Did Christ Laugh since laughter is a worldly passion?

[TomS]

Here is a list of the Passions by Saint Peter of Damaskos....
http://www.orthodox.net/confess/a-list- ... sions.html

Wow. More stupidity. Basically everything in life.

[Chrysostomos]

To me this falls into the same realm as "Did Christ laugh?" We cannot say this because laughter is a passion. Christ never laughed.

John 10:30 - "I and My Father are one".

John 10:38 - "...that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him."

Then read the following just out of Psalms: 2:4, 37:13, 59:8.

So God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as the Triune God, have laughed.

Your fellow struggler in Christ,

Rd. Chrysostomos
"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me a sinner!"

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

Rd. Chrysostomos,

I wouldn't take word "laugh" so literally in the Plasms you cited.

[尼古拉前执事]

Here is a list of the Passions by Saint Peter of Damaskos....
http://www.orthodox.net/confess/a-list- ... sions.html

Wow. More stupidity. Basically everything in life.

Maybe your life Tom, but you can maybe you can just work on a few at a time.

You could just grab 3 and work on them like perhaps harshness, malice & lack of understanding first.

[Mor Ephrem]

To me this falls into the same realm as "Did Christ laugh?" We cannot say this because laughter is a passion. Christ never laughed.

This is curious. Some time ago, if I'm not mistaken, the claim was made in another thread that Christ could've sinned because not only is He true God, but true Man. But now we are saying that Christ had no passions. I might agree that Christ had no sinful passions, but even the sinful passions are just severely disordered versions of good "passions" we possess. If Christ did not have these "good passions" which are part of our humanity, is He really human?

Regarding the issue of weeping being a passion, I would agree that it is not a passion to weep. OOD writes that the Fathers say "grief and tears expunge passion embued predispositions...", but how could Christ weep if tears expunge passion embued predispositions, predispositions Christ must not have had if He did not have passions?

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

This is curious. Some time ago, if I'm not mistaken, the claim was made in another thread that Christ could've sinned because not only is He true God, but true Man. But now we are saying that Christ had no passions.

Mor Ephrem,

Well I think there is a difference between "could have sinned" and "did sin" (ie. having passions). I think you agree.

I think you are right when you say this about "sinful passions", except I think of it a little different than you. First, I don't believe there are always "good" versions of a passion; for instance, lust. But it is true enough that many times there are good versions of a passion, such as hate; and there are "bad" versions of virtues, such as "love". But in either case, I just don't think of a "good" version of a passion as being a "passion", I think of it as a virtue. So we have "love" which can be a virtue and "love" which can be a passion.

So the questions becomes: did Christ laugh in the sense that it was a virtue? Can laughter be a virtue? Intially one might think "yes, of course", but I think on further reflection you you can see that laughter is really loosing control of yourself. How can we pray unceasingly when we loose control of ourselves? Always having control of oneself is a fundemental element of monasticism and Orthodoxy in general.

Now if you said Christ smiled, I would agree with that; with no teeth showing of course. :mrgreen:

[joasia]

CHRIST IS RISEN!

Why would anybody think that Christ laughed? Laughter is due to a mental state of idiocy...an idiocy that is a quality present in created man due to their influence by the prince of this world. Jesus Christ was fully man(and fully God, of course), but as fully man, He was still not influenced by the deceiver. Being God, He is sinless and therefore did not partake of this particular sin of laughter (which really means, a spiritual state of ignorance to the seriousness of what we will face when we die). How can any created Orthodox Christian man, who knows that the salvation of our souls is at stake and that we can lose it at any moment, believe that laughter has any place in hearts? Are there moments in the Liturgy that require that all the faithful laugh? The Liturgy is solemn and repentful; that should be an indication of how Christ instructed the Apostles to pray to God.

Laughter means taking things lightly. Does anybody here believe that when Christ was in the flesh, that He took things lightly? After all, what He was here for was not a lighthearted matter; not a kind of, get to know your creation in the flesh reunion. He may have smiled with love. But laughter, I would say, is a form of dillusion...and this dillusion is a trap that makes us forget what we are really suppose to focus on...our salvation and the aquisition of the Holy Spirit. And as the saying goes...that's no laughing matter.

Christ instructed us with specific directions. The Beatitudes comes to mind: Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. (Luke 6:25) I think this is clear enough.