In addition, there are two passages in the writings of this Apostle where soul and spirit are mentioned side by side, and this gives occasion to ask the question: Is the Apostle not indicating that, besides the soul, there is also a “spirit” that is an essential part of human nature? Likewise, in the writings of certain Holy Fathers, particularly in the ascetic writings, a distinction is made between soul and spirit. The first passage in the Apostle Paul is in the Epistle to the Hebrews: The word of God is quick, and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Heb. 4:12). Another passage from the same Apostle is in the Epistle to the Thessalonians: Your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (I Thes. 5:23). It is not difficult, however, to see that in the first passage the spirit is to be understood not as a substance that is separate and independent from the soul, but only as the inward and most hidden side of the soul. Here the relation of soul and spirit is made parallel to the relationship between the members of the body and the brain; and just as the brain is the inward part of the same bodily nature — or is a content as compared to its container — so also the spirit is evidently considered by the Apostle as the hidden part of the soul of a man.[1]

In the second passage, by “spirit” is evidently meant that special higher harmony of the hidden part of the soul which is formed through the Grace of the Holy Spirit in a Christian — the “spirit” of which the Apostle says elsewhere: quench not the spirit (I Thes. 5:19), and fervent in spirit (Rom. 12:11). Thus, the Apostle is not thinking here of all men in general, but only of Christians or believers. In this sense the Apostle contrasts the “spiritual” man with the “natural” or fleshly man (I Cor. 2:14–15). The spiritual man possesses a soul, but being reborn, he cultivates in himself the seeds of Grace; he grows and brings forth fruits of the spirit. However, by carelessness towards his spiritual life he may descend to the level of the fleshly or natural man (Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? [Gal. 3:3]). Therefore, there are no grounds for supposing that the thinking of the Apostle Paul is not in agreement with the teaching that the nature of man consists of two parts.
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This same idea of the spirit as the higher, Grace-given form of the life of the human soul is evidently what was meant by those Christian teachers and Fathers of the Church in the first centuries who distinguished in man a spirit as well as a soul. This distinction is found in St. Justin Martyr, Tatian, St. Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Ephraim the Syrian, and likewise in later writers and ascetics. However, a significant majority of the Fathers and teachers of the Church directly acknowledge that man’s nature has two parts: body and soul (Sts. Cyril of Jerusalem, Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, John Damascene, Blessed Augustine). Blessed Theodoret writes: “According to the teaching of Apollinarius (the heretic) there are three composite parts in a man: the body, the animal soul, and the rational soul, which he calls the mind. But the Divine Scripture acknowledges only one soul, not two, and this is clearly indicated by the history of the creation of the first man. God, having formed the body from the dust and breathed a soul into it, showed in this wise that there are two natures in man, and not three.”[2]

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[1] In this sense, “spirit” corresponds to the Greek word nous, which is the highest part of the human soul, and the faculty by which man knows God and enters into communion with Him. In the words of St. John Damascene, “The soul does not have the nous as something distinct from itself, but as its purest part, for as the eye is to the body, so is the nous to the soul” (Exact Exposition 2.12; FC, p. 236). —3RD ED.
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[2] The Patristic consensus on this subject is that man is composed of body and soul, and the spirit (nous) is the highest and purest part of the soul. The spirit (nous) of man is created, and must never be confused with the Holy Spirit, Who is Uncreated. At Baptism, however, the Uncreated Grace of God, which man lost at the fall, is once again united with the nous. Thus, St. Diadochus of Photike writes: “The Grace of God dwells in the very depths of the soul — that is to say, in the nous” (Philokalia, vol. 1, p. 280). —3RD ED.

Only after the termination of the work of purification, driven especially by the powers of Baptism and of repentance, does the work of the gifts of the Holy Spirit appear first and foremost.

Of course this doesn’t mean that the soul is left only with these gifts, but the beginning of the activation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit also means an activation of His direct influence. Where grace is, there is the Spirit; this is why the words grace and Spirit are used alternately. By the Mystery of Holy Chrism, the Holy Spirit built Himself a dwelling in the hidden interior of our nature. Since then He has been in constant contact with us.

From there, the grace of Baptism sets in motion the gifts of the Spirit; their work is to pierce the heavy layers of the passions, so that finally the light of these gifts, in other words, of the Holy Spirit, might flood through the opening into the deepest region of our nature. But already before flooding in freely at the end of the total cleansing of the passions, this light becomes stronger. By each virtue, won at the removal of every passionate layer in us, it becomes more transparent. But first we feel the power which works in us during this cleansing. That is, the Holy Spirit at the beginning shows more of His power, and later more light, until illumination breaks out fully in our consciousness. In this way we must understand that of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit-the spirit of the fear of God, the spirit of strength, the spirit of counsel, the spirit of understanding, the spirit of knowledge, the spirit of comprehension, the spirit of wisdom, the first two almost exclusively indicate the power of action: The spirit of the fear of God keeps us from evil, the spirit of strength urges us to good. From this initial phase, knowledge is lacking. It only comes later and is represented by the other five gifts.

After we have made some progress in the winning of the virtues, the horizon of our consciousness begins to redden with the first glow of illumination so that on the peak of dispassion the whole sun of the Holy Spirit might rise.

This is how St. Maximus the Confessor interprets the gifts of the Holy Spirit: After the cessation of sin by the fear of God and after the action of the virtues by strength, we win by the spirit of counsel the skill of discernment. This helps us to carry out with the best judgment the divine commands and to best size up the circumstances of every situation. At the beginning we act mostly from the fear of God, carrying out the commands for the simple reason that God has given them. Later, however, we begin to realize by our own judgment that what God commands us to do is good, but what stops us is evil. At the same time, we begin to understand what is most suitable to fulfill from the commands in each circumstance.

From this first flickering of light, we progress to a brighter one by the gift of understanding, which teaches us how to realize in a practical way the blessings which have been revealed to us by the commands, in such a way as to gain the virtues. Because it can happen that someone can realize what blessings are contained in the commands and nevertheless not know how to execute them in the most satisfactory way, because he works without judgment. The gift of understanding then is what teaches us how to do a good thing with judgment.

Next follows the gift of knowledge, which in distinction to the gift of counsel, no longer discerns only in a general way the blessings in one command from the evil in another, but it reveals the very reason or deeper motivation of each command and virtue. Now I no longer just know in general that it is better to be humble than arrogant, but I realize that by humility I reach the point where I can see the glory of God; I realize that arrogance blinds me-it lets me see only myself.

From this gift we are raised to that of comprehension which changes the most theoretical penetration of the logoi of the virtues into a personal, affective identification with them, which “produces a fusion of our natural powers with the ways and the logoi of the commands,” or “it changes our natural powers into the known logoi of the virtues.”

From this gift we advance to the last, which is the gift of wisdom. This makes us:

... ascend to the cause of the spiritual logoi in the commands and to union with it. By this we know, as far as is humanly possible, in an unknown way, the simple logoi of things found in God; we take out the truth from everything, as from a gushing spring of the heart, and we also share it in different ways with others.

In other words, this gift brings us to the simple and exact contemplation of the truth in all things. “Going on from here we shall bring to light many and varying logoi of the truth by the wise contemplation of perceptible things and of intelligent beings.” In everything that we do or understand, we now have a vision of the whole, of the relationship of our deed or thing with the universal order.

We have reached wisdom after we have gained all the virtues, in other words after we have gained the state of dispassion. It is full sunlight, after it was anticipated by stronger and stronger rays. With this full sunlight, illumination, in the strict sense of the word, begins. In all the partial virtues which preceded dispassion a ray of wisdom appeared in each one; we saw a little of it. Each one was a gift from the illuminating gifts of the Holy Spirit. Now the whole of wisdom appears, concentrated and simple at the same time. It is always united with the fullness of the illuminating gifts of the Holy Spirit. The wise person understands in an all-encompassing way the truth in all things, that is, he sees them in an interdependence, each with its purpose and at the same time its cause, that is God.

Wisdom is the gift of seeing God simultaneously with all things or through them, as the Maker, Sustainer and effective Guide of all things. It helps us to understand at a glance our past life, its purpose, the path that we should follow, the interdependent meanings of the events of human life, of the things in nature, because the unique Power and Cause which stands at the base of all things and shows its action simultaneously in them also explains them.

On the basis of this concurrent overview and comprehension, we can then grasp the meaning of each thing and the norm of each act that must be carried out. If at the beginning we were raised gradually from the partially known to the universally unknown, now, from the peak of the view of the whole we sometimes lower our eyes to one detail, sometimes to another, immediately finding its place, immediately understanding its purpose and function in this landscape.

In another place St. Maximus the Confessor distinguishes between discernment and knowledge (diakrisis, gnosis). The first is born from virtuous activity, the second, from faith; the first is of a practical nature, the second of a contemplative. By the first we distinguish good from evil, by the second we know the logoi of visible and invisible realities, they have their foundation in God. We could identify the first with the gifts of council, understanding, knowledge, and comprehension, and the second with the gift of wisdom, because elsewhere St. Maximus doesn’t consider that faith develops into knowledge along the distinct line of the virtues. But we could consider that practical discernment and contemplative knowledge or wisdom are two convergent peaks, which meet in love, and give birth to a higher, mystical knowledge of God, distinct from wisdom, or from the knowledge of him in the things of the world.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit guide us and sustain us in the mediated knowledge of God. Distinct from it is the direct knowledge of God, which will constitute the third phase of the spiritual ascent, or the phase of the union of the soul with God, or of the vision of the divine light. In this second phase, or of illumination, we will concern ourselves with the knowledge of Him by means of nature and of human actions, individual and collective. It is a knowledge which follows immediately after the step of dispassion, which is a cleansing of the passions, but not yet of the simple images of things too. Only after the mind is cleansed not only from the passions but also from the simple images and representations of things, will the direct knowledge of God be produced, a theological knowledge, in phase three.

But because the mediated knowledge of God is also a knowledge by the Holy Spirit, that is, by His gifts, already in this second phase man’s knowledge has become a knowledge in the Spirit. But it is a knowledge by the Holy Spirit, that is by His gifts already in this second phase because it takes place after man by the virtues and by the Holy Spirit has unlocked or actualized spirit in himself, as the central and intimate place of the mind; he has opened the eye destined for the vision of God. The illuminating gifts of the Holy Spirit become obvious to man only by this opening of this eye of his, of this room meant to be filled with divine light. The Holy Spirit makes Himself known to us only by the activation of our spirit.

So the knowledge by the Holy Spirit is one of the mind returned to its spirit, from the disorder at the surface. The knowledge in the spirit is one in the intimate interior of man, in the midst of the divine light which fills this spirit. By this light all things become transparent before the one who knows in spirit. His vision, the surface of things and of human actions are no longer an opaque wall, but their meanings and relationships with God become crystal clear. He is no longer stopped by the passions at this surface-he has penetrated beneath his own surface, and through the thick surface of things.

This vision into the depths of things and of human destinies is a great mystery. These depths can’t be opened only by the sensory comprehension of things because then anybody could grasp them, as they grasp their perceptible structure by their logoi . They could be understood by the bundle of common attributes of the examples in the same species, by the so-called “notions” or “essences” of things. But if the depths become transparent only to the one who has attained knowledge “in the spirit” to the one who has been raised “in his spirit” from his thick shell, it means that this spirit is a power which penetrates the depths of things. Either the light from the spirit penetrates beyond the opaque layer of things, or it makes the light hidden in them transparent. Only in the measure in which someone becomes transparent to himself, are things also made transparent to him, because this power which works in him later reaches the exterior. The holy Fathers use this comparison: For our eyes to see the natural light and the things in it, they themselves must be filled with it already; so too, for the eyes of our soul to see the light of intelligible and divine realities, that is the depths of things, they must first be filled with the light which radiates from these depths. In him who sees must be found something of what is seen. Thus St. Maximus calls the depth of Scripture its “spirit,” just as the depth in man he calls his “spirit.” The one who looks into Scripture from his spirit, understands it. In other words, the depths of man and of things are illuminated by a common light, or a common light radiates from them. A common light unites the subject with things or with his neighbors. He who has received this light has penetrated into the zone of the depths distinct from himself. His self and these depths form by this light a dual unity; in a more reduced measure such a unity and a visible zone of the world is formed by the natural light which envelops it, or penetrates it, with the seeing power of the bodily senses.

A Christian thinker says that this mystical knowledge “transcends the gnosiological distinction between subject and object and the absorption of reality into the world of either of them.”

Spiritual experience, upon which realist symbolism rests, lies altogether beyond the antithesis between subject and object and the substantialist conception of them. Spiritual life is no more subjective than it is objective. The symbolism of it, that is, its embodiment in forms belonging to the natural world, may be understood as an objectification, but that is precisely why it is not objective in the rationalist sense of the word. The symbolic mode of thought includes both subject and object within itself, and that at an infinitely deeper level of consciousness. If objectification is nothing more than a process of symbolization, then for that very reason all objective rationalism and all naive conceptions of an object-substance cease to possess justification. What are called objective realities are in fact only realities of a secondary order, for they are merely symbolic and possess no reality in their own right. But subjective realities, such as the reality of the affective life and that of the subject and its subjective world, are likewise merely secondary and symbolic in character.

On this plane the separation between subject and object are surpassed, without the two becoming confused. The subject and object are distinct, but not separated. The separation of the subject from the object is surpassed and nevertheless both are preserved, because the subject in its depths experiences an “object” distinct from itself. But the “object” experienced within, as a spiritual reality or connected within with the subject, is in a continuity or intercommunion with the knowing subject and both, with the supreme Subject who is the base of all things. Of course this spiritual reality isn’t uniform, but varies; it is a world full of reason, from which the structure proper to each thing in its visible aspect, in the structure proper to each person, to each distinct action is incorporated. But it isn’t less true that they are woven into a whole, or that they are bathed in this same understanding and comprehending light. And when this light has filled us within, it doesn’t appear to us to be limited to our nature alone, but it extends over everything with which we are united by purity and love.

We have said that by this light individual things and nature in totality become a transparency by which their higher logoi and their relationships with God become transparent. God Himself in some way is seen through things.
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We will now proceed to describe this knowledge of God in creation, because it constitutes, according to Evagrius and St. Maximus the Confessor, the essence of phase two of the faithful’s ascent to deification, the phase of illumination.

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*Footnotes have been omitted. Please refer to the original for more information.

We may distinguish four key qualities that mark an Orthodox reading of Scripture, namely

• our reading should be obedient,
• it should be ecclesial, within the Church,
• it should be Christ-centered,
• it should be personal.
• Reading the Bible with Obedience

 
FIRST OF ALL, when reading Scripture, we are to listen in a spirit of obedience. The Orthodox Church believes in divine inspiration of the Bible. Scripture is a "letter" from God, where Christ Himself is speaking. The Scriptures are God's authoritative witness of Himself. They express the Word of God in our human language. Since God Himself is speaking to us in the Bible, our response is rightly one of obedience, of receptivity, and listening. As we read, we wait on the Spirit.
 
But, while divinely inspired, the Bible is also humanly expressed. It is a whole library of different books written at varying times by distinct persons. Each book of the Bible reflects the outlook of the age in which it was written and the particular viewpoint of the author. For God does nothing in isolation, divine grace cooperates with human freedom. God does not abolish our individuality but enhances it. And so it is in the writing of inspired Scripture. The authors were not just a passive instrument, a dictation machine recording a message. Each writer of Scripture contributes his particular personal gifts. Alongside the divine aspect, there is also a human element in Scripture. We are to value both.
 
Each of the four Gospels, for example, has its own particular approach. Matthew presents more particularly a Jewish understanding of Christ, with an emphasis on the kingdom of heaven. Mark contains specific, picturesque details of Christ's ministry not given elsewhere. Luke expresses the universality of Christ's love, His all-embracing compassion that extends equally to Jew and to Gentile. In John there is a more inward and more mystical approach to Christ, with an emphasis on divine light and divine indwelling. We are to enjoy and explore to the full this life-giving variety within the Bible.
 
Because Scripture is in this way the word of God expressed in human language, there is room for honest and exacting inquiry when studying the Bible. Exploring the human aspect of the Bible, we are to use to the full our God-given human reason. The Orthodox Church does not exclude scholarly research into the origin, dates, and authorship of books of the Bible.
 
Alongside this human element, however, we see always the divine element. These are not simply books written by individual human writers. We hear in Scripture not just human words, marked by a greater or lesser skill and perceptiveness, but the eternal, uncreated Word of God Himself, the divine Word of salvation. When we come to the Bible, then, we come not simply out of curiosity, to gain information. We come to the Bible with a specific question, a personal question about ourselves: "How can I be saved?"
 
As God's divine word of salvation in human language, Scripture should evoke in us a sense of wonder. Do you ever feel, as you read or listen, that it has all become too familiar? Has the Bible grown rather boring? Continually we need to cleanse the doors of our perception and to look in amazement with new eyes at what the Lord sets before us.
 
We are to feel toward the Bible with a sense of wonder, and sense of expectation and surprise. There are so many rooms in Scripture that we have yet to enter. There is so much depth and majesty for us to discover. If obedience means wonder, it also means listening.
 
We are better at talking than listening. We hear the sound of our own voice, but often we don't pause to hear the voice of the other person who is speaking to us. So the first requirement, as we read Scripture, is to stop talking and to listen—to listen with obedience.
 
When we enter an Orthodox Church, decorated in the traditional manner, and look up toward the sanctuary at the east end, we see there, in the apse, an icon of the Virgin Mary with her hands raised to heaven—the ancient Scriptural manner of praying that many still use today. This icon symbolizes the attitude we are to assume as we read Scripture—an attitude of receptivity, of hands invisibly raised to heaven. Reading the Bible, we are to model ourselves on the Blessed Virgin Mary, for she is supremely the one who listens. At the Annunciation she listens with obedience and responds to the angel, "Be it unto me according to thy word" (Luke 1:38). She could not have borne the Word of God in her body if she had not first, listened to the Word of God in her heart. After the shepherds have adored the newborn Christ, it is said of her: "Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19). Again, when Mary finds Jesus in the temple, we are told: "His mother kept all these things in her heart" (Luke 2:5l). The same need for listening is emphasized in the last words attributed to the Mother of God in Scripture, at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee: "Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it" (John 2:5), she says to the servants—and to all of us.
 
In all this the Blessed Virgin Mary serves as a mirror, as a living icon of the Biblical Christian. We are to be like her as we hear the Word of God: pondering, keeping all these things in our hearts, doing whatever He tells us. We are to listen in obedience as God speaks.
 
Understanding the Bible Through the Church
 
IN THE SECOND PLACE, we should receive and interpret Scripture through the Church and in the Church. Our approach to the Bible is not only obedient but ecclesial.
 
It is the Church that tells us what is Scripture. A book is not part of Scripture because of any particular theory about its dating and authorship. Even if it could be proved, for example, that the Fourth Gospel was not actually written by John the beloved disciple of Christ, this would not alter the fact that we Orthodox accept the Fourth Gospel as Holy Scripture. Why? Because the Gospel of John is accepted by the Church and in the Church.
 
It is the Church that tells us what is Scripture, and it is also the Church that tells us how Scripture is to be understood. Coming upon the Ethiopian as he read the Old Testament in his chariot, Philip the Apostle asked him, "Understandest thou what thou readest?" And the Ethiopian answered, "How can I, unless some man should guide me?" (Acts 8:30-31). We are all in the position of the Ethiopian. The words of Scripture are not always self-explanatory. God speaks directly to the heart of each one of us as we read our Bible. Scripture reading is a personal dialogue between each one of us and Christ—but we also need guidance. And our guide is the Church. We make full use of our own personal understanding, assisted by the Spirit, we make full use of the findings of modern Biblical research, but always we submit private opinion—whether our own or that of the scholars—to the total experience of the Church throughout the ages.
 
The Orthodox standpoint here is summed up in the question asked of a convert at the reception service used by the Russian Church: "Do you acknowledge that the Holy Scripture must be accepted and interpreted in accordance with the belief which has been handed down by the Holy Fathers, and which the Holy Orthodox Church, our Mother, has always held and still does hold?"
 
We read the Bible personally, but not as isolated individuals. We read as the members of a family, the family of the Orthodox Catholic Church. When reading Scripture, we say not "I" but "We." We read in communion with all the other members of the Body of Christ, in all parts of the world and in all generations of time. The decisive test and criterion for our understanding of what the Scripture means is the mind of the Church. The Bible is the book of the Church.
 
To discover this "mind of the Church," where do we begin? Our first step is to see how Scripture is used in worship. How, in particular, are Biblical lessons chosen for reading at the different feasts? We should also consult the writings of the Church Fathers, and consider how they interpret the Bible. Our Orthodox manner of reading Scripture is in this way both liturgical and patristic. And this, as we all realize, is far from easy to do in practice, because we have at our disposal so few Orthodox commentaries on Scripture available in English, and most of the Western commentaries do not employ this liturgical and Patristic approach.
 
As an example of what it means to interpret Scripture in a liturgical way, guided by the use made of it at Church feasts, let us look at the Old Testament lessons appointed for Vespers on the Feast of the Annunciation. They are three in number: Genesis 28:10-17; Jacob's dream of a ladder set up from earth to heaven; Ezekiel 43:27-44:4; the prophet's vision of the Jerusalem sanctuary, with the closed gate through which none but the Prince may pass; Proverbs 9:1-11: one of the great Sophianic passages in the Old Testament, beginning "Wisdom has built her house."
 
These texts in the Old Testament, then, as their selection for the feast of the Virgin Mary indicates, are all to be understood as prophecies concerning the Incarnation from the Virgin. Mary is Jacob's ladder, supplying the flesh that God incarnate takes upon entering our human world. Mary is the closed gate who alone among women bore a child while still remaining inviolate. Mary provides the house which Christ the Wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24) takes as his dwelling. Exploring in this manner the choice of lessons for the various feasts, we discover layers of Biblical interpretation that are by no means obvious on a first reading.
 
Take as another example Vespers on Holy Saturday, the first part of the ancient Paschal Vigil. Here we have no less than fifteen Old Testament lessons. This sequence of lessons sets before us the whole scheme of sacred history, while at the same time underlining the deeper meaning of Christ's Resurrection. First among the lessons is Genesis 1:1-13, the account of Creation: Christ's Resurrection is a new Creation. The fourth lesson is the book of Jonah in its entirety, with the prophet's three days in the belly of the whale foreshadowing Christ's Resurrection after three days in the tomb (cf. Matthew 12:40). The sixth lesson recounts the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites (Exodus 13:20-15:19), which anticipates the new Passover of Pascha whereby Christ passes over from death to life (cf. 1 Corinthians 5:7; 10:1-4). The final lesson is the story of the three Holy Children in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3), once more a "type" or prophecy of Christ's rising from the tomb.
 
Such is the effect of reading Scripture ecclesially, in the Church and with the Church. Studying the Old Testament in this liturgical way and using the Fathers to help us, everywhere we uncover signposts pointing forward to the mystery of Christ and of His Mother. Reading the Old Testament in the light of the New, and the New in the light of the Old—as the Church's calendar encourages us to do—we discover the unity of Holy Scripture. One of the best ways of identifying correspondences between the Old and New Testaments is to use a good Biblical concordance. This can often tell us more about the meaning of Scripture than any commentary.
 
In Bible study groups within our parishes, it is helpful to give one person the special task of noting whenever a particular passage in the Old or New Testament is used for a festival or a saint's day. We can then discuss together the reasons why each specific passage has been so chosen. Others in the group can be assigned to do homework among the Fathers, using for example the Biblical homilies of Saint John Chrysostom (which have been translated into English). Christians need to acquire a patristic mind.
 
Christ, the Heart of the Bible
 
THE THIRD ELEMENT in our reading of Scripture is that it should be Christ-centered. The Scriptures constitute a coherent whole because they all are Christ-centered. Salvation through the Messiah is their central and unifying topic. He is as a "thread" that runs through all of Holy Scripture, from the first sentence to the last. We have already mentioned the way in which Christ may be seen foreshadowed on the pages of the Old Testament.
 
Much modern critical study of Scripture in the West has adopted an analytical approach, breaking up each book into different sources. The connecting links are unraveled, and the Bible is reduced to a series of bare primary units. There is certainly value in this. But we need to see the unity as well as the diversity of Scripture, the all-embracing end as well as the scattered beginnings. Orthodoxy prefers on the whole a synthetic rather than an analytical approach, seeing Scripture as an integrated whole, with Christ everywhere as the bond of union.
 
Always we seek for the point of convergence between the Old Testament and the New, and this we find in Jesus Christ. Orthodoxy assigns particular significance to the "typological" method of interpretation, whereby "types" of Christ, signs and symbols of His work, are discerned throughout the Old Testament. A notable example of this is Melchizedek, the priest-king of Salem, who offered bread and wine to Abraham (Genesis 14:18), and who is seen as a type of Christ not only by the Fathers but even in the New Testament itself (Hebrews 5:6; 7:l). Another instance is the way in which, as we have seen, the Old Passover foreshadows the New; Israel's deliverance from Pharaoh at the Red Sea anticipates our deliverance from sin through the death and Resurrection of the Savior. This is the method of interpretation that we are to apply throughout the Bible. Why, for instance, in the second half of Lent are the Old Testament readings from Genesis dominated by the figure of Joseph? Why in Holy Week do we read from the book of Job? Because Joseph and Job are innocent sufferers, and as such they are types or foreshadowings of Jesus Christ, whose innocent suffering upon the Cross the Church is at the point of celebrating. It all ties up.
 
A Biblical Christian is the one who, wherever he looks, on every page of Scripture, finds everywhere Christ.
 
The Bible as Personal
 
IN THE WORDS of an early ascetic writer in the Christian East, Saint Mark the Monk: "He who is humble in his thoughts and engaged in spiritual work, when he reads the Holy Scriptures, will apply everything to himself and not to his neighbor." As Orthodox Christians we are to look everywhere in Scripture for a personal application. We are to ask not just "What does it mean?" but "What does it mean to me?" Scripture is a personal dialogue between the Savior and myself—Christ speaking to me, and me answering. That is the fourth criterion in our Bible reading.
 
I am to see all the stories in Scripture as part of my own personal story. Who is Adam? The name Adam means "man," "human," and so the Genesis account of Adam's fall is also a story about me. I am Adam. It is to me that God speaks when He says to Adam, "Where art thou?" (Genesis 3:9). "Where is God?" we often ask. But the real question is what God asks the Adam in each of us: "Where art thou?"
 
When, in the story of Cain and Abel, we read God's words to Cain, "Where is Abel thy brother?" (Genesis 4:9), these words, too, are addressed to each of us. Who is Cain? It is myself. And God asks the Cain in each of us, "Where is thy brother?" The way to God lies through love of other people, and there is no other way. Disowning my brother, I replace the image of God with the mark of Cain, and deny my own vital humanity.
 
In reading Scripture, we may take three steps. First, what we have in Scripture is sacred history: the history of the world from the Creation, the history of the chosen people, the history of God Incarnate in Palestine, and the "mighty works" after Pentecost. The Christianity that we find in the Bible is not an ideology, not a philosophical theory, but a historical faith.
 
Then we are to take a second step. The history presented in the Bible is a personal history. We see God intervening at specific times and in specific places, as He enters into dialogue with individual persons. He addresses each one by name. We see set before us the specific calls issued by God to Abraham, Moses and David, to Rebekah and Ruth, to Isaiah and the prophets, and then to Mary and the Apostles. We see the selectivity of the divine action in history, not as a scandal but as a blessing. God's love is universal in scope, but He chooses to become Incarnate in a particular corner of the earth, at a particular time and from a particular Mother. We are in this manner to savor all the uniqueness of God's action as recorded in Scripture. The person who loves the Bible loves details of dating and geography. Orthodoxy has an intense devotion to the Holy Land, to the exact places where Christ lived and taught, died and rose again. An excellent way to enter more deeply into our Scripture reading is to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Galilee. Walk where Christ walked. Go down to the Dead Sea, sit alone on the rocks, feel how Christ felt during the forty days of His temptation in the wilderness. Drink from the well where He spoke with the Samaritan woman. Go at night to the Garden of Gethsemane, sit in the dark under the ancient olives and look across the valley to the lights of the city. Experience to the full the reality of the historical setting, and take that experience back with you to your daily Scripture reading.
 
Then we are to take a third step. Reliving Biblical history in all its particularity, we are to apply it directly to ourselves. We are to say to ourselves, "All these places and events are not just far away and long ago, but are also part of my own personal encounter with Christ. The stories include me."
 
Betrayal, for example, is part of the personal story of everyone. Have we not all betrayed others at some time in our life, and have we not all known what it is to be betrayed, and does not the memory of these moments leave continuing scars on our psyche? Reading, then, the account of Saint Peter's betrayal of Christ and of his restoration after the Resurrection, we can see ourselves as actors in the story. Imagining what both Peter and Jesus must have experienced at the moment immediately after the betrayal, we enter into their feelings and make them our own. I am Peter; in this situation can I also be Christ? Reflecting likewise on the process of reconciliation—seeing how the Risen Christ with a love utterly devoid of sentimentality restored the fallen Peter to fellowship, seeing how Peter on his side had the courage to accept this restoration—we ask ourselves: How Christ-like am I to those who have betrayed me? And, after my own acts of betrayal, am I able to accept the forgiveness of others—am I able to forgive myself? Or am I timid, mean, holding myself back, never ready to give myself fully to anything, either good or bad? As the Desert Fathers say, "Better someone who has sinned, if he knows he has sinned and repents, than a person who has not sinned and thinks of himself as righteous."
 
Have I gained the boldness of Saint Mary Magdalene, her constancy and loyalty, when she went out to anoint the body of Christ in the tomb (John 20:l)? Do I hear the Risen Savior call me by name, as He called her, and do I respond Rabboni (Teacher) with her simplicity and completeness (John 20:16)?
 
Reading Scripture in this way—in obedience, as a member of the Church, finding Christ everywhere, seeing everything as a part of my own personal story—we shall sense something of the variety and depth to be found in the Bible. Yet always we shall feel that in our Biblical exploration we are only at the very beginning. We are like someone launching out in a tiny boat across a limitless ocean.
 
"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path" (Psalm 118 [119]:105).