The wisdom of the Beloved Disciple is perhaps the most profound of all living wisdom streams flowing into the mainstream of Orthodox Christian wisdom, watering the living roots of desert Hesychasm, wisdom that beholds the glory of the slaughtered Lamb, full of grace and truth (John 1:14; 1:29; Rev 5:6-14). The Beloved Disciple beheld the glory of the Word made flesh,… Read more »
Desert wisdom springs from Christ, who unites the invisible, angelic realms of heaven with the visible realms of earth, but does not worship angels, because in Christ, God’s true God-centred glorification of God is what inspires wisdom, wisdom that gives glory to God alone. The Book of Revelation is the Book that reveals God’s right-glorifying glorification of God in his… Read more »
Saint Gregory Palamas transmits his Athonite vision of transfiguration as the decisive paradigm of every experience of uncreated grace which illumines and glorifies the saints. Transfiguring light (phos), according to Hesychast tradition, is neither an intelligible nor a sensible light, but is uncreated light, although, of course, it illumines the intelligence and the senses from within. The Tome of Mount… Read more »
Desert wisdom looks to the transfiguration for its paradigm of revelation in uncreated light and uncreated glory. The Exodus theophany of the Name on Mount Sinai was the foundational paradigm, developed theologically by Saint Gregory of Nyssa and Saint Denys, but the transfiguration theophany on Mount Tabor was for Saint Maximus and Saint Gregory Palamas the prism that gave the desert… Read more »
Orthodox Hesychasm is renewed from within by the Holy Spirit through prophecy and prayer. The prophetic gift is given in extremity when Patristic tradition is hardening into external formalism. The grace of prayer of the Spirit in the heart is given if prayer is degenerating into verbal repetition of formal prayers without any awakening to the mysteries the prayers are expressing…. Read more »
Christ, for Orthodox Hesychasm, is the wisdom of God, all-embracing in his expansive openness but utterly specific in his rooted human transfigurement (1 Cor 1:24 & 30). Desert wisdom is intrinsically mystical theology because prophecy and prayer belong in the midst of the mysteries of the Holy Trinity. Prophecy in the desert communicates Christ’s witness to the Name, expressing the wholeness… Read more »
Saint Paul speaks scathingly of the conventional wisdom of reigning, worldly powers, only to insist that he imparts hidden wisdom that discerns the glory of grace, wisdom that glorifies God, glory that glorifies those who awaken to its hallowing glory (1 Cor 1: 2-10). Scholars sometimes speak of the Apostle’s irony at this point but the Apostle’s hidden wisdom is not… Read more »
The Prayer of the Name of Jesus is the life and joy of Holy Orthodoxy, because it plants Christ’s Name of Truth in the heart, awakens wisdom to renew all things in the Spirit of Truth and unveils uncreated light, restoring glory through glory to the Father. Holy Orthodoxy has always centred in right-glorification of the saving Name of hallowing Truth,… Read more »
The covenant of the Name is an everlasting covenant of peace whose foundation is wisdom’s embrace of glory that sustains the Name, ‘I AM,’ God’s indwelling presence in the midst of his covenant community and the whole created cosmos (Exodus 3:14-17; Ezekiel 37: 26-28). This covenant of the Name in the desert is trustworthy and sure, being a covenant of grace… Read more »
Desert wisdom bears living witness, in the Spirit, to ineffable returning in Christ, who is from God and to God he is returning. Christ names the Name from God, and imparts the Name for our returning. Coming forth from the Father, Christ bears witness that he and the Father are one (John 10:30). Returning to the Father, he bears witness… Read more »