Fully aware of the specificities of any particular Christian tradition, the contributors to this volume, without minimizing the complexity of the subject, attempt to work in the context of prudent connectivity, theological complementarity, and flexible coherency.22 We begin this volume with Stephen Finlan’s essay, “Deification in Jesus’ Teaching,” that focuses predominantly on three vivid deification passages in the Gospels: one that speaks of the kingdom of God within, another that commands disciples to be perfect like the Father, and one where Jesus quotes “you are gods” from a Psalm (Luke 17:21; Matt 5:48; John 10:34). The notion of the kingdom within is not alien to Luke, which contains many passages about being filled with the Spirit, with “good treasure” or “light” (Luke 1:15; 6:45; 11:36; 12:12; etc.). Matthew’s perfection saying indicates a never-ending process of taking on God’s character, consistent with the emphasis on honesty and good works. In John 10:35, Jesus connects deification with the reception of revelation, pointing out that the phrase “you are gods” was uttered to “those to whom the word of God came.” This may be synonymous with the notion of receiving the “power to become children of God” (John 1:12; cf. 1 John 3:1–2), of doing “greater works” or being guided “into all the truth” (14:12; 16:13). While Mark lacks any overt deification references, human deifying transformation is suggested in this Gospel in remarks about healing, people doing the will of God, and people becoming Jesus’ brothers and sisters.
Finlan concludes that many Gospel passages support, or at least allow for, the idea of deification: Synoptic references to the kingdom “near,” to being pure of heart or doing the will of God, and Johannine references to the indwelling presence of Jesus and the Father. Finlan also analyzes two sayings in The Gospel of Thomas that refer to the kingdom within, and comes to the conclusion that Gnostic texts do not always have more inwardness than orthodox texts.
Ivan Popov’s essay, “The Idea of Deification in the Early Eastern Church,” rendered in English by the leading translator of Russian religious philosophy and theology Boris Jakim, requires a little introduction to its author. Ivan Vasilevich Popov (1867–1938) is one of the prominent Russian patristic scholars of the early twentieth century. He was the son of a parish priest in Vyazma, Smolensk region. Popov followed an education pattern typical for the clergy class in the imperial Russia. He studied at the Vyazma Spiritual School, then in the Smolensk Spiritual Seminary, wrapping up his education at the Moscow Spiritual Academy. He was invited to join the faculty of the Academy upon graduation. Additionally, Popov studied in Germany, where, among other things, he attended lectures of Adolf Harnack. Popov taught in the Moscow Spiritual Academy until it was closed by the Bolshevik government in 1919. After 1919, Popov was systematically arrested, exiled, imprisoned, and released. While in exile, in September of 1937, he was arrested again, and on February 5, 1938, sentenced to be shot. Popov was executed in Eniseysk on February 8, 1938. In 2003 he was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Ivan Popov is the author of numerous articles and monographs that broadly cover both Latin and Greek Fathers. His academic and research interests were not limited only to the study of early Christianity. Popov published a number of works in ethics, philosophy, and psychology. Among his major works in patristics are The Religious Ideal of St. Athanasius of Alexandria (1904), Mystical Justification of Asceticism in Works of St. Macarius of Egypt (1904), St. John Chrysostom and His Enemies (1908), Personality and Teaching of the Blessed Augustine (1917). His two extensive biographies of Amphilochius of Iconium and Hilary of Poitiers were written during the Soviet period and published posthumously (1968–1971). Popov’s “The Idea of Deification in the Early Eastern Church” presents the first comprehensive and critical theological assessment of this notion in modern patristic scholarship. Published in Russian and not translated in any Western languages, this seminal work remained virtually unknown outside of Russia until now.
In my essay, “Clement of Alexandria on Trinitarian and Meta-physical Relationality in the Context of Deification,” I assess an intricate application of a metaphysical aspect of theosis in Clement and its contextualization in Clement’s trinitarian theology. In Clement’s understanding of God the Father as unoriginated First Principle without beginning or end, God is portrayed as a transcendent monad—one as one, solitary unity without distinctions or intervals. The Logos of God is also monad, but in a different way. The Son becomes an interesting point of both connection and distinction between one and many—the one as all things. In the Son Clement has a monadic transition from one to many, incorporated with his understanding of apocatastasis as a return from many to one. The role of the Holy Spirit is intimately correlated with this process. The Holy Spirit, as the co-educator with Christ, is the unifying principle of soteriological significance. Metaphysical unfolding of trinitarian interrelation serves in Clement, in my opinion, as a principle of unity and a vehicle of the return from many to one, to the harmonious unity of the universe, and provides a unifying and deifying human cosmic identity.
My second essay, “Basil of Caesarea and the Cappadocians on the Distinction Between Essence and Energies in God and Its Relevance to the Deification Theme,” is predominantly a critical response to the Neopalamite argument that we should view Basil of Caesarea and the Cappadocian Fathers as precursors of the Palamite distinction between divine essence and divine energies. After a brief overview of Palamism and particular emphasis on the essence/energy distinction in Neopalamism, as well as the importance of this distinction for Eastern Orthodox understanding of deification, I discuss claims proposed to sanction this distinction as a normative element of Cappadocian theology. Then I review the role of energeia in the Cappadocian trinitarian discourse and their general application of energeia terminology. The final part of my essay deals with the importance of the notion of participation in God for the Cappadocians in the context of divine essential incomprehensibility and human theosis.
While not necessarily denying the theological legitimacy of this distinction for Gregory Palamas and subsequent development of Eastern Orthodox theology, to see in Basil and the Cappadocians the articulation of this distinction is not only anachronistic, but also misleading. Properly situated in the context of the fourth-century Christian theology and anti-Eunomian polemics the Cappadocian limited evidence for the support of the essence/energies distinction is, at best, inconclusive, but more likely accidental. Even in Basil’s Ep. 234.1, the key text for the evidence of this distinction, this distinction is only conceptual, with very limited application for human epistemological and contemplative realization of the divine reality. If, for Palamas, the essence/energies distinction is a characteristic of real authenticity within God, in the case of the Cappadocians we can only speak about the cognitive differentiation between the essence and energies that refers to a human’s earthly ability to know God, but not to the divine reality itself.
Joel Elowsky in his essay, “Bridging the Gap: Theosis in Antioch and Alexandria,” analyzes the difference between Theodore of Mopsuestia, a key representative of the Antiochene approach to Scripture, and Cyril of Alexandria, who represents the zenith of Alexandrian interpretation, in their treatment of theosis. Preceding trends in christology, anthropology, terminology, and exegetical approach informed by the differing Christian cultures of Alexandria and Antioch demonstrate a marked influence on the commentaries on the Gospel of John of Cyril of Alexandria and Theodore of Mopsuestia. Their exposition and commentary of Jesus’ words, “That they may be one,” in John 17 in particular reflect an approach to the text that is focused on our union with God and secondarily on our union with one another—the exact opposite of how this passage is interpreted in most contemporary ecumenical discussions.
Theodore of Mopsuestia interprets this union in terms of a conjunction, or connection between the human and divine in Christ and between human beings and the Father. Such a union is at heart relational, reflecting Antiochene two-subject christology expressed in a single person, although the Greek word Theodore used was prosōpon. Alexandria understands the union with the Father to entail not just an association or relationship, but essentially a deification of the human nature that “well-nigh” transforms it into another nature. Cyril speaks of Christ in terms of a single subject as God and Man in the one Nature of God the Word. In Elowsky’s opinion, Theodore and Cyril offer two contrasting approaches to deification: the acceptance of theosis by Alexandria along with the visceral rejection of theosis by Antioch, that reflect, in many ways