09 — The Cross and the Christian Life
The doctrine of the Cross ends where it becomes checkable: in the lives of people who have entered it. This section treats co-crucifixion — baptismal, martyric, and ascetic — with the guardrails the tradition itself supplies; and then, in the collection’s one §4.2 file, sets out the three genuinely open scholarly questions and adjudicates none of them.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox — with the second file under METHODOLOGY §4.2
The New Testament does not present the Cross as an event contemplated from outside. The believer is co-crucified, co-buried, co-raised. That grammar is not devotional embellishment; it is the operative form of the doctrine, and it is why the ascetic tradition belongs to a treatment of the atonement rather than to a separate department of spirituality. The first file also carries the guardrails, stated plainly: the Cross is not sought, suffering is not good in itself, “bear your cross” is not a warrant for enduring abuse, and none of this substitutes for medical or psychological care.
The second file is this collection’s single §4.2 file, and its boundaries are deliberate. Three questions are open — whether “Christus Victor” is sound history or an artefact of Gustaf Aulén’s 1931 Lutheran taxonomy; whether the “Western captivity” narrative fairly describes the Russian and post-Byzantine sources; and whether Anselm has been fairly read in Orthodox polemic. All three concern descriptions of the tradition rather than its content. If all three were resolved in the direction least favourable to the polemical Orthodox literature, the Church’s confession about the Cross would be unchanged, and the file says so.
Navigation
| File | Contents |
|---|---|
| Co-Crucifixion and the Ascetic Cross | The Pauline language of “with”; baptism as the place where co-crucifixion happens; the martyr and the passion-bearer; the monastic tonsure as a second baptism; obedience, fasting, and the acceptance of what is not chosen; St Silouan’s word; five guardrails |
| The Scholarly Question and a Sober Assessment | The one §4.2 file. The Aulén problem; the contested pseudomorphosis narrative and the two data that press on it; whether Anselm has been fairly read, with David Bentley Hart’s 1998 argument; what is not open; and three closing judgments |
See Also
- What the Church Confesses — the dogmatic content, which none of the open questions touches
- The Cross Venerated — the Cross traced on the body and kept in the churches
- Theosis — the end toward which the ascetic cross is ordered
- St Silouan the Athonite — “keep thy mind in hell and despair not”
- METHODOLOGY — §4.1 and §4.2, which govern the division of labour between this section’s two files