Originally written by the prison chaplain Fr Rob (aka Archpriest Symeon Elias) in 1996.
The Master's Ladder - Notes on the Three Paths
This "representation" of this basic lesson in Christian Orthodoxy in 2020, is given in answer to the attacks upon The Orthodox Christian Faith by those holding the heresies of Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide - scripture alone and faith alone. Those two heresies together are an odd combination of beliefs if you stop an consider it for only a moment.
The claim is made that Saint Paul's using Abraham as a man who was saved by Faith ALONE, means they are saved by Faith ALONE. Yet, modern Sola Fide people seem confused in that their Sola Fide is not based upon an interpersonal relationship with God, actual historic theophanies of God, as happened in the experience of Abraham,
Then the Lord appeared to him by the
terebinth trees of Mamre, as he was sitting in the tent door in the heat
of the day. So he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, three men
were standing by him; and when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to
meet them, and bowed himself to the ground, and said, “My Lord, if I
have now found favor in Your sight, do not pass on by Your servant.” (Genesis 18:1–3)
rather their Sola Fide is based in one or more of many conflicting interpretation of THE BIBLE inside their companion belief in Sola Scriptura. Their Sola Fide is faith in Sola Scriptura, or more accurately, one or another, and many times more than one, of the Man Made Traditions of systems of theology (systematic theology) built up upon The Bible Alone.
This fact that their faith is in written texts is very different than Abraham's experience with God, and faith in him, since Abraham had no written text.
They disparage the early Church that was without a written Gospel for decades, they disparage a Church that grew faster than written texts could be produced and shared (although they did a stellar job in quickly catching up - I'm going to do a video about that, it is a wonderful story.) We know that the New Testament Church shows in its own history, clearly, that it was not without Holy Scripture, although it did not for centuries have something like we call the Bible. The New Testament Church had the accepted Jewish Canon of Scripture in that ancient Greek Speaking World, it had the Septuagint Greek Scriptures, and many in the 1st and 2nd century Church also had the Hebrew Text commonly in use in the Synagogues. Bishop Melito of Sardis demonstrates the reality of what I'm telling you in his extant Pascha Sermon, preached about one-hundred-twenty years after the Cross of Christ, where he expounds on the meaning of Jesus Christ as Paschal Sacrifice and never once quotes any one of the known Gospels, canonical or not, or any letter of any of the Apostles. In fact there is not a single illusion to any TEXT of the New Testament in his entire lengthy sermon. And it is an awesome Sermon Indeed, spoken with a clarity of light few could manage today.
They had the spoken Good News of the Good Grace, the Eu-Charis (Eucharist) and their services surrounded the celebration of the Eucharist and "the Word" i.e., expounding the meaning of the Good News (Gospel) and the Good Grace, the paschal sacrifice of Jesus Christ as foreshadowed in the Old Testament. All Orthodox Christians of the 1st and 2nd century together held this Tradition of Oral Gospel and Written Old Testament Sacred Scripture. Gradually, the writings of the Apostles and their closest associates were added to the "canon" coming to be recognized a telling the true story.
Gospel = euangelion = the good message. (2. good tidings: , asin. 26; Appendix, b. civ. 4, 20; ; others; plural the Sept. 2 Samuel 18:22, 25, common text; 2 Samuel 18:20 ἀνήρ εὐαγγελίας. In the N. T., specifically)
All that to say: When the present day Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide heretics are willing to accept the story of Abraham's salvation as an example of Faith Alone and that his actions were God Inspired and for Godly Purpose and created an entire nation that God would use as an example for teaching the coming of the Messiah, and prepare the way for his own incarnation - And Abraham had NO scriptures, why are they so very suspicious of the New Testament Christians who had the entire history of that nation, in Scripture and MORE, their worship texts, and prophetic text and MORE: people who experienced something Abraham never did, that being the falling of the Holy Spirit, people who received both the words of Jesus but also the testimony of His ACTS, and his instructions to His Apostles and his Apostles elucidating the meaning of it all and giving their instructions consistent with HIS. (As oft as you eat THIS particular Bread and Drink THIS particular Cup) They shared worship with Jesus, they prayed with Jesus, and continued on according to HIS instruction and were instructed of the Holy Spirit not solely via the content of the Old Testament Scriptures. They were not "Sola Fide" nor Sola Scriptura - Yet, these secularist modernists, who inhabit the Reformed Movement accept Faith ONLY not in God as Abraham did, who was without written text, but in the rational, secular understanding of "The Bible" as came to be over time, produced by the people they do not trust. It is really a strange situation for them. I was addressing them in 1996 when I wrote:
The Three Paths of Theology/Spirituality
David Richard Berkowitz, the serial killer who terrorized New York City in the 1970s received his theology/spirituality from his dog, Sam. He called himself, "the son of Sam." At least he was honest.
It is not to say that some of the secular/rational concepts don't have instructive value; they do, but they can never be substituted for experience. The “concepts” are not the experience and reality of the thing. The outline or in artists terms the "cartoon" is not the object itself, even the most sophisticated portrait is not the person. Many come to the Church and rather than truly finding and experiencing Christ’s incarnational presence, settle for a mere description, a mere formula, a mere cartoon of the Church. These are “first and second path people” who cling to “received tradition” as if that is an end of itself, or retreat to emotionalism and/or rationalism, the two sides of the same coin of “soulish” behavior, unregenerated, unrenewed, disconnected from Ancient and Real Christianity. Until the Third Path is warmly experienced a realistic view of Christianity is not possible, because one substitutes instead some formula, some cartoon, some institutionalize or clericalized stricture (Stricture not Structure) capable of pointing to, but incapable of capturing the experience of Christ’s incarnation. Those holding only the “cartoon” THINK they know what it represents; yet they only have a hollow concept and no experience of its reality. Ultimately the Church is “life in the Holy Spirit” or scripture and tradition are both liars, as is the witness of myriad saints. (The Church is also and more primarily, collective and mutual communion in the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ - a subject for another time.)
I don't want to suggest that God's Holy Spirit is limited by anything I say. There is a wonderful story in Greek orthodoxy about an Arab/Muslim whose son was very sick. After famed Muslim physicians had given up hope for the boy, a neighbor told the boy's father about the priests in Constantinople who continually healed people by baptizing them. He set out with his wife to take the boy to the Orthodox priests, but on the way, the boy came very close to death. Stopping at a pool of water, the father took the boy and washed him in the pool saying, “Allah, I baptize my son, in the name and as the priests do in Constantinople.” They camped assuming the boy would die that night but he revived and became completely healthy. Seeing the wonder, they decided to continue to Constantinople and learn about this miraculous power that had saved their son. The Christians took them in, and enjoyed the story of their son's baptism and healing. They taught them the Christian faith and when it came time to receive them into the church, the priest Baptized first the father then the mother, but when they attempted to baptize the son, no matter how they tried they could not submerge him in the water. After three priests tried to submerge him into the water without success, the elder turned to the people and said, “No priest can truly baptize, who God himself has already baptized.”
The Orthodox Church knows, her history, Tradition and the healing life she possesses, where the Apostolic Church rests in objective continuity from the very Cross of Christ. She does not know the work of the Holy Spirit outside her purview.
“Inasmuch
as the earthly and visible Church is not the fullness and completeness
of the whole Church which the Lord has appointed to appear at the final
judgment of all creation, she acts and knows only within her own limits;
and (according to the words of Paul the Apostle, to the Corinthians, 1
Cor. 5. 12) does not judge the rest of mankind, and only looks upon
those as excluded, that is to say, not belonging to her, who exclude
themselves. The rest of mankind, whether alien from the Church, or
united to her by ties which God has not willed to reveal to her, she
leaves to the judgment of the great day. The Church on earth judges for
herself only, according to the grace of the Spirit, and the freedom
granted her through Christ, inviting also the rest of mankind to the
unity and adoption of God in Christ; but upon those who do not hear her
appeal she pronounces no sentence, knowing the command of her Saviour
and Head, "not to judge another man's servant" (Rom. 14. 4).”
The
Holy Spirit is not limited by the visible confines of Orthodox Christian
eccleciology. But rather she stands as a bulwark, against the sea of
theological/spiritual errors that would destroy her healing reality. She
was originally called, “The Way” and that is what this book is, one
man's understanding and experience of “The Way.”
Towards Understanding the Orthodox Way, by Archpriest Symeon Elias
Based on observations by Met. Anthony (Khrapovitsky).
Every
human is a defacto "theologian" whether one intends to speculate on
theological principles or not. One cannot function without it. Whether
one's foundational beliefs are well thought out or a mish-mash lazily
gathered from the culture, it is still a theological foundation. Whether
one believes that some accidental force caused the Universe of THINGS,
or Sam, the dog, is giving you instructions and guiding your life and
behavior, you are theologizing. Understanding that it is impossible to
escape the necessity of theologizing, that it is the burden of the
theist, deist, atheist, agnostic, and idiot; the Taoist, Hindu,
Christian, Buddhist, and Jew, this book will shed light on "how" we
theologize, and the reason for it. This "theologizing" is no small
matter because it forms the basis for our actions, all of them, because
it forms the ideas, mythologies, superstitions, errors, delusions,
illusion, and reality upon which we think and make decisions. It is the
frame work of our good actions and even our rebellions. The nature of
our foundational "theology" influences every aspect of our living, even
if we think we are making it up as we go.
Towards Understanding the Orthodox Way (The Way)There are three ways, two of them erroneous and one Orthodox:
Outline of the First Path:
To strangle every thought and expression of theology/spirituality under the pretense of "standing fast in received tradition." It seems easy to fight theological errors by refusing to theologize at all. By dying in the "letter" and never experiencing the reality of the Holy Spirit. The prophets of Israel had spoken under the anointing of the Holy Spirit; the great Psalmists, Moses, David and others had spoken eternal worship into being, this also by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The Pharisees kept the letter of the law of Moses, they had spent their entire lives in service to the "ritual" and “exactness” of Hebrew religion and the study of the Scriptures and yet Jesus mocked them saying, "Ye search the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life . . " This is the dead letter of Tradition, where customs are kept just because they are handed down, not because they are healing and experienced anew in each generation.
To strangle every thought and expression of theology/spirituality under the pretense of "standing fast in received tradition." It seems easy to fight theological errors by refusing to theologize at all. By dying in the "letter" and never experiencing the reality of the Holy Spirit. The prophets of Israel had spoken under the anointing of the Holy Spirit; the great Psalmists, Moses, David and others had spoken eternal worship into being, this also by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The Pharisees kept the letter of the law of Moses, they had spent their entire lives in service to the "ritual" and “exactness” of Hebrew religion and the study of the Scriptures and yet Jesus mocked them saying, "Ye search the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life . . " This is the dead letter of Tradition, where customs are kept just because they are handed down, not because they are healing and experienced anew in each generation.
This
first path includes thoughtlessly and/or fearfully following the culture
of our parents, and/or our parents religious and family traditions,
where fear of failure rules, or simple fear of the unknown causes us to
cling to the known, without objective analysis of it. It may seem to be
no theology at all, but it still requires us to act or not to act
according to some foundation of mythology and/or emotion. It is this
first path that causes the answer, "I don't know. It's just the way it
is done." or "That's just the way it is" or "That's the way it's
supposed to be." To someone on the first path, such pronouncements seem
self-evident, since it is the sum total of their experience and
knowledge. This is the theology born of the Sickness of Religion. It is a
fearful path where the reality of the presence of the Holy Spirit is
not known, and fear (sin) blocks the view of the Light so one lives in
fear (sin) and clings to what is "known," fearing to question anything,
fearing and abhorring free and/or original thought. Creativity is
killed, the human spirit is dying, and one awaits in blessed hope of
"release" at death, maybe accompanied with hope in a
mythological vision of heaven.
Outline of the Second Path:
To release the restraints of the human spirit, to allow reason, or (Psyche) soul to predominate and distort the true image and have theology degenerate along the reductionist, rationalist, deconstructionist path - or along the romantic, dreamy and passionate one, the path of the soul unchecked and un-transfigured, "psychic" and not "pneumatic."
These two, the rational and the romantic, represent two sides of the same coin of Western Captivity - Rational Theology and Romantic Spirituality. Rational Theology has lead to the various absurdities like the Jesus Seminar, deconstructionist rational theology, scientific hermanutics, the total demythologization of the Scriptures and Tradition; and its polar opposite, Romantic Spirituality ultimately leading to Charismaticism, Spiritualism, Sophianism, even Satanism, (or some such rational or passionate spirituality) one's own unconquered passions being in control of the soul's searching and expression.
To release the restraints of the human spirit, to allow reason, or (Psyche) soul to predominate and distort the true image and have theology degenerate along the reductionist, rationalist, deconstructionist path - or along the romantic, dreamy and passionate one, the path of the soul unchecked and un-transfigured, "psychic" and not "pneumatic."
These two, the rational and the romantic, represent two sides of the same coin of Western Captivity - Rational Theology and Romantic Spirituality. Rational Theology has lead to the various absurdities like the Jesus Seminar, deconstructionist rational theology, scientific hermanutics, the total demythologization of the Scriptures and Tradition; and its polar opposite, Romantic Spirituality ultimately leading to Charismaticism, Spiritualism, Sophianism, even Satanism, (or some such rational or passionate spirituality) one's own unconquered passions being in control of the soul's searching and expression.
Outline of the Third Path:
This path is Royal, (Royal, of the Reign of the King) and avoids the errors of the other two. It does not fear reason, or prayers, or Mysteries, as rationalism does, or humanity as monophysitism and humanism does, nor does it drink the vine of passions and emotions that can sometimes pass as "religious piety," becoming a sort of pacifier or narcotic. This path consists of actually living the Tradition, applying it to oneself in the Synergistic living of Life in the Holy Spirit. It is that reality when the Spirit becomes alive to us and in us and we cannot see again as we once saw, we cannot hear again as we once heard, etc. It is an organic, biological, spiritual healing, creating a change of perception, where the spiritual eye has opened and ALL experience takes on a new and "alive" dimension. In this is true devotion, true creativity, true art, true liberty, true family life, true worship, etc., etc., etc..
This path is Royal, (Royal, of the Reign of the King) and avoids the errors of the other two. It does not fear reason, or prayers, or Mysteries, as rationalism does, or humanity as monophysitism and humanism does, nor does it drink the vine of passions and emotions that can sometimes pass as "religious piety," becoming a sort of pacifier or narcotic. This path consists of actually living the Tradition, applying it to oneself in the Synergistic living of Life in the Holy Spirit. It is that reality when the Spirit becomes alive to us and in us and we cannot see again as we once saw, we cannot hear again as we once heard, etc. It is an organic, biological, spiritual healing, creating a change of perception, where the spiritual eye has opened and ALL experience takes on a new and "alive" dimension. In this is true devotion, true creativity, true art, true liberty, true family life, true worship, etc., etc., etc..
Those
who faithfully pass down The Faith, once and for all given unto the
saints, carefully keeping Tradition for the sake of the next generation
and for those seeking the faith, do so, not because Tradition is handed
down, but because they themselves have found healing/LIFE in it. People
who are alive to the Third Path, are viewed in ignorance by the people
of the second path, because both the Rationalizers and the Romanticizers
see third path people as heel-dragging fearful people of the first
path. Their eyes being blind to the third possibility; third-Path
keeping of Tradition is viewed as first path slavish religion, to them
in their rational and spiritual pride the keeping of Tradition is just
fear and ignorance.
People who are alive to the Third Path, are viewed in fear (sin) by the people of the first path. The people of the first path cannot distinguish between the Rationalizers and Romanticizers and the people of the Third Path. For them they are all "dangerously out there" and not "in the fold." From their perspective we all look the same. So the person of the Royal Path, The Way, is viewed with suspicion by the liberal theologian, the rational scientist, the rational philosopher, the radical fundamentalist religionist, the radical traditionalists of both the West and East, the fearful Protestant Denominationalist, the hell fire (romantic) Pentecostal, the spiritualist and spiritual scientists, the secular psychologist, and new age experimenters. Saint Symeon the New Theologian said of people alive on the Royal Path, “how can others understand when they have not drunk this cup.”
People who are alive to the Third Path, are viewed in fear (sin) by the people of the first path. The people of the first path cannot distinguish between the Rationalizers and Romanticizers and the people of the Third Path. For them they are all "dangerously out there" and not "in the fold." From their perspective we all look the same. So the person of the Royal Path, The Way, is viewed with suspicion by the liberal theologian, the rational scientist, the rational philosopher, the radical fundamentalist religionist, the radical traditionalists of both the West and East, the fearful Protestant Denominationalist, the hell fire (romantic) Pentecostal, the spiritualist and spiritual scientists, the secular psychologist, and new age experimenters. Saint Symeon the New Theologian said of people alive on the Royal Path, “how can others understand when they have not drunk this cup.”
The
person on the Royal Path has not entered some dreamy state of
“spirituality,” some foggy place of meditation, some disconnect
holiness, rather they become, in a way impossible to put into words, in
communion with "reality" i.e. Truth - not a concept but a person - God
in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. The power of this perception of
reality, frees one to minister to, by comfort and challenge all not on
the royal path and our fellow travelers on the royal path as well -
because such people are alive to the creative spirit of God and exercise
Wisdom beyond their own capabilities. And because the person on The Way
does not fear reason, or prayers, or Mysteries, as rationalism does, or
humanity, as monophysitism and humanism do, nor does he/she drink the
vine of passions and emotions that can sometimes pass as "religious
experience and piety"; then by the power of the Holy Spirit their
ministry (the ministry of the Holy Spirit) is intelligent beyond
rationalism, using reason as a tool. It is human, using our True
Humanity, a symphony of human expression and emotions, free of the
distortions and errors of humanism which destroys our true uniqueness.
It is a deeper psychology, than secular psychology/psychiatry, knowing
the true anatomy and structure of the human-person. It is an intelligent
physics, knowing the reality of God's creative energy. It is a true
rational and spiritual "science" being tied to the physical/spiritual
truth. It is powerful philosophy, yet not restricted by non-real
categories, etc. You can be creative with this list; it is very long. It
is creative, and alive and motivated to one purpose and one purpose
only, that is what is LIFE engendering, i.e., Healing, both its own
Whole Person - true humanity - and also sharing Healing with our fellow
beings and our "lively place" this place, this earth, this environment,
this culture, this society, this nation, this world as well.
Faced
with the great and seemingly intractable problems of sociology,
psychology, ecology i.e. crime, social ills, mental illness, poverty,
violence and environmental armageddon - the Orthodox Hierophant says,
"The prayer of the heart is our ecology" and it is true; "The prayer of
the heart is our sociology" and it is true; "The prayer of the heart is
our psychology" and it is true. It is in the "revelation of the Sons of
God" (those who have established in their hearts continual prayer) where
the intractable problem finds solution and healing. The revelation of
the Sons of God is not an isolated "event" in the future, it is also our
Hope and Help, Here and Now; its completion is in the future, a future
we cannot even imagine. " . . . none of the princes of this world
knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of
glory. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither
have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared
for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his
Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of
God."
Our
Lord instructed us not to hide our light under a bushel; not to fear to
be viewed with suspicion, as all aliens are so viewed. He said in
essence, they've hated me, they will hate you as well. But still, he
wanted us to share our Holy Spirit Powered Creativity in our work and
play and especially in EVERY relationship we have and with every one we
meet. I'm not talking about rational evangelical over bearing prattling,
parading as witness; I'm talking about living and working in harmony
with the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life. In that living,
actions become Life engendering and it may be that silence will be great
healing wisdom, or not to hate will be love, or failing to act may be
right, or acting may be right, or speaking softly or with force, not
pressing an issue, or doggedly refusing to let an issue go, in
cooperation with the synergistic working of the Holy Spirit of all life,
you will know, what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God.
This knowledge will arrive, nano-second by nano-second.
This
particular description of the Three Paths comes from a friend of a
friend so to speak, from a Russian Orthodox Priest talking about the
Russian Orthodox Church's (19th century) battle with "Sophianism."
Sophianism being reflected in the West in various and sundry
"spiritual/gnostic/theosophical" veins. But the truth taught in this
image of the three paths has ancient roots in the Fathers. It was
certainly very clearly understood and stated plainly by St Symeon the
New Theologian and St. Gregory Palamas.
The
sickness of religion knows nothing of the reality of the life of the
Holy Spirit - the Third Path. "If a man is not born of water and the
Spirit, he will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven." But what does this
mean? St Symeon said, "In the first baptism, water symbolizes the
tears and the oil of christmation prefigures the inner anointing of the
Spirit. But the second baptism is no longer a mere type of the truth; it
is the truth itself." "When the Holy Spirit of Truth is come He will
lead you into ALL THINGS." Archbishop Basil Krivocheine says of this
statement of St Symeon, "Let us note that while speaking of the first
baptism, Symeon included the oil of christmation. It is therefore not a
question of this sacrament of anointing when Symeon speaks of a second
baptism. The difference between the two is rather that which exists
between a figure and truth." St Symeon speaks of this again saying,
"We receive the remission of our sins at our divine baptism and we are
freed from the ancient curse and sanctified by the presence of the Holy
Spirit. But this is not yet that perfect grace of which Scripture
speaks: 'I shall dwell in them and walk therein.' This applies only to
those who are strong in faith and show it in their works; for if we fall
back into evil and shameful deeds after our baptism, we completely
throw away this very sanctification. It is in proportion to our
repentance, confession and tears that we receive the remission of our
former sins; and as a consequence of this we also receive sanctification
and grace from on high." Saint Symeon was not shy in saying that there were those who walked away from the waters of Baptism as if nothing had happened.
St
Symeon speaks of even the highest expression of Orthodox “mystical
experience, seeing the Divine Light” as second to the living presence of
the Holy Spirit in the Liturgy of Living. (The Synergistic Experience
of the Life of God in Christ by the Holy Spirit as our everyday state.)
He said, "If you have seen Christ but He has not yet granted you to
drink of this beverage, fall down before Him and lament . . . and since
you see Christ, lift up your eyes to Him unceasingly and always keep Him
as the one spectator of your dejection and affliction." The
beverage is the 'life of the Holy Spirit itself' dwelling in us and with
us, and as he describes above, to produce faith with works.
The
"religious" position of the first path, precludes any possibility of
such open and creative and intelligent communion with God, it is
retreated into the realm of the "known,” frozen in time, complete like a
block of ice to be examine rationally but never something with which we
may become infused. It is locked in fear of error, and fear of the
unknown.
The
rationalism of the second path is not capable of reaching this
experience because the rational mind is in control and all it can
produce is a rather cold mind science, a counterfeit spirituality that
is the playground of the human soul with demonic illusion and delusion.
It is capable of reducing God to our understanding or destroying him
altogether, at least to the satisfaction of our own ego. If it creates
religion it creates the worship of the "higher-self" never stepping
outside its ego boundary. Those who create the God of their
understanding pray to themselves. Such ego inventions being the
psych-ism of all the varieties of mind science "spiritualities."
The
romanticism of the second path is not capable of reaching this
"experience" because the passions are in control and all it can produce
is emotional upheaval that may pass for and be accepted as spiritual
experience. Both of these paths (as religious experience) carry the
hallmark of the destruction of the person by (1) sublimating emotional
health to cold "logic" - the Course In Miracles cult does this rather
expertly on the rational principle that "there is nothing to forgive, it
is all illusion" “no experience has any meaning” so we need not feel or
act - (2) or cause the person to withdraw to smaller and smaller
circles where they can "control the environment" and maintain a
"centered emotional sweetness." This is the hallmark of so much earth
rejecting eastern meditation.
The
story of the Third or Royal Path, seems foolishness to some, because its
experience quickly out paces our ability to speak it in rational and
conceptual language. Yet it can be and IS experienced. St Symeon said it
this way, "How could those who never had the slightest experience of
its effects - reform, renewal, transformation, re-creation and new
birth - succeed in understanding such mysteries? How can those who have
not yet been baptized in the Holy Spirit understand the metamorphosis of
the ones who were baptized in Him? How will those who have not been
born from above see the glory of the ones who, in the words of the Lord
were born 'from above,' of those who are born of God and have become the
children of God? Those who did not desire this state but lost it
through their negligence, for they certainly received the power to
acquire it - tell me, what knowledge will enable them to understand or
in any way imagine what the others have become?" One very telling admission by St Symeon is his statement about his youthful "falling away" after he had seen the Divine Light.
"I
forgot everything I told you and fell into total darkness, not even
remembering anything I related to you, either large or small, not even
the slightest thought. What is more, I fell into greater evils than
before, and I found myself in the same condition as one who had never
heard or understood the sacred words of Christ. Even the saint, who at
one time had been kind to me and had given me that little rule and the
book mentioned earlier, became to be an ordinary man, for I no longer
thought of anything I had seen thanks to him." Of course St Symeon later found The Way and, lived, worked, experienced, liturgized, and prayed with far more diligence.
Carrying
the weight of the first and second path with us as we reach to the
Third, is the rule and not the exception. Our healing is a healing of
the sickness of religion, the sickness with which we became entangled in
one form or another, simply because we were born, and began to
conceptualize trying to understand our experience, good and bad, were
influenced by the things, ideas and people that were our world. Opening
to the third possibility is the work of The Way. It doesn't matter if
the sickness is a religion of philosophy or agnosticism or atheism or
pentecostalism or new ageism or catholicism or orthodoxism etc., or any
combination. I could certainly dissect my own life, my experiences,
triumphs, failures, the wisdom and/or insanity of my own mindset, and
explain it via the picture of the Three Paths, because I am intimately
familiar with each of the first two paths, and both aspects of the
Second. But I won't bore you.
The
third path is first and foremost Orthodoxia, so it is right practice and
right belief. Sadly many reaching to this Orthodoxia (the prayer of the
heart) find only Orthodoxy - in its legal explications and physically
kept Traditions. In that case one might as well become a nominal Roman
Catholic or Anglican. Yet, this is not bad; it is a wonderful place to
start. The discipline of the Tradition outwardly found in these things
is not sickness but can be if it is practiced in hypocrisy i.e. acted
out for merit. But if it is a true expression of the heart, it is not
religion at all. It is the opposite of religion.
When
one grasps by experience that Tradition is not religion but LIFE, then
such ecumenical notions as uniting "sacramentally" or by some other
abstract principle is seen to be, not only of little use but foolish and
dangerous. Unity only in the acts of sacramental ritual (religion) has
no value, it is unity in error. It is real and has value only when it is
unity in Christ by the Holy Spirit, in the healing flow of Tradition;
then it is uniting in the liturgy of living, the sacramental living,
reflected in The Way. (the third path) As much as our foes hate to hear
it, Truth the Person, when he walked among us said, "I AM the The Truth,
The Life and The Way, no one comes to the Father except by Me." Keeping
Tradition, not in first path fear, but third path Love, is the
experience of the Truth and Life of The Way.
This writing is dedicated to Archbiship Alexander (Bykowetz) - Of Blessed Memory
©
Archpriest Symeon Elias 1996.
----------------------------
Note
1 - This is a reference to the state of man, in the image of God.
George Cronk a noted Orthodox Teacher says, "'To believe that
man is made in God's image is to believe that man is created for
communion and union with God, and that if he rejects this communion
he ceases to be properly man.'
-----------------------------
Note
2 - Psychic - of the Soul, of one's own imaginative powers, the
fantasy producing aspect of our make up.
------------------------------
Note
3- Pneumatic - Pneuma - spirit - of the Spirit, this is a reference
to the "noetic faculty" of man, his natural connection to
God.
-------------------------------
Note
4 - The Jesus Seminar - a group of secular theologians, textual
experts etc, who met in the late 20th century to try by rational
means to discover what quotations in the Gospel texts of Scripture
and the gospel of Thomas, could rightly be judged as actual
quotations of the man Jesus. The absurdity of it, was also the most
telling aspect of it. What they produced was a "Jesus"
according to their own image. By applying their own prejudices as to
who Jesus was, and therefore what he could have said, via
quasi-scientific means, they simply produced a Jesus in their own
image. The categories in which they placed his quotes were as
telling, (a) he most likely said this (b) he may or may not have
said this, but it sounds like something he would say, (c) he
probably didn't say this (d) he could not have said this. The
presupposition that created the categories implies that they
"already knew him" and "new him quite intimately"
as to be able to judge his thoughts! This was a group of the most
renown biblical scholars of our day. The exercise demonstrates in a
clear way the foolishness of both "rationalizing" and
"fantasizing" methods of "theologizing." The
tedious rational/deconstructionist exercise, costing much time and
money was based on a fanciful notion, that is, the fantasy that by
some magical means they already knew how our Lord, thought, and so
then understood, again by fanciful means, what he would say. This
singular exercise taking many years perfectly demonstrates the
poverty of secular-western theologizing.
------------------------------
Note
5 - Sophianism - an umbrella term under which resides myriad forms
of sickness of religion based upon imagined "spirituality."
All the cults reaching to the "higher self" - ultimately
gnostic or humanistic or a combination of both. Medieval Europe and
the Renaissance produced hundreds of secret "sophian - wisdom"
societies. 19th and 20th centuries brought the "theosophy"
movements, the Rosicrucians, the Liberal Catholic Church, and a host
of others.
-------------------------------
Note
6 - Why would rationalism fear Mysteries or prayers? Rationalism has
made of the human reasoning ability, the human mind, a god, in fact,
the God. Prayers addressed to a deity are an act then of
superstition, the fear that prayer might be answered challenges the
carnal mind's godhood. Mysteries - notice the capital M - implies
the power of the Deity in ways beyond the human mind's capability to
define or even to comprehend. The Mysteries of the Church, later
called "sacraments" in the West, are Grace-imbued moments
and actions, which cannot be defined nor fully comprehended. Such
Mysteries challenge the carnal mind and threatens it. Any action
perceived by the carnal mind outside of its control threatens its
"godhood", thus any such actions are fearful. Faced with
the reality of the power of God, even in a very small way, a minor
healing or unexplained protection, the carnal mind will immediately
recoil from the truth of it, and work itself to death creating
"logical explanations" why what happened, didn't really,
or place faith in some inadequate idea, which reason itself would
object, were it truly reason speaking and not fear. In many
instances the creative explanations are so fanciful it would take
"faith" to believe in them. (Evolution as a plausible
explanation for BEING and COGNITION – a good example.) But, the
carnal mind takes solace because it has "tamed" the event,
by "naming it" and it doesn't matter whether the "naming"
has any relationship to the truth of the event or not. An excellent
example is the phrase, "spontaneous remission" applied to
miracles of healing. If science had any real belief in the name
"spontaneous remission" they would be proposing all sorts
of expensive studies and experiments to try to find the key to it. No
such research exists, so we see that it is just a name that comforts
the carnal mind and to the carnal mind's satisfaction dismisses the
obvious.
------------------------------
7
- Why would monophysitism or humanism fear humanity?
a.
monophysitism - a belief that Jesus Christ was of a single nature.
This belief had two expressions. One he was a man only, or two he
was God only, just appearing as a man. The monophysitist could not
bear the thought that a human could be both God and flesh and blood.
Its bases is ultimately "gnostic" - that is the belief
that matter is worthless, or worse creation itself an attack on God.
With this gnostic foundation God was idealized to the point of not
being able to truly touch, contact, co-mingle with humanity. So
then, humanity was something of the creation, aberrant, lacking any
goodness etc, part of the attack on the natural order, or maybe even
an expression of attack on God. So for the monophysitist humanity is
an inferior and ill thing.
b.
humanism is simply a modern form of monophysitism without realizing
it. It views humanity as the highest form of evolved creature yet an
aberration, a poorly evolved creature who is attacking "the
natural order of things." One sees the distrust of humanity in
all its "humanistic" concerns - the politically correct
movement which attacks and wants to stifle human speech and thought,
the environmental movement which see humanity as the great rapist,
even a virus on the planet and so on. Humanistic endeavors always
and ultimately deny the uniqueness and value of the individual
human. Humanistic philosophies strangle the very humanity they claim
to value. Humanistic actions quickly turn murderous, i.e.,
population control, abortion, euthanasia. Humanism fears the human
and wishes it were something else. Humanism, a philosophy without
God, making of the fanciful "higher self" its God, is
ultimately killing. It fear humanity because it cannot comprehend
the human in communion with God. ref - note 1. Communism was the
classic humanistic philosophy, where all was done for the "good
of the whole of humanity." In this any individual human, and
thus millions of humans could be sacrificed for its humanistic
purpose.
-----------------------------------
8
- Why would a rationalist fear reason? re-read note 6. Note 6 is
reasonable. It denotes the difference between a concrete collection
of "rational facts" a list upon which being is seen and
judged vs the "reasonable" acceptance of "things as
they are." A famous pre-christian pagan recorded having been
visited by "the Shepherd of Mankind" in a vision which he
experienced while engaging in sincere prayer. The Shepherd said,
"I've heard your prayers and I'm here to tell you whatever you
want to know." The Pagan answered, "I want to know God,
and things as they are." This is great wisdom. The perception
of things as they are -true reasoning - is impossible without God.
True reason points towards God. But when God is denied and one is
left with only his own "higher-self" the same reasoning
processes becomes mere rationalism, which is the exercise of trying
to know things as they are, without the foundation of all that
exists.
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9-
in this instance "religious piety" meaning the appearance
of religious knowledge or spiritual power. Quite a bit of
"charismatic" religious experience falls into this
category.
These are the people
to whom the Righteous Judge will say, “Depart from me, you workers
of iniquity. I never knew you.”
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