The way in which postmodernity shapes the religious dimension of human existence is rooted in the continuation of capitalism’s predilection for privatisation. Thus, faith has increasingly come to be governed by norms created at an intimate, subjective level, eschewing any framework of objective authority, which the postmodern individual vehemently rejects. The way in which a person believes they come to know God or speak of Him stems from the absolute premise of private ownership: ‘my Jesus’ (sic!). Well, the egocentric monopoly over Christian epistemology that 21st-century society seeks to promote runs counter to the spirit of the Gospel and to the faith lived out in the community gathered around Christ, who died, rose again and ascended into Heaven. The encounter with the Incarnate Son of God, who passed through Death and Resurrection, is complete and effective only in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. The road to Emmaus is the paradigm of the person on the path to (re)cognising God, where the reception of the teachings and the interpretation of the Scriptures would have remained fruitless without the Breaking of the Bread. This is how Saint Cyril of Alexandria understands man’s endeavour to advance in the knowledge of God: a mysterious progress within the Mystery, through the Mysteries.
First and foremost, for Saint Cyril, the knowledge of God is possible thanks to His goodwill in making Himself known, and this is evident in the act of creation. Bringing into being, out of nothingness, rational beings capable of perceiving and understanding the gift of existence is the work of an Almighty and Loving God, Whose absolute transcendence is not called into question by the fact that He allows Himself to be known: ‘Nevertheless, it is an honour for every human being, for every angel, to know every thing from which He Himself may be seen as He truly is, and to gain full assurance from this knowledge that He will never be ashamed to be known, by whoever so wishes, as He truly is by nature. So why should God be ashamed of what He possesses, or regard as a diminution of Himself those things through which He is known as God?’1
By observing creation and the principles that underlie and govern it, people can deduce the existence of God and raise their minds ‘from sensible and visible things to those that are beyond the senses and spiritual’2. This natural knowledge is not perfect, but neither is it distinct from that of divine Revelation, for the world was created through the Word and Wisdom of God, being the noetic and sensible life of the Logos-Christ, and the created realities of the cosmos are copies or energy-information media of the Supreme Reason 3.
During the Old Testament period, God made Himself known through the ‘relationship’ He established with the prophets. The gnoseological function of the commandments received on Mount Sinai paved the way for the knowledge that was to come with the Messiah. Moreover, the Levitical sacramental prescriptions anticipated progress in the encounter with the True God. Here we can already observe the correlation between Sacrifice and knowledge, which Saint Cyril of Alexandria introduced into Christian theological thought: ‘The altar of the service according to the Law was placed right at the entrance to the Holy of Holies. For the Law merely leads us to the beginnings of the mysteries of Christ and to the first steps towards an accurate knowledge of Him. But it by no means leads us into the Holy of Holies, that is, into the innermost tent, in which Christ is present in many forms: as the Word of God, as light, as the living bread, as the sweet-smelling fragrance of God the Father’4”.
The image of the Seraphim covering their faces and feet before God signifies, in Cyril’s thought, the incomprehensibility of the Divine Being, who cannot be ‘seen’ or ‘followed’, but only glorified. The doxological dimension of Saint Cyril’s gnoseology stems from the understanding of Christ’s glory as a theophany that imprints the knowledge of God upon the human soul 5.
Saint Cyril of Alexandria regards the event of the Incarnation of the Son of God as the moment of God’s greatest closeness to humankind. The assumption of human nature by ‘the Only-Begotten’ made possible an inner, perichoretic knowledge mediated by the divine Person of the Logos: ‘But he affirmed that he came into the world, although He was already present in it, through the mode of the Incarnation, ‘for He appeared on earth and dwelt amongst men’ (Baruch III, 38)—that is to say, in the flesh—thereby making His presence in the world more manifest and more tangible; and He who was once comprehensible only by the mind now makes Himself visible to the physical eye as well, in this way making His presence more tangible, He has bestowed upon us a sensory knowledge of God, making Himself known through miracles and the performance of great deeds6”.
The Alexandrian Father emphasises the idea of a knowledge of God based on kinship. Just as people call those with whom they are related ‘acquaintances’, so too has God become ‘known’ to all people through the Incarnation. ‘For out of boundless goodness Christ gave Himself to the Gentiles and knew us rather than being known by us. But since knowledge is understood as a relationship in which we are made His own and related to Him, we say once more that it was not we who began this, but God, the Only-Begotten of God. For it was not we who took the super-natural divinity, but God Himself, by nature, ‘took the seed of Abraham’, as Paul says7.
The Patriarch of Alexandria makes certain clarifications regarding the capacity of human language to convey certain realities pertaining to God. Thus, he distinguishes between ‘theology’, as the inner life of the Holy Trinity which remains utterly inaccessible to the human mind, and ‘oikonomia’, as God’s work in the external world, which man can know through Revelation. Therefore, in the context of the controversy with Eunomius—a proponent of the supernatural theory of language who maintained that divine names, being directly revealed by God, are entirely adequate to the divine realities to which they refer— St Cyril speaks of the ‘poverty’ of human words in describing that which pertains to God 8. For the Eunomians, knowledge of God automatically entailed knowledge of His nature, a view which the Holy Father refutes in all his writings, noting that the transcendence of God’s Being lies beyond human capacity for understanding (ύπερούσιος)9.
The divine nature remains entirely unknown to both humans and other rational creatures. By evoking the image of the burning bush, Saint Cyril refutes the Jewish conception that Moses saw with his physical eyes the beauty that is by nature imperishable. In our everyday thinking and speech, we humans are limited, whilst God transcends our created condition in terms of understanding. When the Eunomians claimed that they knew God as He knows Himself, it seems they were afraid to admit that their knowledge was limited. But not knowing everything, as God is able to, does not mean that our knowledge is not true. For example, if someone does not know how a lunar eclipse occurs, it does not mean that what they see is not the moon. Similarly, our knowledge of God is not false, even though He knows Himself in a manner superior to our own. We can speak of God in human terms, and use human realities to point to higher divine realities (ὑπόδειγμα)10.
God’s being transcends human logic and conceptualisation, and knowledge is strictly limited to the divine works received through faith. Anyone who seeks to know God merely out of intellectual curiosity or to enrich their knowledge will fail, for without the perspective of salvation, knowledge of God is impossible. Knowing God does not mean gathering information about Him, but being shaped by, towards and for Him. Faith in Jesus Christ, who reveals the Father to people through the grace of the Holy Spirit, is ‘the foundation of godliness’ and is what purifies the mind so that it may understand the works of God 11. Saint Cyril of Alexandria emphasises the practical dimension of knowledge: Why do we wish to know God? What is the purpose of our endeavour as rational beings? Consequently, if the purpose of knowledge is not salvation, then it does not come about 12.
Man needs a pure mind in order to receive and understand the mysteries of God. The sanctity of the mind is attained by renouncing any pleasure that clouds man’s power of judgement. The encounter between God and man does not take place as a result of a flash of intelligence (διάνοια), nor is it the result of a rational endeavour (λογιστικὸν); rather, knowledge is experienced at the level of the νοῦς, the diamond bridge between Reason and reason. Saint Cyril calls the knowledge of God ‘the root of all virtue’, for it is the foundation and the end of salvation. The more virtuous a person is, the further they advance in knowledge and acquire a subtlety of mind that perceives, with ever-greater clarity, the rationalities of God in creation, which become relevant to the conscience. In Christianity, God is not the object of knowledge, but the co-Subject of knowledge.
The core of the Eucharistic gnoseology proposed by Saint Cyril of Alexandria lies in his interpretation of the text from the Gospel according to John: ‘And this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent’ (John 17:3). The triad of knowledge-mystery-life encompasses an entire theology concerning how Christians come to know God through Communion with the Holy Body and Blood of the Saviour Jesus Christ: ‘I believe we must say of the Saviour’s word that it is certainly true, for knowledge is life, since it gives rise (within us) to the power of the sacrament and brings about our sharing in the sacramental blessing, through which we are united with the living and life-giving Word. I believe that, for this reason, Paul also says that the Gentiles have become fellow-heirs and co-partakers in Christ, as those who have partaken of the Holy Body and Blood (Ephesians 3:6). And may our members be regarded as the members of Christ. Yet knowledge also brings blessing through the Spirit, for He dwells in our hearts, moulding those who receive Him into the likeness of the Son and renewing them in incorruptibility and piety through the Gospel life. Knowing that our Lord Jesus Christ is the One true God, and that knowing Him is both the cause and the foretaste of the blessings mentioned, He declares that this is eternal life, for it is the mother and nourisher of eternal life, giving birth through its power and nature to the causes of life and keeping us in communion with Him’13
Returning to the principle of consanguinity, Saint Cyril develops the dogma of the hypostatic union from a Eucharistic perspective. Owing to the hypostatic union, one can no longer speak of a ‘from the outside’ theognosis, but rather of one ‘from within’. Father Dumitru Stăniloae speaks of our knowledge of God in Christ. In Christ, God knows the human as Himself, and man knows God as himself. The Son of God becomes the Son of Man and remains so for all eternity. The hypostatic centre of the Word has mediated the highest possible degree of knowledge between the two natures: the divine and the human. Since human nature cannot come into contact with the divine nature even on a noetic level, the only way for man to become ‘a partaker of the divine nature’ (2 Peter 1:4) is to partake of that which ‘dwelt’ closest to the uncreated Triune Super-Being, and which, at the same time, can be ‘assimilated’ and ‘metabolised’ by man’s created nature. This is the Body and Blood of Christ. The incorruptibility of the Body of Christ is transferred, through the Sacrament of the Eucharist, to the Christian who has died and been raised with Christ through the Sacrament of Baptism and adopted by God the Father through the seal of the Chrismation of the Holy Spirit 14. It is in this way that the words from the Gospel according to John must be understood: ‘And Jesus said to them: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day’ (John 6:53–54).
Thus, by comparing these verses, we see how the knowledge of God is linked to partaking of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, the purpose of which is eternal life. Moreover, the liturgical order itself refers to communion ‘for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life’. Viewing matters from this perspective, we conclude that every Divine Liturgy is a Theophany, following which the believer comes to know God ever more deeply. The Church, the Eucharistic assembly, is the proven and sure means of knowing God. In the Liturgy, Christ’s presence is real and effective; the mystery is revealed through oikonomia (15), and this knowledge does not take place in the context of a formal, cold and distant encounter, but unfolds as a gift of sacrificial love. ‘Saint Cyril of Alexandria emphasised that we cannot come to the Father—and therefore cannot be saved—except in a state of pure self-sacrifice, transcending all selfishness. But we can attain this state only in Christ, He who bore the cross for us by renouncing Himself. He takes us into Himself and presents us to the Father as a pure sacrifice, freed from self-centredness, through His own state of pure sacrifice, the source of all love. But it is understood that He does not take us into Himself as mere objects; rather, we too must offer ourselves, of our own free will, in the act through which Christ offers us, or gives us the strength to offer ourselves together with Him’16”.
On another note, the Holy Mysteries are the only realities that possess a dual phenomenality, as Jean-Luc Marion states 17. That is to say, in the profane realm, any material element possesses a single phenomenality that indicates its nature and the limits of its reality. Only the matter of the Holy Sacraments ‘reveals itself’ with a dual significance to everyone, whether or not they are believers. In other words, the Holy Gifts exist as such, as the Body and Blood of Christ, even if those who see them are non-believers. The Eucharist does not ‘juggle’ between being bread or the Body depending on the worthiness of the recipient (the observer), as in Calvin’s conception. The Eucharist is, at the same time, both a Mystery and a Sacrament, the sanctifying revelation of God’s power which reveals, yet also conceals, divine meanings, as the hymn sung after the faithful have received Communion states: ‘We have beheld the true Light, we have received the heavenly Spirit; we have found the true faith, worshipping the indivisible Holy Trinity, for It has saved us.’
Saint Cyril of Alexandria goes on to emphasise the role played by the Holy Spirit in the knowledge of God. He likens the Holy Spirit to the mutual gaze between the Father and the Son. The Son reveals the Father only if He is beheld ‘through the eyes of the Holy Spirit’: ‘For our Lord Jesus Christ promised the Saints exceptional knowledge, distinct from that of others. For the features of the divine mysteries shine more brightly and much more clearly upon holy people. And in those who have not yet attained this purity of mind, so that they may receive, through the gift of the Spirit, an enlightened understanding of that which is beyond words, this knowledge appears to them as mere thoughts, and perhaps only as the realisation that Christ is God and truly the Son of God by nature. Since there is, therefore, such a great difference in the knowledge of the Saints, which so far surpasses that of ordinary people, the disciple, unaware of this difference, raises the question: why, instead of revealing Himself to everyone in the world, does He promise this only to the saints?’18
The Alexandrian Father emphasises the importance of receiving the Grace of the Holy Spirit, which extends and transmits the grace shared by the humanity assumed by Christ-Emmanuel. The Saviour’s human nature, transfigured by grace and seated at the right hand of God the Father, is extended through the power of the Holy Spirit into believers, and on the basis of this shared nature, the deified human nature of Christ ‘blends’ with the nature of the one who receives it. The manner in which this transfer takes place consists in the epiclesis of the Holy Spirit: ‘And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter to be with you for ever, the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; you know Him, for He abides with you and will be in you!” (John 14:16–17).
From a gnoseological perspective, several functions of the Holy Spirit stand out, as listed by Christ in the Great Farewell Discourse and reiterated by Saint Cyril: didactic, paracletic, anamnetic, prophetic and witness-bearing. ‘And here, by saying, “Keep them in Your truth”, He clearly shows that they were led by the light of the Truth to the knowledge of the Truth. For without the illumination of the Spirit, no one would attain knowledge of the Truth, nor would the precise understanding of the divine dogmas be granted, as far as is possible for human beings. For the mysteries contained in the divinely inspired Scriptures are beyond our understanding. Yet this gift is not without its radiance, even if it manifests itself in a modest knowledge of Christ19.
A favourite theme of Saint Cyril of Alexandria is the newness of all things in Christ 20. Following the Incarnation of Christ, the frame of reference for rational beings underwent profound changes. In Christ, the Godhead has become accessible 21. The goodness of God, which radiates from the hypostatic support of the Incarnate Logos, is not limited to giving: ‘for God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness”—he has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ’ (2 Corinthians 6:4). The Holy Spirit renews the image of God in man through the life-giving power that springs from the divine-human Image of Christ. Those who partake of the same Bread and the same Cup become one in body and spirit, united through the Spirit-filled Body of the Saviour, which has become a transparent medium for the uncreated divine energies. The renewal of life also entails a renewal of the mind, of the way in which one’s relationship of fidelity to God is translated into a way of conforming to His will. The fruit of enlightenment is likened to the grape (a symbol with liturgical significance) grown on the vine of human understanding that leads to wisdom.
The Mystery of the Holy Eucharist reveals God’s economy in the most pertinent way. The Transubstantiation of the Gifts demonstrates how the Son of God took on human flesh and soul without His Divinity becoming subject to passion. The immanence of the Person of Jesus Christ did not in any way destabilise or diminish the transcendence of the divine nature, even though the divine Subject of the Logos also became the agent of the sensible works which He brought about through His will. Christ’s human will consciously and freely chose to know and cooperate with the divine will. The endless deepening of the knowledge of God stems from His infinite being. In God’s presence, the human soul, cleansed of sin and infused with grace, attains a passionate knowledge, keenly felt through the personal nature of the Holy Trinity. Apophatism neither suppresses reason nor renders it dysfunctional, but rather enhances it to the fullest extent so that it may intuit directly what God reveals. In the contemplation of divine truths, there is no trace of irrationality. That which appears incomprehensible from the outside conveys, through apophatic means, impulses of grace which shape the mind to take the form of the First Mind. Human thought cannot encompass the boundless God, for it is programmed to operate with limited things that function within the cause-and-effect framework, and this computational system cannot be transcended without the grace of the Holy Spirit.
In Saint Cyril’s thinking, no one attains knowledge of God or experiences Him unless they are taught or informed by another person, for, in essence, to know is, in fact, to recognise. Being able to identify a reality by its characteristics and distinguish it from others involves the activation of mnemonic traces, on the basis of which the object of knowledge can be validated. Moreover, it is the nature of the object of knowledge that determines the means of accessing it. People cannot know God other than through the means established by Him as being effective. God remains hidden from the modes of knowledge through which created existence is validated, for it is not possible to know anything without the appropriate tools. Understanding what God is constitutes an unsolvable problem, and dogmas, whilst they may give the impression of solving it, do so not to enclose this solution within themselves, but to open up to a different kind of experience.
God draws near to us, yet He always remains above us. God’s ‘descent’ to us is a voluntary act of goodwill directed towards the human capacity for understanding. Even whilst dwelling within us, Christ remains on the Throne of Divinity. He, who is above all things, is at the same time closer to us, through love, than any of our fellow human beings. We find the reasons for everything in Him, yet He Himself is above all these reasons, within which He dwells. These interpretations of certain facts and commandments in the Law of Moses show that the world is created, on the one hand, as a means of sustaining us as bodily beings, but, on the other hand, all things in the world are also images of divine attributes and powers. God made all things with a purpose for humankind, but also in relation to Himself, so that we might know Him and ascend through them towards Him. God is above all that is highest in our world, a truth represented by the image of Mount Sinai. And God, having descended to the very heights of our world, also shrouds this height with the cloud of His incomprehensibility, yet makes His presence felt even within this very incomprehensibility of His. Darkness points to an existence of which we are aware, but which we cannot perceive, and which awakens in us the desire to penetrate beyond it. Saint Cyril calls the knowledge of Christ the ‘light at the right hand of the Father’, which is not attained through a prideful effort of the mind, but through repentance and humility: ‘Thus the wisdom of the world has been shown to be weak by the most divine and best wisdom, through which we are introduced into the mysterious knowledge of Christ, receiving the understanding that is truly from above and from God. For Christ is the perfect good in all things, the One of all, and wisdom, and understanding, in which clarity is not gained through teaching, but is understood as innate’22
In the Alexandrian bishop’s view, the possibility of apophatic experience is due to the initiative of the Holy Spirit. It is He who oversees the tenets of the faith, the role of which we cannot negate. He who does not believe rightly cannot ascend to the knowledge of God. Dogmas, as monuments of Tradition, are nothing other than the unfolding of divine Revelation in history, inspired by the same Spirit who inspired the writing of the Scriptures through direct mediation. In the life of the Church, the Holy Spirit crystallises the dogmas in the Holy Sacraments, and the Eucharist is the transparent medium of Theology. The Spirit sent by the Son into the world adds nothing further to what was given once and for all. He is not a revealed object, but a revealing Subject, Who is constantly renewed in people by the Father. ‘God communicates Himself to people through His Word in Holy Scripture, but above all through personal union with them in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. These two modes of communication are real opportunities for man to encounter his Creator and, at the same time, to grow in the knowledge of God. The Word of Scripture prepares the believer for communion with His Body and Blood, but Eucharistic communion, in turn, opens man’s eyes to a spiritual understanding of Scripture, for it is only the Sacrifice and Resurrection of the Saviour, and their full realisation in his heart as the eternal Kingdom, that open the spiritual eyes to the recognition of Christ the Saviour as Lord and God”23
Formulated as truths of faith, dogmas may have a dual nature, either idolatrous or iconic: insofar as they are not accompanied by putting them into practice, by experiencing their truth through mystical living and liturgical life, dogmas may remain cold, lifeless formulas, and thereby become true metaphysical idols of the knowledge of God. If, however, the open character of dogmas leads to apophatic experience, regardless of its degree, then dogmas are icons that point beyond themselves, maintaining a distance that saves them from metaphysical autonomy. Saint Cyril speaks of ‘the life-giving knowledge of the mystery’24—a knowledge that keeps alive the interest in the epectatic understanding of divine realities, within a dynamic and life-giving apophatism with a soteriological perspective.
Only dogmas ensure the great values and meanings, or their infinity. Without them, everything becomes pointless philosophising. Dogmas link defined meanings to their boundless and mysterious infinity, uniting precise knowledge with faith, just as they unite them in the existence of the person. The claim that everything is known or knowable is a haughty illusion. Every dogma is a precise definition concerning God, but it is precisely this definition that safeguards His mystery, which is not exhausted by the formulation, just as truth is not exhausted by demonstration.
The reciprocity between knowledge and love is recognised by Saint Cyril when he refers to the verse from the Epistle of Saint John the Apostle: ‘Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God’ (1 John 4:7). The premise of knowledge is love, and the premise of love is knowledge. This intimacy between God and those who believe in Him is founded on God’s self-sacrificing love, revealed to humankind through the Cross and the Resurrection. The Body of Christ is the pledge of knowledge and of eternal life.
Eucharistic communion with Christ is a testimony of faith in Him and of fidelity to His teaching. By partaking of Him, we take on ‘the mind of Christ’ (1 Corinthians 2:16), which knows God the Father in the fullest sense, but also creation, as a manifestation of His fractal function within the cosmos. Therefore, the Eucharistic elements belong to Christ; they are offered to Him, and He Himself receives them, in a Christ-like and Spirit-filled gnoseological exchange. ‘The experience of receiving Holy Communion, of real union with Christ, is the experience of beholding, with the eyes of the mind, the illuminating light that radiates from the Person of the Saviour, and the meaning of our existence, spiritually united with the existence of God’25).
- 1
Saint Cyril of Alexandria, On the Holy Trinity, IV, in the series Church Fathers and Writers (PSB), vol. 40, trans. Rev. Prof. Dr Dumitru Stăniloae, published by IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1994, p. 177.
- 2
Saint Cyril of Alexandria, On Worship and Service in Spirit and Truth, X, in the collection Church Fathers and Writers (PSB), vol. 38, trans. Rev. Prof. Dr Dumitru Stăniloae, published by IBMBOR, 1991, p. 357.
- 3
Lecturer Dr Vasile Bîrzu, ‘Divine Knowledge and Wisdom vs. Cybernetic Singularity’ in: The Knowledge of God in Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. Spiritual-Ecclesial Premises and Current Challenges, Prof. Vasile Cristescu, Ph.D., Archimandrite Lecturer Dr Nathanael Neacșu (eds.), Published by Astra Museum, Doxologia, Sibiu, Iași, 2020, pp. 273–302.
- 4
Saint Cyril of Alexandria, On Worship and Service in Spirit and Truth, X,..., p. 334.
- 5
Lawrence J. Welch, Christology and the Eucharist in the Early Thought of Cyril of Alexandria, International Scholars Publications, San Francisco, 1994, p. 72.
- 6
Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel according to John, I, in: the series Church Fathers and Writers (PSB), vol. 41, trans. Rev. Prof. Dr Dumitru Stăniloae, IBMBOR Publishers, Bucharest, 2000, pp. 65–66.
- 7
Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel according to John, VI, …, p. 497.
- 8
Norman Russell, Cyril of Alexandria, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, London and New York, 2000, pp. 22–23.
- 9
Ruth M. Siddals, ‘Logic and Christology in Cyril of Alexandria’, in: The Journal of Theological Studies, New Series, XXXVIII/(1987), 2, pp. 341–367.
- 10
Hans van Loon, The Dyophysite Christology of Cyril of Alexandria, Brill, Leiden, Boston, 2009, p. 96.
- 11
Eirini A. Artemi, The Teaching on the Holy Trinity of Saint Isidore of Pelusium and its Influence on the Theology of Saint Cyril of Alexandria, trans. Alexandru Prelipcean, Doxologia Publishers, Iași, 2018, p. 440.
- 12
Daniel A. Keating, The Appropriation of Divine Life in Cyril of Alexandria, Oxford University Press, New York, 2004, pp. 16–18.
- 13
Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel according to John, XI, 5, …, pp. 703–704.
- 14
Ezra Gebremedhin, Life-Giving Blessing: An Inquiry into the Eucharistic Doctrine of Cyril of Alexandria, Upsaliensis S Academiae, Uppsala, 1977, p. 100.
- 15
Susan Wessel, Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian Controversy: The Making of a Saint and of a Heretic, Oxford University Press, New York, 2004, p. 65.
- 16
Rev. Prof. Dumitru Stăniloae, Spirituality and Communion in the Orthodox Liturgy, IBMBOR, Bucharest, ²2004, p. 36.
- 17
Jean-Luc Marion, On the Rationality of Revelation and the Irrationality of Believers, trans. Maria-Cornelia Ică jr., Deisis, Sibiu, 2014, pp. 163–184.
- 18
Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel according to John, X, ..., p. 621.
- 19
Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel according to John, XI, 9;..., p. 724.
- 20
Robert L. Wilken, ‘Exegesis and the History of Theology: Reflections on the Adam-Christ Typology in Cyril of Alexandria’, in: Church History, XXXV/(1966), 2, pp. 139–156.
- 21
Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Homilies on the Exodus, I, in: coll. Fathers and Church Writers (PSB), vol. 39, trans. Rev. Prof. Dr Dumitru Stăniloae, IBMBOR Publishers, Bucharest, 1992, p. 279.
- 22
Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel according to John, IV, …, p. 325.
- 23
†Varsanufie, Archbishop of Râmnic, This is Eternal Life. Studies in Patristic Gnoseology, Studia Academica series, vol. 2, Praxis, Râmnicu Vâlcea, 2015, p. 28.
- 24
Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel according to John, IV, 2,... p. 284.
- 25
Associate Professor Dr Ștefan Buchiu, ‘Apophatic Knowledge in the Thought of Father Stăniloae’, Libra, Bucharest, 2002, p. 221.