SPIRITUALITY IN SYRO-ANTIOCHEAN TRADITION
(Fr.B.Varghese, Orthodox Theological Seminary, Kottayam)
In the
Eastern Orthodox tradition, spirituality is not treated as a separate branch of
theology and we do not find a definition of ‘spirituality’[1]. In
the Syriac tradition we do not find any systematic discussion of ruhonuto/ruhanuta
in the modern understanding of the term ‘spirituality’. There are a good number
of ‘spiritual exhortations’ or ‘discourses’ in Syriac giving practical advices
on the appropriation of the Gospel by the
members of the Church, both monks and married people. In a sense these
treatises are the main sources to understand the Syriac notion pf ‘spiritual
life’.
Even in the Latin West, ‘spirituality’ as a
separate branch of theology has its origin in the period of transition between
the medieval world and the modern age. In fact the word ‘spirituality’ was an
invention of the French Catholic theologians[2]. The
famous Dictionnaire de spiritualité, ascetic et mystique (ed. Marcel
Viller, Paris, 1932- ) which is still in the process of publication, gives
a clue to the origin of the term. The qualification of spiritualité by
the adjectives ascetic et mystique suggests the influence of the
medieval Latin division of theology into three branches –dogmatic, moral and
mystical. Dogmatic theology aimed at intellectual clarification, while mortal
theology dealt with the morally right or wrong actions.
The function
of ascetical or mystical theology was to guide the life of ‘religious
communities’ and individuals to attain the ‘beatific vision’ through
purification or catharsis, illumination and union with the divine. It is this
third area that was also called ‘spirituality’, though the medieval Latin
theologians never used the abstract noun. In the second half of the twentieth
century, especially after the Second Vatican Council, the use of the word
‘spirituality’ became banal and thus we hear about various types of
spirituality: Catholic spirituality, Protestant spirituality, Orthodox
Spirituality, and even of secular spirituality and Marxist spirituality (and
even perhaps of ‘atheist spirituality’)
In the
standard Catholic treatises on spirituality, we find the word used in a broader
sense related to religious communities or their founders or a large number of
subjects (monastic spirituality, lay spirituality, spirituality of Eucharist
etc.). I have given this introduction, which is found in a standard manual of
‘spirituality, to point out my difficulty in making a systematic presentation
of the subject from a ‘Syro-antiochian perspective’. What I have written below
is only an attempt to understand it.
Sources
The
sources of the Syro-antiochian spirituality can be divided into two groups:
early sources, which were less influenced by Greek thought[3]
and sources after 500 A.D., which are largely influenced by the Greek fathers.
St Ephrem, Jacob of Serugh (d.521) and Philoxenus of Mabbugh (d.523) are the
representatives of the early stage, who continued to influence the West Syrians
through out their history. Philoxenus had made use of the Book of Steps,
a fourth century East Syrian spiritual treatise. The hymns of St Ephrem and
Jacob of Serugh were included in the offices of the liturgical celebrations.
Through their hymns, these poet-theologians continue to guide the Church
members in the paths of spiritual life.
Since
the fifth century, Syriac writers came more and more under the influence of
Greek culture and literature and major theological works in Greek were
translated into Syriac. These works include the writings of the great
Cappadocians (St Basil, Gregory Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa), and the
Alexandrians (Origen, Athanasius as well as others). The Cathedral homilies of
Severus of Antioch (d.536), who faithfully followed the tradition of the Greek
fathers, were popular in the Syrian Orthodox Church. Syriac translations of
Evagrius of Pontus, Macarius and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite played very
important role in the history of West Syriac spirituality.
Between
seventh and eleventh centuries, the West Syriac tradition did not produce any
writer similar to the East Syrian spiritual masters such as Martyrius, Dadisho,
Simon the Graceful or Isaac of Nineveh. In the twelfth century, Gregorius Bar
Hebraeus (d.1286) provided a systematic codification of ‘Christian life’ (Ethicon
and the Book of Dove), using early Syriac and Greek authors, as well
as the writings of certain Muslim writers who wrote on mystical life, notably
al-Ghazali (d.1111). In the period between Philoxenos and Bar Hebraeus, the
West Syriac writers attributed great authority to the works of Pseudo-Dionysius
the Areopagite, of which several Syriac translations are available. A large
number of Sedre, a typically West Syriac prayer and hymnody (often using
the meters of St Ephrem and Jacob of Serugh) which became part of the festal
Breviary (known as Penqitho) were composed during this period. They also
provide a valuable source of Syriac spirituality.
Some Characteristic traits of the Syro-Antiochian
spirituality
According
to the Eastern understanding, man was created to live in communion with God.
Therefore, worship is vocation and means of self realization. Adam was created
as a liturgical being, as the priestly guardian of the creation[4].
He was placed in Paradise, which was a sanctuary, in which God was present. In
a prayer of the Shehimo (Breviary), this idea has been vividly
expressed:
“ You created me and placed Your hand upon me (Ps.
139:5 Peshitta). On Friday in the beginning, God created Adam from the
dust and breathed on him the Spirit and gave him speech, that he might sing
praise to him, halleluiah and gave thanks to his creation”[5].
Thus
Adam’s vocation was to offer praise to the Creator as a representative, as a
‘priest’ of the creation: The fall consisted of his failure to fulfill his
‘priestly vocation’ that is to live in communion with God. The goal of
Christian life is communion with God and spiritual life means the effort to
achieve this goal. Sacraments, especially, baptism and Eucharist are the means
to achieve it and canonical hours guide us in the path towards it. Fasting and
vigil are integral part of the spiritual life, for they help us to live a life
centered on God.
The idea
of ‘communion with God’ has been expressed using various imageries, such as
“imitating Christ”, “to be transfigured into the divine likeness” , “to be the
dwelling place of the Holy Spirit” or “to become the temple of divinity”. These
imageries are regularly found in the Sedre. In a Sedro of the
pre-anaphora, we find :
“May our breath be filled with Your fragrance; may out mouth
be opened for Your praise and may our tongues sing Your praises; may our lips
sound Your glorifications…… Transfigure us into Your glorious likeness”[6].
The goal
of the incarnation was the restoration of the communion between God and man.
Christ has given us the example of a life in communion with God, which is
essentially a liturgical life. In other words, communion with God is achieved
in and through worship. In baptism we are born again as children of God and we
are granted the privilege and freedom to address God, ‘Our Father”. The essence
of Christian worship is to address God as ‘Our Father’, which is the very
expression of communion with God.
In fact
salvation means the possibility to stand before God and worship Him. According
to a prayer of the feast of Pentecost, Christ has made us perfect worshippers
of the Holy Trinity:
“ Christ our God, by Your loving kindness, full of mercy and
compassion towards us who were worshippers of the adversary (…), Your turned us
from the worship of idols and made us perfect and true worshippers of the Holy
Trinity”[7].
Salvation
consists of restoration to the pre-lapsarian condition, which was a life of
worship and adoration. In the Book of Revelation, the life in the heavenly
kingdom is presented as a liturgical experience, where those who are saved will
stand before the throne of the Lamb, “clothed in white robes, with palm
branches in their hands” and worshipping God (Rev. 7:9-10).
Worship
leads to the imitation of Christ, or “deification” (cfr. 2 Pet. 1:4: ‘partakers
of divine nature’), which implies a total transfiguration of our nature to the
original state in which it was created. Then our worship becomes ‘a living
sacrifice well pleasing to God after the manner of Christ’s offering for us’[8].
The
transfiguration (“deification’) begins in baptism, especially by the indwelling
of the Spirit. By the indwelling of the Spirit we become ‘pneumatophore’ and we
are ‘christified’, for in baptism we are incorporated into Christ, and the
‘Spirit of sonship’ has been granted to us (Gal. 4:6-7; Rom. 8:15-17). Holy
Spirit, who is the ‘Spirit of Communion’, enables us to pray. According to St
Paul, ‘Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words’ (Rom
8:26). Every act of worship is an act in the Holy Spirit.
Eucharist is ‘the worship in Spirit and truth’. It is in the Spirit that
the Church offers the Eucharist, for Christ “through the eternal Spirit offered
Himself without blemish to God” (Heb 9:14). This idea is central to the New
Testament understanding of prayer[9],
and has deeply influenced the Eastern Christian tradition.
Epiclesis, the central moment in the celebration of the Eucharist, is
the affirmation of the permanent presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Thus
in the anaphora of St James, as well as in other ancient West Syriac anaphoras,
the Epiclesis is addressed to the Father to send down “the Holy Spirit upon us
and upon this offering”. The Spirit is invoked upon the ‘Eucharistic community’
(i.e. the Church) as well as upon the Eucharist of the community. In the
Eucharist the Pentecost is perpetuated and the Holy Spirit continues to descend
and transform the ‘eucharistic gathering’ into the Church, the Body of Christ. Therefore
Eucharist is at the heart of spiritual life, for Eucharist is the seal of our
membership in the Body of Christ, the Church.
Prayer and Repentance
Spiritual life implies a new relationship between God and man, and
repentance is its stepping stone. In fact the Kingdom of God is characterized
by the change of heart of the human beings. Thus John the Baptist and our Lord
began their ministries with the exhortation: ‘Repent; for the Kingdom of heaven
is at hand” (Math. 3:1; 4:17). The mission of the Holy Spirit includes leading
men to repentance (cfr. John. 16:8-9).
In its
worship, the Church exhorts its members to repent, the very condition for
entering the Kingdom of God. Thus repentance is a principal theme of the West
Syrian offices, especially the weekly and festal breviaries, offices of the
Great lent as well as the anointing of the sick. In the daily offices, the
theme of Sutoro (Compline) is always repentance. The prayers regularly
refer to the biblical figures who have set an example of true repentance and
thus encourage the sinner to approach the merciful Lord:
“ I have remembered You on my bed, O Lover of men, and by
night I have meditated on You, because You are greatly to be feared; I see my
stains and my defilement and I am ashamed to call on You, but the thief, the
publican and the sinful woman encourage me, an the Caananite woman and the
woman who was afflicted and the Samaritan woman at the well of water; they say
to me: approach and receive mercy, because Your Lord is full of mercy”[10].
Repentance is in fact the acknowledgement of the loving kindness of God,
His infinite mercy and willingness to save us. It is the expression of absolute
trust in Christ, the heavenly physician who came down to heal our infirmities.
In the
eastern Christian tradition, sin and death are seen in terms of illness, for
which the heavenly physician, in His loving kindness has brought medicine and
healing. Most probably it is in this sense that Ignatius of Antioch refers to
the Eucharist as the ‘medicine of immortality’[11].
Repentance is the second baptism that cleanses us and restores the
baptismal grace. Tears of repentance are a bath that radically renews a man,
and is a precious offering to the Lord:
“ The sinner is loved
when his face is bathed in tears and his mouth is cleansed by sorrowful
mourning full of pain; precious gems are not so much loved as the drops which
flow from the eyes of him who repents”[12].
Repentance is presented as the mark of true Christian. Thus Sedro
of Monday evening asks God to “make us true penitents”[13].
Repentance is the mark of life in Christ. It implies a state of alertness; a
permanent preparedness for the coming of Christ like the wise virgins. Thus a qolo
of Tuesday evening exhorts: “ Repent, repent, sinners, said our Lord; that when
the bridegroom appears you may enter the marriage-chamber with Him”[14].
Fasting as a sign of spiritual alertness
Fasting
is an essential element in spiritual life and is a sign of spiritual alertness,
for the foolish servant, thinking that master will be delayed in coming, began
to “eat and drink and get drunk” (Luke 12:45). The Syriac tradition speaks of
an ‘institution of fasting’ by Christ, who ‘taught us to fast and thus to fight
against Satan. Thus is the very first prayer of the Great lent we find:
“ O Christ, You humbled Yourself for our redemption and
condescended to fast and to be tempted by the adversary and taught the Church
to conquer with appropriate fasting and prayer the Satan who fight against her.[15]”
The
importance of fasting in the spiritual life is attested in the Syriac tradition
since the early centuries. Thus in the Acts of Judas Thomas, the Apostle is
presented as one who imitated Christ in every respect[16].
The Apostle Thomas is one who fasts and prays much[17].
The Acts puts the meaning of the fasting as follows: “ Our Lord fasted forty
days and forty nights and tasted nothing; and the Messiah dwells in him who
observes it”[18].
By his
fasting, Christ has taught us the way of life which leads to the Father. Thus
in a prayer of the Great lent we find:
“ Our Saviour fasted and prepared the way of life for us
that we shall walk in it towards His Sender, without being stumbled”[19].
If fasting
and prayer are integral parts of spiritual life, they should be completed with
the love for our brethren Thus Severus of Antioch says: “When the fast lacks
charity, it appears to be empty and vain”[20].
This idea appears often in the prayers of
the Great lent: “ Fasting is good and if any body fasts without love, his
abstinence is without profit. Prayer is being loved [by God]; and if love does
not strengthen its wings, it does not [ascend and] see the heights [where God
dwells]”[21].
Again: “ Fast is great and prayer is good. (But) love is
nobler than them, as the apostle has written (cfr. I Cor, 13). Brethren,
let us be armed with it an reconcile each other”[22].
Fasting
is not merely to abstain from food. True fasting is a ‘spiritual attitude’ and
a way of life. In the modern world where success is the most important value of
life, ‘fasting’ is of great significance. In the modern world, fasting is an
act of Christian witness, when it implies abstinence from obsessive acquiring,
from luxuries, and gadgets of megalomania such as expensive cars or other items
of personal use, and hectic schedule and excessive traveling[23].
Conclusion
Spiritual
life cannot be reduced to a few ‘acts of piety’. It embraces our whole life
style. Everything that brings us closer to God and thus to have communion with
God, comes under the notion of spiritual life. In his fortieth Cathedral
Homily, Severus of Antioch writes:
“ All things that are accomplished and done in the Churches
of God are aimed at only one goal: to correct us and to bring us nearer to what
is best and to make us to progress towards the heights [of perfection], whether
it is the observation of fasting or things of this kind”[24].
Philanthropy, too, is an expression of
the life in the Spirit; it is indeed a prayer, ‘an act of offering’ of royal
priesthood of the believer’[25].
In the words of Paul Evdokimov, “All of life, each act, every gesture, even a
smile of the human face, must become a hymn of adoration, an offering, a
prayer”[26].
Therefore the goal of spiritual life is God to be sure, communion with the
Triune God. But it is also a process of becoming truly human[27].
[1] See
Stanley Samuel Harakas, “ Spirituality: East and West”, in J.Breck,
J.Meyendorff and E.Silk (eds), The Legacy of St Vladimir, (SVTP, New
York, 1990), 179-195. Harakas writes: “….as an Orthodox theologian, I am not
confident that I understand what ‘spirituality’ is. As an Orthodox theologian,
the term has not been part of my vocabulary”. p. 179.
[2] See the
article “Spirituality” in Sacramentum Mundi Vol VI (TPI,
Bangalore 1989), pp. 148-149; also Gordon S.Wakefield (ed), The West
Minister Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, (Philadelphia, The
Westminister Press, 1983), Preface.
[3] For the
sources of both East and West Syriac spirituality, Sebastian Brock, Spirituality
in Syriac Tradition, SEERI, Kottayam, (n.d), SEERI Correspondence Course
(SCC)
[4]
B.Varghese, West Syrian Liturgical Theology (Ashgate, Aldershot, 2004),
p.8-9.
[5] Friday, Ramso
Awsâr slâwôtô, (SEERI, Kottayam, 2006), p.723-24. (hereafter AS)
[6] Annaphura
(Pampakuda, 1986), p.46-47.
[7]
Metropolitan Athanasius Yeshue Samuel (ed), Ma’de’dono: The Book of the
Church Festivals, (1984), p.345.
[8] Cfr. A
prayer of the preparation rites (tuyobo): “Make us worthy that we may
offer ourselves to Thee a living sacrifice well-pleasing unto Thee after the
manner of Thy sacrifice for us”. Samuel Athanasius (ed), Anaphora (1967), p.9.
[9] See
Oscar Cullmann, Prayer in the New Testament, SCM, London, 1995.
[10]
Tuesday, Lilyo, 3rd Qaumo, AS p. 391.
[11] Pharmakon
athanasias, Eph. 20:2.
[13] Ibid.
p. 203.
[14] Ibid.
p. 335-37.
[15] Monday
Evening, Prayers of the Great lent (tr. Fr.B.Varghese), (MOC Publications,
Kottayam, 2011), p.9.
[16] B.Varghese, “ Acts of Judas Thomas and
early Syriac Liturgy”, in Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet & Muriel Debié (ed), Sur
les pas des Araméens chrétiens. Mélanges offerts à Alain
Desreumaux, (Paris,2010), pp.77-94; see pp. 79-80.
[17] Acts of
Judas Thomas, ch. 10; 86; 104; 139. English translation by A.F.J.Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, Introduction, Text,
Commentary, Leiden, 1962.
[18] Ch. 86.
[19] Monday
Morning, Prayers of the Great Lent, p. 34. Again, “ Christ God of all
fasted for us like a man and prepared a way for us that we should walk in it
without being stumbled and inherit eternal life”. Ibid. p. 32-34.
[20]
Cathedral Homily, 87, in Patrologia Orientalis T. 39, p.521.
[21] Monday
Morning., p. 35.
[22] Ibid.
p. 33.
[23] See
Paul Evdokimov, Ages of Spiritual Life, St Validimir’s Seminary Press,
New York, 1995. see the introduction by Michel Plekov, “A Life in the Spirit
and the Spirituyal Life”, pp. 1-10.
[24] Homily
40, Patrologia Orientalis T.36, p.9.
[25] See
Harakas, op.cit., p. 192.
[26] Paul
Evdokimov, The Sacrament of Love, (SVS, New York, 1985), pp. 61-62.
[27] Michel Plekov, op.cit. p.9.
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