[JessiPollo]

Dear Richard and others,

That was an interesting post. A few thoughts in response:

Please do not misunderstand me, but I think there has been a misunderstanding!

Of course, there is always the possibility of misunderstanding, especially in on-line discussions; and where and when that happens,we can all stand bemused at the event.

But I rather suspect there are also some issues between your comments and my response that are genuine issues of difference, not simple misunderstanding. To flesh this out and explore it, a few comments from your post:

Apart from splitting hairs I agree with you [er … deification is a divine act!! However, to be united worthily with God will indeed involve purification by cooperating with the deifying grace itself. Indeed someone wrote near your post that "we have to be careful in how we speak of these awesome things so as not to be led astray" … but I know what you meant!]. All I meant to say was that the Church - being Christ’s Body of which we are a part (and also a ‘whole’, being in each other?) - is made up of us who by being united with Christ are also deified. The way I put it might have been imprecise, but two can make that mistake …

Actually, I would hesitate - strongly - in calling deification a 'divine act' in any unqualified way. The process of deification is one that intrinsically involves both God and man in symphonia. As such, it is properly an action of this struggle. In my earlier post I casually defined it in this way:

Indeed the minor prophet Malachi says that, "Behold, I will send my messenger [angel], and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger [angel] of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts" (Mal 3:1). The gospels of Matthew and Mark directly quote from this verse.

There is also another possible reference to this ‘Angel of the Covenant’ Who said of Himself, "I am The Being" (as quoted above). [...] these three letters are from the Greek alphabet, and [...] refer to the words "ὁ ὤν" (in capitals O WN), the Greek for "The Being" spoken by the Angel of the Lord who appeared to Moses. If this is true [...] then Christ would be proclaimed to be the Angel of the Lord - that Angel who became incarnate - on almost every icon!

Yes, this harks back to the distinction I made in my earlier post: namely that 'angel' is used in different ways in the Church. As a category of being, it is clearly inapplicable to Christ (as Fr David noted initially); as a title meaning 'messenger', it has a certain applicability to Christ -- as a few (though not many) of the fathers employ it (the most obvious to me is Justin, as I noted, who focused on it rather directly; though you also helpfully provided another example, which I believe is from St Gregory Palamas -- though I couldn't quite make clear sense of the attribution section of that paragraph in your post). So in these comments from your most recent post, I can certainly see that this is something recognised all around (which I trust will allay Fr David's concerns, expressed in his initial response).

That said, I still believe the following to be problematic:

...the Angel now known as the Incarnate Christ.

Re-affirmed in your most recent post:

To conclude, I do not say merely, "the Angel now known as the Incarnate Christ", but "the Angel of the Lord, the Angel now known as the Incarnate Christ". By using the term "Angel of the Lord" from the Old Testament I merely wanted to emphasise the ancientness of deification in the Church.

While I do think I understand your intention in this, Richard, it still seems to conflate important terms and ideas. The scriptures (e.g. the prophet Malachi) never speak of 'the angel' who then 'becomes incarnate'. Rather, the incarnate Christ is declared to be angel - messenger. This is, admittedly, a nuanced distinction, yet it is extremely critical. The Son is not 'angel' who becomes incarnate; in other words, he is not 'messenger' in this manner before the incarnation, such that the incarnation becomes an act or phase of the Son's/Angel's existence. Rather, when the Son takes flesh and becomes man, this incarnation is the very substance of his 'message' - the full revelation of the Father. The Angel of the Lord does not become incarnate; the eternal Son becomes, in the incarnation, the angel/Angel (the capitalisation is irrelevant) of the Father's redemption: the very messenger of the glory he is himself as the Father's eternal Son.

INXC, Dcn Matthew