Love the Fathers? Thank an academic.

Do you love getting to read the Church Fathers in a language you understand? Then you should thank an academic---or more likely multiple academics. Men (and women) of academia are the reason that almost anyone in America can have patristic theology as a hobby. Yet, it is almost always inevitably these very people who enjoy patristic theology as a kind of hobby who, at the least provocation, will pour contempt and scorn upon "academia", "academic theology", or the "liberal universities" (sometimes without any provocation at all).

Of course, this is not entirely unmerited when we do see some of the horrible things that come out of theology departments at modern universities. But to focus merely on those abuses and not on the immense gift that the modern universities have offered us is a immense sin of ingratitude to the people, the majority of whom are not Orthodox, who have made available to us the sources of our own theology.

We have to face the facts that unless we read patristic Greek (or Latin or Syriac) and have access to the manuscripts, our own ability to interact with the texts of the Fathers comes only by means of the blood, sweat, and toil of "western academia." But even this expression, "western academia" is too impersonal for me though. Our access to patristic theological works isn't the result of an impersonal process or institution called "academia." Access to the Fathers came at a very real cost--a human cost.

Yes, theological research has a human cost. We have access to the Fathers because innumerable young men and women decided they loved theology enough to give the best years of their life to sitting in University libraries, learning how to read upwards of five and six languages, learning the techniques required to produce good critical editions, all because they believed that the Fathers and other theological writers in the Christian tradition had something important to say to the contemporary Church today and to all of humanity. Especially today, when there is plenty of information available about how disastrous it can be to go into graduate studies in a liberal arts field, the fact that there are still a portion of people who would give up the "prime years of their life," almost certainly destroy their lifetime earning potential, sacrifice the time they could be spending on cultivating their relationships with their family and friends, all so they can produce good, printed editions of works that a rapidly secularizing world doesn't care two cents for, is an immense blessing and a testament to the power of the Christian theological tradition to continue to transform lives.

All that being said, this is why I find it nearly unpardonable that those who enjoy the fruits of the academy feel so free to pour scorn upon that same institution. That institution, without which, the possibility of them doing armchair theology would never have existed in the first place. I don't write this because I want to condemn anyone, but simply to remind us all: theological research has a human cost. And the next time you want to go and make carte-blanche condemnations of academic theology and the universities, remember that human cost. Remember that any volume of patristic writings is the product of years of work by philologists and theologians who likely gave up material comfort and much more to give you the privilege to access the texts of the Fathers in a language you understand.

What is an "energy" of God?

It seems to me that translating the term ενέργεια as "energy" does more to obfuscate the meaning of Palamite distinction between God's essence and His activity than it does to clarify it. Eric Perl makes a similar observation when he writes in his article "Gregory Palamas and Metaphysics of Creation" that:

"If the divine energies are real but are not 'things,' what then are they? As their name suggests, they are the activities of God, God acting in and for creation. (It would indeed be desirable to replace the conventional translation 'energies' with 'activities' which more accurately conveys Palamas' meaning in English and makes the entire doctrine sound rather less exotic. I propose therefore to use the latter term henceforward.) This is why they do not introduce composition into God, for 'nothing is ever said to be compounded with its own activity.' To say that God's essence and activity make up two things would, St. Gregory argues, be like saying that a man has two minds because we speak of 'mind' and 'understanding.' Understanding is not another substance, or a part, but is what the mind does. Activity cannot be co-numerated or added to substance. To say that God 'has activities' is simply to say that he acts: 'As he who calls [God] voluntative makes clear that he has a will, so also he who calls him active (ενεργή) shows that he has activity.'" (p.112-113)(emphasis mine)

I'm not entirely sure what the motivation has been in the Orthodox world for translating this term or even framing the debate in the way it has been. Perhaps I am cynical but I fear that this may stem from a desire on the part of Orthodox scholars to differentiate themselves first of all from the Roman Catholic tradition of Thomism which also utilizes the Aristotelian terminology of activity but instead has come down to the English langauge by means of the Latin-derived terms such as activity, actuality, or even operation. Then we also have Orthodox scholars such as Metropolitan Ierotheos of Nafpaktos who, following Fr. John Romanides, are loath to admit that Orthodoxy has anything to do with the classical tradition of metaphysics at all, a tendency which has crept into the English speaking world. 

Theodor Tollefsen, who has written an excellent volume on this exact subject, seems to have less of a problem with this strange new translation but also points out the dangers inherent in it and chooses generally to  avoid these pitfalls altogether:

"...now and then one gets the impression that energy is a kind of quasi-material force almost flowing into the human recipient. Of course, the saying that divine power is somehow flowing into the recipient is often a quite adequate description of what is experienced. But one should not conceive of or think about this divine power as if it was some kind of material force or fluidum. This is not to deny that divine energy is manifested in the nature of material being, but one should beware of interpreting the divine power itself as a material force. Against the background of these considerations I choose to translate energeia as 'actuality, activity', or---now and then---'energy', depending on the context, and the trascribe dfrom of the Greek will be used as well." (p. 5 Activity and Participation in Late Antique and Early Christian Thought)

In general, I think this is an intelligent move that helps us to realize that St. Gregory Palamas is working within a long and well-established tradition of metaphysical realist discourse about participation and activity which fundamentally begins with Plato. By translating energeia as energy we obscure this connection unnecessarily and in the hands of many less capable metaphysicians, a rather gross, even materialistic conception of the divinity ends up being put forth.

"The West today has need of the Roman tradition..."

"Today the western countries are thought to be cultured, enlightened, because in this area science was cultivated as well as technology. No one can doubt this, but the problem remains, however, to what extent science and technology constitute a complete civilization. When several external features based simply and exclusively in logic are cultivated and other aspects of the personality of man are ignored, this cannot be called civilization.

During the Renaissance period in the West, ancient Greek philosophy was studied, many centers were created for the study of the problems which the ancient Greek philosophers posited. But when Hellenism is isolated from the Orthodox Tradition, when it ceases to be Romanity (Romaiosyne), then it is retrogressive and incapable of solving the existential problems of man.

Consequently, the contemporary European is spiritually and existentially crippled. He has a developed scientific thought, he is distinguished by his technical infrastructure, he has rules of behavior and good conduct, but he cannot solve his ontological and existential problems. Contemporary western civilization is one-dimensional. For this reason, we can say that there reigns a particular form of neo-barbarism in the West.

The West today has need of the Roman tradition which solves all of the problems of man. We must not go to Europe as their poor relatives with an inferiority complex, but as spiritual nobles, since we have the spiritual nobility of humanity, all of the best elements of authentic humanism.

- Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos of Nafpaktos (Born and Bred Romans)
(My translation)

A Rather Ugly City

 “It’s a rather ugly city, isn’t it?” remarked one of my friends the other day as she, I and another sat looking at the sea from the roof of her apartment building.

While at first I was somewhat inclined to disagree, I suppose I must confess that in some ways Thessaloniki is indeed “a rather ugly city.” Filled with dirty, graffiti-ridden post-war flats, it certainly lacks the obvious charms of places such as Rome or Florence. In fact, when I first arrived, the rather dismal state of parts of the city made reexamine my decision. As long as I can remember, I have had trouble sleeping in cars and airplanes, and so the airplane ride, as you may suspect, had been rather exhausting. So I remember being in something a delusional hallucinatory state while I watched the urban landscape go by in my priest-friend’s car as he drove me to my apartment for the first time, and thinking to myself “Where have I decided to live?” I don’t know if it’s a post-crisis phenomenon, but no one seems to bother washing the graffiti from the walls anymore here, and there are enough bored youths (read: unemployed) that plenty of graffiti there is.

I guess it's not all bad...

Those first few days in Thessaloniki were rather surreal, and if I’m honest with myself, I was more than a little frightened. No matter how much I had done to prepare myself for the move, I still felt like I was hanging over the abyss---the chasm of uncertainty which now seems to be merely the characteristic trait of adulthood. I had left a great number of people whom I loved (and love) dearly in Texas and had moved 5000 miles to a country where I only had a couple of friends and could barely speak the language. It was difficult to sleep that first night after my arrival; despite my exhaustion, the seemingly endless questions and uncertainties made it nearly impossible to rest properly, but eventually sleep overtook me.

The next day, an acquaintance helped me get to the university for the Greek language placement exam. I’m still surprised I am friends with anyone I met that day because I’m sure I was a complete wreck. I’m also surprised that I managed to get into the A2 class given how exhausted I still was from my journey. Once I completed the exam, I was given my first real opportunity to explore the city on my own: this was a rather terrifying freedom. I had no friends and I knew nothing of the layout of this city, only the brief impressions from my two days there the year before. Naturally, I followed the tourist signs toward the center, and this is how I first encountered one of the hidden wonders of this ancient city: the Arch of Galerius (or as the locals have affectionately dubbed it, Καμάρα Kamara).

One meets the Arch of Galerius not as mere chiseled stone but as event. The first time I came upon it, I felt such a deep awe before its presence, and every day as I walk to my Greek lessons its ancient figure reawakens that same awe. This arch was built as part of a larger complex that included the Rotunda (which still stands today) and a palace, the ruins of which are now Plateia Navarinou. All constructed at the end of the 3^rd century A.D. in order to commemorate the victory of the Roman Emperor Galerius over the Sassanid Persians. 

Even in its greatly diminished form, 1700 years later, it has served its purpose of attributing a certain immortal glory to the long-dead Galerius. It is impossible to encounter the arch and resist the intoxication of the nostalgic draught of history; the unsuspecting passer-by is favored with a brief glimpse of the glory which was the Roman autocracy. For a moment we hear again the accolades of ancient Thessalonians as they welcome their exultant and victorious Emperor.

Even in the midst of our ‘post-liberal’ milieu, such beauty from the classical world still resonates within the heart of the postmodern man; it reminds us of a time when society was oriented toward an ideal greater than individual which gave once gave meaning to the lives of so many. Of course, the corollary to this was the risk of the diminution and reduction of the value of the person as merely a part of a more important whole—something which the widespread acceptance of slave labor can so quickly remind us of (the shadow of the Aristotle’s polis). 

Thus it is that Thessaloniki serves as a reminder to us: neither to romanticize the past as being without flaw but also not to forget it in our often all-too-hasty and ambitious plans to construct a new future. Thessaloniki’s character lies in its ability to inspire the awe of classical civilization in the midst of what are admittedly graffiti-ridden post-war flats which evoke more the sentiments of French existentialism and post-war malaise.  It is a city which in many ways represents the crossroads at which our common European civilization has arrived; we see in it juxtaposed the remains of the dying old order and the results of a century in which the West (if such a monolith could be conceived) lost faith in its own project of modernity and the narrative of progress. Greece has served as the laboratory of European civilization many times before as I have mentioned; whether it was the spread of Hellenism under Alexander the Great, or the creation of a Christian Roman culture in late antiquity, it has often been the case that Greece has served as a sign. While for a time, she may have followed various cultural captors—both Ottoman and German—it may be that once again Greece will determine the fate of the newest European project, the Eurozone. For as Greece goes, so does Europe.

God's Country

I like to tell people I moved from God's country to God's country.

As anyone who has met someone from the glorious state of Texas can attest, we Texans are a people fiercely proud of our heritage, and are famous (as well as infamous) for our strange combination of love for political freedom with a deep reverence before the Divine. While perhaps unknown to most people (fellow Texans included), there is a strange concurrence of spirit between the Texan and Greek outlook on life: the seemingly paradoxical combination of a deep-rooted religiosity with an equally deep-rooted resistance to every form of tyranny. This should not be surprising given that Sam Houston, one of the fathers of the Texan revolution, was known to have grown up reading and rereading Alexander Pope's  translation of Homer's Iliad.

While the city of Thessaloniki did not exist at the time of the Trojan War, I cannot help but have my imagination captured in the same way when I see the Aegean Sea in its full majesty from the street. The same rapture of spirit that comes upon any reader of Homer. The waterfront (or παραλία paralia as it is affectionately known in Greek) is certainly one of the most attractive aspects of life in this city, and in what are perhaps boyish moments, I cannot help but imagine the "black curved ships" which the Poet describes so fearfully and which must have been in the imagination of our great Texian father as well.

My own father always described (and perhaps not without a hint of irony) the state of Texas as God's country, and this sense of local pride--which has nothing to do with the nasty chauvinism of the American empire--has remained within my heart since my youth. On the other hand, like many Westerners,  I had no notion of Greece beyond its importance in Antiquity until I began to investigate the Christian religion in a more in-depth way. As it turns out, Greece and the Greek-speaking peoples have continuously contributed to the history of western civilization in a way that no other group has. Whether we speak of the birth of western literature and philosophy through Homer, Plato, Aristotle, or the shaping of the most important aspects of the Christian intellectual tradition in the middle ages, or the Greek expatriates who were largely responsible for the Renaissance, or even the new tradition of literature and poetry (now immortalized in films such as Zorba the Greek), it would only be a slight exaggeration to describe this place and these people as bearing something divine within them.

Of course, all of this having been said, no peoples on earth are without this goodness and their own proper expression of it since as persons who share the same nature whose goal is the Good with a capital G. Regardless, I'll keep saying I moved from God's country to God's country.