THEOPHANY

THEOPHANY see Feasts, Twelve Great (Epiphany); Theosis.

THEOSIS. Theosis or “deification” has been the ruling principle or mode of understanding salvation in Christ since at least the late 2nd c., as evidenced in Irenaeus of Lyons (q.v.). Classically, Orthodox Holy Tradition (q.v.) sees it reflected in Paul’s preaching on adoption to sonship and the indwelling Spirit (e.g., Rom 8), in John’s promise of the gift of divine glory (Joh n 17:5; 22–24), and summed up in 2Pet 1:4, the Christian as a “communicant of the divine nature.” The story of Christ’s transfiguration in Mk 9:2–7 (Mt 17; Lk 9) becomes the ruling image of theosis by the time of Gregory Palamas, though its importance for the Church Fathers (qq.v.) dates from far earlier times. This understanding of salvation, that “God became man so that we might be made divine,” in the words of Athanasius (q.v.), provides the unifying theme underlying the great debates over the Trinity and Christology (qq.v.) that preoccupy the Ecumenical Councils (q.v.) from Nicaea I (325) to Nicaea II (787), and the 14th c. controversy over hesychasm (q.v.). The theological development of the whole Byzantine era (q.v.) constitutes a continuing meditation on the mystery of salvation, and thus on theosis.

The term carries disturbing implications to the Western ear, and therefore should be qualified. Thus, the Orthodox emphasize the continuous theological stress on the paradox of deification: God (q.v.) and humankind are infinitely distant from each other by nature (q.v.), the creature infinitely inadequate to and other than the Creator. (See Theology.) Yet in Christ, infinite God and finite humanity meet and join, and that joining is no mere juxtaposition (as in Nestorius [q.v.]), but a true union without confusion or division, as in the formula of Chalcedon (q.v.). Humanity is not obliterated in Christ, but is instead perfected and fulfilled. Although the contribution of the human being to salvation is infinitely less than God’s, Orthodox theology nevertheless insists on a true synergism, a cooperation. Synergy (literally, “co-working”), indeed, recalls the classic definition of the divine-human union in Christ: a co-inherence and exchange of the divine and human activity in the Incarnate Word, and through him in the Holy Spirit (q.v.). This allows the possibility that every human person may become the “unspotted mirror of the divine energies” (Dionysius the Areopagite [q.v.])-the manifestation of God’s uncreated glory.