Uncreated light as 'enhypostatic symbol'?

[Max Percy]

Can anyone explain what St. Gegory Palamas means by the uncreated light being an enhypostatic symbol? Is the uncreated light the only example of an enhypostatic symbol or are there other possibilities, for instance, perhaps, the Eucharist?

Thanks

Max Percy

[Max Percy]

Okay, I know every one is waiting with baited breath on this so...

Fr. John Meyendorff states:

"This divine light cannot be contemplated as a hypostasis, that is, as an independent reality, since strictly speaking it has no essence. It can be contemplated only in a hypostasis, i'e', in a personal locus. Here Palamas has in mind the deified saints who by grace show forth in their whole persons the light that transforms them. But the energies are also "enhypostatic" in respect of the Person (hypostasis) of Christ. The light of tabor does not reveal the divine essence, but the second person of the Trinity.

As well as meaning "what exists in another hypostasis", enhypostatic can also mean "what really exists"' that which is genuine or authentic, e.g. of our real adoption as sons by the grace of the Holy Spirit. The first sense of the word goes back to the christology of Leontius of Byzantium, the second to Mark the Monk.