Christ the Eternal Tao: Introduction

Introduction from the book 'Christ the Eternal Tao' by Hieromonk Damascene.
Images:
Image #1 - Heraclitus of Ephesus (ca. 540-480 B.C.). Statue of the second century A.D., copied from the original of the fifth century B.C.
Image #2 - St. John the Apostle dictating his Gospel to his disciple Prochorus on the Greek island of Patmos. Russian icon of the seventeenth century.
Image #3 - St. John the Apostle of Christ, who authored the Book of Revelation as well as the Gospel of John. Sixteenth-century icon from the Monastery of St. John on the island of Patmos, built over the cave in which he lived and received Divine revelation.
Image #4 - Gi-ming Shien conducting a class in Chinese philosophy in 1956 at the Academy of Asian Studies, San Francisco, where Fr. Seraphim first studied under him. Later Gi-ming became Fr. Seraphim’s private tutor in ancient Chinese language and philosophy.
Image #5 - Fr. Seraphim (then Eugene) Rose in 1963.
Image #6 - Fr. Seraphim’s notes from Gi-ming Shien’s class discussion of chapters 52 and 51 of the Tao Teh Ching, in which Gi-ming equated the Tao with the Logos and defined Teh as the «realizing principle» of the Tao (see p. 238 below). ноября 11, 1957.
Image #7 - Hieromonk Seraphim Rose (1934-1982) at the St. Herman Monastery in the mountains of northern California, 1978.
Image #8 - St. Justin Martyr, the Philosopher (A. D. 110-165).
Image #9 - The Greek philosopher Pythagoras (ca. 578-510 B.C.). Wall-painting by the most renowned Greek iconographer of modern times, Photios Kontoglou, 1932. In his Ekphrasis of Orthodox Iconography, Kontoglou writes: "The old icon painters sometimes painted in the narthex of churches these wise Greeks, because they foresaw the dispensation of Christ’s Incarnation."
Image #10 - Left to right: Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), a Sibyl (virgin prophetess), and Plato (ca. 428-348 B.C.). Wall-painting from Bachkovo Monastery in Bulgaria, ca. A.D. 1640.
Image #11 - Seal script from the Shang-Yin dynasty, ca. eleventh century B.C.
Image #12 - Seal script from the Eastern Chou dynasty, ca. 422 B. C.
Image #13 - Ancient Chinese seal script for the Tao.
References in this chapter:
1. Reginald E. Allen, ed., Greek Philosophy: Thales to Aristotle, pp. 9-10.
2. Tao Teh Ching, ch. 25 (Gi-ming Shien, trans.).
3. See Thomas Cleary, The Essential Tao, p. 1.
4. Tao Teh Ching, ch. 51 (Gia-fu Feng and Jane English, trans.).
5. John 1:1-5,10,14.
6. The identification of “Tao” with “Logos” has not only a philosophical but also a Scriptural basis. In St. John’s Gospel, Christ the incarnate Logos calls Himself “the Way (Tao)” (John 14:6); and in the Acts of the Apostles we read how the first followers of Christ referred to their new faith simply as “the Way” (sec Acts 19:9, 19:23, 22:4, 24:14, 24:22).
7. See p. above.
8. Among those whom Justin mentions are: Orpheus (in the work called Diathecæ), Sophocles, Pythagoras, Plato, Ammon, / Æschylus, Philemon, Euripides and Menander.
9. St. Justin Martyr, “Second Apology”, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, p. 193.
10. Ibid., “First Apology,” p. 272.
11. In addition to the writers cited by Justin, Clement and Lactantius cite Virgil, Ovid, Thales, Anaxagoras, Antisthenes, Cleanthes, Chryssipus, Zeno, Democritus, Xenophanes the Athenian, Hesiod, Aristotle, Cicero, and Seneca.
12. Lactantius, “The Divine Institutes”, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7, p. 15.
13. Ibid., p. below.
14. Plato, Timaeus. Quoted in St. Justin Martyr, “Second Apology”, p. 191, and in Clement of Alexandria, “Exhortation to the Greeks”, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2, p. 191. See also Lactantius, p. 91.
15. St. Justin Martyr, “Second Apology”, p. 191.
16. On the Sibyls, see St. Justin Martyr, “Hortatory Address to the Greeks,” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, pp. 288-89; Clement of Alexandria, op. cit., 192, 194; and Lactantius, op. cit., pp. 15-18, 26-27, 61, 105, 210, 215. For a discussion of the Sibylline prophecies of Christ contained in the fourth Eclogue of Virgil, see “The Oration of Constantine” in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, pp. 575-77.
17. St. Justin Martyr, “Second Apology”, p. 191.
18. Lactantius, “Divine Institutes”, p. 15.
19. St. Justin Martyr, “Second Apology”, p. 193.
20. St. Nektarios of Pentapolis, Christologia, pp. 14, 18, 20. Quoted in Constantine Cavarnos, Meetings with Kontoglou, p. 53.