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Athanasius, the Psalms, and the Reformation of the Self

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2006

Paul R. Kolbet
Paul R. Kolbet
Affiliation:
Boston College
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Extract

Shortly after his death, the influential fourth century bishop, Athanasius of Alexandria, was recognized for introducing the contemplative traditions of the Egyptian monks to the urban Christians of Alexandria and for bringing the desert monks into communion with the Alexandrian episcopacy. Athanasius accomplished this by quite intentionally bridging the distance—physical and spiritual—between desert and city. Over time, with his tireless effort, the daily spiritual practices of the monks became those of the urban Christian and the monks came increasingly under the sway of the Alexandrian episcopacy. As a consequence of his commitment to bringing the desert closer to the city, Athanasius thoroughly integrated ascetic practice into his theology and it proved to be a decisive component of his ecclesiastical politics.2 A letter Athanasius wrote to a certain Marcellinus provides valuable insight into the shape of Athanasius's spiritual program, its relationship to previous Hellenistic philosophical traditions, and, especially, the crucial function of the psalms in the reformation of the self.

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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 99 , Issue 1 , January 2006, pp. 85 - 101
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© 2006 Cambridge University Press

Shortly after his death, the influential fourth century bishop, Athanasius of Alexandria, was recognized for introducing the contemplative traditions of the Egyptian monks to the urban Christians of Alexandria and for bringing the desert monks into communion with the Alexandrian episcopacy.1

Gregory Nazianzus, Orationes 21.19–20 (ed. J. Mossay; Sources chrétiennes (SC) 270; Paris: Cerf, 1980) 148–53.

Athanasius accomplished this by quite intentionally bridging the distance—physical and spiritual—between desert and city. Over time, with his tireless effort, the daily spiritual practices of the monks became those of the urban Christian and the monks came increasingly under the sway of the Alexandrian episcopacy. As a consequence of his commitment to bringing the desert closer to the city, Athanasius thoroughly integrated ascetic practice into his theology and it proved to be a decisive component of his ecclesiastical politics.2

See David Brakke's Athanasius and Asceticism (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1998). Susanna Elm concludes, “Athanasius used his interpretation of ‘rural’ Egyptian asceticism to control and organize inner-urban asceticism, and it was his modified form of pseudo-‘rural’ ascetic life, created in response to urban requirements, that was then exported to the West; but it was also reintroduced into the rural environment to control and organize the original, ‘rural,’ ascetic movement according to its ideals” (Virgins of God: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994] 371).

A letter Athanasius wrote to a certain Marcellinus provides valuable insight into the shape of Athanasius's spiritual program, its relationship to previous Hellenistic philosophical traditions, and, especially, the crucial function of the psalms in the reformation of the self.

Although the letter provides no details concerning Marcellinus's identity, he was, in all likelihood, one of the urban Christians adopting the ascetic practices Athanasius promoted. In fact, Athanasius began his letter by congratulating Marcellinus on maintaining his spiritual practice (

), and then proceeded to provide a sustained reflection upon the use of the Psalter in the Christian life.

3

Athanasius, Epistola ad Marcellinum 1 (ed. J. P. Migne; Patrologia graeca (PG) 27; Paris, 1886)12a. All citations, except where noted otherwise, are from the translation of Robert C. Gregg, in Athanasius: The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus (Classics of Western Spirituality; New York: Paulist Press, 1980). Two other English translations that include prefatory comments are available: one by Pamela Bright in Early Christian Spirituality (ed. Charles Kannengiesser; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986) 56–77; the other by Everett Ferguson, Ekklesiastikos Pharos 60 (1978) 378–403.

It is not surprising that Athanasius directed his discussion of

to the Psalter, since he had elsewhere already represented the psalms as a crucial component of Antony's training. In his account of the famed monk's physical and spiritual struggles, Athanasius described how Antony so perfected the use of the Psalter that the demons wailed and cried out as though severely weakened whenever he would chant psalms.

4

Athanasius, Vita Antonii 39.6 (SC 400:242). On Ep. Marcell. as a work of the mature Athanasius, see Herman-Joseph Sieben, “Athanasius über den Psalter: Analyse seines Briefes an Marcellinus,” Theologie und Philosophie 48 (1973) 157. Athanasius describes Antony as devoting himself to “exercise (

) rather than the household, attending (

) to himself and patiently training (

) himself (Vit. Ant. 3.1 [SC 400:136.7–9]). Antony later encourages others to do the same (Vit. Ant. 19).

The sort of letter that Athanasius wrote to Marcellinus was, in fact, quite common in late antiquity.5

Athanasius wrote a number of other letters, including his annual “festal” letter to the Egyptian Christians, advocating, among other things, various spiritual practices.

It had become fashionable for Christians and non-Christians alike voluntarily to take time to devote themselves to training that would further their spiritual progress. This training took the form of a daily struggle with their own humanity that was not unlike that undertaken by those first Christian ascetics in the desert who battled their own passions and demons. The orator Dio Chrysostom was not atypical in describing the attempt to live a truly admirable life as a more stubborn battle than that fought by famed Spartan warriors.6

Dio Chrysostom, Orationes 77/78.40 (trans. H. Lamar Crosby; LCL 385 [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964] 296).

In a similar fashion, the noble senator Seneca advised the young Lucilius that he was commending to him a way of life that was itself a battle, and that he should approach this struggle with his own passions as any trained soldier would a war.7

Seneca, Epistulae morales 37.1 (trans. Richard M. Gummere; LCL 75:252–54), 96.5 (LCL 77:106).

Representatives of the Hellenistic philosophical schools were particularly aware of the manifold resistance that human beings face in committing to the philosophic life. Cicero lamented that “as soon as we come into the light of day … we at once find ourselves in a world of iniquity amid a medley of wrong beliefs, so that it seems as if we drank in deception with our nurse's milk.”8

Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes. 3.1.2 (trans. J. E. King; LCL 141:226); see also 5.27.78 (LCL 141:504–6).

A century later Seneca remarked, “We are not allowed to travel the straight road,” for those with whom we associate “draw us into wrong” so that the “vices of the nations” are “heaped upon” the individual.9

Seneca, Ep. 94.54–55 (LCL 77:44–46).

The manner in which false beliefs and popular customs combine to form habits deeply ingrained in both mind and body was a prevalent concern of the time.

Part of the reason that a philosophic education was valued in the Hellenistic world was that it ideally enabled one to cultivate an inner core of the self that provided one with enough stability to withstand the onslaught of temptation and tragedy.10

See Gretchen Reydams-Schils, “Roman and Stoic: the Self as a Mediator,” Dionysius 16 (1998) 35–62; eadem, The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility, and Affection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).

This required a long process of training that amounted to far more than a mere facility in handling dialectical syllogisms or knowledge of some true axioms.11

Seneca, Ep. 94.69 (LCL 77:54). Musonius Rufus speaks of the “longer and more thorough training” that philosophy requires, since its students have been “born and reared in an environment filled with corruption and evil” (Cora E. Lutz, Musonius Rufus: “The Roman Socrates," [Yale Classical Studies, 10; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1947] 52–54).

The person who learned doctrines without going to the trouble to live them was dismissed as a mere “sophist.”12

MaximusTyrius, Dissertationes 27.8 (ed. MichaelB. Trapp; BibliothecascriptorumGraecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana; Stutgardiae: B. G. Teubner, 1994) 159–68.

Seneca calls attention to the need for “something stronger than usual” to “shake off these chronic ills,” and “root out our deep-seated belief in wrong ideas.”13

Seneca, Ep. 95.34 (LCL 77:78).

The self was thought to require a daily practice that would facilitate the internalization of true doctrines that would overcome both our false beliefs and the mental, physical, and emotional habits stemming from them.14

Seneca, Ep. 95.34–35 (LCL 77:78).

Specific disciplines, therefore, were “designed to ensure spiritual progress toward the ideal state of wisdom” however defined by a particular school of philosophy, by exercising the faculties of reason and will in a manner “analogous to the athlete's training or the application of a medical cure.”15

Pierre Hadot, “Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse,” in Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault (ed. A. Davidson; trans. M. Chase; Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995) 59. Ascesis, nonetheless, is a term that had a long history even by the time of Athanasius. On such philosophical exercises, see also Hadot's The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (trans. M. Chase; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998) esp. 35–53; as well as his What is Ancient Philosophy? (trans. M. Chase; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002); Paul Rabbow, Seelenführung: Methodik der Exerzitien in der Antike (Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1954); Robert J. Newman, “Cotidie Meditare. Theory and Practice of the meditatio in Imperial Stoicism,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 2.36.3 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989) 1473–1517; Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University, 1994); B. L. Hijmans, Askesis: Notes on Epictetus’ Educational System (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1959). Michel Foucault has commented notably on this tradition. He describes “technologies of the self” by which people intentionally “not only set themselves rules of conduct, but also seek to transform themselves, to change themselves in their singular being, and to make their life into an æuvre that carries certain aesthetic values and meets certain stylistic criteria” (The History of Sexuality [trans. Robert Hurley; 3 vols.; New York: Random House, 1985] 2:10–11). Elsewhere he refers to “technologies of the self, which permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality” (“Technologies of the Self,” in Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault [eds. Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hutton; Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1988] 18). Pierre Hadot has criticized the historical accuracy of Foucault's work as overemphasizing “self” at the expense of the importance this tradition has historically ascribed to conforming the self to universal principles of nature (“Reflections on the idea of ‘Cultivation of the Self,’” in Philosophy as a Way of Life, 206–13). Charles Taylor is similarly critical of Foucault's proposals and insightfully examines the positive and negative implications of the more classical view represented by Athanasius, among others, which understands selfhood as achieved by conforming oneself to a preexistent ideal (Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989] 488–90, 518–21).

Such spiritual exercises required, above all, the “memorization and assimilation of the fundamental dogmas and rules of life of the school.”16

Hadot, “Forms of Life,” 59; see also his Inner Citadel, 51. The Kuriai Doxai of Epicurus are the most conspicuous example from antiquity; see Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, 10.139–54 (trans. R. D. Hicks; LCL 185:662–76). In his Letter to Herodotus, Epicurus says that “mental tranquility means being released from all these troubles and retaining constantly in memory the general and most important principles (

),” (Diogenes Laertius, 10.82 [LCL 185: 610]). Musonius Rufus refers to “habituating” (

) oneself to act according to the principles of a particular teaching (

) (Fr. 5 [Lutz 50]). Epictetus observes, “It is not easy for a person to acquire a proper judgment (

), unless each day the same principles are said and heard, and at the same time applied to life” (Frg. 16 [trans. W. A. Oldfather; LCL 218:460]). Marcus Aurelius exhorts himself to always have his “doctrines” (

) ready, just as physicians have their instruments always “in hand” (

) (De rebus suis 3.13 [trans. C. R. Haines; LCL 58:60]).

Through the recitation of doctrines, participants in such exercises were taught, as it were, to find themselves in the words of others. When these doctrines were reiterated continually in a persuasive form, they were thought to have the potential to “form” (forman) the soul, so that its emotions flowed from studied convictions rather than being driven by the whims of self-interest in any particular moment.17

Seneca, Ep. 94.47 (LCL 77:40); See Dio Chrysostom's description of how “doctrines abide in the soul” (

) of one who has received “a good education” (

) (Or. 4.31–2 [LCL 257:182]).

The internalization of these dogmas ideally led to a transformation of those striving to make spiritual progress as the form of life implied in the school's teaching gradually took on existential reality for them.18

See Seneca, “One who has learned and understood what he should do and avoid, is not a wise man until his mind is metamorphosed (transfiguratus) into the shape of that which he has learned” (Ep. 94.48 [LCL 77:42]).

With some confidence in such methods, Seneca taught that “no affections are so fierce and self-willed that they cannot be tamed by training.”19

Seneca, De ira 2.12.3 (trans. John W. Basore; LCL 214:192).

Philosophy was then, in this way, to be embodied in the life of the philosopher, who ideally displayed complete harmony between beliefs and deeds.20

Seneca is typical: “Let speech harmonize with life. That man has fulfilled his promise who is the same person both when you see him and when you hear him” (Ep. 75.4 [LCL 76:138]). Philo describes how Moses “demonstrated his philosophical doctrines (

) by his daily actions, saying what he thought and acting according to his words, so that speech and life were in harmony, and thus life (

) was found to be like the speech (

) and the speech like the life, just like those who play together [in tune] on a musical instrument (De vita Moysis 1.29 [trans. F. H. Colson; LCL 289:290]).

Paraenetic letters of instruction, like those of Seneca, describing effective spiritual exercises were greatly valued in late antiquity by Christian and non-Christian alike.21

For example, see Seneca, Epistulae morales ad Lucilium; Porphyry, Ad Marcellam; and the texts made available by Abraham J. Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988).

Christians not only shared with their philosophically inclined contemporaries the perception that the moral life was best thought of as a battle or ongoing struggle, but also shared assumptions with them about what sorts of disciplines were necessary if one were going to make spiritual progress.

Athanasius's letter can best be understood within this context as commending a daily regime of Psalms to be taken on voluntarily as spiritual exercises to conform the self to a certain ideal. Athanasius describes the use of Psalms in language similar to the spiritual exercises found among the Hellenistic philosophical schools. He asserts that the recitation of Psalms is a way of “attending” or “caring for oneself” (

).

22

Athanasius, Ep. Marcell. 19 (PG 27:32b). Athanasius also uses this phrase in Vit. Ant. 3.1; 27.4; 91.3. Porphyry extols Plotinus's continual “attention to himself (

) (Vita Plotini 8:20–21 [trans. A. H. Armstrong; Plotinus; LCL 440:30–31]). Finding the phrase in Deut 15:9 (LXX), Basil devoted a homily to the subject (PG 31:197c–217b). See Hadot's comments on what he describes as “a technical term of ancient philosophy,” in “Ancient Spiritual Exercises and ‘Christian Philosophy,’” in Philosophy as a Way of Life, 130–40.

The Psalms are a tool that one uses “to form” or “model oneself” (

).

23

Athanasius, Ep. Marcell. 10 (PG 27:20c).

Indeed, for Athanasius the Psalms are an essential part of Christian discipline because of their unparalleled usefulness in the care of self. This is most evident in the practical advice he offers Marcellinus.

His letter sheds light on what Athanasius considered spiritual exercises to entail, what he intended them to accomplish, and why he believed the Psalms particularly suitable for this task. Athanasius claims that he is not the originator of his advice, but merely relaying wisdom that he learned from an old man who was a “master of the Psalter.”24

Ibid. 1 (PG 27:12a).

This is likely a literary device allowing Athanasius to refrain from speaking in his own name, and, strictly speaking, this letter provides evidence only for Athanasius's teaching on the Psalter.25

Sieben, “Athanasius über den Psalter,” 157.

Athanasius's allusion, nonetheless, may well refer to one of the monks with whom he became acquainted during his multiple trips and exiles into the Egyptian desert or to an anonymous urban teacher. Given that other sources attest to the widespread use of the Psalms among the Christians of late antiquity, and that there was clearly a “reciprocity between Athanasius and the ascetic movement of his time,”26

Charles Kannengiesser, “Athanasius of Alexandria and the Ascetic Movement of His Time,” in Asceticism (eds. Vincent L. Wimbush and Richard Valantasis; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) 479. See also Elm, Virgins of God, 331–72. The daily recitation of the Psalms is widely attested in the writings of early Christians. It is commonly referred to in the Apophthegmata Patrum. One saying of Abba Epiphanius asserts that “The true monk should have prayer and psalmody continually in his heart” (Epiphanius 3 [PG 65:164c] trans. Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection [Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1975] 57). Douglas Burton-Christie describes the consensus that “the most frequently cited Old Testament texts [in the Apophthegmata Patrum] are the Psalms” (The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993] 97). Theodoret of Cyrrhus describes Syrian monks vocalizing Psalms from early morning to late afternoon during daily walks into the desert (Historia religiosa 2.5 [SC 234:204–6]). Cyril of Scythopolis indicates that the learning of the Psalms was an essential skill that Sabbas required novices in Palestine to master before they could move from the cenobium to the laura (Lives of the Monks of Palestine [trans. R. M. Price; Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1991] 113.1–20). The practice was also integral to Cappadocian asceticism. See Basil's Homilae in Psalmos (PG 29:209–493), his Regulae fusius tractatae 37 (PG 31:1009c–1016c), and Gregory of Nyssa's In inscriptiones Psalmorum (SC 466).

it is not unlikely that Athanasius is making available to a broader constituency at least aspects of traditions that bear some resemblance to practices he had himself witnessed.

Even in this letter, however, there is evidence that not all agreed with every aspect of Athanasius's program.27

Athanasius refers to “some of the simple among us” who mistakenly consider music of the Psalms to be “for the sake of the ear's delight” (Ep. Marcell. 27 [PG 27:37d]); and implies that there are others who “embellish the words of the Psalter with the persuasive phrases of the profane” (ibid. 31 [PG 27:41d]).

The recitation of psalms, like other instances of the spiritual exercise tradition, admitted different kinds of instruction, influenced by the diversity of piety among practitioners. Since doctrines occupy such a central place in this tradition by providing the soul with reliable guidance, it is all the more necessary first to establish what these doctrines were for Athanasius, and locate the theological framework that directs the particular pastoral instructions given to Marcellinus. When seen in terms of these doctrinal convictions, Athanasius's contention becomes more intelligible that the Psalter furnishes exercises capable of reforming the disordered movements of the soul through speaking, acting, and singing.

Psalms as a Means for Appropriating Revelatory Knowledge of Both Christ and the Soul

Throughout his writings, Athanasius stresses his conviction that the universe exists exclusively through God's eternal Logos, and continues to persist only to the extent that it conforms to the Logos. He repeatedly underscores that God the creator remains categorically distinct from all else. Creatures were made from nothing (

), and by definition have no internal means by which to sustain their existence. All creation relies continually on the power of the eternal God for its existence and sustenance. Furthermore, all creation retains a potency for nonbeing (

), and risks passing out of existence if separated from the source of its being. For example, Athanasius states, “the nature of created things, having come into being from nothing, is unstable, and is weak and mortal when considered by itself.”

28

Athanasius, Contra gentes 41 (SC 18bis: 188.18–20). See also, De Incarnatione 11 (SC 199bis: 302). For earlier attestations to creatio ex nihilo, see Philo, Legum allegoriae 3.10 (LCL 226:306); Irenaeus, Adversus haereses 2.10.4 (SC 294:90); Origen, De principiis praef. 4 (SC 252:80).

Athanasius, however, often follows such statements with an equal emphasis on God's continual sustenance of creation. Indeed, he asserts that “the God of all is good” and does not “resent (

) the existence of any,” but “desires all to exist,” so that they may benefit from God's “loving kindness"(

).

29

C. Gent. 41 (SC 18bis:188.20–24); see Plato, Timaeus 29e (LCL 234:54).

For Athanasius, God's goodness is manifested in the manner in which God created everything through the divine Word, who is the “orderer” (

) of the universe.

30

C. Gent. 1 (SC 18bis:50.6).

“The Word of God gives light and life, moving (

) and ordering” (

) the universe. By the “providence” of the Logos “bodies grow, the rational soul moves, and possesses life and thought.”

31

C. Gent. 44 (SC 18bis:198.7–16). See also C. Gent. 40–45 (SC 18bis: 184–202).

Moreover, “all things subsist (

) through the Word of God,”

32

C. Gent. 40 (SC 18bis:184.25–26). For further elaboration, see Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius: The Coherence of his Thought (New York: Routledge, 1998).

and have life to the degree that they maintain the original movement given them. Hence, life and order imply one another, as the active ordering of the divine Logos is the source of all power and vitality.

Made in the image of God, the first man was given a certain power by the Logos that he could use to live a life in fellowship with God that was enduring and blessed.

33

C. Gent. 2 (SC 18bis:54.8–11).

His soul received from the Logos its own agency, having its own proper motion, and governance of the body. The first human was intended to have always held “his mind God-ward (

) in the boldest freedom” (

), to associate “with the holy ones in that contemplation” (

), and understand the manner in which all creation coheres in a single Logos. In this way, he was to have kept his soul in a state of such purity (

), that it would have been sufficient of itself to reflect God as in a mirror (

).

34

C. Gent. 2 (SC 18bis:56.1–6). On the soul as a “mirror,” see Andrew Hamilton, “Athanasius and the Simile of the Mirror” Vigiliae Christianae 34 (1980) 14–18. His analysis, however, does not address Athanasius's extension of this simile from the soul to the Scripture as discussed below.

Athanasius accentuates the striking disjunction between these divine intentions for humanity and their human realization. Although intended to “abide” eternally with God,

35

(C. Gent. 3 [SC 18bis:56.10]). A key term for Athanasius, which he repeats often; see its use in Contra Arianos 2.74 (PG 26:305a).

human beings used the power derived from the Logos to turn away from the source of life. For Athanasius, the consequence for humanity of this turning from the Logos is a marked diminishment of the human person. In so doing human beings “forgot” (

) that they were in the image of the good God, and no longer by the power present in their souls could they see God the Word, in whose likeness they were made. Hence, the soul lost its mirror-function and “became hidden” (

).

36

C. Gent. 8 (SC 18bis:72.6–10).

In this way, by turning from the intended order given it by God, the soul “departed from its [true] self.”37

(C. Gent. 8 [SC 18bis:72.8–9]).

This human degeneration is most visible in the soul's motion, since, for Athanasius, “the movement of the soul is nothing other than its life.”

38

(C. Gent. 33 [SC 18bis:160.12–13]).

The soul created by God to be in motion remains mobile even when misusing its powers.39

C. Gent. 4 (SC 18bis:60.3–5).

Having discovered that it has a certain power over itself (

),

40

C. Gent. 4 (SC 18bis:60.8).

that it can move the body in various ways, the soul came to believe that its “dignity” came merely from its ability to move, rather than from its ability “to move toward the term for which it was made.”41

(C. Gent. 4 [SC 18bis: 628–11]).

This power of motion separated from the term of that motion subjected the soul to disordered movements, such as the passions that it suffers. Athanasius chronicles this condition by surveying humanity's progressive descent into idolatry and vice.42

C. Gent. 8–29.

Having turned their vision away from the living God, human beings have made the focus of their attention that which is nearer to themselves: the physical universe and its many sense impressions on the body. Yet, without knowledge of the Logos which orders the universe, people have been “carried about by everything,” and “imagine what has no existence.”

43

C. Gent. 8 (SC 18bis:72.9–13).

Instead of the singular vision of the life-giving God, humanity “formed a desire” for “many things” (

), and “began to be habituated” (

) to such desires.

44

C. Gent. 3 (SC 18bis:58.14–16).

This resulted in a dispersion of the self, and a dissipation of its God-given agency. In its disordered state, the soul is far from the vital order intended by the Logos, lacking both the knowledge and the power necessary to reform itself. In short, for Athanasius, sin is the habitual choice of an alternate order other than the one God made: an artificial order that by definition can lead to nothing other than death, since it lacks any lasting ontological ground.

The erratic movements of soul that threaten its very existence only become ordered through the presence of the proper term of those motions. Each soul needs the eternal Logos to draw near to it. For this reason, although the whole cosmos still displays the design of the Creator, God descended to humanity's diminished condition, and took on a part of it, that is, the single body of Jesus. In taking as his own a single part, the truth about the whole once again became manifest: the contingency of the created universe oriented toward the Logos as its source of life and order. Athanasius asserts that the “unalterable” (

) Logos “took alterable (

) flesh, condemned sin in it,” and “secured its freedom (

) and its power (

) henceforth to fulfill the righteousness of the law.”

45

Orationes contra Arianos, 1.51 (PG 26:120a).

Christ took on the passion “that he might himself lighten these very sufferings of the flesh, and free it from them.”46

C. Ar. 3.56 (PG 26:440–441a). He can even speak of the flesh being “made Word” (

) (C. Ar. 3.33 [PG 26:396a]).

Accordingly, the cross of Christ is the true “therapy of the created order.”47

(C. Gent. 1 [SC 18bis: 48.11–12]).

In this way, in his own transformed body, Christ revealed the truth about human beings, and showed the fullness of undiminished humanity in complete harmony with the Source of its being. The Logos, having drawn near in Jesus Christ, once again makes possible the task of realizing the divine intention: that is, of conforming oneself to the vivifying Logos; the soul renewing its agency and power, becoming truly itself for the first time, and moving toward complete stability in God. The interpreter of Athanasius's letter should, therefore, be aware that Athanasius's Nicene christology informs and shapes his advice to Marcellinus. Without this Christology, he would consider his advice to be no different from the mere “philosophy” Antony describes as having a degree of truth, but lacking power.48

Vit. Ant. 78. For the extensive influence that Athanasius's Nicene commitments had upon his depiction of Antony's asceticism, see Robert C. Gregg and Dennis E. Groh, Early Arianism—A View of Salvation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981) 131–59.

Likewise, according to Athanasius, an Arian Logos would share the creaturely potency for nonbeing, and thereby also lack the power to stabilize human existence.49

“If the Son be a creature … no help (

) will come to creatures from a creature, since all need grace from God” (C. Ar. 2.41 [PG 26:233b]; see also 2.67).

Since the acute human disorder involves the loss of knowledge of God and of the self, Athanasius emphasizes that the Psalms are a source of revelatory knowledge of both Christ and the soul. Indeed, for this reason, he contends that there is a plenitude to the Psalms, such that the whole biblical revelation is available to the one who learns them with understanding. He likens the Psalter to “a garden” that contains all the other canonical books.

50

Ep. Marcell. 2 and 9. Note Basil's similar comments in his homily on Psalm 1 (PG 29: 209a–212a).

In the Psalms, one learns how “to remember” (

) the good works of God.

51

Ep. Marcell. 19 (PG 27:32c).

Athanasius maintained that the actions of the self are reformed through imitation of the divine example, or variations of that example embodied by the saints. He tells Marcellinus that “the Lord … performed righteous acts, and not only made laws but offered himself as a model (

) for those who wish to know the power (

) of acting.” He asserts that a “more perfect instruction in virtue” cannot be found “than that which the Lord typified (

) in himself.”

52

Ep. Marcell. 13 (PG 27:25a-b).

Christ's example is all the more necessary on account of the “unstable character of human behavior.” The Christian life requires “continual ‘formation’ (

) of the self through imitation” of the “eternally consistent ‘form’ or ‘pattern’ (

)” provided by the divine Word.

53

David Brakke, Athanasius and Asceticism, 167. Athanasius describes this himself, “Imitation (

) of these natural (

) qualities [in God] is particularly protective in the case of human beings, as has been said; for inasmuch as they [God's qualities] endure and never change while the conduct of human beings is easily changed, it is possible, by looking to what is unchangeable by nature, to flee evil deeds and to re-form (

) oneself to better things” (C. Ar. 3.20 [PG 26:365]; trans. Brakke, Athanasius, 167). Burton-Christie observes, “Perhaps the primary means through which the Bible entered and affected the imaginations of those who took up life in the desert was the vivid images of holy exemplars from Scripture—that is, through exemplary interpretation. The biblical saints to whom the monks looked for guidance included figures from both the Old and the New Testament, though of course distinct from them in important ways was the person of Christ” (Word in the Desert, 167).

Christ's example, however, is mediated through Scripture. The Psalms are a crucial vehicle through which one internalizes the victory of the Word over passions, death and the devil.54

David Brakke comments that although “all human beings receive the incorruption of the Word's assumed body, they must individually appropriate it through lives of ascetic discipline within the Church” (Athanasius, 151–52).

Athanasius says that “it was indeed for this reason” that God made Christ's life “resound in the Psalms before his sojourn in our midst,” so that he could furnish “the model of the earthly and heavenly man in his own person.”55

Ep. Marcell. 13 (PG 27:25b). Athanasius's insistence here on the christological focus of the Psalter accords with his more general hermeneutic. See James D. Ernest, “Athanasius of Alexandria: The Scope of Scripture in Polemical and Pastoral Context” Vigiliae Christianae 47 (1993) 341–62; idem., The Bible in Athanasius of Alexandria (Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2004).

Since Christ's life echoes throughout the Psalms, the one reciting them both benefits from the power provided by his example, and internalizes that example through daily vocalization.

In addition to indispensable knowledge of Christ, Athanasius maintained that the recitation of Psalms allowed one to discern the movements of one's own soul. The beginning Christian soon learned how difficult was the preliminary task of gaining an accurate image of the true contours of her or his own soul while it remains shrouded in a fog of falsehood and passion. Athanasius states, “For I believe that the whole of human existence, both the dispositions of the soul and the movements of the thoughts, have been measured out and encompassed in those very words of the Psalter.”

56

Ep. Marcell. 30 (PG 27:41c).

He counsels Marcellinus to employ the words of the Psalter “like a mirror” permitting him to “perceive himself and the motions of his soul” (

).

57

Ep. Marcell. 12 (PG 27:24c). I have altered Gregg's translation wherever he has translated

as “emotions.” Athanasius's use of this term has a broader semantic range than “emotion” since it includes among other things, the reasoning faculty (cf. Ep. Marcell. 27 [PG 27:40a]). John Cassian also likens the Psalms to a mirror. He says that “all these feelings we find expressed in the Psalms” allow us to understand “whatever happens as in a very clear mirror” (speculo purissimo) (Collationes Patrum 24.10.11 [ed. Michael Petschenig; CSEL 13:305; Wien: Verlag der Öster-reichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2004]). The comparison between the soul and Homer's Odyssey was also known in antiquity, see Aristotle's reference to Alcidamas's description of the Odyssey as “a beautiful mirror

of human life” (Rhetorica 1406b [trans. J. H. Reese; LCL 193:366]).

The Psalms, consequently, are a secondary remedial mirror, a corrective lens, that is needed since the human soul, the primary mirror, has become occluded, weakened, and disordered, no longer functioning to reflect the divine image.58

Rather than being a unique quality of the Psalter, Athanasius appears to have seen the whole of Scripture as effective in acquiring true knowledge of the self. Elsewhere he describes how Antony used to tell himself that the ascetic ought to employ the Scriptural example of Elijah as a “mirror” to “acquire knowledge of his own life” (Vit. Ant. 7.13 [SC 400:154–156]). Hence, this quality of Scripture emerges most directly in the Psalter, but is not limited to it.

Therefore, Athanasius advises Marcellinus to look to the Psalms, as it were, for a linguistic blueprint of the drives that inhabit his soul.

That Athanasius considered the Psalms as such an effective tool for introspection is not surprising in light of the work of Walter Ong, who has written so eloquently on the particular technology of the written word. Ong asserts the following:

By separating the knower from the known, writing makes possible increasingly articulate introspectivity, opening the psyche as never before not only to the external objective world quite distinct from itself but also to the interior self against whom the objective world is set. Writing makes possible the great introspective religious traditions.59

Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (New Accents; London: Methuen, 1982) 105. Elsewhere he contrasts the written word with the oral: “Oral communication unites people in groups. Writing and reading are solitary activities that throw the psyche back on itself” (69; see also 54–55).

Therefore, the fixed otherness of the Psalms exposes the fluidity of the human soul, and allows the Christian to perceive the rhythms of his or her own life.

In the same way that representatives of the Hellenistic philosophical schools drew attention to the therapeutic potential of the speech of the philosopher,

60

See, for instance, Plutarch's instruction that one should listen for “the purpose of amending his life by means of what is there said” (

) (Moralia 1.42A [trans. F. C. Babbitt; LCL 197:226]).

Athanasius points to the words of the Psalter as not only providing knowledge of every stirring of the human soul, but furnishing as well “the therapy (

) and correction (

) suited for each motion (

).”

61

Ep. Marcell. 13 (PG 27:25b). See also similar expressions in Ep. Marcell. 12 (PG 27:24d), and 15 (PG 27:28c). Elsewhere Athanasius says, “See: these are all the medicines of God's house, existing for the soul's healing. Often you hear the holy words and psalms: through them you will make your vows spiritually to the one who called you to eternal life” (Fragment from L. Th. Lefort, Lettres festales et pastorales en copte [Louvain, 1965] 124; trans. Brakke, Athanasius, 316).

This therapy consists in subjecting uncontrolled passions to the form imposed upon them by Scripture. In this way, the irrational motions of the soul become ordered by scriptural reason, which is none other than the presence of the eternal Word in the words of Scripture.62

“The Lord himself is in the phrases (

) of the Scriptures” (

) (Ep. Marcell. 33 [PG 27:45a]).

A brief anecdote from the Apophthegmata Patrum illumines how Athanasius envisions the stabilizing effects of the Psalter. We are told, “It was said of the same Abba John that when he returned from the harvest or when he had been with some of the old men, he gave himself to prayer, meditation and psalmody until his thoughts were re-established in their previous order” (

).

63

John Colobos 35 (PG 65:216c; trans. Ward, Sayings, 92). Note also Athanasius's remark that “from the movements” of Antony's body “it was possible to sense and perceive the stable condition of the soul” (Vit. Ant. 67.6 [SC 400:312] trans. Gregg, 81).

Athanasius does not link the healing capacity of self-knowledge to discerning how one's emotional life connects with past experiences or one's formative history.64

A view famously explicated by Sigmund Freud, Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (trans. and ed. James Strachey; New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1977).

Instead, he understands it to have more to do with the knowledge of one's place in the universe and the adjustment of one's emotions to suit that context. Athanasius focuses on how the recitation of certain psalms influences the way individuals perceive the particular situations in which they find themselves. In much of his letter, Athanasius commends specific psalms as means to realize the human ideal as determined by his theological outlook in various situations. For example, he says that the one who is afraid should recite Psalm 118:6 (LXX 117:6): “the Lord is my helper, I will not fear what a human being can do to me.”65

Ep. Marcell. 28 (PG 27:40d).

Evidently Athanasius understands fear to be the result of a faulty belief, such as the following proposition: “Since I am vulnerable to being harmed by human beings, I will fear any that desire me harm.” Although this proposition may appear reasonable, Athanasius would not consider it so, especially when the fear inhibits virtuous action. Through the exercise of saying the Psalm, the one who fears would seek to replace the proposition driving the fear with the verse from the Psalter which would then become the dominant conviction of the moment.66

A strategy characteristic of the Hellenistic schools. See, for example, Marcus Aurelius, De rebus suis 4. 7 (LCL 58:72), and Nussbaum, Therapy of Desire, 37–40, 104–36, 366–72.

Although each passion presents the illusion of being unique to a particular situation, the one who recites psalms discovers that no such affliction is his or hers alone. Through speech, passion is brought into the open and made a part of a more universal human struggle. Athanasius, for example, suggests that when one has been “taken captive” by “foreign thoughts” (

), repents, but even after repenting must continue to live in the situation in which one was overcome, one should say Psalm 137 (LXX 136).

67

Ep. Marcell. 25 (PG 27:37a).

This Psalm begins with Israel lamenting by the waters of Babylon that it had been taken captive and carried away, and proceeds with a spirited exhortation not to forget Jerusalem. Athanasius then suggests that since such trials test the soul, one can give thanks for them with Psalm 139 (LXX 138). This would entail declaring God's thorough knowledge of one's soul and exclaiming how it is not possible to flee from God's presence whether one seeks to hide in the heavens, in Hades, in darkness or night. Thus, the saying of the psalm initially provides access to the feeling that might otherwise lie fallow or erupt in an untargeted manner. The emotion, once expressed through the psalm, however, is immediately refraimed and integrated into the larger scriptural narrative. It becomes, as it were, another plant growing in the biblical garden and is thereby perceived differently by the one saying the psalm. The emotion of any given moment, in this way, is situated within the broad horizon of creation and redemption. The chaos of passion finds its form in the Logos in the same way that the primeval universe once did. The Psalm functions here and elsewhere as a means of remembering and participating in God's intended order for creation, where the Logos pervades and gives life to the whole universe—or in the figurative language of the Psalter, of not forgetting Jerusalem.

The Exercises of Speech, Actions, and Song

Cleaning the mirror of the soul and regaining its functionality requires the development of new habits of thought and of relating to the world. These habits are developed through exercises (

) that attempt to internalize the knowledge of Christ and self, and to recover for the soul its proper order and agency. This is why Athanasius gives specific directions on how Psalms should be sung or said in order to be most effective. Thus, he says, that in addition to teaching that passion is to be disregarded, the Psalms teach more importantly, “also how one must heal (

) passion through speaking (

) and acting (

).”

68

Emphasis mine; Ep. Marcell. 10 (PG 27:20d).

Utilization of the Psalter first of all involves speaking its language. Athanasius says that readers of the other books of Scripture “consider themselves to be other (

) than those about whom the passage speaks.” The reader can only marvel (

) and aspire to imitate from afar such biblical figures as the Patriarchs, Moses and Elijah.

69

Ep. Marcell. 11 (PG 27:21c).

Each reader of the Psalms, however, “utters them as his own words (

), and each sings them as if they were written concerning him,” and “accepts them and recites them not as if another (

) were speaking, nor as if speaking about someone else,” but is “affected by the words of the songs.”

70

Ibid. (PG 27:24a-b). John Cassian offers a similar description of those who sing Psalms: “Vivified by this nourishment continually, he will take in to himself all the affections of the Psalms and will begin to sing them in such a way that he will utter them with the deepest compunction of heart not as if they were the compositions of the Psalmist, but rather as if they were his own utterances and his very own prayer; and will certainly take them as directed at himself, and will recognize that their words … are fulfilled and accomplished daily in his own case” (Collat. 10.11 [CSEL 13:304]).

Thus, the saying of the Psalms is something like learning a second language. As one becomes a fluent speaker of the language of the Psalms, one is able to linguistically transcribe the world into Biblical words.

The Biblical words have such influence on the life of the Christian because the Psalms are a kind of technology. As Walter Ong reminds us, “technologies are not mere exterior aids but also interior transformations of consciousness, and never more than when they affect the word.”71

Ong, Orality and Literacy, 82.

Furthermore, he observes “that intelligence is relentlessly reflexive, so that even the external tools that it uses to implement its workings become ‘internalized,’ that is, part of its own reflexive process.”72

Ibid., 81.

Ong notes that internalizing a technology takes “years” of constant “practice,” such as the that of an organist or violinist. Through this practice, the tool can become “a second nature” that “can enrich the human psyche, enlarge the human spirit, intensify its interior life.”73

Ibid., 83. See also where Ong describes how “The deadness of the text, its removal from the living human lifeworld, its rigid visual fixity,” are the features that assure “its endurance and its potential for being resurrected into limitless living contexts by a potentially infinite number of living readers” (81).

This interiorization of technology can be seen in Athanasius's assertion that the Psalter should be re-written by the Christian in her or his own being. Thus Athanasius counsels Marcellinus to “inscribe” (

) the Psalter “on your soul as on a monument” (

). The soul of the Christian then can be described as “inscribed with words” (

).

74

Ep. Marcell. 20 (PG 27:33a). Describing Antony's “reading” of Scripture “that is enacted in life,” Geoffrey Harpham refers to “the readers’ recreation or rewriting of the text not on paper but in his own being…. The reception of the Biblical text becomes a form of ascesis, of self-overcoming in which the reader or hearer aspires to an identification with the text that is simultaneously original and derivative” (The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism [Chicago: University of Chicago, 1987] 42). Athanasius is preceded by Origen who wrote that the treasure of divine wisdom “is written more clearly and perfectly in our hearts.” (De princ. 4.1.7 [SC 268:290]), as well as by Philo of Alexandria who uses a similar expression regarding the realities referred to in scripture being “graven as though on stone (

) on the hearts of the wise” (De confusione linguarum 4.74 [trans. F. H. Colson and G. H. Whittaker; LCL 261:50]). Athanasius appears to employ this principle, when he states that Antony “paid such close attention to what was read that nothing from Scripture did he fail to take in—rather he grasped everything, and in him the memory took the place of books” (Vit. Ant. 3.7 [SC 400:138] trans. Gregg, 32). Douglas Burton-Christie observes that several of the stories in the Apophthegmata Patrum speak of “the need to attain a saying from Scripture, an indication that the practice of Scripture should lead one to become or appropriate completely its message. This appropriation was seen as a difficult but necessary part of the process of coming truly to understand and realize the meaning of the Scripture. … Attaining a saying from Scripture, realizing its truth within oneself, implied a deep moral and spiritual transformation” (Word in the Desert, 153).

In this case, the tool has shaped its user, and has become a “second nature."

Precisely because he sees the very language of the Psalms as such a formative influence in the Christian life, Athanasius proscribes any alteration in the words themselves. He admonishes Marcellinus not to “let anyone amplify these words of the Psalter with the persuasive phrases of the profane,” nor let anyone “attempt to recast or completely change the words.” Instead one must “recite and chant, without artifice (

), the things written.”

75

Ep. Marcell. 31 (PG 27:41d).

In this way, Athanasius insists that the Psalms, even when they are memorized and transmitted orally, retain a textual fixity. The Psalms, therefore, are neither merely the avenue the Christian uses to express prior religious feelings, nor are they a pliable neutral medium that conforms itself to the reader. Appropriating the very words of the Psalter as one's own is an ascetic act where one's accustomed form of expression is temporarily suspended in order to adopt as normative the logic and values inherent in the language of Scripture.76

See Harpham's discussion of the ascetic quality of reading, since “the very condition of intelligibility” in reading is the submission of the reader to the “extrasubjective” text (Ascetic Imperative, 134).

Given his understanding of sin as weakening human agency, and eroding the proper power given to creatures by the Logos, Athanasius suggests that the Psalter is an effective tool in the Christian life not only because its words are truer than other ones, but “more powerful” (

) as well.

77

Ep. Marcell. 31 (PG 27:44a).

He appeals to a tradition asserting that “long ago in Israel they drove demons away and turned aside the treacheries directed against them by merely (

) reading the Scriptures.”

78

Ibid. 33 (PG 27:44d–45a).

Athanasius, therefore, likens the recitation of Scripture to the ark which contained the tablets of the law that went before the Israelites into battle and “provided sufficient help to them in the face of every army.”79

Ibid. 32 (PG 27:44d).

In the same way as the ark manifested the Lord's presence, so “the Lord himself is in the phrases (

) of the Scriptures” (

).

80

Ibid. 33 (PG 27:45a).

The one who recites these same words can be “confident” (

) like Antony whose psalmody weakened the demons.

81

Ibid. 32 (PG 27:44b). For Antony, see n. 4. Conversely, those who change the words do not benefit from the divine presence in them, and “expose themselves to being mocked by demons” (Ep. Marcell. 33 [PG 27:45a]).

In addition to supplying models for moral imitation, Scriptural language and its accompanying power, the Psalms furnish melodies for singing. Athanasius is quick to declare that the “sweetness of sound” in the Psalms should lead no one to believe that “the psalms are rendered musically for the sake of the ear's delight.”82

Ep. Marcell. 27 (PG 27:37d).

The musical aspect of the Psalms, instead, according to Athanasius, is yet another means of attending to the soul. The task of singing them according to their melodies is commended to Marcellinus as an important exercise as well. Athanasius maintains that the one singing the Psalms should sing “with the mind” as well as “with the tongue.”83

Ibid. 29 (PG 27:41a).

The melody of the phrases “is a symbol of the mind's well-ordered and undisturbed condition.” He asserts that the musical instruments mentioned in the Psalms are “a figure and sign of the parts of the body coming into natural concord like harp strings, and of the thoughts of the souls becoming like cymbals.”84

Ep. Marcell. 29 (PG 27:41b).

The outer musical harmony not only expresses the inner concord of the soul, but also contributes to it. Athanasius says that the one “beautifully singing praises brings rhythm” to the “soul and leads it… from disproportion to proportion.” The soul gains “its composure by singing the phrases” of the Psalter, “rejoices” as it “becomes forgetful of the passions,” and conceives the “most excellent thoughts” while it “sees in accordance with the mind of Christ.”85

Ibid. 29 (PG 27:41b); See Basil's similar comments on the beneficial qualities of the Psalter's melodies (PG 29:212b–213c). In a speech addressing the citizens of Alexandria, three centuries prior to Athanasius, Dio Chrysostom stated, “music is believed to have been invented by human beings for the healing (

) of their passions, and especially for transforming souls which are in harsh and savage state. That is why even some philosophers attune themselves to the lyre at dawn, thereby striving to quell the confusion caused by their dreams. And it is with song that we sacrifice to the gods, for the purpose of insuring order and stability in ourselves” (Or. 32.57 [LCL 358:226–28). The use of music for philosophical ends was often associated with the Pythagoreans. For example in his de vita Pythagorica, lamblichus describes how Pythagoras employed music in spiritual exercises to “correct human characters and ways of life by means of music": “The entire Pythagorean school created what is called ‘musical arrangement’ and ‘musical combination’ and (musical) treatment, skillfully reversing dispositions of the soul to opposite emotions with certain suitable tunes…. There are cases in which they healed emotions (

) and certain sicknesses, as they say, truly by means of singing as an incantation” (

) (25.114, also discussed in 25.110–13, and 32.224; trans. John Dillon and Jackson Hershbell, On the Pythagorean Way of Life: Texts, Translation, and Notes [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991]). See also Maximus of Tyre, Dissertationes 37.5, and the useful collection by Andrew Barker, ed., Greek Musical Writings (2 vols; Cambridge Readings in the Literature of Music; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

The mathematical precision of the melody acts on the self to order it according to God's intention. Thus, the harmony of the sung Psalms signifies a well ordered human being, and the harmonious person who practices psalmody manifests the message of the Psalter.

Conclusion

As he sought to unify the Egyptian church through an ascetic program shared by Christians in the desert and the city, Athanasius promoted the use of the Psalter in the Christian life. He did so employing language and concepts that had been used previously by Hellenistic philosophers to describe their methods of shaping the soul and disciplining its passions. The daily recitation of Psalms, for Athanasius, is an essential part of Christian spiritual practice because it is particularly useful in the care of self. It provides resources that are necessary to reform the self: knowledge of Christ and the soul, powerful models for imitation, a language that reveals the true state of the world, and daily exercises that bring the discordant motions of the soul into proper harmony.

Knowing well the resistance that human life gives to its own perfection, Athanasius understood the Psalter to be all the more necessary in appropriating the Christian faith. Not unlike contemporary Hellenistic philosophers, Athanasius believed that personal practice convinced the mind as much as any proof.86

See Seneca, De ira 2.12.3–6 (trans. John W. Basore; LCL 214:192–94).

He, therefore, advised Marcellinus to adopt a regime of physical actions that occupy the mind and train the body. Athanasius was acutely aware of the manner in which the malleability of the human person is a source of greatness and wretchedness. For the same instability of form that brings with it the possibility of falling into nothingness simultaneously presents the capacity for training and amendment of life. The daily chanting of Psalms then is a therapy that gradually heals the human person. The language of the Psalter progressively “counters the instability of selfhood”87

Harpham, Ascetic Imperative, 41.

with the stability of a written text that becomes a second nature when it is written in the soul.