George Cadwalader Foley on the Greek and Latin Understandings of Sin

  

It is sometimes asserted that we need to modify the Greek theology by the ideas developed in the Latin theology, especially with reference to the conception of sin. It is admitted that the Latins contributed much that was valuable to Christian thought; but they added very little in the department of Soteriology, and whatever was original with them was generally mischievous. Their theological concept were to commonly cast in legal phraseology, in which they seem to have entirely misunderstood the difference between the νομος of St. Paul’s Epistles and the lex of Roman jurisprudence. The paternal idea of the relation between God and man was displaced by the juridical. The “divine kinsmanship” between Creator and creature was rejected in favour of a profound unlikeness and disjunction between them, that could be remedied only by a series of forensic transactions. Sin was not essentially spiritual, the substitution of self-will for the will of God, a missing of the end for which man was made; it was a “crimen,” a “delictum interdictum.” Penalty was no longer the natural and inevitable consequence of sin, the separation of the life from God, the deterioration of the spiritual nature; it was a judicial imposition from without, extrinsic and contingent. Forgiveness was not so much the remission of sins as a legal quittance from penalty; redemption was transformed from the deliverance of man at the cost of a loving sacrifice, by figures that reduced it to the payment of costs imposed by the judgment of a court; the ruling motive in the work of Christ was not so much a divine and righteous love as divine punitive justice. The legal morality of merit and good works, which St. Paul so vehemently opposed, was the appropriate correlative of this forensic theology. (In many respects, Augustin was a noble exception to this representation; but I speak of the theology that was generally wrought out in the Western Church)

 

It is true that no Greek ever uttered such intense and passionate confessions of sin as did some of the Latins, in which they went far beyond St. Paul in Romans vii. But that was because sin could not bulk so large to the consciousness of men who dwelt upon the Incarnation as the evidence of an affinity between divine and human nature, as it did to that of men who denied or at least underestimated this affinity. The Greek were not insensitive to the “exceeding sinfulness of sin”; but they were splendidly alive to the truth that, “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” It is mainly a matter of emphasis. The Greeks placed it upon God in Christ in man; the Latins placed it upon human sin. There can be very little doubt as to which of these thoughts is the more spiritually fruitful. (George Cadwalader Foley, Anselm’s Theory of the Atonement: The Bohlen Lectures, 1908 [New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1909], 262-63 n. 1)

 

A. M. Fairbairn’s critique of Anselm’s Satisfaction Theory of Atonement

  

A. M. FAIRBAIRN (1893).—“The [Anselmic] theory was throughout a piece of forensic speculation; it was the relations of God and man interpreted in the terms of Roman law, though as modified by Teutonic, and as applied in the penitential discipline of the Church As such it was fatal to the kingdom of God as a reign of grace. The satisfaction which compensated the offended secured the legal quittance of the offender; the debt paid could not be a debt forgiven; to deny salvation or reward to any man so needed was to deny him his most manifest rights. If grace was saved by God being made to provide the person who satisfied, then the whole became a preconcerted transaction a sort of commercial drama, a legal fiction sanctioned by the offended for the good of the offender. Or if the notion of forgiveness was retained by the act being transferred from the satisfied Father to the satisfying Son, then the ethical union of the Godhead was endangered and the most serious of all heresies endorsed. (The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, pp. 123 sq, in George Cadwalader Foley, Anselm’s Theory of the Atonement: The Bohlen Lectures, 1908 [New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1909], 296)

 

Benjamin Wheaton on Propitiation in the Old Testament

 Commenting on  how, like pagans, the Old Testament authors did have a belief in the propitiation of deity, Benjamin Wheaton offered the following examples of some of the significant differences between the Old Testament and pagans on this issue:

 

The Old Testament includes this idea as well, although modified. For example, when Noah offers a burnt offerings to God after the flood, we are told, “The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done’” (Gen 8:21). Here we have a key phrase denoting a sacrifice of propitiation in the Old Testament: “The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma.” It is important to see that there is not necessarily a penal element to this; it is Noah’s gift, his act of obedience, that pleases God and reverses his attitude toward his creation. On the other, other iterations of sacrifices of propitiation do have a penal element. The first chapter of Leviticus states, “He [i.e., the offeror] is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on is behalf to make atonement for him . . . It is a burnt offering, an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the Lord” (Lev 1:4, 9). So, propitiation is essentially a sacrifice that make God propitious towards someone. How exactly this happens is somewhat mysterious, although both the obedience of the offeror and the penalty symbolically exacted by the offering are often clear elements. (Benjamin Wheaton, Suffering, Not Power: Atonement in the Middle Ages [Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham Academic, 2022], 22)

 

Note on the Use of 2 Maccabees 7 in Hebrews 11:35

  

. . . the reference to Maccabees (Hebrews 11:35) represents a Christian writer addressing Jews who belong to a synagogue that uses Maccabees (Hannukah readings), but because it is likely contested (as Mishnah debates witness), it is only used obliquely (possibly betraying its respected but disputed status in the regions known to the writer). We note that only 1-2 Maccabees were in some places read at synagogue for Hannukah Sabbath. (Martin Jugie, A Complete History of the Biblical Canon in the Christian East and West, Volume 1: Greek, Latin, and Slavic Biblical Canon from the New Testament Until AD 1500, translated, edited and expanded by Christiaan Kappes [N.P.: Patristic Pillars, 2022], 187 n.5)

 

The Use of 2 Ezra 6:19-21 in Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho

  

The critical edition of The Dialogue with Trypho uncovers no Deuterocanon cited by St. Justin, save one secure citation from 2 Ezra 6:19-21. See Philippe Bobichon and Justin Martyr, Dialogue avec Tryphon: Édition critique, traduction, commenaire, Paradosis: Études de littéture et de théologie ancienns 47.102 (Fribourg, 2003), 1:380, 2:1040. Justin does assume that Trypho accepts this book cited within a string of other Scripture (e.g., Jeremiah). The critical edition of St. Justin’s two apologies (Oxford, 2009) betrays a paucity of Old and New Testament books cited so that it is not possible to say whether St. Justin would have been using Deuterocanon when writing to groups outside of Jews. (Martin Jugie, A Complete History of the Biblical Canon in the Christian East and West, Volume 1: Greek, Latin, and Slavic Biblical Canon from the New Testament Until AD 1500, translated, edited and expanded by Christiaan Kappes [N.P.: Patristic Pillars, 2022], 189 n. 21)

 

Athanasius use of Some Books of the Apocrypha as Authoritative Scripture in On the Judgment of Dionysius (c. AD 354)

 In a recent volume on the biblical canon, we read that

 

for St. Athanasius, Scripture is used for dogmatic purposes by citing Old Testament outside of the Jewish sense of “canon” (whether taken as Philo’s Pentateuch only, or his sundry references to a possibly wider canon among approved Jewish monastic Therapeutae in Egypt). For example, in his On the judgment of Dionysius (written around AD 354), St. Athanasius cites the following as Scripture:

 

(1.) 1 Ezra 4:40

(2.) 1 Maccabees 6:22

(3.) Wisdom 7:25 (2x); 7:26; 14:22-28; 15:3

(4.) Sirach 50:28 (Martin Jugie, A Complete History of the Biblical Canon in the Christian East and West, Volume 1: Greek, Latin, and Slavic Biblical Canon from the New Testament Until AD 1500, translated, edited and expanded by Christiaan Kappes [N.P.: Patristic Pillars, 2022], 41)

 

The endnote for the following references "Register: Kanonische Schriften," in Athanasius Von Alexandrien: De Dententia Dionysii (trans. Uta Heil; Patristische Texte Und Studien 52; Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 1999), 323-24. Here are the images of the two pages:

 

 

D. Charles Pyle on 2 Maccabees 7:28 and creation ex nihilo

Those who make use of this text will try to cite or quote it as an example of the idea of God having created everything from nothing, and also will cite it in an attempt to show that the view of God’s creating all things from noting is far older than the second century CE. Those who use this verse also are relying on a falsified translation of a verse taken also out of its own context. The reason for that, particularly in their older Bibles, is the translator of the text into Latin for the Latin Vulgate actually did exactly the same thing that the modern translators are doing to the passage at Romans 4:17! They actually turned the text into an explicit reference to creation from nothing by rendering it:

 

I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing, and mankind also. (Latin: Peto nate aspicias in caelum et terram et ad omnia quae in eis sunt et intellegas quia ex nihilo fecit illa Deus et hominum genus)

 

So that would seem to demonstrate, at least on the surface, the idea that creation from nothing is an older idea. But on closer examination we really find that nothing could be further from the truth. The Greek itself, from which the Latin was derived, does not have that meaning. And the most recent Latin text translated of the same passage, in the Vatican edition called Nova Vulgata, recently has removed the words ex nihilo (Latin: “out of nothing”) from the translation, accordingly.

 

Worse for the Vulgate translation, the wording of “in the same way” in the KJV English text speaking of mankind also refutes that idea. And the Bible states man was created from dust, which already had been present, meaning that mankind actually was not created from nothing. Worse still, the words “the same way” also were omitted from the Vulgate, and thus also from the above English translation’s text. However, the underlying Greek word ουτω (so meaning, “thus,” “likewise,” “in this manner,” “in this way”) is present in this text. Now the Nova Vulgate (“New Vulgate”) text has this meaning added back into that same passage—as it should have been from the beginning. So, if according to the Greek text, the creation of man was performed in the same way, or likewise to the creation of the heavens and the earth, it is becomes apparent that the woman speaking those above words did not have any sort of conception—primitive or otherwise—of a creation from nothing.

 

D. Charles Pyle, I Have Said Ye Are Gods: Concepts Conducive to the Early Christian Doctrine of Deification in Patristic Literature and the Underlying Strata of the Greek New Testament (Revised and Supplemented) (North Charleston, S.C.: CreateSpace, 2018), 317-18; 2 Maccabees 7:28 in the Biblia Sacra luxta Vulgatam Versionem, Fifth Revised Edition reads: "peto nate aspicias in caelum et terram et ad omnia quae in eis sunt et intellegas quia ex nihilo fecit illa Deus et hominum genus"

Hans Wildberger on Isaiah 8:19

  

[8:19] The expander of the text in vv. 19f. did not interpret v. 16 in the metaphorical sense [but] thought in terms of an actual written תורה (instruction, torah), though he did not use this term to refer to the Pentateuch but to the legacy of the prophetic movement. He had in mind that someone who was barely surviving in the era of disintegration and instability in which he lived would be sustained by holding on to this inheritance. And, in fact, he saw himself at odds with a movement of his day which sought help from the spirits of the dead. (Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 1-12 [trans. Thomas H. Trapp; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991], 371)

 

Protestant Carl F. H. Henry (1913-2003) on Oral Tradition, not Inscripturated Revelation Merely, being Inspired

  

In its original form the prophetic and apostolic witness, oral and written, had the special quality of inerrancy. Inerrancy pertains only to the oral or written proclamation of the originally inspired prophets and apostles. Not only was their communication of the Word of God efficacious in teaching the truth of revelation, but their transmission of that Word was error-free. (Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority, 6 vols. [Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1999], 2:14)

 

Further Reading:

Not By Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura

"Lord, Lord" (κυριε κυριε) in Matthew 7:21-22 as Evidence of Early High Christology

 In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus uses κυριος twice to refer to himself:

 

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord (κυριε κυριε), shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord (κυριε κυριε), have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? (Matt 7:21-22)

 

When one examples the double use of κυριος in the LXX, one will see that this is used of YHWH, showing that, in Jesus’ self-designation of himself, we have potentially a very high Christology in the Gospel of Matthew. Consider the following representative examples from the LXX (using the NETS translation):

 

"O Lord, Lord (HEB: אדני יהוה), you have begun to show your attendant your strength and your power and your strong hand and your high arm. For what god is there in the sky or on the earth who will do as you have done, and according to your strength?" (Deut 3:24)

 

And I prayed to God and said, "O Lord, Lord (HEB: אדני יהוה), king of the gods, do not utterly destroy your people and your possession whom you redeemed by your great strength, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with your great strength and with your strong hand and your high arm. (Deut 9:26)

 

For this is what the Lord (LXX reads κυριος κυριος; HEB: אדני יהוה) says: The city out of which a thousand were going forth, there shall be left a hundred, and out of which a hundred were going forth, there shall be left then to the house of Israel. (Amos 5:3)

 

And it will be, if they finish to devour the grass of the land-and I said, "O Lord, O Lord (LXX: κυριος κυριος; HEB: אדני יהוה), be gracious. Who will raise up Iakob, because he is very small? (Amos 7:2)

 

And I said, O Lord, O Lord (LXX: κυριος κυριος; Heb: אדני יהוה), do cease! Who will raise up Iakob, because he is very small? (Amos 7:5)

 

And you will say, 'O Lord, O Lord (LXX: κυριε κυριε; HEB: יהוה), it was you who spoke against this place to destroy it utterly and so that neither human nor animal inhabitants in it, because it shall be an annihilation forever.' (Jer 28:62 [English: 51:62])

  

And you shall say to them, This is what the Lord (LXX: κυριος κυριος; HEB: אדני יהוה) says: Behold, I am taking the whole house of Israel from the midst of the nations, there where they went, and I will gather them from all those around them and bring them into the land of Israel. (Ezek 37:21)

 

Ariel L. Crowley (1961) on Sunday as the Normative Day of Worship in the New Covenant

  

SCRIPTURES

 

The name “The Lord’s Day” occurs but once in the New Testament, being found in Rev. 1:10, wherein John recites that he was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day” when he heard a great voice commanding him to write the revelation in a book.

 

There is a record of a meeting of the apostles on the “eighth” day found in John 20:26, which day was the Sunday following the resurrection, at which time Jesus suddenly stood in the midst of the apostles. This scripture possibly forms the basis for the “eighth” day ideas of subsequent writers above noted.

 

In the account of the death of Eutychus and his restoration to life (Acts 20:7) there is an inference of established custom in the worlds

 

“And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Pual preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.”

 

Paul touches upon the first day of the week in his first Corinthian letter (I Cor. 16:2) as follows:

 

“Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come. And when I come, whomsoever ye shall approve by your letters, them will I send to bring your gift unto Jerusalem.”

 

The inference seems clear that such gatherings of freewill offerings as are referred to in the First Apology [ch. 67] of Justin, above are meant, and that Paul, wishing to save time, or for some similar reason, desired the gifts for the church at Jerusalem to be gathered on the usual day of assembly.

 

In the Epistles to the Galatians, Paul severely reprimanded the church, charging a reversion to the observance of the law of Moses. Commencing with the exclamation “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?” Paul explained the supplanting of the Mosaic law by the law of the gospel, and concluded his initial reprimand with the accusation that “Ye observe days and months and time and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.” It is clear reference to the observance of the Jewish Sabbath (Gal. 4:10) improperly.

 

There is sound scriptural authority for the position that the law of Moses was so constructed as prophetically to prefigure the things of Christ (Heb. 9:9-23; Col. 2:16-17). In the latter citation the “sabbath days” are said to be a shadow of things to come. With this thought in mind an exceptionally fine analogy may be drawn upon the language of Lev. 23:15. At that place the law of Moses ordains:

 

“And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offerings, seven sabbaths shall be complete; even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the Lord.”

 

The day so calculated was the feast of Pentecost; and by remarkable coincidence or deliberate prophetic design, it was on the Sunday which was Pentecost under the law that the Holy Ghost was first poured out (Acts 2:1-17) when the apostles were “all with one accord in one place.” It is fully permissible to deduce that the feast of Pentecost was established under the law of Moses to prefigure a change from Sabbath observe to observe of the Lord’s Day at the time of the Messiah. If, as the scripture clearly shows, the paschal lamb prefigured Christ (Ex. 12:3; John 1:29), the manna from heaven prefigured the Bread of Life (Ex. 16;15; John 6:31-32) and Adam prefigured Christ (Rom. 5:14; 1 Cor. 15:22) it is certainly no less precise a parallel to see in fifty days, ending on Sunday, the prefigurement of the new Sabbath after the days of visitation. (Ariel L. Crowley, Statement of Beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1961], 116-18, comment in square brackets added for clarification)

 

Daniel E. Doyle on Augustine and the Question of the Sinlessness of Mary

  

Augustine never concedes that Mary was sinless but prefers to dismiss the question: “Let us then leave aside the holy Virgin Mary; on account of the honor due to the Lord, I do not want to raise any questions here about her when we are dealing with sins” (nat. et gr. 36.42). Since medieval times this passage has sometimes been invoked to ground Augustine’s presumed acceptance of the doctrine of the immaculate conception. It is clear nonetheless that, given the various theories regarding the transmission of original sin current in his time, Augustine in that passage would not have meant to imply Mary’s immunity from it. Julian of Eclanum had accused him of being worse than Jovinian in consigning Mary to the devil by the condition of her birth (conditio nascendi). Augustine, in Contra Julianum opus imperfectum 4.1.22, replies that Mary was spared this by the grace of her rebirth (“ipsa condition solvitur gratia renascendi”), implying her baptism. His understanding of concupiscence as an integral part of all marital relations made it difficult, if not impossible, to accept that she herself was conceived immaculately. He further specifies in the following chapter (5.15.52) that the body of Mary, “although it came from this [concupiscence], nevertheless did not transmit it for she did not conceive in this way.” Lastly, De Genesi ad litteram 10.18.32 asserts: “And what more undefiled than the womb of the Virgin, whose flesh, although it came from procreation tainted by sin, nevertheless did not conceive from that source.” (Daniel E. Doyle, “Mary, Mother of God,” in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1999], 544)

 

David Bradshaw on ἐνεργέω in Galatians 5:6 being passive and other related issues about ενεργεια and related words

In his otherwise excellent book, Not by Faith Alone, Robert Sungenis favors interpreting ἐνεργουμένη (from ἐνεργέω) in Gal 5:6 as a middle, not passive:

 

In what other ways does Paul describe how faith works in salvation? One of his more succinct teachings is found in Gl 5:6: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Here Paul defines and qualifies the faith he had described earlier in the epistle. Faith and love are coupled together in what seems to be an inseparable bond. In regard to justification, love is not portrayed as a mere appendage of faith but a necessary element and addition to faith. Paul supports this notion as he develops the theme of love just eight verses later in Gl 5:14: “The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Robert A. Sungenis, Not By Faith Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification [2d ed.; State Line, Pa.: Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2009], 67)

 

In the footnote to the above, Sungenis wrote that:

 

A more literal [of Gal 5:6] translation would be “but faith working through love.” Moreover, translations denoting the middle voice of ενεργουμενη (“working”) could just as well be passive since both have the same form in Greek. The passive would denote that faith is being formed or acted upon by love. The passive voice of ενεργουμενη, however, is not frequently used in the New Testament. (Ibid., 67 n. 92)

 

The following from Eastern Orthodox scholar David Bradshaw sheds important light on the use of this and related issues, including how the historical Protestant reading of Gal 5:6 is called into question:

 

It is true that the Greek-English Lexicon of Liddel and Scott and the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature of Bauer, Gingrich, and Danker do recognize a middle sense. Upon examination, however, the evidence they offer is ambiguous. Liddell and Scott cite only “Ep. Rom. 7.5, al.”-that is, the very verses of the New Testament that are in question. Bauer offers more detail, citing four supposed examples of the middle in extra-biblical literature. The first is τα της πολιορκιας ενηργειτο from Diodorus Siculus, which Bauer translates “the siege ‘went into effect,’ ‘began.’” To take the verb as passive (“the siege was begun”) make equally good sense, so this passage is neutral as evidence. The second example is τα δε ασωματα αει ενεργειται at Corpus Hermeticum XII.11. Taken in context ενεργειται here must in fact be passive, and it is so rendered in the standard French and English translations. Finally Beuer cites two passages from the Apostolic Fathers . . . 1 Clement 60.1 and Epistle of Barnabas 1.7. The first gives us τα ενεργουμενα, translated by Bauer as “the forces at work,” but by Lightfoot and Lampe as “operations,” i.e., acts performed. The second gives τα καθ’ εκαστα βλοποντες ενεργουμενα, translated by Bauer as “we see how one thing after the other works itself out,” but by Lightfoot as “seeing each of these things severally coming to pass,” and classified by Lampe as passive. It is also worth noting that Lampe, who surely knew the patristic literature as well as anyone, gives only active and passive senses in his long entry on ενεργεω.

 

The second argument in favor of taking energeisthai as passive is the testimony of the Church Fathers. From the ante-Nicene era there are only a few hints suggesting how the verses containing energeisthai were interpreted, but they confirm that it was assumed to be passive. Clement of Alexandria, in discussing the relative merits of spoken and written discourse, asks “If, then, both proclaim the Word—the one by writing, the other by speech—are not both then to be approved, making, as they do, faith active by love (ενεργον την πιστιν δια τηνς αγαπης πεποιημενοι)?” (Stromata I.1.4) This is clearly an allusion to Galatians 5:6, with faith viewed not as acting through love but as being made active by love. Tertullian, in translating the same verse renders δι’ αγαπης ενεργουμενη as per dilectionem perfici. (Adversus Marionem V.4.11) He similarly translates δια του νομου ενηργειτο in Romans 7:5 as per legem efficiebantur. (De Monogamia 13.2)

 

Among later Fathers, the most illuminating for our purposes is St. John Chrysostom. Several passages indicate not only that he took energeisthai as passive, but that he assumed his audience would do so as well. The first is in Homily 12 on Romans. Chrysostom comments that St. Paul, in describing the “motions of sin” (Rom 7:5), “did not say’ which the members wrought,’ but ‘which were wrought in our members,’ to show that the origin of wickedness is from elsewhere, from the thoughts which act, not from the members which are acted upon.” (PG 60:498) Clearly Chrysostom here takes ενηργειτο as passive, the active agent being sinful thoughts. A similar assumption can be observed in Homily 2 on 2 Corinthians. Commenting on the phrase παρακλησεως . . . πασχομεν (1.6), Chrysostom writes:

 

Your salvation is then more specially put into action, that is displayed, increased, heightened, when it possesses endurance, when it suffers and bears all things nobly. So the activity [ενεργεια, perhaps “actuality”] of salvation does not consist in doing evil but in suffering evil. And he did not say, “which works” but “which is wrought,” to show that, along with their own readiness, grace contributed much by working with them. (PG 61:392)

 

Here again Chrysostom clearly takes as ενεργουμενης. The active agent he identifies as divine grace.

 

There is also an interesting passage where, although energeisthai is not found in the biblical text, Chrysostom comments in its absence. Discussing the statement that “all these [spiritual gifts] worketh (ενεργει) that one and the selfsame spirit” (1 Cor 12:11), Chrysostom considers how it might be interpreted by one who denies the divinity of the Holy Spirit:

 

But it will be said, “He does it actuated (ενεργειται) by God.” Nay, he nowhere says this, but you feign it. For when he says [of the Father], “who works (ενεργει) all in all” (v. 6), he says this concerning men; you will hardly say that among those men he numbers the Spirit, even if you were manifestly doting an in madness. For because he has said “through the Spirit” (v. 8), that you might not suppose this word “through” to denote inferiority or being actuated (ενεργειται), he adds that the Spirit acts (ενεργει), not is actuated (ενεργειται), and acts “as he will,” not as he is bidden.” (Homilies on 1 Corinthians 29.26 [PG 61:245-46)

 

Clearly this argument hinges on the contrast of ενεργει as active and ενεργειται as passive. If Chrysostom even suspected that his audience might suppose ενεργειται to be middle, he would have had to pose the argument in different terms. (David Bradshaw, Divine Energies and Divine Action: Exploring the Essence-Energies Distinction [St. Paul, Minn.: Iota Publications, 2023], 40-43)

 

 

. . . it can be shown that energeisthai in antiquity is never middle, but only passive, and furthermore that Paul’s use of the term was uniformly taken as passive by the Church Fathers. So understood the meaning of energeisthai falls into place as correlative to energein, meaning either (depending on the context) “to be acted upon” or “to be made effective, to be energized.” That energeisthai is passive was already recognized around the turn of the last century by two eminent New Testament scholars, Joseph B. Mayor and J. Armitage Robinson. Unfortunately, their work was ignored by most subsequent translators and lexicographers, as it is, for example, in the article on energein in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. The major cause of this oversight would seem to be the legacy of the Reformation of the major texts bearing on the question of sola fide is Galatians 5:6, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith di’ agapēs energoumenē.” If one takes energoumenē here as middle then the meaning is (as translated by the KJV) “faith which worketh by love.” If one takes it as passive then the meaning is either “faith made effective by love,” or more pointedly, “faith energized by love.” Obviously an adherent of sola fide must insist upon the first of these readings, and that is what Luther does in his commentary on Galatians. (David Bradshaw, Divine Energies and Divine Action: Exploring the Essence-Energies Distinction [St. Paul, Minn.: Iota Publications, 2023], 11)

 

[Examples of energeisthai is passive, not middle, in the NT]

 

One is Colossians 1:29, where Paul refers to himself as “striving according to Christ’s working (or energy, ενεργεια), which is being made effective (or energized, ενεργουμενην) in me” (Col 1:29, my trans.). This verse beings out well the synergistic tendency of Paul’s thought. On the one hand the divine energy is at work within Paul, transforming him, so that from this standpoint he is the object of God’s activity; on the other it finds expression in Paul’s own activity, so that Paul’s free agency and that of God coincide. Indeed, not only do the actions Paul alludes to in this passage exhibit full engagement and self-control, they do so more than did his actions prior to his conversion. As the story is told in Acts, Saul was trapped in self-deception which works in him is also his own, more truly than anything he did was his own before he ceased to “kick against the pricks” (Acts 9:5).

 

Other passages also bring out what I believe we may call, without exaggeration, Paul’s synergistic ontology. One of particular clarity is Philippians 2:12-13: “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out (κατεργαζεσθε) your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you (ο ενεργων εν υμιν) both to will and to do (ενεργειν) of his good pleasure.” Here the exhortation to act is coupled with a reminder that it is God who is acting. Neither negates the other; the Philippians are both free agents responsible for their own salvation, and the arena in which God works to bring about that salvation. Bearing this duality in mind, one could legitimately translate, “it is God who imparts energy in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure,” where “to do” refers both to the Philippians’ action and to God’s action as it is expressed in them. This rendering helps bring out why for Paul there is no contradiction in urging the Philippians to do something that he also sees as the work of God. The peculiar nature of God’s activity is that it imparts the energy to do his will, although this energy must be freely expressed or “worked out” to be effective.

 

Finally let us note a passage which was of utmost importance for the Greek Fathers, the description of the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12.

 

Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operation (ενεργηματων), but it is the same God which worketh (ο ενεργων) all in all. . . . For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues; but all these worketh (ενεργει) that one and the selfsame spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. (12:3-11)

 

This passage begins by asserting that even such an ordinary and voluntary action as calling Jesus “Lord” requires the cooperation of the Spirit. It goes on to list a variety of spiritual gifts, each one an energēma (something performed) of the Spirit. They include not only extraordinary gifts like the working of miracles, but also more ordinary qualities such as faith and the “word of wisdom. “Again, there is no dividing line between the natural and the divine. Any believer is called to a life of continual cooperation with the Spirit, a cooperation which can manifest itself in any number of ways both exceptional and mundane. (David Bradshaw, Divine Energies and Divine Action: Exploring the Essence-Energies Distinction [St. Paul, Minn.: Iota Publications, 2023], 12-14)

 

Unlike superficially similar pairs such as drama/dran and poiēsis/poiein, energia and energein always referred to a kind of activity that can in the right circumstances, be entered into and shared by another. This means not simply that the two agents share the same activity, but that the activity of the agent who is the source of their common energeia vivifies and informs the recipient, while at the same time enabling the recipient to act authentically on its own behalf.

 

This sense of energeia is prominent in the New Testament, especially the Pauline writings. St. Paul speaks, for example, of the divine energeia that is being realized or made effective (ενεργουμενην) in him (Col 1:29). Here it is the divine energy realized within him that enables him to carry out his apostleship, thereby becoming most truly himself. Similarly, Paul explains to the Philippians that “it is God who works in you (ο ενεργων εν υμιν) both to will and to do (ενεργειν) of his good pleasure” (2:13). One could perhaps better translate, “it is God who imparts energy in you both to will and to go of his good pleasure,” where “to do” refers both to the Philippians’ action and to God’s action as it is expressed in them. In some passages the divine energy also takes on a more cosmic dimension. St. Paul describes the Resurrection as “the working (ενεργειαν) of his [that is, God’s] great might which he accomplished (ενηργησεν) in Christ when he raised him from the dead” (Eph 1:19-20). Elsewhere he refers to “the working (ενεργειαν) whereby he [Christ] is able to subdue all things to himself” (Phil 3:21). In these passages, the divine energy is a power that pervades all things, governing them and working miracles upon occasion according to God’s will.

 

Pauline statements such as these helped make energeia, within early Christian writing, almost a technical term for the activity of spiritual agents, whether God, Christ, or demons. This was particularly true when such energy was seen as capable of entering into, empowering, and transforming the agency of creatures. Justin Martyr, for example, says that Moses “by the inspiration and energy (ενεργειαν) of God took brass and made it into the figure of a cross.” (1 Apology 60 [PG 6:471A) Likewise, in the Apostolic Constitutions the author, speaking as one of the Apostles, states that on Pentecost, “the Lord Jesus sent us the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and we were filled with his energy (επλη σθημεν αυτου της ενεργειας) and spoke with new tongues.” (Apostolic Constitutions V.20.49 [PG 1:896C]) In such contexts, “energy” seems to be the only possible translation, for the term refers specifically to an activity that by its presence empowers and vivifies that in which it is present. (David Bradshaw, Divine Energies and Divine Action: Exploring the Essence-Energies Distinction [St. Paul, Minn.: Iota Publications, 2023], 146-47)

 

The twelve occurrences of the two terms in the Apostolic Fathers all refer to the action of God, Christ, angels, or demons. For example, in the Shepherd of Hermas purity, holiness, and contentment are energeiai of the angel of righteousness which accompanies every man, and anger, bitterness, gluttony, lust, and pride are energeiai of the angel of wickedness. (Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 6.102) The Epistle of Barnabas refers to Satan simply as ho energōn, “the active one,” and 1 Clement speaks of how God makes manifest the everlasting structures of the world by the deed he performs (των ενεργουμενων). (Epistle of Barnabas 2.1; 1 Clement 60.1) (Ibid., 9)

 

Bradshaw also wrote the following helpful notes on “synergy”:

 

To speak of synergy could be misleading if it suggested a picture of two equal agents who simply choose to work together. Plainly, since in these cases one is the Creator and the other a creature, the action of the latter depends for its realty upon the active support of the former. I take it that Paul interprets this notion in light of the common experience (which he had vividly shared) of feeing that one’s actions were not truly one’s own while one was mired in sin and self-deception. On his view, synergy, the cooperation of God and man, is neither a symmetrical relation nor one in which the divine overpowers and replaces the human. It is rather one in which the human becomes fully human by embracing the divine. To obey the divine commandments is, on this view, to fully realize one’s own identity by affirming and cooperating with God’s creative intent. This is not a radically new idea; indeed, it is a prominent theme in the Old Testament. (For example, in Psalm 1, and in the psalms of repentance, such as Psalm 51) What is new is the use of the vocabulary of energeia to express it. (Ibid., 14, emphasis in original)