Wisdom in the desert discerns an anarchic play of infinitely different ways of uniting and differentiating divine names and energies of glory within glorification. Wisdom also discerns an infinite variety of principled games and dances which unite difference and unity, encircling heavens within heavens, and spiralling heavens beyond heavens, in different ways. Desert elders taught there is war in heaven and wars on earth which destroy unity by insinuating confusion and degenerate difference into endless division. Wisdom cures warring, pathological confusion with sound difference and heals warring, sick division with healthy unity. Saint Maximus taught the desert to listen to the wisdom of Dionysius the Areopagite, who transmitted the wisdom of Gregory of Nyssa and Evagrius, wisdom that beholds the anarchic play of ‘dazzling darkness’ in manifold principled games and dances, circling and spiralling around God at centre in the midst.
God is ‘I AM’ without predicates beyond all names and energies, but also ‘I AM’ with predicates in an infinite expansion of anarchic play and principled dances, each of which unites unity and difference in an infinite play of ways and means. Divine names and energies are countless and their combinations and oppositions are boundless in the infinite spheres of uncreated glory in which those glorified by grace participate. Grace has infinite capacity to actualise divine possibilities in manifold ways and means, but also to transcend ways and means in manifold games and play, each of which transcends shallow rules and narrow regulations. Anarchic wisdom handles this transcendence as immanent glory in the midst, not as a fixated, logocentric logos that opposes God to what is not God or separates us from God in unhealthy ways.
Satanic confusion and diabolic division do not arise above the fourth heaven which unites the invisible angels with all visible worlds, but when demons look above them to the heavens of glory they deny, they divide the Name, severing ‘I’ from ‘AM,’ uncreated awareness from uncreated presence, subject from substance, knower from known in every hell. Their hells are not actually hells except from the perspective of demonic delusion. In God, they were always heavens that unite unity and difference in wholesome, healthy ways. But demons lost contemplative vision that sees everything as theophany, and fell from glory which holds opposites in healthy tension and paradisal paradox. For them, unity degenerates into unhealthy confusion and difference disintegrates into pathological division, which is what diabolos means. But their perspective is delusional, not real, because wisdom never loses her capacity to see things as they actually are.
Wisdom of resurrection beholds the glory of wholesome theophany in every heaven and so empties hells back into healing heavens whenever she turns and sees. Demonic delusion always saw a war of the sexes where wisdom never ceases to see wholesome union wed sound difference. Satanic separation sees paradise lost where wisdom sees an earthly paradise. Diabolic division splits heaven from earth, whereas wisdom sees earthly heavens in our heavenly earth. Angels are an invisible creation that falls when angels fall, but demons are angels that fall short of glory because vainglory refuses to ascribe glory to God. Glory appears to fall when angels fall but wisdom is not fooled. Demons are exposed when wisdom beholds the glory of Christ crucified, undoing the delusions of confusion and division. Heavens are restored amidst the ruins of hell when paradise is regained, heaven weds earth, and the delusions of demons are undone.
Christ is wisdom exposing the vanity of vainglory which spawns endless hells, bringing all their confusions and divisions to an abrupt end. His glory comes as timely yet timeless rupture of their collusions and deceptions. His glory is timeless rapture descending to meet us as timely presence wed with harrowing awareness in the hallowing Name. In him, the Name was never divided or confused, but seemed to demons to disintegrate when hells perverted heavens.
‘I AM’ is ‘I AM’ beyond all predicates in Godhead beyond affirmation or denial, but there is predication when the Name resounds with many divine names and energies that deify angels, powers, prophets, apostles, elders, saints and sinners. The Gospel of John gives us seven ‘I AM’ sayings without predicates that unveil Godhead beyond God. The Beloved Disciple also bears witness to seven ‘I AM’ sayings with predicates that reveal God as bread of life, light, sheepfold door, shepherd of wisdom, vine, resurrection and way of truth and life. ‘I AM’ beyond predication unveils Godhead beyond God and ‘not-God.’ ‘I AM’ with predicates is God in his energies and countless names, all of which clothe the Name in an infinite variety of hallowing ways. Such names are logoi of the Logos, uncreated but creative and so created yet creating. They underlie God’s cosmic opposites and so can cure the demonic parodies that subvert healthy paradox.
Peace precedes war and so is able to transform destructive wars into safe games. Wisdom stands under the divisive confusions of war by transforming war into archaic drama, or culture wars into a ritualised war of words in Parliament. Wise hallowing transforms tribal wars into games and sports, then wars of religion, nation or empire into an Olympic Games. Hells are emptied in manifold ways, by wisdom discerning glory in anarchic play, glory’s beginningless, endless dance of heavens within heavens, bequeathing a legacy of wholesome sport and challenging games on earth. Wisdom in our time seeks to transform current terrorist war and reactive wars on terror into safe new games that heal degenerate divisions without descending into more disastrous confusions. The dance of glory is anarchic play, delighting to invent new, principled games to cure hell’s divisions with sound difference and heal hell’s disastrous confusions with wholesome oneness, discerned in wisdom’s ineffable vision of anarchic openness, in the hallowing presence of the Holy Name.