St John Chrysostom on Eve's Sin

Alice C. Linsley


Eve was created to enjoy a unique relationship with the Creator. Being made in the Creator's Image, she enjoyed communion with the Creator as no other living thing. She also enjoyed a special intimacy with Adam, from whom she was made while he slept.

In considering Eve, we note that she had two trustworthy relationships in her life: one with her Creator and another with the man from whom she was created. In both relationships, Eve experienced a unique and special existence. She was a woman of high estate whose life was encompassed by great potential for fulfillment and joy.

What happened with Eve? Why did she act against her high estate and against the trustworthy relationships that were to bring her fulfillment? Why did she listen to the serpent’s lies instead of listening to God in whose image she was made? In listening to the creature rather than to the Creator, Eve became subjected to a creature of low estate. She exchanged the natural for the unnatural. So the first trespass was against the order of creation.

Likewise, instead of listening to God, Adam listened to his wife's delusion and became like the serpent, eating dust all the days of his toil. Adam’s fall recalls his origins from dust: "And God formed man of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Gen. 2:7).

St. John Chrysostom, one of the greatest biblical expositors of Christianity, explains that Eve's action is that of exchanging truth for falsehood. He wrote:

"...she revealed the secret of the instruction and told him what God had said to them, and thus received from him a different kind of advice, bringing ruin and death. That is to say, when the woman said, 'We do eat of every tree of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, Do not eat or even touch it,' that evil creature, enemy of our salvation, in his turn offered advice at odds with that of the Lord. You see, whereas the loving God had forbidden their tasting that fruit on account of his great care for them lest they be subject to death for their disobedience, that evil creature said to the woman 'You will not truly die.'[ Gen 3:4 ] What kind of excuse could anyone find appropriate to the woman for being prepared to give her complete attention to the creature that spoke with such temerity? I mean, after God said, 'Do not touch it lest you die,' he said, 'You will not truly die.' Then, not being satisfied with contradicting the words of God, he goes on to misrepresent the Creator as jealous so as to be in a position to introduce deceit by this means, get the better of the woman and carry out his own purpose. 'You will not truly die,' he said. 'God, you see, knows that on the day that you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.' [ Gen 3:5 ] See all the bait he offered: he filled the cup with a harmful drug and gave it to the woman, who did not want to recognize its deadly character. She could have known this from the outset, had she wanted; instead, she listened to his word, that God forbade their tasting the fruit for that reason 'He knows that your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good from evil' puffed up as she was with the hope of being equal to God and evidently dreaming of greatness.

Such, after all, are the stratagems of the enemy: when ever he lures someone to a great height through deceit, at that very point he casts them down into a deep abyss. The woman, you see, had dreams of equality with God and hastened to taste the fruit; she had evidently set her mind and her thinking on that goal, and she thought of nothing else than how to drink the cup prepared for her by the wicked demon. That is to say, listen to the account Scripture gives so as to learn that she was bent on this course after receiving that deadly poison through the serpent's advice. 'The woman saw that the tree was good for eating, pleasing for the eyes to behold, and attractive to contemplate. She took some of its fruit and ate it.' [ Gen 3:6 ] True it is that 'evil converse corrupts good behavior.' [ I Cor 15:33 ] Why was it, after all, that before that wicked demon's advice she entertained no such idea, had no eyes for the tree, nor noticed its attractiveness? Because she feared God's direction and the punishment likely to follow from tasting the fruit; now, how ever, when she was deceived by this evil creature into thinking that not only would they not come to any harm from this but would even be equal to God, then evidently hope of gaining the promised reward drove her to taste it. Not content to remain within her own proper limits, but considering the enemy and foe of her salvation to be more trustworthy than God's words, she learned shortly afterwards through her own experience the lethal effect of such advice and the disaster brought on them from tasting the fruit. The text says, remember, "She saw the tree was good for eating, pleasing for the eyes to behold and attractive to contemplate," and she reasoned with herself, probably from the devil's deceit which he proposed to her through the serpent: If the tree is good for eating, can so delight the eyes and has some indefinable attractiveness about it, while tasting it provides us with the highest esteem, and we will have honor equal to the Creator, why should we not taste it?

Do you see how the devil led her captive, handicapped her reasoning, and caused her to set her thoughts on goals beyond her real capabilities, in order that she might be puffed up with empty hopes and lose her hold on the advantages already accorded her? 'She took some of its fruit,' the text says, 'and ate it; she gave it to her husband also, and they both ate it. Their eyes were opened, and they realized they were naked.' [ Gen 3:6, Gen 3:7 ] O woman, what have you done? You have not only followed that deadly counsel literally and trampled on the law imposed on you by God, spurning his instruction and treating it with such displeasure as to be discontented with such great enjoyment, but you have also presumed to take fruit from the one tree which the Lord bade you not to lay hold of, you put faith in the words of the serpent, you regarded its advice worthy of greater heed than the instruction given you by the Creator, and have been ensnared in such awful deception as to be incapable of any claim to excuse. Surely you're not, after all, of the same nature as the one who offered you the advice? He happened in fact to be one of those under your control, one of the servants placed by providence under your authority. Such being the case, why did you disgrace yourself, departing from the one for whom you were created, as whose helpmate you were made, in whose dignity you had equal share, one with him in being and one in language why then did you agree to enter into converse with the serpent, and by means of this creature accept the advice of the devil, which was plainly at variance with the Creator's injunction, without being turned aside from such evil intent, but rather presuming to taste the fruit through hope of what had been promised?

Well and good, then: so you cast yourself into such an abyss and robbed yourself of your preeminent dignity. Why did you make your husband a partner in this grievous disaster, why prove to be the temptress of the person whose help mate you were intended to be, and why for a tiny morsel alienate him along with yourself from the favor of God? What excess of folly led you to such heights of presumption? Wasn't it sufficient for you to pass your life without care or concern, clad in a body yet free of any bodily needs? to enjoy everything in the garden except for one tree? to have all visible things under your own authority and to exercise control over them all? Did you instead, deceived as you were by vain hopes set your heart on reaching the very pinnacle of power? On that account you will discover through experience itself that not only will you fail to achieve that goal but you will rob your self and your husband of everything already given you, you will fall into such depths of remorse that you will regret your failed intentions while that wicked demon, responsible for concocting that deadly plan, will mock and insult you for falling victim to him and incurring the same fate as he. I mean just as he had ideas above his station, was carried away to a degree beyond what was granted him, and so fell from heaven to earth, in just the same way did you have in mind to proceed, and by your transgression of the command were brought to the punishment of death, giving free rein to your own envy, as some sage has said: 'By the devil's envy death entered the world.' [ Wisdom 2:24 ]

Our text says, 'She gave it to her husband also, and they both ate it. Their eyes were opened.' Great was the man's indifference, too: even though like him she was human and his wife as well, still he should have kept God's law intact and given it preference before her improper greed, and not joined her as a partner in her fall nor deprived himself of such benefits on account of a brief pleasure, offending his benefactor who had also shown him so much loving kindness and had regaled him with a life so free of pain and relieved of all distress.

After all, were you not free to enjoy everything else in the garden in generous measure? Why did you not choose for yourself to keep the command that was so easy? Instead, you probably listened to the promise contained in the deadly advice coming from your wife, and buoyed up in your turn with hope you readily shared in the food. As a result you incur the penalty from each other, and experience teaches you not to place greater importance on the wicked demon's advice than on God.

Read all of St. John's commentary here.



Related reading:  The Biblical Meaning of Eve; Hierarchy in Creation: The Biblical View; Image of God or Imaging God?

What is the Priesthood?

Alice C. Linsley


The unique nature of the priesthood is inextricably linked to the nature of God.  God is the first priest (Gen. 3:21) and the priesthood, like God, is eternal.  This is what stands behind the biblical references to Melchizedek, of whose ruler-priest line came the Son of God, Jesus Christ, our great High Priest, who promises in the Book of Revelation to be with us always. The question of "What is a Priest?" is taken up in another article, which I recommend reading before this one.

The priesthood of Jesus Christ is the single true Form of the Priesthood. Every authentic priest, either living before or after Christ’s Incarnation, stands as a sign to this one priesthood. The priesthood is unique (not to be confused with the office of shaman) and it is impossible to change it in any essential way. It involves an ontological pattern that is beyond human contrivance. It is a benefit divinely bestowed. All attempts to change the priesthood, such as developed out of Protestant theology or the ordination of women, corrupt the sign so that it no longer points to the Messiah. The Church itself has no authority to change the ontological pattern since the one Priesthood existed before the Church and, though acknowledged by the Apostles, was not established by them.

The priesthood existed before the time of Abraham, as is evidenced by Melchizedek, the Priest-King of Salem. He is the first priest mentioned in the Bible, but clearly Melchizedek does not represent the beginning of the institution of priest, but rather an advanced level of development. This being so, the priesthood was not established by the Apostles nor is its authority drived from the Apostles, though apostolic succession through the laying on of hands is part of the proper ordination of priests. According to St. John Chrysostom, the priesthood "is ranked among heavenly ordinances. And this is only right, for no man, no angel, no archangel, no other created power, but the Paraclete himself ordained this succession..." (On the Priesthood, 1977, St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, p. 70). The question then is whether a "heavenly ordinance" is eternal in essence or is it something man can change.

If the Apostles are not the source of the Christian priesthood, what is the source? It can only be the eternal Christ, who is one with the Father and the Spirit. Christ is the eternal Form of priest and the eternal Truth signified by the Priesthood. He alone is Priest, fulfilling atonement through the shedding of His own Blood. This is why the one Priesthood is inextricably tied to the Blood of the Son of God.

Today there is much confusion about the Priesthood because a false priesthood exists that denies the atoning nature of Jesus' Blood. Whoever denies the necessity of repentance and the uniqueness of Jesus' Blood as the ground of Life and the singular substance for remission of sins, is a false priest.

The author of Hebrews expresses this reality in these words: "This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." (Hebrews 6:13-20)

What can we say about this priesthood?

First, we can say that the priesthood is verifiably one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, traced back to at least 7000 B.C. It emerges out of the Afro-Asiatic civilization which, at its peak, extended from the Atlantic coast of modern Nigeria to the Indus River Valley. The Brahmanas (Hindu Priest Manuals) express the richness of this institution. The “Brahman” offered sacrifice at fire altars constructed according to geometryand at the proper seasons determined through astronomy. Vedic tradition teaches that "he who desires heaven is to construct a fire-altar in the form of a falcon."  The Vedas also reveal the danger of a priestly order that becomes too powerful and self-serving (as happened also with the priests of Israel).

The priest emerges out of primeval perceptions of blood as the substance of life, purity and rightness. This conception is so old that it has a wide linguistic dispersion. The Hebrew root "thr" = to be pure, corresponds to the Hausa/Hahm "toro" = clean, and to the Tamil "tiru" = holy. All are related to the proto-Dravidian "tor" = blood. These cognates point to an ancient priesthood for which purity, holiness and blood are related concepts. (Go here for linguistics insights into the origins of the Afro-Asiatic priesthood.)

The ritual shedding of blood in animal sacrifice was done by priests and patriarchs, but not a single reference can be found in which the same is performed by a woman. Again, this is because there is but one priesthood (in the Platonic sense, one Form) and it pertains to Jesus Christ, the Man. This is why the author of Hebrews makes the connection between Melchizedek and Christ.

From the dawn of time humans recognized that life is in the blood. They saw offspring born of water and the blood. They knew that the loss of blood could bring death. Killing animals in the hunt also meant life for the community. They sought ways to ensure that their dead entered into life beyond the grave, especially their rulers who could intercede for them. This is why primitive man covered their dead rulers in red ochre dust, a symbol of the Pleromic Blood of Jesus, as early as 80,000 years ago. Sophisticated mining operations in the Lebombo Mountains of southern Africa reveal that thousands of workers were extracting red ochre which was ground into powder and used in the burial of nobles in places as distant as Wales, Czechoslovakia and Australia. Anthropologists agree that this red powder symbolized blood and its use in burial represented hope for the renewal of life.

I've found few who are willing to entertain the idea that this phenomena points to the blood of a Savior, but I believe that God planted eternity in our hearts and that we know innately that Christ's pleromic blood is not only redemptive, but also the very source of our life. This is what St. Paul appreciates and calls "the mystery of Christ". He articulated his understanding of the pleroma as early as his second missionary journey when he preached to the Athenians that, “in Him [Jesus Christ] we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth. (Ephesians 1:7-10)

The Trinity underlies Paul’s understanding of the pleroma. He speaks of the distinct Persons of the Trinity and of the oneness of the Body of Christ in the language of Shema: “There is one Body, one Spirit, just as one hope is the goal of your calling by God. There is one Lord, one Faith, one baptism, and one God and father of all, over all, through all and within all.” (Eph. 4:4-5)

These words follow Paul’s explanation of the saving work of Jesus Christ in Ephesians: But now in Christ Jesus, you that used to be so far apart from us have been brought very close, by the blood of Christ. For He is peace between us, and has made the two into one and broken down the barrier which used to keep them apart, actually destroying in His own person the hostility caused by the rules and decrees of the Law. This was to create one single man in Himself out of the two of them and by restoring peace through the Cross, to unite them both in a single body and reconcile them with God. In His own person He killed the hostility... Through Him, both of us have in one Spirit our way to come to the Father. (Eph. 2:13-14)

Second, we know that the priesthood functions to mitigate blood guilt. Anthropologists have noted that there is considerable anxiety about shed blood among primitive peoples. (This has been discussed in many of the great monographs: Benedict's Patterns of Culture, Lévi-Strauss' The Raw and the Cooked, and Turnbull's The Forest People). Among the Afro-Asiatics, the priesthood served to relieve blood guilt and anxiety and to perform rites of purity. These continue to be the primary functions of the Priest, although he also has pastoral responsibilities. However, when pastoral responsibilities and preaching minimize the sacramental role of the priest in confession and the Eucharist, the priest no longer serves as a unique sign of the Messianic Priesthood of Jesus Christ.

Third, we know that no woman entered into the Holy Place where blood was offered through atoning death. The Afro-Asiatics, from whom we received the unique institution of the Priesthood, believed that the blood shed by men in war, hunting, execution, and animal sacrifice could not be in the same space as the blood shed by women in their monthly flow and in birthing. Sacred law prohibited the blood shed in killing (male) and the blood shed in giving life (female) to share the same space. God doesn't want confusion about the distinctions of life and death. The same distinction of life-taking and life-giving is behind the prohibition against boiling the young goat in its mother’s milk (Deut. 14:21).

The Priest deals with blood impurities by seeking the purification made available in the Pleromic Blood. The priest also addresses anxiety about shed blood for men and women through the Pleromic Blood of Jesus. This is the history of the "churching" of women, a practice regarded by modern western women as offensive. Since they do not understand that there is but one preisthood they are easily swayed by the muddy thinking of contemporary activists. The world religions textbooks are rife with this kind of thinking. They fail to make important distinctions between priests and shamans which serve similar functions within their communities but hold different worldviews.

So called "priestesses" of ancient Greece were not priests at all. They were seers who pronounced oracles in a trace state, like shamans. Likewise, Shinto "priests" are also shamans as they deal with the spirits. Use of the term "priest" in both cases reveals ignorance about the difference between priests and shamans, an ignorance that pervades 20th century writings.

God has not changed this unique office of the priesthood. It survives in Christian communities that preserve catholic Holy Tradition. When the priesthood is held high and priests live above contamination, the world is drawn to Jesus Christ. This happens because, in reality, there is but one Priesthood, One Priest, One Blood.


Related reading:  What is a Priest?; Growing Consensus that WO Must Be Addressed

Thomas Hobbes on Orders of Creation

Alice C. Linsley

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) is remembered for his political philosophy. His 1651 book Leviathan influenced the thought of John Locke and the Founding Fathers of the United States. Many of his ideas are taken as good but can be understood as "good" only when viewed through the Enlightenment and Protestant Humanism. In the Eastern Church, Hobbes' work is rarely considered, except to recognize that it departs from and has little in common with Holy Tradition.

In Leviathan, Hobbes develops his contractarian political philosophy, often quoting the book of Genesis. He see the Commonwealth as an artificial entity created through contractual agreement between citizens. This artifical entity has no direct reference to the natural order of creation. In other words, Hobbes has "exchanged the natural for the un-natural." This is Eve's sin. When she listened to the creature rather than to the Creator, she exchanged her noble and free estate for subjection to a creature of low estate. Likewise, Hobbes assumes that man's beast nature is all there is.

For our purposes, "order of creation" will be defined as the differentiated constituents of Nature which are evident most fundamentally as supplementary opposites (East-West, night-day, female-male, etc.). Using this definition we will avoid the narrow definition which is restricted to the first chapters of Genesis, missing the point that these supplementary opposites frame the whole of the biblical worldview.

In this essay we will explore some of Hobbes’ principles to see how they align with the reality expressed in Genesis that "in the beginning" God created all things and nothing exists except that which God has created.

Children’s Consent to Parental Governance
Hobbes wrote: “Dominion is acquired two ways: by generation and by conquest. The right of dominion by generation is that which the parent hath over his children, and is called paternal. And is not so derived from the generation, as if therefore the parent had dominion over his child because he begat him, but from the child’s consent, either express or by other sufficient arguments declared.”

By this argument, we may conclude that the child’s consent to be governed by his parents is essential to the proper exercise of parental authority. By consenting to parental authority the child receives protection, material provision, training, guidance, nurture and perhaps sufficient bounty to make a marriage. In Hobbes’ view, children who are abused by their parents do not owe them consent to governance, as none can be compelled to obey an authority that commands self-injury or endangers without just cause.

We find in Hobbes’ view the beginnings of children’s rights. Later Bentham would adapt this principle in his promotion of animal rights.

On the Supremacy of Fathers
Hobbes wrote that the dominion “over the child should belong to both [mother and father], and he be equally subject to both, which is impossible; for no man can obey two masters… In Commonwealths this controversy is decided by the civil law: and for the most part, but not always, the sentence is in favour of the father, because for the most part Commonwealths have been erected by the fathers.”

By this argument, we may conclude that the child must obey as his first authority the governance that is established for him by civil law. But doesn’t this overthrow the child’s “right” to consent to be governed by the parent? Do we have here an inherent contradiction in Hobbes' thought?

By this argument, we also may conclude that patriarchy is not a natural order but the artifice of male law makers. This is not supported by anthropological research, as no true matriarchy has ever been found to exist. It is no small point that order of creation reflects a fixed reality while artifices, even those endowed with authority, reflect malleable realities.

Justification for Absolute Monarchy
For Hobbes, the ideal government is a monarchy perpetuated by rules of succession that keep control within the royal family. He quotes I Samuel 8:11-17 as an authority for his view of monarch’s power over lands, harvests, flocks, populace, militia and all judicature, “in which is contained as absolute power as one man can possibly transfer to another.”

By this argument, we may conclude that not even a prophet of God has authority to question the ruler’s will. The ruler is the supreme authority on earth, usurping even God’s authority. While Hobbes argues that the power of the ruler is established by God on earth, he does not recognize the equally authoritative offices of the prophet and the priest. This being so, he justifies civil authority as superior to ecclesial authority and develops a comprehensive Erastianism.

The young Charles II, Hobbes's former pupil, granted him a pension of £100. The king’s protection was important to Hobbes, especially when he was accused of heresy. Terrified of being labeled a “heretic”, Hobbes burned some of his papers and set about to examine the law of heresy. He presented the results of his investigation in three short Dialogues added as an Appendix to his Latin translation of Leviathan. In this appendix, Hobbes argued that, since the Restoration had put down the High Court of Commission, there remained no court of heresy and nothing could be heresy except opposing the Nicene Creed, which, he maintained, Leviathan did not do. This definition of heresy served Hobbes well, but it ignores the question of whether Hobbes’ political views contradict the orders of creation.

Hobbes’ fear of societal chaos convinced him of the necessity of absolute regal powers. He wrote, “And though of so unlimited a power, men may fancy many evil consequences, yet the consequences of the want of it, which is perpetual war of every man against his neighbour, are much worse.”

Power Validates Contracts
In Hobbes' view, the validity of a contract depends on the sovereign's power to coerce compliance. It is power that validates covenants. Justice is not a possibility until sovereignty has been created. By this argument, we may conclude that justice is a product of coercive power and cannot exist apart from such. This contradicts the message of Jesus Christ, who emptied Himself and took the form of a servant to demonstrate the nature of true power.

It is Natural for Man to Honor Valid Contracts
In Leviathan, Hobbes develops his third law of nature: that men must honor valid contracts. Were this reality, the only occasion for war and turmoil would be a vaccum of power. Hitler's Third Reich refutes this principle. After concentrating both executive and legislative power in his person, Hitler exercised his coercise power to destroy millions of people and to wage war on two fronts. He regarded coercive power as a necessity in renewing German nationalism.

On Judging Good from Evil
Hobbes wrote, “For the cognizance or judicature of good and evil, being forbidden by the name of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, as a trial of Adam’s obedience, the devil to inflame the ambition of the woman... told her that by tasting it they should be as gods, knowing good and evil. Whereupon having both eaten, they did indeed take upon them God’s office, which is judicature of good and evil, but acquired no new ability to distinguish between them aright.”

Hobbes concludes that humans take God's role as judge upon themselves without having God's ability to judge good from evil. Since this is the case, free will must be determined by material, not metaphysical concerns. He wrote, "The universe is corporeal; all that is real is material, and what is not material is not real." Here he tosses out the final piece of Christian Tradition and prepares the ground for the materialist philosophies of later centuries. He treats freedom as being able to do what one desires and he treats the Creation as matter in motion.

Conclusion
Thomas Hobbes was born prematurely on Good Friday in 1588. It is said that his birth was precipitated by his mother's fear of the invasion of the Spanish Armada. He lived through the most tumultuous and bloody times in English history and this shaped his worldview. Unfortunately, his misconceptions also shaped western political ideas and have moved us with tidal wave force to the brink of a new totalitarianism. Christian Holy Tradition is the single worldview that has power to confront and expose Hobbes' fallacies.

Noah and the Black Sea Theory

According to researchers from the Universities of Exeter, UK and Wollongong, Australia, the collapse of the North American Laurentide Ice Sheet 8000 years ago resulted in a catastrophic rise in global sea level and caused dramatic social change across Europe. This research takes the view that Noah was affected by flooding in the Black Sea. This is an odd theory since biblical and anthropological data is fairly conclusive that Noah was living in central Africa, but this is still interesting research, from here.

The research team argues that, in the face of rising sea levels driven by contemporary climate change, we can learn important lessons from the past.The collapse of the Laurentide Ice Sheet released a deluge of water that increased global sea levels by up to 1.4 metres and caused the largest North Atlantic freshwater pulse of the last 100,000 years. Before this time, a ridge across the Bosporus Strait dammed the Mediterranean and kept the Black Sea as a freshwater lake. With the rise in sea level, the Bosporus Strait was breached, flooding the Black Sea.This event is now widely believed to be behind the various folk myths that led to the biblical Noah's Ark story. Archaeological records show that around this time there was a sudden expansion of farming and pottery production across Europe, marking the end of the Mesolithic hunter-gatherer era and the start of the Neolithic.

The link between rising sea levels and such social change is still unclear, however there is no doubt that there was a time of flooding about 8000 years ago when Noah walked the Earth.

The researchers created reconstructions of the Mediterranean and Black Sea shoreline before and after the rise in sea levels. They estimated that nearly 73,000 square km of land was lost to the sea over a period of 34 years. (This is the time of the Mega-Chad Sea in central Africa, the region over which Noah ruled.) Based on projections of historical population levels, this may have led to the displacement of 145,000 people.

Archaeological evidence shows that communities in southeast Europe were already practising early farming techniques and pottery production before the Flood. With the catastrophic rise in water levels it appears they moved west, taking their culture into areas inhabitated by other peoples. Likewise, peoples of cenral Africa were displaced during Noah's time due to rising water levels.

Fr. Patrick Reardon on the Binding of Isaac

Readers of Genesis 22---from Sirach to Kierkegaard---have pondered long what thoughts may have intruded themselves into the struggling mind of Abraham when the Lord required him to offer his son Isaac in sacrifice.

Perhaps the most insuperable problem was one of logic: How did Abraham reconcile in his thought the imminent loss of his son with the Lord's earlier promise that this same son would be the father of many people? Just how could he resolve the contradiction between God's promise, which he completely believed, and God's command, which he was completely resolved to obey?

In fact, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in the earliest Christian commentary on this story, explicitly cited God's earlier promise---"in Isaac your seed shall be called"---in the context of the command that Isaac was to be sacrificed (Hebrews 11:18). How was it possible to reconcile God's promise with God's command? Abraham had three days to think about it.

The author of Hebrews reflected that Abraham, in order to resolve that contradiction, must have introduced into his reasoning process one further consideration---to wit, God's power: "He reasoned that God . . . was able"--- logisamenos hoti . . . dynatos ho Theos.

The wording of this argument is quite precise. In speaking of God, the author of Hebrews uses the adjective dynatos instead of the verb dynatei ("was able" instead of "could"). He thereby indicated he was thinking of an abiding quality of God---His power.Abraham had already experienced God's power in the conception of Isaac, when he and Sarah, for all practical purposes, were as good as dead: "And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb" (Romans 4:19).

In other words, Abraham reasoned that God's power had already overcome the forces of death in the very circumstances of Isaac's conception. And if God had overcome death once, He was always able. Thus, with regard to Isaac, says Hebrews, Abraham "considered that God was able [dynatos] to raise from the dead."

When the Sadducees challenged Jesus about the resurrection from the dead, He likewise appealed to the power of God. "Are you not therefore mistaken," He asked, "because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power [dynamis] of God?" (Mark 12:24) And it is passing curious that Jesus spoke of both Abraham and Isaac in that context of the resurrection: "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." By way of explaining the reference, Jesus concluded, "He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living" (12:26-27).

For the author of Hebrews, the mind of ancient Abraham raced ahead in prophecy to the doctrine of the resurrection---it was an experienced inference from what he already knew of God. From the very temptation he endured, Abraham arrived at a new understanding of God---namely, that He is powerful to raise the dead to life. This was a true prophetic revelation granted to the struggling mind of His servant.

St. Augustine was much impressed by this story. "The pious father," he wrote, "faithfully clinging to this promise---because it had to be fulfilled by the one whom God commanded him to kill---did not doubt that this son, whom he had had no hope of being given to him, could be restored to him after his immolation [sibi reddi poterat immolatus]."

For the author of Hebrews, the restoration of Isaac was enacted "in parable" (en parabole---Hebrews 11:19). St. Augustine, translating "parable" here as similitudo, correctly understood it to refer to the Resurrection of Christ, when God's Son was restored to Him after His immolation on the Cross. There was a "likeness"---similitudo---between God and Abraham, revealed in the mystery of the Resurrection (The City of God 16.32).

Why did God test Abraham? In order to reveal an essential aspect of Himself: His power over death. Abraham arrived this truth through the furnace of his mind, as he struggled to reconcile God's promise with His command. God's power over death was not an abstract truth of theology, available to abstract thought; it was learned on the pounding pulse of an ancient Mesopotamian, as he assumed a personal likeness to the very God who put him to the trial.

END

For further reflection by Father Reardon on Genesis 22, go here.