Tabor Light

In Eastern Orthodox theology, the Tabor Light (also

Light of Tabor, Tabors Light, Taboric Light; Greek:
, also as , Uncreated
Light, , Divine Light; Russian: ) is the light revealed on Mount Tabor at the
Transguration of Jesus, identied with the light seen by
Paul at his conversion.
As a theological doctrine, the uncreated nature of the
Light of Tabor was formulated in the 14th century by
Gregory Palamas, an Athonite monk, defending the mystical practices of Hesychasm against accusations of heresy
by Barlaam of Calabria. When considered as a theological doctrine, this view is known as Palamism after
Palamas.[1][2]
The view was very controversial when it was rst proposed, sparking the Hesychast controversy, and the
Palamist faction prevailed only after the military victory
of John VI Kantakouzenos in the Byzantine civil war of
13411347. Since 1347, it has been the ocial doctrine
in Eastern Orthodoxy, while it remains without explicit
armation or denial by the Roman Catholic Church. Roman Catholic theologians have rejected it in the past, but
Andreas Andreopoulos has said that now the Western
world has started to rediscover what amounts to a lost tradition. Hesychasm, which was never anything close to a
scholars pursuit, is now studied by Western theologians
who are astounded by the profound thought and spirituality of late Byzantium.[3] Speaking of the hesychast controversy, Pope John Paul II said the term hesychasm
refers to a practice of prayer marked by deep tranquillity of the spirit intent on contemplating God unceasingly
by invoking the name of Jesus. While from a Catholic
viewpoint there have been tensions concerning some developments of the practice, the Pope said, there is no
denying the goodness of the intention that inspired its defence, which was to stress that man is oered the concrete possibility of uniting himself in his inner heart with
God in that profound union of grace known as theosis,
divinization.[4][5]

Russian Orthodox icon of the Transguration (Theophanes the

Greek, ca. 1408).

experience is referred to as theoria. Barlaam (and Western Christianitys interpretation of apophaticism being
the absence of God rather than the unknowability of God)
held this view of the hesychasts to be polytheistic inasmuch as it seemed to postulate two eternal substances, a
visible (the divine energies) and an invisible (the divine
ousia). Seco and Maspero assert that the Palamite doctrine of the uncreated light is rooted in Palamas reading
of Gregory of Nyssa.[6]
Instances of the Uncreated Light are read into the Old
Testament by Orthodox Christians, e.g. the Burning
Bush[7] a purported descendant of which is kept at the
Saint Catherines Monastery at Mount Sinai in the Sinai
Peninsula.

In Eastern Orthodoxy

See also: Halo (religious iconography)

According to the Hesychast mystic tradition of Eastern 1.1 Hesychast controversy
Orthodox spirituality, a completely puried saint who has
attained divine union experiences the vision of divine ra- See also: gnosiology
diance that is the same 'light' that was manifested to Jesus disciples on Mount Tabor at the Transguration. This Gregory Palamas defended Hesychasm in the 1340s at
1

2 ROMAN CATHOLICISM

three dierent synods in Constantinople, and he also

wrote a number of works in its defense. In these works,
Gregory Palamas uses a distinction, already found in the
4th century in the works of the Cappadocian Fathers, between the energies or operations (Gr. energeies) of God
and the essence (ousia) of God. Gregory taught that the
energies or operations of God were uncreated. He taught
that the essence of God can never be known by his creatures even in the next life, but that his uncreated energies
or operations can be known both in this life and in the
next and convey to the Hesychast in this life and to the
righteous in the next life as a true spiritual knowledge of
God (theoria). In Palamite theology, it is the uncreated
energies of God that illumine the Hesychast who has been
vouchsafed an experience of the Uncreated Light.
In 1341 the dispute came before a synod held at Constantinople and presided over by the Emperor Andronicus
III Palaeologus; the synod, taking into account the regard
in which the writings of the pseudo-Dionysius were held,
condemned Barlaam, who recanted and returned to Calabria, afterwards becoming bishop in the Roman Catholic
Church.

The upper part of The Transguration (1520) by Raphael, depicting Christ miraculously discoursing with Moses and Elijah.

view of the simplicity of God, conceived as Actus purus.

This doctrinal division reinforced the east-west split of
the Great Schism throughout the 15th to 19th centuries,
One of Barlaams friends, Gregory Akindynos, who orig- with only Pope John Paul II opening a possibility for recinally was also a friend of Gregorys, took up the contro- onciliation by expressing his personal respect for the docversy, and three other synods on the subject were held, trine.
at the second of which the followers of Barlaam gained a
brief victory. However, in 1351 at a synod under the pres- Roman Catholicism traditionally sees the glory maniidency of the Emperor John VI Cantacuzenus, Hesychast fested at Tabor as symbolic of the eschatological glory of
doctrine was established as the doctrine of the Eastern heaven; in a 15th-century Latin hymn Coelestis formam
gloriae (Sarum Breviary, Venice, 1495; trans. Rev. John
Orthodox Church.
M. Neale 1851):

1.2

Identication with the res of hell

See also: Theophoric name and Love of God

Many Orthodox theologians have identied the Tabor
light with the re of hell. According to these theologians,
hell is the condition of those who remain unreconciled to
the uncreated light and love of and for God and are burned
by it.[8][9][10] According to Ianns Polems, Theophanes
of Nicea believed that, for sinners, the divine light will
be perceived as the punishing re of hell.[11]
According to Ianns Polems, Palamas himself did not
identify hell-re with the Tabor light: Unlike Theophanes, Palamas did not believe that sinners could have an
experience of the divine light [...] Nowhere in his works
does Palamas seem to adopt Theophanes view that the
light of Tabor is identical with the re of hell.[12]

O wondrous type, O vision fair / of glory

that the Church shall share / Which Christ upon
the mountain shows / where brighter than the
sun He glows / With shining face and bright array / Christ deigns to manifest today / What
glory shall be theirs above / who joy in God
with perfect love.
Pope Saint Gregory the Great wrote of people by whom,
while still living in this corruptible esh, yet growing in
incalculable power by a certain piercingness of contemplation, the Eternal Brightness is able to be seen.[13] In
his poem The Book of the Twelve Bguines, John of Ruysbroeck, a 14th-century Flemish mystic beatied by Pope
Pius X in 1908, wrote of the uncreated Light, which is
not God, but is the intermediary between Him and the
'seeing thought'" as illuminating the contemplative not in
the highest mode of contemplation, but in the second of
the four ascending modes.[14]

The theological interpretation of Tabors light came to be

seen by anti-ecumenical currents of Eastern Orthodoxy
as a major dogmatic division between the eastern and the
Palamism, Gregory Palamas theology of divine opera- western Church, with the Hesychast movement[15]even detions, was never accepted by the Scholastic theologians scribed as a direct condemnation of Papism.
of the Latin Catholic Church, who maintained a strong Nevertheless, Roman Catholicism in recent years has

Roman Catholicism

3
shown itself more open to ideas of Hesychasm. Pope John
Paul II repeatedly emphasized his respect for Eastern theology as an enrichment for the whole Church.[16][17] John
Paul II also added the Transguration at Mount Tabor to
the mysteries of the Holy Rosary".[18] The Eastern doctrine of uncreated light has not been ocially accepted
in the Roman Catholic Church, which likewise has not
ocially condemned it. Increasing parts of the Western Church consider Gregory Palamas a saint, even if
uncanonized.[19] Several Western scholars contend that
the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas himself is compatible with Roman Catholic thought on the matter.[20]

Popular culture

Tabor Light was also used in the popular press of 1938

in reference to a mysterious light seen around a cemetery near Tbor, Bohemia, and a similar phenomenon observed in Saskatchewan, Canada.

See also
Aseity
Enlightenment (spiritual)
Glory (religion)
Holy Fire
Negative theology
Palamism
Theophany
Theoria (state wherein one sees the Tabor Light)
Theosis (Eastern Orthodox theology)
Vision (religion)

References

[1] John Meyendor, Mount Athos in the Fourteenth Century: Spiritual and Intellectual Legacy in Dumbarton
Oaks Papers 1988
[2] R.M. French, Foreword to Nicolaus Cabasilas, Joan
Mervyn Hussey, P. A. McNulty (editors), A Commentary
on the Divine Liturgy (St Vladimirs Seminary Press 1974
ISBN 978-0-913836-37-8), p. x
[3] Metamorphosis: The Transguration in Byzantine Theology and Iconography (St Vladimirs Seminary Press 2005,
ISBN 0-88141-295-3), pp. 215-216
[4] Pope John Paul II and the East Pope John Paul II. Eastern
Theology Has Enriched the Whole Church (11 August
1996). English translation

[5] Original text (in Italian)

[6] Seco, Lucas F. Mateo; Maspero, Giulio (2009). The Brill
Dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa. Brill. p. 382.
[7] http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.24.en.jewish_and_
christian_orthodox_dialogue.htm
[8] Uncreated Energies The understanding of heaven and
punishment [hell] in historic Christianity is inextricably linked to the biblical concept of the Uncreated Light
of God. The Uncreated Energies (or Light the purest
form of energy) are understood by the Orthodox to be the
Energies of God. This Energy is the consuming re, the
Shechinah glory, the re that burns gold to purify it, as St.
Paul writes. It is the re that burns the weeds left in the
eld, the re that burns the pruned branches, it is the lake
of divine re, and the thirst and burning that torments the
Rich Man is this same Uncreated Energy. Yet, the same
re that torments the impure gives warmth and comfort to
the pure of heart. In fact, the Greek word energeia, and
its various forms, appears over 30 times in the new Testament, yet it is not translated as energy even once in
most popular English translations. It is variously rendered
as operation, strong, do, in-working, eectual, be mighty
in, shew forth self, and even simply dropped out of the
sentence; everything except what it means. Yet, this word
was well established in the Greek language in the rst century. It was rst used by Aristotle, some three centuries
before Christ, as a noun, as energy in the metaphysical
sense which was borrowed in recent years in English as
an engineering term. But even in a modern metaphysical
sense, it is exactly as the ancient Greeks use the word, because it is the same word. Yet the translators insisted on
ignoring how this word is actually used by Greek speakers
and distorted it into a number of verbs and adjectives (or
simply drop it from the verse), which leaves only confusion
and misunderstanding for English readers. When we are
energized by the Divine Energies, we will radiate the pure
Light of God. Translating directly from the Greek, Saint
Paul writes to the Philippians [2:13] For it is God who
is energizing in you, according to His will and to energize
for the sake of His being well-pleased. In verse 3:21 he
further writes "[Christ] who will change the appearance of
our humble bodies to take on the form of the body of His
glory, through the energization of his Power" And to
the Ephesians in verse 1:19 and what exceeding greatness
of his power, in us who believe, through the energization
of His mighty strength, energized in Christ, raising him
from the dead and seating him in the right hand of Him
in the heavens So this energy in us changes our bodies
to glory, and was the same energy that raised Christ from
the dead. This energy is in fact, the Grace of God, in Eph
3:7 St. Paul writes That I was made an attendant through
the gift of the Grace of God, granted to me by the energization of his Power. This same Energy also has the
power to heal, as St. James writes [5:16] Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so
that you may be healed, prayers energized by a righteous
one are very powerful. This same energy comes from
the one that restrains evil, in II Thess 2:7 St. Paul writes
For already the mysterious lawless one is only restrained
now by the Energies, until he comes out of the midst of
it Receiving this Divine Energy is the results of faith in

the true God, as St. Paul tells the Thessalonians in I Thess

2:12 "[you received] the true Logos of God, which
also energizes in you believers. Moreover, to the Galatians he asks a rhetorical question with an obvious answer
[3:5] Indeed, would it not be in vain, if the One providing
you the Spirit and the powerful Energies in you, were by
works of the law, or rather by hearing in faith?" Heaven
& Hell in the Afterlife, According to the Bible By Peter
Chopelas introduction by Thomas Hopko
[9] PARADISE AND HELL IN THE ORTHODOX TRADITION by FR. GEORGE METALLINOS
[10] Besides, we know from the whole teaching of the Church
that Gods uncreated grace takes dierent names according to the eects which its work has. If it puries a person
it is called purifying, if it illuminates it is called illuminating, if it deies it is called deifying. Likewise sometimes it is described as bestowing being, sometimes as
life-giving and sometimes as making wise. So all creation
partakes of the uncreated grace of God, but dierently.
And therefore the deifying grace of which the saints partake should not be confused with other energies. The same
thing is true of the grace of God in the eternal life. The
righteous will share the illuminative and deifying energy,
while the sinners and unpuried will experience the caustic and punishing energy of God. We nd this teaching
also in the ascetic writings of various saints. For example,
St. John of the Ladder says that the same re is called
both that which consumes and that which illuminates.
He is referring to the holy and supracelestial re which is
the grace of God. The grace of God which men receive in
this life burns some because they still lack purication,
and others it enlightens in proportion to the perfection
which they have achieved"22. Indeed the grace of God
does not purify unrepentant sinners in the next life, but
what St. John of the Ladder says applies now. And it is
testied by ascetic experience that at rst the saints feel
the grace of God as a re which burns their passions, and
afterwards, to the extent that their heart is puried, they
also feel the grace of God as light. Contemporary men
who see God on their ascetic pilgrimage arm that as far
as one repents and in grace experiences Hell, to that extent
also grace, even without ones expecting it, is turned into
uncreated light. It is the same grace of God which at rst
puries the man, and when he reaches a great depth of repentance and purication, it is seen as light. Consequently
it is not a question of created things and human emotional
states, but of experience of the uncreated grace of God.
Life after Death by Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of
Nafpaktos
[11] Ianns Polems, Theophanes of Nicaea: His Life and
Works, vol. 20 (Verlag der sterreichischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften, 1996), p. 99
[12] Ianns Polems,Theophanes of Nicaea: His Life and
Works, vol. 20 (Verlag der sterreichischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften, 1996), p. 100
[13] Gregory the Great, Moralia, book 18, 89
[14] John Franciss translation of Jan van Ruysbroeck, The
Book of the Twelve Bguines (John M. Watkins 1913), p.
40

EXTERNAL LINKS

[15] Orthodox Tradition.St. Gregory Palamas and the Pope

of Rome, Volume XIII, Number 2.
[16] Pope John Paul II and the East Pope John Paul II. Eastern
Theology Has Enriched the Whole Church (11 August
1996). English translation
[17] Original text (in Italian)
[18] The Luminous Mysteries, published in Rosarium Virginis Mariae, October 2002.
[19] Jaroslav Pelikan in John Meyendor (editor), Gregory
Palamas, The Triads, p. xi
[20] Michael J. Christensen, Jeery A. Wittung (editors), Partakers of the Divine Nature (Associated University Presses
2007 ISBN 0-8386-4111-3), p. 243

6 Literature
Lowell Clucas, 'The Triumph of Mysticism in
Byzantium in the Fourteenth Century', in: Byzantine Studies in Honor of Milton V. Anastos, Byzantina
kai Metabyzantina, ed. Speros Vryonis jr, Malibu
(1985).
Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, SVS Press, 1997. (ISBN 0-913836-311) James Clarke & Co Ltd, 1991. (ISBN 0-22767919-9)
George S. Maloney, A Theology of Uncreated Energies of God (1978), ISBN 978-0-87462-516-5.
George C. Papademetriou, Introduction to Saint Gregory Palamas (2005), ISBN 978-1-885652-83-6.
J. Meyendor, A Study of St. Gregory Palamas
(1959).

7 External links
Light in Icon (Russia-hc.ru)
The Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas (The Second Sunday of Great and Holy Lent) by Benedict
Seraphim
Theoria, Tabor Light (photismos) as Vision

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