"He was ever being partaken, but not partaking"

"He was ever being partaken, but not partaking; perfecting, not being perfected; sanctifying, not being sanctified; deifying, not being deified; Himself ever the same with Himself, and with Those with Whom He is ranged; invisible, eternal, incomprehensible, unchangeable, without quality, without quantity, without form, impalpable, self-moving, eternally moving, with free-will, self-powerful, All-powerful (even though all that is of the Spirit is referable to the First Cause, just as is all that is of the Only-begotten); Life and Lifegiver; Light and Lightgiver; absolute Good, and Spring of Goodness; the Right, the Princely Spirit; the Lord, the Sender, the Separator; Builder of His own Temple; leading, working as He wills; distributing His own Gifts; the Spirit of Adoption, of Truth, of Wisdom, of Understanding, of Knowledge, of Godliness, of Counsel, of Fear (which are ascribed to Him) by Whom the Father is known and the Son is glorified; and by Whom alone He is known; one class, one service, worship, power, perfection, sanctification. Why make a long discourse of it?" (Gregory of Nazianzus, On Pentecost, NPNF 2,7, p. 761)

Origen on particpation in God

 "God's essence is one and exists always. If someone should join himself to it, he becomes one spirit with it, and through him who always is, even he himself will be said to be. However the one who is far from him and assumes no participation in him is not even said to be, just as we Gentiles were before we came to knowledge of the divine truth. And this is why it says that God "calls the things that are not as things that are."" (Comm. in Rom. 4,5,12).

Origen on the subjective and objective meaning of "the love of God" in Rom. 5:3-5

 "But it seems that I must consider whether here that love which, he says, "is shed abroad into our hearts through the Holy Spirit," is that by which we love God or with which we are loved by God. Now if, indeed, that love by which we love God is to be understood here, the statement needs no confirmation. But if the love by which we are being loved by God is instead to be understood here, since he said, "the love of God is poured out into our hearts," it is certain that he is putting down love as the highest and greatest gift of the Holy Spirit so that, just as the gift was first received from God, through this [gift], by which we are loved by God, we are able to love God himself. For Paul himself names it "the Spirit of love," and God is called love, and Christ is designated "the Son of love." Now if "the Spirit of love" and "the Son of love" and "the God of love" are found, it is certain that both the Son and the Holy Spirit are to be understood as springing from the one fountatin of paternal deity. From the fullness of the Spirit, the fullness of love is infused into the hearts of the saints in order to receive participation in the divine nature, as the apostle Peter has taught, so that through this gift of the Holy Spirit, the word which the Lord said might be fulfilled, "As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be one in us." This is, of course, to be sharers of the divine nature by the fullness of love furnished through the Holy Spirit." (Comm. in Rom. 4,9,10).

Origen on Jesus' particiation in human nature and the communion of believers with the divine

"But both Jesus Himself and His disciples desired that His followers should believe not merely in His Godhead and miracles, as if He had not also been a partaker of human nature, and had assumed the human flesh which lusts against the Spirit; but they saw also that the power which had descended into human nature, and into the midst of human miseries, and which had assumed a human soul and body, contributed through faith, along with its divine elements, to the salvation of believers, when they see that from Him there began the union of the divine with the human nature, in order that the human, by communion with the divine, might rise to be divine, not in Jesus alone, but in all those who not only believe, but enter upon the life which Jesus taught, and which elevates to friendship with God and communion with Him every one who lives according to the precepts of Jesus." (Con. Cel. III,28)

 

"Καὶ αὐτὸς γὰρ ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐβούλετο καὶ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ μὴ μόνον τῇ θειότητι καὶ τοῖς παραδόξοις αὐτοῦ πιστεύειν τοὺς προσιόντας, ὡς οὐ κοινωνήσαντος τῇ ἀνθρωπίνῃ φύσει οὐδ' ἀναλαβόντος τὴν ἐν ἀνθρώποις σάρκα ἐπιθυμοῦσαν "κατὰ τοῦ πνεύματος"· ἀλλὰ γὰρ καὶ τὴν καταβᾶσαν εἰς ἀνθρωπίνην φύσιν καὶ εἰς ἀνθρωπίνας περιστάσεις δύναμιν καὶ ἀναλαβοῦσαν ψυχὴν καὶ σῶμα ἀνθρώπινον ἑώρων ἐκ τοῦ πιστεύεσθαι μετὰ τῶν θειοτέρων συμβαλλομένην εἰς σωτηρίαν τοῖς πιστεύουσιν, ὁρῶσιν ὅτι ἀπ' ἐκείνου ἤρξατο θεία καὶ ἀνθρωπίνη συνυφαίνεσθαι φύσις, ἵν' ἡ ἀνθρωπίνη τῇ πρὸς τὸ θειότερον κοινωνίᾳ γένηται θεία οὐκ ἐν μόνῳ τῷ Ἰησοῦ ἀλλὰ καὶ πᾶσι τοῖς μετὰ τοῦ πιστεύειν ἀναλαμβάνουσι βίον, ὃν Ἰησοῦς ἐδίδαξεν, ἀνάγοντα ἐπὶ τὴν πρὸς θεὸν φιλίαν καὶ τὴν πρὸς ἐκεῖνον κοινωνίαν πάντα τὸν κατὰ τὰς Ἰησοῦ ὑποθήκας ζῶντα." (Con. Cel. III,28)

E.P. Sanders on 'participation' in Christ

From E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (London: SCM Press Ltd 1977)

"The most conspicuous case [of (apparent) discrepancies in Paul's language] is the distinction between juristic and participationist terminology. Here is a distinction that will not go away. In brief, it is the distinction between saying that Christ dies for Christians and the they die with Christ, [...]" (p. 519-520)

"In saying that the participationist language brings us closer than the juristic to the heart of Paul's thought and reveals the depth of it, we move away from one way of making Paul's thought relevant. Since the participationist way of thinking is less easily appropriated today than the language of acquittal and the like, or than the language of obedience versus boasting, it has not infrequently been dismissed or played down. Thus, for example, Bultmann argued that Paul's discussion of 'the mythological notions of the spirit powers and Satan do not serve the purpose of cosmological speculation nor a need to explain terryfying or gruesome phenomena or to relieve men of responsibility and guilt'. When Paul spaeks 'in naive mythology of the battle of the spirit powers against Christ or of his battle against them (I Cor. 2.6-8; 15.24-26)', he does not really mean that. 'In reality he is thereby only expressing a certain understanding of existence.' 'Through these mythological conceptions the insight is indirectly expressed that man does not have his life in his hand as if he were his own lord but that he is constantly confronted with the decision of choosing his lord.' [(Bultmann, Theology I, pp. 258f)]. In a similar way Bultmann explained the meaning of the transfer from the old creation to the new: 'no magical or mysterious transformation of man' takes place. Rather, 'a new understanding of one's self takes the place of the old'. Particularly striking is the interpretation of being one body with Christ: 'The union of believers into one soma with Christ now has its basis not in their sharing the same supernatural substance, but in the fact that in the word of proclamation Christ's death-and-resurrection becomes a possibility of existence in regard to which a decision must be made, and in the fact that faith seizes this possibility and appropriates it as the power that determines the existence of the man of faith.' [(Bultmann, Theology I, p. 302)" (p. 520-521)

"But what does this mean? How are we to understand it? We seem to lack a category of 'reality' - real participation in Christ, real possession of the Spirit - which lies between naive cosmological speculation and belief in magical transference on the one hand and a revised self-understanding on the other. I must confess that I do not have a new category of perception to propose here. This does not mean, however, that Paul did not have one. It must be emphasized that what Bultmann said against magical transference is correct. It is correct not only because it would lead to false theology today, but as a precise exegesis of Paul. The Christians whom he addressed had not been magically transferred, and he explicitly repudiated the notion when it cropped up in Corinth. On the other hand, he thought that a real change was at work in the world and that Christians were participating in it." (p. 522-523)

Clement of Alexandria on participation

"there is one good, the Father; and to be ignorant of the Father is death, as to know Him is eternal life, through participation in the power of the incorrupt One (μετουσίαν τῆς τοῦ ἀφθάρτου δυνάμεως). And to be incorruptible is to participate in divinity (μὴ φθείρεσθαι θειότητος μετέχειν ἐστί); but revolt from the knowledge of God brings corruption." (Clement of Alexandria, Str. V,10.63.8)