The One, Adonai

"In his unfathomable love, God became what we are, that he might make us what he is." --Saint Irenaeus, (125-202 C.E.)

As more and more the Way of the Christ is considered, it becomes clear that a central figure, the Christian notion of a monism, is relatively new in history. What, however, some may wish to argue is that Christianity is set apart, and unto itself, through the extensive belief in a creative, and personally loving life force, a god, who makes, yet is in itself already fully fashioned. A creator who exists, one, whole and complete.

This One makes himself known as a lover, as one speaking to his beloved. The intimate, personal nature of the Spirit, this god of love has moved around the world, encircling humanity from all the ends of the earth. As Judaism prepares to enter into the year 5,770 C.E. (Sept.2009-Sept.2010), the faithful remain as a testament to this one God, this one book, Torah:

Deep Within

Deep within I will plant my Way,
not on stone, but in your heart.

Follow me, I will bring you back.
you will be my own,
and I will be your God.

I will give you a new heart,
a new spirit within you
For I will be your strength.

Seek my face
and see your God,
for I will be your hope.

Return to me
with all your heart,
and I will bring you back.

Words inspired from:
Nev'im: Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 36-26; Joel 2:12
written in this version as lyrics by David Haas

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Orthodoxy and the Hellenization of the Jews

"...Jewish Palestine had already been under Hellenistic rule and its resulting cultural influences for some 300 years by the time of Jesus of Nazareth's arrival." --Dr. Martin Hengel, Ph.d

Recalling that in antiquity Greece was not the unified nation as we think of it today, but a nation of city-states (polis), each have to a large measure its own sovereignty. Thus a citizen of one polis was not a de facto citizen of any other, and once obtaining permission to leave one's own polis, travel to another was a potentially hazardous undertaking. After a citizen departed the gates of his own polis, where he held citizenship, he passed out into a place of limbo while en route. Traveling to the next place, one would not necessarily be admitted, since one was a foreigner in that place.

Despite the political alliances and organization of ancient Greek cities, Greek learning, thought and education was widespread and prominent throughout the middle east. "Hellenization was so widespread" that Jewish Palestine was more accurately described as Hellenistic Judaism, writes Constantelos in his book, Understanding the Greek Orthodox Church."Its force, which embraced almost every sphere of life... was an expression of the power of the Greek spirit which penetrated and shaped everything, expressively and receptively." Thus Greek was the language, long in common use by all. The Hebrew tongue of the Jew's forefather was nearly forgotten. The coming of the Christ was approximately 360 years into Greek-Roman rule.

Judaism did not rebuke Hellenization. Nor did the emerging Jewish Christians reject wholesale the thoughts, perceptions, philosophy, life-style or politics of Hellenism. Rather the Christian-Jewish sect embraced it. Greek and Roman culture through subsequent centuries became part and parcel of Orthodox belief and imagination.

Thus Christianity appears in the world not as a reaction against Hellenism, but in concert, as a new and empowered spiritual force; it united the Greek and Roman world thoroughly. The doctrine of God was brought to the Christians by way of an already established view that long played a part in Hellenism. Monism was much in vogue and debated by many scholars in antiquity. God was spoken of as the 'one who contained all'.

Many elements of Christianity that would claim to be uniquely her own, in fact, stretch far back into the ancient world; these ideas have had a long reign in the world of ideas. The Church would like to claim, for example, that she has the origins of the name (logos); that divine revelation was limited to the Jewish-Christians. They used established Greek thought to attack polytheism and to explain elements of the Torah, which reflect a sometimes different conception of the natural world. "Natural revelation is a very important element in several religions," argues Constantelos.

While ancient Greece accepted polytheism, the "new religion," Judeo-Christianity, advanced the cause of the Oneness, and her corresponding view of God as a mono-theism. Yet ancient Greece was pluralistic in her beliefs. No single philosophical idea was dominant. Both monotheism and polytheism were widespread. Greek civilization was correspondingly in flux.

Choice (heresy, haeresis) was thought the right of the Greek in the polis; later this notion of choice developed further into a sense of free-will, and remained part of Orthodox teaching, while other ideas related to the free Hellenistic spirit of the earliest eras were deemed heresy and expunged. The developing Orthodoxy saw life, and God everywhere.

God was, in the Christian mind, uncontainable (achoretos); Life is a mystery, suffused with this most holy of spirits. Creation is sanctified by the presence of the deity in man and nature. "This state reveals itself in human consciousness." For this reason temples, altars and other religious materials were put into use by the Christian community, reminding themselves that the presence of God was everywhere.The development of an idea of the personal, loving Spirit in the Christian mind further distinguished Orthodox Christians from others in the ancient world.

Consequently, through the Hellenization of the Jews, the stage was set for the timely entry of the Messiah, Emmanuel, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ. "Greek monotheism developed progressively after the sixth century B.C.E (BC). It was now Aristotle, the Greek thinker, who wrote, "God, being one, yet has many names, being called after all the various conditions which he, himself inaugurates."

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Greek Orthodoxy and the Holy Trinity

"God is not only the supreme, inconceivable reality, but also the principle of all realities.... he is the Oneness of all creation" --Greek philosopher, Plotinus born in 205 C.E. (A..D.)

The Orthodox Christian view of the Holy Trinity is essential to both Orthodox Christians, and to Roman Catholic Christians alike. Unlike newer, protestant Christian sects, the earliest church not only was a Jewish church in its foundations and practices, but also a church that developed with the idea of the "three in One," a common description for the mystery that is the Holy Trinity. The Greek philosopher, Plotinus, was another important influence in the development in monism, (the idea of the Oneness in the Christ) within Church thought.

Some early movements in Greek thought, after the sixth century B.C.E., "emphasized man's ability to work creatively upon his environment and to assert himself... material wealth, power, along with knowledge and intelligence were not considered a universal good," writes Demetrios Constantelos in his book, Understanding the Greek Orthodox Church. Rather it is primarily the realm of the divine that defines the limits of mankind. However human knowledge and power are limited; often humanity finds itself trapped into bondage of many types as a result. Thinkers like Socrates and Sophacles made distinctions between the natural world and the man-made world. A further distinction over the fullness of time developed in understanding between the everyday world and the eternal world, a division that Plotinus later addressed in his work.

For the most part, Greek thinkers rejected rationalism and abject materialism; some emphasized the greatness and fullness of created beings, man in particular. Long held in Greek intellectual tradition, it had been the case to consider both the physical and metaphysical aspects of creation as one and whole. This thought carried on into the Christian church. Thus to violate divine rule was, in the Greek mind, to insult and devalue the Creator. Life was to be lived with "progressive knowledge of things divine... on the whole, the dignity and infinite worth of the human person, as he who personifies the heavenly God on earth."

As Orthodoxy developed, and as the early Jewish Christians fell away from the synagogue into their newly formed communities, the ancient notion of monism (monotheism), developed further into a belief that saw no separation between the physical and the spiritual, the natural and certain truths divinely revealed to humanity. Thus, life, in the Orthodox view sees a balance, an equilibrium between the many forces of the world as both inherent and desirable.

In the realm of Christian mysticism, Greek influence is no less apparent. Her (the Church) teachings regarding the Oneness, the return to the deity through salvation are central to the mystical way. Saint Irenius said, "In his unfathomable love, God became what we are, that he might make us what he is." This personal God is therefore understood as one in essence, but three in persons.

This is the foundational understanding of the mystical workings of the Holy Trinity. God is the source; Spirit is the sanctifier, the blessing; the Son is the one living, who works on earth to bring the light of the father-source to all created beings. Intellectual efforts are often made to explain the Trinity; often these words are not helpful. God is the unfathomable; yet he may be known however, through his love, his spirit.

Orthodoxy accepts this mystery as beyond human reasoning. It is then a matter of both faith and experience in the life of a follower of this Way. So in the Orthodox Christian mind, we are all sons and daughters of the One God, The One Spirit, blessed and sanctified in the Anointed One, the Christ.
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An Outrageous Agenda: Be Merciful as Your Lord is Merciful.

"To err is human, to forgive is divine."--Alexander Pope

The Christian in the Bible book of Saint Matthew is exhorted to follow the way of the Lord, the way of his mercies. The Beatitudes sums up the genuine idea of the Messiah, the Christ, and the kingdom very well to the ancient and the modern Judeo-Christian mind.

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land.

Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure of heart: for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

Mercy in Judaism is considered a fundamental act, an act from which all other acts are formed. The Jewish mind sees alms-giving in all its forms as a beautiful thing.

William Shakespeare wrote of mercy:

"The quality of mercy is not strained, it drops as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath; it is twice blessed; It blesses him who gives, and him who takes; it is the mightiest in the mighty; it becomes the enthroned monarch better than his crown; his sceptre shows the force of temporal power, the attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein does sit the dread and fear of Kings; but mercy is above this sceptred sway, it is enthroned in the hearts of kings."

The simple mind contemplates carefully the acts and understandings which lead to mercy, to compassion. To those oddities of self, of soul, defects in understanding; false notions lead away from the heart of the One. All is in the realm of simple understanding, of deep looking and clearer thinking.

Schleiermacher's On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers

"On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers --Schleiermacher"
"God's sole revelation of himself is in Jesus Christ."
--Karl Barth


Writing what many have considered until well into the 20th century, the modern view of Protestant Christianity, Friedrich Schleiermacher's On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers is the seminal writing on many of the now well accepted tenets of Protestant Christiandom.

In sympathy of the Enlightenment ideals of the French Revolution, and with interest in the ideas of English philosopher, Kant, who believed that force creates everything — force, not God, is the creator of nature.

Schleimacher rejected Kant's conception of the “summum bonum [highest good]” as requiring an apportioning of happiness to moral desert, he rejected Kant's connected doctrine of the “postulates” of an afterlife of the soul and God, and developed an anti-Kantian theory of the thorough-going causal determination [cause and effect] of human action, emphasizing the compatibility of this with moral responsibility.

This "neo-Spinozistic" position, Baruch Spinoza's views on God, the world, the human being, and knowledge, serve to ground a moral philosophy centered on the control of the passions leading to virtue and happiness. ( And he was Decartes-like in his view that God creates the world by some arbitrary and senseless act of free will).

For Schleiermacher, God could not have done otherwise; there are no possible alternatives to the actual world, and absolutely no contingency, or spontaneity within that world. Everything is absolutely and necessarily determined. These precepts would subsequently be fundamental to Schleiermacher's most important work in the philosophy of religion, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (1799). In simple terms, he argued that we enjoy the simple feeling or intuition of God.

In 1806 Schleiermacher published the short book, Christmas Eve, a literary work which explores the meaning of Christian love by depicting a German family's celebration of Christmas Eve (in keeping with On Religion's ideal of (Christian) religion as family centered, rather than state-centered.

Schleiermacher divides his ethics into a Doctrine of Goods, a Doctrine of Virtue, and a Doctrine of Duties, treating them in this sequence in order to reflect what he takes to be the greater fundamentality of goods over virtues and of virtues over duties.

Finally he develops and promotes a hierarchy of religions: However, he also arranges the various types of religion in a hierarchy, with animism at the bottom, polytheism in the middle, and monotheistic, or otherwise monoistic religions (monoism is the opposite of dualism) at the top. This hierarchy makes reasonably good sense given his fundamental neo-Spinozism.

More problematic, however, is a further discussion of this hierarchy which he introduces: he identifies Christianity as the highest among the monotheistic or monoistic religions, and in particular as higher than Judaism. His rationale for this is that Christianity introduces “the idea that everything finite requires higher mediation in order to be connected with the divine” (i.e. the higher mediation of Christ).

But this looks contrived. Even if one granted that “higher mediation” was a good thing, do not other monotheistic religions, such as Judaism, share this supposed advantage as well, namely in the form of their prophets? And if the answer is No, because prophets are not themselves divine, then why is the mediator's divinity supposed to be such a great advantage?

In contrast to Schleimacher,
the 20th century Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, held in his famous commentary, Epistle to the Romans published in 1919, that there exists discontinuity between the Christian message, and the world. He rejected the typical liberal points of contact between God and humanity in feeling, or consciousness, or rationality, as well as Roman Catholic tendencies to trust in the Church revealed, or spirituality.

Further, Barth dogmatically argued, on the sinfulness of humanity; God's absolute surpassing of all, and the human inability to know God except through revelation by faith. His objective was to lead theology away from the influence of modern religious philosophy back to the principles of the Reformation, and the prophetic teachings of the Bible.
Modern Christian fundamentalism owes a debt to these ideas.

Barth regarded the Bible, however, not as the actual revelation of God, but as only the record of that revelation. For Barth, God's sole revelation of himself is in Jesus Christ. God is the "wholly other," totally unlike mankind, who are utterly dependent on an encounter with the divine for any understanding of ultimate reality.

Barth saw the task of the church as that of proclaiming the "good word" of God and as serving as the "place of encounter" between God and mankind. Barth regarded all human activity as being under the judgment of that encounter.

Barth's views were increasingly subjected to criticism in the decades following World War II. Some argue that he was too negative in his estimate of mankind and its reasoning powers, and too narrow in limiting revelation to the biblical tradition, thus excluding the non-Christian religions.

He gives such radical priority to God's activity that some critics find human activity and freedom devalued. Barth sees revelation, and salvation as given by God, and true, quite apart from the subjective responses of human beings.

So what does this all mean to the simple mind? Firstly, it comes as an abnegation of the Jewish ancestor of Christianity herself. It is a divorcing, a cutting of that root. In that, these particular Christian theologians see fit to rank believers of faith and cultures around the world; in that, there comes a denial of the dignity of the human person, and the possibility of being. Here free will is devalued.

A modern theological trend which troubles indeed; it is non-ecumenical in nature. As presented in this discussion, the simple mind sees no easy reconciliation between persons.
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Yahweh, Our Father

"I sought the one I love" --Tanakh, Shir Ha-Shirim


Reflecting on the often forgotten or overlooked patrimony of the Christian, the father of whom is Yaweh, el, adonai, G-d, among other names, we in the modern world sometimes feel a disconnect from this vital source of our being. As Catholic and Orthodox Christians, to a varying and lesser degree, Protestant Christians, our heritage of joy, creativity and love owes itself to this very Jewish of fathers: Yaweh, G-d of the Tanakh, or "Old Testament."

Remembering our father ancestor is vital in understanding the whole of the Christian mind. Jesus was a Rabbi, a teacher of the Jewish people. He lived a Jewish life in a Jewish world. The earliest Christians who came to follow him, thought of themselves as very Jewish; they had seen and found the way to G-d's salvation in the Christ. Yet others, Jew and Gentile alike, in their Greek and Roman world, were unconvinced.

Over a period of time, Christian-Jews found themselves persecuted and misunderstood by many; excluded from many Temples, and engaging in new religious devotions, these Christians moved away from their Jewish center. By the first centuries in the Common Era (also referred to as A.D., after death) Christianity emerged from the home of her father, and went forth into the Gentile world. For its part, Judaism very nearly succombed to a process of "Hellenization," that is, Jews were nearly completely subjugated to Greek rule and life; all but losing themselves in the process.

The early Christian church was largely of a Greek or Roman (Latin) character. As time progressed, the more unified Christian church split into what today is referred to as the Orthodox Church, Greek, and the Roman Catholic Church, Roman. However, long before all this happened, there were the Jews and their books, the Tanakh, guiding all their lives in a joyful and loving presence of Yaweh, G-d, our father.

The Jews, as "the people of the book," have been faithful to that book for more than 5,000 years now. What Christians refer to as the Bible, or the "Old Testament," Jews call the Tenakh (תנ״ך). It is divided into Torah (תּוֹרָה), Nev'im (נביאים), and Kethuvim (כְּתוּבִים). The Torah contains the five books of Moses; the Nev'im contains the writings of the Prophets, and the Kethuvim contains other writngs also included within the Jewish Canon.

When we speak of this Jewish father, we read in the Tenakh stories that point to a bold, justice loving, creative, powerful, demanding, covenant making, passionate, tender presence. His love is a free love, a father regarding his creation, a shepherd tending his sheep, a devoted one sacrificing his only son. However, over time, for Christians, among the many, many stories of Yaweh that are contained within the book, writings in Kethuvim are the possibly the most challenging and engaging. To the early Christians, stories such as Lamentations, Job, Ruth, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon, or Shir Ha Shr'im stand out as examples of
G-d's character and inspiration.

Some Christians, and some Christian communities, have lost touch with this ancestor. Their mind has turned to other sources beyond the Tenakh for inspiration, and the Church has split, time and time again. These communities have moved far from this very Jewish father.

In this approaching season of Easter and Pesach, or Passover, the reading of Shir Ha Shir'im (שיר השירים), the Song of Solomon, is traditional. Curiously it is one of two books in which the name of G-d is not mentioned. Song of Songs, Song of Solomon, two of its several names, is often seen quite simply as an intensely erotic love song or story, hence its name.
"The book reveals the warm and innocent satisfaction the ancient Hebrews drew from the physical and emotional relationship of a man and a woman. For the Jews, this relationship has been seen as Yaweh or G-d, the lover and his people, Israel, the Beloved. Christians have often likened the Song to G-d's love for the Church, his Beloved. The Judeo-Christian mystical tradition has viewed the Song a groom, and his passionate love for a bride," notes the Catholic Encylopedia by Peter Stravinskas.

"Upon my couch at night
I sought the one I love--
I sought, but found him not.

I must seek the one I love.
I sought but found him not.
I met the watchmen
who patrol the town.
Have you seen the one I love?
Scarcely had I passed them
when I found the one I love.
I held him fast,
I would not let him go.

Do not wake or rouse
Love until it please!
Who is she that comes up from the desert
like columns of smoke

There is Solomon's couch
Encirlcled by 60 warriors
of the warriors of Israel
All of them trained in warfare.

King Solomon made him a planquin
of wood from Lebanon

Within it was decked with love
By the maidens of Jerusalem
Wearing the crown that his mother
gave him on his wedding day
On his day of bliss

Ah, you are fair, my darling,
Ah, you are fair.
Your eyes are like doves
Behind your veil.
Your lips are like crimson thread
Your mouth is lovely
your breasts are like two fawns
There is no blemish in you
From Lebanon come with me!

You have captured my heart,
my own, my bride.
You have captured my heart.
with one glance of your eyes,
with one coil of your necklace.
How sweet is your love,
My own, my bride!

My beloved took his hand off the latch
and my heart was stirred for him.
I rose to let in my beloved;
my hands dripped Myrrh
I opened the door for my Beloved,
but my beloved had turned and gone.
I was faint because of what he said.
I sought him, but found him not.
I called, but he did not answer.

If you meet my beloved, tell him
that I am faint with love.

I am my beloved's
And his desire is for me.
Come, my beloved,
Let us go into the open;
Let us see if the vine has flowered,
If the pomegranates are in bloom.
There I will give my love to you.

If only it could be as with a brother,
Then I could kiss you
when I met you in the street,
and no one would despise me.
I would let you drink of the spiced wine.

Let me be a seal upon your heart,
like the seal upon your hand.
for love is as fierce as death,
Passion as mighty as Shoel;
its darts are darts of fire,
a blazing flame.

Vast floods cannot quench love,
Nor rivers drown it.
If a man offered all his wealth for love,
He would be laughed to scorn.

O, you who linger in the garden,
A lover is listening;
Let me hear your voice.
Hurry, my beloved,
Swift as a gazelle or a young stag,
To the hills of spices!"

--Translation from Tanakh, the Holy Scriptures
The Jewish Translation Society,1985