The Uncreated Light
The radiance that blazed from Christ on the mountain, glimpsed again by praying saints
The Uncreated Light is the divine glory said to have shone from Christ at the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, which, in the Eastern tradition, certain saints come to experience in prayer. Symeon the New Theologian and Gregory Palamas treated it as God's own uncreated energy, truly God and not a created glow. This understanding is central to Eastern hesychast theology and is not framed this way in the Western traditions.
How it traveled
- 2 CorinthiansPhilippi · 67explains
- Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. JohnHippo Regius · 430explains
- City of GodHippo Regius · 430explains
- Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59)Paris · 1274explains
- A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, in Three PartsNorthampton, Massachusetts · 1758explains
- Five Sermons. On Different OccasionsNorthampton, Massachusetts · 1758explains
- Seventeen Occasional SermonsNorthampton, Massachusetts · 1758explains
Key passages(20)
Five Sermons. On Different Occasions · Jonathan Edwards
In the preceding statement and the following explanation, our author might have rendered the subject of “divine light immediately imparted to the soul” more perspicuous, by a fuller use of that analog
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Treatise on The One God (QQ[2-26]) · Thomas Aquinas
I answer that, Everything which is raised up to what exceeds its nature, must be prepared by some disposition above its nature; as, for example, if air is to receive the form of fire, it must be prepa
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Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
We now consider Christ's transfiguration; and here there are four points of inquiry: (1) Whether it was fitting that Christ should be transfigured? (2) Whether the clarity of the transfiguration was
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seeing it is God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
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City of God · Augustine of Hippo
Chapter 2.—The Opinion of Plotinus the Platonist Regarding Enlightenment from Above. But with these more estimable philosophers we have no dispute in this matter. For they perceived, and in various f
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The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great · Pope Leo the Great
Sermon LI. A Homily delivered on the Saturday before the Second Sunday in Lent—on the Transfiguration, S. Matt. xvii. 1–13 I. Peter’s confession shown to lead up to the Transfiguration. The Gospel
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A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, in Three Parts · Jonathan Edwards
It is evident that there is a spiritual conviction of the truth, or a belief peculiar to those who are spiritual, who are regenerated, and who have the Spirit of God, in his holy communications, dwell
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Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59) · Thomas Aquinas
I answer that, The clarity which Christ assumed in His transfiguration was the clarity of glory as to its essence, but not as to its mode of being. For the clarity of the glorified body is derived fro
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Exegetical Fragments. · Dionysius of Alexandria
V.—On John VIII. 12. ———————————— Now this word “I am” expresses His eternal subsistence. For if He is the reflection of the eternal light, He must also be eternal Himself. For if the light subsists
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Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John · Augustine of Hippo
8. Wherefore, my brethren, since the Lord says briefly, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life;” in these words He has commande
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Seventeen Occasional Sermons · Jonathan Edwards
Man by the fall extinguished that divine light that shone in this world in its first estate. The Scripture represents the wickedness of man as reducing the world to that state wherein it was when it w
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A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, in Three Parts · Jonathan Edwards
Hence it appears, that the spiritual understanding of the Scripture, does not consist in opening to the mind the mystical meaning of the Scripture, in its parables, types, and allegories; for this is
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Expositions on the Book of Psalms · Augustine of Hippo
8. “If I go up,” saith he, “to heaven, Thou art there: if I go down to Hades, Thou art present” (ver. 8). At length, miserable runaway, thou hast learnt, that by no means canst thou make thyself far f
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A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, in Three Parts · Jonathan Edwards
From hence it may be surely inferred, wherein spiritual understanding consists. For if there be in the saints a kind of perception, which is in its nature perfectly diverse from all that natural men c
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Commentary on the Apocalypse of the Blessed John · Victorinus
16. “And the city is placed in a square.”] The city which he says is squared, he says also is resplendent with gold and precious stones, and has a sacred street, and a river through the midst of it, a
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Ephraim Syrus: The Pearl. Seven Hymns on the Faith · Ephrem the Syrian
The Pearl, Seven Hymns on the Faith. ———————————— Hymn I. 1. On a certain day a pearl did I take up, my brethren; I saw in it mysteries pertaining to the Kingdom; semblances and types of the Majes
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[95] Happiness of heaven. When the body enjoys the perfections of health and strength, the motions of the animal spirits are not only brisk and free, but also harmonious; there is a regular proportion
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Homilies on Second Corinthians · John Chrysostom
Not that they might disbelieve in God, but that unbelief might not see what are the things within, as also He enjoined us, commanding not to “cast the pearls before the swine.” (Matt. vii. 6.) For had
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Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John · Augustine of Hippo
Tractate XXXIV. Chapter VIII. 12 1. What we have just heard and attentively received, as the holy Gospel was being read, I doubt not that all of us have also endeavored to understand, and that each
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Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John · Augustine of Hippo
4. Since, therefore, as the mercy of God is multiplied, men and beasts are saved by Him, have not men something else which God as Creator bestows on them, which He bestows not on the beasts? Is there
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