10. Genesis 2:2 and Maximus: Eternal and Temporal Energies

 

Genesis 2:2 (LXX)

Greek:
καὶ συνετέλεσεν ὁ Θεὸς ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ ἕκτῃ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ, ἃ ἐποίησεν, καὶ κατέπαυσεν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ ἑβδόμῃ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν ἔργων αὐτοῦ, ὧν ἐποίησεν.

English:
“And God finished on the sixth day his works which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his works which he had made.”

St Maximus notes that God “never began” His good things, and so never ceases from them; some divine energies are eternal, while others (like creating the world) have a beginning in time when His eternal power is newly actualized.

The fathers read God’s “rest” on the seventh day not as withdrawal into inactivity, but as the manifestation in time of a goodness and power that are eternally at work. God’s nature is pure act; He does not begin to be good, wise, or powerful, nor does He cease from these perfections. What begins is the world, which at a certain moment is brought into being by energies that are eternally in God and temporally realized in creatures.

Basil the Great distinguishes between God’s essence, which is wholly beyond reach, and His energies, by which “He comes down to us.” Creation, providence, judgment, illumination, sanctification, deification: all these are distinct divine operations that have temporal effects without implying any change in God. Gregory of Nyssa, commenting on Genesis, notes that God’s “rest” marks the completion of one kind of work, the bringing‑into‑being of creatures, but that His “upholding all things” and leading them toward their end continues unceasingly. The cessation is of new kinds of creatures, not of divine activity as such.

Maximus the Confessor develops this with precision. The logoi of creatures, the inner principles of all things, pre‑exist eternally in the Logos as divine intentions or wills. When God creates, He does not add something to Himself; He freely brings forth, in time, what He eternally willed. Thus some energies, like creating heaven and earth, have a temporal beginning in their effects, while the will and power from which they spring are without beginning. God “rests” from creating because the cosmos is complete in its kinds, yet He never rests from sustaining, guiding, and drawing all things to deification.

For Maximus, the sabbath is therefore both a completed work and a prophecy: creation’s history will culminate in an eternal sabbath, when all logoi return to the Logos, and the divine energies that have always been operative in hidden fashion will be manifest as the unending life of the age to come.

9. Exodus 33 and Gregory the Theologian: Face and Back

 

Exodus 33:11, 20–23 (LXX)

Greek (key parts):
11 καὶ ἐλάλει Κύριος πρὸς Μωυσῆν κατὰ πρόσωπον, ὡς εἴ τις λαλεῖ πρὸς τὸν ἑαυτοῦ φίλον.

20 καὶ εἶπεν· οὐ δυνήσει ἰδεῖν τὸ πρόσωπόν μου· οὐ γὰρ μὴ ἴδῃ ἄνθρωπος τὸ πρόσωπόν μου καὶ ζήσεται.

23 καὶ ἀφελῶ τὴν χεῖρά μου, καὶ τότε ὄψῃ τὰ ὀπίσθιά μου, τὸ δὲ πρόσωπόν μου οὐκ ὀφθήσεταί σοι.

English:
11 “And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.”
20 “And he said, You are not able to see my face; for no man shall see my face and live.”
23 “Then I will remove my hand, and you shall see my back parts; but my face shall not be seen by you.”

• St Gregory the Theologian interprets the “face” as the unknowable divine essence and the “back parts” as God’s majestic manifestations among creatures—what David calls “glory” (δόξα). These manifestations are uncreated, like the rays of the sun that reach us, not the sun’s essence itself.
  
  

This is a patristic biblical locus for the essence–energies distinction: we never see what God is in Himself, but we truly “see” and participate in His uncreated energies.

8. The Transfiguration: Seeing God in His Energies

 

Matthew 17:2 (transfiguration)

Greek (key clause):
καὶ μετεμορφώθη ἔμπροσθεν αὐτῶν, καὶ ἔλαμψεν τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ὡς ὁ ἥλιος, τὰ δὲ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο λευκὰ ὡς τὸ φῶς.

English:
“And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as the light.”

• St John of Damascus says Christ’s flesh is glorified as the glory of the Godhead becomes the glory of the body, and that God is “seen and discerned in the energy of his wisdom and love.”
  
  

The disciples do not see the divine essence, but the uncreated light, a manifestation of the divine energies through Christ’s humanity.

The fathers speak of the light of the Transfiguration as an uncreated divine energy: truly God, yet not the divine essence in its incomprehensibility. Gregory the Theologian insists that what is proper to God’s essence remains utterly beyond sight or comprehension; what is revealed are God’s operations, “comings forth,” or energies, by which He creates, sustains, illumines, and deifies. Gregory of Nyssa uses Exodus 33–34 to similar effect: Moses does not see “what God is,” but God’s “back,” that is, the traces of His activity in the world and in the soul.

Maximus the Confessor deepens this: every creaturely good, beauty, truth, or virtue is a participation in a particular divine energy or “logos.” In Christ these logoi are united in the one Logos, and in the Transfiguration He allows His disciples to experience, to the extent they can bear, the deifying energy that will one day permeate all creation. Yet their bodily eyes see this energy through His humanity: the light is not an optical metaphor but the sensible form of a real divine operation communicated to His flesh.

John of Damascus gives this its classic formulation. The flesh of Christ, he says, is “deified,” not by being changed into Godhead, but by personal union and by sharing in the natural energies of the Word. The glory proper to the divinity becomes the glory of the body, while the nature of the body remains created and circumscribed. Thus God is “seen and discerned in the energy of His wisdom and love”: the disciples truly encounter God Himself, yet precisely in His self‑manifestation as light, grace, and love, not in the bare essence. Later hesychast theology (Gregory Palamas) makes this explicit: the same uncreated light seen on Tabor is what deifies the saints in every age, the inexhaustible radiance of the divine energies communicated by the incarnate Christ and the Spirit.

7. Old Testament (LXX): Wisdom and the Seven Energies of the Spirit

 

7.1 Wisdom of Solomon 7:26 (LXX)

Wisdom 7:26 (LXX)
Greek (Rahlfs):
ἀτμίς γάρ ἐστι τῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ δυνάμεως
καὶ ἀπόρροια τῆς τοῦ Παντοκράτορος δόξης εἰλικρινής·
διό καὶ οὐδὲν μεμιαμμένον εἰς αὐτὴν παρεισδύει.

English:
“For she is a breath of the power of God
and a pure outflow of the glory of the Almighty;
therefore nothing defiled enters into her.”

• Wisdom is described as the pure outflow (ἀπόρροια) of God’s glory—a classic image for divine energies as the rays or outflow of God’s power.
  
  

7.2 Isaiah 11:2 (LXX) and Gregory the Theologian

Isaiah 11:2 (LXX)
Greek:
καὶ ἀναπαύσεται ἐπ’ αὐτὸν Πνεῦμα Θεοῦ,
πνεῦμα σοφίας καὶ συνέσεως,
πνεῦμα βουλῆς καὶ ἰσχύος,
πνεῦμα γνώσεως καὶ εὐσεβείας·
(verse 3 continues with φόβου Θεοῦ)

English:
“And the Spirit of God shall rest upon him,
a Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
a Spirit of counsel and might,
a Spirit of knowledge and piety,
(and the fear of God…).”

• St Gregory the Theologian says Isaiah “loves to call the energies of the Spirit ‘spirits’,” i.e., these seven “spirits” are distinct energies (operations) of the one Holy Spirit.
  
  

5. & 6. Energies and Human Cooperation

 

5.1 Working Out Salvation

Philippians 2:12–13
Greek:
12 ὥστε, ἀγαπητοί μου, … μετὰ φόβου καὶ τρόμου τὴν ἑαυτῶν σωτηρίαν κατεργάζεσθε·
13 θεὸς γάρ ἐστιν ὁ ἐνεργῶν ἐν ὑμῖν καὶ τὸ θέλειν καὶ τὸ ἐνεργεῖν ὑπὲρ τῆς εὐδοκίας.

English:
12 “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
13 for it is God who energizes in you both to will and to energize for his good pleasure.”

• Our willing and doing become God’s own energy in us; this is the classic biblical statement of synergy.
  
  

5.2 Energetic Prayer and Faith

James 5:16
Greek (key clause):
πολλὴ ἰσχύει δέησις δικαίου ἐνεργουμένη.

English:
“The prayer of a righteous man, being energized, has great power.”

• St Maximus says this prayer is “energized” when it is filled with works of the commandments; the divine energy makes the prayer living and effective.
  
  

Galatians 5:6
Greek (key clause):
ἀλλὰ πίστις δι’ ἀγάπης ἐνεργουμένη.

English:
“… but faith being energized through love.”

• Faith is made living and effective by the energy of love; the verb is passive—faith receives energy. This is another synergy text against “faith alone” understood nominally.

6. Evil Energies: Demonic Activity

The same vocabulary is used for demonic operations, underscoring that energies are personal activities, not abstract substances.

2 Thessalonians 2:9
Greek:
οὗ ἐστιν ἡ παρουσία κατ’ ἐνέργειαν τοῦ Σατανᾶ ἐν πάσῃ δυνάμει καὶ σημείοις καὶ τέρασιν ψεύδους.

English:
“Whose coming is according to the energy of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders.”

2 Thessalonians 2:11
Greek:
καὶ διὰ τοῦτο πέμπει αὐτοῖς ὁ Θεὸς ἐνέργειαν πλάνης, εἰς τὸ πιστεῦσαι αὐτοὺς τῷ ψεύδει.

English:
“And for this reason God sends them an energy of delusion, that they should believe the lie.”

• Humans can cooperate either with divine energies (holiness) or demonic energies (delusion); the same synergistic structure is at work.
  
  

4. Pauline Texts: Divine Energy in Christ and the Church

 

4.1 Resurrection and Ministry

Ephesians 1:19–20
Greek:
19 καὶ τί τὸ ὑπερβάλλον μέγεθος τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ εἰς ἡμᾶς τοὺς πιστεύοντας κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν τοῦ κράτους τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ,
20 ἣν ἐνήργησεν ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ ἐγείρας αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν καὶ καθίσας ἐν δεξιᾷ αὐτοῦ ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις.

English:
19 “And what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the energy of the might of his strength,
20 which he energized in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.”

• Christ’s Resurrection is explicitly a work of God’s ἐνέργεια; this same energy is “toward us who believe.”
  
  

Ephesians 3:7
Greek:
οὗ ἐγενόμην διάκονος κατὰ τὴν δωρεὰν τῆς χάριτος τοῦ Θεοῦ τῆς δοθείσης μοι κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ.

English:
“Of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me according to the energy of his power.”

• The apostolic ministry itself is a given energy of grace, not a mere legal title.
  
  

4.2 The Body of Christ

Ephesians 4:16
Greek (key phrase):
… κατ’ ἐνέργειαν ἐν μέτρῳ ἑνὸς ἑκάστου μέρους …

English:
“From whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the energy in measure of each part, makes growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.”

• Each member acts, but their actions are also Christ’s energy in the body; this extends synergy from the individual to the whole Church.
  
  

4.3 Transformation of the Body

Philippians 3:21
Greek:
ὃς μετασχηματίσει τὸ σῶμα τῆς ταπεινώσεως ἡμῶν σύμμορφον τῷ σώματι τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν τοῦ δύνασθαι αὐτὸν καὶ ὑποτάξαι ἑαυτῷ τὰ πάντα.

English:
“Who will transform the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the energy by which he is able even to subject all things to himself.”

• Our future glorification is an effect of Christ’s divine energy.
  
  

4.4 Many Energies, One God

1 Corinthians 12:6
Greek:
καὶ διαιρέσεις ἐνεργημάτων εἰσί, ὁ δὲ αὐτὸς Θεός ὁ ἐνεργῶν τὰ πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν.

English:
“And there are varieties of energies, but it is the same God who energizes all things in all.”

• There are many distinct energies (gifts, operations), but they are all the one God’s single uncreated activity.
  
  

1 Corinthians 12:10–11
Greek (key phrases):
10 … ἄλλῳ ἐνεργήματα δυνάμεων …
11 πάντα δὲ ταῦτα ἐνεργεῖ τὸ ἓν καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ Πνεῦμα, διαιροῦν ἰδίᾳ ἑκάστῳ καθὼς βούλεται.

English:
10 “… to another energies of powers, to another prophecy, …”
11 “But all these one and the same Spirit energizes, distributing to each one individually as he wills.”

The Holy Spirit personally energizes the different charisms; this presupposes that to “be energized” is to receive an uncreated operation from God. St John Chrysostom uses this to argue for the Spirit’s divinity.