Formlessness and Image

The Seal of the Spirit in Nicholas Cabasilas's The Life of Christ

Abstract

In The Life in Christ, Nicholas Cabasilas uses Paul’s language of “sealing” and “forming” to describe the sacraments of Baptism and Chrismation as means by which the sacramental recipient comes to participate in the life of Christ as a new creation. Relying on images of Christ being “formed” and “portrayed” within the believer, Cabasilas draws on the earlier work of Clement and Cyril of Alexandria, and especially Gregory Nazianzus, to advance a theology of sacramental divinization in which the Christian is progressively conformed to the mysteries of Christ.