The Theology That Is Born in the Dust

There is a kind of theology that can be learned in books.

It speaks well.

It quotes correctly.

It arranges ideas about God with precision.

But it has never stood before Him.

The fathers knew nothing of such theology.

For them theology was an event. It was the moment when a man encounters Christ and is undone by the encounter. It is the knowledge that comes not through speculation but through fire. A man sees the way of God because God Himself has entered the poverty of human life.

This is what Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou reminds us with such terrible clarity. Theology is born where a man stands before Christ stripped of illusion.

But few want this path.

Even among monks many draw back.

The lowliness of monastic life is unbearable to the ego. It demands the slow death of the old man. It demands obedience that crushes pride. It demands the surrender of one’s own thoughts and judgments.

And so many fear to go all the way.

They want the dignity of the robe without the crucifixion it hides.

But the fathers say that the greatness of monasticism lies precisely here. The monk enters the place where the will dies. Where a man ceases to defend himself. Where he lays down the last refuge of the ego and stands empty before God.

This is why the greatest saints often held no authority at all.

They were not bishops.

They were not teachers.

They were simply monks.

Hidden men who had become poor enough for God to dwell within them.

The example of Saint Barsanuphius is terrifying in its simplicity. A man unknown to the world, living in silence, suspected even by the brethren of not existing. Yet when he appears he does not defend himself. He washes their feet.

This is theology.

Not speech about God.

The imitation of Christ.

The fathers understood that every spiritual gift is given only where obedience has carved out space in the heart. The monk struggles to lay aside his will, his opinions, his need to justify himself. Through the pain of this renunciation something immense begins to grow within him.

The will of God.

The heart widens. It learns to carry the weakness of others. It learns to love without defending itself.

Slowly the monk becomes capable of something that cannot be produced by study or discipline alone.

He begins to bear the life of Christ within him.

This is why John Climacus could say that the one who has mortified his will and entrusted himself completely to obedience will stand at the right hand of the Crucified.

Because he has already begun to share the same death.

And only those who die in this way learn the theology of the saints.

Reflection based upon the writings of Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou.

The Wondrous and Paradoxical Ethos of Monasticism. pp 155-156