Light of the World

+JMJ+ This may be a bit of a ramble because my head is full of new ideas and I think I may not be able to write coherently about them yet. Let me explain. This past weekend I read The Light of the World, by Jaroslav Pelikan (links at the end of the post). I’ve had him on my to-read list for many years and finally got around to it and I’m glad I did. This title is out of print and that’s a shame because it really is an excellent book, not hard to read but filled with a richness that I didn’t expect to find. I expected it to be good, but I didn’t expect it to be that good.

You see, I had taken up De Incarnatione (On the Incarnation), by St. Athanasius, and learned that there is a companion volume to that one, Contra Gentes (have also seen it written as Contra Gentiles), and these two were meant to be considered as two parts of one work. So I had to back up and find that one and start reading it. Then I stumbled upon that other book I mentioned, The Light of the World, about St. Athanasius and his use of the image of light and radiance to talk about God the Father and God the Son, well, and the Holy Spirit, too. St. Athanasius is Trinitarian in his thought.

Now we’re all used to hearing that Jesus is the Light of the world. We’ve heard it so many times that we almost don’t hear it anymore. But after reading this book the image has taken on more meaning for me. And I know I have barely begun to plumb the depths of it, such a beautiful text, and an image so basic to Christianity and Christian thought. I think it will make wonderful reading during the Advent season, re-reading Pelikan and continuing to read Athanasius himself for the first time.

One thing I learned early on in the book is that St. Athanasius had a “favorite passage about the light of the world: ‘In thy light do we see light.’” (Psalm 36:9, quoted in The Light of the World, page 16.) Now it’s one of my favorite passages, too.

St. Athanasius had to face a Church in which almost all her members, including clergy and hierarchy, had gone over to the side of heresy. Arius had convinced almost everybody that Jesus was not divine, not the incarnate Second Person of the Trinity, and not co-eternal of the Father, not of the same substance, and subordinate to God the Father. So St. Athanasius sought a way to show people that, yes, Jesus was divine and co-eternal with the Father and that He had to be, or He couldn’t have done what our faith teaches that He did. Athanasius pondered and meditated on the Scriptures and then he wrote about it and stood up to the madness that surrounded him.

Arius’s understanding of God seems to me to be one that didn’t take into account the supernatural. If Jesus wasn’t divine and not co-eternal with the Father, then he’s just a creature, just one of us, and can’t be our savior, can’t give us a share of his divine life that he doesn’t have. But if He is divine, then He takes on our flesh and is able to give something to us that no creature can: a share of His divinity.

The way Athanasius and Pelikan explain this is much better than my version here. But I need to study his writing more and ponder and meditate on it before I say much more about it. You see, with Pelikan we almost get to see St. Athanasius’s very thought processes, the way he dealt with the ideas that Arius was spreading, yes, but also how along the way he did so much to develop Christian theology. Even though I had read about Athanasius before and listened to talks about him and his De Incarnatione, I didn’t realize just how important he was, just how foundational his work.

Basically, reading all of these things is blowing my mind. And that’s a good thing. It’s one of the things I love about Catholicism: far from shutting my mind down, it invites my heart and my mind to discover an ever-deepening reality, or helps me to have an ever-deepening awareness of that reality. The reality that God is Light.

And in Thy Light, Lord, do we see Light.
Enlighten us, Lord,
You are the Light of the World.

Thank you for joining me here. May we grow in holiness and virtue, praying the Rosary and meditating on His Word, united with Him, enlightened by Him, becoming the saints He means us to be. God bless you, and may His peace be always with you. +JMJ+

Join me on Fridays for the Rosary Project Live on Twitter at 8pm ET, 7pm CT, to cultivate a culture of Light, Life, Love, Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, for the conversion of sinners, and for the salvation of souls. There’s also a Rosary on the blog you can use anytime.

“The Rosary is the ‘weapon’ for these times.” — Padre Pio

Notes and Links

Light of the World, by Jaroslav Pelikan. Sadly out of print but available used (Amazon affiliate link, see Full Disclosure below) or borrow a copy at Archive.org.
De Incarnatione (On the Incarnation), by St. Athanasius: Paperback (Amazon affiliate link, see Full Disclosure below). Has Greek and English, 2012 translation and introduction by John Behr, Preface by C.S. Lewis.
Contra Gentes, sometimes Contra Gentiles (Against the Pagans or my favorite, Against the Heathens, by St. Athanasius. Paperback (Amazon affiliate link, see Full Disclosure below), or borrow from Archive.org (Robert W. Thomson translation).
Both of these books by St. Athanasius in one volume, Paterikon Publications: Paperback. I don’t know anything about this press or translator so I’m only offering this as an option.

Image: Adoration of the Shepherds, by Guido Reni. Photo: National Gallery, London. Creative Commons license: CC BY NC ND 4.0. I edited the image’s levels to bring out the light.

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