Harvard Divinity School

The Last Temptation of Satan: Divine Deception in Greek Patristic Interpretations of the
Passion Narrative
Author(s): Nicholas P. Constas
Source: The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 97, No. 2 (Apr., 2004), pp. 139-163
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School
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The Last Temptationof Satan:

Divine Deception in Greek Patristic
Interpretationsof the Passion Narrative*
Nicholas P. Constas
HarvardDivinitySchool
a god hasdeceivedus."
"Perhaps
-Jorge LuisBorges
N

Introduction

A remarkablenumberof Greekpatristicthinkersgave expression to the theory that

Satan was deceived by Christ,who exploited his adversary'smistaken belief that
the object of his desires was a mere man and not the deity incarnate.Driven by an
insatiablehungerfor humanbodies, the demonic appetitewas inexorablydrawnto
devourthe seemingly mortalflesh of Jesus.Thatflesh, however,was but a seductive
lure concealing the power of divinity thatbroughtaboutSatan'sdownfall and even
(in some traditions)his salvation.The crucialevents in this dramaof deceptionwere
Christ's agony in the gardenand his suffering on the cross, moments of apparent
weakness and vulnerabilitywhich patristic writers daringly reconfigured as the
cunningruses of a masterstrategistdefeating the enemy throughhis own devices.
Such a radical reinterpretationof Scripture was achieved largely through the
tools of typological and allegorical exegesis, by which patristic writers sought
to explain - and thereby eliminate- the "shame and folly of the cross" (compare
1 Cor 1:18-25; Heb 12:2; Deut 21:23), along with the attendant spectacles of
Christ's apparentfearfulness and uncontrolled emotion.
Having succumbed so patheticallyto the fear of death, the suffering figure describedin the Gospels was in flagrantviolation of Roman decorum, a construction
*This paper began as a seminar project at Hebrew University, Jerusalem (June-August 1995),
with the support of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and I am thankful
to Gary Anderson, Michael Stone, and David Satran for their comments and criticisms. Early
versions were presented at the annual meeting of the North American Patristics Society (1997),
and at HarvardDivinity School in the spring of 1998, at which time Wendy Larson read through
the text and greatly improved it. A subsequent version was presented at "Eros and the Religious
Imagination,"the Sixth Annual Conference in ComparativeReligion at New York University (April
2000). Translations are my own, except where noted. GNO = Gregorii Nysseni opera (ed. Werner
Jaeger et al., 1921- ).
HTR 97:2 (2004) 139-63

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of the Stoics, whose teachings on the enduranceof pain were vauntedas the ideal
expression of masculine behavior and identity.It will be worth rememberingthat
the Stoics furtherdistinguished between the "sage" (ook6;) and the "fool." The
sage was a perfectedcreaturewho attainedwisdom (andthus divine similitude)by
divesting himself of the ignominious marks of creaturehood,especially fear and
suffering.The primarycharacteristicof the sage was, in a word,apatheia:freedom
from passion. Thus the anti-ChristianphilosopherCelsus (ca. 176) arguedthat,if
the Christiansavior was in any sense divine, "he would have never utteredloud
lamentsand wailings, nor prayedto avoid the fear of death, saying somethinglike:
'Oh Father,let this cup pass from me' (Matt 26:39)."'
By the fourthcenturyof the Christianera, the Stoic valorizationof endurancein
the face of pain had found an unexpectedally in the theology of Arianism.Arius,a
priestin the churchof Alexandria,arguedthatthe passion of Christwas a clearsign
thatthe wounded savior of the Gospels was not to be identifiedwith the impassible
divinity.Basedon his cowardlyperformancein the gardenof Gethsemane,Ariusand
his followers concluded thatChristwas neithertranscendentallywise nordivinely
dispassionate.And whereas the Arians conceded that Christcould be said to have
"participated"and "grown"in wisdom (compareLuke 2:52), he could in no way
be identified with Wisdom itself. In response, the opponents of Arianismargued
that the inability to discern the germ of divinity hidden within the husks of suffering was the result of a superficialreadingof Scripture.Fixated on surfaceforms,
the Arianshad blinded themselves to the deepermeaning of the sacredtext. At the
same time, the failureto understandthe truenatureof significationwas itself a sign
that the superficialreader was incapacitatedby a system of ultimately demonic
metaphysics. Uninformed literalism, and its accompanying low christology,was
a readingof Scripturethat the Arians sharedwith the devil himself.
That Christsuffered, cried out loudly, and died could not be denied by anyone.
The Gospels had all put the end of Christ'slife at the dramaticcenterof the story,
suggesting a point of convergence for humanhopes and expectations. How then,
in the culturalatmosphereof late antiquity,could the viability of these narratives
be maintained?How could one reclaim the discreditedand dehumanizedChrist,
'Cited by Origen (ca. 185-254) in Cels. 2.24; ed. Marcel Borret, Contre Celse, vol. 1 (SC 132;
Paris: Cerf, 1967) 348; trans. Henry Chadwick, Contra Celsum (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity
Press, 1986) 88. Origencorrectlypoints out that "no statementis found that Jesus 'utteredwailings,'"
and he accuses Celsus of both "altering"the text (of Matt 26:39) and ignoring those passages which
"prove thatJesus was ready and courageous in face of his suffering." Origen concedes that a proper
discussion of these problems requires the "help of divine wisdom," in support of which he cites
1 Cor 2:7, a text that was central to the developing theologia crucis. For related passages, see Cels.
6.34 (ed. Marcel Borret, Contre Celse, vol. 3 [SC 147; Paris: Cerf, 1969] 262; trans. Chadwick,
350); 6.36 (ed. 266, trans. 352); and 6.10: "They would have us believe that (Jesus) is the Son of
God, although he was most dishonorably arrestedand punished to his utter disgrace, and until quite
recently wandered about most shamefully in the sight of all men" (ed. 202-4, trans. 324).

NICHOLAS

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141

and restoreto him the dignity andvalue thathe seemed to have lost in his shameful
death at the hands of the Romans?How, too, could the post-Constantinianchurch,
increasinglyinstitutionalizedwithin the structuresof the Roman Empire,promote
a criminalcondemnedto the cross by a Roman governor as the one, trueGod?2To
be sure,early Christiansventurednumerousanswersin responseto these questions.
One such response, the subjectof this study,endeavoredto negotiate the problem
of the passion by placing it within the frameworkof an elaboratetwofold exegesis.
Authorizationfor sucha frameworkwas believed to have been providedby Scripture
itself, which effectively reconfiguredproblematic signs through a hermeneutical
movement from "letter"to "spirit"(2 Cor 3:6). Through allegorical deferrals of
meaning, the offending signum could be blurredand obscured, and, when necessary, subjected to systematic reversal and inversion. In this way, the sign of the
Luke 2:34),
cross, the ultimate "sign of contradiction"(rlgteov
&vut7LEy6ptEvov,
was reconfiguredthrougha movement transformingmanifest "shame and folly"
into an emblem of the "secretand hidden wisdom of God" (1 Cor 2:7).3
After an introductorydiscussion of the notion of "divine deception," the following study turns to a consideration of two works by Gregory of Nyssa (the
CatecheticalDiscourse, andthe Sermonon the ThreeDays between Christ'sDeath
and Resurrection),followed by an analysis of the Homily on the Passion and the
Cross attributedto Athanasius of Alexandria. These fourth-centurytexts, along
with othersfrom across the late antiqueperiod that will be discussed in this paper,
reconfigurethe Passion Narrativeas a divine strategycunningly calculated to deceive the devil. The fourthcenturywas a time of crisis for the Christiancommunity,
which struggled both to legitimize itself within a cultural system that had long
2CompareJustin Martyr,1 Apol. 13.4: "They say that our madness (jgavia) consists in the fact
that we put a crucified man in second place after the unchangeable and eternal God, the creatorof the
world";ed. Miroslav Marcovich,Iustini MartyrisApologiae pro Christianis (PTS 38; Berlin: Walter
de Gruyter, 1994) 51, lines 15-19. Martin Hengel (Crucifixion [trans. John Bowden; Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1977]) surveys a large number of passages by early Christian writers dealing with
this theme. In the fourth century, the emperor Julian ridiculed Christians for worshipping a "Jewish corpse"; see Against the Galileans, in Wilmer Cave Wright, trans., The Worksof the Emperor
Julian (3 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press, 1980) 3:376 (206a); compare
3:414 (335b-c).
3CompareOrigen, Comm. Rom. 4.2 (extant in a Latin translation by Rufinus): "The sign in
which Christ had come was a 'sign of contradiction' (Luke 2:34), because one thing was seen in
him and something else was understood. Flesh was being seen, but God was being believed" (PG
14:968a-b); John Chrysostom,De coemeterio et de cruce: "Even though that which is uttered is one,
its meaning is twofold" (ei
Ey6gevov Ev, a&a
d
8txoiv r6 vootRevov, said with respect
KaiTT6
to the passion and crucifixion; PG 49:395, lines 32-33); and Ps.-Chrysostom, In sancta et magna
parasceve: "Todayhe is bound who bound the waters in clouds, loosing those who were bound and
granting freedom to those who were captive. He is bound who unbound Lazarus from the bonds of
death. Led as a prisoner to Pilate is he who is escorted by myriads of angels ... therefore do not
be ashamed, but look beyond external appearances ('r catv6ogeva),and beholding man, worship
God" (PG 50:813-16).

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deridedits faith in a crucified God, and to define its relationshipto a political order thathad lately sought to destroy it. At the same time, Christianthinkershad to
confront the challenge of Arianism,a culturallysanctionedreligious attitudethat
refused to identify the sufferingperson of Christwith the transcendentgod of the
philosophers.In response to these challenges, Gregoryof Nyssa and the authorof
the Homily on the Passion and the Cross developed a sophisticatedtheoryof interpretation,a poetics of representationinvolving rich and unstable ambiguities,not
unlike the intertextualmethodsof contemporarydeconstruction.For these writers,
scripturalinterpretationwas closely coupled with a theological vision of theperson
of Christ,and thus the hermeneuticalpossibilities of narrativewere made to reflect
the metanarrativeof divine-human possibility. That is, the interpretiveactivity
of deception and deferral,which refuses to fix its christological referentwithin a
closed narrativedestiny, virtualizes the very activity of Christ himself, the Word
incarnate,who eludes (and indeed exploits) closure within categories constructed
by demonic desire and the cultureof power.
0

Divine Deception

Situatedwithinthe hermeneuticalframeworkof a movementfrom"letterto spirit,"

the becrimsonedcanvas of the Passion Narrativewas given a rathercurious coat
of varnish.The basic principleof this frameworkwas thatmeaningfulcontentsare
often concealedbehindan unprepossessingexterior.Things, in otherwords,arenot
always whatthey seem. But this principle,patentlyobvious in andof itself, blended
readily with the popularPlatonic belief that the world of truthwas differentfrom
the world of appearances.The world of appearanceswas a world of change and
flux. It was an empire of signs, inherentlyunstable, ambiguous,dissembling, and
transitive.It was, in a word, deceptive, and any figureincarnatein that worldwas
just as likely to conceal the truthas to revealit. Admittedly,the categoryof deception
is an unlikely place from which to launch a successful apologetical reconstruction
of the Passion Narratives;but since classical antiquitythe use of deception was
sanctionedas an acceptablepedagogical, strategic,and therapeuticdevice.4
For example, deception was permissible for fathers who thereby concealed
their affection for their children in order to discipline them. So too for physi4Here I am indebted to the work of David Satran, "Pedagogy and Deceit in the Alexandrian
Theological Tradition,"in Origeniana Quinta. Papers of the 5th International Origen Congress (ed.
R. J. Daly; Leuven: Peeters, 1993) 119-24; and idem, "Truthand Deception in the Contra Celsum,"
in Discorsi di verittd:Paganesimo, giudaismo e cristianesimo a confronto nel Contro Celso di Origene (ed. Lorenzo Perrone; Rome: InstitutumpatristicumAugustinianum, 1998) 213-24. See also
J. W. Trigg, "Divine Deception and the Truthfulness of Scripture,"in Origen of Alexandria: His
Worldand Legacy (ed. Charles Kannengiesser and W. L. Petersen; Notre Dame, Ind.: University
of Notre Dame Press, 1988) 147-64; and E. L. Wheeler, Stratagem and the Vocabularyof Military
Trickery(Leiden: Brill, 1988) 93-100.

NICHOLAS

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143

cians, who were expected to sugar their bitter pills and conceal their sharpened
scalpels beneath the surfaceof a sponge. Ancient philosophers also dealt with the
question of falsehood and deception. Plato's Lesser Hippias, for instance, deals
systematicallywith lying and deceit in the context of a debate about who was the
greatestHomerichero:honorableAchilles ("trueand simple")or Odysseus the liar
("wily and false"). To the surpriseand consternationof historians of philosophy,
Plato weaves the crown of victory for Odysseus, arguingthat only the liar knows
what the truthis, whereas the one who knows only the truthdoes not truly know
even that.5Given their Olympian grasp of eternal verities, there was no end of
lying and trickeryamong the Greek and Roman gods, and the use of disguise and
deceit is typically not a human but a divine strategy,a divine deception. Resting
on a broadculturalfoundation,and with a distinguishedliteraryand philosophical
lineage, the category of deception was hurriedto baptismby Christianthinkers,to
whom this study now turns.

M Gregoryof Nyssa and the Fishhook

The Christianredactionof the notion of "divine deception"is perhapsbest known
throughthe work of the fourth-centurybishop and theologian Gregory of Nyssa
(c. 335-395), whose metaphorof the fishhookrepresentsa decisive moment in his
dramatictheory of the atonement.According to this theory,Satan was initially deceived by the apparentordinarinessof Christ'shumanityandunwittinglyconsumed
his mortal body in death. He soon discovered, however, that he had been duped
into biting off more than he could chew: Christis divine, and thereforeimmortal,
and the unexpectedpresence of the deity in the bowels of the underworldsignaled
the liberationof the dead from the forces of death and decay. In his Catechetical
Discourse, a somewhat popularizing handbook of Christian teaching, Gregory
introducesthis idea in the context of a striking typological reversal in which the
Savior sets out to "deceive the deceiver":
Sinceit was notin thenatureof the opposingpowerto undergothe unveiled
manifestation
(yugvilvfig6vetav) of God,thedeitywas hidden('vE pi60rj)
underthe veil (npoKcaoh~itgat)
of ournature,so that,as withravenousfish,
of thedeitymightbe gulpeddownalongwiththe bait
thehook(ayl7toGpov)
deception(6 &inarc(v)
(68~riap)of theflesh.... Inthisway,he whopracticed

5A similar argument runs through the work of Roy A. Rappaport, Ritual and Religion in the
Making of Humanity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), which deals extensively
with lies and deception. The conventional nature of language, the author argues, facilitates lying,
and the very "freedom of the sign from the signified enlarges the possibilities for falsehood." The
ability to prevaricate is thus a basic "design feature" of language, in support of which Rappaport
cites Buber: "A lie was possible only after a creature, man, was capable of conceiving the being
of truth"(ibid., 11-13).

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HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

receives the very same in return.He who first deceived

hu(7upoanacioa;)
manityby the bait of sensual pleasure is himself deceived (dcazarat) by the
presence of the human form. And whereas the enemy wroughthis deception
for the ruin of our nature, the wise one (6 aooog) used his plan of
(&drdnTl)
deception (irnivota Tfg;dXrdtrg)for salvation.6

Gregorymakes furtheruse of the image of the fishhook in a relatedpassage from

his sermon on the resurrection, this time foregrounding the figure of Wisdom, who
cleverly made the wise look rather foolish. Here is the text:

Wisdom"(rtavto86vago;g
"Omnipotent
ooia, Wis7:23;1 Cor1:24),coming
into the "heartof the earth"(Matt 12:40), was able to make "utterlyfoolish"
(Ka'ntragopvat,compare Rom 1:22; 1 Cor 1:18) that great "Mind"(compare

Isa 10:12)whichdwellsin it, turninghis counselto folly, andcatchingthe

wise one (oo6o;) in his cunning(navoupyia)andturningbackuponhimhis
cleverdevices(oo4a EyXetpigPatr).
Forthis reason,havingswallowedthe
bait(8ilxEap)of the flesh,he was piercedwiththe fishhook
of
(yKytoTpov)
deity,andso thedragon(8pdio0v) was caughtwiththe fishhook,just as it is
said in the book of Job,"Youshallcatchthe dragonwith a fishhook"(Job
40:25).7

6Cat.Disc. 24, 26; ed. E. Mitihlenberg,Gregorii Nysseni Oratio catechetica (GNO 3.4; Leiden:
Brill, 1996) 62, lines 3-10; and 65-66, lines 21-25, 1-3; reprinted with a French translation,
introduction, and notes by Raymond Winling, Discours catichitique (SC 453; Paris: Cerf, 2000)

254-64; see also L. F. Mateo-Seco,"Elconceptode salvationen la 'OratioCatecheticaMagna'de

S. Gregoriode Nisa,"ScrTh4 (1972) 145-71. Comparethe remarksof Gregory'sbrotherBasil,
for whom the image of a fish caught on a hook is a type of the final retributionfor acts of avarice
and oppression (Hex. 7.3; ed. Stanislas Giet, Homilies sur l'Hexadmniron[SC 26; Paris:Cerf, 1968]
404, line 9); and those of Gregory's contemporaryand colleague, Gregory Nazianzus: "The 'light
shines in the darkness' (John 1:5) of this life and in this weak flesh, and though persecuted by the
darkness, it is not 'overtaken' (John 1:5) by it-I mean by the opposing power which shamelessly
assailed the visible (do
Adam, but instead encountered God and was defeated .... For
catvopev)
since the specious advocate (oo0toTni;)of evil baited us with the promise of divinity (compareGen
3:6), he was himself baited by the snare (rp6p3Xllga)of the flesh. In attacking [the new] Adam, he
encountered God, and the condemnation of the flesh was abolished (Rom 5:16, 18), death being
put to death by the flesh" (Or. 39.3, 13, ed. C. Moreschini and P. Gallay, Discours 38-41 [SC 358;
Paris: Cerf, 1990] 152, lines 9-13; 178, lines 22-27); compare Or. 30.6, ed. P. Gallay, Discours
27-31 (SC 250; Paris: Cerf, 1978) 236; Or. 40.10, ed. C. Moreschini and P. Gallay, Discours 38-41,
216; and John Egan, "The Deceit of the Devil according to Gregory Nazianzus," StPat 22 (1989)
8-13, who deals extensively with this passage.
'Gregory of Nyssa, On the Three-Day Period between the Death and Resurrection of Christ;
ed. Ernest Gebhardt (GNO 9; Leiden: Brill, 1967) 280-81, lines 16-18, 4-16. See the detailed
commentary on this passage by Hubertus R. Drobner, Gregor von Nyssa. Die Drei Tage zwischen
Tod und Auferstehung unseres Herrn Jesus Christus (Leiden: Brill, 1982) 86-91; as well as the
remarks of Mariette Candvet, "Naturedu mal et 6conomie du salut chez Gr6goire de Nysse," RSR
56 (1968) 87-95; and Andreas Spira, "Der Descensus ad Infernos in der OsterpredigtGregors von
Nyssa De TriduiSpatio," in The Easter Sermons of Gregory of Nyssa (ed. idem; Cambridge,Mass.:
The Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1981) 195-261, esp. 230-38.

NICHOLAS

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145

In the first of these two passages, Gregory takes as his point of departurethe
established theological belief that the deity graciously reveals itself in forms
proportionateto the limited capacities of the human mind. Here, however, the
gift of divine accommodationis provocatively offered to the devil, inasmuch as
the divinity rendersitself an object of desire to the mind of the "opposingpower."
Implicatingitself in the gaze of the demonic, the incarnateGod seductively appears
as so much "bait,"a graphic image of predatorydeception by means of which,
accordingto Gregory,the deity paradoxicallyappropriatesthe devil's own artifice.
Anticipatingthe objection thathe has committedGod to a course of unethical (not
to mention diabolical) action, Gregory argues that it was only right that an act of
deception should be undone by an act of deception, a notion that accords with the
"riddlingdefinitionof justice used by the poets" outlined by Plato in the Republic
(1.332c-d).
Gregory furtherstresses that God's deceit, unlike the devil's, was enacted for
therapeuticpurposes, thereby classifying it among forms of deception culturally
acceptablein late antiquity.If God deceives, tempts, and seduces, it is to capture,
immolate, and ultimately redeem the desire of the other. In the second passage
cited above, Gregoryascribesthese activitiesto "OmnipotentWisdom,"a feminine
figure who is herself the "very being of Christ":the irreducibleontological core,
as it were, of the various guises and modalities of divine revelation, including her
persona as "Word."8The instabilityof the revealed text and the various reversals
of its referentspromotedby Gregory's exegesis are here matched by the gender
reversalof Christ,who in the form of Wisdom appearsas a femme fatale dressed
quite literally to kill. As these two extracts indicate, the fishhook is a device that
encapsulates Gregory's theory of "salvation through deception." This theory,
however, has not been kindly received in contemporaryscholarship.
Scholarly assessments of Gregory of Nyssa's fishhook have generally been
ratherprim and patronizing.Hastings Rashdall called Gregory's theory "childish
and immoral."9 J. A. MacCulloughdeemed it "pervertedand repulsive."'0Gustaf
8Elsewhere,in the first homily of his Commentaryon the Song of Songs, Gregory writes, "The
wisdom of Solomon has no measure or limit (d6ptozo;) . . . but do not suppose that I mean the
same Solomon from Bersabee. Another Solomon is signified here, one who is also descended from
David according to the flesh. This one comprehends the knowledge (yv~iotg) of all things. His very
being (T6 Evvat) is Wisdom"; ed. H. Langerbeck (GNO 6; Leiden: Brill, 1960) 17, lines 1-6. On
Wisdom as the true being of Christ, see also Origen, Prin. 1.2; ed. Henri Crouzel and Manlio Simonetti, Traitddes principes (SC 252; Paris:Cerf, 1978) 126; and idem, Commentaryon John, 1.289;
ed. Cecile Blanc, Commentairesur saint Jean (SC 120 bis; Paris: Cerf, 1996), where Prov 8.22 is
used to subordinatethe "Logos" (of John 1:1) to "Wisdom," because "wisdom precedes the word
that announces it."
9HastingsRashdall, The Idea of Atonement (London: Macmillan, 1925) 364.
10J.A. MacCullough, The Harrowing of Hell: A Comparative Study of an Early Christian
Doctrine (Edinburgh:T&T Clark, 1930) 205; MacCullough also has in view the larger question of
the "devil's rights" over fallen humanity.

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Aul6nfoundit "highlyobjectionable,disgustingandgrotesque."'1GeorgeFlorovsky
characterizedit as "self-contradictory,inconclusive and inappropriate.""2
Reinhold
Niebuhrfound it "unimportantandimplausible."l3Cyril Richardsonconfessed that
it was "repellent,"l4 while Frances Young has twice characterizedit as a "crude
and distastefultrick."'"Anthony Meredithdismissed Gregory'sidea as "noveland
strange,"notingthatit "hardlyhadmany followers."l6RichardJakobKees, perhaps
havingreadsome of these assessments,does not considerthe image of the fishhook
in his recent monographon Gregory's Catechetical Discourse.'7
Disdain for Gregory's fishhook and the theory of divine deception is clearly
an established topos within contemporaryscholarship, and, like many scholarly
constructions, it has distorted the nature of the actual evidence. Far from being
a grotesque idiosyncracy limited to the writings of Gregory of Nyssa, the image
of a divine fishhook baited with the flesh of Christwas used by dozens of writers
from the mid-fourththrough the seventh centuries and beyond, including such
notables as Athanasius, John Chrysostom, John of Damascus, and Maximus the
Confessor, to mention only a few.'"Among Latin writers,Augustine introduced
"Gustaf Aul6n, Christus Victor.An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of
Atonement (1931; New York: Macmillan, 1986) 47.
'2GeorgeFlorovsky, The Eastern Fathers of the Fourth Century (1933; repr., Belmont, Mass.:
Notable and Academic Books, 1987) 195, cited approvingly by Jaroslav Pelikan, Christianityand
Classical Culture:TheMetamorphosisofNatural Theologyin the ChristianEncounterwithHellenism
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993) 272-73.
13ReinholdNiebuhr, Human Destiny (vol. 2 of The Nature and Destiny of Man; New York:
Charles Scribners' Sons, 1941) 59-60.
14Cyril Richardson. "Introductionto Gregory of Nyssa," in Christology of the Later Fathers (ed.
Edward R. Hardy; Philadelphia:Westminster, 1954) 247.
'5FrancesYoung, The Use of Sacrificial Ideas in GreekChristian Writersfrom the New Testament
to John Chrysostom (Cambridge,Mass.: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1979) 209; and eadem,
From Nicaea to Chalcedon (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983) 121.
"6AnthonyMeredith, The Cappadocians (Crestwood:St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1995) 94.
17Richard Jakob Kees, Die Lehre von der Oikonomia Gottes in der Oratio Catechetica Gregors
von Nyssa (Leiden: Brill, 1995). An exception is the work of Franz Hilt (Des heil. Gregor von
Nyssa Lehre vom Menschen systematisch dargestellt von Franz Hilt [K61n, 1890] 144-50), who
recognized the importance of this theme in Gregory's soteriology; see also the remarksof Hiibner
(n. 52, below), who builds on Hilt's work, describing Gregory's metaphor of the fishhook as "ein
zentrales Theologumenon seiner Soteriologie."
'sFor Athanasius, see n. 37, below. For Chrysostom, see Hom. Matt. 26:39 (PG 61:753). For
John of Damascus, see Expositio fidei 45.3.1; ed. Boniface Kotter, Die Schriften des Johannes
von Damaskos, vol. 2 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1973) 106-7. For furtherreferences, see Drobner, Die Drei Tage, 89 n. 103. Note that the fishhook also appears in the liturgical texts of the
Orthodox Church: "With divinely-wise bait thou didst hook the author of evil, the dragon of the
deep, binding him in Tartaruswith bonds of darkness"(Pentecostarion [Boston: Holy Transfiguration, 1990] 423). Given the continuity between the flesh of Christ and Mary, Ps.-Epiphaniuspraises
the Virgin as the "bait of the spiritual fish-hook, for in you the divinity is the hook" (Homily 5;
PG 43:489d); compareidem, Homily 4, where the devil says: "I was deceived by the son of Mary,not

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147

a variationon this theme in the form of a mousetrapbaited with Christ's blood.19

Augustine (perhapsby way of Peter Lombard,who quotes him) was undoubtedly
the source for the iconographyof the fifteenth-centuryM6rode altarpiece,which,
at the moment of the incarnation,depicts Joseph seated in his carpentryshop, having just completed work on a mousetrap.20The altarpiece'ssymbolic depiction of
divine deception, not at the time of the passion, but at the moment of the incarnation, suggests that the enfleshment of the deity is itself an act of concealment, a
theme thatI shall consider below.
Returningto the image of the fishhook, it should be noted that this seemingly
peculiar metaphor was not invented ex nihilo and subsequently imposed upon
Scripture.Rather,it was derivedfrom a theologicallyconsistentconflationof several
biblical passages, includingJob40-41; Ps 104:26 (LXX103:26); andIsa 27:1, all of
which are concerned with mocking the cosmic dragon and dragging him up from
the depths of the sea on a fishhook.21Moreover, one does not typically go fishing
in mythopoetic ponds without a worm, and so Ps 22:6 (LXX21:6, "I am a worm
knowing that God had concealed himself (Kp1tterat) in a human body; I beheld him enfolded
in a human body, and I mistook him for a mere man (ivOpomnova"ztbyvvoticyag
(netptKei[tevov)
AtkX6v)"(PG 43:481c-d).
19DanielJ. Saunders("TheDevil andthe Divinity of Christ,"Theologial Studies 9 [1948] 536-53)
provides an incisive survey of this theme from Augustine through Aquinas and Cajetan.
20Augustine,Sermon 130: "Along came the redeemer and conquered the deceiver. And what
did our redeemer do to our captor? To pay our price, he set the mousetrap of his cross; as bait he
placed there his own blood. While the devil, though, was able to shed that blood, he did not earn
the right to drink it. And because he shed the blood of one who was not his debtor, he was ordered
to release those who were his debtors"(PL 38:726-27). The translatorof this passage, Edmund Hill
(The Worksof Augustine: Sermons 111/4[Brooklyn: New City Press, 1992] 311), notes that this is
"one of Augustine's favorite, and more grotesque metaphors for explaining how Christ's death has
delivered us from the devil's clutches." Peter Lombardquotes the sermon in his Sententia in iv Libris
Distinctae (3 vols.; Grottaferrata:Editiones Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad ClarasAquas, 1971-1981)
2:120; see J. Rivibre, "MuscipulaDiaboli: Origene et le sens d'une image augustinienne,"Thdologie
ancienne et mddidvale 1 (1929) 484-96; and Meyer Schapiro, "Muscipula Diaboli: The Symbolism of the Mdrode Altarpiece," Art Bulletin 28 (1945) 81-89. See also C. W. Marx, The Devil's
Rights and the Redemption in the Literature of Medieval England (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S.
Brewer, 1995); and Kathleen M. Ashley, "The Guiler Beguiled: Christ and Satan as Theological
Tricksters in Medieval Religious Literature,"Criticism: A Quarterlyfor Literature and the Arts
24, no. 2 (1982) 126-37.
with a fish-hook
21Job40:25-41:26 (LXX):"But wilt thou catch the dragon (8pdmKov)
(6yxttrpov)
and put a halter about his nose? Or wilt thou fasten a ring in his nostril, and bore his lip with a
But
thou
shalt
hand
him
the
war
that
is
once, remembering
lay thy
upon
clasp? ...
waged by his
mouth ... There is nothing upon the earth like him, formed to be sported with
(7yKaanai?ce0at)
by my angels. He beholds every high thing, and he is king of all that are in the waters." Ps 104:
26 (Lxx 103:26): "This dragon whom thou hast made to sport
in it (i.e., in the sea)."
('tgnaietv)
Isa 27:1: "In that day God shall bring his holy and great and strong sword upon the dragon, even
the serpent that flees, upon the dragon, the crooked serpent: he shall destroy the dragon." Translations from Lancelot C. L. Brenton, The Septuagint with Apocrypha (1851; repr., Peabody, Mass.:
Hendrickson, 1986).

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HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

[oxK<0r] and not a man") was granted a central place in this tradition.Tied to
Psalm 22, the fishhookwas therebyanchoredto the centerof the Passion Narrative
itself, for when Christ cried out in dereliction from the cross, it was this psalm's
first verse which he chose to give voice to his pain.22Patristicexegetes were thus
confrontedwith the strikingimage of the crucifiedChristwrithinglike a wormon a
hook.23These textualpatternswere furtherinterlacedwith John3:14, whereChrist's
elevation on the cross is comparedto thatof the bronzeserpent(60tg) which Moses
raised on a pole in the wilderness (Num 21:8-9). The figure of Jonah swallowed
by the whale and regurgitatedintact, invoked by Christas a foreshadowingof his
own deathandresurrection(Matt 12:39-40), was also influentialin the elaboration
of this exegetical metanarrative.24
Two texts will serve to illustratethe place of "ChristtheWorm"in the subsequent
patristictradition.The firstis from a letter writtenby the sixth-centuryPalestinian
ascetic Barsanuphius(d. ca. 545), who contraststhe worm of Psalm 22 with the
"undyingworm"of Mark9:48 (cited from Isa 66:24), which is said to feed like a
maggot on the flesh of the damned.Barsanuphiusaversthat,just as those Israelites
who were bitten by serpents were cured by the "bronze serpent"in the book of
Numbers, so too does the crucifiedworm of Psalm 22 provide the antidoteto the
afflictions caused by the worm in the Gospel of Mark:

This worm [i.e., Christ]came for my sake to deliverme from the worm
of corruptionwhich corruptsthe humanrace.And becausethe wormof
(compareMark9:48),whichcorruptsandis corrupted,
goes down
corruption
worm
intothewoundsandcausesthemto putrefyandstink,theincorruptible
Ps 21:6).And
came,of whomit is said:"I am a wormandnot a man"(LXX
wormplungesinto the wounds,so the incorruptible
just as the corruptible
22Matt27:46, citing Ps 22:1 (LXX21:1): "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Note
that the Gospel of Luke, written with the sensibilities of a Greco-Roman audience in mind, omits
the indecorous cry of dereliction.
23ComparePs.-Chrysostom, In illud, simile est regnum coelorum grano sinapis (Matt 13:31):
"What does Isaiah say? 'We saw him, but he had no form nor beauty, but his form was ignoble'
(Isa 53:2-3), and this is why he called himself a 'worm,' for he says, 'I am a worm and not a
man' (Ps 22:6 [LXX21:6]), and in Isaiah the Father says to him: 'Fear not, you worm Jacob'
(Isa 41:14), and afterwards, calling to mind his burial, he says, 'Thy inheritance (Karad6ketlga
[sic]; LXXKacTKacdlhega) shall be with the worm' (Isa 14:11), for just like a wise fisherman,it was
necessary that he place his flesh like a worm on the brilliantly shining fishhook of his divinity, and
cast it into the depths of this world, and thus catch the dragon on a hook, so that what was written
in Job might come to pass, 'Thou wilt catch the dragon with a fish hook' (Job 40:25)" (PG 64:23,
lines 20-32). See also Proclus of Constantinople (d. 446), Homily 29.24, 26: "Christcarried the
cross in order to fish out Adam from Tartarus... why do you plot in vain, O devil? Christ carries
a cross which you fashioned to your own ruin, for as a wise fishermanhe carries the cross in place
of a pole in order to fish out Adam from Tartarus";ed. F. J. Leroy, L'Homile'tiquede Proclus de
Constantinople (Vatican City: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1967) 211.
240n the dynamics of which, see James L. Kugel, In Potiphar's House: The InterpretiveLife of
Biblical Texts (Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press, 1994) 247-70.

NICHOLAS

P. CONSTAS

149

wormwent down into the "lowerpartsof the earth"(Eph4:9), and from

therebeganto destroyall the uncleannessof the old worm;andhavingthus
cleansedthemall, he led themup andremainedhimselfwithoutcorruption.
Thisis thewormwhichcleansedJobof thewormof corruption
(compareJob
7:5;25:6),andwhichsaidto him,"Arise,girdup yourloinslike a man"(Job
38:3).Thiswormalso "drewout the dragonwitha hook"(Job40:20)while
hangingon the tree[i.e., of the cross].25
A second example of this motif of "Christthe Worm"may be found among the
works of an authorwho wrote under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, an
early-sixth-centurywriter deeply indebted to the theology of Gregory of Nyssa.
In his treatise On the Celestial Hierarchy,the psalmic worm appearsin a bestiary
of "dissimilarsymbols of the divine." In this cabinet of theriomorphiccuriosities,
the deity is on display as a "lion" (compare Gen 49:9; Hos 5:14; Rev 5:5); a
"panther"(Hos 13:7; 5:14); a "leopard"(compare Hos 13:7; Rev 13:2); and an
"angryshe-bear"(Hos 13:8), althoughthe prize exhibit is the "lowliest and most
ignoble of all, for the experts in things divine gave the deity the form of a worm"
(Ps 22:6). Dionysius considers such symbols to be particularlyappropriatefor the
unknowabledeity which paradoxically"reveals"itself only by "concealment"in
finite (andthereforedissimilar)forms andnames. The invisible, in otherwords, can
entervisibility only at the cost of essential misrepresentation.In his thirdletter,the
Areopagite suggests that the mystery of the Word incarnatecannot be reduced to
the surface narrativesregardingJesus of Nazareth:"The divinity remains hidden
even afterits revelation,or to speakmore divinely, it is hidden in the revelation;for
the mystery of Jesus is hidden, and may be utteredby no word or mind, but even
when spoken, remainsunsaid, and when conceived, unknown."The otherness of
the sign- its utternonresemblanceto that of which it is the sign and presence- is
for Dionysius the privilegedformof divine self-manifestation,the perfectfiguration
of that which cannot be figured.26

25Barsanuphius,ep. 62, ed. Frangois Neyt and Paula de Angelis-Noah, Correspondance:

Barsanuphe et Jean de Gaza, vol. 1 (SC 426; Paris: Cerf, 1997) 1:308-10. I am thankful to His
Grace Bishop Savas Zembillas of Troas, who kindly provided me with this reference, along with
the English translationfrom his unpublished manuscript.
260n the Celestial Hierarchy 2.5; ed. Giinter Heil and Adolf Martin Ritter in Corpus Dionysiacum, vol. 2 (Berlin: Walterde Gruyter, 1991) 15, line 20. For Dionysius's concept of "dissimilarity"
the editors provide cross-references to Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium 1.620-23
(&vogLot6or;g)
and 2.234-28. For the passage from Letter 3, see Heil and Ritter, ibid., 159: ppuoto;g 8 iot
e
i, va ', t6zorepovE.ICo, Kait v r -oi
Kap ~geto
cai roiio yp 'I
"ivcatVvaotv
E,dveVt
e v6p r6
a v
Ko ' cnr'
oi 3rvT XQyq
?1Kcdfurnxr1Uplov, aX a i
,? eyY6goVOV
KQ1tK]i voo-ogevov
ooPTo
1c6qKp'ovr
ippryrovgLVEt,
yvooyrov.

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HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

I Pseudo-Athanasius'sHomily on the Passion and the Cross

As the texts cited above suggest, the worms and fishhooks of the Bible became
attached to a larger theory of dissimulation and deception that found its fullest
applicationin the narrativesof Christ'spassion and death.A little-knownsermon
attributedto Athanasiusof Alexandria,the Homily on the Passion and the Cross,
applies this theoryto virtuallythe entirenarrativeof Christ'slast days on earth.As
its title suggests, the homily is an exegetical sermonexpoundingthe meaningof the
Passion Narrativein the Gospel of Matthew.If not writtenby Athanasiushimself,
the work is clearly the productof the "school"of Athanasius,and thereforeprobThe settingis the annualliturgical
Alexandria.27
ably stems fromlate-fourth-century
commemorationof Christ'spassion, and"Athanasius"(hereafterwithoutquotation
marks)labors endlessly to make one point: namely, that Christiansshould not be
ashamedof the suffering of Christor of his cross.28Athanasius'sapologia crucis
hinges on the notion of divine deception (fishhook included), which underlieshis
narrativesubversionand subsequentreinterpretationof the sufferingand deathof
Christ.
The homiletical drama begins with Satan's fatal desire to discover the true
identity of Christ, a thing he was unable to do on the mountain of temptations.
Athanasiusinforms the congregation:
The devil wantedto knowwhathe was unableto know whenhe tempted
him [i.e., Christ]on the mountain,namely,"whether
or nothe is the Sonof
God"(Luke4:3).At thattimehe was putto shame,andkeptwatch(i-rinlpt;
compareGen3:14,nrlpilotg)forthetime(icatp6g)of his death.Forit is writhe departed
ten in Lukethat,"Whenthe devilcompletedall his temptations,
time"(afXpticatpoii,Luke4:13).This [i.e.,the
fromhimuntilan opportune
passion]is now thattime.29

27The Greek text of the homily can be found in PG 28:185-250 (CPG 2247). On the attribution,
see Hubertus R. Drobner, "Eine Pseudo-Athanasianische Osterpredigt tiber die WahrheitGottes
und ihre Erftillung,"in Christian Faith and Greek Philosophy in Late Antiquity.Essays in Tribute
to George Christopher Stead (ed. Lionel R. Wickham, et al.; Leiden: Brill, 1993) 43-44; Drobner
surveys the scholarship on this question. Since the late-nineteenth century, the sermon has been
variously attributedto Athanasius (d. 373), Eustathiusof Antioch (d. ca. 345), Marcellus of Ancyra
(d. ca. 374), Didymus of Alexandria (d. 398), and to an anonymous Palestinian writer of the midfourth century. On the basis of internal evidence, Drobner dates the text to some time before 350.
The text is also extant in Syriac and Armenian versions: see R. W. Thompson, Athanasiana Syriaca III, CSCO 324 (1972) 89-138 (text); CSCO 325 (1972) 61-96 (translation);and R. P. Casey,
"ArmenianManuscriptsof St. Athanasius of Alexandria,"HTR 24 (1931) 43-59.
28ComparePs.-Chrysostom, De confessione pretiosae crucis (PG 52:841-44), which deals
extensively with this same theme.
29PG28:209, lines 25-32. The fourth-centuryAriansarguedthatChrist'stemptationon themountain
was a scripturalproof against his divinity; see Athanasius, C. Ar. 3.56-57 (PG 26:440b-441c); in
this context, Athanasius does not invoke the theory of divine deception, but see n. 30, below.

NICHOLAS P. CONSTAS

151

Fearing, however, direct confrontation with the "divine and unapproachable

power" (ibid., lines 39-40), Satan must operate offstage, by inciting the Jews,
provoking the Romans, and rousing the rabble of Jerusalem. But "because the
Savior knew that the devil's plan depended on the knowledge [of his identity], he
concealed

(1n'iacpunr'e)

his divinity and acted like a human being (6;bgvmpono;

(ibid., lines 43-44). In this regard,Athanasius asserts that Christ

7ctohtzitro)"
a
is "justlike general conducting a war, who devised (FoYparti1yr\oe)
a great and
wondrousstrategy,and so assumes the appearance
of one stagger(oXlaretir?at)
ing underSatan'spower, so that when the enemy draws nearhe might completely
subdue him."30
Athanasius furthercompares Christ to a "noble wrestler"(y~vva-o;gnaXatyjilg)who, when seeing his opponent about to take flight, feigns weakness in order
to lure him back into the ring.31This conceit of the wrestling match is continued
by an allusion to the figure of Irus, a minor characterwho appearsat the climax
of Homer's Odyssey. Irus was one of the grasping suitors who had taken over
Odysseus's householdduringthe latter'sprolongedreturnfrom the Trojanwar.32In
a stratagemto reclaim his home, Odysseus adopts the persona of a weak old man
seeking hospitality.He meets insteadwith the swaggeringbravadoof Irus,who unwittinglychallengesthe disguisedhero to a wrestlingmatch.To everyone's surprise,
Odysseus gives him a thrashing,and Irus is hauled out of the palace a broken and
bloody pulp. The preacher'saudiencewould have been well versed in this Homeric
episode, and we can imagine their delight when Athanasius announcedthat
30PG28:228, lines 16-23. CompareOrigen, Comm.Rom. 5.10: "Therewas ajust and noble king,
who was waging a war against an unjust tyrant, but trying to avoid a violent and bloody conflict,
because some of his own men were fighting on the tyrant's side, and he wanted to free them, not
destroy them. He therefore adopted the uniform of the tyrant's men, until he managed to persuade
them to desert and to return to their proper kingdom, and succeeded in 'binding the strong man'
in fetters, destroying his 'principalities and powers,' and carrying off those he held captive" (PG
14:1051c-52a); and Athanasius, C. Ar. 2.52: "As if a son, when the servants were lost, and in the
hands of the enemy ... were sent by his father to recover them, and upon setting out were to clothe
himself in a garment resembling theirs, and disguise himself as one of them (EnvSt6i5aKorot ilv
iE iau6v 6; icF-ivot), lest the enemy, recognizing him
6ioiav
o6f0ra, KaiGXgrlatat
CvEvtCOv
should take flight and prevent his descending to those who were hidden under the
as the master,
earth" (PG 26:257a-b).
31PG28:209, lines 47-49; 212, lines 1-5. This form of deception is discussed in the Lesser
Hippias: the better wrestler is one who falls purposely than one who falls because he cannot help
it (374a-b); compare Dionysius the Areopagite, On Divine Names 8.6: "That sophist [i.e., Elymas
the Magician, Acts 13:8] imitates inexperienced wrestlers, who, assuming that their adversaries
are weak (do&asvei;),and manfully making a show of fight with them when absent, courageously
box into the air with empty blows, and think they have overcome their opponents, not yet having
ed. Beata Regina Suchla, in Corpus Dionysiacum,
experienced their rival's strength
(81vattg;)";
vol. 1 (Berlin: Walter de Grutyer, 1990) 203, lines 17-22.
320d. 18.45-135. On the symbolic function of Irus in Homer's epic, see Daniel Levine, "Odyssey
18: Iros as a Paradigm for the Suitors," Classical Journal 77 (1982) 200-1.

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HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

the devil, having arrogantlypresumed(,toXLpioag)

against the Lord, has now
become another Irus, cast forth from the universe, and trampled upon by
all ... and the dragon who boasted that he was rich has been strippedof all,
and he is now a naked and impoverishedIrus, utterly despoiled.33
It is rather astonishing to encounter the mythical figure of Odysseus, the
archetypical trickster, making a cameo appearance in a passion sermon in order to
vindicate the sufferings of Christ.34Like a wily Odysseus, Christ deploys a strategy
of deception in order to lure the devil into mortal combat at the climax of a Christian
epic. This strategy is particularly pronounced in the garden of Gethsemane, where
the weakness of Christ is reconfigured as an act of deliberate deception calculated
to destroy the devil:
And this is why he was "distressed"aroundthe time of his death, and began
to "grieve," and "prayed that the cup might pass from him" (Matt 26:39),
and cried out, "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" (Matt 26:41)....
But when the evil one heard the Lord saying, "The spirit is willing but the
flesh is weak,"he [mistakenly]thoughtthat the Wordwas weakenedtogether
(ouvrieavert) with the body, and not ratherthat the body was strengthenedby
the power of the Word (t 8)uvdlgettoi
o
A6yo0 ovto~)VtCXicaAt6o'tOta).35

This cleverly scriptedagony in the gardensuccessfully dupesthe devil inasmuch

as the spectacle of Christ'semotional weakness is in fact a grandtheaterof diversion. Viewed throughAthanasius'sinversivelooking glass, nothingis whatit seems
to be, and when the homilist arrives at the scourging of Christ by the soldiers,

33PG 28:233, lines 12-14; 236, lines 11-13. Compare Athanasius, Vit.Ant., 5.6-7: "The entire
experience put the enemy to shame (tp6ogaioxvrlqv). Indeed, he who had thought he was like to
God, was here made a fool by a stripling of a man (r't6nveaviKcou viv Etnaitzro). He who in his
conceit disdained flesh and blood, was now routed (&vatpF'ni-Eo)
by a man in the flesh";ed. G. J.
M. Bartelink, Vied'Antoine (SC 400; Paris: Cerf, 1994) 144, lines 35-40. Compare Vit.Ant.41.3-5,
where the devil says: /yib y&p dteOEViig
Y7jOVa . . . Ol)Kit t6tov FXO.... 6 yp Xpto(r;bg* X0v
t&o0Ev-i rE teltOiC Kai walapakXviay'gvoteev(ed. Bartelink, 246, lines 10-19).
34Parallelsbetween Christ and Odysseus were not uncommon in Christian antiquity, although
they were not normally introduced into sermons on the passion; see Jean P6pin, "The Platonic and
Christian Ulysses," in Neoplatonism and Christian Thought (ed. Dominic J. O'Meara; Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1982) 3-18; Philip Sellew, "Achilles or Christ? Porphyry
and Didymus in Debate over Allegorical Interpretation,"HTR 82 (1989) 79-100; Dennis Ronald
MacDonald, "Homer in the Early Church," in idem, Christianizing Homer: The Odyssey, Plato,
and the Acts of Andrew (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) 17-34; and J. Danidlou, "Homer
in the Fathersof the Church,"in idem, Gospel Message and Hellenistic Culture (trans.JohnAustin
Baker; Philadelphia:Westminster, 1973) 75-105. That both Odysseus and Christ suffered provided
the basic point of comparison; see Sophocles, frag. 880N: "In the eyes of men I am truly what my
name 'Odysseus' means, for the impious in large numbers have made me suffer (C0h6oavzo)."
35PG28:212, lines 7-11; 216, lines 29-32. The language of "weakness"and "strength"is derived
from 2 Cor 13:4: "If he was crucified in weakness (a&0oiveta),he lives by the power (16vatg);) of
God" (compare Luke 22:43).

NICHOLAS P. CONSTAS

153

his audience beholds, not the robe of mockery, nor the crown of thorns, jeering
soldiers, or death by crucifixion, but rather an imperial and indeed divine triumph,
complete with royal purple robe, solemn crowning, acclamation of kingship by the
military, dramatic spoliation of the enemy, and public adventus with the trophy of

the cross.36Throughoutthe sermon,Athanasiusrepeatedlypoints out that,contrary

to appearances, the cross is not a sign of shame and defeat, but is instead the very
weapon that slew death:
On the fishhook of your humanity(iv av(pontivo(p
ayrciapo), fastened to the
trophy of the cross, you led about the dragon, the serpent, the devil . .. and
you toyed (rnaigavrog)with him from the very beginning, creating him for
the purpose of mockery

26 [LXX]).37

(waranai0eOat,

compare Job 41:25 [LXX];Ps 103:

Christ's visible defeat on the cross is the sign of his invisible (but nonetheless
palpable) triumph, and, contrary to all appearances, it is in fact the devil who
undergoes crucifixion.38 Here the homilist seems indebted to Origen's exegesis of
Josh 8:29, "Joshua ('Ifcolg) hanged the king of Gai on a double tree (EKpi~~gao
'
i)tt 6ou 6tSigoZi)," in which he states the following:
Thereis a mysteryhiddenin this passage which is "hiddenfrom many" [compare 1 Cor 2:7]; but we will attemptto open it, not with our opinions but with
the witness of sacredscripture.. . . The "king of Gai" can stand for the devil.
But how he came to be crucifiedon a forked tree is worth investigating.The
cross of Christ was a double cross. You might think it a strange and novel
idea when I say that the cross was double, but what I mean is that it can be
considered as double, or from two sides. Because the Son of God was crucified visibly in the flesh, but invisibly on the same cross, the devil with "his
principalitiesand powers was nailed to the cross" (cf. Col 2:14-15). Will not
this seem trueto you if I bringPaul forwardas a witness to it? Hear then what
he has to say: "Thatwhich stood against us," he says, "he set aside, nailing
360n which see K. Roddy, "Politics and Religion: The Roman ImperialAdventus Ceremony and
the ChristianMyth of the Harrowing of Hell," Apocrypha 11 (2000) 147-79. Note that the Homily
on the Passion is contemporarywith the iconography of the "ChristusVictor," in which Christ is
shown alive and dispassionate on the cross; see John R. Martin, "The Dead Christ on the Cross in
Byzantine Art," in Late Classical and Medieval Studies in Honor of Albert Mathias Friend, Jr. (ed.
K. Weitzmann; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955); and Anna Kartsonis, Anastasis: The
Making of an Image (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986) 33-68, 99.
37PG28:240, lines 18-24. CompareAthanasius, Vit.Ant. 24.4-5: "He [i.e., the devil] overlooks
how he was dragged around with a hook (dyiiaTrpc) like a dragon by the savior, haltered around
his snout like a beast of burden, and had his nostrils ringed like a runaway, and his lips pierced
through by an iron band" (ed. Bartelink, 202, lines 23-25).
38Compareibid., 5.3: "The enemy saw that he was powerless in the face of Antony's determinabecause of
tion and that is was ratherhe who was being bested (gpdiLov 'oaur'v
KaToTaXcto6Evov)
faith and routed by Antony's
the man's steadfastness and vanquished (dvarpenxt6gavov)by his solid
constant prayer"(ed. Bartelink, 142, lines 13-16).

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HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

andpowersandmadea public
it to the cross.He disarmedtheprincipalities
overthemon the cross"(Col2:14-15).39
exampleof them,triumphing
Origen'smetaphysicof crucifixion,domesticatedin popularsermonson thepassion,
was eventually incorporatedinto the hymnology of the Byzantine church.In the
first stanza of a liturgical poem writtenby Romanos the Melode (d. ca. 555), the
foot of the cross, plantedon the summitof Golgotha, descends deep into the earth,
where it impales the body of Hades, who cries: "Whohas fixed a nail in my heart?
A wooden lance (X6yXir)has suddenly pierced me (cKcvzrflEv; compareJohn 19:
37; Rev 1:7) and I am being torn apart!"In the third stanza,the poet describesthe
cross as a cosmic tree, the roots of which, Hell complains, "haveenteredmy soul;
they have gone down into my depths!"40

Seduction in the Garden

These dramaticreversals are paralleledin a large numberof patristicsermons
on the passion which eventually became partof the Byzantine lectionary.Despite
the centralityof the cross, however, the pivotal momentin these sermonsis not the
crucifixion,but ratherthe scene in the gardenof Gethsemane.The agony of Christ
in the gardenmarksan importantmomentin the metanarrativeof divine deception,
for it is here thatthe devil is utterlyseduced by the hypnotic flickeringof Christ's
humanity.In a pseudo-Chrysostomicsermonwhich deals extensively with Matt26:
39, Satansays, "Ihave been deceived, for who would not be trickedby such words?
For he was frightened in the face of death and said, 'My soul is very sorrowful,
even unto death' (Matt 26:38), and he prayed to the Father saying, 'Father,if it
is possible, let this cup pass from me' (Matt 26:39). These words enticed me like
bait."41The deception in Gethsemaneis also critical to the narrativesequence of
39Origen,Hom. Josh. 8.6; ed. Annie Jaubert, Home'lies sur Josue' (SC 71; Paris: Cerf, 1960)
232-34; the translation is from Hans Urs von Balthasar, Origen: Spirit and Fire (trans. Robert J.
Daly; Washington,D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1984) 131. On the patristicexegesis
of Col 2:14-15, see Michael E. Stone, Adam'sContract with Satan: The Legend of the Cheirograph
of Adam (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002).
40Romanos,On the Victoryof the Cross; ed. P. Maas and C. A. Trypanis,Sancti RomaniMelodi
Cantica: Cantica Genuina (Oxford:Clarendon,1997) 165. ComparePs.-Chrysostom,In adorationem
venerandae crucem: "Seeing these things, the devil cried, 'Who has plunged a nail into my heart?A
wooden lance has pierced me, and I am torn to pieces ... being defeated by the one whom I thought
I had defeated" (PG 62:748, lines 23-29). Romanos's poem appearsto have been the inspirationfor
the tenth-centuryivory panel of the crucifixion now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in which
the "base of the cross pierces the stomach of the reclining figure of Hades ... transform[ing]the
crucifixion into a celebration of the Triumph of the Cross." See also Charles T. Little, "Triptych
Panel with Crucifixion," in The Glory of Byzantium (ed. Helen C. Evans and William D. Wixom;
New York, 1997) 151-52; and MargaretE. Frazer, "Hades Stabbed by the Cross of Christ,"Metropolitan Museum Journal 9 (1974) 153-61.
41Ps.-Chrysostom,In sancta et magna parasceve (PG 62:722d).

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155

the Gospel of Nicodemus: "Satan ... said to Hades, 'There is one of the race of
the Jews, Jesus by name, who calls himself the Son of God. But he is a man. ... I
know that he is a man, and I heard him saying, "My soul is very sorrowful, even
to death" (Matt 26:38).' ... [But Hades said,] 'If you say that you heard how he
feared death, he said this to mock [or "to deceive"] you and laugh at you, wishing
to seize you with a strong hand.' "42
The emphasis on Christ's deception of the devil in the garden of Gethsemane,
which seems to detract from the centrality of the crucifixion, is in fact a typological
requirement intended to mirror and thus reverse the devil's deception of Eve in the
garden of Eden. According to the logic of typological recapitulation, it was only right
that an act of deception should be undone by deception. In Gethsemane, therefore,
Christ deceived the deceiver by typologically appropriating the devil's allurements
and stratagems. Just as the agent of a disease serves also as its homeopathic cure,
so does the primal deception determine the ingredients for its own neutralizing
antidote.43Another Pseudo-Athanasian text, surrendering unreservedly to the vertiginous currents of these typological associations, hazards the following account
of the divine strategy of salvation:
This was the cause of the incarnation,and the reason why God did not hunt
for the devil in his unveiled divinity, because the devil himself, when he
decided to deceive (ntXvfihot) humanity, did not approach Eve with his
demonic natureunveiled.Rather,he clothed himself in the flesh of the serpent
(compare Gen 3:2), and in this manner entered paradise and deceived her.
For the cunning one (86Xtog) knew that if he approached Eve with his
demonic natureunveiled, he would not have been able to deceive her. This
is why he clothed himself with the serpent as if with flesh, and through the
flesh-bearingserpent he deceived (FinXvdyaE)Eve. The serpentwas plainly
manifest (A0aivrro), but the devil was not. And through the visible serpent
which appeared (th Tro3atvogCLvou), the invisible (dte0spprlo;g)serpent,
the devil, acted. For at the fall of our first parent, two natureswere brought
together in one person (8&1oaoet; ;v ivi~ rposTniR &anifyov).So too, in
the case of Christ,two natures--humanity and divinity-were united in one
i
And the humanity was
person (&Go036(etie; siv
Itp6ooirov ivd0'ijCtav).
made plainly manifest, but the divinity was not made manifest, and through
the humanity which appeared, the invisible divinity acted. And these two
42Translationin J. K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993) 187.
CompareActs Thom. 45: "We (demons) believed we could bring him under our yoke like the rest,
but he turned and held us in his grip. For we did not know him: he deceived us by his despicable
form, by his poverty and indigence. When we looked upon him as such, we believed him to be a
man bearing flesh, not knowing him to be the one who gave life to mankind";ed. Max Bonnet, Acta
Thomae (Leipzig: H. Mendelssohn, 1883) 162. I am thankful to Daniel Caner for this reference.
43AsNyssa himself suggests: "Two persons may both mix poison (r6 ~adptaKov)with food, one
with the design of taking life, the other with the design of saving that life; the one using it as poison,
the other as an antitode to poison" (Cat. Disc. 26; ed. Miihlenberg, 65, lines 13-16).

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natures,I mean divinity and humanity,restoredexiled humanityto paradise.

And this is why God was incarnateand became man.44
In this stunning typological juxtaposition, the devil becomes a serpent, coiled around
a tree, in order to seduce Eve, in response to which the deity becomes a worm
writhing on the cross, the tree of life, in order to seduce the devil. Equally striking
is the daring (and, to my knowledge, unparalleled) use of the Chalcedonian formula
of a hypostatic, or, more precisely, prosopic union to designate Satan's appearance
under the form of the "most crafty of brutes" (Gen 3:2).45 This suggests, in other
words, that the incarnation of the Logos mirrors and thus reverses the "incarnation"
of Satan in the flesh of the serpent. At the same time, it should be noted that the
word d&niyov (translated above as "brought together") means "carried away,"
in the sense of "being abducted" or "led astray," the illicit asymmetry of which
serves to mitigate the shock of the Chalcedonian definitio fidei applied to the
archetype of demonic indwelling.
Although Gregory of Nyssa does not mention the scene in the garden of Gethsemane, the reversals described above are fundamental to the argument of his
Catechetical Discourse, cited at the outset of this discussion.46 For Gregory, the
deception of Eve in the garden of Eden provides the paradigm for the divinity's
deception of the devil:
Beauty exists both in truthand in appearance.Under these circumstancesit
is a matterof risk whether we happen to choose the real beauty, or whether
we are diverted from it by some deception (
from appearance
itan) arising
(0atv6xogvov).But [in the garden of Eden] the mind was diverted to that
beautywhich is not such, being persuaded,throughthe deceptionof the devil,
that that was beauty which was just the opposite. For his deception would
never have succeeded, had not the illusion (4avracia) of beauty been spread
over the hook
of vice like a bait.47
(-yKiatopov)
in flesh-in order,that
This is why the deity was concealed (1Ept~cahk?Cmerat)
is, to secure thatthe devil, by looking upon somethingcongenial (oTUv'popov)
and kindred (ovyyev g) to himself, might have no fear in approachingthat

44Ps.-Athanasius,Quaestiones aliae 20 (PG 28:793c-d).

45Thedoctrinal formula promulgatedby the Council of Chalcedon (451) states that Christ was
c iv
composed of "two natures" in "one person and one hypostasis" (Ev 686o
0p7Oetv ... Kai Eig
Rtp6o(otov Kat~ tiava7t6otratv, ACO 2.1, p. 129, lines 30-33).
46Gregoryof Nyssa deals with Matt 26:39 in his Antirrheticus adversus Apollinarium;ed. F.
Mtiller (GNO 3.1; Leiden: Brill, 1958) 181. Compare Gregory Nazianzus, Or. 30.12, ed. Gallay,
Discours 27-31, 248-52. See also n. 65, below.
47Cat.Disc. 21; ed. Mitihlenberg,56, lines 13-24; compare idem, Life of Moses 297: "Pleasure
is truly like evil's bait (86iXap); when it is cast out (ntpophkltioa) lightly, it draws gluttonous
souls to the fishhook (diyKtoGpov)of destruction," ed. J. Danielou, La vie de Moi'se (SC 1 bis;
Paris: Cerf, 2000) 308.

NICHOLAS P. CONSTAS

157

transcendent
power,deemingwhatwas seenan objectof desire(66UtOgrit6v)
....

This invention,wherebythe enemy was enabledto apprehend(XtopTr6v)

is a manifestation
of supreme
thatwhichcannotbe apprehended
(Xcppriltov),
Wisdom.48

Gregory'sdefinitionof beautyas existing both in "truthandappearance"reflectshis

systematicdivision of humanrealityinto mind and sense, and being and nonbeing,
bothof which he holds togetherin creativetension.49This dichotomousorganization
enables him here to distinguish sharplybetween aesthetics and ethics, so that the
responsibility for successfully negotiating the gap between the (sensuous) sign
and its (intelligible) referentfalls squarelyupon humanfreedom and the power of
But the mind can fail to graspthe truenatureof the world, fall
self-determination.50
prey to deception, and mistakethe appearanceof the sign for that which it seeks to
renderpresent. In response, the deity transgressesthe divisions of created being,
incarnatingitself within matterin orderto seduce humanityaway from its obsession with sensuous signs.5 Gregorysuggests, moreover,that such a ruse will also
redeem the devil, whose finite malignancy will (he argues elsewhere) acquiesce
to infinite goodness like the shadow of an eclipse yielding to "light unbrokenby
darkness."In the end, Gregorymuses, the "adversaryhimself will not be likely to
dispute that what took place was just and salutary."52

48Cat. Disc. 23; ed. Miihlenberg, 60, lines 8-13, 21-23.

49Compareibid., 6: "Concerning all existing things there is a twofold manner of apprehension

(Strfi rig;Katav6rotg) inasmuch as they are divided between what pertains to the intellect and
what to the senses, and there is nothing in the natural order extending beyond this division" (ed.
Miihlenberg, 21, lines 7-10). As for the "movement" of created being, Gregory of Nyssa notes
(Cat. Disc. 21), that it likewise has "two forms" (816o 1'i8rlKtvil*Tes), one oriented toward the
'
yaOov dcEiytv6evov ov v i iTp6oSog odaoytv o'h
"goodness of divine infinity" (,T6 tv
rtpbgTrb
and the other into the "nullity of non-being" (r'6 86
iv
vavriov ou i
XEQt),
xp96;g
't6 For a study ofjnt6oataot;
1-2.
Gregory's use
Fo'rtv);ed. Mtihlenberg, 55-56, lines 23-24,
Lr
6eoaradvat
1'ti
of these
categories, see Alden A. Mosshammer,"Gregory of Nyssa and Christian Hellenism," StPat
32 (1997) 136-67.
50Discussedin Cat. Disc. 7 and 21; ed. Muihlenberg,26-28 and 55-60. See also Werner Beierwaltes, "The Love of Beauty and the Love of God," in Classical Mediterranean Spirituality:
Egyptian, Greek,Roman (ed. A. H. Armstrong;New York:Crossroad, 1986) 293, who notes that "in
contrastto modern consciousness, the concept of beauty or the beautiful does not have primarily an
aesthetic significance but, above all, an ethical one. The beautiful is the manifestation or outward
expression of the Good, an indication that a certain form or being or existence has attained its
purpose or perfection or that it is perfection itself."
"5CompareAthanasius, Inc. 15: "Like a good teacher he came down to their level. ... He took
to himself a body and moved as a man among men, drawing to himself the senses of all men (tra;
so that those who were seeking God in sensible things
atf0ilOsetgrtcdvcuvdv0pcotucv
itpooXapdwvet),
might apprehendthe Fatherthrough the works he did in the body"; ed. Charles Kannengiesser, Sur
l'incarnation du Verbe(SC 199 bis; Paris: Cerf, 2000) 318.
52Theanalogy of the eclipse is from the De hominis opificio 21.3 (PG 44:201d); compare Cat.
Disc. 6: ol6v Ttva oYtav riTavaXcOppTet trig dKivo;g IntotYPaivouaxv (ed. Miihlenberg, 23-24,

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The Poetics of Disguise

The metaphorof the fishhook and the theory of divine deception served to define
Christ as a figure who was both within the tumult of the world and yet radically
beyond it. It explained how the sufferingsof Christdid not compromisebut rather
enhanced his divine status. Finding strength in weakness (compare 2 Cor 13:
4) was, as we have seen, accomplished through the systematic bifurcationsof a
twofold exegesis, a hermeneuticalpractice that virtualizedthe dualities of Christ
himself.53
The function of doubling as a response to traumaand violence has recently
been studiedby Wendy Doniger in her work Splitting the Difference,54and it will
be instructiveto consider our patristic sources in light of her analysis of ancient
Greek literarytraditions.Doniger observes that subsequentretellings of Homer's
Iliad tend to avoid or otherwise eliminate the abductionand rapeof Helen of Troy
by Paris. Such retellings usually suggested that the "real"Helen had never been
abductedat all: a double had been taken in her place while the real Helen of Troy
remainedsafe andunaffectedby the rapeof herphantom.55
To the doubledfigureof
of
inflamed
with
love
for
adds
the
Hera,who embraces
Helen, Doniger
story Ixion,
not the goddess but a cloud thathas takenher shape;andVesta,who carriedoff her
priest to the halls of Jupiterimmediately before his murder:his assassins stabbed
only his phantom.56
The phenomenonof such doubling as a form of bifurcationis a trope,Doniger
argues, which seeks to protect and preserve what is most highly valued while
at the same time "maintainingappearances."She emphasizes, however, that the
splitting which seeks to obviate the problems of violence, defilement, guilt, or
shame by projectingthem onto a shadowy substituteinevitably produces a new,
destabilizingdynamic thatcan run counterto the very values it seeks to enshrine.
lines 25, 1); and ibid., 22, for the devil's acknowledgement (ed. Mtihlenberg, 66-67). Reinhard
M. Htibner (Die Einheit des Leibes Christi bei Gregor von Nyssa [Leiden: Brill, 1974] 95-167)
similarly suggests that the interactionof the "wormand the fish" signifies a union of opposed forces
in the reintegrationof a former fullness; compare Alden A. Mosshammer, "Non-Being and Evil in
Gregory of Nyssa," Vigiliae Christianae 44 (1990) 136-67.
53Athanasius,C. Ar. 3.29: "The scope and character of Scripture is this: it contains a double
account (8tnr?i
of the Savior, i.e., that he was ever God, the Son, being the Father's
6nayyFeia)
'Word' (John 1:1), and 'Radiance' (Heb 1:3), and 'Wisdom' (1 Cor 1:24), and that afterwardshe
took flesh from the Virgin Theotokos and was made man" (PG 26:383, lines 8-14); and Gregory
Nazianzus, Or. 29.18: "You must ascribe the more exalted expressions [i.e., of Scripture] to the
deity, and the lowlier ones to the compound of him who because of you 'was emptied' (Phil 2:7),
and became man";ed. P. Gallay, Discours 27-31, 216, lines 21-24.
54WendyDoniger, Splitting the Difference: Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).
55Ibid.,28-42.
56Ibid.,37-38, 58, 111.

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P. CONSTAS

159

Thus, the "real"Helen is redeemed from the vicissitudes of history only at the
cost of a fundamentalloss of identity, which Doniger interpretsin a later stage of
her inquiry as a form of psychological fragmentationand schizophrenia: abuse
generates multiple personalities.57
Although Doniger does not consider Christiansources in her analysis, it seems
clear that the retellings of Christ's passion in patristic literatureclosely parallel
the retellings of Homer's Iliad mentioned above. These revisionist tendencies,
moreover, are closely intertwinedin the Homily on the Passion and the Cross,
which is engaged in a complex transformationof both Homer and the Gospels."58
Accordingly,the desireto redeemHelen of Troyfrom the fate to which the inspired
poet consigned her correspondsto the efforts of patristicexegetes to eliminate the
"shame and folly" of the crucified savior. Like the mythic figures described in
Doniger's work, Christ is both subject to suffering and transcends all suffering;
or, his sufferings are but a ruse to deceive the devil who, like the simpleminded
Paris, falls victim to a conspiracyof signs.
Also outside of Doniger's survey, but even closer to our patristic sources, is
the "passionnarrative"of the god Dionysus, who escaped suffering by practicing
his own divine deception. When the chorus suggests that Pentheus had "bound
his hands with coils and chains,"the god declares that "it was then that I scorned
him; thinking that he fettered me he neither touched nor grasped me, but fed on
fantasy."59For Celsus, the Greek philosopher cited at the beginning of this essay,
Christshouldhave likewise demonstratedhis divinityby being transportedto heaven
at the time of his arrestor, more dramatically,from the summit of the cross.6 This
was precisely the pathtakenby various Gnostic groups who "solved"the problem
of the passion by denying it altogether.Contraryto appearances,Christ did not
suffer at all: in his place on the cross was a double (Judas, or Simon of Cyrene,
due to a mix-up by the Roman bureaucracy),while the "real"Christ stood in the
distance, laughing.61
In addition to these suggestive psychological interpretations,the interpretive
practiceof "splittingthe difference,"to use Doniger's phrase, provided orthodox
57Ibid.,79-87.
58Comparen. 34, above, and see Mosshammer, "Nyssa and Christian Hellenism," who deals
with Nyssa's interpretationof the Homeric myth of Circe (Odyssey 8).
59Euripides,Bacchae 615-17; trans. Moses Hadas and John McLean, The Plays of Euripides
(New York: Dial, 1936).
60Citedin Origen, Cels. 2.68: "But if he really was so great he ought, in order to display his
divinity, to have disappearedsuddenly from the cross (d6nrtoi cm6Xoog
e7;F60 6; avilS yeviO0at)";
ed. Borret, 444; trans. Chadwick, 118. See also n. 1, above.
61See,for example, Elaine Pagels, "Gnostic and OrthodoxViews of Christ's Passion: Paradigms
for the Christian Response to Persecution?," in Rediscovery of Gnosticism (Leiden: Brill, 1980)
262-88; Pagel's emphasis on persecution bears comparison with Doniger's focus on dissociation
(and narrativedoubling) as a response to abuse and trauma.

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writers with a popular, apologetic, and dramaticresponse to the christology of

Arianism,62the argumentsof which were particularlycompelling in the context of
the Passion Narrative.63In this way, the suffering and death of Christ, which had
been culturally and theologically problematic, were rearticulatedas a voluntary
display of weakness designed to deceive and ultimately defeat the devil, who
pays dearly for adopting the "low" christology of the Arians. It was thus not by
chance that excerpts from the Homily on the Passion and the Cross circulatedin
anti-Arianchristologicalflorilegia, some of them interpolatedso as to indict the
Ariansby name.64Similarly,an anti-Ariansermonby the Cappadociantheologian
Amphilochiusof Iconium (d. after394), On the Words,"Father,ifpossible, let this
cup pass from me," is devoted entirely to the theme of the fishhook, which the
preacheruses to overturnthe Arian reading of Matt 26:39.65In all of these texts,
62Drobner(Die drei Tage, 89) notes that "im 4. Jh. hat das Motiv der Uberlistung des Teufels
jedoch zusatzlich eine spezielle dogmatische Bedeutung fur die arianische Theologie und deren
Abwehr."On the dramaticand theatricalassociations, see JuditKecskemeti, "Doctrineet dramedans
la pr6dication grecque," Euphrosyne 21 (1993) 29-67, who argues that Amphilochius of Iconium
and Severian of Gabala introduced the form of the dramatic homily, which distinguishes between
the suffering humanity and the impassible divinity, precisely as a polemic against the Arians and
Apollinarians.
63Gregoryof Nyssa, Eun. 3.3.31: "It is clear that the reason why Eunomius sets the Fatherabove
the Son and exalts him with supreme honor is this: that the shame of the cross is not seen in the
Father";ed. W. Jaeger, Contra Eunomiumlibri (2 vols.; GNO 1-2; Leiden: Brill, 1960) 2:118-19,
lines 25-28, 1-4. Eunomius, Apologyfor the Apology: "The deity of the Son suffers, while that of
the Fatheris preserved in absolute apatheia. Therefore, the naturethat is characterizedby apatheia
is essentially different from the naturethat admits suffering"(apud Gregoryof Nyssa, Eun. 3.4.5; ed.
Jaeger,2:135, lines 15-19); and idem, "The Father's natureremainedin pure apatheia and could not
admit of suffering, while the Son, by reason of the divergence of his natureby way of humiliation,
was not incapable of experiencing the flesh and death, proof, that is, of the Son's otherness in nature
from the Father"(apud Gregory of Nyssa, Eun. 3.3.38; ed. Jaeger, 2:120-21, lines 29, 1-5).
64Ps.-Athanasius,Homily on the Passion and the Cross (interpolatedfragment):"Whenthe Lord
was hanging upon the cross (for his was the body in which was the Word), the sun was darkened
and 'many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep arose' (Matt 27:52), yet no one has ever dared
(,oXgyt~o), as now do the Arians, to doubt that the Word was made flesh" (PG 28:249 = PG 28:
233a, lines 10-13; and 229a, lines 8-12).
65"Thereare those who say thatChristwas afraidand acted cowardly in the face of death,causing
the heretics to ridicule and mock the passion. . . . Now Eunomius rejoices and Arius is gladdened,
having seized upon this text as a pretextfor their blasphemy";ed. C. Datema, AmphilochiiIconiensis
Opera (Turnhout:Brepols, 1978) 139, lines 12-13; 140, lines 34-35. The fishhook (i"yatorGpov)
appears no less than five times in this sermon (lines 243, 244, 246, 249, 251); compare id., Or.
7.5; ed. Datema, lines 167-71. See also Ps.-Chrysostom, In illud, Pater si possibile est (assigned
by its lemma to Holy Friday): "Many, failing to grasp the aim of wisdom, and overlooking the
treasurehidden within the literal meaning, ascribe fear and cowardice to Christ [i.e., in the garden
of Gethsemane] ... but let not Eunomius, that giant of blasphemy, be exalted, for the heretics attack us saying: 'Do you see his fear and cowardice? Do you see how he prays to the Father?'And
with this, Eunomius rejoices, and Arius is filled with glee . . . but it was not as you suppose, O
Arius, for those words were but bait for the devil, and like a wise fishermanhe says: 'I baited him

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the Arian inability (or refusal) to recognize the divinity of the incarnateWord is
aligned with the demonic failure to perceive the glimmering fishhook concealed
by the suffering of Jesus of Nazareth.
Even more to the point is Gregory of Nyssa's Catechetical Discourse, which
should also be situatedin an anti-Ariancontext. Gregory mentions the Arians in
chapters38 and 39; andin the sections dealing with the fishhook,Gregoryaddresses
himself to those who "ridiculeand mock the incarnation."In a classic anti-Arian
move inheritedfrom his brother,Basil of Caesarea (who derived it in turn from
Origen), Gregory argues for the unity of the divine attributesin the incarnation.
These attributesincludegoodness, power,justice, andwisdom; and, as noted above,
Gregorysees "wisdom"enactedin the cleverness of the incarnateSophia deceiving
the devil with the baitof hertremblingflesh. In this way, both the sufferingof Christ
and the divine status of Wisdom were reclaimed from their Arian detractors,and
not only reclaimed,but broughttogetherin a paradoxicalunity. Througha poetics
of disguise and displacement, the suffering of Christ was carefully positioned
between two universes, two temporalities,two modes of signification, vacillating
between letter and spirit, surface and depth.66And if the surface revealed suffering and shame, it nevertheless concealed a "secret and hidden wisdom; a wisdom
which none of the rulersof this age understood;for if they had known, they would
not have crucifiedthe Lord of glory" (1 Cor 2:7-8).
For Gregoryof Nyssa, the incarnationwas precisely (and paradoxically) an act
of concealment;andconcealment,togetherwith the correlativenotion of deception,
characterizesfor him the entireorderof redemption.The sources for such a doctrine
were found partlyin the kenosis hymn of Phil 2:6-11, in which the deity abandons
its divine "form"in orderto be reconfiguredin the "likeness"of a human being.67
(,eXvd~aOaat) with cowardice. For if the devil deceived (heFXvd6aaro)Adam in the beginning, how
much more should I use deception for the salvation of all? With cunning words he deceived
(iitnd6rrle)
Adam, and now with divine words the cunning one himself shall be deceived (dncarln9ierat). For
if a fisherman,having cast his hook into the sea, does not let it out, and then reel it in, making the
worm appear to retreat, the fish will not be attracted to it, and thus I concealed (xKKKpaJsCtitvov)
the fishhook of my divinity with the worm of my body, casting both into the sea of the world'"
(PG 61:751-53).
66Hereone may profitably consult the rich literature in Homeric studies on this theme. See,
for example, Sheila Murnaghan,Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1987); Stewart Douglas, The Disguised Guest: Rank, Role, and Identity in the
Odyssey (Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1976); andAnn Bergren, "Odyssean Temporality: Many (Re)turns,"in Approaches to Homer (ed. Carl Rubino and Cynthia Shelmerdine; Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1983) 38-73.
67Phil2:6-11: "Though he was in the form (Lopoi) of God, he did not count equality with
God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself (Fambyv~c*vooev), taking the form (Qoppii) of a
of human beings. And being found in human
servant, being born in the likeness (Ev
6jtotc*taTt)
form (X'i~art) he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross." For a
study of this verse with emphasis on the notions of concealment and deception, see Gerald Bostock,

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This was not, of course, knavish deception, or mere sport and costumery.Rather,
the divine dramawas staged in an earthlytheaterof operationsas a climactic act of
war-a fight to the deathbetween cosmic powers, in which deceptionandconcealment were forms of camouflagenecessary to elude and outwit the enemy.68
As these ideas developed, the formulationof Phil 2:7 ("Heemptied [KF?vo0eev]
himself andtook the form of a servant")was mergedwith a phrasefrom the Song of
Songs ("Thyname is myrrhpouredout [cicEvo0E'v]," 1:3). For Gregoryof Nyssa,
the "pouringout of the divine name"indicatesthatGod cannotbe containedwithin
the brittle flask of human discourse, and can only enter such discourse througha
process of dissemblance and misrepresentation.69 Lack of resemblance,however,
did not imply a lack of presence, because the self-emptying of God producedan
emptinessof inexhaustiblepossibility.In Origen'scommentaryon this verse,which
Gregory was familiar with, the Alexandrianexegete noted that "Unless God had
been 'pouredout,' and 'took the form of a servant'(Phil 2:7), no one would have
been able to grasp the fullness of deity."70Elsewhere Origen states,
Thatwhichcameintothislife emptieditself(_'icvoaev iav'r6,comparePhil
the worldwouldbe filled
2:7), so thatthroughits emptiness(ToKcevthj'art)

(nXiripo6ei).And that very emptiness is Wisdom (abrz6 hKElvoTO'KCvo0a

7~v),becausethe"foolishnessof Godis wiserthanmen"(1 Cor 1:25),

oootia
even thoughtheybe thewisestof the "rulersof thisage"(1 Cor2:8).71'

This very emptiness, Origen says, is Wisdom: a place of passage and not of
circumscription,a place of displacementandexchange;a thresholdwhich beckons
the naturalorder toward mystery, the logical order toward equivocation, and the
visible order toward dissemblance and the subversion of aspect.72The notion of
"Origen's Exegesis of the Kenosis Hymn (Philippians 2.5-11)," in Origeniana Sexta: Origene et la
Bible (ed. Gilles Dorival and Alain Le Boulluec; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1995) 531-47.
See also Raoul Mortley, From Wordto Silence II: The Wayof Negation, Christian and Greek(Bonn:
Hanstein, 1986) 38-40, for a discussion of Clement's view of language as concealment.
68Hereone is reminded of Churchill's remark:"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should
always be attended by a bodyguard of lies"; see also n. 30, above.
69Comm. Song, Homily 1; ed. H. Langerbeck, 36-37. Note that modem commentatorsgenerally
read the Commentaryon the Song of Songs as work of "mysticism," failing to recognize that it is
a sustained refutation of Eunomianism (evidenced in Gregory's exegesis of Song 1:3); compare
Homilies 3 (ed. Langerbeck, 86-87); 5 (157-58); 6 (181-83); 11 (336-37); and 12 (356-58).
70Comm.Song 1.4, ed. W.A. Baehrens, Origens Werke,vol. 8 (GCS 33; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1925)
102. Compare Gregory of Nyssa, Eun. 3.3.67: "The divinity is 'emptied out' (iKvoi3zat), so that it
can be contained (Xoprril) by human nature";ed. Jaeger, 131, lines 19-20.
71Hom.Jer. 8.8; ed. P. Nautin, Homelies sur Jjrdmie, vol. 1 (SC 232; Paris: Cerf, 1976) 372,
lines 1-5; for an English translation,see John Clark Smith, Origen: Homiles on Jeremiah; Homily
on 1 Kings 28 (FC 97; Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1998) 74-84.
720n Origen's doctrine of divine deception, see Henri de Lubac, "'Tu m'as tromp6, Seigneur.'
Le commentaire d'Origene sur J6r6mie20,7," in Recherches dans la Foi (Paris: Beauchesne, 1979)
in Origene predicatore e il suo pubblico (Milan: F.
9-78; A. M. Castagno, "L'utilithdell' &andrn,"

NICHOLAS

P. CONSTAS

163

"divine deception"is thus a centralcorollaryof the Word'sencryptionin the flesh,

the veiling of the unspeakableName in the deceptive utterancesof language.
Despite these sonorous resonances with the mystical silence of apophatictheology, however, the magnificentimposture of the incarnateWord is not merely a
symptomof the incapacityof languageto representthatwhich is beyond language,
true as that may be. Instead, the feints and falls enacted by the incarnate deity
constitute the intentional manipulation of human signs, the seductive scheme
of eternal poetic justice.73As a conspiracy of signs, divine deception entails the
loss of fixed referential principles, collapsing the world into a symbolic, ludic
universe which is perhapsbest interpretedin terms of play, challenges, duels, and
the strategy of appearances.It is a universe that can no longer be interpretedin
termsof dominantstructuresor stablebinaryoppositions,but ratherthroughseductive reversibility.At the same time, the subject is never the master of his master
plan, but must submitto the rules of a game that go beyond it. A ritualdramaturgy
beyond the law, seduction is both game and fate, and as such pushes both Christ
and Satan to their inevitable end. In a strategy of seduction, one is drawn to the
other's areaof weakness. To seduce is to appearweak. To seduce is to renderweak.
We seduce with our weakness, never with signs of strengthor power. In seduction
we enact that weakness, and this is what gives seduction its strength.We seduce
with our death, with our vulnerability,and with the void that hauntsus. The worm
and the fish are involved in a complex exchange, a dizzying spiral of responses
and counter-responsesin a game that never ends: an endless game that can only
end in death. Or so it would seem.
When seen in the seductive light of fourth-century patristic exegesis, the
suffering of Jesus was shown to have both concealed and revealed the "wisdom
andpower of God."And if, in his sufferinganddeath,Jesus became a dehumanized
nobody,it was in the rich sense of the image of the emptied flask, which-correctly
grasped--signifies not nonbeing, but rathercreativity, life, and well-being in the
midst of struggle. It marks the place where the suffering Jesus rebounds against
failure, forever resilient even when dangling like a bruised worm in the jaws of
death. It is the place where every story begins, the place where every story ends,
rich with the possibility of anotherbeginning.

Angeli, 1987) 226-32; J. W. Trigg, "Divine Deception and the Truthfulnessof Scripture,"in Origen
of Alexandria: His Worldand Legacy (ed. C. Kannengiesser and W. L. Petersen; Notre Dame, Ind.:
Notre Dame University Press, 1988) 147-64; and John McGuckin, "The Changing Forms of Jesus,"
in Origeniana Quarta (ed. Lothar Lies; Innsbruck:Tyrolia Verlag, 1987) 215-22. I am thankful to
David Satran for these references.
73Thispoint is arguedby Trigg, "Divine Deception," 152-54, who corrects the earlier assessment
by Crouzel. See also J. J. M. Roberts, "Does God Lie? Divine Deceit as a Theological Problem in
Israelite Prophetic Literature,"VetusTestamentum40 (1986) 211-20.