“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change or shifting shadow.”

“I AM THE DOOR” … and the Way, the Truth, and the Life

*A lifetime of struggle against the passions amidst desert wastes devoid of their allure leads Moses to the Burning Bush and the Mountain of the Knowledge of God, notes His Eminence, Archbishop Damianos, recalling Saint Maximos’ allegory on this point. “The meekest of all men on the earth,” Moses receives not only the Decalogue on Sinai following this period of purification, he adds – but the entire history of the creation “out of nothing.”

Sinai’s mosaic icon of Moses on the Holy Summit illustrates just this point. A close look shows him to be receiving not the tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments, but a closed scroll. An ancient Jewish tradition supported by Sinai’s iconographic history says that besides the Ten Commandments, Moses received the entirety of the Pentateuch written in tiny script on a stone, meaning a parchment, which was then rolled into a scroll.

To summarize then, purity of soul forms the basis for all knowledge, for all was created by the mystical Sun of righteousness – the Logos of God who granted us logic with which to receive His own. On a parallel path, Plato also looked past visible creation to the principles underlying its order; a knowledge he believed fully derivable only through the transcendental qualities of goodness. Like the sun, he wrote in the voice of Socrates, the good sheds its light, bestowing understanding of truth as its very cause. The similarities to patristic thought are disarming to this point – but the parallel paths will never meet ….

- “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.”

Just as our eyes cannot see without light, Socrates says, the mind needs another thing in order to fully function – goodness. But as the voice of the Father makes clear at the Transfiguration, goodness is not a thing. Herein lies the chasm separating Orthodox spirituality from every other faith system laying claim to its ideals: Goodness and truth are not merely ideals but divine attributes by which we experience Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. There is only one path to goodness and that is union with Him. Neither is Christ a “higher power” but a Person, and not only a Person, but one we can participate in, because we were created in the image of His divinity. Indeed, this is exactly why we were made according to the divine image and likeness, according to Saint Anastasios of Sinai.

- “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change or shifting shadow.”

For Plato, then, goodness is intrinsic to the creation. For Orthodox Christianity, goodness, as an attribute of God, is intrinsic to the Creator. What does Jesus Himself say? No one is good, except God alone.

But a picture postcard is worth a thousand words, and illustrating the true parameters of goodness, Father Pavlos shared the story of the Sinai ascetic who labored for seven years to be restored by God to the monastic ranks following nothing more than a judgmental “ouph” at another’s expense. … It would seem the meaning of “goodness” is not quite so elastic in heaven as on earth … If God’s love extends to the mercy of not condemning us while we are in the process of failing that love, does tolerance mean something different in our own case?

What then might the vision of such love look like to the eyes of mere mortals, were they enabled to gaze on it?

"One day one of the brothers visited the holy and righteous ascetic Joseph of Raitho with a question about a thought. When he knocked, he got no answer. Peering in through the entrance he saw him standing entirely from head to toe like a flame of fire. Filled with fear and trembling, his body went weak, and he collapsed on the ground like dead for an hour. Then he stood up again and sat down at the door. The saintly old man was still occupied with his vision and did not know what had happened. Five full hours passed before he appeared to be human once more. Then he opened the door and let the brother inside. After they sat down, he said to the brother, ‘When did you come?’ He replied to the old man, ‘It has been four or five hours ago since I came by, but I did not knock till now, so as not to disturb you.’

The old man realized that the brother was aware of what had happened to him, yet he said nothing about it. Instead, he answered all the questions he was asked and cured the brother of his thought, then released him in peace. Afterwards he disappeared because he feared receiving fame among humans.

… Six years later someone knocked on the door of the cell. The elder’s disciple Gelasius went to the door was amazed to see his abba standing outside. Having said a prayer, Gelasius received him with joy and they embraced each other with a holy kiss. ‘Venerable Father, why did you separate yourself from your community, leaving me an orphan?’ asked the disciple. The old man said to him, ‘God knows the reason I did not appear. And yet, to this day I have never been away from this place, nor has a single Lord’s Day passed that I have not shared with all of you in the holy, life-giving Mysteries of Christ.’ The brother was amazed … The old man then said, ‘Today I am migrating to the Lord from this wretched body.’ After conversing with the brother about the soul and the good things to come, he fell asleep in peace, delivering his venerable, holy soul to the hands of the living God.

Brother Gelasius ran off to assemble us all. With psalm-singing and palm leaves we went and conveyed him to the Lord’s house. His face was brighter than the sun. We laid him to rest with the holy fathers who had fallen asleep before him.”

For this reason, said Elder Pavlos, the desert ascetic united to Christ in purity of soul remains closer to the problems of those in the world than would be possible if he lived amongst them. …

*From the Article “On the Holy Summit of Transfiguration” by Sr. Joanna, in the FMSM News Blog: http://www.mountsinaimonastery.org/news-blog/on-the-holy-summit-of-transfiguration