The Prayer of the Publican, The Jesus Prayer, Merkabah (“chariot”) Mysticism and Modern Hymnody

[Reading Time: 11 minutes]

Introduction

Given the centrality of the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican to Christ’s teaching on salvation, grace and the law; and given our continual impulse to replace the grace of salvation with the external works of the law, we present a brief synthesis of the Prayer of the Publican which was taken into the centuries-long prayer of the Church known as the Jesus Prayer.

We will begin with the text of the Parable then move into the Jesus Prayer, first offering three quotations from the Church Fathers on the nature of prayer, then concluding with a brief analysis of the key Greek words that situate the prayer squarely within the Old and New Testaments and the life of Christ.

Following this we will offer a brief discussion on the place of repetition in our spiritual lives (which we should say at the beginning is a sine qua non with the Jesus Prayer following the command of I Thes 5:17 to “pray without ceasing”…and, for that matter, with the Lord’s Prayer…and for that matter, our reading of the Scriptures (“And in His law he meditates day and night”)…and actually…all the spiritual disciplines in the Christian life…).

This will lead us into the Jewish antecedents of Christian spirituality in what is known as Merkabah (“chariot”) mysticism, which developed in Second Temple Judaism (i.e. after the “First Temple” of Solomon had been destroyed by Babylon in the 6th century B.C.). In this phase of Israel’s history, the divine presence was no longer manifest in a set place, but rather, as in the vision of Ezekiel 1, came to God’s people on a “throne-chariot…in the heavens from which Yahweh governs creation” (1. p. 21).

From here, we will briefly discuss the utilization of dimensions of this Jewish spirituality in the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrystostom (4th c.), which is still practiced all over the world to this very day and which offers a continuity with the structures of the OT together with the early forms of development in the NT church.

We will finally conclude with comments on modern forms of hymnody which utilize repetition, asking the question, Is this a human method whose goal is the transforming presence of JHWH or simply a pathway to manipulate parishioners’ emotions?

The answer you will have to decide.

And with that, we begin.

Ia. The Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican

As noted, we will present this Parable in its entirety:

Lk 18

9 Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:

10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself (In Greek it could also be translated, “And prayed to himself” [as is emphasized by the use of the middle voice: πρὸς ἑαυτὸν προσηύχετο]),

‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.

12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’

13 And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ (ἱλάσθητί [hilaskomai] μοι τῷ ἁμαρτωλῷ [hamartólos]).

Jesus’ assessment of these two prayers is very clear:

14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified (dikaióō) rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled (ταπεινωθήσεται [tapeinoó]), and he who humbles (ὁ δὲ ταπεινῶν [tapeinoó]) himself will be exalted.”

Ib. A Note on the word for mercy—hilaskomai: Propitiation by the Great High Priest

The Greek word for “Be merciful” is hilaskomai, which is best translated as “to make reconciliation for the sins of.” This verb has particular reference to the OT Levitical actions of the High Priest on Yom Kippur—the Day of Atonement (Ex 30:10, Lev 16). With this as the primary background, it is used only one other time in the NT referring specifically to the actions of Jesus, the Great High Priest. For it is He alone Who “makes reconciliation,” or more technically, “makes propitiation,” for the people of God not by continually offering the “blood of bulls and of goats” but by sacrificing Himself once-for-all “through the eternal Spirit” (Heb 9:11-15) as the “Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of world” (Jn 1:29).

With the first use in the NT being the prayer of the tax collector, the second and final occurrence of hilaskomai comes in the second chapter of Hebrews, which speak of how Jesus Christ became for us our Great High Priest.

The section begins first with the humiliation of His birth:

But we see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while,

Then we are told Why?

For the suffering of death

And the result:

Now crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.

That is to say, Jesus came into the world primarily to suffer death. Yet for this to be redemptive for all humanity, He had to become like mankind (as the subsequent verses detail) so that he “might taste death for everyone.”

And on account of the depth of His humiliation out of perfect, self-sacrificial love, which led to His suffering, abandonment, false accusation, condemnation, torture and, finally, murder, Jesus was then highly exalted, being “crowned with glory and honor.”

Hebrews 2 continues:

10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain (archēgós, which could also be translated, “author”, “founder” or even “archetype”) of their salvation perfect (teleióō) through sufferings (cf. Jn 17:4)…

Again, How was Jesus made “perfect”?

Answer: “Through sufferings.”

Incredible, especially for those of us in medicine or ministry who work day in and day out with suffering people (and suffer ourselves…).

What Christ did not assume He cannot heal

The passage returns to the reality of Christ’s full assumption of human nature; because, in the words of Gregory Nazianzus (329-390) following Ireneaus of Lyon (130-202), that which the Lord did not assume, He could not heal. This now well-known saying comes in Letter 101 to Cledonius, in which Gregory states,

That which is not assumed is not healed

(For the Greek text with a short exposition see here).

That is to say, for Christ to be able to heal the totality of mankind, He had to first take on the fullness of the human condition—body, mind, soul, spirit. Partial measures would mean only partial healing.

Then, moving to verse 14 and the close of the chapter:

14 Therefore, since the children share in (koinōnéō, the root of which is obviously koinónia…) flesh and blood, he likewise had a share in (metéchō) their humanity, so that through death he could destroy (katargéō: Literally, ‘break the power of’, ‘reduce to nothing’) the one who holds the power of death (that is, the devil)

We see the theology of Christ’s incarnation, sharing in, taking on, the realities of mortal flesh and blood.

And we are given the reason: “so that through death he could destroy the one who holds the power of death (that is, the devil).

Mankind, in his rebellion against God, had been “given over” to the devil (paradídōmi, Rom 1:18-32, of which more is said here).

Yet Christ, in becoming the Second Adam, gave mankind back to God, and in so doing, was able to

15 release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

And again, the repetition:

16 For indeed He took not (epilambánomai) [on Him the nature of] angels, but He took on Him (epilambánomai) the seed of Abraham.

17 Therefore he had to be made like (homoióō) his brothers in every respect, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation (εἰς τὸ ἱλάσκεσθαι [hilaskomai]) for the sins of the people (τὰς ἁμαρτίας [hamartia] τοῦ λαοῦ)].

These are the two uses of hilaskomai in the Scriptures. It begins with the call of a despised broken-down tax collector calling out for the mercy of the Great High Priest. And it concludes with the actions of the Lord Himself entering into the mass of sin and corruption and rot and decay of humanity and lifting it up to the throne of grace where it can be forgiven and healed.

IIa. The Jesus Prayer and the Greek Text

From the prayer of the tax collector—‘God, make propitiation for me a sinner!’ —we come to the words of the Jesus Prayer, whose similarity and differences are obvious:

Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner

Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱέ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν (eleeó) με τὸν ἁμαρτωλόν

As we first note, “God” is replaced with “Lord Jesus Christ,” the Hebrew of which was examined here and which we will further review below. Secondly, the further descriptor, “Son of God”, is added. And finally, hilaskomai is changed to eleeó. Though much has and could be written on this prayer, for the purposes of this post we will offer only three introductory quotations to the Jesus Prayer (III), then focus on the chief words in sequence (in Part IIb).

LORD (κύριος [kýrios])

As noted in greater detail here, in the progressive disclosure of God’s Person to us in the Holy Scriptures, this name of JHWH (I AM that I AM, Ex 3:14) is taken up in the Greek NT as kýrios (‘Lord’). And it is no wonder, then, that Jesus, the God-man, the Word incarnate, gives to us in John’s Gospels the seven “I AM” statements:

I am the bread of life (John 6:35)

I am the light of the world (John 8:12)

I am the gate (John 10:7)

I am the good shepherd (John 10:11, 14)

I am the resurrection and the life (John 11:25)

I am the way and the truth and the life (John 14:6)

I am the true vine (John 15:1)

This is to say, all that we are to understand about God, the great I AM, is revealed perfectly and fully in Jesus Christ our Lord. And we add together with Paul, that this is revealed in “Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (I Cor 2:2). As such, the shortest credal affirmation found in the New Testament is very simply, Kýrios Iēsoûs—Jesus is Lord.

Jesus (Ἰησοῦς [Iésous])

The Hebew antecedant for the Greek word, Iésous, is Yeshua or Yehoshua (Joshua: From JHWH + yasha), which means ‘JHWH saves.’ As noted above, JHWH is the name first revealed to Moses at the burning bush and is translated in English OT texts as LORD, coming into the NT as the familiar term, Lord.

Christ (Χριστός [Christos])

This Greek word is derived from the verb, chrió, and means to be ‘annointed.’ As we come to find, the Hebrew etymological background is mashakh, which forms the basis of the word, Messiah—The one anointed by JWHW to save His people.

It is, therefore, no accident that when Jesus opens the scroll to begin His ministry in Luke 4 that he “happens” to read the verses from Isaiah 61:

1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
3 To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.

Have Mercy (ἐλέησόν [eleeó])

More on this in point IIb. below.

III. Three Quotations from the Church Fathers

a. John Climacus of Sinai (c. 579-649 A.D.) in his seminal work, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, of which it is said:

“With the exception of the Bible and the service books, there is no work in Eastern Christendom that has been studied, copied and translated more often than The Ladder of Divine Ascent.”1

It is organized into 30 Steps, representing the 30 year pathway of Jesus’ life to his priestly ministry, the full outline of which by Ware is at the end of the text. For the purposes of situating this quotation of Climacus, it will be enough to write that it comes in the 28th step “On Prayer”:

Do not try to use many words, lest your mind become distracted by the search for words. Because of one short sentence, the Publican received mercy of God, and one brief affirmation saved the Robber. An excessive multitude of words in prayer disperses the mind in dreams, while one word or a short sentence helps to collect the mind.

b. Symeon of Thessalonica (c. 1381–1429)

What shall we say of this divine prayer, in invocation of the Savior, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me’? It is a prayer and a vow and a confession of faith, conferring upon us the Holy Spirit and divine gifts, cleansing the heart, driving out devils. It is the indwelling presence of Jesus Christ within us, and a fountain of spiritual reflections and divine thoughts. It is remission of sins, healing of soul and body, and shining of divine illumination; it is a well of God’s mercy, bestowing upon the humble revelations and initiation into the mysteries of God. It is our only salvation, for it contains within itself the saving Name of God the only Name upon which we call, the Name of Jesus Christ the Son of God. ‘For there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved,’ as the Apostle says (Acts 4:12).

That is why all believers must continually confess this Name: both to preach the faith and as testimony to our love for the Lord Jesus Christ, from which nothing must ever separate us; and also because of the grace that comes to us from His name, and because of the remission of sins, the healing, sanctification, enlightenment, and, above all, the salvation which it confers. The Holy Gospel says: ‘These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.’ See, such is faith. And the Gospel adds, ‘that believing ye might have life through his Name (Jn 21:21). See, such is salvation and life.

c. Ignatius Brianchaninov (1807-1867)

On the essential element

The essential properties of this prayer should be attention, the enclosure of the mind in the words of the prayer, extreme unhurriedness in pronouncing it, and contrition of spirit…

But in the case of the Jesus Prayer, the mind is concentrated on a single thought: the thought of the sinner’s forgiveness by Jesus. Outwardly this activity is the most dry, but in practice it proves to be the most fruitful of all the soul’s activities. Its power and value derive from the all-powerful, all-holy name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

On the content

What is it that will be given to a person who prays in the name of the Lord Jesus that can fill him to overflowing with joy? He will be given—we reply in the words of our Lord—the Holy Spirit “Whom the Father will send in My name.” This knowledge, based on experience, belongs to the holy Fathers, and is their tradition (The Arena, Ch 23).

Steven Peter Tsichlis (b. 1953) offers a further introductory synthesis:

The Jesus Prayer is rooted in the Name of the Lord. In the Scriptures, the power and glory of God are present in his Name. In the Old Testament to deliberately and attentively invoke God's Name was to place oneself in his Presence. Jesus, whose name in Hebrew means God saves, is the living Word addressed to humanity. Jesus is the final Name of God. Jesus is "the Name which is above all other names" and it is written that "all beings should bend the knee at the Name of Jesus" (Phil. 2:9-10). In this Name devils are cast out (Luke 10:17), prayers are answered (John 14:13 14) and the lame are healed (Acts 3:6-7). The Name of Jesus is unbridled spiritual power.

The words of the Jesus Prayer are themselves based on Scriptural texts: the cry of the blind man sitting at the side of the road near Jericho, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me" (Luke 18:38); the ten lepers who "called to him,  Jesus, Master, take pity on us' " (Luke 17:13); and the cry for mercy of the publican, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner" (Luke 18:14).

It is a prayer in which the first step of the spiritual journey is taken: the recognition of our own sinfulness, our essential estrangement from God and the people around us. The Jesus Prayer is a prayer in which we admit our desperate need of a Saviour. For "if we say we have no sin in us, we are deceiving ourselves and refusing to admit the truth" (1 John 1:8).

IIb. A return to the Greek text of the Jesus Prayer: The three alterations from the prayer of the tax collector

With these introductory quotations on the Jesus Prayer, we return to the Greek text. As was noted above, the prayer in Christ’s Parable is altered in the following way:

First, the term “God” is changed to “Lord Jesus Christ” ; second, the further descriptor, “Son of God,” is added; and third, the term for mercy is changed from hilaskomai to eleeó. We will look at these briefly in turn.

First, the general term for “God” (Theós) is changed to the very particular modifier, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God.”

Why is this important?

As always, much, much could be written, but we will only comment in referencing our discussion above on hilaskomai, that the prayer is addressed to the Great High Priest—the only One Who can truly and comprehensively provide forgiveness of sins and cleansing of our entire person. As Symeon said (which we quote again),

It is remission of sins, healing of soul and body, and shining of divine illumination; it is a well of God’s mercy, bestowing upon the humble revelations and initiation into the mysteries of God. It is our only salvation, for it contains within itself the saving Name of God the only Name upon which we call, the Name of Jesus Christ the Son of God. ‘For there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved,’ as the Apostle says (Acts 4:12).

Second, the further addition, “Son of God,” then brings us into the intimate dimension of familial love; For in Jesus we are brought into the eternal communion of the love of God, which as the Fathers say, flows “from the Father to the Son in the Holy Spirit” with the Holy Spirit being that “bond of love” between the divine Persons. In and through the Son, therefore, by the operations of the Holy Spirit we limited, finite human persons are opened up into the dynamic relations of the very Trinity of love itself.

Mercy: The movement outwards

And third, as to the petition, “have mercy on us”, the change in vocabulary from hilaskomai to eleeó signals a movement outwards. We have already seen that the publican uses in his prayer the divine name for God, theos, which expresses the general, universal power of God as creator (similar to the Hebrew term, ĕlôhîym, discussed here). In the Jesus Prayer, in contrast, we saw the movement from general dimensions of the divine (i.e. “God”) to the particular (i.e. “Lord Jesus Christ Son of God”); from the universal power of the Godhead, that is, to the saving work through and in Jesus Christ; from the universal creator of mankind to the redeemer of God’s chosen and treasured people (Deut 14:2).

Again, from the general to the particular.

In the call for mercy in the Jesus Prayer, however, there is a different movement; not from the general to the particular but from the particular dimensions of the Jewish faith outwards. In the prayer of a Jewish tax collector, hilaskomai signals the unique, Levitical pathway of propitiation carried out by the High Priest on Yom Kippur in the very Holy of Holies for the people of God. Now in the Jesus Prayer, the pleading of eleéō offers a mercy that embraces all of mankind, from a Jewish tax collector to those caught in the grips of the Fall.

From Hilaskomai to Eleéō

Hilaskomai is used only two times in the NT, as examined above, whereas Eleéō occurs 32 times in a far wider context. To begin, its first instance comes to us in the Beatitudes:

Blessed are the merciful (eleḗmōn with its only other occurrence being Heb 2:17)
For they shall obtain mercy (eleéō).

Those who enter into the transforming mercy of JHWH cannot but extend this mercy outwards to others. If they cannot or if they prevaricate or if they simply refuse, then the questions arises which “mercy” are they actually employing?

Yet if they do first experience the mercy of Christ Jesus and then extend this outwards to others, their soul, according to this Word, will be filled with greater and greater degrees of this divine, other-worldly grace.

There is one who scatters, yet increases more;
And there is one who withholds more than is right,
But it leads to poverty.
The generous soul will be made rich,
And he who waters will also be watered himself (Prov 11:24-25).

Eleéō is then brought down from the other world and fleshed out, so to speak in the life and ministry of Jesus, as presented in the synoptic Gospel where it occurs 14 times. Beginning in the boundaries of Israel, it first appears in the cry of two blind men in Jericho begging for healing (Mt 9:27, cf. Mark 10:47-48, Luke 18:38-39). Next, however, we are taken outside of Israel to the “region of Tyre and Sidon”, where Jesus meets a Canaanite woman whose “daughter was “severely oppressed by a demon” (Mt 15:22).

Transforming, healing mercy to a “little Gentile dog”

Here Jesus draws attention to the fact that this woman was indeed a Gentile outside of the Covenant. She was, in His own words, a “little dog” (kunarion), which was a technical term expressing spiritual impurity (cf. Mt 7:6, Phil 3:2, Rev 22:15, etc.).

Yet—and this is critical—she, though a “little Gentile dog”, pressed even deeper into the mercy of God. For Jesus’ initially dismisses her:

I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”

But this Canaanite woman, the text says, responds in a way exceedingly unexpected:

Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, help (boēthéō) me!” (Literally, “rescue me!”, 15:24-25).

That is to say, “Precisely because I am a little gentile dog, I need Your delivering mercy.”

The divine test, however continues:

But He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs (kunariois).”

Yet her pleading only intensifies:

And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs (kunaria) eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table” (15:26-27).

Then her faith, refined by the fires of testing, hear the LORD’s final response:

Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith!

(μεγάλη σου ἡ πίστις)

Let it be to you as you desire.”

(γενηθήτω σοι ὡς θέλεις)

Then receives the LORD’s healing mercies:

And her daughter was healed from that very hour (15:28).

On repetition in hymnody…and…Oh no! emotion in worship

The Jesus Prayer is of vital importance in the Eastern Orthodox tradition in addition to measured repetition in the Divine Liturgy, which all serve to heighten the ‘otherness’ of the Holiness of God in our worship. Even to such a degree that John Meyendorff wrote in his introduction to the writing of St. Germanus of Constantinople (634 – 733), On the Divine Liturgy,

We must be able to visualize the liturgy Germanus is describing to understand properly what he says, for it is chiefly the visual aspects of the rite which he explains. And the visual aspects of the Byzantine liturgy in Hagia Sophia, the cathedral church of the capital city of the empire, were impressive. It is precisely this strong visual effect, rather than any rational discourse, which caused Vladimir's emissaries (from Russia to Constantinople, A.D. 987) to report:

We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it.

We only know that God dwells there among men..."

Now, given this importance in the early Eastern (may we say, Patristic) forms of worship, we can ask whether there was a place for repetition in pre-Christian forms of Jewish worship? As a personal aside, I think of a family holding hands dancing in a circle outside of the wailing wall in Jerusalem singing out in repetition a Jewish hymn. Or, more objectively, we could look at recent work of Stephen De Young, Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Century, where he documents the following regarding Paul’s experiential vision of the risen Christ:

Saint Paul’s personal practices of prayer and piety frame his understanding of his Damascus experience as a prophetic call. The most obvious difference between the experiences of St. Paul and the prophets is that while prophetic calls in the Old Testament involve a vision of Yahweh, St. Paul’s is a vision of Jesus Christ.

Relatedly, the greatest difference proposed between the religion of the Old Covenant and Christianity is the monotheism of the prophets over against the apostolic proclamation of the deity of Christ. Rather than representing a point of discontinuity, St. Paul’s experience reveals to us how he first made the identification of Christ as Yahweh, the God of Israel. The apostolic religion, as presented in the New Testament, is based on an apostolic vision, a vision in which later generations of Christians, particularly ascetics, would seek to share (p. 20).

IV. Merkabah (“chariot”) mysticism

De Young then relates Paul’s experiences to a form of Jewish mysticism known as Merkabah (“chariot”) mysticism:

Saint Paul lived during the earliest period of development of what would later be called Merkabah (“chariot”) mysticism within the Second Temple Jewish world. This mystical element of first-century Judaism would later be pruned from the Rabbinic Jewish tradition, surviving only within Christianity. The Merkabah or Chariot tradition refers specifically to Yahweh’s throne-chariot in the vision of Ezekiel (see Ezekiel 1), which was carried in flight by four living creatures who bore the faces of an ox, a lion, an eagle, and a human.

Because the first temple had already been destroyed by the time the Book of Ezekiel was composed, Ezekiel sees the divine throne in the heavens from which Yahweh governs creation rather than the God of Israel enthroned in the temple with the altar as His footstool, as Isaiah had. In the Second Temple period in which St. Paul lived, when Israel was no longer in exile, this vision became the paradigm by which future visions were interpreted, as a vision of Israel’s God insofar as a human person could experience it without losing his or her life (p. 20-21).

He continues,

Merkabah mysticism, then, involved meditating on Ezekiel’s vision in the hopes of seeing what he had seen. Although most who practiced this form of mysticism admitted never receiving such a vision, accounts of those who did were recorded in apocalyptic literature of the Second Temple period, in which a common grammar to describe these visionary experiences began to develop.4 Such narratives often featured a series of heavens, ultimately seven, through which one ascended one by one. Along the way, sojourners were aided by contemplative prayer that centered on the repetition of scriptural texts, most often the Shema (a daily prayer roughly based on Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one”). It was also not uncommon to encounter and communicate with angelic beings while ascending through the different levels of heaven. In the highest and purest form of such visions, the ascent culminated in beholding the throne-chariot of the God of Israel, on which would be seated either the Glory of God or the Angel of the Lord figure (p. 21).

As such,  with the place of mantras and repetition in the Jewish faith together with, for example, the critical place of longform hymnody in the African-American tradition, be it in the nondenominational traditions or in the Anglican manifestations, the question for us is, therefore, Can there be a place for these practices in the modern evangelical context? See here for an actual example of such hymnody, so as to take this question out of the theoretical realm and give it a bit more flesh and blood.

If you watch this video (worship until 1.10.00; sermon 1.30.00), the question which immediately arises is whether all of this is just a sheer emotional display?…which we, as clearly rational and thoroughly Biblical minds, can confirm without exception is absolutely disconnected from the vital presence of the real experience of God?

And just for a historical context, these questions are exactly what the American church had to deal with in the outpouring of the Spirit of God in the First and Second Great Awakenings. See, for example, Jonathan’s Edwards writing, A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton and the Neighboring Towns (1737), written in the midst of the 1734 to 1736 revivals in the towns and churches along the Connecticut River Valley while he was a young pastor of the second-largest church in the New England colonies. That is to say, there was real manifestations of God’s Presence. And there were absolute excesses that had nothing at all to do with the Holiness of God.

There is an old Latin phrase often quoted by the Scholastics:

Abusus no tollit usum (“Abuse does not remove legitimate use”)

And even if we were to play devil’s advocate here and say, “Yes, this all just a method utilized to manipulate the parishioners’ emotions through repetition” (as was actually stated in a recent conversation with a modern hymn writer who will go unnamed), the fact remains that we cannot actually guarantee this is the case. That would constitute point number one.

And point number two would be more in the form of a question:

Could it simply be the case that we have never experienced God’s presence in this way? And if that is something of what is actually going on beneath the surface, then it may be more of an experiential issue rather than a purely theological one.

And with that we bring this little writing to a close with the question:

Experience vs Theology…or an experiential understanding of theology?

To which we respond:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!

1. Outline of the Ladder of Divine Ascent

For further resources on this work, see here with this lecture by Thomas Hopko, which provides an excellent introduction and overview of the work as well as this podcast which offers a line-by-line commentary of the work.

I. The Break with the World

          1. Renunciation

2. Detachment

3. Exile

II. The Practice of the Virtues (The Active Life)

4. Obedience

5. Penitence

6. Remembrance of Death

7. Sorrow

III. The Struggle Against the Passions

(a) Passions That Are Predominantly Non-Physical

8. Anger

9. Malice

10. Slander

11. Talkativeness

12. Falsehood

13. Despondency

(b) Physical and Material Passions

14. Gluttony

15. Lust

16-17. Avarice          

(c) Non-Physical Passions (cont.)

18-20. Insensitivity

21. Fear

22. Vainglory

23. Pride (also Blasphemy)

IV. The Higher Virtues of the Active Life

24. Simplicity

25. Humility

26. Discernment

V. Transition to the Contemplative Life: Union with God

27. Stillness

28. Prayer

29. Dispassion

30. Love