From Personhood to Panim
God’s Immortal Image according to Father Stăniloae
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24193/diakrisis.2025.5Keywords:
personhood, face-panim, eikon-tselem, image of God, Christology, eschatology, ‘Presence’Abstract
According to Father Stăniloae, if God is transcendent, He is persona, and His personal character assures His transcendence. His persona transcends even His infinity. Likewise, the image of God in man lies essentially in the character of the person: every person becomes a new “eye” of spiritual transparency. The most adequate, expressive and communicative image of the supreme Image is the human being, or more precisely, the human face. Starting from the fact that personhood is no longer experienced as a mystery, Stăniloae turns to the Bible, which testifies that the face (panim) is the essence of a person. This biblical theology of God’s shining face or presence (panim) is the key to understanding Father Stăniloae’s eschatology and, by extension, his entire theology of the person. There is a dynamic and revelatory movement from the anthropological dimension of eikon–tselem (“image of God”) in his earlier studies, such as God’s Immortal Image, to the later theology of personhood in Volume 6 of his Dogmatics, which is indebted to the biblical dimension of prosōpon–panim (the human “face” of Christ). Eternal bliss, according to him, will be the contemplation of the face of Christ; this is the “eternal perspective of deification” — the divine energies conceived in and radiated from the face of Christ.
References
Aaron, David H. “Shedding Light on God’s Body in Rabbinic Midrashim: Reflections on the Theory of a Luminous Adam.” Harvard Theological Review 90 (1997): 299–314.
Agachi, Adrian. The Neo-Palamite Synthesis of Father Dumitru Stăniloae. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013.
Andersen, Francis I. “2 (Slavonic Apocalypse of) Enoch.” In The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 1: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments, edited by James H. Charlesworth, 91–221. New York: Doubleday, 1983–1985.
Balentine, Samuel E. Prayer in the Hebrew Bible: The Drama of Divine-Human Dialogue. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993.
Balentine, Samuel E. The Hidden God: The Hiding of the Face of God in the Old Testament. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Barina Kaiser, Christopher. Seeing the Lord’s Glory: Kyriocentric Visions and the Dilemma of Early Christology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014.
Bartholomew, Craig G., and Michael W. Goheen. The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2014.
Beale, Gregory K., ed. The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts? Essays on the Use of the Old Testament in the New. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994.
Behr, John. Asceticism and Anthropology in Irenaeus and Clement. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Behr, John. “The Glory of God: A Living Human Being.” In Saint Irénée et l’Humanité Illuminée, edited by Elie Ayroulet, 93–116. Paris: Cerf, 2018.
Belleville, Linda L. Reflections of Glory: Paul’s Polemical Use of the Moses-Doxa Tradition in 2 Corinthians 3:1–18. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991.
Blowers, Paul M., and Robert Louis Wilken, trans. On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ: Selected Writings from St. Maximus the Confessor. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003.
Bucur, Bogdan G. “The Divine Face and the Angels of the Face: Jewish Apocalyptic Themes in Early Christology and Pneumatology.” In Apocalyptic Thought in Early Christianity, edited by Robert J. Daly, 143–153. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009.
Bunta, Silviu. “The Likeness of the Image: Adamic Motifs and םֶלֶצ (Tselem) Anthropology in Rabbinic Traditions about Jacob’s Image Enthroned in Heaven.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 37, no. 1 (2006): 55–84.
Casiday, Augustine. Reconstructing the Theology of Evagrius Ponticus: Beyond Heresy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Christou, Panayiotis. “Double Knowledge According to Gregory Palamas.” In Studia Patristica 9: 20–29. Leuven: Peeters, 1966.
Clement, Olivier. The Roots of Christian Mysticism: Texts from the Patristic Era with Commentary. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2017.
Collins, Paul. Trinitarian Theology West and East: Karl Barth, the Cappadocian Fathers, and John Zizioulas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Contos, Leonidas. “The Essence–Energies Structure of Saint Gregory Palamas with a Brief Examination of Its Patristic Foundation.” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 12 (1967): 283–294.
Eastman, Susan Grove. Paul and the Person: Reframing Paul’s Anthropology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017.
Eichler, Raanan. “When God Abandoned the Garden of Eden: A Forgotten Reading of Genesis 3:24.” Vetus Testamentum 65 (2015): 1–13.
Fishbane, Michael. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.
Fitzmyer, Joseph A. “Glory Reflected on the Face of Christ (2 Cor 3:7–4:6) and a Palestinian Jewish Motif.” Theological Studies 42, no. 4 (1981): 630–644.
Fletcher-Louis, Crispin H. T. All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 42. Leiden: Brill, 2002.
Fossum, Jarl. The Image of the Invisible God: Essays on the Influence of Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology. Göttingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995.
Fossum, Jarl. The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord: Samaritan and Jewish Concepts of Intermediation and the Origin of Gnosticism. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985.
Gieschen, Charles A. Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents and Early Evidence. Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums 42. Leiden: Brill, 1998.
Gleede, Benjamin. The Development of the Term ἐνυπόστατος from Origen to John of Damascus. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 113. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2012.
Goldin, Judah, trans. The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan. 2nd ed. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983.
Golitzin, Alexander. “Recovering the ‘Glory of Adam’: ‘Divine Light’ Traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Ascetical Literature of Fourth-Century Syro-Mesopotamia.” In The Dead Sea Scrolls as Background to Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity: Papers from an International Conference at St Andrews in 2001, edited by James R. Davila, 275–308. Leiden: Brill, 2003.
Goshen-Gottstein, Alon. “The Body as Image of God in Rabbinic Literature.” Harvard Theological Review 87, no. 2 (1994): 171–195.
Gunton, Colin E. The Promise of Trinitarian Theology. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993.
Gunton, Colin E. “Trinity, Ontology and Anthropology: Towards a Renewal of the Doctrine of the Imago Dei.” In Persons, Divine and Human: King’s College Essays in Theological Anthropology, edited by Colin E. Gunton and Christoph Schwöbel, 47–61. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999.
Hafemann, Scott J. “The Glory and Veil of Moses in 2 Corinthians 3:7–14.” In The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts?, edited by Gregory K. Beale, 296–??. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994.
Harrison, Nonna Verna. God’s Many-Splendored Image: Theological Anthropology for Christian Formation. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010.
Hayward, C. T. R. Interpretations of the Name Israel in Ancient Judaism and Some Early Christian Writings: From Victorious Athlete to Heavenly Champion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Hertog, Cornelis den. The Other Face of God: “I Am that I Am” Reconsidered. Hebrew Bible Monographs 32. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012.
Hussey, M. Edmund. “The Palamite Trinitarian Models.” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 16, no. 2 (1972): 83–89.
Karayiannis, Vasilios. Maxime le Confesseur, Essence et Énergies de Dieu. Théologie Historique 93. Paris: Beauchesne, 1993.
Kupp, David D. Matthew’s Emmanuel: Divine Presence and God’s People in the First Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Ladouceur, Paul. “The Experience of God as Light in the Orthodox Tradition.” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 28, no. 2 (2019): 165–185.
Lampe, G. W. H. A Patristic Greek Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961.
Lévy, Antoine. Le créé et l’incréé: Maxime le Confesseur et Thomas d’Aquin aux sources de la querelle palamienne. Paris: J. Vrin, 2007.
Lossky, Vladimir. “The Theological Notion of the Human Person.” In In the Image and Likeness of God, 111–123. New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974.
Loudovikos, Nicholas. “Person instead of Grace and Dictated Otherness: John Zizioulas’ Final Theological Position.” Heythrop Journal 52 (2011): 683–699.
Malone, Andrew S. “The Invisibility of God: A Survey of a Misunderstood Phenomenon.” Evangelical Quarterly 79, no. 4 (2007): 311–329.
Mathewes-Green, Frederica. The Jesus Prayer: The Ancient Desert Prayer that Tunes the Heart to God. Orleans, MA: Paraclete Press, 2009.
Meyendorff, John, ed. Gregory Palamas: The Triads. Translated by Nicholas Gendle. Preface by Jaroslav Pelikan. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1983.
Orlov, Andrei A. The Glory of the Invisible God: Two Powers in Heaven Traditions and Early Christology. New York: T&T Clark; London: Bloomsbury, 2019.
Orlov, Andrei A. “Vested with Adam’s Glory: Moses as the Luminous Counterpart of Adam in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Macarian Homilies.” Christian Orient 4.10 (2006): 498–513.
Păcurariu, Mircea, and Ioan I. Ică Jr., eds. Person and Communion [in Romanian]. Sibiu: The Publishing House of the Archdiocese of Sibiu, 1993.
Panagopoulos, Ioannis. “Ontología è theología toû prosópou. He symbolè tês paterikês Triadologías stén katanoés toû anthropínou prosópou.” Sýnaxe 13 (1985): 63–79; 14 (1985): 35–47.
Pannenberg, Wolfhart. “Person.” In Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, edited by Kurt Galling, 3rd ed., 5:230–235. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1961.
Papanikolaou, Aristotle. Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine-Human Communion. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006.
Papanikolaou, Aristotle. “Divine Energies or Divine Personhood: Vladimir Lossky and John Zizioulas on Conceiving the Transcendent and Immanent God.” Modern Theology 19, no. 3 (2003): 357–385.
Papanikolaou, Aristotle. “From Sophia to Personhood: The Development of 20th Century Orthodox Trinitarian Theology.” Phronema 33, no. 2 (2018): 1–20.
Papanikolaou, Aristotle. “Stăniloae, Dumitru (1903–1993).” In The Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, edited by John Anthony McGuckin, Vol. 1, 582. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
Philpot, Joshua M. “Exodus 34:29–35 and Moses’ Shining Face.” Bulletin for Biblical Research 23, no. 1 (2013): 1–11.
Podbielski, Marcin. “The Face of the Soul, the Face of God: Maximus the Confessor and πρόσωπον.” In Maximus the Confessor as a European Philosopher, edited by Sotiris Mitralexis, Georgios Steiris, Marcin Podbielski, and Sebastian Lalla, 193–228. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2017.
Presley, Stephen O. The Intertextual Reception of Genesis 1–3 in Irenaeus of Lyons. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
Pseudo-Macarius. Oeuvres spirituelles (Homélies propres à la Collection III). Edited by V. Desprez. Sources Chrétiennes 275. Paris: Cerf, 1980.
Radović, Amphiloque. Le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité selon saint Grégoire de Palamas. Paris: Cerf, 2012.
Ricoeur, Paul. “Meurt le personnalisme, revient la personne.” In Lectures 2: La contrée des philosophes, 195–202. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1992.
Rubenson, Samuel. “Transformative Light and Luminous Traditions in Early Christian Mysticism and Monasticism.” Svensk Teologisk Kvartalskrift 90 (2014): 179–187.
Russell, E. “Reconsidering Relational Anthropology: A Critical Assessment of John Zizioulas’ Theological Anthropology.” International Journal of Systematic Theology 5 (2003): 168–186.
Schroeder, Gerald L. The Hidden Face of God: How Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth. New York: Free Press, 2001.
Sinkewicz, Robert E., ed., trans., and study. St. Gregory Palamas: The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters. Studies and Texts 83. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1988.
Stang, Charles M. “The Two ‘I’s of Christ: Revisiting the Christological Controversy.” Anglican Theological Review 94, no. 3 (2012): 529–547.
Stăniloae, Dumitru. God’s Immortal Image [in Romanian]. Vol. 1. Bucharest: Crystal, 1995.
Stăniloae, Dumitru. Jesus Christ: The Light of the World and the Deifier of the Human Being [in Romanian]. Bucharest: Anastasia, 1993.
Stăniloae, Dumitru. The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. Vol. 1. Translated by Ioan Ioniță and Robert Barringer. Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1994.
Stăniloae, Dumitru. The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. Vol. 2, The World: Creation and Deification. Translated and edited by Ioan Ioniță and Robert Barringer. Preface by Ion Bria. Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2000.
Stăniloae, Dumitru. The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. Vol. 3, The Person of Jesus Christ as God and Savior. Translated and edited by Ioan Ioniță. Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2011.
Stăniloae, Dumitru. The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. Vol. 5, The Sanctifying Mysteries. Translated and edited by Ioan Ioniță and Robert Barringer. Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2012.
Stăniloae, Dumitru. The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. Vol. 6, The Fulfillment of Creation. Translated and edited by Ioan Ionita. Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2013.
Stăniloae, Dumitru. Orthodox Spirituality: A Practical Guide for the Faithful and a Definitive Manual for the Scholar. Translated by Archimandrite Jerome and Otilia Kloos. Waymart, PA: St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 2003.
Steenberg, M. C. Irenaeus on Creation: The Cosmic Christ and the Saga of Redemption. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
Taylor, Charles. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.
Tănase, N. “‘Shining Face’ as Hidden and Revealed Christology.” Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Theologia Orthodoxa 62, no. 1 (2017): 187–216.
Toepel, Alexander. “When Did Adam Wear the Garments of Light?” Journal of Jewish Studies 61 (2010): 62–71.
Torrance, Alan J. Persons in Communion: An Essay on Trinitarian Description and Human Participation. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996.
Ward, Benedicta, trans. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection. Foreword by Benedicta Ward, SLG; preface by Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh. Cistercian Publications 59. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications / Institute of Cistercian Studies, Western Michigan University, 1975.
Wenkel, David H. Shining Like the Sun: A Biblical Theology of Meeting God Face to Face. Wooster, OH: Weaver Book Company, 2016.
Wenkel, David H. “A New Reading of Anointing with Oil in James 5:14: Finding First-Century Common Ground in Moses’ Glorious Face.” Horizons in Biblical Theology 35 (2013): 174–??.
Wilkinson, John. “The Body in the Old Testament.” Evangelical Quarterly 63, no. 3 (1991): 195–210.
Yangazoglou, Stavros. “Philosophy and Theology: The Demonstrative Method in the Theology of Saint Gregory Palamas.” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 41, no. 1 (1996): 1–18.
Zizioulas, John D. “Personhood and Being.” In Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church, 27–65. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997.
Zizioulas, John D. Communion & Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church. London: T&T Clark, 2007.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Nichifor Tănase (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
