07. Endnotes
07. Endnotes
[1] The doctrine of entire sanctification admits to at least two models of interpretation: (1) instantaneous and (2) progressive perfection, involving (a) eradication of sin or (b) a blameless walk with God. See "A Plain Account of Christian Perfection" and "Farther Thoughts on Entire Sanctification" for Wesley’s most mature conception of the doctrine.
[2] Plato had already defined theosis as "likeness to God so far as possible" (Theaetetus). How far is possible is what was debated in the Platonic tradition. The Greek idea of theosis was incorporated into Patristic theology as theosis kata charin (ingodded according to gift or grace). As a gift of God, according to capacity, a person can become a "partaker of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). Just as God, as Creator, crossed over from the divine realm and became a human, so human beings (through progressive participation in the divine nature) may cross over from creaturehood into the uncreated realm--a grace which restores the image and appropriates the likeness of God, as far as possible in this life and the next.
[3] The Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theosis is understood to be grounded in Scriptures (Psalms 82:6, John 10:34-35, 2 Peter 1:4, 1 John 3:1-2) and in the Apostolic Tradition according to its principal proponents (Origen, Clement, Ephrem, Macarius, Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor). After the Orthodox acceptance of the views of Gregory Palamas (1296-1359) on the distinctions between divine energies and divine essence, the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theosis became defined as a "union (of energies) without confusion (of essence)" in which the essential distinction between Creator and creature eternally remains. As Orthodox Bishop Kalistos Ware writes:"In the Age to come, God is ’all in all,’ but Peter is Peter and Paul is Paul." Each retains his or her own nature and personal identity. Yet all are filled with God’s Spirit and perfected as creature (The Orthodox Way, 168).
Two distinct interpretations of theosis--one a union and the other a communion model--can be identified in Patristic theology: (1) The union model envisions humanity literally becoming divine (i.e. gods and goddesses, perfected sons and daughters in the family of God; (2) The communion model metaphorically imagines humanity becoming like God while remaining creature (i.e., perfected humanity may assume some qualities of divinity but never be divine in nature, always creature in relation to Creator). Variations on these two models of theosis include the ideas that one may spiritually evolve beyond human nature to become an angel, or become like an angel (i.e., restored angelic nature=perfected human nature). Theosis is a compelling mystical notion not easily grasped and clearly subject to various interpretations.
[4] "Address to Clergy," Works (Jackson), Vol. 10, 484-492; see also Campbell, pp. 49-50).
[5] Much "holiness" doctrine today has elements of theological eisegesis--the uncritical and unhistorical reading back into both the biblical texts and the Patristic tradition of 18th or 19th-century Wesleyan conceptions of sanctification and then presenting this vision of holiness as scriptural and patristic (see Bassett, pp. 50-67).
[6] Wesley became convinced of the necessity for ancient liturgical integrity (wine mixed with water, prayer for the decent of the Holy Spirit on the elements, exorcisms, abstaining from blood and things strangled [meat], prayers for the dead, stations of the cross, Saturday evening nightwatch services, turning East in reciting the Creed, full immersion and triple dipping at baptisms!) as well as for moral purity (through spiritual discipline) as taught by the ancient pastoral theologians in the Apostolic Constitutions and Canons.
[7] Randy Maddox makes the case that "Wesley is best read as a theologian who was fundamentally committed to the therapeutic view of Christian life, (and) who struggled to express this (Eastern) view in terms of the dominant stream of his Western Christian setting..." (Maddox, "Reading Wesley as a Theologian," Wesleyan Theological Journal (Spring, 1995).
[8] See Wesley’s sermon "The Almost Christian" as well as Campbell’s interpretation of Wesley’s personal assessment of his new experience (pp. 37ff).
[9] 1. Protreptikos (Exhortation to the Greeks)--addresses the unconverted and unenlightened pagan; 2. Paidagogos (Instructor)--addresses catechumens and simple-minded believers in need of recovery, moral instruction, and the milk of Christ; and 3. Stromateis (Miscellanies) addresses the true gnostic in need of the meat of esoteric initiation into the Christian mysteries and ancient (possibly Hermetic) wisdom.
[10] The Hermetic tradition, originating in ancient Egypt, was part of the eclectic theological mix of Hellenistic Judaism and Paganism which in turn helped shape the Greek understanding of Christianity in the Patristic period. The Egyptian god Thoth is the Greek god Hermes, who delivered a "revelation" which many Patristic theologians (e.g., Justin) understood as prophetic and which was fulfilled in the coming of Christ.
[11] Russian Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky compares Clement’s gnostic content to certain passages in Poimandres--the collection of hermetic texts originating in Egypt "in which contemplative knowledge is presented as a deifying formula by which one is raised to the sphere of the fixed stars" (Corpus Hermeticum, Bude’s collection, Vol. 1, Treatise X, p. 112f). Lossky says that "Clement mentions the writings of Hermes Trismegistus (see Strom. IV, 4, p. 9, col. 253), but he never quotes them." (Lossky, p. 54)
[12] Clement’s exhortation in chapter 12 of Paidagogos is representative of the Alexandrian vision of theosis: "But let us, O children of the good Father--nurslings of the good Instructor--fulfill the Father’s will, listen to the Word, and take on the impress of the truly saving life of the Savior; and meditating on the heavenly mode of life according to which we have been deified, let us anoint ourselves with the perennial immortal bloom of gladness..."
[13] In interpreting Wesley’s appropriation of Clement, Basset admits that Clement "does speak of man’s becoming God...in the language of the mystery of the Incarnation, of God having become man, not in the philosophical or everyday languages of metaphysics, logic, or sense-experience." But Bassett seems unwilling to call Clement a gnostic or to say that Wesley either misunderstood Clement’s intended meaning or simply corrected his source on the doctrine of theosis (Basset, p. 57).
[14] Origen, Dialogue with Heraclides, 150 (in Chadwick’s translation, Alexandrian Christianity, 446).
[15] Origen imagines the soul returning to God on eagle’s wings. In its flight, the purified soul is allowed to pass the flaming swords of the cherubim guarding access to the tree of life: "And He (Christ) is with you to show you the way to paradise of God and how you may pass through the cherubim and the flaming sword that turns every way and guards the way to the tree of life (Gen. 3:24) ...But the cherubim will receive [only] those who by nature cannot be held by the flaming sword, because they have built with nothing that can catch fire; and they [cherubim] will escort them [deified souls] to the tree of life and to all the trees God planted in the east and made to grow out of the ground (Gen. 2:8-9) ("An Exhortation to Martyrdom," XVI, 52, XXXVI, 67-68).
[16] See Campbell (132) for Wesley’s specific references to Origen.
[17] The image of the "robe of glory," also called "garment of light" in Rabbinic Judaism and semitic Christianity, is based on interpretations of Genesis 3:21 made near the beginning of the Christian era. There is only a single letter’s difference in Hebrew between "garments of skin" and "garments of light." The Syrian tradition by Ephrem’s time had identified the "wedding garment" of Matthew 22:1-14 as the "robe of glory" and connected it to the original "garment of light" of Genesis (Brock, 86-88).
[18] Brock, p. 113. A fruitful study could be made of the relationship between Ephrem’s Eucharistic poetry and John and Charles Wesley’s Hymns for the Lord’s Super and Hymns for Advent (1745).
[19] Wesley’s epistemological assumptions, according to Randy Maddox, were based on the Patristic notion "spiritual senses" (Ephrem’s "luminous eye") as a faculty of inward knowing. These awakened senses could provide "immediate perceptual access to such spiritual realities as the existence of our soul, angels, and the afterlife." Wesley also extended this sense of universal revelation to include assurance of salvation and perfection (Maddox, Responsible Grace, 28-30). The person of mature faith, Wesley believed, sees with the eyes of the heart and knows in the soul the truth of God.
[20] See Peter Brown on the Messalian "heresy," The Body and Society, p. 333.
[21] See W. Jaeger, Two Rediscovered Works of Ancient Christian Literature.
[22] Outler, John Wesley, footnote # 25, p. 9. After testing this hypothesis of his mentor, Ted Campbell found that "Wesley was attracted to the doctrine of sanctification expressed in the Spiritual Homilies attributed to Macarius," but that "Wesley consistently omitted references to ascetic life and to the notion of theosis" in his publication of twenty-two of the Homilies in A Christian Library (Campbell, x).
[23] David C. Ford, "Saint Makarios of Egypt and John Wesley: Variations on the Theme of Sanctification," Greek Orthodox Theological Review, Vol. 33, No. 3, 1988, pp. 288-89).
[24] Ford, footnote #84, p. 309. Cf. Ephrem’s vision of humanity’s original "garment of light."
[25] Ford, p. 311-312. "I have not yet seen any perfect Christian or one perfectly free... (Pseudo-Macarius, 83). Cf. Basset’s alternate interpretation: "So, entire sanctification is, for Macarius, a distinct work of grace, necessarily subsequent to conversion, but it is also totally dependent on it" (75).
[26] However justified this view may be theologically, from a historical viewpoint, Campbell concludes, "Wesley’s notions of early Christianity were frequently incorrect both in detail...and in general..." and his programmatic use of his sources required selective adaptation of the early texts (Campbell, 4). For specific examples of how Wesley altered the Church Fathers, see Campbell, 39-40, 64.
[27] Tyson, p. 360. See also Wesley’s sermon "The One Thing Needful" (1734) which he never published, perhaps because it did not reflect his mature views on the subject, but which was preserved by Charles (who retained this earlier view of perfection).
[28] Outler, "A New Future for Wesley Studies: An Agenda for ’Phase III’" in The Wesleyan Theological Heritage, p. 138.
[29] See Psalm 82:6, John 10:34-35, 2 Corinthians 3:18, 2 Peter 1:4, and 1 John 3:1-2.
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