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Revelation of Life Eternal: An Introduction to the Christian Message
With remarkable breadth of vision encompassing such diverse phenomena as Sufi mysticism, the Rig-Veda, Australian tribal religions, and medieval religious poetry Prof. Arseniev indicates both the decisive significance of the Christian massage and the historical preparation for it. Based upon a series of lectures delivered at St Vladimir's Seminary in courses on Christian apologetics and Orthodox mysticism, these essays present an Orthodox evaluation of 'world religions.' They constitute an inspiring introduction to man's universal quest for God and its fulfillment in the Gospel.
- GenresTheology
144 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1997
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June 17, 2022
An engaging set of related lectures given by an emigre Russian theologian, "Revelation of Life Eternal" is a beautifully written introduction to the major contours of Christian faith; it was also one of SVS Press's very first books, and it's still in print today. Nicholas Arseniev (d. 1977) writes, like all Russian theologians who lived through Bolshevism and Nazism, with an incredible verve. But not only is he animated, he is both learned and committed, quite committed, to living out the Christian faith. Indeed, I think these lectures are so pointed because Arseniev approaches Christianity not as a disengaged scholar but as an experienced lover and seeker after truth. Truth and love are perhaps the two major themes that unite this work; Arseniev is at pains to say the Christian message is not true because it is beautiful or useful; it is true because God has set His Truth (the Christ) into our history, into our lives, and into our future. The fact of God's Truth which He sends to us is the fact of Christianity; it can never be proven, only lived, only experienced. This experience is entering into the love between Father and Son (John 15:9). I found the book to be beautiful, and as I read I realized how different Arseniev's faith is than many theologians today. He lived out these truths; he experienced firsthand how Christ suffers with us and how God's love can even find a way through a landscape of "bodies charred into carbon." It feels to me that Arseniev taught and wrote because he couldn't help it; he had to share this lively, ever-new, joyous, transformative Grace that penetrated deeply into his being. His faith came through many furnaces and was purified. This book presents some of those pure reflections and meditative explorations. I'll include some of my favorite quotes below:
- "The claim of Religion is to reveal Truth, to bear witness to Truth. It is the first and fundamental claim. Its aim is not primarily in bringing comfort to souls - by preaching beautiful, edifying ideas and hopes. Neither is it primarily in inspiring culture and artistic creation and the highest achievements of human thought by glimpses of a distant, unspeakable Perfection. Rather, it is all that, but it is so because this comfort, this beauty, this hope, this creative impulse, this beautifying vision, these glimpses and anticipation of bliss unutterable are based on a Reality, because they bear witness to a Reality: tot the Divine Reality, to the Reality, the only One that really exists, that really possesses the fullness of life. This only makes this comfort, this inspiration a real comfort, a real inspiration, one that really can satisfy the craving of the heart, that can really become a source of Creative impulse, that can create and transfigure life" (9).
- "The Truth being a Living Truth, my relation to it must also be living. It must be a growing into the Truth, a being laid hand upon by the Truth, an organic, progressive union of the soul with the Truth, a being more and more assimilated thereto. We must become an organic member of the Divine Reality: 'I am the Vine, you are the branches;' only thus can we really come to know it" (10-11).
- "The Overpowering, the Transcendent is near - that is mystical experience" (23).
- "The Christian answer [to the problem of suffering] is the message about the Suffering God, or rather more than that: His really having come to share our sufferings unto the depths of the death, and that on the Cross. This sheds a new light on the whole question, and not only on this question, but on the whole reality of the world's life. There is no explanation coming first, there is this fact coming first: He is sharing our sufferings, He is hallowing our sufferings - by His Presence, by His participation therein. No explanation, but a new revelation. Something totally new, astonishing, incomprehensible, taking us totally aback, paradoxical and unexpected, and - true. And here lies the answer, not the theoretical answer... but the practical, the real solution of the problem. His death and His suffering on the Cross are the real solution to the problem" (66).
- "No explanations are given in the Book of Job of the woes and catastrophes which have struck him down with the permission of God. The only answer given in the book to the cries and dramatic questions of Job is the Divine Reality, it is the manifestation and Presence of God. No other answer can be given to us... it is the Presence of the Suffering God" (68).
- "That is the practical Christian attitude towards the problem of suffering, and it reveals hidden mysteries and depths of love - His love! - in us and through us and in Him. And that is the answer: His hidden and manifested love, revealed to us in glimpses - in His life, His death and resurrection, and also in the sharing of His Cross and in the gift and grace of compassion given to us. His love, 'taking hold of us,' this love, stronger than death and suffering, manifest don the Cross, is the answer. That answer is not theoretical, it is dynamical - and creative. It transfigures suffering and life and all" (70).
- "There is a continuous mystery of Redemption working in the world. once it has taken place historically - once for all, not to be repeated in history - offering to the Father in intercession for us and in the mystery of our co-crucifixion with Him. The self-sacrifice, the self-surrender of the Son of God, being one and indivisible, presents accordingly two aspects: the historical fact, unique and decisive once for ever: 'It is consummated!' (the last words of the Crucified, according to the Fourth Gospel), and the mystical continuous standing of the crucified and glorified Lord before the Throne of the Father in unceasing intercession" (89).
- "The claim of Religion is to reveal Truth, to bear witness to Truth. It is the first and fundamental claim. Its aim is not primarily in bringing comfort to souls - by preaching beautiful, edifying ideas and hopes. Neither is it primarily in inspiring culture and artistic creation and the highest achievements of human thought by glimpses of a distant, unspeakable Perfection. Rather, it is all that, but it is so because this comfort, this beauty, this hope, this creative impulse, this beautifying vision, these glimpses and anticipation of bliss unutterable are based on a Reality, because they bear witness to a Reality: tot the Divine Reality, to the Reality, the only One that really exists, that really possesses the fullness of life. This only makes this comfort, this inspiration a real comfort, a real inspiration, one that really can satisfy the craving of the heart, that can really become a source of Creative impulse, that can create and transfigure life" (9).
- "The Truth being a Living Truth, my relation to it must also be living. It must be a growing into the Truth, a being laid hand upon by the Truth, an organic, progressive union of the soul with the Truth, a being more and more assimilated thereto. We must become an organic member of the Divine Reality: 'I am the Vine, you are the branches;' only thus can we really come to know it" (10-11).
- "The Overpowering, the Transcendent is near - that is mystical experience" (23).
- "The Christian answer [to the problem of suffering] is the message about the Suffering God, or rather more than that: His really having come to share our sufferings unto the depths of the death, and that on the Cross. This sheds a new light on the whole question, and not only on this question, but on the whole reality of the world's life. There is no explanation coming first, there is this fact coming first: He is sharing our sufferings, He is hallowing our sufferings - by His Presence, by His participation therein. No explanation, but a new revelation. Something totally new, astonishing, incomprehensible, taking us totally aback, paradoxical and unexpected, and - true. And here lies the answer, not the theoretical answer... but the practical, the real solution of the problem. His death and His suffering on the Cross are the real solution to the problem" (66).
- "No explanations are given in the Book of Job of the woes and catastrophes which have struck him down with the permission of God. The only answer given in the book to the cries and dramatic questions of Job is the Divine Reality, it is the manifestation and Presence of God. No other answer can be given to us... it is the Presence of the Suffering God" (68).
- "That is the practical Christian attitude towards the problem of suffering, and it reveals hidden mysteries and depths of love - His love! - in us and through us and in Him. And that is the answer: His hidden and manifested love, revealed to us in glimpses - in His life, His death and resurrection, and also in the sharing of His Cross and in the gift and grace of compassion given to us. His love, 'taking hold of us,' this love, stronger than death and suffering, manifest don the Cross, is the answer. That answer is not theoretical, it is dynamical - and creative. It transfigures suffering and life and all" (70).
- "There is a continuous mystery of Redemption working in the world. once it has taken place historically - once for all, not to be repeated in history - offering to the Father in intercession for us and in the mystery of our co-crucifixion with Him. The self-sacrifice, the self-surrender of the Son of God, being one and indivisible, presents accordingly two aspects: the historical fact, unique and decisive once for ever: 'It is consummated!' (the last words of the Crucified, according to the Fourth Gospel), and the mystical continuous standing of the crucified and glorified Lord before the Throne of the Father in unceasing intercession" (89).
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