SL 38 (2009) 242-60
The Life in Christ by Nicholas Cabasilas: A Mystagogical Work by
Nicholas Denysenko*
A glimpse into 14th century Byzantine theology reveals a world centered on the hesychast controversy, unleashed by a battle between Barlaam the Calabrian, a Greek from South Italy, and Gregory Palamas, a monk from Mount Athos.1 Hesychasm had evolved over a period of centuries, and the monks had refined the so-called ‘‘Jesus Prayer’’ wherein one assumes a low, seated posture, controls breathing, and repeats the words, ‘‘Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.’’ Within the context of the prayer setting, Gregory Palamas (d. 1359) taught that one could have a transformative spiritual encounter with God by beholding the very light that radiated from Jesus at his transfiguration on Mount Tabor. In this experience, one receives the gift of theosis by partaking in God’s energies.2 In his introductory article on the hesychasts, Kallistos Ware includes Palamas’s contemporary, Nicolas Cabasilas (d. c.1397/1398), as a hesychast alongside Gregory of Sinai and Palamas, two of the most prominent hesychastic teachers. Yet Ware’s treatment of Cabasilas in the text is marked by brevity, aligning him with the others because Cabasilas ‘‘sees continual prayer as the vocation of all.’’3 These introductory remarks are germane to an evaluation of Nicholas Cabasilas’s theology because some historians of Byzantine theology have attempted to * Dr. Nicholas Denysenko received his Ph.D. in Liturgical Studies/Sacramental Theology from The Catholic University of America in May 2008. A member of the Orthodox Theological Society of America and an ordained deacon of the Orthodox Church in America, he is adjunct faculty in the Religion Department of George Washington University in Washington, DC. He may be contacted at
[email protected]. 1 For a brief and concise summary of the dispute, see Kallistos Ware, ‘‘The Hesychasts: Gregory of Sinai, Gregory Palamas, Nicolas Cabasilas,’’ in The Study of Spirituality, eds. C. Jones, G. Wainwright, E. Yarnold (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986) 242-55. Ware emphatically asserts that this controversy ‘‘was not a dispute between the Latin West and the Greek East, but essentially a conflict within the Greek tradition, involving two different ways of interpreting Dionysius the Areapogite’’ (249). See also John Meyendorff’s A Study of Gregory Palamas (trans. George Lawrence [Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998]), which still stands as the classical work outlining the background to the controversy and the intricacies of Gregory Palamas’s doctrine. 2 See Ware, 248-53. While hesychasm commonly refers to the practice of saying the ‘‘Jesus Prayer,’’ ¹suc…a translates into ‘‘quiet, still,’’ the prevailing atmosphere during the uttering of the prayer. 3 Ibid., 255.
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identify hesychast leanings and concepts in his works, especially his treatise The Life in Christ.4 While such endeavors to situate Cabasilas within his immediate milieu might appear appropriate, the search for hesychasm in The Life in Christ conditions its evaluation, and obscures the original contribution he makes to medieval Byzantine theology. The pattern of imposing hesychasm on Cabasilas is perhaps best exemplified by Boris Bobrinskoy: No less than by his Christocentric sacramental doctrine, Nicholas Cabasilas is close to the hesychastic tradition by all his teaching on ceaseless vigilance, awareness, and contemplation of the love of God. . . . The ascetic doctrine of hesychasm concerning the invisible warfare, the guard of the heart and ceaseless prayer, is praised and given particular stress by Cabasilas.5 This article evaluates Cabasilas’s themes in The Life in Christ without presupposing possible connections to hesychasm. This analysis attempts to illuminate the treatise’s unique qualities and contributions by explicating select themes from The Life in Christ, which provides a general exposition on the way participation in the sacraments results in humanity’s divinization. Corollary commentary will focus on Cabasilas’s methodology, how lex orandi and lex credendi interrelate in his work, and how his own objective was to define a spiritual life for a lay audience that is grounded in their sacramental participation. I. An Analysis of The Life in Christ Those who have studied Cabasilas generally agree that he was a layman throughout the entirety of his life, and was never ordained a priest nor tonsured to the monastic ranks. The arguments asserting his consecration as metropolitan of Thessalonica at the very end of his life have been dismissed as a case of mistaken identity with his famous uncle Nilus.6 The exact date of Cabasilas’s death is unknown, 4 When quoting, I will refer to the English translation, The Life in Christ, trans. Carmino J. deCatanzaro, intro. Boris Bobrinskoy (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974). The critical edition is in two volumes: La vie en Christ, Livres I–IV, ed. Marie-He´ le`ne Congourdeau, Sources chre´ tiennes 355 (Paris: Cerf, 1989). Congourdeau has also provided the introduction with critical text, translation, annotation and index in La vie en Christ, Livres V–VII, Sources chre´ tiennes 361 (Paris: Cerf, 1990). Carmino deCatanzaro’s chapter numbers differ from Congourdeau’s; I will cite deCatanzaro’s throughout. 5 Bobrinskoy, introduction to Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, 28-29. Bobrinskoy’s introduction to deCatanzaro’s translation was originally published as ‘‘Nicolas Cabasilas: Theology and Spirituality,’’ in Sobornost 7 (1968) 483-505. Also see Ware (n. 1 above), Myrrha Lot-Borodine, Nicolas Cabasilas: Un maître de la spiritualite´ byzantine (Paris: E´ ditions de l’Orante, 1958), and John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New York: Fordham University Press, 1974) 108. 6 See Congourdeau, introduction to La vie en Christ, Livres I–IV, 17-22.
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though it certainly occurred after 1391, and probably around 1397/1398.7 The question concerning his ecclesiastical rank is unusual, as treatises on the Christian life that are not directed towards a monastic audience are unusual in the corpus of Byzantine spiritual literature.8 Cabasilas displayed considerable intellectual dexterity in his own literary output, also producing a mystagogical commentary on the eucharistic Divine Liturgy (On the Divine Liturgy), several homilies and eulogies, brief liturgical works, secular writings, and letters.9 The exact date for both The Life in Christ and On the Divine Liturgy is unknown, on account of the complexity of their textual transmission in the manuscript tradition.10 The Life in Christ exemplifies perhaps his most masterful output as he walks his audience through the sacraments of initiation, and expresses a consistently christocentric spiritual life. The Life in Christ is divided into seven books.11 In the first book, Cabasilas states that the life in Christ begins in the present life, and establishes the soteriological presuppositions in Christ’s Pascha and incarnation: We were justified, first by being set free from bonds and condemnation, in that He who had done no evil pleaded for us by dying on the cross. By this he paid the penalty for the sins which we had audaciously committed; then, because of that death, we were made friends of God and righteous. By his death, the Savior not only released us and reconciled us to the Father, but also ‘‘gave us power to become children of God,’’ in that He both united our nature to Himself through the flesh which He assumed, and also united each one of us to His own flesh by the power of the mysteries.12 In this statement, Cabasilas establishes the primacy of the sacraments as the means of encountering God and living the life in Christ, demonstrating that they provide 7 Ibid., 16. Congourdeau mentions that Cabasilas’s friend, Demetrios Kydones, died in 1397 or 1398, and neither he nor Cabasilas makes reference to the other’s passing. 8 Ibid., 17. 9 See the critical edition of his commentary on the Divine Liturgy, Nicolas Cabasilas, Explication de la divine liturgie, ed. Se´ ve´ rien Salaville, Sources chre´ tiennes 4 bis (Paris: Cerf, 1967). From this point forward, I shall refer to the title of this treatise as On the Divine Liturgy and use the English translation in Nicholas Cabasilas, A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, trans. J. M. Hussey and P. M. McNulty (London: SPCK, 1966). Congourdeau provides a conveniently categorized bibliography of Cabasilas’s works (26-27). 10 On the dating of On the Divine Liturgy, see Salaville, introduction, 52. On the dating of The Life in Christ, see Congourdeau, 66-67. Both Salaville and Congourdeau rely on Paris Gr. 1213, a monastic manuscript dating to the first half of the 15th century, for much of the text in the critical editions. 11 See Congourdeau, 28-41, for an outline of the structure of the work. 12 Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 1.7 (53-54). DeCatanzaro literally translates ‘‘musthr…wn’’ as ‘‘mysteries,’’ and I will retain that within the quoted portions, but will use ‘‘sacraments’’ liberally within the main text. See La vie en Christ 1.32 (104-7).
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access to the paradigmatic salvific events that occurred within history. This is the key to his methodological approach, which he elaborates in the following text: He [Christ] entered into the Holy Place when he had offered himself to the Father, and he leads in those who are willing, as they share in His burial. This, however, does not consist in dying as He died, but in showing forth that death in the baptismal washing and proclaiming it upon the sacred table, when they, after being anointed, in an ineffable manner feast upon Him who was done to death and rose again.13 He then applies this interpretation of participation through sacramental symbols to the sacraments in general, crowning them as the means by which Christians participate in Christ’s life: The gates of the mysteries are far more august and beneficial than the gates of Paradise. The latter will not be opened to anyone who has not first entered through the gates of the mysteries, but these were opened when the gates of Paradise had been closed. . . . This is the life which the Lord came to bring, that those who come through these mysteries should be partakers of His death and share in His passion. Apart from this it is impossible to escape death.14 Cabasilas does not specifically situate the sacraments in the church per se, but appears to apply an absolute quality to the necessity of sacramental initiation, which could certainly be interpreted as conditioning his comprehension of ecclesial boundaries. That said, Cabasilas’s purpose was to establish the primacy of participation in the sacraments in receiving salvation from God. Cabasilas demonstrates the manner by which the sacraments endow Christians with new life in Christ. For him, there is no life outside of Christianity, as ‘‘baptism confers being and in short, existence according to Christ.’’15 Cabasilas does not equivocate, as he characterizes nuptial imagery as an inadequate analogy for the fullness of personal union that results from sacramental union with Christ.16 Instead, he focuses on the martyrs as more appropriate examples, since they ‘‘gave up their heads and limbs with pleasure, but could not even by word betray Christ.’’17 The person resulting from union with Christ in the sacraments is changed, endowed 13
Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 1.8 (56). Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 1.9 (56-57); cf. La vie en Christ I.40, 42 (115-17). 15 Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 1.6 (49); cf. La vie en Christ 1.19 (94-95). 16 Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 1.3 (46-47): ‘‘It would appear that marriage and the concord between head and members especially indicate connection and unity, yet they fall far short of it and are far from manifesting the reality. Marriage does not so join together that those who are united exist and live in each other, as is the case with Christ and the Church.’’ 17 Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 2.3 (46). Cabasilas uses the verb ‘‘¢postÁnai’’ or ‘‘betray’’ to accentuate the martyrs’ union. Cf. La vie en Christ 2.10 (84). 14
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with new faculties that engender knowledge of God and participation in the divine life.18 This infusion of new faculties holds tremendous importance for the entire purpose and destiny of humanity: This therefore becomes clear: the baptismal washing has instilled into men some knowledge and perception of God, so that they have clearly known Him who is good and have perceived His beauty and tasted of His goodness. This, I affirm, they are able to know more perfectly by experience than were they merely to learn it by being taught.19 Cabasilas synthesized multiple theological axioms within a sacramental context. He points to the notion of the human telos in Greek patristic theology, the goal of knowing, perceiving, and participating in the life of God for the purpose of being divinized. In this last passage, Cabasilas prioritizes the acquisition of knowledge through experience over learning. However, this experience is not isolated to a particular mode of prayer, but instead entails direct participation in the sacramental life, which begins with baptism. Cabasilas has adopted an incarnational approach to explicating the qualities of the new person who emerges from sacramental participation, as ‘‘it is Christ who bestows birth and we who are born; and as for him who is being born, it is quite clear that He who generates confers His own life on Him.’’20 Cabasilas identifies God as the telos for the human journey that begins with new birth. God has even implanted desire into human souls, which functions as one of the newly-bestowed faculties in differentiating between good and evil.21 Love and joy, fruits of the gifts received at new birth, are also weapons that lead to victory, as attested by the saints.22 The picture painted by Cabasilas is not inundated with a starkly dualistic battle between God and the devil over human souls.23 18 Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 2.9 (80). ‘‘The birth in Baptism is the beginning of the life to come, and the provision of new members and faculties is the preparation for that manner of life. . . . Just as it is impossible to live this natural life without receiving the organs of Adam and the human faculties necessary for this life, so likewise no one can attain that blessed world alive without being prepared by the life of Christ and being formed according to His image.’’ 19 Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 2.15 (89); cf. La vie en Christ 2.74 (200). 20 Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 2.9 (81). 21 Ibid., 2.19 (95-98). ‘‘God has implanted the desire into our souls by which every need should lead to the attainment of that which is good, every thought to the attainment of truth. . . . For those who have tasted of the Savior, the object of desire is present’’ (96). 22 Ibid., 2.21 (101). ‘‘Armed with these weapons of love and joy it was impossible for the saints to be overcome either by terrors or pleasures. Joy prevailed over miseries, pleasures were incapable of drawing aside or destroying those who were held together and bound to Him by so great a power of affection.’’ 23 Cabasilas does acknowledge the traditional renunciation of the evil one in his treatment of the exorcism, the insufflation, and the renunciation in baptism; cf. ibid., 2.3 (69-71).
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Nevertheless, his language appears intentionally to engage the corollary life of virtue entailed by baptism. The newly baptized have the task of performing ‘‘great and virtuous deeds,’’and accomplishing ‘‘wondrous works,’’without being destroyed by miseries and pleasures.24 Cabasilas, however, is not a determinist. While Christ is the active agent in Cabasilas’s scheme, the one who infuses and endows, humans are not completely passive instruments who simply enact predetermined events from God’s plan. God respects humanity’s free will, which baptism does not remove. With regards to receiving the gift of salvation, humans have the power to exercise their free choice, though any variance with God’s will manifested by disorder in this life deprives them of this gift: Since he is infinite in goodness He will for us every good thing and bestows it on us, subject to the free exercise of our own will. Such, then, is the benefit of Baptism. It does not throttle or restrain the will. Since it is a faculty nothing prevents those who enjoy its use from living in wickedness if they so wish, just as the possession of a sound eye would not prevent those who desire it from living in darkness.25 Continuing the presentation in his third book, Cabasilas applies a mystagogical approach as he proceeds to demonstrate the way the sacraments enable a virtuous life. The brevity of this book does not diminish its contribution. Cabasilas engages a pithy discourse on the gifts received from the Holy Spirit in chrismation (literally, ‘‘tÒ qe‹on mÚron’’): So the effect of this sacred rite is the imparting of the energies of the Holy Spirit. The chrism brings in the Lord Jesus Himself, in whom is man’s whole salvation and all hope of benefits. From Him we receive the participation in the Holy Spirit and through Him we have access to the Father. . . . the gifts which the chrism always procures for Christians and which are always timely are . . . godliness, prayer, love, and sobriety.26 Chrismation as a component of initiation brings the new Christian into the life of the Holy Trinity. In this pithy statement, Cabasilas explains how the gift of the Holy Spirit begins a life of personal union with Jesus Christ. The gifts of ‘‘godliness, love, prayer, and sobriety’’ constitute the realities of ongoing growth and conversion in the Christian life. Work is required to maintain a fruitful communion with Christ and the Father. Cabasilas presents God’s divine plan for humanity’s salvation in an incarnational paradigm. In chrismation Jesus himself is ushered 24
Ibid., 2.21 (100-101). Ibid., 2.11 (85). This section includes an excursus on the resurrection and the impotence of apostasy. 26 Ibid., 3.4 (106-7). 25
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into the candidate and imparts the Holy Spirit and his gifts; through the Holy Spirit the initiates obtain access to the Father. Cabasilas’s presentation has not disintegrated into the imposition of a specific trinitarian model onto the sacrament. Rather, the procession of his argument follows the presupposition of the intimate union and active agency of Christ in the sacramental event. Cabasilas explains chrismation as the beginning of an intimate, personal union with Christ, which the Holy Spirit sustains. The goal of this union is the telos, the restoration of communion with the Father. Cabasilas’s explanation also implies a soteriological motif: new Christians grow into the likeness of Christ through this union, and the activities of the Christian life lead to divinization. Thus, in this brief book, Cabasilas has shown how the sacrament itself sets in motion the process of growing in the Christian life. His explanation, a pithy expression of christological and pneumatological dynamics, also shows how the lex orandi not only reveals the lex credendi, but also the spiritual life (lex vivendi). Cabasilas does not separate spiritual growth from the pangs of human development, emphasizing that those who have abandoned the spiritual journey in Christ upon reaching maturity should be assured of Christ’s ongoing presence.27 Essentially, his notion of the permanence of the gifts given at the sacrament is similar to the Western notion of sacramental character. Engaging and using spiritual gifts requires full human participation which incorporates the use of reason and morality, and includes the training of one’s character and will. This means that whatever challenges a Christian faces, the gifts one receives at chrismation are permanent and can be a source of renewal even after one has abandoned Christianity. Thus, this brief section on chrismation constitutes a core component in a Christian’s spiritual journey towards theosis. It draws from a strong incarnational model and relates a Christian’s participation in the life of the Trinity to the process of ongoing conversion. In the fourth book, Cabasilas explicates the significance of holy communion. Communion is the crown of initiation, the perfection of the life in Christ which commenced with baptism and continued in chrismation. Cabasilas expertly describes the distinguishing qualities of holy communion without separating Christ’s unique activity here from his agency in the first two components of initiation: As He washes them in Baptism He cleanses them from the filth of wickedness and imposes His own form upon them; when He anoints them He activates 27 Ibid., 3.4 (108). ‘‘Since this mystery takes place in infancy, they have no perception of its gifts when it is celebrated and they receive them; when they have reached maturity they have turned aside to what they ought not to do and have blinded the eye of the soul. Yet in truth the Spirit imparts His own gifts to those who are being initiated. . . . Nor has the master ceased from doing us good, since He promised to be with us until the end. This sacred rite, then, is not an empty thing.’’
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the energies of the Spirit of which He, for the sake of our flesh, became the Treasury. But when He has led the initiate to the table and has given him His Body to eat He entirely changes him, and transforms him into His own state.28 He reinforces the inseparability of the three components of sacramental initiation by describing communion as the ‘‘final mystery,’’ which cannot be surpassed, and to which nothing can be added. Communion inculcates the fullness of the mutual indwelling shared by Christ and the participant.29 Cabasilas here ascribes to his own variant of a particular sacramental realism that does not focus on the transformation of the bread and wine as species or elements, but rather on the transformation of the person and the consequences of this participation: O how great are the mysteries! What a thing it is for Christ’s mind to be mingled with ours, our will to be blended with His, our body with His body and our blood with His blood! What is our mind when the divine mind obtains control? What is our will when that blessed will has overcome it?30 While this might appear to subscribe to determinism, Cabasilas is actually attempting to demonstrate how sacramental participation results in the christification rooted in Pauline theology.31 Christ’s presence does not obliterate the unicity of the human person, but instead provides the medicine and protection required for preservation of the Christian journey to theosis.32 Here Cabasilas also accentuates the fullness of Christ’s work in contrast to the impotence of human works. The efficacy of Christ’s work comes through the transformation of the participant in holy communion, the mystery of the mutual indwelling that is positioned at the center of this treatise: The divine Dionysius tells us that the divine mysteries themselves do not sanctify and are incapable of their proper effects without the sacred feast being added to them. How much less is it likely that men’s efforts and righteousness should be capable of releasing from sin and achieving the other results! . . . For this 28
Ibid., 4.1 (113). Ibid., 4.2 (115-16): ‘‘So we dwell in Him and are indwelt and become one spirit with Him. The soul and the body and all their faculties forthwith become spiritual, for our souls, our bodies and blood, are united with His’’ (116). 30 Ibid., 4.2 (116); cf. La vie en Christ 4.9 (284). 31 Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 4.2. Cabasilas quotes 2 Corinthians 2:16, ‘‘we have the mind of Christ’’; 2 Corinthians 13:3, ‘‘you desire proof that Christ is speaking in me’’; Philippians 1:18, ‘‘I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus’’; and Galatians 2:20 as the summary, ‘‘it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.’’ 32 Ibid., 4.3 (117). ‘‘To revive those who fade away and die because of their sins is the work of the sacred table alone.’’ 29
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reason we are baptized but once, but approach the table frequently, for we from time to time offend against God since we are human.33 Cabasilas touches on a latent issue in liturgical practice here, demonstrating the necessity of frequent communion during an epoch when the faithful rarely communed. Cabasilas explicitly exhorts his audience to commune frequently in a later section of the work, stating that no one should ‘‘unnecessarily abstain’’ from communion.34 He responds to the argument that people should abstain from communion because of unworthiness by emphasizing the benefits of Christ’s presence in communion which heals sinfulness.35 Finally, the theological synthesis developed in this exposition on the sacraments of initiation results in his description of the actualization of sharing in God’s life: This is the reality of our adoption as sons of God. . . . In this case . . . there is a real birth and a sharing with the only-begotten Son, not of the surname only, but of His very being, His Blood, His Body, His Life. What, then, is greater than that the Father of the only-begotten Son Himself recognizes in us His members and finds the very form of the Son in our faces? . . . Why should I call this sonship fictitious when it makes us more alike in nature and more closely akin than natural sonship?36 Thus, partaking of the divine life occurs through participation in the sacraments, and Christ nourishes the participant’s relationship with him that started with chrismation. Christ guards and protects the person, never abandoning him as he progresses 33
Ibid., 4.6 (121). Cabasilas also notes that the sacrament of repentance is limited in its efficacy, as the ‘‘sacred banquet’’ is required for the fullness of Christ’s presence. 34 Ibid., 6.14 (193). ‘‘Him we must seek in every way in order that we may feed on Him and ward off hunger by constantly attending this banquet. Nor should we unnecessarily abstain from the holy table and thus greatly weaken our souls on the pretext that we are not really worthy of the Mysteries. Rather, we must resort to the priests [for Confession] on account of our sins so that we may drink of the cleansing Blood.’’ Cabasilas does not mention confession, but clearly implies it. See La vie en Christ 6.102 (128): ‘‘¢ll¦ perˆ tîn ¢marthm£twn pros…ontaj to‹j ƒereàsi, tîn kaqars…wn p…nein aƒm£twn.’’ 35 The historical background to this issue has been treated by Nicholas Afanasiev, Трапеза Госодня, Серня Lex Orandi (Kyiv: Temple of the Venerable Agapit Pecherskiy, 2003) 116-28, and idem, The Church of the Holy Spirit, ed. Michael Plekon, trans. Vitaly Permiakov (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007) 50-57. Afanasiev traces the beginning of regular practice of abstinence from communion with the conversion of the masses following the Peace of Constantine in 313. He shows how the canons had threatened those who abstained from communion with excommunication, with restoration allowed only through demonstrated repentance. The commencement of a new interpretation of such canons is exemplified by the commentary of characters such as Balsamon, who claimed that those who came into the Church needed to stay to the end in order to receive the antidoron, not communion. In liturgical life, ‘‘the Lord’s Supper ceased to be a supper, celebrated in and for the Church’’ (Afanasiev, Трапеза Господня, 123). 36 Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 5.9 (127).
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through life’s trials, restoring him when he falls and reminding him of his new identity as a son of God, sharing Christ’s own identity. In other words, participating in God’s life originates with God who sees the entire process through to its end. Cabasilas’s explanation of communion continues his teaching on chrismation as he keeps his audience attuned to the organic connection between their experience of the sacraments and living the Christian life. Communion guarantees Christ’s continued presence and keeps the Christian in the life of the Trinity. Thus, the sacramental life represents the locus for the encounter and union between humanity and God in Christ, and stands as Cabasilas’s most significant contribution to medieval Byzantine theology. The bulk of the rest of this prodigious work attends to cultivating the proper human disposition through virtuous thoughts and deeds, grounded in orienting one’s mind on Christ.37 Cabasilas expounds his interpretation of the Incarnation as the paradigmatic event for the formation of human nature by referring to Christ as humanity’s fulfillment, beginning with the creation story: It was for the new man that human nature was created at the beginning, and for him mind and desire were prepared. Our reason we have received in order that we may know Christ, our desire in order that we might hasten to Him. We have memory in order that we may carry Him in us, since He Himself is the archetype for those who were created. It was not the old Adam who was the model for the new, but the new Adam for the old.38 Cabasilas appears to embellish a sense of human development modeled after Christ’s paradigm that originated in Irenaeus.39 The difference is that Cabasilas’s process is firmly grounded in sacramental participation. The absolute value of christification achieved through this process is exemplified by a complete and total dependence on and orientation towards Christ.40 Cabasilas attends to humanity’s manner of living and spiritual practices in the following sections with particular focus on constant, hourly prayer directed towards Christ. While some consider this an implicit reference to the practice of the Jesus Prayer, Cabasilas’s own commentary appears to suggest the possibility of multiple means of achieving this goal: 37 Ibid., 6.6, 7, 9 (207-12). Cabasilas consistently recommends vigilance: practice in meditating on what is good in order to overcome evil. 38 Ibid., 6.12 (190). 39 See James Purves, ‘‘The Spirit and the Imago Dei: Reviewing the Anthropology of Irenaeus of Lyons,’’ The Evangelical Quarterly 68 (1996) 103-5, and his elaboration on the process of human ‘‘becomingness’’ in Irenaeus. This entails a gradual spiritual growth in the likeness of God, following Christ’s incarnational paradigm, enabled by the Holy Spirit. 40 Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 6.12: Cabasilas portrays Christ as the ‘‘resting place’’ and ‘‘goal of all things’’ for man.
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But that we may be able to have our attention always directed towards Him and have this zeal at all times, let us call on Him, the subject of our salvation, at every hour. There is no need whatever of special formalities for prayers, nor need those who call upon him have any special places or a loud voice. There is no place in which He is not present; it is impossible for Him not to be near us. For those who seek Him He is actually closer than their very heart.41 This seems to exclude a direct reference to the hesychast’s Jesus Prayer, especially since Cabasilas uses the Beatitudes as his source for a spirituality that informs the virtuous life borne from sacramental initiation.42 Cabasilas instead allows his audience the flexibility to utilize the most effective means of discovering the prayers that will lead them towards contemplation of Christ. This brief review of the core elements of Cabasilas’s The Life in Christ portrays this work as a masterpiece of Byzantine sacramental theology. Cabasilas’s magisterial extrapolation of theology from liturgical contents and structures is striking for its resemblance to the instruction typical of the mystagogical catecheses of the 4th century. These classical mystagogies, explicating the sacramental experience of new or prospective initiates, do not separate baptism, chrismation, and eucharist, but rather present them as a unitary whole comprising initiation. Granting the theological unicity of their respective works, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose of Milan, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and John Chrysostom commonly indicate a unitary process of initiation which is sealed by partaking of the eucharist.43 More significantly, as pastors, their treatises explain the theological meaning of the rites of initiation to those preparing for initiation (and the newly baptized) in practical terms, which is mystagogy.44 Their common understanding of a single process of initiation that begins with baptism and culminates in the eucharist, their elucidation of the ritual’s liturgical theology, and the way they relate the sacraments to divinization, corresponds to our author’s The Life in Christ. 41
Ibid., 6.13 (192). Cf. ibid., 6.10 (175-89). 43 For background to these works, see Enrico Mazza, Mystagogy: A Theology of Liturgy in the Patristic Age, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (New York: Pueblo, 1989), especially his bibliography for primary and secondary reading (176ff.). English translations are provided in Edward Yarnold, The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation: The Origins of the R.C.I.A., 2nd ed. (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1994). 44 Yarnold, 167. Cyril and Ambrose delivered their catecheses to the newly initiated during the Easter octave, whereas John and Theodore provided their lectures before initiation. Mazza reviews the various definitions of mystagogy (1-3), settling on ‘‘liturgical theology.’’ 42
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Notably, Cabasilas’s renown in sacramental theology comes from his achievement in On the Divine Liturgy.45 The Life in Christ has generated the most interest for its spiritually-oriented theology and its coincidence with Palamas’s hesychasm, and then for its prolonged elaboration of soteriology, with the sacramental contribution assigned a secondary degree of signification.46 The remainder of this article will attend to these subjects in order to compare their weightiness with his sacramental emphasis, and assist in determining the originality of Cabasilas’s The Life in Christ. II. The Life in Christ: A Soteriological Treatise? Panayiotis Nellas endeavored to discover whether The Life in Christ answers the famous question posed by Anselm’s 11th century classical treatise Cur Deus Homo. Nellas, clearly assuming a pejorative stance towards Anselm’s work, asserts that Cabasilas restored Pauline terminology back to the forefront, advancing the notion of deification as christification.47 Nellas essentially reads The Life in Christ as a repositioning of Christian anthropology along the lines of a creation-deification model in which the sacraments function as paths to incorporation in Christ.48 Nellas identifies complete union with God as the purpose of Cabasilas’s treatise, with the eucharist assuming the central locus for the actualization of the hypostatic union in which humanity acquires an ontological change.49 The sacraments become something like a place, a created dwelling for God with his body. Nellas credits Cabasilas (along with Gregory Palamas) for restoring traditional theological anthropology by establishing the creation-deification model of soteriology, a crowning theological accomplishment of the 14th century.50 Nellas asserts thatAnselm’s theory restricted 45 The classical work on this subject is by Rene´ Bornert, Les commentaries byzantins de la divine liturgie du VII e au XV e sie`cle, Archives de l’Orient chre´ tien 9 (Paris: Institut franc¸ ais d’e´ tudes byzantines, 1966). Also see Michael Klimenko, ‘‘On the Divine Liturgy: Nicholas Cabasilas and his Commentary,’’ Diakonia 19 (1966) 215-36; Constantine Tsirpanlis, The Liturgical and Mystical Theology of Nicolas Cabasilas (Athens: Reprinted from ‘‘Theologia,’’ 1976); and Hans-Joachim Schulz, The Byzantine Liturgy: Symbolic Structure and Faith Expression, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (New York: Pueblo, 1986). 46 Se´ ve´ rien Salaville provides the most pithy examination in ‘‘Vues sote´ riologiques chez Nicolas Cabasilas (XIV e sie`cle),’’ Revue des e´ tudes byzantines 1 (1943) 5-57. Also see Panayiotis Nellas, ‘‘Redemption or Deification? Nicholas Kavasilas and Anselm’s Question ‘Why Did God Become Man?,’ ’’ trans. Elizabeth Theokritoff, Sourozh 66 (1996) 10-30. 47 Nellas, 13 (23). 48 Ibid., 18. 49 Ibid., 18-19, 26-27. 50 Ibid., 28. Nellas also views Cabasilas’s model as holding promise for ecumenical dialogue, as a ‘‘starting point for ‘fruitful dialogue’ ’’ between Orthodox and other Christian groups, since Cabasilas ‘‘exposed Anselm’s tragic mistake.’’
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the soteriological axis to Fall-redemption and proposes a creation-deification model as a solution. An example of his negative attitude towards Anselm includes the caricature of the ‘‘reduction’’ as an ‘‘asphyxiating cloud.’’51 In Nellas’s evaluation, Cabasilas’s contribution belongs to soteriology and theological anthropology, whereas sacramental theology holds a utilitarian function. Se´ ve´ rien Salaville treats the issue more broadly, examining a number of Cabasilas’s works in determining whether his soteriology was consistent from one work to another.52 Salaville also compares Cabasilas’s soteriology with Anselm’s. Salaville notes that Cabasilas’s comments on redemption are utilitarian, serving his explanation of the eucharist.53 Cabasilas’s approach differs from Anselm’s in his definition of the sacraments as the gates to redemption. Salaville also comments on the possibility that Cabasilas used the soteriology of Thomas Aquinas in presenting his thesis. Salaville concludes that such comparisons are complicated by the fact that Cabasilas probably never had access to translations of Cur Deus Homo and the Summa, although he and Aquinas shared many sources, and Cabasilas also made reference to the idea of satisfaction. For Salaville, Cabasilas’s works carry a heterogeneous quality, and his contribution is thus irreducible.54 Rene´ Bornert agrees with Salaville and takes it a step further by claiming that On the Divine Liturgy was intended to be a complementary work to The Life in Christ, characterizing the latter as a treatise on the sacramental mysteries and the former as a strictly mystagogical commentary.55 Bornert downplays Cabasilas’s contribution, qualifying his works as a synthetic expose´ of the traditional structures of sacramental and liturgical signs. He also asserts that hesychasm appears in Cabasilas’s work, though in a limited manner.56 Bornert focuses on Cabasilas’s use of typology, especially in his commentary on the Divine Liturgy. Bornert places Cabasilas in the patristic tradition by employing both historia and theoria in On the Divine Liturgy, although (according to Bornert) the historia function serves theoria.57 51
Ibid., 23. See n. 46 above. 53 Salaville, 25. 54 Ibid., 48-49. The first known Greek translation of Cur Deus Homo was by Manuel Calecas, who died in 1410. 55 Bornert, 217. 56 Ibid., 225-26. 57 In mystagogical texts commenting on the eucharistic Divine Liturgy, historia loosely follows the so-called ‘‘Antiochene’’ tradition by interpreting a particular liturgical action or text as signifying something particular from the gospels or the life of Christ. Theoria interprets the actions as pointing to a deeper spiritual meaning, sometimes referring to the Christian’s ascending journey to the contemplation of God. Most scholars use allegory as the technical term for historia, and anagogy for theoria, 52
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A brief analysis of an important passage from On the Divine Liturgy shows how Cabasilas’s work is primarily mystagogical, especially when he presents two explanations of liturgical components together. In On the Divine Liturgy, Cabasilas seems to have been concerned with clarifying liturgical elements for a lay audience, given the hybrid nature of his commentary. His intent surpasses a mere endeavor to synthesize allegorical and anagogical interpretations of the text as he sensitively explains the most practical aspects of the liturgical actions, evidenced by the following example from his interpretation of the Great Entrance of the eucharistic Divine Liturgy: The priest, having said the doxology aloud, comes to the altar of preparation, takes the offerings, and reverently holding them head-high departs. . . . The priest goes on, surrounded by candles and incense, until he comes to the altar. This is done, no doubt, for practical reasons; it was necessary to bring the offerings which are to be sacrificed to the altar and set them down there, and to do this with all reverence and devotion.58 Cabasilas then explains the allegorical significance of the text: Also, this ceremony signifies the last manifestation of Christ, which aroused the hatred of the Jews, when he embarked on the journey from his native country to Jerusalem, where he was to be sacrificed; then he rode into the Holy City on the back of an ass, escorted by a cheering crowd.59 At this point, an anagogical explanation might be expected, but Cabasilas instead refers this entire action to the anaphora as the center of the eucharistic liturgy, urging the assembly to prostrate themselves to be remembered in the priest’s commemoration since ‘‘there is no other means of supplication so powerful, so certain of acceptance, as that which takes place through this most holy sacrifice.’’60 This section on the Great Entrance is quite short, and ends with a warning about erroneously venerating the offerings ‘‘as if they were the body and blood of Christ,’’ since they have not yet been consecrated at this point of the liturgy. Cabasilas exercised considerable caution in refraining from attaching too superficial an importance to the entrance of the gifts, and instead directed his audience to the centrality of the anaphora and its significance. though they are interchangeable. Maximus the Confessor’s 7th century Mystagogia is the classical commentary predominantly employing theoria, whereas Germanus of Constantinople uses historia in his 8th century treatise. For more on the significance of these methods in Byzantine liturgical works, see Robert F. Taft, ‘‘The Liturgy of the Great Church: An Initial Synthesis of Structure and Interpretation on the Eve of Iconoclasm,’’ Dumbarton Oaks Papers 34-35 (1980-81) 45-75. 58 Cabasilas, On the Divine Liturgy, 24 (65). 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid.
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This brief excursion into On the Divine Liturgy corroborates a characterization of Cabasilas as a teacher who catered his presentation towards the greatest benefit for his audience. This example reveals a clarifying motif in Cabasilas’s methodology. In the Byzantine eucharistic Divine Liturgy, the Great Entrance occupied a position of enormous visual grandeur, including the participation of ecclesiastical and imperial dignitaries.61 The entrance with the gifts began to be interpreted as a solemn liturgical component as early as Theodore Mospuestia’s 4th century explanation of the mysteries.62 As participation in communion decreased, the weightiness of this event grew in prominence, eventually with the addition of verbal commemorations in response to specific requests for prayer. Cabasilas was not the first to warn the laity about venerating the bread and wine prior to their consecration, as evidenced by the complaints stated by Constantinopolitan Patriarch Eutyches in the 6th century on the same issue.63 However, his endeavor to reorient the audience towards a proper understanding of the meaning of the liturgical structures closely corresponds to his objective in The Life in Christ. In this sense, The Life in Christ shares a fraternal association with On the Divine Liturgy, especially considering the gap between chapters 39 and 40 of the latter work, his explication of the bidding to communion, and the prayers said for those who have communicated.64 Bornert has correctly noted that The Life in Christ and its fecund expression of the union between communicants and Christ in holy communion conveniently fills this gap, although the work cannot be reduced to solely fulfilling this function.65 Cabasilas’s introduction of a practical concern into the liturgical commentary evidences his sensitivity to his audience and illuminates a unique aspect of his treatise. In conclusion, scholars do not agree on the core theme of Cabasilas’s thesis. The issue is its purpose. One might expect a late 14th century theological work to center on one issue, with some commonality between writers of the period. This explains scholars’ desire to discover soteriological and hesychastic theses in Cabasilas’s work, since many of his contemporaries focused on one theological theme. Nellas’s presentation on Cabasilas does not consider the totality of The Life in Christ, because unlike Anselm’s treatise, Cabasilas uses a mystagogical method 61 See Taft, A History of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, vol. 2: The Great Entrance: A History of the Transfer of Gifts and other Pre-anaphoral Rites (2nd ed., Orientalia Christiana Analecta 200 [Rome: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1978]), for a complete treatment of the historical development of the entrance with the gifts in the Byzantine and related liturgical rites. See pp. 35-46 for an overview of the early development of the Great Entrance. 62 Ibid., 35. 63 Ibid., 84. 64 Cabasilas, On the Divine Liturgy (92-93). 65 Bornert, 217, 229.
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in presenting the sacraments and explaining how they reveal their inherent soteriology. The example from On the Divine Liturgy demonstrates this, showing that Cabasilas focused on explaining the meaning of sacramental celebrations to a lay audience. His explanations are not necessarily systematic, but pastoral, evidenced by his attempt sometimes to clarify particular issues with two meanings, one practical, and one theological. The Life in Christ similarly reveals Cabasilas’s objective, to show how the sacraments begin and sustain Christians’ saving relationship with Christ. While Cabasilas’s work elaborates the soteriology of union with Christ and the process of divinization, his purpose is to show how sacramental celebration culminates in salvation. His work is primarily a mystagogical presentation of the sacraments, of which soteriology is an organic and related component. The liturgical celebrations are not utilitarian, but primary events leading to theology’s proliferation and refinement. This is an important distinction for liturgical theology since, for Cabasilas, the liturgy is the event at which theology is shaped, formed, and even understood. III. The Life in Christ: A Hesychastic Work? As noted throughout, hesychasm was a preeminent teaching of Cabasilas’s milieu, and some scholars have attempted to identify hesychastic motifs in his work. John Meyendorff opined that some passages from The Life in Christ are paraphrases of Gregory Palamas’s Triads,66 whereas several scholars, including Myrrha LotBorodine, Nellas, Ware, and Bornert acknowledge Cabasilas’s unicity, but place his thesis of theological anthropology from The Life in Christ within the Palamitehesychast school.67 Nellas’s conclusion typifies this school of thought: Nicolas Cabasilas is clearly situated in the Orthodox-biblical-patristic tradition in general and in the school of St. Gregory Palamas in particular. . . . By supporting within the specific conditions of the fourteenth century the work of St. Gregory Palamas, he thus revealed Orthodox truth and contributed to the condemnation of the heretical humanism of his age. . . . By showing that the spiritual life can be lived in its fullness even in the world and by sketching the basic lines of such a way of life, he played a leading part in the vital task of channeling the great hesychastic renaissance of the fourteenth century into the world as a renaissance of liturgical and sacramental life.68 66
Meyendorff, 108. Lot-Borodine, 108; and Bornert, 225-26, 243. 68 Panayiotis Nellas, Deification in Christ: The Nature of the Human Person, trans. Norman Russell (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1987) 150. 67
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Others, such as Steven Runciman, D. P. Miquel, and Joan Mervyn Hussey are less certain and differentiate Cabasilas from hesychasm and the Palamite school.69 Outside of acknowledging Cabasilas’s support of Palamas and the inevitable encounter he had with hesychasm in his environment, it is difficult to identify distinctly hesychast teachings or tendencies in The Life in Christ. Cabasilas and proponents of hesychasm both emphasize spiritual growth through union with Christ. Both cultivate spiritual interiority, and Cabasilas, addressing a lay audience, selects a ‘‘common highway for all,’’ which he identifies as sacraments and prayer.70 Cabasilas essentially opens the sacramental spiritual school he has created to all groups of people in an important passage: As is fitting, we omit the things which are proper to each different state of human life and examine the duties to God which we all have in common. No one would claim that the same virtues are needed by those who govern the state and those who live as private citizens, or by those who have made no further vow to God after the baptismal washing and those who live the monastic life and have taken vows of virginity and poverty and thus own neither property nor their own selves. But the debt which, like the very appellation itself, is common to all who are called by the name of Christ, must also be paid by all. Neglect of this debt on the part of anyone can be excused on no pretext whatever, whether of age, occupation, prosperity or adversity, remoteness, solitude, cities, or tumults—nor even by any of the numerous excuses in which those accused of crime take refuge.71 In this appeal, Cabasilas draws his own ethical conclusion on the responsibility that comes with the sacraments. Everyone receives God’s salvation, and everyone is thus responsible for approaching the sacraments for the forgiveness of sins. This conclusion originates from his discussion of the sacraments. Thus, interpreting this work as hesychastic constitutes an imposition of a particular theological teaching (hesychasm) on Cabasilas’s structural interpretation of the church’s lex orandi. Cabasilas takes the opposite approach in his treatise, as he shows how the lex orandi (sacraments) reveals both the lex credendi (soteriology), and a lex vivendi, a rule for the spiritual life which finds its source in the sacraments. 69 J. Hussey, ‘‘Symeon the New Theologian and Nicolas Cabasilas: Similarities and Contrasts in Orthodox Spirituality,’’ Eastern Churches Review 4 (1972) 139-40; Steven Runciman, The Last Byzantine Renaissance (Cambridge: University Press, 1970) 72-73; and D. P. Miquel, ‘‘L’expe´ rience sacramentelle selon Nicolas Cabasilas,’’ Irenikon 28 (1965) 180. Runciman describes Cabasilas as a mystical humanist. Miquel suggests that Cabasilas could be attempting to mitigate hesychast extremism and to invite warmly the laity into a spiritual experience. 70 Nellas, Deification in Christ, 130-34. 71 Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 6.1 (160).
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In summary, Cabasilas revealed to his audience the magnitude of the theological and spiritual wealth contained by the church’s sacramental rituals which are imparted to participants through a variant of sacramental realism. This does not necessarily dismiss the possibility of hesychast influence on Cabasilas’s theology, but rather allows us to conclude that hesychasm is not the primary catalyst in a work that explains the soteriological meaning of the sacraments and the spiritual school they require. The evidence shows that Cabasilas employed a traditional form of mystagogy by explicating how participation in the sacraments of initiation leads to union with Christ, and thus, salvation. His mystagogical approach is consistent throughout the treatise, and should be interpreted as a 14th century renewal of the ancient mystagogical tradition. IV. Conclusion Nicholas Cabasilas’s unique contribution to medieval Byzantine theology from The Life in Christ does not originate from his soteriology, or even his theological anthropology, as prominent as these themes are in his work. Rather, Cabasilas has explicated a unique thesis of theosis through christification by reviving the early mystagogical paradigm of encounter and union with Christ through the unified sacraments of initiation. Historically, the liturgical structures and practices of baptism, chrismation, and eucharist remained relatively stable in Byzantium up until the 14th century, and some would argue to the present time. However, a divorce between the theology contained in the liturgical structures, texts, and events and the interpretation of this liturgical theology slowly transpired following the gradual imperialization of the church in 313.72 The commentary on the Divine Liturgy by Germanus of Constantinople in the 8th century demonstrates the separation of liturgy’s purpose and its theological interpretation, as Germanus created a theological system of illustrative symbolism to compensate for the deterioration of lay participation in communion.73 In The Life in Christ, Cabasilas has restored the primacy of mystagogy in sacramental theology by meticulously describing the way the participants are transformed in the events. Cabasilas makes another contribution in The Life in Christ in his christocentric orientation wherein each step in the process is initiated and facilitated by Christ 72 See the instructive essay by Alexander Schmemann, ‘‘Liturgy and Theology,’’ in Liturgy and Tradition: Theological Reflections of Alexander Schmemann, ed. Thomas Fisch (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1990) 49-68, esp. 61-68. 73 See the comments on the decline in the frequency of communion by Paul Meyendorff in Germanus of Constantinople, On the Divine Liturgy, ed. Paul Meyendorff (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984) 39-42. Also see Taft, ‘‘Liturgy of the Great Church,’’ 68-69.
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himself, and the transformation of the participant occurs through his sacramental union with Christ. As evidenced by his magisterial exegesis of the liturgy in On the Divine Liturgy and his knowledge of the liturgical ordo of baptism and the consecration of the altar, Cabasilas was familiar with the forms and contents of the Byzantine liturgical rites, and used these to guide his writing. When he emphasizes an encounter with Christ, Cabasilas refers to liturgical sources and explains them as real events that culminate in salvation.74 This encounter focuses on the transformation of the participants through the active agency of Christ, reflecting the fundamental New Testament theology of recapitulation and personalization of everything and everyone in Christ.75 The primary encounter in which conversion is initiated and developed is in sacramental celebration where the church meets Christ, and Cabasilas has explained how Christ sanctifies humanity in liturgical rites. He also confirms that transformation is not limited to the original event, but is a process that must continually be reinforced through regular encounters with Christ, followed by the nurturing of the interior spiritual life in accordance with a person’s particular circumstances. Cabasilas has thus preceded the 20th century ascendancy of liturgical theology by emphasizing the renewal of the fullness of sacramental participation and its significance for participants in The Life in Christ. In this 14th century accomplishment, Cabasilas cannot be reduced to be merely a partner of the hesychasts, nor a synthesizer of previous liturgical commentators, but should be celebrated for restoring a paradigmatic mystagogical comprehension of and immersion in the salvific significance of sacramental participation in Christ. 74 Christ’s agency is perhaps most compellingly illustrated by the following text from the ‘‘nemo dignus’’ prayer immediately preceding the Great Entrance in the Byzantine Divine Liturgy: ‘‘For Thou art the Offerer and the Offered, the Receiver and the Received, O Christ our God, and to Thee we ascribe glory. . . .’’ See The Divine Liturgy according to St. John Chrysostom with appendices (New York: Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America, 1967) 53-54. 75 See Robert F. Taft, The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West: The Origins of the Divine Offıce and Its Meaning for Today, 2nd rev. ed (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1993) 334-40. Also see Taft, ‘‘What Does Liturgy Do? Toward a Soteriology of Liturgical Celebration: Some Theses,’’ Worship 66 (1992) 204-5. Taft’s comments, drawing upon a collection of primary liturgical examples, point to the formation of a new person through obedience in faith.
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