SAINT GREGORY PALAMAS AS A HAGIORITE   o  ·   1  ·   2  ·   3  ·   4  ·   5  ·   6  ·   7  ·   8  ·   9  ·   10     11     12  ·   13  ·   o   © Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos 11. THE VISION OF GOD ON THE MOUNTAIN Contemporary Hagiorite witnesses of deification The Transfiguration of Christ The passage on the Transfiguration and interpretive commentaries Kingdom of God and uncreated Light The three Disciples Transfiguration of Christ and transfiguration of the Disciples The brightness of the clothes Moses and Elijah The word of the Father The path of deification General theological comments The purpose of deification in the Christian life Degrees of the vision of God The ascetic method Conclusions     [ BACK ] 11. THE VISION OF GOD ON THE MOUNTAIN

The title of this chapter indicates that it will be concerned with the vision of the uncreated Light in the human nature of the Word, whom the Disciples saw on Mt. Tabor, but it suggests that there will be special reference to the vision of God which is attained by the Hagiorite fathers who live the ascetic life on the Holy Mountain. The event of the Transfiguration did not happen just once in history. Of course this particular event took place once, because Christ wanted to prepare His Disciples to face the Passion and His Cross with faith, but it is repeated and experienced by the deified in all ages. The holy hymnographer prays to God: "Make thy eternal light shine also for us sinners".

On the Holy Mountain both in the desert and in the Monasteries there are monks in all the stages of the spiritual life, that is, in purity of heart, illumination of the nous and deification. Some are struggling to cleanse their hearts of the passions and are living in deepest repentance, others have attained illumination of their nous and have unceasing prayer in their hearts, and others have attained the vision of God and have seen the uncreated Light. During the twenty-five years when I was making regular visits to the Holy Mountain, God granted me to meet monks belonging to all the stages of the spiritual life. I found monks who told me about noetic prayer and the vision of the uncreated Light, and therefore I have certainty about these realities.

Since this chapter will deal with the vision of the Uncreated Light on Mt. Tabor I want first to speak of the monks who saw the Light.

I met a monk who, though he was blind, saw priests in bright robes, and he asked whether they were priests of that cell, without thinking that he was blind. Essentially, this is a matter of saints appearing, but in his very deep repentance and humility he could not become aware of it. I also met a monk who several times answered the question "how is it going" by saying "I am living in darkness", for he was not seeing the uncreated light, which means that he had experience of God in the Light. They also tell about monks whose faces shine, gleaming with the glory of God during their sleep.

I recall a striking case. After the publication of the book "A Night in the desert of the Holy Mountain" I visited a Hagiorite monk. He said to me: "Many people ask me whether I am the monk with whom you were talking. I answer them: Do not try to find out who it is. Try to take the advice and live the prayer about which the book is speaking". And then he said to me: "Come and I’ll tell you several other things so that you may know and can add them later". And to my endless surprise he began to tell me experiences of the uncreated Light, what comes before the vision, what follows it, in what state the person is, what tears have to do with the vision of God, and so forth. I was left astonished and thanked God for this great gift which He is giving to the Holy Mountain and to His Church and was also giving to me personally, that I should meet such great personalities, who are even today still living in our midst. Therefore I can exclaim with certainty: "And we have heard and seen, and our hands have touched".

But fortunately we have written testimonies about vision of the uncreated Light. Several Hagiorite monks, for many reasons, chiefly to help the Christians whose faith was wavering, came to the point of revealing their experiences. Thus we have written testimonies of this life. In what follows I should like to mention four such testimonies, which show the value and importance of the Mountain of holy name.

The first is the witness of father Paisios. He describes how St. Arsenios of Cappadocia appeared to him at the moment when he had finished writing his biography. It was an experience of God, for saints appear in the uncreated Light. Moreover the saints enjoyed Paradise and the Kingdom of God, which is the vision of the uncreated Light. It is very characteristic that on Mt. Tabor the Prophet Elijah and the Prophet Moses appeared in God’s Light. Paisios writes:

"The Father also has other such garments, but my own spiritual hands have been paralysed by my many sins and I cannot loose them for the present to pray. May the good Father forgive me for this and for the fact that I have defiled his name, which he gave me. It is true also that I have not imitated him in any way. And while I was regarded as a young scamp the indulgent Father Arsenios, as an imitator of Christ, was vindicating me by his love. It seems that for years he was collecting all his love for me in order to give it to me at one time and to jolt me, careless and insensitive as I am, into recovering my senses.

"It was the day of the Saints Theodoros, the twenty-first of February, 1971, All Souls’ Day. I had written his biography for the first time, from the materials which I had then and was reading it, in case I might have happened to make any mistake in the translation of the Pharasiotiki which I had heard from the elders.

"It was two hours before sunset, and while I was reading, Father Arsenios visited me; and just as a teacher caresses his pupil who has written the lesson well, he himself did the same thing to me. Along with this, he allowed me an inexpressible sweetness and heavenly elation in my heart, which was impossible to endure. Then I ran out to the grounds surrounding my Cell like a fool and called out to him, because I thought that I would find him. (Fortunately no visitor had come, because he too would have been troubled and I could not have told him the reason for this holy madness in order to reassure him). Sometimes I was calling out loudly: "My Father, my Father!" And sometimes I was calling more softly: "My God, my God, hold my heart quite tightly until I see what is going to happen tonight!" For my heart of clay could not possibly endure that great Paradisal sweetness unless God helped me.

"When night had already fallen and my hopes had subsided –for I had thought that I would find him– I no longer looked to Heaven. What made me go back into my cell was when I remembered the day of the Lord’s Ascension. When after forty days Christ visited the Panagia with His disciples for a moment on Ascension Day they saw Him being taken up into the Heavens before their eyes.

"When I came to my cell afterwards, I felt that sweetness again and on into the night. But this set me thinking. Had the Good and Just God perhaps sent Father Arsenios to settle with me in this life for the five or six prayer ropes which I had done as a monk, by sending this Paradisal sweetness, since my sins are many and great? I do not know, so I beg you to pray for me, pray for the love of Christ that God may have mercy on me"1.

The second testimony comes from another Hagiorite, who died in 1959, Gerontas Joseph Spilaioti. He lived the full hesychastic life; he had noetic prayer of the heart, and in his personal life he experienced the purifying, illuminating and deifying energy of God, such as miracles which he describes in various letters that were sent to his spiritual children and have been collected in a special volume. In one letter he writes:

"And one day many experiences happened to me. All that day I was crying out with quite great pain. And already in the evening at sunset I was resting: fasting, exhausted from the tears. I was looking at the church with the Transfiguration at the top, and, wilting and wounded, I was calling on the Lord. And it seemed to me that a strong wind was coming to me from there. And my soul was filled with an ineffable fragrance. And at once my heart began to say the prayer like a clock noetically. I got up then full of grace and immense joy and went into the cave. And bending my chin to my breast I began to say the prayer.

"And no sooner had I said the prayer a few times than I was caught up into a vision of God. And while I was in the cave –and its door was barred– I found myself outside in heaven, in a wonderful place in profound peace and calm of soul. Complete rest. I thought only this: My God, let me not return to the world, to the wounded life any more, but let me stay here. Next, after I had been rested as the Lord wished, I came to myself again and found myself in the cave"2.

Gerontas Joseph had visions of the uncreated Light, and that is why he describes this state wonderfully. In one letter of his he says characteristically:

"The true monk is a product of the Holy Spirit.

"And when in the stillness the nous purifies the senses and becomes calm and the heart is purified, then one receives grace and illumination of knowledge. And one becomes light, all nous, all clarity. And one pours forth theology - where three write they do not overtake the current which wells forth in waves and spreads peace and utter motionlessness of passions through the whole body. The heart is set aflame by divine love and cries out: "My Jesus, control the waves of thy grace, for I am melting like wax". And indeed it cannot help melting. And the nous is caught up into the vision of God. And there is blending into union. And the person is transubstantiated and becomes one with God, so that he does not know or contain himself, like iron in the fire when it is ignited and is assimilated to the fire"3.

The third testimony comes from St. Silouan the Athonite, who fell asleep in the Lord in 1938. He describes a vision of God which he had, when he was granted to see the living Christ. All his life he remembered Christ’s sweetness and humility. St. Silouan writes with great simplicity, which is an expression of truth, humility and life:

"At one time the spirit of despair laid hold of me - it seemed to me that God had finally rejected me, and there was no salvation for men, that, on the contrary, my soul bore evidence of everlasting damnation. And I felt in my soul that God was merciless and deaf to entreaty. This lasted an hour or a little over. A humour of this kind is so oppressive, so harrowing, that even to recall it terrifies. The soul cannot bear it for long. In moments such as these man may well be lost for all eternity. Such was the battle which the Merciful Lord allowed the spirit of evil to wage with my soul.

"A short time elapsed. I went into church, to Vespers, and looking at the icon of the Saviour, I cried:

‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me, a sinner’.

"And as I uttered these words I saw the living Lord in the place where the icon was, and the grace of the Holy Spirit flooded my soul and my whole body. And so it was I came to know through the Holy Spirit that Jesus Christ is God; and I was filled with a sweet longing to endure suffering for His sake.

"Since that day when I came to know the Lord, my soul is drawn to Him, and the earth holds no delight for me. God is my only gladness. He is my joy and my strength, my wisdom and my treasure"4.

And the fourth testimony belongs to Father Sophrony, who, as he describes in his book, experienced such blessed states. To be sure, he writes them with deepest humility, in order to help the world and to support the orthodox faith, living in a country which has different opinions about Christ. Father Sophrony describes with great humility:

"Early in the 1930’s –I was a deacon then– for two weeks God’s tender mercy rested on me. At dusk, when the sun was sinking behind the mountains of Olympus, I would sit on the balcony near my cell, face turned to the dying light. In those days I contemplated the evening light of the sun and at the same time another Light which softly enveloped me and gently invaded my heart, in some curious fashion making me feel compassionate and loving towards people who treated me harshly. I would feel quite a sympathy for all creatures in general. When the sun had set I would return to my cell as usual to perform the devotions preparatory to celebrating the Liturgy, and the Light did not leave me while I prayed.

"One evening a monk from a cell near mine came to me and said, ‘I have just been reading the hymns of St. Simeon the New Theologian. Tell me –what do you make of his description of his vision of the Uncreated Light?’ Up to that moment I had lived with grateful heart the Lord’s blessing upon me but had not posed any question about the occurrence -my thoughts were fixed upon God to the exclusion of self. In order to answer Father Juvenaly I reflected on what was happening to me at the time. Trying to cover up, I answered evasively. ‘It is not for me to pronounce upon St. Simeon’s experience... But perhaps when grace was with him he was conscious of it as Light. I don’t know. ‘I had the impression that Father Juvenaly retired to his cell without suspecting anything more than I had said. But soon after this brief exchange I began to pray as usual. Light and love were no longer with me.

"Thus over and over again I learned from bitter experience that pure prayer happens only when our spirit is completely absorbed in God without any reverting to self. It is curious - when I was talking to Father Juvenaly I was not aware of conceit stirring in me... And yet... But could I not have foreseen that my continuing vision of Light in the evenings and at night at that time (the beginning of my priesthood) might lead to pride? If such a misfortune lay on my path the Lord found an excellent way of humbling me by taking away the gift. Glory be to Him for ever and ever"5.

He saw the uncreated Light many times. He describes one more such vision of God:

"On Easter Saturday, in 1924 perhaps, the Light visited me after I had taken communion, and I felt it like the touch of Divine Eternity on my spirit. Gentle, full of peace and love, the Light remained with me for three days. It drove away the darkness of non-existence that had engulfed me. I was resurrected, and in me and with me the whole world was resurrected. The words of St. John Chrysostom at the end of the Easter Liturgy struck me with overwhelming force: ‘Christ is risen and there are no dead in the grave’. Tormented hitherto by the spectre of universal death, I now felt that my soul too was resurrected and there were no more dead..."6.

I have presented these four written testimonies from the Hagiorite fathers themselves in order to show that in each epoch, and so today as well, on the Holy Mountain there are witnesses to seeing the Light of divine glory. Of course there are others who see God and whom we do not know, on the one hand because they themselves wish to live in obscurity, on the other hand because God has not mainfested them. If there are special reasons, God will reveal them.

St. Gregory Palamas also belongs to the category of those Hagiorite Fathers who see God. He himself, as St. Philotheos Kokkinos describes, had experiences of God many times, but also participation in the deifying energy of God. His way of writing and the way in which he analyses the texts of the holy Fathers manifest his personal participation in the uncreated glory of God.

Therefore it is very meaningful how he himself describes the Transfiguration of Christ and the vision of God which the Disciples had on Mount Tabor. I think that it is a pattern of interpretive language, because the Transfiguration of Christ is being analysed by a saint who has been deemed worthy of having this same vision of God. Thus the interpretive analysis is authentic. We shall look at this interpretation offered by the Hagiorite saint who himself has seen God.

The Transfiguration of Christ is one of the central places in the life of Christ, which took place a little before His Passion and had the purpose of supporting His Disciples in view of the great events which were to follow. In the Kontakion of the feast the following things are also mentioned: "Upon the Mount wast thou transfigured... that when they should see thee crucified they might comprehend that thy suffering was voluntary, and proclaim it to the world: For thou art, of a truth, the effulgence of the Father".

In the fourteenth century there was a great discussion between St. Gregory Palamas and the philosopher Barlaam about the nature of the Light of the Transfiguration. At first Barlaam maintained that we do not know exactly who the Holy Spirit is, since we cannot know what God is. He said this in discussing the subject of the ‘filioque’. Then St. Gregory Palamas, recognising that this position would end in agnosticism, maintained that there is essence and energy in God, and that we do not know what the essence of God is, but we know and experience His energies. It is impossible for us to participate in the knowledge of God’s essence, but we can know and acquire experience of His energies. Likewise the Holy Spirit as essence proceeds from the Father alone, but as energy He is sent by the Son and also from the Son. The existence of the Holy Spirit, His manner of being, is one thing, and His disclosure is another.

In this way they came from the teaching about the Holy Spirit to the subject of the essence and energy of God, which formed the basis of all the discussions. St. Gregory Palamas supported the orthodox view that not only the essence of God is uncreated, but His energy too is uncreated. Thus the three Disciples saw the divine energy of God in the Person of the Word on Mt. Tabor, since the Light of the Transfiguration is God’s energy appearing as Light, and therefore this Light is the Light of divinity and is uncreated. Barlaam stood against this, as we shall see in what follows. Naturally the discussion also turned to the way of participating in the uncreated Light, God’s uncreated energy –to the way that is orthodox hesychasm. Therefore the event of the Transfiguration of Christ on Tabor came to form the axis of the theological discussions between St. Gregory Palamas and Barlaam, because it is an event which gives many answers to Barlaam’s heretical views.

Before we go on to examine the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas, I think that we would do well to see what were the views of Barlaam the philosopher which St. Gregory opposed. We can find them concentrated in the question formulated by St. Gregory in the first part of the so-called hesychastic disputes, as preserved in the saint’s work "On the holy Hesychasts".

On this question he says that some people who are possessed by presumption and speak of things of which they have no personal knowledge, have strayed from the straight road and are making accusations against the wise and God-bearing Fathers also on the subject of the Light. In other words they consider "as illusion any illumination which is accessible to the senses". They regard it as activity of the demons. And indeed these heretics place the experiences of the Prophets and in general those of the deified saints in this category. They call the illuminations in the Old Testament symbolic and say that the Light of the Transfiguration of Christ is sensory. On the other hand, they give the name of suprasensory enlightenment to spiritual knowledge derived from reasoning and they call this rational knowledge higher than the light or any vision of God. In this sense the philosophers, according to Barlaam, are higher than the Prophets and the Apostles7.

Likewise St. Gregory, who was staying on the Holy Mountain, learned that these heretics, that is to say Barlaam and those of the same mind, were saying that to be occupied with prayer and the seeing of various lights, as the monks professed, was a demonic state8. So Barlaam thought that the Light of the Transfiguration was created and naturally inferior to the reasonings and conjectures of the philosophers, and this was why the philosophers were higher than the Prophets and the Apostles.

In the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas we see these erroneous and deluded theories and teachings refuted. In general he says that the Light is God’s energy, which is uncreated, as is the essence as well. There is no essence which is without energy. In what follows we shall look at the analysis of this teaching.

In any case it should be pointed out here that the distinction between the created and uncreated energies is what constitutes orthodox theology. Orthodox theology is the theology which can make the clear distinction between the energies. Moreover, to attribute God’s energies to the devil and the devil’s energies to God constitutes the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

St. Gregory Palamas is called a herald of Grace, because all his life he was speaking of the Grace of God, which is the uncreated energy of God, and which from time to time, when a person is suitably prepared, he can see as Light. So he is a theologian and a herald of the uncreated Light. We shall not here make a full analysis of the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas as it appears in all his works, but we shall analyse the event of the Transfiguration of Christ as he interprets it in his sermons. This will be important also because we shall see how the saint guides his flock on the serious theological topic of his time. Barlaam with his heretical beliefs was upsetting the Christians of Thessaloniki. When St. Gregory became Bishop of Thessaloniki, he wanted to restore things.

His theological penetration is also seen in the sermons which he gave. St. Gregory was a great Father of the Church, who analysed these major theological questions, because he himself had previously acquired experiences of that life on the Holy Mountain. When someone acquires personal knowledge of these truths, then even his theology becomes a narration. He is not doing acrobatics on the theological questions, but he is expressing them without error, because he possesses personal knowledge of these truths.

The Evangelists describe the event of the Transfiguration of Christ with great simplicity, which shows its authenticity. Even the Apostle Peter speaks of this event, at which he was found worthy to be present. But we shall make more use of the text of Mark the Evangelist and our analysis will refer to it.

Interpretive commentaries

Many things are said about what the Kingdom of God is. If one reads protestant views about the subject, one will be told very strange things. Many people speak of the Kingdom of God as if it were a created reality. But in the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas, as it is also expressed in the teaching of the Church, the vision of the uncreated Light is the Kingdom of God.

The holy Evangelist reports that Christ said to His Disciples: "there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God present with power" (Mark 9, 1). And just after that Jesus took the three Disciples and led them up on Mount Tabor, and there He was transfigured before them. Therefore to see the uncreated Light is the Kingdom of God.

On this subject St. Gregory is clear and categorical. He writes: "Here he calls the light of his own transfiguration the glory of the Father and of his kingdom"9. In another place he interprets: "For the great spectacle of the light of the transfiguration of the Lord is the mystery of the eighth day"10. So the Kingdom of God is the mystery of the eighth day. The six days indicate the world. The overcoming of the world and of the five senses –which work in sixes, because also the word spoken to the senses is added– is the divine Sabbath, which leads to the mystery of the eighth age. Therefore the Kingdom of God is above sensation and above the word. The suspension of the senses and of the spoken word, which constitutes the seventh day, leads to participation in the Kingdom of God11.

Thus the Kingdom of God is the uncreated Light, which is the food of the celestial beings, the substance of the good things to come, the enhypostatic kingdom. Participation in this Light is participation in the Kingdom of God.

Interpreting more analytically the passage: "there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power", means that the King is everywhere, and His Kingdom is also everywhere. The "coming of the Kingdom of God" does not mean that the Kingdom of God is coming from some other place, "but that it appears by the power of the Spirit of God". This suggests that the Kingdom of God is coming "with power". It is only by the Grace of God that we can come to see Grace as Light. "In thy light shall we see light". This is the basic teaching of the holy Fathers of the Church. But this power is not received by chance, but comes to those who are with the Lord and are supported by faith in Him and are lifted up with the three Disciples above natural humbleness. This means that when a person overcomes his fallen state, when he is purified and illuminated, then he is found worthy of participating in the Kingdom of God. God descends from His own height, but also a man must rise high from his fallen condition, "so that the uncontainable may be contained in generated nature fairly naturally and as safely as possible12.

Participation in the uncreated Light is participation in the uncreated energy of the Holy Trinity. On Mt. Tabor we have the manifestation of the Persons of the Holy Trinity as Light. And this Light is "unified and single". Therefore the Kingdom of God is participation in the Triune God.

On the mount of Transfiguration we have the manifestation of the Word in the Person of Christ. Christ revealed and displayed some rays of His divinity. Likewise we even have a presence –a manifestation of the Father by the voice which was heard: "This is My beloved Son: hear Him". Likewise we have the presence of the Holy Spirit by the luminous cloud which overshadowed the Disciples. St. Gregory Palamas interprets: "But in any case both the Father and the Holy Spirit were invisibly with the Lord, the one witnessing with his voice that this was his beloved Son, the other shining forth together with him through the luminous cloud and indicating the unified oneness of the light of the Son both with him and with the Father"13.

In the whole teaching of the Church this truth can be seen, that the Father is Light, the Logos is Light and the All-holy Spirit is Light. It can also be seen that when people are granted to see God, they see Him as Light.

Therefore the Light of Christ is the Light of His divinity. It is not a question of something created but of the Light which always issues forth from the human nature of the Logos, which the Disciples were granted to see on Mt. Tabor. The light of Christ was not something that comes and goes, as Barlaam said, following Augustine, it was not something which Christ assumed, nor a third, hidden nature in Christ, it was not a phantom and a lightning flash which shone brilliantly and then ceased to shine, but it was this same divinity of Christ.

St. Gregory is clear on this point as well, expressing the whole teaching of the Church. "Therefore the light of the transfiguration of the Lord certainly does not come about and cease to be, nor is it circumscribed, nor does it fall under the heading of a sensory power"14. It takes place because it is the Light of divinity. When Moses entered the darkness and his very body was changed, he did not "initiate" the Transfiguration, but he "suffered" Transfiguration, which means that he came to the vision of the Light and experienced deification through God’s blessing and His Grace, and it was not a natural capacity of his. That is to say, his body was not a source of uncreated Grace precisely as it happened in Christ. "Our Lord Jesus Christ had that brightness of himself"15. Therefore Christ "effected" the Transfiguration and did not "suffer" it, while Moses and all those who see God "suffer" transfiguration and deification and do not "make" or effect deification. This is the difference between the Transfiguration of Christ and that of the saints. It is not unrelated to the saying that Christ is God by nature, while men become Gods by Grace.

Barlaam and those who shared his opinions said that Christ at that moment assumed something which he did not have. But St. Gregory, rejecting these views, made many precise objections. He said that this was a real blasphemy. To affirm such a thing is like supposing that there were three natures in Christ: the divine, the human, and that of the light which was revealed. But Christ had two natures, and the brightness of his divine nature was hidden by his flesh. At that moment Christ manifested the brightness of his divine nature, which he had always had invisibly. Therefore "that light is the light of divinity and is uncreated". Thus Christ was transfigured "not assuming what he was not, nor changing into what he was not, but manifesting to his intimate disciples what he was"16.

Christ neither assumed nor was changed into what He was not, but at that moment he manifested to His Disciples what He was. We have, then, a manifestation and revelation rather than an assumption and change. So the Light of Christ is uncreated. It is a basic teaching of the holy Fathers that whenever the essence is created, the energy is also created, and whenever the essence is uncreated, then its energy is also uncreated.

The angels and the saints participate in this Kingdom of God, this Light. It means that the Triune God has this glory and kingdom by nature, while "the holy angels and men are in happy possession of it by grace, having received illumination from there"17.

Therefore the Kingdom of God is participation in the uncreated glory of the Triune God, vision of the uncreated Light. The experience of the uncreated Light is a taste of eternal life. There are, however, many manners and degrees of this participation. Sometimes we feel divine Grace burning the passions and sins, like a fire which is purifying our heart of passions, sometimes like a light which is illuminating our nous and revealing to it mysteries hidden from carnal men. Sometimes we feel the Grace of God as joy and comfort, as a movement of everlasting life within us, as a sense of love for the whole world, as uninterrupted mindfulness of God, which is to be unceasingly in the company of God. There are various manners and degrees of the vision of God, which indicate a person’s spiritual condition.

Christ selected the three Disciples Peter, James and John in order to reveal His divinity, because he considered them to be those most suited for tasting this experience. The Fathers teach that the three Disciples had several characteristics very essential for this experience. Peter was selected for his love of Christ, John for being loved by Christ, and James because he was to become the first of the circle of Christ’s disciples to be martyred for Him.

The preference and selection of these three Disciples should not be interpreted in terms of anthropocentric motives and criteria, but in terms of God’s energy and the men’s capability and possibility. Interpreting this passage, St. Gregory says that participation in the glory of God, the vision of the uncreated Light, does not come to people by chance, but to those who have two basic characteristics. First, they take their stand and are present with Christ, that is to say they are grounded in faith in Him, and secondly, that they, like the Disciples Peter and James and John, "themselves have previously been taken up on to the high mountain by the word, that is to say, they have been taken above our natural lowness"18.

This means that there is need for faith in Christ –that He is the one and only God– a desire to follow Him, communion and unity with the Apostles, being within the Church, and a heart purified of passions. For man to be taken up on to a high mountain means his journey from purity of heart to the illumination of his nous, and this is orthodox hesychasm.

So this choice is made with the freedom of both God and man as criteria. The sun in the sky does not appear to whoever wishes it and in the way that he wishes, since it does not have freedom, but Christ the sun of righteousness has not only a nature and natural warmth, but also a will, and therefore He shines providentially and savingly "on whomever He wishes and as much as He wishes". He shines on them where and as He wishes, with the aim of their salvation. But also the depth of the shining is according to His good pleasure and His will. Therefore while at first He appeared like the sun, then He shone more brightly, and then He remained invisible to the eyes of the Apostles, "by extreme brightness"19.

At this point we can see the love of God, since He appears to men according to their advantage. The sight of God in men impure from passions works in a punishing and penalising way. Thus God’s illumination depends also on the will and freedom of the person, since Paradise and Hell do not exist from God’s point of view but from man’s point of view. This means that those who are unclean experience the Grace of God as fire, which is Hell, and those purified, according to the degree of their purity, experience the Grace of God as Light, and this is Paradise, the Kingdom of God.

The transfiguration of Christ is not independent of the transfiguration of the Disciples. This is clear also from what has been said, but we shall undertake a greater analysis, as St. Gregory Palamas presents it.

The vision of the uncreated glory of God did not happen simply to the natural eyes and the natural sensation, because that light was not natural. We said before that the Light was the Light of divinity and not something created. However, the disciples saw the glory of Christ even with their eyes, which had previously been transfigured and had been deemed worthy of this vision of God. Therefore we also have the transfiguration of the Disciples on Mt. Tabor and not only that of Christ.

St. Gregory stresses emphatically that God even opened the eyes of blind people who were made capable of seeing these mysteries. That light was not sensible, nor did those who saw it see with simple eyes of the senses, "but they were changed by the power of the divine Spirit". The eyes of the Disciples were changed by the power of the Holy Spirit. For "the eyes which see according to nature are blind" to the vision of that Light. That is why the Disciples "were changed, and thus they saw the change"20. So we have a transfiguration of the Disciples as well, in order for them to be granted to see the glory of God in the human nature of the Logos.

There are, to be sure, different degrees of the vision of God, even with respect to the Transfiguration of Christ. At first the Disciples were seeing the Person of Christ as a sun, and then the cloud overshadowed them. At first the Light shone rather dimly, and that is why "it provided vision". But when it shone more, "it was invisible to them because of its surpassing brightness". Indeed the bright cloud, which is the brightest manifestation of the glory of God, overshadowed even Christ, "the source of the divine and eternal light, the sun of righteousness"21.

This was not independent of the grace of God, nor of the preparation and capability of the Disciples. Moreover, the same thing also happens when we view the sensible sun. Its light provides the sight but also takes it away when we look directly and stare at it, because its brightness exceeds the capacity of our eyes22.

Christ’s Transfiguration took place during prayer. The information given by Luke the Evangelist is very characteristic: "As He prayed, the appearance of His face was altered..." (Lk. 9, 29).

To be sure, we must say from the beginning that Christ had no need of prayer in order to be transfigured, for Christ does not "suffer" deification, but He "effects" deification, He effects the transfiguration and the manifestation. As St. Gregory Palamas says, "it goes without saying that our Lord Jesus Christ of Himself had that shining". Therefore Christ did not have need of the prayer which makes the body shine, "but He was indicating to the Disciples from where this shining would come, and how it would be seen by them23. In this way Christ wanted to show His Disciples that through prayer they would be able to reach the reality of this great experience and revelation.

Thus we see the value of prayer, and especially of what is called unceasing noetic prayer, since through this a man is found worthy of participating in the Kingdom of God and finding eternal life. When, through welldoing and prayer, a person attains noetic prayer, then he also reaches the vision of God and ineffable mysteries.

St. Gregory Palamas observes that he manifested His glory during prayer "in order to show that prayer is an occasion for that blessed vision of God, and for us to learn that it is through approaching God with virtue and noetic unity with Him that that shining is called forth and emerges"24. What we require, then, is virtue, which is nothing else but the fruits of the Holy Spirit as a result of our purification, and unceasing prayer. It is in this way, chiefly through noetic prayer, that man’s union with God is reached. It is also the stage before the vision of God.

In fact, what is required is purity of heart, riddance of all the intrusive thoughts in the heart, and illumination of the nous, which is manifested by unceasing prayer. As a result, the person reaches the vision of God.

St. Gregory, citing Chrysostom, writes: "For, he says, the true and most enchanting beauty, seen only by one whose nous is purified, is that which is related to the divine and blessed nature"25. The beauty of God is His uncreated energy, which is God’s essential energy and is seen by those who purify their nous of passions and thoughts, who have freed it from all admixtures and enslavements. The holy Fathers teach that when man attains illumination of his nous and prays noetically, then at unexpected moments this prayer is turned into vision of the uncreated Light.

It seems that on Tabor the very Body of Christ was a source of uncreated glory, since Christ’s face "shone like the sun". Likewise, as we said before, even the bodies of the Disciples were altered, changed by the energy of the Holy Spirit. In the saints who attain deification, their bodies too are transformed and deified. In the experience of deification the physical functions of the body are suspended, as we see in the case of Moses, who remained on Mt. Sinai forty days and forty nights without feeling the need for food and sleep.

A man’s soul is closely connected with his body and therefore the experiences of deification are transmitted to the body as well. The relics of saints are a tangible example. The saints attained deification and thus their bodies were deified. Therefore we see that in the relics of the saints as well, the physical processes are suspended.

St. Gregory Palamas also refers to this fact in another analysis which he makes. He writes: "Even the body somehow partakes of the grace activated in the nous and is oriented towards it and itself receives some sense of the ineffable mystery flowing from it in the soul". Not only is the body brightened, but this also becomes manifest even to the people who see it from outside. Then he mentions the case of Moses, whose body shone so brightly that the Israelites could not meet his face, and he therefore used a veil, as also happened in the case of the protomartyr Stephen, whose face they all saw as if it were the face of an angel"26.

In the Sayings of the Desert Fathers we read about how someone met Abba Silouan. "And he saw his face and body shining like an angel and he fell with his face to the ground"27.

It is the teaching of the Church that the righteous will shine as the sun in the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ said: "Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (Matt. 13, 43). And the Apostle Paul refers to this reality when he writes: "There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory" (I Cor. 15, 41). This future glory and shining of men is essentially participation in the glory of God. The saints are already experiencing the Kingdom of God, and this is seen clearly in iconography, when a halo, a crown of light, is placed on the heads of the saints.

The holy Fathers, speaking of the glory of the saints in the Kingdom of Heaven, make divinely inspired analyses. St. Gregory the Theologian says: "with those who have stood and not fallen we shall be small lights going round the great light". St. Cyril of Jerusalem says that because God foresaw men’s faithlessness, He put light into the small insects which fly in summer, so that from what was seen, that which was awaited would be believable. The God who made one part can also provide the whole. He Who made the worm (the firefly) shine, "much more can illuminate a righteous man". Macarios of Egypt explains that the Kingdom of the Light, Jesus Christ, is now mystically illuminating the soul and reigning in the souls of the saints, hidden from the eyes of men, until the day of the resurrection, "when the body itself will also be covered and glorified by the light of the Lord", which henceforth is in the souls of men, so that it too may reign with the soul28.

Apart from the brightness of His face and in general of his body, Christ’s clothing also shone. The holy Evangelist points out: "His clothes became shining, exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them".

St. Gregory Palamas, interpreting this passage, says that it was with the same light that the venerated Body of Christ and His clothes were made bright, but "not equally", because even the Body of Christ was a source of His uncreated glory. But His clothes became luminous "because they were close to his body". By the illumination of the clothes during the Transfiguration, God showed what the vestments of glory will be like with which the saints will be clothed in the age to come and what sort of garments the sinless wore who, when Adam fell, found themselves naked and were ashamed29.

The patristic teaching is well known that the uncreated Grace which comes to the soul of man is transmitted to the body as well, and then it is conveyed also to irrational creation. Thus the whole of creation receives the beneficial results of the deification of man. Therefore, just as the fall of man also had cosmological extensions, in the same way also the regeneration and deification of man has universal and cosmological dimensions.

St. Gregory Palamas interprets the fact that Christ’s clothes also became luminous and white like light, with reference to the Bible. He says that the pre-eternal Word of God which became flesh also carries within Himself the word of the gospel proclamation. The writing of the gospel proclamation is white and clear, and at the same time brilliant and shining like pearl, or rather it is majestic and inspired by God, just as Christ’s clothes were. But this brightness of the writing of the gospel proclamation is seen by those who see in spirit the things of the spirit and interpret the words of the texts in a way worthy of God. No conjecturing man of this age can interpret the words of the gospel proclamation, nor can he understand when someone else interprets them30.

We must examine this subject within the perspective that, according to St. Gregory Palamas, there are two wisdoms and two educations. The wisdom of God is offered apocalyptically to the deified Prophets, Apostles and saints. There is no confusion between the two wisdoms and the two educations. No one, by means of reasoning and his senses, can understand the mysteries of the spirit that are beyond nous and word.

This confusion is brought on by people inexperienced in divine matters. The philosophers think that through logic they can understand what is beyond reason and intellect. Here St. Gregory is referring to Barlaam, Akindynos and all those of the same mind. Therefore, with that interpretation in mind, he says: "So let us avoid those who do not accept the patristic interpretations but of their own accord undertake to introduce the opposite". These heretics often pretend that they are using the words to the letter, but in reality they are dismissing their godly mind, that is to say the deeper sense of the things that are being said in the patristic passages. Those heretics should be avoided more than snakes31.

This exhortation is given at the beginning of the saint’s sermon about the Transfiguration and is related to the things that are to follow. He has before him a people who had been thrown into confusion by Barlaam’s heretical teachings. So he advises them to avoid those men who do not acknowledge the patristic words and are explaining the patristic writings by their own reasoning and their own conjecture. Only the deified can understand the words of the deified. It is substantially with this exhortation that he condemns the theology of conjecture and recommends accepting the theology of the men of experience.

Actually there is an enormous difference between the theology of conjecture and orthodox theology. The former uses imagination and conjecture, while the latter uses experience.

On Tabor we also have the appearance of the Old Testament Prophets Moses and Elijah. The appearance of these particular Prophets is related to the fact that they were prophesying about Christ and had seen the Word without flesh during their lives. For, according to the teaching of the saints, all the revelations of God in the Old Testament were revelations of the Word without flesh. However there are some points which show the difference between the Prophets and Christ, just as there is also a difference between the Prophets of the Old and New Testaments.

A difference exists between the Prophets and Christ. The Prophets appeared and were revealed "in his glory". And Christ does not "suffer" deification, but he "does" deification, while the Prophets "suffer" deification. The Word of God is uncreated, while the Prophets are created and receive the energy of the uncreated glory of God. The Logos is Son of God by nature, while the Prophets and all the deified are sons of God by Grace.

Moreover the Prophets saw the Word without flesh during their lives, while now they see the glory of the incarnate Word. And naturally this is the basic difference between the Revelations of God in the Old and New Testaments.

The vision of God which both Moses and Elijah were granted to see during their lives, came about through their deification, and this deification was temporary, because death had not yet been ontologically overcome. On Tabor the Light of divinity of the Logos poured forth from the deified flesh of the Logos, when even His body was a source of uncreated Grace, but this body was still external to the Disciples.

In the period of the New Testament after Pentecost the deified were granted vision of the uncreated Light because of their deification, and as members of the Body of Christ. It was not vision of the unincarnate Logos, it was not vision of the uncreated glory of God pouring forth from the flesh of the Logos, flesh which was external to them, but it was vision of the glory of Christ because they were members of the Body of Christ. Therefore the vision of the uncreated Light comes from within, that is to say, through deification and from within the Divine-human Body of Christ.

From the cloud which overshadowed the Disciples on Tabor there came a voice: "This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!" St. Gregory Palamas makes several divinely inspired analyses of this event.

First he says that it was not a simple voice, nor did the Disciples fall to the ground from this voice of itself. And at another time a voice was heard from heaven. John the Evangelist describes such a scene. Christ was praying to His Father, saying: Father, glorify Your name". And then "a voice came from heaven, saying: I have both glorified it and will glorify it again" (Jn. 12, 28). St. Gregory says that this voice was heard by "the whole crowd, and not one of them fell". On Tabor the Disciples fell to the ground, because "not only a voice but also an incomprehensible light shone forth with the voice". Therefore the holy Fathers explain that they fell on their faces "not because of the voice, but because of the change and marvel of the light"32.

Therefore this voice was a vision of God. And actually, as the holy Fathers explain, both the seeing of God is a Revelation, and the hearing is a Revelation of God. All these experiences are united during the experience. Therefore sometimes the hearing is called seeing and sometimes the seeing is called hearing.

The voice of the Father was telling them to obey His Son. The Disciples must obey Christ because he is the Word of the Father, the true Son of God. The Father rests in Him. As St. Gregory Palamas says, this voice taught that all that happened in the Old Testament, that is to say the sacrifices, laws and adoptions, were incomplete and were not according to the former will of God, that is to say His gracious will, but according to God’s concession. Thus all that went on in the Old Testament "was forgiven by this later presence and manifestation of the Lord"33.

Since the Father rests in Him, that is why the Father "tells us to hear and obey him". And when Christ exhorts the Disciples to enter by the narrow gate, they have to obey - also when he says "this light is the kingdom of God, hear and believe him and make yourselves worthy of this light"34.

The whole text that describes the Transfiguration of Christ, but also all that preceded the event point out to us the path of deification, which is also the path to vision of the uncreated Light. We shall try to describe some steps in this journey as it appears in the gospel texts and as Archimandrite Sophrony analyses it in an unpublished sermon of his on the Transfiguration of Christ.

The Transfiguration of Christ was preceded by the confession of the Apostle Peter. Christ asked His Disciples what opinion people had of Him. They replied that some thought that He was Elijah, others Jeremiah, John the Baptist or one of the Prophets. Then Christ asked them what they themselves thought about Him. In the name of the Disciples the Apostle replied: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16, 16). Christ confirmed this confession by His Transfiguration. The significant thing is that it was preceded by the confession that Christ is not a man or a Prophet, but the son of the living God. The moment when the voice of the Father is heard saying "This is My beloved Son" is the greatest moment in the Revelation on Tabor.

The confession was followed by silence. After the words: "there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power", the Evangelists immediately went on to say: "Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James and John and led them up on a high mountain". Between these words and the Transfiguration a week of stillness intervened. He was preparing them with silence, for no other event intervened.

Christ’s Transfiguration, in other words, took place during prayer. Analysing the text, we can certify that the prayer of the Lord on Tabor is similar to His prayer in the garden of Gethsemane. Luke the Evangelist observes: "And behold, two men talked with Him, who were Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of His decease which He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem" (Luke 9, 30-31). The fact that they were talking about Christ’s departure, about His Passion, shows that the prayer is connected with the prayer in Gethsemane. And of course it was a prayer for the whole world. Christ then embraced the whole world with His love, and His Disciples as well, in order that their faith in Him and their unity together might be strengthened.

These things show us the path of deification. There is need for confession of Christ, certainty and confession that He is the one and only Redeemer. It is within the unshakeable faith in Christ that the prerequisites for the vision of God are created. Then follows silence, the effort to abide by the will of God, the ascetic life through which a person’s heart is purified of passions and evil thoughts. Basically it is a struggle for purity, which proceeds through patience, perseverance and hope in God. In this state human dialectics are not needed. In reality this silence is orthodox hesychia in the full meaning of the word –bodily stillness and noetic stillness. And of course the person comes to the vision of God in an atmosphere of prayer, and especially prayer which is for the whole world. It is only such complete and universal prayer that takes the nous to the vision of God.

St. Gregory Palamas also points to this path in his analyses of the Transfiguration of Christ. We have seen previously that the uncreated Light is the mystery of the age to come, and it is also the Kingdom of God. In order to reach it there must be confession that Christ is true God, steadfastness of faith, staying in the Church, and obedience to the words of the deified and God-bearing holy Fathers. There also must be abeyance of the senses and of the spoken word, observance of the Sabbath, which means entering into the seventh day, which is man’s life beyond words, overcoming the rule of logic, and then a person experiences the eighth day, that is to say, he attains vision of the uncreated Light, which is the Kingdom of God itself35.

After the interpretive analysis of the passage about the Transfiguration as St. Gregory Palamas sees it, we should also look at some general theological comments bearing on the Transfiguration of Christ. It is true that the basic theological points were indicated in the analysis of the passage, but I think that we may well extend it further.

Man was made in the image and likeness of God. In the teaching of the holy Fathers the likeness is equivalent to the deification of man. Therefore the purpose of man is to attain deification.

However, in the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas deification is not an abstract state, it is not an intellectual elaboration of thoughts and imagination, it is not a moral life, but the vision of the uncreated Light. When a person attains the vision of the uncreated Light in the Person of the Logos, he is deified. The vision of the uncreated Light is "union and deification" of a person, "participation and deifying communion". During deification a person is united with God. St. Gregory is clear: "So the contemplation of this light is a union... but is the union with this light other than a vision?" Man’s vision of God and deification offer the true knowledge of God. The knowledge of God and theology are not a development of reasoning, but a life beyond reasoning. They surpass human seeing and knowing and of course are "superior to the light of knowledge".

Therefore the vision of God in the Person of the Logos is the deification of man, deification is man’s union with God and this union offers divine knowledge, which surpasses human knowledge36.

There are many degrees of vision of the Light. We gave a few preliminary hints. But here we wish to add that there is no ending to this perfection. In patristic theology standing still is regarded as falling.

St. Gregory Palamas writes about this point: "This vision of God has both a beginning and things after the beginning, varying in darkness and clarity; but there is no end at all, for its progress is infinite, like that of the ravishment in revelation". So there is no end to this vision of God, but an endless progression. Therefore "illumination is a different thing from a steady sight of light, and both differ from seeing things in the light..."37.

Vision of the uncreated Light has many degrees. It depends on the person’s spiritual condition and God’s gift. The experience of God’s purifying, enlightening and deifying energy operates in accordance with the degree of one’s participation in divine Grace.

The holy Fathers, like St. Gregory Palamas here, are not satisfied to present the goal of the spiritual life, but they also show the unerring path in that direction. And in this their love and philanthropy can be seen.

The only method which leads to deification and vision of the uncreated Light is the ascetic way that is Christlike and in Christ. No one who rejects this method can ever reach the goal for which he was created. And the sad but even tragic thing is that many people in our days speak of the deification of man, of the deification of the human body, of the holy Fathers, but they do not speak about the way and the method which they must follow. This is a fundamental error. For, just as in all human sciences if the method is abolished, there cannot be results, the same is true in orthodox theology. When theology does not point out the way and the method, which is the ascetic-hesychastic method, it can never lead man to the final goal. Such a theology is non-existent and dangerous. This hesychastic method is still being maintained today on the Holy Mountain.

We shall look very briefly at just a few elements in this ascetic method, which constitutes what is called hesychasm.

First. It is a clear teaching of the Fathers that there are three stages of spiritual perfection: purification of the heart, illumination of the nous and deification. Purification of the heart is its release from all evil thoughts, the person’s disengagement from pleasure and pain. Illumination of the nous is the attainment of unceasing noetic prayer, through which a person does away with ignorance and forgetfulness and therefore has constant mindfulness of God. And the vision of God is man’s discarding of fantasy and seeing God.

Second. A leading role in man’s effort at purification is played by the separation of the nous from reasoning. With the fall of man his nous became identified with and subservient to reasoning and the passions. These two centres of knowing are not identical, but they function in parallel. Identifying them causes darkening of the nous and the fall of man. They are separated by means of hesychasm, a temporary limitation of the senses and reasoning, the cultivation of rational prayer and the use of unceasing prayer of the nous and heart.

Third. In this way one lives noetic hesychia, which is simply that one dwells in God. This means that the nous is pure of thoughts, it has only one word, that of unceasing prayer. Noetic hesychia in the teaching of the Fathers is called "knowledge of thoughts".

Fourth. An intensive effort is made to free the person from imagination as well. This does not mean that the person discards the imaginary, but it becomes inactive. Furthermore, fantasies are the scales on the nous, the eye of the mind, that prevent it from seeing the glory of God.

Fifth. The basic struggle is against thoughts. Thoughts are simple and compound. Simple thoughts are not a sin, whereas the compound thoughts, which are about persons or things, thoughts of them, and about the passions, are sins and create the conditions for committing sins. The thoughts are developed and arrive at passion. There is the suggestion of sin, there is the coupling, the desire, the act and the passion. The passions are unnatural movements of the soul. Therefore sobriety and prayer free a person from thoughts and their terrible consequences.

Sixth. The passions are cured by repentance, confession, the struggle which one makes, and by the guidance of an experienced spiritual father. A person cannot live the spiritual life without guidance.

We praise God and owe great thanks to the contemporary saints and monks who are men of violence living on the Holy Mountain and elsewhere, who pursue this method and are a consolation for the people of God. We owe them our gratitude, because they show us the way of purification, sanctification and deification.

The Transfiguration is a great event in the life of Christ, but especially in the lives of the Disciples. It points to the height of the spiritual life, reveals the meaning of our existence, shows the path we should take in order to become real human beings.

St. Gregory Palamas, completing his two sermons on the Transfiguration of Christ, ends in exhortations. I shall present some of them in what follows.

In one sermon he urges us to use our inner eyes to see this great sight, that is to say our nature which Christ assumed and lives eternally with the fire of divinity. And comprehending this gift, let us discard the garments of skin in which we were clothed through transgression and disobedience, that is to say, our "material and carnal thoughts", and "stand on holy ground", which is our struggle for virtue and our lifting up towards God. And when we have this boldness, then "since God dwells in the light, let us also run to be illuminated, and let us remain forever illuminated to the glory of the tri-solar splendour which rules as one"38.

In another sermon of his he ends with almost the same exhortations, because he is analysing them still further. We must trust in order to be taught by those who are illuminated by God and have experience of these subjects. Trusting, then, in their teaching, "let us journey towards the gleam of that light". Here, as it appears, he is advising us to journey towards that Light, that is to say towards the vision of the uncreated Light. It is not a luxury for our life, but the purpose of our existence. Wearing ourselves out in the lower stages of the spiritual life is called moralism. When we love the beauty of unchangeable glory we will purify the eyes of our minds from material thoughts, scorning everything delightful and very lovely which is not permanent. This, even if it is sweet, leads to eternal suffering, and even if it brings beauty to the body, it clothes the soul in the ugly garment of sin. This is absolutely necessary, because if we do not have the garment of divine glory, we shall not be able to enter the heavenly wedding, but shall be led "to that fire and outer darkness"39.

And St. Gregory finishes: "from which (the eternal fire of Hell) may we all be saved by illumination and spiritual knowledge of the immaterial and eternal light of the transfiguration of the Lord unto his glory and that of his eternal Father and the life-giving Spirit, who have one and the same splendour and divinity and glory and kingdom and power, now and forever and unto the ages of ages. Amen"40.

It is significant that these exhortations of his to discard material thoughts, to purify the heart and to travel towards the uncreated Light are not addressed to a gathering of monks, but to his Flock in Thessaloniki, to the unmarried and the married, and he shows that the path is common which we all must follow in order to attain the vision of the uncreated Light, which is the beauty of the age to come, the foundation of the blessings to come, the Kingdom of Heaven.

All who are not in tune with the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas are moved by Barlaam’s heretical ideas and show that they do not have the conviction of the Orthodox Church.

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