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InEastern Orthodox Christian theology, theTabor Light (Ancient Greek:Φῶς τοῦ Θαβώρ "Light of Tabor", orἌκτιστον Φῶς "Uncreated Light",Θεῖον Φῶς "Divine Light";Russian:Фаворский свет "Taboric Light";Georgian: თაბორის ნათება) is the light revealed onMount Tabor at theTransfiguration of Jesus, identified with the light seen byPaul at his conversion.
As a theological doctrine, the uncreated nature of the Light of Tabor was formulated in the 14th century byGregory Palamas, anAthonite monk, defending the mystical practices ofHesychasm against accusations of heresy byBarlaam of Calabria. When considered as a theological doctrine, this view is known asPalamism after Palamas.[1][2]
The view was very controversial when it was first proposed, sparking theHesychast controversy, and the Palamist faction prevailed only after the military victory ofJohn VI Kantakouzenos in theByzantine civil war of 1341–1347. Since 1347, it has been the official doctrine inEastern Orthodoxy, while it remains without explicit affirmation or denial by theCatholic Church. Catholic theologians have rejected it in the past,[year needed] but the Catholic view has tended to be more favourable since the later 20th century.[3] Several Western scholars have presented Palamism as compatible with Catholic doctrine.[4]In particular,Pope John Paul II in 1996 spoke favourably of hesychast spirituality,[5][6] and in 2002 he named the Transfiguration as the fourthLuminous Mystery of the Holy Rosary.[7]
According to the Hesychast mystic tradition of Eastern Orthodox spirituality, a completely purified saint who has attaineddivine union experiences the vision of divine radiance that is the same 'light' that was manifested to Jesus' disciples on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration. This experience is referred to astheoria. Barlaam (and Western Christianity's interpretation ofapophaticism being the absence of God rather than the unknowability of God) held this view of the hesychasts to bepolytheistic inasmuch as it seemed to postulate two eternal substances, a visible (the divine energies) and an invisible (the divineousia or essence).Seco and Maspero assert that the Palamite doctrine of theuncreated light is rooted in Palamas' reading ofGregory of Nyssa.[8]
Instances of theUncreated Light are read into theOld Testament by Orthodox Christians, e.g. theBurning Bush.[9]
Many Orthodox theologians have identified the Tabor light with the fire ofhell. According to these theologians, hell is the condition of those who remain unreconciled to the uncreated light and love of and for God and are burned by it.[10][11][12] According to Iōannēs Polemēs,Theophanes of Nicea believed that, for sinners, "the divine light will be perceived as the punishing fire of hell".[13]
According to Iōannēs Polemēs, Palamas himself did not identify hell-fire with the Tabor light: "Unlike Theophanes, Palamas did not believe that sinners could have an experience of the divine light [...] Nowhere in his works does Palamas seem to adopt Theophanes' view that the light of Tabor is identical with the fire of hell."[14]
Palamism, Gregory Palamas' theology of divine "operations", was never accepted by theScholastic theologians of theLatinCatholic Church, who maintained a strong view of the simplicity of God, conceived asActus purus.This doctrinal division reinforced the east–west split of theGreat Schism throughout the 15th to 19th centuries, with onlyPope John Paul II opening a possibility for reconciliation by expressing his personal respect for the doctrine.[citation needed]
Catholicism traditionally sees theglory manifested at Tabor as symbolic of theeschatological glory of heaven, as exemplified in the 15th-century Latin hymnCoelestis formam gloriae:
O wondrous type, O vision fair
of glory that the Church shall share
Which Christ upon the mountain shows
where brighter than the sun He glows
With shining face and bright array
Christ deigns to manifest today
What glory shall be theirs above
who joy in God with perfect love.[15]
Pope Gregory the Great wrote of people by whom, "while still living in this corruptible flesh, yet growing in incalculable power by a certain piercingness of contemplation, the Eternal Brightness is able to be seen."[16] In his poemThe Book of the Twelve Béguines,John of Ruysbroeck, a 14th-centuryFlemishmysticbeatified byPope Pius X in 1908, wrote of "the uncreated Light, which is not God, but is the intermediary between Him and the 'seeing thought'" as illuminating the contemplative not in the highest mode of contemplation, but in the second of the four ascending modes.[17]
Roman Catholic pro-ecumenism underJohn Paul II from the 1980s sought for common ground in questions of doctrinal division between the Eastern and the Western Church. John Paul II repeatedly emphasized his respect for Eastern theology as an enrichment for the whole church, and spoke favourably of Hesychasm.[5][6] In 2002, he also named the Transfiguration as the fourthLuminous Mystery of theHoly Rosary.[7] The Eastern doctrine of "uncreated light" has not been officially accepted in the Catholic Church, which likewise has not officially condemned it. Increasing parts of the Western Church consider Gregory Palamas a saint, even if uncanonized.[18] "Several Western scholars contend that the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas himself is compatible with Roman Catholic thought on the matter."[19]At the same time, anti-ecumenical currents within Eastern Orthodoxy presented the Tabor Light doctrine as a major dogmatic division between the Eastern and the Western Church, with the Hesychast movement even described as "a direct condemnation of Papism".[20]
"Tabor Light" was also used in the popular press of 1938 in reference to a mysterious light seen around a cemetery named "Tabor" nearEsterhazy, Saskatchewan, Canada.[21]
