Resistance is Futile

http://www.ansamed.info/en/news/ME01.YAM12593.html

 http://www.expatica.com/de/articles/news/Erdogan-cheered-by-16_000-Turks-in-Cologne-.html

What is in a Name?

http://www.aina.org/news/20080211032311.htm

Tradition: Scripture

“More important is the fact that the content of tradition is nothing other than that which is also preserved in a written form, as Scripture — they are not two different sources. Tradition is not the accumulation of various customs, nor does it provide us with access to knowledge necessary for salvation that is not also contained in Scripture. It is the Gnostics, according to Irenaeus, who appeal to tradition for teachings not contained in Scripture.

“The community founded upon the apostolic Gospel, the Church, is also the community which has recognized certain writings as apostolic and as authoritative Scripture (and will eventually speak of a canon of Scripture). As there were many writings laying claim to apostolic status, the claim to apostolicity, however, was not itself enough to justify the recognition of a particular writing as Scripture. What was essential was the conformity of the writing to the apostolic Gospel which founded the Church, which has been preserved intact, and which had since come to be phrased in terms of a rule/canon of truth/faith. This also means that the apostolic writings are accepted as Scripture within a community that lays claim to the correct interpretation of these writings. Tradition is, as Florovsky put it commenting on Irenaeus, Scripture rightly understood. In Irenaeus’ vivid image, those who interpret Scripture in a manner which does not conform to the rule of truth are like those who, seeing a beautiful mosaic of a king, dismantle the stones and reassemble them to form the picture of a dog, claiming that this was the original intention of the writer (Against the Heresies, 1.8).

“It is not that what is claimed to be the picture of a king can be arbitrarily imposed upon Scripture — Scripture is fixed — it is “the ground and pillar of our faith,” as Irenaeus puts it, modifying Paul’s words, about the Church, to Timothy (1 Tim 3:15; although as Bart Ehrman has noted, parts of the text were modified during the course of the second century to produce a more ‘orthodox’ text). Scripture is that to which one must continually return, to be sure of the ground on which we stand.

“If tradition is essentially the right interpretation of Scripture, then it cannot change — and this means, it can neither grow nor develop. A tradition with a potential for growth ultimately undermines the Gospel itself — it leaves open the possibility for further revelation, and therefore the Gospel would no longer be sure and certain. If our faith is one and the same as that of the apostles, then, as Irenaeus claimed, it is equally immune from improvement by articulate or speculative thinkers as well as from diminution by inarticulate believers (Against the Heresies, 1.10.2). We must take seriously the famous saying of St. Vincent of Lerins: “We must hold what has been believed everywhere, always and by all” (Commonitorium, 2).

“From an Orthodox perspective, there simply is, therefore, no such thing as dogmatic development. What there is, of course, is ever new, more detailed and comprehensive explanations elaborated in defense of one and the same faith — responding, each time, to a particular context, a particular controversy etc. But it is one and the same faith that has been believed from the beginning — the continuity of the correct interpretation of Scripture. And for this reason, the Councils, as Fr. John Meyendorff pointed out, never formally endorsed any aspect of theology as dogma which is not a direct (and correct) interpretation of the history of God described in Scripture: only those aspects were defined as dogma which pertain directly to the Gospel. So, for instance, the only aspect pertaining to the Virgin Mary that was ever recognized as dogma is that she is Theotokos — “Mother of God” — for she gave birth to our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ — it is something which pertains to the Incarnation, rather than to Mary herself. Whilst individual theologians have speculated about other aspects concerning the Virgin herself, and her glorification, items not directly pertaining to the Gospel of Christ’s work of salvation, such as the Assumption and the Immaculate conception, have never been held to have the status of dogma in the Orthodox Church. “

 –Father John Behr

A Talk given at the University of North Carolina / March 23, 1998

Are You Going to Get Burned?

“What had caused the debate and disagreement between the Greeks and Latins in the conferences [at Florrence] on Purgatory was not the question of the middle state after death, but if there is punishment by fire in the middle state. The Latins argued that there is such punishment.” Constantine Tsirpanlis, Mark Eugenicus and the Council of Florence, 78.

“Mark refutes entirely punishment by [a created] fire in the middle state as opposed to and unattested by the Holy Scriptures and the tradition of the Church. The Latin argument from Scripture is of no avail because neither does the Book of Maccabees nor St. Matthew mention fire, and St. Paul in speaking of fire means, as St. John Chrysostom clearly shows [PG 61, 75-82, 361], the eternal fire of hell, not the temporary punishment of fire in Purgatory.” 79.

The handmaiden of the Devil

“Whence spring those “fables and endless genealogies,” and “unprofitable questions,” and “words which spread like a cancer? ” From all these, when the apostle would restrain us, he expressly names philosophy as that which he would have us be on our guard against. Writing to the Colossians, he says, “See that no one beguile you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, and contrary to the wisdom of the Holy Ghost.” He had been at Athens, and had in his interviews (with its philosophers) become acquainted with that human wisdom which pretends to know the truth, whilst it only corrupts it, and is itself divided into its own manifold heresies, by the variety of its mutually repugnant sects. What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church? what between heretics and Christians? Our instruction comes from “the porch of Solomon,” who had himself taught that “the Lord should be sought in simplicity of heart.” Away with all attempts to produce a mottled Christianity of Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic composition! We want no curious disputation after possessing Christ Jesus, no inquisition after enjoying the gospel! With our faith, we desire no further belief.”

-Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum c.7, 9

The Nestorian Bible?

“[I'he] whole of Scripture is the product of the divine activities which enter it, not by superseding the activities of the human authors, but by working confluently with them, so that the Scriptures are the joint product of divine and human activities, both of which penetrate them at every point, working harmoniously together to the production of a writing which is not divine here and human there, but at once divine and human in every part, every word and every particular.”

B.B. Warfield, “The Divine and Human in the Bible,” The Presbyterian Journal, May 3, 1894.

“[T]he organic nature of Scripture…implies the idea that the Holy Spirit, in the inscripturation of the Word of God, did not spurn anything human to serve as an organ of the divine. The revelation of God is not abstractly supernatural but has entered into the human fabric, into persons and states of being, into forms and usages, into history and life. It does not fly high above us but descends into our situation: it has become flesh and blood, like us in all things except sin. Divine revelation is now an ineradicable constituent of this cosmos in which we live and, effecting renewal and restoration, continues its operation. The human has become an instrument of the divine, the natural has become a revelation of the supernatural; the visible has become a sign and seal of the invisible. In the process of inspiration, use has been made of all the gifts and forces resident in human nature.”

Herman Bavink, Reformed Dogmatics I, 442-443

Apostolic Hermeneutics

Peter Enns is an evangelical biblical scholar at Westminster Seminary. I am not usually disposed to post things from WTS, but this article will prove helpful to those wondering how the Orthodox Fathers exegete Scripture. While not, for obvious reasons, always consistent with Orthodoxy, he comes very close to it and has came to see the inadequacies of the grammatical-historical methodology that is so prized among Protestants.

http://peterennsonline.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/AposExegWTJ-fall%2003-final.pdf

Essence and Energies in the Fathers

“Is it not ridiculous to say that the creative power is an essence, and similarly, that providence is an essence, and foreknowledge, simply taking every energy as essence?” Basil the Great, Contra Eunomius, I.8, PG 29, 528B

“The energies are various, and the essence simple, but we say that we know our God from His energies, but do not undertake to approach near to His essence.  His energies come down to us, but His essence remains beyond our reach.” Basil the Great, Epistle 234

“And if we may reckon that the Cause of our existence did not come to the creation of man out of necessity but by benevolent choice, once more we say that we have seen God in this way too, arriving at an understanding of his goodness, not of his being…He who is by nature invisible becomes visible in his operations, being seen in certain cases by the properties he possesses.” Gregory of Nyssa, Homily on the Beatitudes, VI.

“Essence and energy are not identical.” Cyril of Alexandria Thesaurus 18, PG 75:312c

“The man divinized by grace will be everything that God is, apart from identity of essence.” Maximus the Confessor Ad Thalassium 22, PG 90:320a

“But He Who is beyond every name is not identical with what He is named; for the essence and energy of God are not identical.” Gregory Palamas Triads, p. 97

“Nor does indeed everything predicated of him denote the substance, for relation is predicated of him, which is relative and refers to relationships with another but is not indicative of substance. Such also is the divine energy in God, for it is neither substance nor accident, even though it is called a quasi-accident by some theologians who are indicating solely that it is in God but is not the substance.” Gregory Palamas Capita 127

“God also possess that which is not substance. Yet it is not the case that because it is not a substance it is an accident. For that which not only does not pass away but also admits or effects no increase or diminution whatever cold not possibly be numbered among accidents. Gregory Palamas Capita 135,

“Nature and energy are not identical.” Gregory Palamas Capita 143

Saint Mark of Ephesus on False Union and the Filioque

“To those who have ensnared us in an evil captivity and desire to lead us away into Babylon of Latin rites and dogmas could not, of course completely accomplish this seeing immediately that there is little chance of it, in fact that it was simply impossible but having stopped somewhere in the middle, both they and those who followed after them, they neither remained any longer what they were, nor became anything else. For having quit Jerusalem, a firm and unwavering faith, but being in no condition and not wishing to become and to be called Babylonians, they thus called themselves, as if by right, ‘Greco-Latins,’ and among the people are called ‘Latinizers.’ And so these split people, like the mythical centaurs, confess together with the Latins that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son and has the Son as Cause of His existence, and yet together with us confess that He proceeds from the Father. And they say together with them that the addition to the Creed was done canonically and with blessing, and yet together with us do not permit it to be uttered. (Besides, who would turn away from what was canonical and blessed?) And they say together with them that the unleavened bread is the Body of Christ, and yet together with us do not dare accept it. Is this not sufficient to reveal their spirit, and how that it was not in quest of the Truth (which having in their hands, they betrayed) that they came together with the Latins, but from a desire to enrich themselves and to conclude not a true, but a false union.

Happy New Year

http://www.ansamed.info/en/news/ME03.YAM17364.html