Perichoresis

I was reading today and came across this term which google says has its roots in Maximos the Confessor, Gregory Nazianzus, and John of Damascus among others.

I searched my library by author and found works by those authors (I am Gold level Verbum Eastern and Portfolio Orthodox) so I thought I might find some good source reading.

When I searched by perichoresis, lemma, and just english, I found dictionary entries but wasn't coming up with what I hoped for.

What I found google wise seemed to indicate that in the Western interpretation of that term implied a divine dance while in the east there seemed to be a resistance to the implied movement of the term dance.

Any tips on how I should search my library to find any relevant Patristic sources?

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Don Awalt

Did you do a Precise Search (not a Smart Search) of all Books, of the term perichoresis? I did, and I got a lot of substantial hits - the top books have chapters on perichoresis:

Roy

I found dictionary entries but wasn't coming up with what I hoped for.

And what was it you were hoping to find?

Very roughly, what I found is that "perichoresis" is a term that (EDIT: of late) describes the Trinity.

Maybe the following quick clip helps.

[quote]

PERICHORESIS (Gk. πειχώρησις). A term in ^*Neoplatonic anthropology that was used to explain how the ^*soul was intimately united to the body without being confused with it; by means of analogy, ^*Gregory of Nazianzus applied it to the union of the two natures in Jesus Christ (Ep. 101; Or. 38,13). In this sense, it was reused by Byzantine authors who saw in the human composite an analogy of the ^*incarnation (Lampe 1077ff.). ^*Maximus the Confessor developed the concept to explain the unity of the person against the ^*monothelites (Bausenhart 173), using the example of a piece of iron placed in a fire, an example ^*Origen had used to illustrate the union of the soul with the Logos. Following the thought of ps.-^*Cyril (PG 77, 1144B, 1163B), ^*John of Damascus adopted the term perichoresis in an analogous sense for the inseparable, but not confused, union of the three divine ^*persons (Expos. 8; 14; 49). Thanks to the Latin translation of John of Damascus’s Expositio made by Burgundio of Pisa, scholastic theology also received the idea under the Latin term circumincessio.

B. Studer, Die theologische Arbeitsweise des Johannes von Damaskus, Ettal 1956, 112–113; G.L. Prestige, Dio nel pensiero dei Padri, It. tr. Bologna 1969, 297–305; H.A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers, Cambridge, MA 1964 (It. tr. Brescia 1978), 418–428; P. Stemmer, Perichorese: HWP 7 (1989) 255–259; G. Bausenhart, “In allem uns gleich ausser der Sünde.” Studien zum Beitrag des Maximus des Bekenners zur altkirchlichen Christologie, Mainz 1992; G. Greshake, Perichorese: LTK³ 8, 31–32. (bibl.); E. Durand, La périchorèse des personnes divines, Paris 2005 (see also Lateranum 72 [2006] 553–575).

B. Studer

Studer, Basil. “Perichoresis.” Edited by Angelo Di Berardino and James Hoover. Translated by Joseph T. Papa, Erik A. Koenke, and Eric E. Hewett. Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic; InterVarsity Press, 2014.

Christian Alexander

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1310642#Comment_1310642

perichoresis means that “all three persons occupy the same divine ‘space.'”[1]

As Augustine put it: “Each are in each, and all in each, and each in all, and all are one.”[2]

Alister McGrath writes that it "allows the individuality of the persons to be maintained, while insisting that each person shares in the life of the other two. An image often used to express this idea is that of a 'community of being,' in which each person, while maintaining its distinctive identity, penetrates the others and is penetrated by them." [3]

https://www.tyndalebulletin.org/article/29197-problems-with-perichoresis.pdf

[1] Gerald Bray, Doctrine of God, 158.

[2] Augustine, On the Trinity, 6.10.

[3] McGrath, Christian Theology:An Introduction, 3rd ed. (Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell, 2001), p. 325.