The Burning Bush and the Glory of God:

The Feminine Dimension in the Kataphatic Theology of Sergius Bulgakov

 

By Madonna Sophia Compton (all rights reserved)

 

Introduction

 

It has been noted that Sergius Bulgakov’s sophiology was not a doctrine or even his personal theory, but the light “in which he sees the transcendent and immanent aspects of Divine Being.” (1)  Bulgakov once said, “The calling of our time is a neo-Chalcedonian theology, which would resurrect for us and continue the creativity of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, with all the fullness of their problematics, which may be generalized in one, indeed Chalcedonian, problem: Divine-humanity.” (2)  For Bulgakov, the Chalcedon formula gave only apophatic parameters for talking about Christ as Logos, and the challenge for theologians of our age is to express a more kataphatic or positive side to this dogma; in essence, this is what I perceive his sophiology to be all about. Kataphatic theology can and must talk about God, because God is simultaneously an Absolute and an Immanent Divine Being.

 

There are numerous approaches to discussing the dimensions of Bulgakov’s kataphatic approach, but my focus in this paper is on the feminine dimension of the Immanent Spirit as embodied in Mary, Theotokos; that is, in Bulgakov’s Mariology.  In order to understand Mary’s intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit, I will briefly trace the historical development of pneumatology in the early Church, and contrast that with the understanding of the Spirit in the Old Testament. I will then examine Bulgakov’s emphasis of the Holy Spirit’s movement in the world, and his notion of the Mother of God as Spirit-bearer. I will conclude with a short symbolic analysis of the icon called, Mother of God, Burning Bush.

 

Initially, however, in order to better understand Bulgakov’s kataphatic approach, I will first sketch a brief overview of apophatic theology, using the examples of three theologians and spanning the historical development of the Church (both East and West) from the 4th century to modern times.

 

Background in Apophaticism: Three Examples

 

Gregory of Nyssa

Gregory was born in 335 into a family of ten children.  He and two others, Basil and Macrina, are honored as saints. All were educated and cultured in a Christian household conversant with Hellenistic philosophy; indeed, Gregory was indebted to both Basil and Macrina for the philosophical and theological influence they exerted on their younger brother.  Gregory, Basil and their friend, Gregory of Nazianzus, are together known as the famous Cappadocian Fathers. Gregory was a Neoplatonic philosopher-theologian who freely used Plotinus when he felt  interpretation of Scripture warranted it.  He was the first Christian philosopher to argue for the infinity of God.  Building on the Neoplationic tradition, Gregory argues that if God can be known, he is limited; indeed he must be limited by something greater than himself.  In Gregory’s theology, it is unthinkable that one could ever ‘prove’ anything about God, who will always be behind and beyond our concepts and beliefs.  If we speculate on the essence of God, Gregory believed that we run the risk of creating idols, since any appellation we imagine about God can never comprehend God’s transcendence and inexpressible divinity. He argued that profane philosophy is “always in labor, but never gives birth.” (3)  Gregory’s concept of epektasis, or perpetual progress, describes perfection as constant progress in virtue and godliness. In Gregory’s understanding, only God has always been perfect and beyond change.  Humans, even in the after-death state, will continually be evolving toward a greater awareness of the infinity of God.

 

Because of his belief in the unknowability of God, Gregory is often called the father of ‘apophatic’ theology, which has since become a characteristic feature of the Eastern Church.  The apophatic way is also known as the ‘path of negativa’ in the West (for example, in Meister Eckhart and St. John of the Cross), and refers to that aspect of God whose face cannot be seen (Ex. 33: 23) and who is therefore beyond the comprehension of human beings.  Gregory spoke frequently about the impossibility of adequately describing God’s essence; we can only know God’s attributes. On his commentary on Ecclesiastes 3:7, (“a time to keep silent and a time to speak”) Gregory suggests that “in speaking of God, when there is a question of his essence, then is the time to keep silent.  When, however, it is a question of his operation, a knowledge of which can come down to us, that is the time to speak of his omnipotence by telling of his works and explaining his deeds.”  (4)

 

In juxtaposition to this unknowability of God is the principle of “kataphatic” or positive theology, which is grounded in a search for the immanence of God.  In other words, this is how we ‘tell of his works and explain his deeds.’  In our hymns, icons, liturgical prayers, litanies, and homilies, humankind employs myriad images and terms to honor God, and invariably these words are used in descriptive types: Rock, Flame, Bridge; or emotional metaphors: Love, Savior, Goodness; or philosophical terms: the One, the Logos, Spirit, Being.  Through his allegorical method, Gregory leads us into his mysticism of ascent, moving from images to the Imageless God.  We will return to an examination of how Gregory’s apophatic theology affects his theology of the Holy Spirit in a following section.

 

Meister Eckhart

Meister Eckhart, (1260-1329) who studied under Albert the Great,  was probably influenced by pseudo-Dionysius.  He had a distinguished career as a prior provincial and preacher; indeed, he has often been called the most popular preacher in Germany. (5) As a preacher, Eckhart focused on four general areas: detachment, being formed again in God, the purity of the divine nature, and the nobility of the soul.  Although his last years found him accused of heresy, he died within the bosom of the Church.  Eckhart distinguishes between the triune God and the hidden ‘ground’ or Godhead. His understanding of substance and relation in God, unlike Aquinas and nearly every other one of his Western predecessors, is legitimate only in thinking about God as three-who-are-one, but in no way relates to the Unmanifest, hidden God.  This hidden or divine darkness of the Godhead reveals the absolutely apophatic nature of his speculative mysticism.  The soul is emptied of all images and metaphors in approaching the Godhead, including all representations of God in terms of time, place, body, and number. Because God is radically free, no definition can encompass the unutterable Deity; and if one has trouble understanding this, (Eckhart believes) it is because one has not yet experienced it.(6)   Eckhart continually stresses the total transcendence of God. Bernard McGinn explains that “in response to objections to such passages brought up against him in the Cologne precedings he invoked the distinction between the ‘absolute existence’ of God and the ‘formally inherent existence’ of creatures.” (7)  God is One, and this “One” is for Eckhart the highest perfection of God because “God is one which is indistinct.”(8)  All distinct things are two or more, but in God’s Wisdom there occurs an indistinction pertaining to God’s very nature; God is infinite and determined by nothing. Wisdom, since it is identified with the One, is here beyond other attributions of God, even the ‘True’ or the ‘Good’ (9)  and seems to coincide, for Eckhart, with the Monad of the Neoplatonists:

 

“The One which is called Monad, that is, unity, is not a number, but the source and origin of all number.” (10)  Likewise: “God is indistinct and the Indistinct Itself.” (11)  Eckhart is so radical in his theology of God as unity that he parts company with Aquinas in his understanding of the Trinitarian relations, citing without disapproval the formula of Gilbert of Poitiers, (rejected by Thomas,) that the relations somehow remain standing on the outside of the divine substance. (12) This is because, for Eckhart, God’s Substance alone is Being.  All else, in this very apophatic theology, emanates from this ground, and even though the Paternity is identified with the first Person of the Trinity, it is the Father and not the Essence that begets. (13)  Eckhart explains this by simply affirming that “the difference between God and the Godhead is the difference between action and non-action.” (14)   Eckhart’s path of negation is not unique; even in this somewhat extreme example it has a precedent in pseudo-Dionysius (where negations about God are true, but affirmations are unsuitable) as well as Maimonides, whom Eckhart knew very well. Maimonides, for example, held that negative propositions about the Creator are true, but affirmative propositions are “partly equivocal.” (15)  From this negative theology, Eckhart defined Trinitarian relations in a radically new way.

 

 

Vladimir Lossky

Vladimir Lossky was at one time a student of Sergius Bulgakov, but broke with the Russian émigré movement to foster a more conservative Orthodox philosophy. He saw his mission as a call to witness to the Orthodox tradition in the modern age. He brought all of his intellectual energies toward promoting a return to patristic theology and was influential, together with George Florovsky, in developing the heritage of the patristic renaissance which had begun to take shape in mid-late 19th century Russia. He vehemently criticized the Paris émigré school, especially the highly complex philosophical theology of Bulgakov and its engagement with the modern world.  He believed that Bulgakov postulated a fourth hypostasis in the Trinity. He accused him of gnosticism and envisioning the existence of a ‘world soul,’ in his condemnation of Bulgakov’s sophiology. (16)  His own theological contribution is largely a reaction to contemporary Russian philosophy, especially as characterized by Bulgakov and Berdyaev, which he saw as enslaved to 19th century German idealism.  He continually stressed a return to patristic sources.

At the same time, he borrowed Bulgakov’s concept of the dyad of the Son and the Spirit, as well as the notion of sobornost in ecclesiology, and remained influenced—to some degree all of his life—to the man who, at one time, he considered his spiritual father. He also follows Bulgakov in his understanding of the centrality of the Marian dimension for ecclesiology and pneumatology.   In much of his work, Lossky  portrays the Orthodox Church as the center of the cosmos, and the sphere in which its destinies are determined.  He therefore staunchly supported the Moscow Patriarchate during its condemnation of Bulgakov’s work.  Lossky’s principle theological  teaching lies on his apophatic foundations. He particularly rejected Western thought which postulated a rational approach to theology, insisting that theological thought should not bow to the level of abstract speculation. (17)  His Mystical Theology is largely a polemic which argues that God is incomprehensible and unknowable and the appropriate response to theologizing about this God is a humble and obedient recognition of what God is not, rather than an insistence on what God is.  For Lossky, the apophatic is more than a religious philosophy; it is rather the “basis of all true theology.” (18) He critized Aquinas for interpreting Pseudo-Dionysius incorrectly.  He believed that the negative (apophatic) way ultimately surpasses the affirmative (kataphatic).  He therefore criticized the Western notion of the Beatific Vision.(19)  However, Lossky diligently studied and admired Western mystic Meister Eckhart, who was the subject of his dissertation.  Paul Valliere notes that “Lossky could expel categories of nature and history from dogmatic theology with an easy conscience because, as a rigorous apophaticist, he assigned little positive theological status to the world to begin with.” (20)

 

 

The Theology of the Holy Spirit and the Era of the Cappadocians

 

Let us now return to the era of the Cappadocians and then Bulgakov’s critique of it; that is, in light of how it affected the pneumatology of the early Church. The challenge for Gregory in forging a new direction for the early Church was to strike a balance between the Old Law and his Greek heritage.  He felt that the truth was located between the two.  For Gregory, Christianity is philosophy only when it is seen in dialogue with ‘external philosophy.’ (21)  All of the Greek Fathers were interested in ‘purifying’ pagan philosophy.  In particular, the Cappadocians stood in opposition to the Hellenic tradition on the basic issues of creation and freedom.(22)

 

Because the two Gregories brought to fruition the doctrine of the Holy Spirit that had been undertaken by Basil, the Cappadocian Fathers have been called, in the Orthodox tradition, ‘the trinity that hymns to the Trinity.’  After the dogmatic expression of Christ’s divinity at Nicaea, the problem of defining the Holy Spirit remained.  Although Basil, one of the first to argue the essential unity of the Trinity, never used the word God to describe the Holy Spirit (23) he had made it clear that “he who does not believe [in] the Spirit, does not believe the Son, for none can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Spirit.” (24) 

 

 However, in the era of the early councils, there was much confusion concerning just what a Trinitarian formula meant.  Basil compared the very complex situation which prevailed in the Church at that time to a disordered battlefield. (25)  In their effort to purify Hellenic philosophy, the Cappadocians attempted to stress the conviction that Christianity was not simply a religion of an undifferentiated monad; but that God is somehow three. Building on Basil, Gregory taught that the Three Persons are hypostatic, i.e., essentially equal and the same. In fact, the only way to tell them apart is by their mutual relations.  

 

In his On the Holy Spirit, Against the Macedonians, Gregory explains that the Spirit is:

“everywhere and present to each thing, filling the earth and remaining in the heavens, poured out among the super terrestrial powers, filling all things according to the worth of each, and yet losing nothing of its own fullness.” (26)

 

 As God, the Holy Spirit is “that which graciously bestows life.” (27)  In doing so:

 “what brings near to God, divinizes us; what offers us the kingdom, makes us like Christ…It  lifts up the fallen, leads back the wanderer to the straight path, gives stability to him that stands, and brings him that has died to resurrection.” (28)

 

 It searches the depths of God, and although it “is itself glorified, yet itself bestows glory.” (29) Gregory, in clarifying that the Trinity is not to be understood as separate personifications (e.g., Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier), used, as an example, the creation story:

 

“For neither did the Universal God make the universe ‘through the Son’, as needing any help, nor does the Only-begotten God work all things ‘by the Holy Spirit,’ as having a power that comes short of His design, but the fountain of power is the Father, and the Power of the Father is the Son, and the Spirit of that Power is the Holy Spirit; and Creation entirely, in all of its visible and spiritual extent, is the finished work of that Divine power.” (30)

 

In his On the Beatitudes, Gregory says that the nature of the ineffable God “as it is in Itself, according to its essence, transcends every act of comprehensive knowledge, and it cannot be approached or attained by our speculation.” (31) Gregory develops this doctrine of the essential unity of the Trinity in the treatise, Not On Three Gods. As Hans von Balthasar has noted, after the Cappadocians, “it is no longer possible to infer Divine Persons on the basis of different regions of the world…[for] there is a ‘common operation’ which links their divine essence.” (32)  Likewise, the energy or activity of grace which acts upon us is common to all three divine Persons, which proceeds from the Father, acts through the Son, and is completed in the Holy Spirit. Von Balthasar sees in this movement the most conspicuous victory of Christian thought over Greek philosophy. (33) His understanding is that, in Gregory,

 

 “Plotinus’s realm of nous finds itself excluded from the domain of reality. Personalized by Origen, who identified it with the Logos, nous had retained an intermediary place between the Father and the soul in Christian metaphysics. But once the absolute transcendence of the divine essence was recognized, this place became untenable.  (italics mine) Augustine will try to maintain it, but not without skirting the edges of contradiction. Gregory, who is more categorical, abandons it.” (34)

 

Further clarification of the Trinitarian problem will come after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 which continued to define Christ in negative terms (“without confusion, without change, without division.”)  As we will see, Bulgakov will challenge the Cappadocian formula for Christ, and will seek to enlarge the Chalcedonian apophatic character.  For now, let us briefly examine the concept of the transcendent-immanent dimension of the Holy Spirit.

 

An Apophatic Holy Spirit?

If one examines the historical development of the understanding of Spirit in the Jewish tradition,  the identification of the Holy Spirit with the ineffable transcendent Trinity poses some problems.  In the Old Testament texts, the Spirit was the Breath of God and the Immanent connection between Yahweh and the Hebrew nation. It was identified with several vivid images; for example, the Cloud or the “pillar of cloud” was the vision of God’s Spirit which dwelt with Moses on the mountain (Ex. 24: 15-18). The Cloud in the form of a column would stand at the entrance of the tent and speak to Moses  (Ex. 40:34). The Cloud would rise and lead the Israelites on their journey toward the promised land (Ex. 40:36).  Indeed, the Cloud was the symbol of God’s abiding Presence with Israel  (Ex. 13:22).

  As a manifestation of God’s Presence and Glory, the image of the Cloud was present at the dedication of Solomon’s temple (1 Kings 8: 10-12) when it filled the temple with such power and force that the priests could no longer minister there.  It is precisely here, in these images of the epiphany of God’s presence through the Cloud that the inference is made which links  the power which “overshadows” the tent of meeting with the Holy Spirit which “overshadows” the Virgin Mary.

In Jewish Targums and midrash, it was the Shekinah-Spirit that manifested the Glory or Presence of God through the pillar of cloud (Ex. 13: 21-22); or pillar of fire (Ex. 13:22) or cloudy pillar (Ex. 33: 9-10) or cloud of the Lord (Num. 10:34); or cloud in the wilderness (Ex. 16: 10); or the cloud overshadowing the tabernacle (Num. 16: 42; Num. 9:15; Ex. 40: 35).  As the immanent dimension of God, the word ‘shekinah’ was probably first used in the Targums, which were translations or paraphrases of the Torah from about the first century C.E. The root ‘shakan’ is the verbal form used to describe the ‘dwelling or habitation’ of the physical manifestations of God described in many of the Exodus texts. It refers to the presence of God that can be felt in the world. Yves Congar has explained that, in the Jewish parts of the Bible, the Breath-Spirit of God is the same as God’s action, which animates and gives life “at the level of what we call nature.” (35)

 

God’s Presence was visible through the Shekinah on Mt. Sinai (Ex. 24:16) and it became the Voice of God (Ps. 99:7).  It is associated with the Spirit of prophecy (Num. 11:25; Ex 19:9).  The Shekinah regulated the movements of Israel and became its guide (Ex. 13: 21-22;  Ex. 40: 36-37;  Neh. 9:19).  The Shekinah-cloud hovered over the mercy-seat (Lev. 16:2;) and the temple of Solomon (1 Kings 8:10-11; 2 Chron 5:13; Ez. 10:4). After the destruction of the temple, the midrash tells us that when Yahweh had withdrawn to heaven, “the shekinah remained on earth, directly accessible to her people.” (36)

 

Numerous midrash stories, for example, recorded by Louis Ginzberg in his classic Legends of the Jews tells the story of the Shekinah at the Burning Bush.  (37) The Shekinah-Spirit appears numerous times in rabbinic writings and, by the Middle Ages, this feminine dimension of God was appearing to Jewish mystics of the Kabbalah, much like Marian apparitions through the centuries. (38) 

The Talmud, and later the Zohar, records the legend that the Shekinah-Spirit descended to earth 10 times, including during the theophany of the Burning Bush. “The Shekinah appeared also in the burning bush….[and] wheresoever the Israelites went in exile, the Shekinah accompanied them.” (39) In rabbinical literature, it was believed that, since the thorn-bush is used for a hedge, it is the symbol of protection. The fire which engulfed it was a ‘heavenly fire’: a theophany signaling that God would protect and deliver the Israelites from bondage.  Fire, which is normally destructive, is here rendered harmless. It is also a symbol of the purity or holiness of God and the need for the Israelites to maintain their own purity in order to continue in their covenant with Yahweh. (40) We will return to this image of the Burning Bush when we examine the famous icon named Mother of God, Burning Bush, at the conclusion of this paper.

It is my contention that the more the Holy Spirit moves into apophatic transcendence, the more the role of Mary as mediator, immanent Mother, and intercessor becomes apparent in the historical development of the Church. Particularly through the devotion that spread through the use of her icons, Marian theology grew, at the level of the faithful, concurrent with the evolution of Christological doctrines in the first seven Ecumenical Councils. I have explored this theme elsewhere. (41) Here, I want to focus on Bulgakov’s understanding of the ramifications of the apophatic nature of God that emerged after the Cappadocians. Then we will explore the Marian dimension of Bulgakov’s theology with a particular focus on Mary’s relationship with the Holy Spirit.

 

Bulgakov and the Spirit of God in the World

 

Rowen Williams observes that, in Bulgakov’s Unfading Light, he expounds upon the Palamite doctrine, and finds “not only the foundation of the theology of negation…but also a vision of the transfiguration of the cosmos by the penetration of divine energy.” (42) Although Wisdom-Sophia is “not God” (i.e., a 4th hypostasis,) she is “the first principle of the new created plurality of hypostases…human and angelic…existing in sophianic relation to the divine.” (43)  Bulgakov, in essence, says: “The mystery of the world is this femininity.” (44)

 

For Bulgakov, apophatic theology of the Spirit is unacceptable, for “in herself, Sophia contains life…[she is] the revelation of the Glory of God.” (45) He asks if it is possible to have a kataphatic theology about the Divine and answers in the affirmative; that is, not through human ascent but through “the condenscension of the Divine world to the creaturely world…through a self-revelation of God that would be accessible to man.” (46) The whole thrust of Bulgakov’s theology is that God created the world not for Himself but for the world. (47) If God has no relation to creation, then he is a “conventional abstraction.” (48)

 

To the degree that the Divinity is clothed in life, the world itself experiences God as ‘all in all.’ Bulgakov insists on a kataphatic theology because of his deep engagement with the world, unlike neopatristic theology, (popularlized primarily by Lossky and Florovsky) which, as we saw in the introduction to this paper, is a trend in modern theology. (49) If the apophatic has any meaning for Bulgakov—and indeed he acknowledges that the Absolute and Transcendent is a Mystery—it is because it serves as a source of revelation:

 

“It presupposes that which is revealed, that which reveals, and a certain unity or identity of the two: a mystery and a revelation.”  (50)

 

Without its kataphatic counterpart, the apophatic yields a theology that is empty and agnostic. He has severe criticism for extreme apophatic philosophers—i.e., speculative mystics like Eckhart and Boehme—because such mysticism “places the impersonal above the personal, the preconscious above the conscious, and consequently the soulless above the spirit.”  (51)

 

In the Cappadocian’s doctrine of the Trinity and the Spirit, Bulgakov sees an “incompleteness,” for although the unity of the Godhead is their apparent dogmatic presupposition, Aristoteleanism and Neoplatonism “stand side by side unharmonized.” (52)  He explains the difficulty:

 

“…the influence of Neoplatonism and Origenism is combined with Aristoteleanism in the Cappadocian’s doctrine of the unknowability of divinity, which they were compelled to develop in the struggle against the rationalism of Eunomius…, who considered Divinity to be fully rationally knowable. Against this doctrine the Cappadocians forcefully profess apophatism, the unknowability and hence, the transcendent character of Divinity.” (53)

 

Whereas the transcendence of Divinity is overcome in Neoplatonism and Origenism by “subordinationism,” such a position is untenable for the Cappadocians; hence within the categories of Aristotelian logic—which is where the Cappadocians confined their theology—there “truly is no place for Divine tri-unity.” (54) It seems apparent, in fact, that Bulgakov prefers the theology of Athanasius, with his dyadic interrelation of the Son and the Spirit. For in Athanasius—whom Bulgakov criticizes for his christocentrism—there is nonetheless a “remarkable” doctrine “of Divine-humanity as the dyadic action of the Son and the Holy Spirit.”  (55)

 

Although the Holy Spirit is the ‘giver of life’ for Basil, he still could never call the Holy Spirit ‘God’; thus, what emerges is an incomplete pneumatology in which the Spirit is revealed through her gifts, but the Spirit herself is not revealed. (56) Bulgakov notes that Gregory the Theologian demanded an answer to the question: “Is the Spirit God?” However, the Holy Spirit was not called God even in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. Bulgakov therefore demands that we re-examine it:

“And this was not an accidental instance of forgetting, but an intentional silence and evasion, for the question concerned precisely this. The Creed’s definition concerning the Holy Spirit is therefore deficient. It is incomplete and needs to be completed….[for] all the question of the dogmatics of the present day chiefly concern pneumatology.” (57)

For Bulgakov, the Church, as the Bride who continually makes herself ready for the marriage with the Lamb of God, is thus called, not only to personal salvation, but to the “transfiguration of the world.” (58) This is because the Holy Spirit already abides in the world, having descended at Pentecost, and therefore, in the spirit of prophecy, is always directed toward the future. (59) The images of the Mother-Spirit—or God the Mother— find a resonance in Bulgakov’s theology of the Holy Spirit and the Church. It is the Spirit’s prophetic call which beckons us toward inspiration, in the sense that the human spirit “strives to receive creative conception and to accomplish spiritual birth.” (60)

In Bulgakov’s pneumatology, the Incarnation and descent of the Holy Spirit represent, in fact, “a second creation of the world in God, its deification.” (61) Bulgakov continually reminds us that to identify the Spirit’s work, one must look to the unfolding world historical process. The Holy Spirit, who previously was “sent into the world” at the Annunciation in order to accomplish the Incarnation, is “now sent into the world by the Son…[and] is now directed toward the world…and descends into the world…” (62) The third Hypostasis, as the Comforter, now lives and acts in the Church, but it’s Spirit of wisdom and prophecy is not confined to the Church. Paul Valliere remarks that “Bulgakov never tires of reminding the Church that the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost took place in the world.” (63) In this sense, Bulgakov sees piety and prophecy to be a natural revelation of the Holy Spirit “which can be observed at the very beginning of the world” (64) and therefore intimately connected to the earth from its genesis: for it is an immanent Spirit. The Spirit was revealed in history, and will be actively involved in history till its end.

The Spirit is the natural energy of the world, eternally bearing within itself the principle of creative activity, (65) rather like the world-soul of the medieval humanists; only Bulgakov is quick to point out that even though Spirit is the life of the vegetative and animal world “after their kind,” this does not imply pantheism, at least in the way it is normally understood, that is, as an “exhaustive conception of the world.” (66) It is however, panentheism, or Spirit in the world, a world in which we “live and move and have our being” in Spirit. (67) Panentheism, in Bulgakov’s sophiology is a “dialectically necessary moment in the sophiological cosmology.” (68)  Nature, in fact, which is created by a transcendent God who stands apart from it, is nothing other than dualism. (69) It is the Spirit of God in creation that the Psalmist hymns. (Ps. 104:30)

Bulgakov quotes the messianic work of the Spirit in Job (33:4) who recognizes the creative activity of the Spirit; in Isaiah (32:15), who waits for the fruitful outpouring of the Spirit; in the “new spirit” in Ezekiel (36:26), and in 14 other Old Testament citations—and this, in only one discussion of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament texts. (70)  For Bulgakov, we are meant to be ‘spirit-bearing’ people, the most perfect example of which is the personification of the Bride (Church), which is Mary herself.  Bulgakov sees the descent of Shekinah-glory upon Mary, the perfected “Spirit-bearer, at the Annunciation.” (71) We will revisit this theme in more detail later, in our examination of the Annunciation icon. For now, I want to underscore that in Bulgakov’s Mariology, the Motherhood of the Holy Spirit has a direct relationship to the Mother of God.

For Bulgakov, the male and female polarities of Christ and the Holy Spirit find correspondence in the Incarnation of Christ and the Theotokos, who is “the most perfect manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the image of the Spirit-bearer.” (72) In this way the “image of the perfect Divine-humanity in its fullness” is reflected not only in the Son, but also in his Mother. (73) In Bulgakov’s anthropology the “human sophianic spirit is a male-female androgyne” and both male and female principles reflect the image of the Divine Sophia. (74)

The Mother of God as Spirit-Bearer

The true mystical revelation of God, then, involves the dyad:  both the Logos and the Holy Spirit. “Cognition and intuition are two paths of revelation, two wings” which leads to knowledge. (75) He understands revelation, not in the apophatic “night of extinguished consciousness” but in the “midday light of consciousness.” (76)  This dyadic revelation which Bulgakov calls the “two revealing hypostases” comprise, in Bulgakov’s sophiology, the Divine Sophia, for “she reveals and expresses the hidden essence of the Father.”  (77)  Through the Logos and the Spirit, Sophia is in the process of revealing the depths of Divine-humanity.  Furthermore, “man is created for Godsonhood and Goddaughterhood” through the image of Christ and Mary, Theotokos, for they reveal the image of Divine-humanity. (78)

And here, Bulgakov leads us to a deeper appreciation of the mystery of Mary. He expresses that, like the Spirit, she is an image of the glory of Beauty, “the beauty of holiness.” (79) And even though we do not have an image of her state of heavenly glorification, her earthly image has so “stung our heart” that her spiritual beauty is itself invincible: “Before this image, if it appears to the world and becomes accessible to it, no human heart will persevere in its hardness…” (80) Bulgakov very lucidly observes that the (first) Pentecost of the Virgin Mary preceeds the Divine Incarnation, for at her Annunciation, “the divine conception is accomplished by the divine inhabitation of the Logos and the Holy Spirit, who, in this sense, (in the Gospel of the Egyptians) is sometimes called His Mother.” (81)  Most remarkably, perhaps, this is the clearest indication that what is communicated is not “a particular gift of the Spirit” but the hypostatic Spirit Herself, who reposes on the Son. (82) For the Son came down, not alone but together with the Spirit; they are the dyad sent into the world by the Father. Between the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit, there is not a “hypostatic identification” but rather an “inhabitation”, a kind of “action by grace” which enables Mary to “commune with the Divine Life in the Holy Trinity in Her perfect spirituality.” (83)

The Orthodox theologian and disciple of Bulgakov’s, Elizabeth Behr-Sigel, has stressed on numerous occasions that “Orthodox theology pushes quite far the idea of a particular relationship between the ‘feminine,’ of which Mary is the archetype, and the Holy Spirit,” as well as “the Holy Spirit, Divine Wisdom [and] the Virgin.” (84) This is because the hypostatic motherhood of the Spirit is intimately connected to the earthly divine motherhood of the Theotokos.  Because of her Fiat, Mary the woman and Mary the disciple stand—together with the whole Church—united to the consecration of Christ which is offered, as the Byzantine Liturgy proclaims, “on behalf of all and for all.”  At the symbolic level, Mary represents the new anthropos.  Her living faith radically opens her to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, whose vessel she becomes.  In naming Mary the “Spirit-bearing Person” Bulgakov once said that “to this day, [the church] has not realized the treasure of revelation concerning the Mother of God”(85).

In Bulgakov’s kataphatic theology, then, we begin to see the ideas linking Shekinah-Sophia-Spirit to Mary. Bulgakov’s Mariology, outlined in his The Burning Bush, echoes the title first given to Mary by Gregory of Nyssa, who said:  

“From this we learn also the mystery of the Virgin: The light in divinity which through birth shone from her into human life did not consume the burning bush…That light teaches us what we must do to stand within the rays of the true light.” (86) The radiance at the burning bush “did not come from a material substance, this light did not shine from some luminary among the stars but came from an earthly bush and surpassed the heavenly luminaries in brilliance.” (87)

Gregory applied many of the Old Testament metaphors to Mary, already common in homilies of the earlier Fathers. But he was the first to call her the Burning Bush, or the Unburnt Bush.  He held that at the Annunciation, Mary, in her virginity, was filled with the Holy Spirit and became the tabernacle of Wisdom, [who is here, Christ] because the work of the Spirit at the moment of the Incarnation created the matter of Christ’s body from the flesh and blood of his mother: “where Wisdom built a house…the tabernacle formed by such an impulse was not clothed with anything of human corruption.” (88)  Mary, as the undefiled Virgin, is able to contain this theophany of God and not be consumed by it.  She is “the honor of our nature, the gate of our life, the one who won salvation for us.” (89)  Gregory gave Mary the title Theotokos before it was officially made a doctrine at the Council of Ephesus in 431.  In his Annunciation sermon, Gregory praises her:

“You are adorned beyond every creature, beautiful above the heavens, you shine more than the sun, are exalted above the angels; you were not taken away to the heavens, but remaining on earth you drew to yourself the Lord of heaven and the King of the universe.” (90)

This is precisely the role of the Shekinah-Spirit in her relationship with the children of Israel.

 

 

The Icon: Burning Bush

 

In Bulgakov’s theology, the term “Motherhood of God” (bogomaterinstvo) is more than a statement abut Christology. Mary could not have given birth to the Divine Word by virtue of her humanity alone: a human being does not generate the divine.  Her divine Motherhood is a Spirit-filled mystery and demonstrates an active participation on her part. Mary cannot be separated from the presence of God made flesh among us, inaugurated at her Fiat, brought to fullness at Pentecost, and now permeating and sanctifying creation. As a visible image of the Holy Spirit, she is revivified, deified human being, who manifests the fullness of the divine image in humanity (91) carrying out the Holy Spirit’s work of nurturing and sanctifying the world; that is, continuing to give life as it did on the first day of creation, when it ‘brooded’ over the face of the waters.  Bulgakov sees the Spirit’s work as a kind of mothering, brought to perfection in the perfect human mother.  In Mary’s womb there is a spaciousness (“Wider than the Heavens”) as there is a spaciousness in her presence in the Church.  In one of the canons which recount the mysteries of Mary, the faithful sing: “O Virgin, past understanding are thy wonders! Strange is the manner of thy birth, strange is the manner of thy growing. Strange and most marvelous are all things concerning thee…everything unutterable for humanity.”  (92)

 

I would like to conclude this paper with a short examination of one of the most illustrious kataphatic images of the Russian Church: the icon of the Burning Bush. In the East, the icon of the Burning Bush is one of the most famous and beautiful examples of Marian symbolism that incorporates Old Testament metaphors. The icon called Mother of God, Burning Bush is particularly popular in Russia, and some of the more famous icons of this type are from icon ‘schools’ that tend to paint icons rich in symbolism. It is not known how long ago the first icon of this type emerged.

 

In the Burning Bush, the Virgin and her Son are pictured within a star with eight flames or points (symbolizing the bush) and enclosed in a cloud.  This multi-rayed star is refracted into a multicolored hierarchy of angels gathered around the Mother and Child.  The implication is that the angels rule the earthy elements through her, the Queen of Angels.  Minor angels, who are the dispensers of the natural elements, are sometimes named with their inscriptions (e.g, Angel of thunder and lightening; Angel of rainbows and clouds; Angels of dew and hoarfrost, etc.)  On the edges of the flames are the Archangels, the Cherubim and the Seraphim. In every Byzantine Liturgy the hymn is sung: “More honorable than the Cheribum, more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim, thee, who without corruption gave birth to God the Word, the very Theotokos, thee do we magnify.”   In the aura of the Theotokos, every spirit has its own distinct color, but the single ray associated with the Mother of God, the flame that shines through her, unites in her the entire spiritual range of the heavenly spectrum. In her the Bush is the symbol of an embrace of the heavenly and earthly worlds, burning in a fire without being consumed.

 

At four points of the eight-pointed star or flame are images of an eagle, a lion, a bull and a winged human. All four characters have wings and they are not only the symbols that appear in Ezekiel’s vision (Ez.1:10) and in the Revelation of John (Rev.4:7); but they are most commonly associated with the four Evangelists. (In some icons of the Enthroned King, these same figures flank the throne of Christ.) Finally, at the four corners of the icon, but not embedded in the majestic star itself, are four scenes from the Old Testament: Moses gazing at the burning bush, Ezekiel standing before the closed door of the sanctuary; Jacob dreaming of his ladder to heaven; and Isaiah encountering the angel who came to purify his lips with a burning coal. All of the Old Testament metaphors which have accrued to the Shekinah-Spirit have, in the course of the Church’s history, been appropriated to Mary in iconic and homiletic form (92). Bulgakov explores this extensively in his Burning Bush, especially in the Appendixes.  Although Bulgakov acknowledges the great Mystery of the ineffable and unknowable God, the theophany of the Burning Bush is a sign that the transcendent God is still with us, for what was prefigured in the image of the flame and the bush was revealed through the mystery of the Virgin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

End-notes

 

  1. Andronikof, Constantin. “Afterword”, In, Bulgakov, Sergius. The Holy Grail and the Eucharist. Translated and edited by Boris Jakim. Hudson, N.Y.: Lindisfarne Books. 1997, p. 141.
  2. Holy Grail, p. 143.
  3. Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa. New York: Paulist Press, 1978. p. 57.
  4. quoted in, Meyendorff, John.  Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes. New York: Fordham University Press.  1974, p. 14.
  5. In, The Great German Mystics by James Clark.  N.Y.: Russell and Russell, 1949, p. 9.
  6. Weeks, Andrew. German Mysticism from Hildegard of Bingen to Ludwig Wittgenstein. Albany: State University of N.Y. Press. 1993. p. 81.
  7. McGinn, Bernard, et al. Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises and Defense (Classics of Western Spirituality.) N.Y.: Paulist Press. 1981.p. 33.
  8. McGinn, et al. Meister Eckhart, Vol .1: Teacher and Preacher.  Paulist Press. 1986. p. 166.
  9. ibid. p. 168.
  10. ibid.
  11. ibid. p. 167.
  12. ibid. p. 20.
  13. ibid. p. 18.
  14. In, Raymond Blackney, trans. Meister Eckhart; A Modern Translation , N.Y.: Harper & Row 1941, p. 225-6.
  15. In McGinn, 1986. p. 18.
  16. Lossky, Vladimir. Spor o Sofia (The Sophia Controversy.) Paris: Brotherhood of St. Photius. 1936.
  17. For a good discussion of this, see Whitte, John, et al. The Teachings of Modern Christianity on Law, Politics, and Human Nature. Columbia University Press. 2006, chapter 21.
  18. Lossky, Vladimir. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. London: James Clarke & Co. 1957. p. 33.
  19. see Lossky, The Vision of God. Crestwood, N.Y: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. 1997.
  20. Valiere, Paul. Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov.  Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans. 2000. p. 389.  See also Rowen Williams’ discussion of this in Sergii Bulgakov: Towards a Russian Political Theology. Edinburgh; T & T Clark. Chapter 4, esp. pp. 172-180.
  21. Yamamura, Kei. “The Development of the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in Patristic Philosophy: St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nyssa.” In, St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly. Vol 1,#1. 1974. p. 21.
  22. Meyendorff, Byzantine,  p. 25.
  23.  Hopko, Thomas.  “Apophatic Theology and the Naming of God in Eastern Orthodox Tradition,” In, Speaking the Christian God : the Holy Trinity and the Challenge of Feminism .Edited by Alvin F. Kimel.  Grand Rapids, Mich. : W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. p. 145, #5.
  24. quoted in Yamamura, p. 15.
  25. ibid. p. 16.
  26. quoted in, Meredith, Anthony, S.J. Gregory of Nyssa. London ; New York : Routledge, 1999. p. 52.
  27. ibid. p. 46.
  28. ibid.
  29. ibid. p. 42.
  30. On the Holy Spirit, Against the Macedonians. Gregory Nyssa. Online source: New Advent translation; newadvent.org.
  31. Hopko, See # 23, above. p. 151.
  32. Balthasar, Hans Urs von. Presence of Thought: An Essay on the Religious Philosophy of Gregory Nyssa, Trans. Mark Sebanc, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995.p. 19.
  33. ibid. #16.
  34. ibid. pp. 19-20.
  35. Congar, Yves. I Believe in the Holy Spirit. Translated by David Smith. N.Y.: Seabury Press; London: Geoffrey Chapman. 1983. Vol 1. p. 12..
  36. In Rae, Eleanor and Marie-Daly, Bernice. Created in Her Image. N.Y.: Crossroad. 1990. p. 12. Also, I have done an extensive overview of the Shekinah in my Master’s Thesis: Compton, Madonna Sophia. Presence of the Numinous: the Development of the Archetype of the Shekinah. John F Kennedy University  Library. Orinda and Pleasant Hill, CA. 1991.
  37. Ginzberg, Louis. The Legends of the Jews. Translated by Henrietta Szold. N.Y.: John Hopkins University Press. 1988.
  38. Although, in the earlier tradition, the Shekinah was beheld only as a ‘radiance’, it evolved into the feminine dimension of God. “In one anecdote, Rabbi Jacob Samson of Spitovka one day in 1791, suddenly saw a vision: the Shekinah, the female component of the deity, appeared to him in the form of a bitterly weeping woman.”  In, Hoffman, Edward. The Way of Splendor: Jewish Mysticism and Modern Psychology. Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 1981, p. 180. Hoffman goes on to explain, “This startling Jewish idea, that a heavenly Mother—the Shekinah—rules beside the male-stereotypical deity has long been central to Kabbalah.  Often regarded with the utmost misgiving by non-Kabbalist rabbinical authorities, they constantly sought to dilute it’s powerful hold on larger numbers of Jews.” (ibid, p. 80)  See also the noted scholar of the Kabbalah, Moshe Idel: “Beginning in the mid-sixteenth century the Shekinah played an increasingly important role which included several accounts of her appearing in visions to Kabbalists and Hasidic Masters.” In Idel, Moshe. Kabbalah and Eros. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2005, p. 144.
  39. Jewish Encyclopedia online: “Appearances of the Shekinah.” www.jewishencyclopedia.com.
  40. See, Smith. W.R. The Religion of the Semites; the Fundamental Institutions. N.Y.: Meridian Books.  1956.
  41. Compton, M Sophia. More Glorious than the Seraphim: Byzantine Homilies and Feasts in Honor of the Theotokos. (forthcoming), Minneapolis, MN.: Light and Light Publications. 2008.

 

 

42. Williams, Rowan, ed.  Sergii Bulgakov: Towards a Russian Political Theology. Edinburgh: T & T Clark. 1999. p. 125.

 

43. ibid. p. 135.

 

44. (quoted in ibid. From Svet neverchernii. Moscow: Izdatel’ stvo ‘Respublika, 1994. pp 211-214. In the Unfading Light, Bulgakov outlines the apophatic tradition from Plato to Boehme and sets forth his kataphatic approach.

 

45. Bulgakov, S. The Lamb of God. Translated by Borid Jakim. Eerdmans. 2008. p. 112.

 

46. ibid.

 

47. ibid. p. 120.

 

48. ibid. p 121.

 

49. Interestingly, Paul Valliere has noted that “Neopatristic theologians privileged apophatic theology both in their reading of the fathers, and in their own theological constructions.  Since most contemporary western students of Orthodox theology were introduced to the subject by Neopatristic scholarship, the apophatic bias established itself among them as well….[for example, Vladimir} Lossky could expel categories of nature and history from dogmatic theology with an easy conscience because, as a rigorour apophaticist, he assigned little positive theological status to the world to begin with. Bulgakov, on the other hand, could not set aside these categories… Paul Valliere. Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov. Eerdmans. 2000, pp. 299-300, 389.

 

50. Bulgakov, S. The Comforter. Translated by Borid Jakim. Grand Rapids, Mich.:  Eerdmans. 2004. p. 360.

 

51. ibid. p. 361.

 

52. ibid. pp. 31-32.

 

53. ibid. p. 29.

 

54. ibid. p. 30.

 

55. ibid. p. 27.

 

56. ibid. p. 36.

 

57. ibid. pp. 39-40.

 

58. in Williams, R. Sergii, p. 281.

 

59. Comforter, p. 292.

 

60. ibid. p. 293.

 

61. Bulgakov, S. The Bride of the Lamb. Grand Rapids, Mich.:  Eerdmans. 2002. p. 245.

 

62. Comforter, pp. 260-261.

 

63. ibid. p. 355.

 

64. ibid. p. 157.

 

65. ibid. p. 199.

 

66. ibid. p. 200.

 

67. Acts 17: 28, in ibid. p. 200.

 

68. ibid.

 

69. ibid.

 

70. in Comforter,  pp. 156-159.

 

71. Bride of the Lamb. P. 398.

 

72. Comforter. P. 187.

 

73. ibid.

 

74. ibid. p. 186.

 

75. ibid. p. 363.

 

76. ibid.

 

77. ibid. p. 366.

 

78. ibid. p. 367.

 

79.ibid. p 279.

 

80. ibid. p. 280.

 

81. ibid. p. 246.

 

82. ibid.

 

83. ibid. p 247.

 

84.       Behr-Sigel, Elizabeth. Discerning the Signs of the Times. Ed: Michael Plekon and Sarah Hinlicky. SVSP. 2001. pp. 106-07.

 

 

85.       from Agnets Bozhii, quoted in Valliere, Paul. Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov. Grand Rapids, Mich; Eerdmans, 2000, p. 298.

 

86.       Gregory of Nyssa: Life of Moses. Translation and Introduction by Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson. N.Y.: Paulist Press. 1978. p.  59.

 

87.       ibid.

 

88.       Gregory Nyssa, Letter 17 To Eustathia, Ambrosia, and Basilissa, quoted in Carl F.  Baechle, “The Christological Roots of the Cappadocian Mariology; Mary as Theotokos and Perpetual Virgin,” in Diakonia 34, 2001. p. 45.

 

89.        Gregory Nyssa, Annunciation Homily, quoted in O’Carroll, Michael, ed. Theotokos: A Theological Encyclopedia of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press. p. 161.

 

90.       On Virginity, in O’Carroll, Theotokos. p. 161.

 

91.       Kupina neopalimaia, in Valliere, Paul.ed., Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov. Grand Rapids, MI.: Eerdmans. 2000. p. 325.

 

92.       Feast of the Presentation. Canticle 5, First Canon, Matins.