The Deification of Man: St Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition

Publication Data: Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984
Format: softcover
Number of Pages: 137
Dimensions (l × w × h): 21.6 cm × 14.0 cm × 0.8 cm
ISBN-13: 978‒0‒88141‒027‒3
ISBN-10: 0‒88141027‒6

   
Georgios I. Mantzaridis
Translated from the Greek by Liadain Sherrard
with a foreword by Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia

Number Two of Contemporary Greek Theologians

“In this careful and scholarly study, Professor Mantzaridis sets clearly before us many of the elements in Palamite theology that have proved especially illuminating for present-day Orthodox thinking. He shows us St Gregory Palamas as an ‘existential’ theologian, appealing not to abstract theories but to the living experience of the saints. We see how Palamas upholds a ‘synthetic’ view of the human person, regarding man as an integral unity of the physical and the spiritual: the divine image in man involves his body as well as his soul, and precisely because he has a body man stands not lower but higher than the angels; the body as well as the soul is called to share in the eschatological vision of the divine light. [...]We see also how, in his doctrine of theosis, Palamas applies the distinction-in-unity between the divine essence and the divine energies: God’s mystery and transcendence are safeguarded, and pantheism is repudiated; but at the same time God’s dynamic involvement in the created order is everywhere underlined, and the possibility is affirmed of a direct, unmediated vision ‘face to face.’”
—“Foreword”

CONTENTS

Foreword
Introduction
Chapter I
THE FOUNDATION OF THE TEACHING ON MAN’S DEIFICATION
   1. The Divine Image in Man
   2. The Regeneration of Human Nature in Christ
   3. The Communion of Man with God in the Holy Spirit
Chapter II
THE SACRAMENTAL AND ECCLESIOLOGICAL NATURE OF DEIFICATION
   1. The Sacraments as a Means of Man’s Deification
   2. The Sacrament of Baptism
   3. The Holy Eucharist
   4. The Church as a Communion of Deification
Chapter III
THE MORAL ASPECT OF DEIFICATION
   1. The Nature of the Moral Life
   2. The Fulfilment of God’s Commandments
   3. Ascetic Practice and Dispassion
Chapter IV
THE MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE OF DEIFICATION
   1. Prayer
   2. The Vision of the Uncreated Light
   3. Participation in and Knowledge of God
Chapter V
THE CONSUMMATION OF DEIFICATION
   1. Resurrection and Regeneration
   2. The Vision of God “Face to Face”
EPILOGUE
SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY
GLOSSARY
ABBREVIATIONS