The nature of Christ's risen body according to the fathers

[Alvin Kimel]

Does anyone know of any of the Fathers who address specifically the nature of our Lord's risen body?

I know that St John of Damascus insists that the "right hand of God," to which Christ has ascended, is not a location but the power of God.

Anyone else? TIA.

[Alvin Kimel]

I should add, I am particularly interested in statements from the Fathers that would support the position of Evdokimov that the ascended body of our Lord now exists in a state of dematerialization. He writes:


The "heavenly" state of the humanity of Christ is a transcensus which prohibits us from applying cosmic ontology and its laws to him. This state is not at all a disincarnation but a dematerialization. According to the fathers, after the Fall material is a condensation, a thickening of the spiritual and this is why, even after the Fall, "in sensible things, all is intelligible," according to St John Chrysostom, the assumption of the sensible into intelligibility is normative. The "glorified" body of Christ is beyond the still material world. It is a state in which the soul posseses the energies of corporeality. It is not that there is no more any ubiquitas or omnipresence, for the heavenly body transcends every place, it not everywhere because it is outside of, beyond spade, all in keeping the power of manifesting itself in a given place and anywhere else in space for, "All power is given to me in heaven and on earth" (Mt 28:18)

[Teo Kia Choong]

If God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, then logically, the use of 'at the right hand' of God can only exist as a spatial metaphor. It is the same as saying the statement that 'the Holy Spirit is in you'. We do not then have such an idea of the Holy Spirit literally having legs, or taking over control of a person's will and consciousness as to make him caught up in an ecstatic experience which is self-forgetting. What I am interested then is the significance of the spatial metaphor of "at the right hand" in the Christian cosmology.

[Alvin Kimel]

If God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, then logically, the use of 'at the right hand' of God can only exist as a spatial metaphor.

This is true but there's still the problem of Christ's risen body. Where do we locate it? Is it locatable? In the Western Church the scholastics and the Swiss reformers understood St Augustine as teaching the local presence of the risen Jesus in heaven. This then posed a problem for the Eucharist.

Bulgakov and Evdokimov, on the other hand, teach that Christ's risen body transcends all and thus cannot be said to be locally present anywhere. Thus it becomes easy for them to identify the consecrated bread and wine as the deified Body and Blood. Both theologians believe they are speaking with the support of the Fathers, but neither actually cites them. Surely someone in the the Patristic/Byzantine period addressed this issue.

[John Curtis Dunn]

St. Gregory of Nazianzia in his teaching on Holy Baptism describes the ascended body of Christ as a divine body.


"...and ascended into heaven so that He might take you with Him who were prostrate; who will come again in His glorious parousia, to judge the living and the dead; who then will be no longer in the flesh nor yet incorporeal, but will have a more divine body of a kind that He alone knows."

john

[Richard Leigh]

Dear Alvin,

It sounds like Evdokimov's Chrysostom supports Luther's doctrine of Ubiquity which my sources (Lohse and Hagglund) say stems from Nominalism, and which Melancthon rejected on the grounds that it was not supported in the Fathers. We like it though.

Regarding the "Right hand of God" being metaphorical, or at least not locatable, see Basil the Great in On the Holy Spirit 6:15 where he says, "This expression, 'on My right hand'..., does not, as some contend, indicate the lower place, but equality of relation; it is not understood physically,...but Scripture puts befor us the magnificence of the dignity of the Son by the use of digninfied language indicating the seat of honor."

Richard

[Richard McBride]

monochos: The Fathers re Christ's Risen Body

Dear Father Kimel:

You have such an interesting curiosity, ranging as it does, over a large variety of subjects. Is this curiosity spurred, in part, by that all consuming need to produce the Sunday homilies? [Just curious]

Sorry I can't contribute to your question, but it is close enough to a comment by Saint John Climacus, that I use your search as an excuse to send in this lovely little double-entendre:

"A body changes in its activity as a result of contact with another body. How therefore could there be no change in someone who with innocent hands has touched the Body of God?" [The Ladder of Divine Ascent; Step 28; p.280 of the Paulist Press ed.]

This immediately recalls the instant change which took place in Apostle Thomas, as he put his hands into the blessed Wounds.

But also, Saint John's comment refers to the Host in the Divine Liturgy. And indeed, this is one of the nature's of our Lord's risen body, is it not?

richard mcb

[Alvin Kimel]

I agree with you, Richard (Leigh) (have to distinguish between the Richards!). But perhaps the better paralllel is between the Eastern Fathers and Martin Chemnitz, who said that Christ can be darn well present wherever he chooses to be present! :-)

[Fr Averky]

Dear Alvin,

If you basically agree with Chemnitz, then why are you asking the question? -just curious. What do Anglicans say about this? I really know nothing about Anglican theology, so I would appreciate a little enlightening on this. Thank you!

Fr. A.

[Fr Averky]

I remember from my early seminary classes that the Hieromonk who taught us spoke briefly about the fact that when Mary of Magdala saw Christ after His resurrection, He would not allow her to touch Him, because what she saw was His "glorified" body. He had risen from the dead, but He still had been slain. As to the "quality" or essence of what His body might have been, I do not recall. His glorified body was again manifested when He came trhrough the wall of the room wherein His disciples were. To prove that it was He, later He had the Apostle Thomas touch His wounds in order that he might believe, showing that He is God, and that He had retained His human nature after His death and resurrection.

Fr. A.

[Alvin Kimel]

If you basically agree with Chemnitz, then why are you asking the question? -just curious.

Did I say that I agreed with Chemnitz? And even if I do, why shouldn't I ask about the Patristic and Byzantine foundation and background of Evdokimov and Bulgakov's theology of the eucharistic presence? I'm afraid I don't understand your comment, but it sounds insulting.

[Alvin Kimel]

In the passage from Evdokimov that I cited above, Evdokimov asserts that according to the Fathers, matter is a result of the Fall, a condensation of the spiritual. Which Fathers say this and where?

[Photini]

I am in the last pages of a book by Met. Heirotheos Vlachos.."Life After Death." On page 322, there is a paragraph...It may not really be relevant, but here it is:


"The tragicalness of creation after the fall of Adam and its slipping into decay is beautifully described by St Symean the New Theologian. He writes that after Adam's expulsion from Paradise the whole creation did not want to look at man and was possessed by anger against him. Creation did not want to be subject to him. The sun did not want to shine, nor the moon to send out light, the stars to gleam, the springs to gush, the rivers to flow. The air did not want to give breath to man, beasts and all the animals were embittered against man beacause he had lost the glory which he had. The sky wanted to fall right down on man and the earth could not bear to support him. Just then God interevened with His love and His philanthropy, and with a view to a reformation, through the Economy of the incarnation of His Son, restrained the creation by His power and checked the impetuousness of the creatures against man, until man should become spiritual, incorruptible and immortal, so that creation might also be freed from corruption, be renewed with him, made incorruptible and spiritual."

In Christ,
Photini

[Fr Averky]

My dear Alvin,

You are notably easily insulted. My question is sincere, based on the context of your reply to Richard, and I am sincere in wanting to know what ther Anglican position is on your question -is my question also and insult?

Fr.A.

[Fr Averky]

Dear Richard McB.

Please forgive me, but we have no "Host" in the Divine Liturgy; it is called the "Lamb," and that comes from the difference in shape from the Latin host, and that the words to describe it as such are used in the Mystery of the Proskemidia. Also, the Latin Host is unleavened, and the Lamb is leavened.
Sincerely,

Fr. A.

[Alvin Kimel]

I remember from my early seminary classes that the Hieromonk who taught us spoke briefly about the fact that when Mary of Magdala saw Christ after His resurrection, He would not allow her to touch Him, because what she saw was His "glorified" body. He had risen from the dead, but He still had been slain. As to the "quality" or essence of what His body might have been, I do not recall. His glorified body was again manifested when He came trhrough the wall of the room wherein His disciples were. To prove that it was He, later He had the Apostle Thomas touch His wounds in order that he might believe, showing that He is God, and that He had retained His human nature after His death and resurrection.

Bulgakov makes a distinction between Christ's pre-Ascension body and his post-Ascension body. Here is a sample of his thinking:


The direct connection with the world is terminated with the Ascension, but this connection itself is not destroyed. The fact that the Lord ascends with his body signifies that his connection with the world not only is not terminated but acquires a definitive indestructibility for all eternity. The sitting of the Son in heaven at the right hand of the Father with his body signifies the possession of the whole power of corporeality, the spiritual energy of the body. This is the spiritual body, which from the point of view of earthly materiality is not even a body, for it is completely free of matter, though the latter is obedient to its commands. This de-materialization of the spiritual body, which fully retains the capacity of a new re-materialization, is differnt from a de-incarnation. Ontologically, the latter is wholly opposite to the spiritual body, for it totally denies the possibility of a new re-materialization, overcoming the latter only in an illusory manner ... The doctrine of the spiritual body developeed here also has nothing in common with the Protestant ubiquitas, according to which Christ's body, not being limited to a particular place, is present everywhere, ubique, like the cosmic ether or electricity, although this presence becomes clear and palpable only in communion. The Lord with his spiritual body is not present in any particular place, because in his supraspatiality he is, in general, above all places; but, by his will, he can enter into space and then manifest himself in a definite place. The theory of ubiquitas with reference to the Eucharist is marred by the very same Catholic materialism that it wishes to overcome.

Is this mere speculation on Bulgakov's part, or does he have patristic and Byzantine support for this interpretation?