A Journey to Heaven: How the Catholic Church Teaches Us to Prepare for Eternal Life

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       This raises interesting questions of origin concerning especially the liturgy of St. Gregory. For the liturgy of St. Gregory both Sahidic and Bohairic Coptic manuscripts exist, dating to the 6th century or so,[3] while the oldest Greek manuscript which exists for this text, Parisinus Graecus 325 dates from the 14th century.[4] While this would seem to suggest that the liturgy of St. Gregory was written originally in Coptic and then translated into Greek at a later time, internal evidence in the liturgy suggests otherwise. Two prayers in particular in the Greek liturgy of St. Gregory are of interest here: The prayer of the veil in the pre-anaphoral section and the alternate prayer of the bowing of the head in the post-anaphoral section. Both of these prayers are also found in the Byzantine liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil, but it seems that they were not borrowed by the liturgy of St. Gregory from the Byzantine rite, instead these prayers are two of only three in these liturgies that are addressed to Christ, whereas the entirety of the liturgy of St. Gregory is written in this style, making it much more likely that the Byzantine liturgies borrowed from the liturgy of St. Gregory. Even the third prayer in the Byzantine liturgies addressed to Christ, the prayer before the Gospel, may have come from the liturgy of St. Gregory. This textual interaction shows that the Greek liturgy of St. Gregory was well known in the Byzantine rite, and rather early on.[5] Dating this liturgy is also problematic, and relies on the full effect of the address of this liturgy to Christ. While some liturgical families, such as the East Syrian rite, for example, do have prayers addressed to Christ, especially in the anaphora, this is the only liturgy which is addressed to Christ in its entirety. Another element which sets this liturgy apart is its use of the term ὁμοούσιος, the liturgy of St. Gregory seems to be the only Greek language liturgy that uses this term independently in the prayers of the priest.[6] Such a loaded theological term, along with a consistent focus on the divinity of Christ, places this liturgy into the context of the Arian and Pneumatomachian controversies of the late fourth century.

       The liturgy of St. Gregory the Theologian seems, then, to have been written in the environs of Constantinople, or nearby in Cappadocia, in the mid to late fourth century, this is especially tantalizing since that is the time and place in which St. Gregory himself lived and worked. While there is not enough evidence to say that St. Gregory was involved in the writing of the text, the theology and style of the liturgy[7] do suggest that someone who was in his circle, or at least someone very familiar with his writings, wrote this text.

       Nascent Christianity dealt with a number of growing pains, especially in how to express the relationship of the persons of the Trinity to one another. The difficulty in expressing this resulted in a number of major theological controversies, collectively known as the Christological controversies. The first of these controversies began with a presbyter named Arius, whose assertion that Christ was not divine, but rather the first created being reduced the eastern Christian world to chaos.[8] It was to deal with this controversy that the emperor Constantine convened the first Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325.[9] This council condemned the teachings of Arius and composed the initial sections of the Nicene Creed which make Christ’s place in the Trinity clear:[10] καὶ εἰς ἕνα Κύριον Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ τὸν Μονογενῆ, τὸν ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς γεννηθέντα πρὸ πάντων τῶν αἰώνων, Φῶς ἐκ Φωτός, Θεὸν ἀληθινὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ, γεννηθέντα οὐ ποιηθέντα, ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί, δι’ οὗ τὰ πάντα ἐγένετο·[11]

       The term ὁμοούσιος is not found in Scripture, which made using it in the Creed a rather contentious subject at the Council.[12] The adoption of the term ὁμοούσιος “of one essence” is an example of the interaction of early Christianity with the world of Hellenistic philosophy into which it arose.[13] Christianity had come into a world whirling with religious and philosophical movements. Stoics, Cynics, Epicureans, Neoplatonists, Hermetics the traditional state religions of Rome and the Greek city states, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Egyptian religion in the form of the Isis cult, the Orphic cult, and other nascent religions like the cult of Mithras. From early on, Christianity had used the language of Greek philosophy, especially Neoplatonism, to express theological ideas, the Christian Neoplatonist Origen, for example, is perhaps the most famous example of this.

       In the fourth century, several notable theologians, known as the Cappadocian fathers, worked in the Neoplatonic tradition and helped to craft the theological framework of the eastern Christian church.[14] St. Gregory the Theologian was one of these Cappadocian fathers, along with St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa. Already the programmatic use of the term ὁμοούσιος in the liturgy of St. Gregory shows that the Neoplatonism of Gregory himself is reflected in the text,[15] and suggest that Neoplatonism may have other influences on the text as well.

       In Ennead 1.6, Plotinus discusses the nature of beauty. Beauty is an aspect of the One, which Plotinus also terms “the Good.” The philosophical life, in Neoplatonism, as it is in Platonism,[17] is a journey on the “upward way” in order to approach the One, and it is to this being that all are naturally drawn.. “Our journey is to the Good. “[18] This idea of ascent is integral in the understanding of the spiritual life in eastern Christian thought, in Gregory of Nyssa, the sould is: “drawn upwards toward Him as if by a rope.”[19] This movement upwards occurs once the soul puts off “the varied impulses of its nature,”[20] the “appetite for what is lacking.”[21] This parallels Plotinus’ understanding of a three-part movement toward the good that only begins with the putting off of that which is unworthy: “First, is conversion from the lower life. Second, those who already gain a footprint in the upper sphere may advance still further, until they reach the topmost peak of the Noetic (pure Intellectual) realm.”[22] It is once the soul has turned and put off these impulses “that we have put on in our descent” that the soul can move upward toward its goal, which is the Good. If the soul has not put off these impulses, it can be led astray because it is unable to recognize the Good: “if the soul is deceived of the good, because hope has tricked it with some imitation of beauty, the memory which follows the experience turns into shame.”[23] The perversion of the soul’s natural movement toward the good persists in the Orthodox understanding of sin, which is as ἁμάρτια “missing the mark” more than a breaking of a rule. The movement toward the good is reflected too in the understanding of salvation in eastern Christian thought, θέοσις, becoming like God by grace through an eternal upward journey towards God.[24]

       Liturgy forms a microcosm of the spiritual life in Orthodox theology, one that is also marked by the Neoplatonic movement upward. Where the goal of journey of the spiritual life is God, the goal of the journey of the liturgy is participation in the Eucharist. This understanding of liturgy makes in unnecessary to pick any one particular place or phrase as the point at which the particles of bread and wine transform into the Body and Blood of Christ.[25] Instead it is the participation in the liturgy as a whole, as a journey, that brings the congregation as a whole and each as an individual upward: “as if by a rope” and allows for participation in the heavenly liturgy.

       Already the first prayer of the liturgy reflects this Neoplatonic idea of movement, This prayer seem to be original to the text,[26] and so provides a possible glimpse into how the author adapts this idea of movement to a liturgical setting.

       The prayer begins by identifying the goal of the liturgy: Ὁ ἐπισκεψάμενος ἡμᾶς ἐν ἐλέει καὶ οἰκτιρμοῖς, Δέσποτα Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, καὶ χαρισάμενος ἡμῖν παῤῥησίαν, τοῖς ταπεινοῖς καὶ ἁμαρτωλοῖς καὶ ἀναξίοις δούλοις σου παραστῆναι τῳ ἁγίῳ σου θυσιαστηρίῳ, καὶ προσφέρειν σοι τὴν φοβερὰν καὶ ἀναίμακτον Θυσίαν…[27] The goal is the offering of the gifts, the Eucharist. There is some ambiguity, however, the author does not specify from where Christ is looking from. This allows a blurring in the narrative levels of the prayer. Where there are three levels: 1. the priest; 2. the altar where the sacrifice takes place and 3. Christ, the ambiguity blurs the level of the altar and Christ into one. These levels are further blurred when the priest says: Ἵνα ἀκατακρίτως προσελθὼν κατενώπιον τῆς δόξης σου, καταξιωθῶ τῆς σκέπης σου καὶ τῆς ἐλλάμψεως τοῦ παναγίου σου Πνεύματος…[28] When does the priest come “into the presence of Your glory…,” but when he stands “around Your Holy Altar” to offer the Eucharist? The blurring of the narrative allows the author to turn the physical movement of the priest into the altar to celebrate the Eucharist into a microcosm of the movement towards Christ in the spiritual life.

       By paralleling the movement of the priest into the altar with the movement toward the Good, the author also reframes the requests for purification that occur in these prayers. These are not static, but form an integral, dynamic, part of the movement toward Christ.

The movement occurs, seemingly inevitably, the priest is drawn “as if by a rope” toward the altar and toward Christ. The outcome of this movement is in question, however, and the purification here allows for a movement not only upward toward Christ, but also from unworthiness to worthiness. The quotation from Psalm 50, also creates a sense of movement, from the participation in the Old Testament sacrifice, to the Eucharistic sacrifice of the New Testament.

       The upward movement in the first prayer finds its fulfillment in the second prayer. Here the priest has been purified and, in reaching the altar, has arrived at Christ’s narrative level:

       The movement, the Neoplatonic movement upward, created in the first two prayers of the liturgy foreshadows what comes in the rest of the liturgy, the movement toward and the participation in the Eucharist.