Krastu Banev - ‘You cannot see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live' (Exod. 33:20). The Dangerous Face of God in Fourth-century Patristic Theology

A vision of God is a dangerous business. In the fourth century, Cyril of Jerusalem located the danger at Baptism or, as he put it, ‘at the border’ (μεθόριον) of the church. (Procat. 12) For him this danger issued from the Eucharistic mystery which he defined as ‘a most fearful sacrifice’ (φρικωδέστατoς θυσία). (Cat. 5.9) Gregory of Nyssa saw not just Baptism and the Eucharist, but theological discourse itself as a dangerous affair, especially for those already baptised. For him the danger was not at the border but on the rising steps of ascent towards God. The example he famously used to illustrate this point was the life of Moses to whom God had said on Sinai: ‘You cannot see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.’ (Exod. 33:20). To remain alive, the baptised who are ever to face God should not question his essence, John Chrysostom emphatically maintained against the theological speculations of Eunomius, but learn from the angels to worship him ‘with great fear’ (μετὰ πολλῆς τῆς φρίκης). (De incomprehensibili 1.312) From worship to theology and back: fourth-century catechetical instructions and patristic homilies abound with references to a danger inherent in the vision of God. In the present paper I will focus on the nature of the danger itself, and will study the patristic understanding of its localisation. Following in the trajectory of Rudolph Otto’s Das Heilige, I will approach the divine not as a human concern but as a ‘wholly other’ reality and will inquire of the fourth century authors how they understood this reality as dangerous. The proposed initial comparison between three key authors – Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa and John Chrysostom – will disclose several revealing but little examined differences in the way the topic was approached in the fourth century.