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His Eminence Metropolitan
Kallistos Ware originally delivered this essay as a talk in June 2015 at
a conference on Divine Compassion and Human Trafficking hosted by St.
Catherine’s Vision. St. Catherine’s Vision launched an initiative on
trafficking that year. You may listen to the full lecture at https://youtu.be/_ku0QvdSOtU, or read more about the efforts of SCV on this topic on their website: http://www.saintcatherinesvision.org/
The phrase “Divine compassion” can be understood in two ways:
vertically and horizontally. In the vertical sense, we think of the
compassion of God coming down from heaven to us; in the
horizontal sense, we reflect on the way in which, empowered by God’s
compassion, we are to show compassion towards one another. This article
shall concentrate on the horizontal dimension, particularly through the
theme of Divine compassion and the restoration of the human icon.
We begin with a passage from a 7th century writer, St. Isaac, the Syrian [icon]:
An elder was once asked, “What is a compassionate heart?” He replied,
“It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation—for humanity, for the
birds, for the animals, for the demons, and for all that exists. At the
recollection and at the sight of them, such a person’s eyes overflow
with tears owing to the vehemence of the compassion which grips his
heart. As a result of his deep mercy, his heart shrinks and cannot bear
to hear about or look on any injury or the slightest suffering of
anything in creation. This is why he constantly offers up prayer full of
tears, even for the irrational animals and for the enemies of truth,
even for those who harm him, so that they may be protected and obtain
mercy. He even prays for the reptiles as a result of the great
compassion which is poured out beyond measure after the likeness of God
in his heart.
Notice how the compassion of which St. Isaac speaks is
inclusive—all-embracing—and includes within its scope the whole of
creation. First, it is a compassion for humanity in its entirety. Isaac
is not selective; but he does not limit his vision only to human beings.
Compassion extends to all of living creation; and, again, it is not
selective. Yes, we are to love the attractive animals—the birds, the
squirrels; but we are also to feel compassion for the less attractive
animals—the reptiles, the scorpions, the mosquitoes. In the desert where
St. Isaac was living, the reptiles were particularly offensive and
venomous. “Even,” he says, “we are to feel compassion for the demons.”
This is a rather surprising claim, and I would recommend, unless you are
of the same spiritual stature as St. Isaac, that you not concern
yourself too closely with the demonic world. It could be dangerous.
Notice also that St. Isaac says that the compassion that wells up
within our thoughts is after the likeness of God. Human compassion is a
direct reflection of what it is to be a person made in the image and
likeness of God. Without compassion, I am not truly human; I am
subhuman. Without compassion, I am not a man; but, to use a phrase
employed by C.S. Lewis in his novel, Perelandra, I am an unman.
This raises the question: what is the connection between the human
person in the icon of God and the quality of compassion? And to answer
this, we need first to ask, “What do we mean by the image and likeness
of God in this context?” Exploring this subject, at the outset, let us
bear in mind we humans are a mystery to ourselves. Who am I? What am I?
The answer is not at all obvious. The limits of human personhood are
extremely wide-ranging: they reach out of space into infinity, out of
time into eternity. As God is beyond our understanding, so also the
human person in God’s image is beyond understanding. We Orthodox like to
speak of apophatic theology, negative theology. But we need to
counterbalance it by an apophatic anthropology.
Sometimes people ask me what is meant by these words, apophatic and
the corresponding word, cataphatic. Well, apophatic is really just a
rather grand word for negative; and cataphatic is a rather grand word
for positive, or affirmative. I like to illustrate this from a little
booklet I have at home called “Signs of the Times,” which was the result
of a competition fostered some years ago by the Times newspaper of
London. People were invited to send in photographs of enigmatic or
paradoxical notices.
Two examples from that little book illustrate the meaning of apophatic
and cataphatic. First, an apophatic notice from Australia: “This road
does not lead either to Cairns or to Townville.” But it doesn’t say
where it does lead. And here is a cataphatic notice: You have a railway
line and there’s a box beside the railway line with a bell inside it.
And the notice says, “If the bell is ringing, stop, look and listen; and
do not cross the line. If the bell is not ringing, still stop, look,
and listen, in case the bell is not working.” So there you have all
possibilities allowed for you.
Now, you’ll notice from these examples that a negative statement may,
in fact, convey a positive message. If you know the geography of the
district, the statement that the road doesn’t lead to Cairns or
Townsville may, in fact, give you some idea where it does lead. And that
is exactly the nature of apophatic theology in our Orthodox tradition.
Through our negations about God, we obtain a certain insight, a vision,
of who God is beyond words, beyond language, beyond our imagination.
Now, this mysterious apophatic quality of human personhood extends more
particularly to our understanding of what is meant by “image and
likeness.” One of the fathers, St. Epiphanius of Salamis, in the early
5th century wrote, “It cannot be denied that all humans are in the image
of God, but we do not inquire too curiously how they are in the image.”
And elsewhere he says tradition holds that every human is in the image
of God, but it does not define precisely in what this image is to be
located.
There is a story told about the great Victorian, Thomas Carlyle, who,
on returning from church one Sunday morning, said to his mother, “I
cannot think why they preach such long sermons! If I were a minister, I
would go up into the pulpit and say no more than this: “Good people, you
know what you should do; now, go and do it!” “Aye, Thomas,” said his
mother, “And would you tell them how?” Exactly. Epiphanius would not
have satisfied Carlyle’s mother because Epiphanius does not tell us how
we are in God’s image. Can you and I do better?
I want to explore two senses of being in the image of God. It may
mean, first, in the image of Christ. Secondly, it may mean in the image
of the Trinity. Let’s look at those two senses. Yes, first, the image of
God may mean Christ, the Son of God, the Logos, the Reason of God. As
Christ is Logos, so we humans in God’s image are logikoi, endowed with
reason, self-awareness, the power of organized thinking and of coherent
speech. We reflect, we make decisions, we have a conscience, a sense of
right and wrong; all of this is included in the Divine image.
I would like to note four particular implications of all this. First,
the image of God denotes kingship. It says in the Genesis story of
creation, Genesis 1:26, “Let us make humankind in our image, according
to our likeness.” The word here for humankind is Adam, which means not
man in the sense of male, but human being. Let us make humankind in our
image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and
over the wild animals, and over all the earth.” To be in the image of
God is to exercise dominion. But dominion here most certainly does not
signify domination. It does not mean arbitrary tyranny. It does not mean
ruthless exploitation. The dominion which we humans have is to be
according to the image and likeness of God. In our treatment of the
environment, we are to express the love, the compassion, the gentleness
of God, Himself. The human being, then, living icon of the living God,
is king of creation after the likeness of the Divine King of the
Universe. Let us never forget this royal dignity that we humans possess.
There is a word in Martin Buber’s book, The Tales of the Hassidim,
which often comes to mind. Rabbi Shalemo asked, “What is the worst thing
that the evil one can achieve?” And he answered, “To make someone
forget that he is the child of a king.” That is what the evil one is to
bring to pass! To make us forget our dignity, our meaning, our value, as
being in the image of God the King. This is illustrated in the ceremony
of censing, the offering of incense, in our Orthodox worship. The
celebrant censes first of all the holy table and the icons in the
iconostasis. But then he censes the members of the congregation. And as
he censes, he bows to us, and we bow back to him. In this ceremony of
censing accompanied by the mutual inclination of respect, we are
acknowledging that we are each in the image of God. The celebrant censes
us and bows to us because he sees in us the image of God the Creator.
So then, first we are kings and queens entrusted with dominion, with
responsibility, for the world around us.
Second, the image signifies freedom. As God is free, so the human person
in God’s image is free. God’s freedom is absolute and unrestricted;
human freedom is relative, and limited by heredity, upbringing, and by
outward circumstances. Yet, there is a genuine analogy between the two
levels of freedom. In the words of St. Maximos the Confessor, “If the
human being is created in the image of the loving and supra-essential
Godhead, then since the Godhead is liberty, this signifies that the
human being as God’s image is also liberty. Equally it is said in the
Macarian homilies, “Heaven, sun, moon, and earth have no free will, but
you are in the image and likeness of God. Because just as God is his own
master and does whatever He wishes, so you, also, are your own master;
and if you so choose, you can destroy yourself.” Reflecting on the
Divine image, let us call to mind the words of Soren Kierkegaard. “The
most tremendous thing granted to human beings is choice, freedom.”
If we want some examples of freedom according to the Divine image, we
may look in the Old Testament at the figure of Abraham, an explorer,
setting off from his home to the Promised Land going out into the
unknown with no idea of what his final destination will be. Abraham is
an example of courageous free choice! In the New Testament, we may think
of the mother of God at the annunciation. God did not wish to become
incarnate without the voluntary consent of the one who was chosen to be
His mother. This was particularly emphasized by the 14th century
Byzantine writer St. Nicholas Cabasilas. The angel at the annunciation
waits for Mary’s freely given response. He waits for her to say, “Here
am I. Behold the handmaid of the Lord! Be it unto me as you have said!”
She could have said no. And if she had said no, then the history of the
world would have been different. The Holy Virgin at the annunciation is
not a passive instrument; she is called to play an active part. She is a
creative participant in the event of the incarnation. As St. Irenaeus
insists, Mary cooperates with the economy.
Freedom is a precious gift from God, but it also demands sacrifice;
and it can even prove tragic. In the words of the Russian philosopher,
Nicholas Berdyaev, “I always knew that freedom gives birth to suffering,
while the refusal to be free diminishes suffering.” Freedom is not
easy, as its enemies and slanderers allege. Freedom is hard; it is a
heavy burden. People often renounce freedom to ease their lot. This is
illustrated in the parable that Dostoyevsky includes in his masterwork,
The Brothers Karamazov, the story of the Grand Inquisitor. In that
story, Christ returns to earth in 16th century Spain, and He begins to
do exactly what He did in 1st century Palestine. He preaches the Good
News to the people; He heals the sick; He blesses the children. The
Grand Inquisitor watches with disapproval, and he sends out his guards
to arrest Christ and put Him in prison. That evening, the Grand
Inquisitor comes to see Christ, and he says, “Why have You returned? You
came to make people free, but this freedom was too difficult for
them—too painful—and we have taken away that freedom so that they may
live their lives quietly without anxiety, without pressure. We have,”
says the Grand Inquisitor, “corrected Your work.” But Christ doesn’t
answer the lengthy accusations of the Grand Inquisitor. The story ends
with the Grand Inquisitor’s breaking down because he can’t endure
Christ’s silence any more, and he says to Him, “Go!” He opens the door
of the prison, “Go! And don’t come back!” And all Christ does is to kiss
him, and go on His way. The point of that story is clearly that freedom
is difficult. And if you take freedom away from people, they may, in
fact, live their lives with greater ease and less anxiety.
Freedom is, indeed, a heavy burden. But as soon as we renounce our
freedom, as soon as we refuse the cross of choice and conflict, we
reject the Divine image within us. We become less than human. We become
unmen. Likewise, if we deny others their freedom, we dehumanize them. We
cease to regard them as living persons in the image of God. It is
precisely here that we discern the wickedness, the grievous and shocking
sinfulness of all human trafficking, of all forms of sexual
exploitation and abuse. We are treating human beings in such cases not
as subjects endowed with freedom, but as commodities to be manipulated
as we wish. We are treating them not as persons in the image of God, but
as objects. We lose all reverence in this way for the Divine image, and
so we lose all sense of relationship with the other. That is why human
trafficking is so disgraceful! It is a denial of the value, the freedom,
of the person—a denial of the image.
A third aspect of the image of God, the Logos, is creativity. “The
human person,” says Athanasius, “is a creator after the image of God,
the Creator.” We are, in the phrase of J.R.R. Tolkien, sub-creators.
More specifically, the human animal is an animal that uses tools. We do
not simply live in the world; but by virtue of our identity in the
Divine image and likeness, we re-shape and alter the world. We endow it
with new meaning. We give creation a voice; we render it articulate in
praise of God. I reflected on this on one occasion when I was returning
from France, and I suddenly recalled that I hadn’t bought a gift to give
to my mother on my returning home. So I rushed into a village shop, and
there I saw a bottle with a squirrel on the outside. And as I like
squirrels, I thought I would buy this bottle. It was, in fact, a liqueur
made from nuts. And I reflected, squirrels can do many things: they can
plan for the future. They will assemble nuts, hide them away in special
places for a winter supply. They will forget where they put their nuts,
and they’ll quarrel with other squirrels about whose hoard of nuts this
is. These are all very human qualities. But I reflected on one thing
squirrels don’t do: they don’t make liqueurs of nuts!
That illustrates an important aspect of the Divine image. Being in the
image of God, we are endowed with creative powers: we can transfigure
creation to a new level. But also, because of our human powers, we can
disfigure creation as well as transfigure it. We can poison the waters
and pollute the air in a way that the animals don’t do. Yes, it’s true
that the animals do, to a limited degree, change the world around them.
Beavers build dams, bees construct honeycombs; but they don’t transform
the environment to the extent and with the depth that we humans do by
virtue of the Divine image. And this creativity in the Divine image is
exercised on many levels: in scientific inquiry, in music, poetry, art;
in, for example, the painting of icons. As St. Theodore the Studite
says, “Because the human person is formed in the image and likeness of
God there is something divine about the act of painting an icon.”
Metropolitan Kallistos with members of SCV
So far our reflections on the image of the Logos in the human person
have explored kingship, freedom, and creativity. The fourth and final
quality is even more important than these other three. Formed according
to the image of God, endowed with self-awareness, endowed with
God-awareness, consciously and by deliberate choice, we human beings are
capable of offering the world back to God. The fourth quality is our
ability to offer the world back to God in praise, doxology, and
thanksgiving. In this thanksgiving, we become ourselves. The animals
cannot do this. Curlews, cicadas, and frogs praise God in their own way,
but not with conscious God-awareness.
As the living icon of the living God, the human being is priest of
creation. Grateful offering is an essential characteristic of
personhood. Here I’d like to quote from Dostoyevsky’s novel Notes from
Underground. “Gentlemen, let us assume that man is not stupid. But if he
is not stupid, he is monstrously ungrateful, all the same. He is
phenomenally ungrateful. I often think that the best definition of man
is a creature that has two legs and no sense of gratitude.” The antihero
in the Notes from Underground goes on to say “Man alone can utter
curses. It is his privilege, and the thing that chiefly distinguishes
him from the other animals.” Now, all of this is very true—true of
fallen human beings, of human beings turned away from God. But in the
case of human beings in the way that God originally intended them to
be—of the human person redeemed in Christ—we are to reverse all that
Dostoevsky’s character says. The best description of man, of the human
being—his chief characteristic, that which makes him to be himself—is
gratitude, thanksgiving. What distinguishes the human from the other
animals, what constitutes his privilege as priest of creation, is the
ability to bless God, to invoke God’s blessing on other persons and
things. This grateful offering we express, above all, in the supreme act
of human worship, the Eucharist, the Divine Liturgy.
The human animal, it has been said, is an animal that laughs and
weeps; that has a sense of humor and a sense of tragedy. Very true. But
we need to go further. The human animal, it is said, is a logical, or
political, animal. Yes, but go further, still. The human animal is a
eucharistic animal—an animal that fulfills herself or himself in the act
of free and grateful offering of the creation back to God. Note that in
the Divine Liturgy, we offer to God not grains of wheat, but bread; not
bunches of grapes, but wine. We offer back to God the fruits of the
earth, but we do not offer them back in their natural state; we offer
them back transformed by human hands. In our liturgical offering, we
express our iconic nature as sub-creators: we express our creativity.
Thus far we have examined what it means to be a human being in the
image of Christ, the Logos. Now, somewhat more briefly, let’s consider
what it means to be a human being in the image of the Holy Trinity. And
this will bring us back more specifically to the theme of compassion.
The basic and primary meaning of our faith in the Trinitarian God is
this: we Christians are not just monotheists, as are the Jewish people
of the Old Testament; as are the followers of the prophet Mohammed, the
Muslims; nor yet are we polytheists; but we discern in God both
essential unity and true personal diversity. Our Christian God is not
only personal, but inter-personal; not only a unity, but a union. God is
love—not self-love, the love of one turned inward, exclusive; but the
love of three—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—loving one another, each
turning towards the other, each dwelling in and for the other in a love
that is not exclusive, but inclusive.
As the greatest living Orthodox theologian—Metropolitan John
Zizioulas of Pergamum—has said, “The being of God is relational being.”
And he continues, “Without the concept of communion, it is scarcely
possible to speak about God at all.” There is, within God, to use Martin
Buber’s terminology, a threefold relationship of I and Thou: from all
eternity, the Father, the first Person of the Trinity, says to the
second, “Thou art My beloved Son.” From all eternity, the second Person
replies to the first, “Abba, Father; Abba, Father.” And from all
eternity, the third Person seals this loving interchange.
Being created in the Divine Trinitarian image, we humans are called
to reproduce on earth this Divine interpersonal love. All that is
affirmed of God as Trinity is to be affirmed, also, on another level of
the human being in God’s Trinitarian image. God is love—not self-love,
but mutual and shared love; so also is the human person. The being of
God is relational being; so, also, is our human being. There is no true
person unless there are at least two persons in communication with one
another. Our human Trinitarian personhood is not egocentric, but
exocentric. Our human nature is social, or it is nothing. This is the
fundamental meaning of the doctrine of the Trinity for our human nature.
I need others in order to be myself.
All of this makes clear the central value of compassion for any
understanding of the human icon. Made in the image of God the Holy
Trinity, in the image of love, it is only through compassion—through our
ability to suffer with and for others in loving and generous
companionship—that we become truly human. All of this is expressed
visually in the icon of the Holy Trinity by St. Andrew Rublev. There,
the Trinity is shown symbolically as the three angels who came to see
Abraham under the oak of Mamre. And in the icon, the three angels are
not sitting in a row gazing out into space; they are turned towards one
another. And in their mutual interface, we, too, are somehow included.
The three are engaged in dialogue. And what is the subject of their
conversation? They are saying to each other, “God so loved the world
that He gave His only Son…” They are speaking of the act of
self-emptying, of compassionate love, whereby Christ Jesus died in
sacrifice upon the cross. Rublev’s Trinity, then, is supremely an icon
of Divine compassion.
Plato once said, “The beginning of truth is to feel a sense of
wonder.” Today, renew your sense of wonder before the beauty of our
human personhood—our personhood that is created in the image of the
Trinitarian God; our human personhood that is called to attain His
Divine likeness through the exercise of compassion—compassion that is
both costly and luminous; sacrificial, and yet intensely joyful.
St. Andrei Rublev’s Trinity
