ABSTRACT

Martin Laird brings together two authors who might not spontaneously be associated with one another, but whose works nevertheless reveal surprising convergences. Focusing on Gregory of Nyssa’s Homilies on the Song of Songs and Annie Dillard’s prose poem Holy the Firm, Laird illustrates how each author thinks through theosis in terms of what he calls ‘the double face of divine union’. Laird concludes that despite their profound differences of historical context and genre, each of these authors emphasizes certain aspects of theosis. We find, for example, a shared emphasis on the incarnation of the Word, an explicit and implicit sacramental conviction, and how both authors conceive of divinization as occurring by grace within an ecclesial community of worship that also manifests itself in service to the community.