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Blazing Darts from
the Orient
Uploaded: 06/06/09
Last Updated: 11/11/09
The aim of this segment is to provide terse responses based on the teachings of the Oriental Orthodox Fathers to miscellaneous issues relating to Oriental Orthodox faith, praxis, and history (we welcome question submissions). The issues and their corresponding responses are organised in the below table in alphabetically arranged categories for your convenience.
ANGELS: (Issues addressed to date: 1)
Issue 1: The Archangel Michael, Intercessor on Behalf of the Human Race
By Fr. Peter Farrington
The Encomium of St Severus upon the Archangel Michael contains some interesting material which is well worth study. An encomium, in this context, is essentially a form of homily which praises a particular saint or angelic being. In this case St Severus is concerned with the Archangel Michael, and his encomium was preached on the occasion of the feast of the Archangel. An encomium on the Archangel Michael was also preached by St Theodosius of Alexandria, and he used the account of St Michael helping the god-fearing Dorothea and Theopista, which features in the Coptic Synaxarium for Hatour 12, the feast of the Archangel Michael. St Severus bases his encomium on a different story altogether, but he also uses it to show how St Michael could be relied upon to come to the aid of faithful Christians.
The encomium of St Severus is interesting not so much for the story he uses, but for the substance of the teaching which he offers his congregation both at the beginning and end of his sermon. St Severus reminds his hearers of the occasion in the Gospels when the Archangel appeared in the tomb when he gave the news of the resurrection to the women. Then he introduces his story by explaining how it will show that St Michael is truly the great supporter of all faithful Christians.
St Severus describes several aspects of the ministry of St Michael. He says that he ‘entreats God to forgive the whole race of men their sins’; that he delivers the saints out of all their afflictions, and strengthens the martyrs; that he is present with ‘those who walk after God with all their hearts’, and that ‘he prays to God that he may be their helper’.
Then St Severus proceeds to provide an account of the conversion of a pagan to the Christian faith, and the various trials which he and his family successfully face with the help of St Michael. On every occasion when the converted family faced persecution and even death, St Michael appeared visibly as a nobleman or a general and acted in a manner which saved them.
St Severus rounds up his encomium by describing how the farmers entreat St Michael to pray for the seeds of the field, and by his prayers they grow and bear fruit. That the sailors in the ships entreat him and are kept safe. That the hermits in the mountainous places entreat him, and by his prayers they are strengthened in their ascesis. That the monks entreat him, and he becomes a peacemaker in their midst. He describes how the bishops, priests and deacons entreat St Michael at the altar, and how the sick find healing when they entreat him. St Severus sums up his teaching by saying,
To those who live he gives strength in their time of need, and for those who are dead he prays to God to show mercy on them.
St Severus chooses to speak in terms of a contract which the Christian needs to make with St Michael. Not in any sort of superstitious or mechanical manner, but a spiritual contract which will provide spiritual benefit. He speaks of St Michael praying to God that He might have mercy on all men, of whom he has become an ambassador. St Severus says,
Let us give him the things he desires, so that he may stir himself for us on account of them, and that he may love us exceedingly, and may pray to God for us.
Perhaps this sounds a little suspicious? What would St Michael desire of us? Does he seek praise and worship for himself? What are these things that St Severus believes St Michael desires of us? They are that we should love one another in the love of God. That we should live in the unity of brotherly love, and that we should avoid the sins of slander and lust. According to St Severus the sin of fornication is one which is greatly hated by both God and his angels.
St Severus teaches his audience that it is only with an upright heart that we may entreat St Michael and ask him to pray for us before God. In the final passage of his encomium he insists that it is through the prayers of St Michael and the Holy Mother of God that the world is preserved; St Michael as the head of the Angelic hosts, and the Blessed Virgin as the Mother of the Church.
It seems clear that in the pastoral witness of St Severus the figure of the Archangel Michael is most important, even as important as the Mother of God. He can be relied upon as a faithful and powerful intercessor for all faithful Christians, indeed for all men, since he asks for the salvation of all. Yet we may not take his intercession for granted. If we are to benefit from his prayers then we must seek to be men and women of upright hearts and lives, especially in regard to being in a state of peace and unity with our Christian brethren.
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ANTHROPOLOGY: (Issues addressed to date: 1)
Issue 1: Born Mortal, Not Sinful
By Fr. Peter Farrington
The Protestant movement introduced into the foreground of Western theological thinking the idea that man was born corrupt and ‘totally depraved’, such that everything a person might do was offensive to God because stained by sin. It emphasized the idea that man was by nature the object of God’s wrath because the very substance of the human ousia had become corrupt and contaminated by sin. This is an attractive concept in the face of the very real existence of sinful behavior in the world, but it is not the teaching of St Severus of Antioch, nor those Fathers which he faithfully followed.
In his work Against the Additions of Julian, part of his anti-Julianist corpus, he spends time considering the human nature which the Word assumed in the incarnation. One sentence is especially important. In his discussion of the consequences of Adam’s sin he says,
We are born mortal since we are born of mortal parents, and not sinners though we are born of sinful parents.
Of course St Severus explains his position at great length, but this sentence seems to sum up his understanding of the state of our human nature after the fall. We are born mortal, but we are not born sinners. We become sinful through the exercise of our own weak and easily distracted will when we choose other than God, just as Adam fell into sin when he chose his own pleasure above obedience to the commandment not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
St Severus goes on to explain this sentence within the same passage. He says,
It is indeed the case that sin is not a reality and it does not pass naturally, by procreation, from parents to their children.
Now if sin is not passed from parents to their children, and if we are not born sinners, then each child is born sinless, though mortal. What does this mortality mean, if it is not the stain of sin? Surely mortality is the punishment of sin? If a child is born without sin then is it without the need of a Saviour?
St Severus answers all of these questions while considering what it means for the Word to become man in all respects except sin. He understands Adam to have been created as a mortal being, liable to corruption and death, but preserved from these aspects of createdness by the grace of God who breathed life, true spiritual life, into him. Adam received incorruptibility and immortality as a gift. When he chose to disobey God by the exercise of his will he came under the sentence which had been set before him. The Holy Spirit left him and he found himself as he was created, mortal and corruptible.
Therefore according to St Severus, the Word of God assumes our human nature as subject to the sentence which was pronounced against Adam and to which all humans are subject. He assumed a mortal and corruptible humanity, but preserved it without sin. In our own case, we are also born sinless, though mortal and corruptible, but as we grow older we all fall into sin and become sinners. If an infant dies then St Severus does not believe that it can be accused of any personal sin. Nevertheless that child is mortal, subject to the sentence spoken against Adam and all his descendants, and is without the gift of life, immortality and incorruptibility. The sinless child is still in need of a Saviour because it does not have life.
St John Chrysostom is one of the sources that St Severus uses. He says in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans,
Indeed, because the sinner is become mortal as well, those who descend from him also become so.... but that by the disobedience of this one, another becomes a sinner, what is normal in this!
Another source is St Cyril of Alexandria, who says,
We are indeed born mortal of a mortal!
It seems clear that St Severus wishes us to understand that human nature has not suffered any ontological change in the fall from grace. Lacking spiritual life, which was the presence of the Holy Spirit, and which was a gift to Adam, the nature of man is left to the dissolution which comes to all created beings. Man is prey to the power of sin, and submits all too easily to the corrupt environment which surrounds us. But man always has a choice, and is liable to judgement because of the wrong choices we all make. This is the essence of sin, to choose other than God. We are born corruptible but not corrupt. We are born with an inclination to sin because of our weakness, but not sinful. We become subject to the judgement of God because of our own sins, not those of Adam.
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MARRIAGE: (Issues addressed to date: 1)
Issue 1: The Sanctity of Marriage (according to St Severus of Antioch)
By Fr. Peter Farrington
There have always been heterodox and heretical groups who have diminished the value of marriage, and have considered human sexuality to be always irredeemably a mark of sin. Groups such as the Encratites rejected marriage altogether and called it a ‘polluted and foul way of life’. They interpreted the Fall as being the loss of a non-sexual relationship between Adam and Eve, and their means of salvation was a return to personal celibacy. The Roman Catholic communion seems historically to have taken such a negative view, and the Western doctrine of Original Sin and the Immaculate Conception was developed essentially to cope with the perceived sinful stain of sexuality.
Yet the authentic Orthodox teaching rejects any such an understanding of human sexuality and the value of marriage. St Severus raises the issue in his writings against Julian of Halicarnassus, and in the context of asking why the Word chose to become incarnate by means of a Virgin Birth. St Severus bases his own thinking on Hebrews 13:4 which says,
For marriage is honoured by all, and the conjugal bed is without stain.
In the context of his argument against Julian, St Severus states that even while we insist that Christ has been born of the Holy Spirit and of a virgin mother, and that the conception and birth are without corruption, nevertheless this is certainly not because marriage is considered as being contaminated by the corruption of sin so that Christ had desired to escape such corruption by a conception without sexual activity.
Indeed St Severus insists,
But we consider [marriage] equally pure, because it is honourable and free from impurity.
In this he is only repeating the teaching he had learned from St Cyril, who had spoken in similar words when he said,
Marriage itself is honoured and He who made them from the beginning made them male and female.
This is the key to St Cyril and St Severus’ view of marriage and sexuality. Since they do not believe that human nature has been changed in the Fall, but that it exhibits essentially the same characteristics with which it was created, yet devoid of grace, they are able to point to the fact that human beings are formed male and female and understand that human sexuality is also part of the human nature with which Adam and Eve was created.
Certainly there has been a falling away from what God had willed for Adam and Eve. But the means of human reproduction are not sinful even though the need for such a means of reproduction is found in the mortality of sinful Adam. St Severus writes,
Marriage has been conceded in the second state to the mortal character of the nature to provide an Ark for the race from destruction, by means of procreation.
Some Christian groups have taken such a Divine concession and interpreted it as meaning that marriage must always be understood as second best, or even sinful. But the concession is not to those who are sinful, but to all human-kind in accordance with our mortal character. St Severus adds,
If the means of generation, and the coming together of marriage, are in common with the animals, and if there are strong defects seen which separate us from the first state in which God had formed Adam from the earth, they are not therefore deprived of the blessing of the One who formed them. It is indeed because He foresaw the role played by the will of Adam in sin, and his renunciation of immortality, that in a salutary manner he had provided a means of help in advance “in making them male and female, in blessing them and saying, ‘Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth’”
This passage makes it clear that as far as St Severus is concerned, the creation of man as male and female, and the presence of human sexuality, had always been part of God’s will. More than that, this provision of sexuality exercised in the union of marriage is a blessing and a means of sharing in the creative work of God.
Before the Fall from grace God had created human sexuality. It is part of that human nature which God looked at and said ‘it is very good’. Indeed as St Severus indicates, the command to be fruitful and multiply is given even before Adam had sinned. God had not made them male and female as a second best, but as part of his comprehensive salvific will for mankind. Just as the incarnation is not a second best, but rather a means of an even greater blessing, so the creation of man as male and female, and the blessing of human sexuality within marriage, is a means of a greater blessing, a means of obedience and salvation if rightly used.
The Encratites, and those like them, who believed that human sexuality and marriage was always an expression of sin and death are opposed by St Cyril and St Severus. Of course sexuality and marriage can be misused and turned to sin, but in themselves they are blessed by God and a blessing to those who participate in them purely, chastely and obediently. They are part of the will of God for our salvation. If our Lord was incarnate of a Virgin mother it is not at all because marriage and sexuality is essentially contaminated by sin, but because there is always a higher calling for mankind. As St Severus teaches, the Virgin birth reminds us that we are also called to a divine sonship, beyond even a holy procreation blessed by God. But there is no criticism or condemnation of marriage and sexuality in the manner of the Incarnation.
On the contrary, marriage is honoured by all, and the conjugal bed is without stain. The right exercise of human sexuality within a spiritual and God-centred marriage is a holy thing and a true blessing to those who experience it.
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MONASTERIES/MONKS: (Issues addressed to date: 1)
Issue 1: Home Sweet Monastery
By Andrew Youssef
Retreating to a monastery once in a while is an age-old and popular practice amongst the Orthodox Christian faithful. On occasion such retreats are prompted by the pursuit of solace in times when the heat of the world reaches unbearable proportions; more curiously, however, are those times when monastic retreats are encouraged by the pursuit of that oft-experienced phenomenon of “feeling at home” at a monastery, which is typically suggested by the resent often felt towards the need to eventually farewell a monastery in order to resume the life of the world, and the strong nostalgia to return there upon return to the life of the world. The geographical disconnection of monasteries from busy urban centres of life, the sweetness of the melodic silence of the inner prayers of their ascetic inhabitants, the sacredness of the ground itself as being that which has been set apart wholly and exclusively for men who have consecrated their entire lives to unceasing worship of God, all serve to imbue the visiting pilgrim with a sense of serenity, peace, and clarity of mind and soul, which in turn serve to ignite a greater sense of consciousness of the Divine Presence in the pilgrim’s world and life; these are no doubt intertwined with the homely phenomenon, but that phenomenon is best understood when all these realities are placed in their fundamental context: the monastery as the place on earth which approximates Paradise to the greatest degree that this fallen world allows.
The conception and experience of monasteries as earthly instances of Paradise is deepseated in the life and mind of the Oriental Orthodox Church. The prominent collection of aphorisms pertaining to the early Monastic Fathers that has come down to us in the Greek tradition entitled, ‘The Sayings of the Fathers’ (the Apophthegmata Patrum), was curiously transmitted to us via the Coptic and Syriac traditions with the title, ‘The Paradise of the Fathers’ (Bustan el-Ruhban). According to Joachim Peerson, ‘[t]he phrasing of the monastic charters [of the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition] describ[e] the monastery as paradise within and surrounded by fire’, which in turn reflects the idea of the monastic setting as ‘a unique, separated place which is beyond the normal restrictions of time and place’ [‘From Foreign Import to Bulwark of Ethiopian Civilization’ in: Asfa-Wossen Asserate (ed.), Äthiopien zwischen Orient und Okzident, 110]. The Oriental Orthodox monastic traditions are replete with references to the monks as Angelic representatives, or otherwise as those who have re-embodied Adam’s pre-fall bliss. One such tradition is the Coptic hagiographical account of The Life of St Onophorius, wherein the presence of monastics was regarded as having effectively transformed the barren Egyptian desert they so inhabited into paradise (trans. Tim Vivian, Journeying to God, 172-87).
Some have misinterpreted the "homely" feeling experienced when in a monastery, and the associated sentiments of peace, calmness and nostalgia, with a call to the monastic life. Such feelings and sentiments reflect more generally, however, and first and foremost, the soul’s inherent longing for, and belonging to, its eternal destiny: the Paradise which it was created for; the Paradise it rejected and was exiled from; the Paradise that has been re-fashioned for it by the redemptive work of our Loving and Gracious Saviour.
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PENTECOST: (Issues addressed to date: 1)
Issue 1: Fire to Perfect, Not to Destroy:
By Andrew Youssef
The imagery of fire, the form in which the Holy Spirit descended upon the Holy Apostles at Pentecost, signifies the role of the Holy Spirit in ‘perfecting.’ The ultimate ‘perfecting’ act of the Holy Spirit in the Church takes place liturgically. Accordingly, the continued Liturgical function of the Church serves to continuously propagate the Pentecost event. The Syrian Orthodox tradition in particular distinguishes between two types of liturgies in which the Holy Spirit effects His role of perfecting: 1. the Divine (Eucharistic) Liturgy and 2. the interior liturgy of the heart.
1. The Divine Liturgy:
The Holy Spirit perfects the material elements offered to God the Father on the Altar in the form of bread and wine unto the Body and Blood of the Divine Son of God. The correlation between the event of the Holy Spirit’s descent at Pentecost and His descent during the epiclesis has a long-standing tradition in Oriental Orthodox history, theology, and worship. In a biography of the Syrian Orthodox Father, St Jacob of Edessa (mid-7th century), we are informed that,
one day, while [St Jacob] was offering the Oblation, a certain Arab who had been baptised was present there; and he saw that fire came down from heaven, and he saw tongues of flames hovering over the oblation, and hosts of angels with bowed heads before the Divine Sacrifice.
It is thus common to find reference to the event of the Pentecost in the epicleses of the various Oriental Orthodox liturgies. In the Ethiopian Orthodox Anaphora of St Dioscorus of Alexandria, for example, the priest invokes the Holy Spirit by praying:
On the fiftieth day, God sent to the Apostles the Holy Spirit in the likeness of fire…so also, O God, as You did with them, send Your Holy Spirit over this bread and this cup to transform them unto the Body and Blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
2. The Interior Liturgy of the Heart:
As the body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit (2. Cor. 6:19), it follows that the heart is the altar. Pure prayer, being prayer of the heart, constitutes the believer’s individual offering to God on the altar of his/her heart; this pure offering is rendered acceptable, and is perfected, by the fiery descent of the Holy Spirit upon that pure interior offering on the altar of the heart. The correlation between the fiery descent of the Spirit into our hearts and our hearts as the altars upon which we offer the sacrifices of prayer was eloquently and concisely summarised by the early seventh century Syrian Father, Abba Martyrius:
If the commencement of our prayer is wakeful and attentive, and we wet our cheeks with tears stemming from the stirring of our hearts, then our prayer will be made perfect…the Lord…will have delight in our offering. As He perceives the pleasant scent (cf. Gen. 8.21) of our heart’s pure fragrance, He will send the fire of the Spirit to consume our offerings and raise up our mind along with them in the flames to heaven.
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PRAYER: (Issues addressed to date: 1)
Issue 1: Praying When Doubtful and Sorrowful
By Andrew Youssef
Doubt and sorrow, particularly when they operate collaboratively, may discourage one from prayer by instigating a false sense that prayer accompanied by such feelings is ineffective or even rejected by God.The Fathers of the Church teach us, however, that God looks upon the weaknesses of man with pity and compassion and that He never turns anyone away on account of such weaknesses, so long as we are honest with ourselves, and in turn honest before God about them. St Gregory of Narek, a remarkable 11th century Armenian Orthodox Father, goes even further by instructing us, through the poetic and heartfelt examples of his own petitions, that the honest and genuine expression and submission of our sorrows and doubts before the Lord is rendered an acceptable and pure sacrifice by Him. In his first prayer of his famous book of prayers, The Narek, St Gregory prays to the Lord saying,
The voice of a sighing heart,
its sobs and mournful cries,
I offer up to you,
O Seer of Secrets,
placing the fruits of my wavering mind
as a savory sacrifice on the fire of my grieving soul
to be delivered to you in the censer of my will.
Compassionate Lord, breathe in
this offering and look more favorably on it
than upon a more sumptuous sacrifice
offered with rich smoke. Please find
this simple string of words acceptable.
Do not turn in disdain.
May this unsolicited gift reach you,
this sacrifice of words
from the deep mystery-filled chamber
of my feelings, consumed in flames
fueled by whatever grace I may have within me.
We must always bear in mind that our prayer life is a formative basis of our relationship with God. Honesty, particularly about our faults and weaknesses, is integral to any healthy relationship. In authentically love-based human relationships—be it between a husband and wife, father and son, etc.—we find that when such honesty is coupled in particular with humble contrition and a genuine desire for help, it often inspires in the other party a sense of loving sympathy, increased respect, and, paradoxically, a greater level of acceptance. We should not expect any less from our heavenly Father; only infinitely more.
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SCIENCE:
(Issues addressed to date: 1)
Issue 1: The Church's Response to the Scientific and Technological Advancement of Mankind.
By Andrew Youssef
The Church is not opposed to mankind's scientific and technological advancements per se; her concern rather is with the purpose and intent of such advancements. Do they bear in mind, or are they completely disconnected from, a godly telos? In his 1961 speech at The Holy Trinity Ethiopian Orthodox Cathedral, His Grace Terenig Polandian declared, before an audience of clerical and lay academics of the Church, a very balanced account of how we, as Orthodox Christians, should perceive the world’s scientific and technological progress:
"We are in the midst of the most revolutionary era in human history. The shape of life has changed dramatically; the dogmas of the church no longer dominate human thought; new existential questions have arisen. The craving of the heart and mind has been expanded and broadened. The Christian Church must cope with the abyss and the embarrassment of the meaninglessness and the disillusionment which are being created in man by modern endeavors such as the pursuit of destructive nuclear weaponry and his probing into space to colonize even the solar system. Humanity, growing scientifically, technologically, and educationally mature is falling from one collapse into another. Science is corrupting and ruining religion of modern man by giving him only means and not ends—Telos.
Nowadays we witness man’s singleness of purpose in the material realm of things, in nuclear research, in rocket technology, etc. We surely know the immense task which has been accomplished and the enormous human effort and sacrifice proffered for the achievement of these objectives. It is obvious that such objectives are very important and their solution indispensable. But many forget that these aims are superstructures. They must be built on ethical and spiritual foundations to sustain them. Any world order, scheme or structure, shall collapse if the religious foundations underneath are not adequate; “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.”
It reasonably follows from the above that the Church, being the centre of the world’s sanctification, in fact bears the duty of involving herself in mankind’s scientific and technological advancements with a view to effecting the alignment of such advancements with tele pertaining to the glory of God and the extension of His Kingdom.
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