1. The Benefit of the Way

2. Look Back to Progress Forward

3. On the Road to Emmaus

4. “In the Beginning”

The Creation of All Things by the One God, Who Is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Read: Genesis 1; John 1.1-4

Note: Since humans have been created according to the Image of God, a human person must know the true and living God to know himself. Simply, he who does not know the true God does not know himself. A false concept of God leads to confusion by the person regarding who he is, his purpose, his potential, his destiny, and his relationship with other people as well as his relationship with the cosmos.

Selection from the Nicene Creed (also called the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed):

“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, Begotten of the Father before all ages, Light of Light, True God of True God, Begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father, by Whom all things were made…. And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified….”

*Note: The sign of the cross, made with three fingers together in honor of the Holy Trinity, is made at the words, “Who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified.”

Selection from St. Irenaeus of Lyons, “On the Apostolic Preaching”:

“For it is necessary that things have come into being have received the origin of their being (a]pxh> gene<sewj) from some great cause; and the origin of all is God, for He Himself was not made by anyone, but everything was made by Him. And therefore it is proper, first of all, to believe that there is One God, the Father, who has created and fashioned all things, who made that which was not to be, who contains all and is alone uncontainable. Moreover, in this ‘all’ is our world, and in the world, man; thus this world was also created by God.

In this way, then, it is demonstrated [that there is] One God, [the] Father, uncreated, invisible, Creator of all, above whom there is no other God, and after whom there is no other God. And as God is verbal (logiko<j), therefore He created things by the Word; and God is Spirit, so that He adorned all things by the Spirit, as the prophet also says, ‘By the Word of the Lord were the heavens established, and all their power by His Spirit.’ Thus, since the Word ‘establishes,’ that is, works bodily and confers existence (u{parcij), while the Spirit arranges and forms the various ‘powers,’ so rightly is the Son called Word and the Spirit the Wisdom of God. Hence, His apostle Paul also well says, ‘One God, the Father, who is above all, and through all and in us all’ – because ‘above all’ is the Father, and ‘through all’ is the Word—since through Him everything was made by the Father—while ‘in us all’ is the Spirit, who cries ‘Abba, Father,’ and forms man to the likeness of God. Thus, the Spirit demonstrates the Word, and, because of this, the prophets announced the Son of God, while the Word articulates the Spirit, and therefore it is He Himself who interprets the prophets and brings man to the Father.”

St. Irenaeus of Lyons, On the Apostolic Preaching, Part 1, trans. by John Behr (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997), 42-43.

Selection from Elder Sophrony, We Shall See Him As He Is:

“God is Absolute Being, the Principle of all principles. He revealed Himself to us as ‘I AM’, as Person – Hypostasis. Now we know Him through the Son, Who is of one substance with the Father, Who revealed the Father. ‘No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him’ [John 1:18]. We know the Father likewise through the Holy Spirit: ‘the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name shall teach you’ [John 14:26].”

Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), We Shall See Him as He Is, trans by Rosemary Edmonds (Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2006), 24.

Selections from St. John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Bk. II:

“We believe, then, in One God, one beginning, having no beginning, uncreated, unbegotten, imperishable and immortal, everlasting, infinite, uncircumscribed, boundless, of infinite power, simple, uncompound, incorporeal, without flux, passionless, unchangeable, unalterable, unseen, the fountain of goodness and justice, the light of the mind, inaccessible; a power known by no measure, measurable only by His own will alone (for all things that He wills He can), creator of all created things, seen or unseen, of all the maintainer and preserver, for all the provider, master and lord and king over all, with an endless and immortal kingdom: having no contrary, filling all, by nothing encompassed, but rather Himself the encompasser and maintainer and original possessor of the universe, occupying all essences intact and extending beyond all things, and being separate from all essence as being super-essential and above all things and absolute God, absolute goodness, and absolute fulness: determining all sovereignties and ranks, being placed above all sovereignty and rank, above essence and life and word and thought: being Himself very light and goodness and life and essence, inasmuch as He does not derive His being from another, that is to say, of those things that exist: but being Himself the fountain of being to all that is, of life to the living, of reason to those that have reason; to all the cause of all good: perceiving all things even before they have become: one essence, one divinity, one power, one will, one energy, one beginning, one authority, one dominion, one sovereignty, made known in three perfect Persons and adored with one adoration, believed in and ministered to by all rational creation, united without confusion and divided without separation (which indeed transcends thought). (We believe) in Father and Son and Holy Spirit whereinto also we have been baptized. For so our Lord commanded the Apostles to baptize, saying, Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

(We believe) in one Father, the beginning, and cause of all: begotten of no one: without cause or generation, alone subsisting: creator of all: but Father of one only by nature, His Only-begotten Son and our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, and Producer of the most Holy Spirit. And in one Son of God, the Only-begotten, our Lord, Jesus Christ: begotten of the Father, before all the ages: Light of Light, true God of true God: begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, through Whom all things are made: and when we say He was before all the ages we shew that His birth is without time or beginning: for the Son of God was not brought into being out of nothing…. For there never was a time when the Father was and the Son was not, but always the Father and always the Son, Who was begotten of Him, existed together. For He could not have received the name Father apart from the Son: for if He were without the Son, He could not be the Father: and if He thereafter had the Son, thereafter He became the Father, not having been the Father prior to this, and He was changed from that which was not the Father and became the Father. This is the worst form of blasphemy.”

Note: In the above text, some instances of the word “subsistence” in the original translation have been appropriately changed to “person” for purposes of clarity.

St. John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Bk. II, Ch. VIII: “On the Holy Trinity,” NPNF. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf209.txt

Selection from St. Symeon the New Theologian, The Discourses:

“If there is need to state anything more precisely, that which the One is, the other Two are as well. For the Three are in the same (cf. 1 John 5:8) and are thought of as one Essence and Nature and Kingship. If a name is attributed to One, it is by nature applied to the others, with the exception of the terms Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or the terms beget, begotten, and proceeding, for these alone indisputably apply to the Holy Trinity by nature and in distinctive fashion. As for an interchange of names, or their reversal, or their change, that we are forbidden to think or speak about. These terms characterize the three Persons, so that in this way we cannot place the Son before the Father nor the Holy Ghost before the Son. We must speak of them together as ‘Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,’ without the slightest difference of duration or time between then. The Son is begotten and the Spirit proceeds simultaneously with the Father’s existence.”

“In all other cases the same name or comparison is attributed to each Person by Himself as well as to all Three together. So, if you speak of ‘light’ (1 John 5:8), then both each Person is light and the Three are one light; if you speak of ‘eternal life,’ so each of Them is likewise, the Son, the Spirit, and the Father, and the Three are one life. So God the Father is Spirit (cf. Jn. 4:24), and the Spirit is the Lord (2 Cor. 3:17), and the Holy Spirit is God. Each Person is God by Himself, and together the Three are one God. Each One is Lord and the Three are Lord. There is one God who is above all (Rom. 9:5), Creator of all things; each One is that by Himself, and they are one God and Maker of all things. The Old Testament also says, ‘ In the beginning God created heaven and earth. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light’ (Gen. 1:1,3). Thus the expression gives us to understand about the Father. When David says, ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens made,’ we understand that this applied to the Son, ‘and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth’ (Ps. 32:6), we consider to be spoken of the Holy Ghost. As for John, the ‘son of thunder’ (Mk. 3:17), he says in the Gospels, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God’ – that is the Father, ‘and the Word was God’ – that is, the Son.’ All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made that was made’ (Jn. 1:1,3).”

St. Symeon the New Theologian, “Discourse XXXIII: On Partaking of the Holy Spirit,” The Discourses, trans. by C. J. De Catanzaro, The Classics of Western Spirituality series (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1980), 344-435.

Selection from St. Gregory the Theologian, The Fifth Theological Oration: On the Holy Spirit:

“What then is Procession? Do you tell me what is the Unbegottenness of the Father, and I will explain to you the physiology of the Generation of the Son and the Procession of the Spirit, and we shall both of us be frenzy-stricken for prying into the mystery of God. And who are we to do these things, we who cannot even see what lies at our feet, or number the sand of the sea, or the drops of rain, or the days of Eternity, much less enter into the Depths of God, and supply an account of that Nature which is so unspeakable and transcending all words?”

A free copy of the above text from The Fifth Theological Oration is available at the following address:

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf207.txt

Note: Notice that when the Orthodox speak about God, we begin with the Person of the Father, Who is in Essence uncreated. He has no beginning. The Son, eternally begotten of the Father, is also uncreated in Essence, having the same Essence as the Father. The Father as Son have eternally existed together without beginning. The Holy Spirit, Who preceeds from the Father, is of the same Essence as the Father and Son: Three Persons – One Essence – without beginning or end. There is nothing higher than Personhood. There is no impersonal God-Essence. The Essence of God is personalized, shared by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three Persons who are equally God – the One God – by nature. Whatever it means for the Father to be God is also shared by the Son and Holy Spirit.

The truth that there is nothing higher than Personhood is reflected in the Orthodox emphasis on the human person. God created us as persons, He loves us as persons, we have value as persons made according to the divine Image, we are called to be in loving relationships with other persons, and He saves (heals, transfigures, resurrects) us as persons. The pagan idea that man can be united with an impersonal divine essence is false since no Divine Essence exists apart from the three persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – Holy Trinity.

Angels & Demons

Selection from St. Gregory Palamas:

“The heavenly ranks of immaterial angels, which were created first, were the first to suffer from the disease of apostasy from God. Those angels who stood aloof from this disease are light, and are always being filled full of light, becoming ever more radiant and making blessed use of their natural ability to change….

When Satan, who broke away and refused to obey God, fell from the light, embraced darkness and was condemned to eternal gloom, he became a vessel of darkness, its creator, author and minister, initially for himself and the angels who fell with him, then, alas, also for us in God’s paradise, when we rebelled against God and believed in the devil. However, all the wicked angels are darkness in themselves and did not become evil just by sharing the devil’s darkness. They are the origin and perfection of disobedience, the bitter root and source of all sin, and in particular, they were the cause of our own transgression. Therefore their sin is unpardonable, they grow ever more uncontrollably dark, progress towards their own destruction and will not return to the Enlightener of angels and men.”

St. Gregory Palamas, “On the Ascension of Christ II,” The Saving Work of Christ: Sermons by St. Gregory Palamas, ed. by Christopher Veniamin (Waymart, PA: Mount Thabor Press, 2008),121-122.

Selections from St. John Damascene, “Concerning Angels,” An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Bk. II:

“He is Himself the Maker and Creator of the angels: for He brought them out of nothing into being and created them after His own image, an incorporeal race, a sort of spirit or immaterial fire: in the words of the divine David, He maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire: and He has described their lightness and the ardour, and heat, and keenness and sharpness with which they hunger for God and serve Him, and how they are borne to the regions above and are quite delivered from all material thought.

An angel, then, is an intelligent essence, in perpetual motion, with free-will, incorporeal, ministering to God, having obtained by grace an immortal nature: and the Creator alone knows the form and limitation of its essence. But all that we can understand is, that it is incorporeal and immaterial. For all that is compared with God Who alone is incomparable, we find to be dense and material. For in reality only the Deity is immaterial and incorporeal.

The angel’s nature then is rational, and intelligent, and endowed with free-will, changeable in will, or fickle. For all that is created is changeable, and only that which is un-created is unchangeable. Also all that is rational is endowed with free-will. As it is, then, rational and intelligent, it is endowed with free-will: and as it is created, it is changeable, having power either to abide or progress in goodness, or to turn towards evil.

It is not susceptible of repentance because it is incorporeal. For it is owing to the weakness of his body that man comes to have repentance.

It is immortal, not by nature but by grace. For all that has had beginning comes also to its natural end. But God alone is eternal, or rather, He is above the Eternal: for He, the Creator of times, is not under the dominion of time, but above time.

They are secondary intelligent lights derived from that first light which is without beginning, for they have the power of illumination; they have no need of tongue or hearing, but without uttering words they communicate to each other their own thoughts and counsels.

Through the Word, therefore, all the angels were created, and through the sanctification by the Holy Spirit were they brought to perfection, sharing each in proportion to his worth and rank in brightness and grace.

They are circumscribed: for when they are in the Heaven they are not on the earth: and when they are sent by God down to the earth they do not remain in the Heaven. They are not hemmed in by walls and doors, and bars and seals, for they are quite unlimited. Unlimited, I repeat, for it is not as they really are that they reveal themselves to the worthy men to whom God wishes them to appear, but in a changed form which the beholders are capable of seeing. For that alone is naturally and strictly unlimited which is un-created. For every created thing is limited by God Who created it.

Further, apart from their essence they receive the sanctification from the Spirit: through the divine grace they prophesy: they have no need of marriage for they are immortal.

Seeing that they are minds they are in mental places, and are not circumscribed after the fashion of a body. For they have not a bodily form by nature, nor are they extended in three dimensions. But to whatever post they may be assigned, there they are present after the manner of a mind and energise, and cannot be present and energise in various places at the same time.

Whether they are equals in essence or differ from one another we know not. God, their Creator, Who knoweth all things, alone knoweth. But they differ from each other in brightness and position, whether it is that their position is dependent on their brightness, or their brightness on their position: and they impart brightness to one

another, because they excel one another in rank and nature. And clearly the higher share their brightness and knowledge with the lower.

They are mighty and prompt to fulfill the will of the Deity, and their nature is endowed with such celerity that wherever the Divine glance bids them there they are straightway found. They are the guardians of the divisions of the earth: they are set over nations and regions, allotted to them by their Creator: they govern all our affairs and bring us succour. And the reason surely is because they are set over us by the divine will and command and are ever in the vicinity of God.

With difficulty they are moved to evil, yet they are not absolutely immoveable: but now they are altogether immoveable, not by nature but by grace and by their nearness to the Only Good.

They behold God according to their capacity, and this is their food. They are above us for they are incorporeal, and are free of all bodily passion, yet are not passionless: for the Deity alone is passionless.

They take different forms at the bidding of their Master, God, and thus reveal themselves to men and unveil the divine mysteries to them.

They have Heaven for their dwelling-place, and have one duty, to sing God’s praise and carry out His divine will.

Moreover, as that most holy, and sacred, and gifted theologian, Dionysius the Areopagite, says, All theology, that is to say, the holy Scripture, has nine different names for the heavenly essences. These essences that divine master in sacred things divides into three groups, each containing three. And the first group, he says, consists of those who are in God’s presence and are said to be directly and immediately one with Him, viz., the Seraphim with their six wings, the many-eyed Cherubim and those that sit in the holiest thrones. The second group is that of the Dominions, and the Powers, and the Authorities; and the third, and last, is that of the Rulers and Archangels and Angels.

Some, indeed like Gregory the Theologian, say that these were before the creation of other things. He thinks that the angelic and heavenly powers were first and that thought was their function. Others, again, hold that they were created after the first heaven was made. But all are agreed that it was before the foundation of man. For myself, I am in harmony with the theologian. For it was fitting that the mental essence should be the first created, and then that which can be perceived, and finally man himself, in whose being both parts are united.

But those who say that the angels are creators of any kind of essence whatever are the mouth of their father, the devil. For since they are created things they are not creators. But He Who creates and provides for and maintains all things is God, Who alone is uncreated and is praised and glorified in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

St. John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Bk. II, Chap. 3, NPNF, Second Series, Vol. 9.

Selections from St. John Damascene, “Concerning the Devil and Demons,” An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Bk. II:

“He who from among these angelic powers was set over the earthly realm, and into whose hands God committed the guardianship of the earth, was not made wicked in nature but was good, and made for good ends, and received from his Creator no trace whatever of evil in himself. But he did not sustain the brightness and the honour which the Creator had bestowed on him, and of his free choice was changed from what was in harmony to what was at variance with his nature, and became roused against God Who created him, and determined to rise in rebellion against Him: and he was the first to depart from good and become evil. For evil is nothing else than absence of goodness, just as darkness also is absence of light. For goodness is the light of the mind, and, similarly, evil is the darkness of the mind. Light, therefore, being the work of the Creator and being made good (for God saw all that He made, and behold they were exceeding good) produced darkness at His free-will. But along with him an innumerable host of angels subject to him were torn away and followed him and shared in his fall. Wherefore, being of the same nature as the angels, they became wicked, turning away at their own free choice from good to evil.

Hence they have no power or strength against any one except what God in His dispensation hath conceded to them, as for instance, against Job and those swine that are mentioned in the Gospels. But when God has made the concession they do prevail, and are changed and transformed into any form whatever in which they wish to appear.

Of the future both the angels of God and the demons are alike ignorant: yet they make predictions. God reveals the future to the angels and commands them to prophesy, and so what they say comes to pass. But the demons also make predictions, sometimes because they see what is happening at a distance, and sometimes merely making guesses: hence much that they say is false and they should not be believed, even although they do often, in the way we have said, tell what is true. Besides they know the Scriptures.

All wickedness, then, and all impure passions are the work of their mind. But while the liberty to attack man has been granted to them, they have not the strength to over-master any one: for we have it in our power to receive or not to receive the attack. Wherefore there has been prepared for the devil and his demons, and those who follow him, fire unquenchable and everlasting punishment.

Note, further, that what in the case of man is death is a fall in the case of angels. For after the fall there is no possibility of repentance for them, just as after death there is for men no repentance.”

St. John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Bk. II, Ch. 4, NPNF, Second Series, Vol. 9.

5. In the Garden: Healthy Humanness

The Creation of our First Parents and their Life in Paradise

Read: Genesis 1.26-31; Genesis 2

Selection from St. Irenaeus of Lyons, On the Apostolic Preaching, regarding the childlike innocence of our first parents:

“And Adam and Eve, for this is the name of the woman, ‘were naked and were not ashamed,’ since there was in them an innocent and childlike mind and they thought or understood nothing whatsoever of those things which are wickedly born in the soul through lust and shameful desires, because, at that time they preserved their nature <intact>, since that which was breathed into the handiwork (pla>sma) was the breath of life; and while the breath remains in <its> order and strength, it is without comprehension or understanding or what is evil: and thus ‘they were not ashamed,’ kissing [and] embracing each other in holiness as children.”

St. Irenaeus of Lyons, On the Apostolic Preaching, trans. by Fr. John Behr (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997), par. 14, p. 48.

Selections from St. Symeon the New Theologian, “Adam and the First Created World,” concerning our place in the universe:

“God, in the beginning, before he planted Paradise and gave it over to the first-created ones, in five days set in order the earth and what is on it, and the heaven and what is in it. And on the sixth day He created Adam and placed him as lord and king of the whole visible creation. Then there was not yet Paradise. But this world was from God as a kind of Paradise, although it was material and sensuous. God gave it over to the authority of Adam and all his descendants, as the Divine Scripture says, And God said, let us make man according to Our image and likeness, and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and the flying creatures of heaven, and the beasts and cattle and all the earth, and all the reptiles that creep upon the earth. And God made man, according to the image of God He made him; male and female He made them. And God blessed them, saying, Increase and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and the flying creatures of heaven, and all the cattle and all the earth.”

“Then He does as some king or prince or rich man who, possessing any kind of place, does not assign it all for one and the same use, but divides it into many parts, and assigns one part for sowing, on another plants vineyards, and another leaves untilled so that it might be overgrown with grass and give pasture, but the best and most beautiful he chooses for the building of his palaces, near which he plants flower beds and gardens, and he devises much else and arranges what can give satisfaction. And his place and all the rooms in it he arranges in the best fashion, so that it might be distinct from the dwellings of other men. All this he surrounds with a wall, with gates and locks, and next to them he places guards so that evil men might not be let in, but entrance might be given only to good men, acquaintances and friends. So also did God, in similar fashion arrange for the first-created man. For after He had created everything else, and made man also, and rested on the seventh day from all the works which He had begun to do, He planted Paradise in Eden in the East as a royal dwelling, and led into it as king the man whom He had made.”

“Adam was made with a body that was incorrupt, although material and not yet spiritual, and was placed by the Creator God as an immortal king over an incorrupt world, not only over Paradise, but also over the whole of creation which was under the heavens.”

St. Symeon the New Theologian, Homily 45: “Adam and the First Created World,” The First-Created Man, trans. by Fr. Seraphim Rose (Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2001), 87, 89-90.

Selection from Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos, Orthodox Psychotherapy: The Science of the Fathers:

“The soul activates and directs the whole body and all the members of the body.”

“The conclusion with reference to the body is the soul is in the whole body, there is not sector of a man’s body in which the soul is not present, that the heart is the first intelligent seat of the soul, that the centre of the soul is there, not as in a vessel but as in an organ which guides the whole body and that the soul, while distinct from the body, is nevertheless most intimately linked with it.”

Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos, Orthodox Psychotherapy: The Science of the Fathers, trans. by Esther Williams (Levadia, GRE: Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 1993), 111.

6. Death: Our Ultimate Diagnosis

Diagnosis: Death – Our first ancestors’ sin and its effect on Us

Note: Understanding the nature of our sickness (diagnosis), physical and spiritual death, is critical for understanding the nature of the prescribed therapy that brings healing to the human person.

Read: Genesis. 3; Romans 1.21-31

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil

Selection from St. Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on Paradise:

God established the Tree as judge,

so that if Adam should eat from it,

it might show him that rank

which he had lost through his pride,

and show him, as well, that low estate

he had acquired, to his torment.

Whereas, if he should overcome and conquer,

it would robe him in glory

and reveal to him also

the nature of shame,

so that he might acquire, in his good health,

an understanding of sickness.

A man, indeed, who has acquired

good health in himself,

and is aware in his mind

of what sickness is,

has gained something beneficial

and he knows something profitable;

but a man who lies

in sickness,

and knows in his mind what is good health,

is vexed by his sickness

and tormented in his mind.

Had Adam conquered,

he would have acquired

glory upon his limbs,

and discernment of what suffering is,

so that he might be radiant in his limbs

and grow in his discernment.

But the serpent reversed all this

and made him taste

abasement in reality,

and glory in recollection only,

so that he might feel shame at what he had found

and weep at what he had lost.

St. Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on Paradise, Hymn III.10-12, trans. by Sebastian Brock (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1990), 94-95.

Selection from St. John Chrysostom, Sermon Seven on the Book of Genesis:

“The tree is referred to as the knowledge of good and evil, in fact, for the reason that the commandment exercising them in obedience and disobedience was given in regard to the tree: while Adam knew before this that obedience was good and disobedience evil, he learnt it more clearly later from actual experience.”

“We all know what is wrong even before doing it, but we learn it more clearly after doing it—and much more clearly when we are punished…. While we also know even before experience that health is good and sickness a nuisance, much more do we come to know the difference in the two when we fall sick. In just the same way Adam knew that obedience is good and disobedience wrong, but he later learned it more clearly when he was expelled from the garden for tasting fruit from the tree, and forfeited that blessed state. Since he fell foul of punishment for tasting fruit from the tree despite God’s veto, then, the punishment taught him more clearly how wrong it is to disobey God and how good to obey – hence the tree’s being called knowledge of good and evil. Why is it that, if the very nature of the tree did not contain the knowledge of good and evil, and instead the human being learned it more clearly from punishment for disobedience in regard to the tree, the tree is called knowledge of good and evil? Because this is a custom of Scripture, when an event happens in places or at times, to call the places and times after the events.”

St. John Chrysostom, Eight Sermons on the Book of Genesis, trans. by Robert Charles Hill (Boston, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2004), 116, 117-118.

Selection from St. Athanasius the Great, On the Incarnation:

“Upon men who, as animals, were essentially impermanent, He bestowed a grace which other creatures lacked—namely, the impress of His own Image, a share in the reasonable being of the very Word Himself, so that, reflecting Him and themselves becoming reasonable and expressing the Mind of God even as He does, though in limited degree, they might continue for ever in the blessed and only true life of the saints in paradise. But since the will of man could turn either way, God secured this grace that he had given by making it conditional from the first upon two things—namely, a law and a place. He set them in His own paradise, and laid upon them a single prohibition. If they guarded the grace and retained the loveliness of their original innocence, then the life of paradise should be theirs, without sorrow, pain or care, and after it the assurance of immortality in heaven. But if they went astray and became vile, throwing away their birthright of beauty, then they would come under the natural law of death and live no longer in paradise, but, dying outside of it, continue in death and corruption. This is what Holy Scripture tells us, proclaiming the command of God, ‘Of every tree that is in the garden thou shalt surely eat, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil ye shall not eat, but in the day that ye do eat, ye shall surely die.’ ‘Ye shall surely die’—not just die only, but remain in a state of death and of corruption.”

St. Athanasius the Great, On the Incarnation (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998), 28-29.

Selection from St. Basil the Great, “Homily Explaining that God is not the Cause of Evil:”

“Adam “also sinned through wicked free choice, and he died through sin. ‘For the wages of sin is death’ [Rom 6.25]. For to the extent that he withdrew from life, he likewise drew near to death. For God is life, and the privation of life is death. Therefore, Adam prepared death for himself through his withdrawal from God, in accord with what is written, ‘Behold, those who remove themselves from are you destroyed’ [Ps. 72.27]. Thus God did not create death, but we brought it upon ourselves by a wicked intention. To be sure, for the reason stated above, he did not prevent our dissolution, so that our weakness might not remain as immortal. It is like someone not allowing a leaky clay pot to be placed in fire [and hardened] until the weakness present in it has been completely mended through refashioning.”

St. Basil the Great, “Homily Explaining that God is Not the cause of Evil,” On the Human Condition, trans. by Nonna Vera Harrison, Popular Patristics Series (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2005), 74-75.

St. Gregory Palamas, “On the Precious and Life-Giving Cross”:

“After our First Parents transgressed against God through the tree in Paradise, sin came to life, but we died, submitting, even before physical death, to the death of the soul, its separation from God. After the transgression we lived in sin and according to the flesh.”

St. Gregory Palamas, The Homilies, edited and translated by Christopher Veniamin, homily 11, “On the Precious and Life-Giving Cross” (Waymart: Mount Thabor Publishing, 2009), 74.

St. Symeon the New Theologian, “The Transgression of Adam and Our Redemption by Jesus Christ:

“One should know that since a man has a body and soul, therefore he has two deaths also: one, the death of the soul, and the other, the death of the body. Likewise, there are also two immortalities, one of the soul and one of the body, even though both of them are in one man, for the soul and the body are one man.

Thus, in soul Adam died immediately, as soon as he had tasted; and later, after nine hundred and thirty years, he died also in body. For, as the death of the body is the separation from it of the soul, so the death of the soul is the separation from it of the Holy Spirit, by Whom God Who had created him had been pleased that man be overshadowed, so that he might live like the angels of God, who, being always enlightened by the Holy Spirit, remain immovable towards evil. Later, for this reason, the whole human race also became such as our forefather Adam became through the fall — mortal, that is, both in soul and body.”

St. Symeon the New Theologian, “Homily 1: The Transgression of Adam and Our Redemption by Jesus Christ,” The First-Created Man, trans. by Father Seraphim Rose (Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2001), 44-45.

St. Gregory the Theologian (on physical death of our first ancestor):

“This was the first thing that he learnt–his own shame; and he hid himself from God. Yet here too he makes a gain, namely death, and the cutting off of sin, in order that evil may not be immortal. Thus his punishment is changed into a mercy; for it is in mercy, I am persuaded, that God inflicts punishment.”

St. Gregory the Theologian, Oration XXXVIII: “On the Theophany, or Birthday of Christ,” XII, NPNF, second series, vol. 5. The text is available for free at this address: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf207.txt

The Manifestation of Death on the Creation and our Relationship with It

Selection from St. Symeon the New Theologian:

“Therefore, indeed, when it saw him leave Paradise, all of the created world which God had brought out of non-being into existence no longer wished to be subject to the transgressor. The sun did not want to shine by day, nor the moon by night, nor the stars to be seen by him. The springs of water did not want to well up for him, nor the rivers to flow. The very air itself thought about contracting itself and not providing breath for the rebel. The wild beasts and all the animals of the earth saw him stripped of his former glory and, despising him, immediately turned savagely against him. The sky was moving as if to fall justly down on him, and the very earth would not endure bearing him upon its back.

What then? God Who created all and made man, Who knew before the world was made that Adam would transgress the commandment, and Who had fore-ordained the man’s re-birth and re-creation through the birth of His only-begotten Son, what does God do here? He Who holds all things together by His own power and compassion and goodness, now suspends the assault of all creation, and straightway subjects all of it to Adam as before. He wills that creation serve man for whom it was made, and like him become corruptible, so that when again man is renewed and becomes spiritual, incorruptible, and immortal, the creation, too, now subjected to the rebel by God’s command and made his slave, will be freed from its slavery and, together with man, be made new, and become incorruptible and wholly spiritual. “

St. Symeon the New Theologian, “First Ethical Discourse,” Chapter II, On The Mystical Life, Vol. 1: The Church and the Last Things (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1995), 28-29.

Selection from St. Basil the Great, “Homily Explaining that God is not the Cause of Evil”:

“For neither is illness ungenerated, nor is it the handiwork of God. But living beings were created with the bodily faculties suited to them according to nature, and brought into life complete in their limbs and organs, but they became ill through a perversion of what is according to nature. For a disruption of health occurs either because of a bad lifestyle or because of some other cause of illness. Therefore, God created the body, but not illness; and likewise God created the soul, but not sin. Rather, the soul is made evil through a perversion of what is according to nature.”

Recommended Reading on Creation, Paradise, and the Fall into Death:

1. The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching by St. Irenaeus of Lyons

2. On the Human Condition by St. Basil the Great

3. Hymns on Paradise by St. Ephrem the Syrian

4. The First Created Man by St. Symeon the New Theologian

5. “Adam’s Lament” by St. Silouan the Athonite

6. “Deer Lost in Paradise” by St. Justin (Popovich)

7. Text for Forgiveness Vespers (Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise)

7. The Darkened Heart

Selection from Met. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos, A Night in the Desert on the Holy Mountain:

Nous “has various uses in Patristic teaching. It indicates either the soul or the heart or even the energy of the soul. Yet, the nous is mainly the eye of the soul; the purest part of the soul; the highest attention. It is also called noetic energy and it is not identified with reason.”

Met. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos, A Night in the Desert on the Holy Mountain, trans. by Effie Mavromichali (Levadia, GRE: Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 1991), 190.

Selection from Protopresbyter John Romanides, Patristic Theology”:

“But what does it mean to say that the nous has become darkened? It means that the noetic activity in the human heart is not functioning properly. Noetic energy begins to function properly only when man passes through purification and reaches illumination. After the Fall, the nous is in a darkened state. Why? Because it is full of thoughts and has been darkened by these thoughts. And when does the nous become darkened by thoughts? The nous is darkened when the thoughts of our reasoning mind [dianoia] descend into the heart and become thoughts of the nous, that is, when the location of our thoughts becomes confused between the rational mind and the nous. Thoughts are present in our nous that should not be there, because they belong to our reasoning faculty, the dianoia. The nous must be utterly empty of thoughts in order for it to remain pure and thus receptive, so that the Holy Spirit can come and dwell and remain in it.”

“Everyone is mentally ill according to the Patristic meaning of mental illness…. The definition of mental illness from a Patristic point of view is that people are mentally ill when the noetic energy they have inside them is not functioning properly. In other words, being mentally ill means your nous is full of thoughts, not only bad thoughts, but good thoughts as well….” In other words, according to the Church Fathers, anyone who soul has not been purified from the passions and who has not reached of illumination through the grace of the Holy Spirit is mentally ill, but not in a psychiatric sense.”

Protospresbyter John S. Romanides, “Patristic Theology,” trans. by Hieromonk Alexis (Dalles, OR: Uncut Mountain Press, 2008), 23-24 40.

8. Pride and Delusion

Selection from Elder Sophrony, We Shall See Him as He Is:

“Pride is the dark abyss into which man plunged when he fell. Heeding his own will, he became spiritually blind and unable to discern the presence of pride in the impulses of his heart and mind…. Pride separates man from God and shuts him up in himself. However fitted he may be intellectually, the proud man will ever be outside the all-embracing love of Christ. Intoxicated in paradise by the sweet poison of Luciferian self-divinization, man went mad and became the prisoner of hell. Turned in, centered on himself, sooner or later he will end up in a tedious void – the void from which the Creator had called him into this life. Resorting for compensation to the world outside, he submits to perversions of all kinds and finds himself capable of every sort of crime.”

Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), We Shall See Him as He Is, trans by Rosemary Edmonds (Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2006), 30-31.

Note: Consider the myth of the prophetess Cassandra, who warned the Trojans that the “Trojan Horse” offered to them by the Greeks as a “gift” would lead to their destruction. After she offended Apollo, the god who gave her the gift of prophecy, he twisted her ability as a curse so that when she prophesied truthfully, no one would believe her words. Even though the Trojans were warned by the proclamation of the truth, their delusion, confusing truth with a lie, resulted in their downfall. Read about Cassandra in Book XII of “The Fall of Troy”, a 4th century poem by Quintus Smyrnaeus (Quintus of Smyrna).

9. Mind and Heart Disconnected

Selection from Archimandrite Zacharias, The Hidden Man of the Heart:

“The heart is within our chest. When we speak of the heart, we speak of our spiritual heart which coincides with the fleshly on; but when man receives illumination and sanctification then his whole being becomes a heart. The heart is synonymous with the soul, with the spirit; it is a spiritual place where man finds his unity, where his mind is enthroned when it has been healed of the passions. Not only his mind, but his whole body too is concentrated there. St. Gregory Palamas says that the heart is the very body of our body, a place where man’s whole being becomes like a knot. When mind and heart unite, man possesses his nature and there is no dispersion and division in him any more. That is the sanctified state of the man who is healed. On the contrary, in our natural and fallen state, we are divided: we think one thing with our mind, we feel another with our senses, we desire yet another with our heart. However, when mind and heart are united by the grace of God, then man has only one thought – the desire for God; and only one sensation – the noetic sensation of God.”

Archimandrite Zacharias, The Hidden Man of the Heart: The Cultivation of the Heart in Orthodox Christian Anthropology, ed. by Christpher Veniamin (Waymart, PA: Mount Thabor Publishing, 2008), 12.

10. Forgetfulness

The Development of Man-Made Religion

Selections from Holy Scripture:
St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans 1.18-32
Acts of the Apostles 17.16-34
St. Symeon the New Theologian, “Adam and the First-Created World”:

After he sinned, “Adam was banished from Paradise, lived, begat children and died. The people of that time, finding out from Adam and Eve about all that had happened, remembered the fall of Adam and bowed down to God and worshipped him. Therefore, Abel together with Cain offered God sacrifices, each one from his own possessions….”

“Thus, the men of antiquity, for the course of many years, learned one from the other by tradition, and knew their Creator and God. But later, when people had multiplied and began to give their mind over from their youth into evil thoughts, they forgot God and no longer knew their Creator, and began not only to worship demons, but to deify even such creatures as had been given them by God to serve them. From this they gave themselves over into every impurity and defiled by their unclean works the earth, the air, the heaven, and everything under the heaven. For nothing so defiles and so makes impure the pure woks of the hands of God as when someone begins to deify it and worship it like God, Who created the universe.”
St. Symeon the New Theologian, The First-Created Man, trans by Fr. Seraphim Rose, “Adam and the First-Created World,” Homily 45 (Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2001), 94-95.

Selection from St. Justin the Philosopher, “The First Apology”:

“But those who hand down the myths which the poets have made, adduce no proof to the youths who learn them; and we proceed to demonstrate that they have been uttered by the influence of the wicked demons, to deceive and lead astray the human race. For having heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the Christ was to come, and that the ungodly among men were to be punished by fire, they put forward many to be called sons of Jupiter, under the impression that they would be able to produce in men the idea that the things which were said with regard to Christ were mere marvelous tales, like the things which were said by the poets.”
“And because in the prophecy of Moses it had not been expressly intimated whether He who was to come was the Son of God, and whether He would, riding on the foal, remain on earth or ascend into heaven, and because the name of ‘foal’ could mean either the foal of an ass or the foal of a horse, [the demons], not knowing whether He who was foretold would bring the foal of an ass or of a horse as the sign of His coming, nor whether He was the Son of God, as we said above, or of man, gave out that Bellerophon, a man born of man, himself ascended to heaven on his horse Pegasus. And when they heard it said by the other prophet Isaiah, that He should be born of a virgin, and by His own means ascend into heaven, they pretended that Perseus was spoken of. And when they knew what was said, as has been cited above, in the prophecies written aforetime, ‘Strong as a giant to run his course,’ they said that Hercules was strong, and had journeyed over the whole earth. And when, again, they learned that it had been foretold that He should heal every sickness, and raise the dead, they produced Aesculapius.”
St. Justin the Philosopher, “The First Apology of Justin,” chapter LIV, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004), 181. The full text is also available for free at this address: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.txt
Selections from St. Justin the Philosopher, “The Second Apology”:

“For whatever either lawgivers or philosophers uttered well, they elaborated by finding and contemplating some part of the Word. But since they did not know the whole of the Word, which is Christ, they often contradicted themselves. And those who by human birth were more ancient than Christ, when they attempted to consider and prove things by reason, were brought before the tribunals as impious persons and busybodies.”

St. Justin the Philosoper, “The Second Apology of Justin,” chapter X, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004), 191-192. The full text is also available for free at this address: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.txt
“For each man spoke well in proportion to the share he had of the spermatic word, seeing what we related to it. But they who contradict themselves on the more important points appear not to have possessed the heavenly wisdom, and the knowledge which cannot be spoken against. Whatever things were rightly said among all men, are the property of the Christians. For next to God, we worship and love the Word who is from the unbegotten and ineffable God, since also He became man for our sakes, that, becoming a partaker of our sufferings, He might also bring us healing.”
St. Justin the Philosopher, “The Second Apology of Justin,” chapter 13, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004), 192-193. The full text is also available for free at this address: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.txt
Resources:

The writings of St. Justin the Philosopher (also called St. Justin Martyr)

Robert B. Edgerton, Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony (New York: The Free Press (Macmillan), 1992) regarding the manifestations of spiritual sickness in primitive societies.