orthodox theology, the person of the Word of God became flesh, taking to that person of the Word of God a full human nature. The person was and is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity from all eternity with the Father and the Holy Spirit in unspeakable communion. This unspeakable communion Elder Porphyrios calls in Wounded by Love the Uncreated Church. That Second Person of the Holy Trinity took on our complete human nature—yet without sin—when he was conceived as a man in the womb of Mary. As was announced by the Archangel Gabriel, he was given at birth and circumcision the name of Jesus. Jesus, who is called Christ, is the Word of God made flesh. He has two natures in one person, his divine and his human nature. The person remains the Word of God, now made flesh—now having taken on a complete human nature.

We are emphasizing this Christology so as to make clear the importance of the Ascension. Because the person of Jesus Christ is always the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, his divine nature did not need to ascend to the Father. It was and is always with the Father. “I and my Father are one.” However, this is not the case with the human nature of Christ.

We learn from St Basil the Great that the human nature of Christ was divinized at the moment of Jesus' conception in the womb of Mary (March 25). This means that from the instant of his conception in the womb of Mary, Jesus was a perfect man, the second Adam, a man like us in all things but sin. But this is the key to our understanding the Ascension. Because Jesus was a perfect man, an undefiled image and likeness of the Father, the Ascension must mean something more. And that something more is the difference between our vocation as Christians, and the state of Adam and Eve in Paradise. We are called to ascend with Jesus through the grace of the Holy Spirit sent by the Father (as much as is humanly possible). Hence, our divinization does not stop with the restoration of the likeness to God that Adam and Eve had in Paradise, but continues in our own ascension, especially after our earthly life, in death and the General Resurrection.

What is is the nature of divinization? This is a difficult concept for the non-Orthodox to grasp. Essentially divinization has to do with the image or icon of God that man was created and intended to be. To be divinized means to attain to the properties (characteristics, moral and spiritual virtues) of God—the likeness to God that Adam and Eve lost by their disobedience—through the grace of God, through the uncreated grace of God that the Orthodox identify with the Holy Spirit and call the 'uncreated energies' of God. To be divinized means to enter into intimacy with God. But this intimacy of man with God is not a distant similarity only, but includes the concept of a union that is portrayed in Holy Scripture by the image of marriage. Hence, to be divinized is to marry God. It is to be like unto God. It is to become a friend of God. But as the Fathers point out, it is to become all of these things without becoming God by nature.

When in the Ascension the human nature of Jesus Christ ascended and sat at the right hand of the Father, the human nature of Jesus reached the fullness of this intimacy or union with God in a relationship of love and gnosis. And this ascension of Jesus Christ opened the way for all men, all those who share in the same human nature, all those who have been baptized, to ascend to the same intimacy with God (as much as is humanly possible).

Popular Culture

The Da Vinci Code is just the tip of the iceberg.

We first came across the plot-line of The Da Vinci Code some twenty-odd years ago when we browsed the paperback book-rack while paying our check in a hotel restaurant. Jesus married. St Mary Magdalene. He had children and founded the Merovingian line. We didn’t buy the book. The plot-line seemed blasphemous to us.

It still does.

We note that the author of the original paperback that we saw so long ago sued Dan Brown over The Da Vinci Code for plagiarism. Lost his case.

What struck us some twenty-odd years ago was that the plot-line was just more of the same.

That’s what interests us.

This week it’s The Da Vinci Code; last ‘week’—a few years ago—it was The Last Temptation of Christ. Next week—in a few years, that is—it will be something else. Moreover, these are just the headline-grabbing films, possibly because of good ‘under-assistant West-Coast promotion men’. What we are the more interested in is all the films that are cranked out every day in the West, and how they handle religious themes.

First of all, let us be frank: if another religion were treated in films the way Christianity is today, there would be trouble. Not from Christians, but from members of the other religion.

A popular American film treats of a serial murderer. The serial murderer makes his first phone call. Visible on the wall behind him in his house is a crucifix. Art, of course.

Another popular American film caricatures the Christian beliefs of the FBI agent while exalting the hard-boiled ‘realism’ of the LAPD homicide detective. It shows a homicidal maniac, part of a neo-Fascist paramilitary group, in the final scenes, while he is fighting it out to the death, as prominently wearing a cross around his neck. Shakespearean characterization, of course.

A British punk kung-fu thriller has villains who masquerade as electric Evangelical Christian missionaries to the slums.

The same thing in a Chinese kung-fu thriller: one of the villains is a ‘Russian’ (this must be the ‘Round-Eyed Peril’) masquerading as a Christian missionary.

Then there are the films that glorify the occult.

Then there are the films that glorify lesbianism.

These are not traditional Christian values.

This is a very complex matter that would require a very deep sociological analysis of Western society from the point of view of the social construction of reality. Groups and their shared points of view (Weltanschauungen); how those common points of view are defined and maintained within the group; how new group members are ‘converted’ to the group point of view. Those same groups and their shared political and cultural power in the broader society. Political battles in American society over who gets to determine the ‘narrative’ of American history and society.

(‘Narrative’ is a buzzword nowadays; in this context it seems to mean the ‘interpretation, the interpretative story-line, the interpretive plot-line or point of view that explains the phenomenon’.)

What is important is that today there are competing ‘narratives’ of American, and in general Western, history and society; and that various groups are purveying to their own members their own ‘narratives’, and using political means to advance those ‘narratives’ in the broader society. Moreover, some of these groups have members who work in popular culture and who are either consciously or unconsciously advancing an anti-Christian ‘narrative’—we think that in many cases it is conscious, but without a realization of its foundation in group-think.

The disquieting thing about the treatment of Christianity in popular culture today is that popular culture is advancing an anti-Christian ‘narrative’: various members of various groups working in popular culture, including the media of mass communication, are advancing ‘narratives’ that attack or denigrate Christianity.

It is in this context that we see The Da Vinci Code.

This is not a conspiracy theory. We know nothing about Dan Brown; we know nothing about the film company that shot the film based on his book. However, it is a suggestion that a sociological analysis of what is happening is long overdue.

We ourselves have steadfastly avoided political discourse on this blog, so we will not proceed any further, except to say that the ‘narrative’ we ourselves are advancing is the Orthodox Christianity of those who say, ‘We did not know whether we were in Heaven or on earth.’ It is the ‘narrative’ of the Gospel of the love of Jesus Christ, who laid down his life so that we might have life and have it abundantly. It is the ‘narrative’ of the man born blind whose eyes were opened by Jesus.