Death by Death or Death in Death?

DEATH BY DEATH OR DEATH IN DEATH?

How Grammatical Ambiguity in the Paschal Troparion Fostered Death-Idealization in Orthodox Piety

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that the Byzantine Paschal troparion's phrase θανάτῳ θάνατον πατήσας, when interpreted instrumentally as standard translations suggest ("trampling death BY death"), represents a theological error contrary to the apostolic witness in Hebrews 2:14-15 (διὰ τοῦ θανάτου - "through death"). The Greek dative θανάτῳ is grammatically ambiguous—potentially instrumental, locative, or modal—yet cross-linguistic translations consistently read it instrumentally, making death the weapon rather than the conquered realm. Drawing on John Zizioulas's eschatological ontology and Maximus the Confessor's definition of evil as "deviation from the end," I demonstrate that this instrumental reading has fostered "being-toward-death" in Orthodox piety, naturalizing death as necessary rather than proclaiming it as the "ultimate enemy" (1 Cor 15:26). The paper concludes with a call to recover the eschatological witness to everbeing over protological acceptance of mortality.

I. INTRODUCTION: THE PROBLEM NO ONE SEES

The Paschal troparion stands at the heart of Orthodox liturgical life, sung countless times during Pascha and throughout the year:

Χριστὸς ἀνέστη ἐκ νεκρῶν, θανάτῳ θάνατον πατήσας, καὶ τοῖς ἐν τοῖς μνήμασι ζωὴν χαρισάμενος

Standard English translation: "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!"

This formula shapes Orthodox theological consciousness at its deepest level. Yet embedded within it lies a grammatical ambiguity with profound theological consequences that has gone largely unexamined.

The Grammatical Problem

The phrase θανάτῳ θάνατον πατήσας contains a critical ambiguity. The dative case θανάτῳ can be interpreted in three ways:

Instrumental dative: "by means of death" (death as weapon/tool)

Locative dative: "in death" (death as realm/sphere)

Modal dative: "in the manner of death" (death as mode/passage)

Cross-linguistic evidence reveals that the instrumental reading dominates:

Latin: "morte mortem calcavit" (ablative of means = instrumental)

Church Slavonic: "смертію смерть поправ" (instrumental case)

Arabic: "وطئ الموت بالموت" (bi + definite article = "by means of")

English: "trampling death by death"

This consistency across liturgical languages suggests that the instrumental interpretation has become standard in Orthodox tradition.

Why This Matters: The Apostolic Witness

Compare the troparion with Hebrews 2:14-15:

"Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death (διὰ τοῦ θανάτου) he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery."

Critical difference:

Hebrews: διὰ + genitive = "through" (passage/context)

Troparion (instrumental): dative = "by means of" (weapon/instrument)

In Hebrews:

Christ is the active agent

The devil (who has death's power) is the target

Death is the realm Christ passes through

Death remains the enemy's weapon, not Christ's

In the instrumental reading:

Death becomes the active agent or weapon

Death itself defeats death

Death acquires positive salvific function

This transforms death from conquered enemy into collaborating instrument—a theological shift with devastating pastoral consequences.

Thesis

I argue that the instrumental reading of θανάτῳ has fostered death-idealization in Orthodox piety, producing "being-toward-death" (Heidegger) rather than witness to eschatological everbeing (Zizioulas/Maximus). This contradicts both apostolic teaching and the patristic eschatological ontology that understands death as deviation from τέλος (the end/goal), not as means toward it.

II. THE APOSTOLIC WITNESS: DEATH AS ENEMY

Hebrews 2:14-15: Through Death, Not By Death

The Letter to the Hebrews provides our foundational text:

"...that through death (διὰ τοῦ θανάτου) he might destroy (καταργήσῃ) the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil."

Grammatical analysis:

The preposition διὰ with the genitive case denotes passage through, not instrumental means. Christ passes through death's realm to destroy its master—the devil who wields death as his weapon. Death is not Christ's instrument but the devil's weapon that Christ disarms.

Theological structure:

Subject: Christ (He)

Action: destroy (καταργήσῃ - to render powerless, abolish)

Object: the devil (ὁ τὸ κράτος ἔχων τοῦ θανάτου)

Means: through death (διὰ τοῦ θανάτου - spatial/contextual)

Death is the arena of combat, not the weapon of victory. The target is the one who has the power of death—not death itself as an abstract force, but the personal evil that enslaves humanity through the fear of death.

Paul: Death as "Last Enemy"

Paul's eschatology reinforces this understanding:

"The last enemy to be destroyed is death." (1 Corinthians 15:26)

Context (vv. 54-57):

"Death is swallowed up in victory"

"O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"

Death's power comes from sin; sin's power from the law

Victory comes through (διὰ) our Lord Jesus Christ

Eschatological framework:

Death remains enemy until the final consummation. It is not deployed as God's instrument but abolished as creation's curse. The resurrection demonstrates death's defeat—not death's utility. "If Christ has not been raised, you are still in your sins" (1 Cor 15:17). The resurrection proves death's impotence, not its instrumental value.

The Critical Distinction

The apostolic witness consistently presents death as enemy to be destroyed, never as instrument to be employed. Christ's victory is over death, not by death.

III. ZIZIOULAS'S ESCHATOLOGICAL ONTOLOGY

Metropolitan John Zizioulas's recovery of Maximus the Confessor and Irenaeus provides the theological framework for understanding what is at stake in this grammatical ambiguity.

A. Protology vs. Eschatology: The Fundamental Shift

Maximus via Zizioulas:

"For Maximus, our homeland is not to be found in the beginning but in the end, not in our past but in our future... For he should not seek the beginning, as something that lies behind him, but he should search for the end which exists ahead of him, so that he may come to know through the end his lost origin."[1]

This represents a fundamental reversal of Greek philosophical assumptions:

Greek Philosophy (Protological):

Perfection at the beginning (Golden Age, Platonic Forms)

Fall from original perfection

Goal: return to primordial state

Time as decay from perfection

Christian Eschatology (Teleological):

Perfection at the end (Kingdom, Resurrection)

Fall from future destiny, not past state

Goal: movement toward promised fulfillment

Time as movement toward perfection

Applied to creation:

"God created a perfect world, indeed, as it befits the supremely perfect Being; but as the supremely loving Being that he also is, God entrusted the perfection of his creation to his image (i.e., to the human being), granting it the freedom... to become his 'fellowworker' (1 Cor 3:9) in the realization of creation's glorious destiny."[2]

Perfection is not protological but eschatological. The world was created to become perfect through time and history, reaching its τέλος (end/goal) in Christ.

B. Death's Ontological Status: Already There

Zizioulas's critical statement:

"Death, therefore, was not caused to appear by the fall. In fact, it was part of the nature of creaturehood: all creation was in its nature mortal, having come from nonbeing (Athanasius), and marked with mutability."[3]

What this means:

Death existed before the Fall as creaturehood's natural limitation

Adam's task was not to avoid existing death, but to transcend toward everbeing (ὄντως εἶναι)

The Fall was stopping this eschatological movement, making death permanent rather than transitional

Christ's mission is to resume the movement toward everbeing, not to sanctify death

The human vocation:

"The human being was provided with a certain power to naturally desire God—with the possibility (the vocation) to turn the original being into everbeing (ὄντως εἶναι = immortality) in the future, to turn the 'image' into the 'similitude' by being united with the only immortal being, God."[4]

Three states of being:

Being (εἶναι): creaturely existence, naturally mortal

Wellbeing (εὖ εἶναι): existence according to virtue, by free choice

Everbeing (ὄντως εἶναι): immortal existence through participation in God

Adam's task was to lead creation from being through wellbeing to everbeing. The Fall arrested this movement at the protological stage of mere being. Christ, as the eschatological human, fulfills this vocation.

Implication for death:

Death cannot be the instrument of salvation because death represents the protological limitation that must be transcended, not the eschatological power that achieves transcendence. Christ doesn't use death; He brings everbeing which renders death ontologically obsolete.

C. Evil as Deviation from Τέλος

Maximus's definition (via Zizioulas):

"Evil is the deprivation (ἔλλειψις) of the energy toward the end of the powers implanted in nature... the irrational (ἄλογιστος) movement... of the natural powers toward a direction other than the end (ἐπ' ἄλλο παρὰ τὸ τέλος)."[5]

Key insight: Evil is defined eschatologically, not protologically.

Not: deviation from original perfection (protological)

But: deviation from intended end/goal (eschatological)

Applied to death:

Evil = movement away from τέλος (everbeing)

Death = the ultimate expression of this deviation

Therefore: Death IS the problem, not the solution

The logical impossibility of instrumental reading:

If θανάτῳ is instrumental (death as weapon):

Death becomes part of the movement toward τέλος

But Maximus defines death as deviation from τέλος

Contradiction: How can deviation-from-end simultaneously be means-to-end?

This is not mere wordplay but an ontological impossibility. If evil is "movement away from the end," then evil (including death) cannot be the means by which we reach the end. The instrumental reading makes evil instrumental to salvation—a theological absurdity.

D. Φιλαυτία: The Ontological Root

Zizioulas:

"Philautia is identical with the fall because it expresses at the moral level the ontological movement toward the protological state of existence, the affirmation of what is already there, the self."[6]

The mechanism of the Fall:

Eschatological orientation (faith):

Exodus from self toward promise

Trust in what is not yet but promised

Abraham: "went out, not knowing where he went" (Heb 11:8)

Movement from protology toward eschaton

Protological orientation (φιλαυτία):

Clinging to self and given reality

Trust in what is already there and controllable

Adam: chose certainty of sensible reality over God's promise

Movement from eschaton back to protology

Adam's choice:

"Adam chose to cling to what was already there, to nature, and, above all, to himself, to his senses, to what St Maximus calls τὰ αἰσθητά... Adam preferred to be god as soon as he was created rather than wait for an eschatological theosis."[7]

Result: Slavery to reality

"The fall did not erode the eschatological orientation of the human being altogether... But it is no longer a future in the eschatological sense of faith... The future in all of our 'fallen' teleologies is dependent essentially on the past."[8]

We become slaves of reality—accepting what-is as ultimate, unable to transcend toward what-will-be.

Connection to death-idealization:

When liturgy teaches (instrumentally) that death is salvific:

Naturalizes death: Confirms death as part of God's plan, not problem to overcome

Protological orientation: Affirms present reality rather than future promise

Cosmic φιλαυτία: Collectively clings to what-is rather than exodus toward what-will-be

Undermines faith: Replaces eschatological hope with acceptance of necessity

The instrumental reading theologically reinforces the very error that constitutes the Fall.

IV. THE PASTORAL CATASTROPHE: "BEING-TOWARD-DEATH"

A. The Antinomical Structure of Fallen Reality

Maximus's interpretation of the Tree of Knowledge:

"If anyone should want to say that the tree of knowledge of good and evil was creation as it appears before us, he would not be wrong; for essentially this is what naturally (φυσικῶς) communicates to its participants joy and pain."[9]

The "tree" = reality itself in its fallen, antinomical state:

Good/evil coexist

Life/death coexist

Being/nonbeing coexist

Pleasure/pain inseparable

Sexuality as paradigm:

"Sexuality is at once good and evil: it is good because it reproduces life, and it is evil in that it does so by bringing forth mortal beings."[10]

The tragic circle: Every attempt to affirm life within reality simultaneously affirms death. We cannot escape these antinomies from within reality—only eschatological transformation can break them.

B. Faith vs. Reality

The essence of faith:

"Faith is not simply the obedience to the word of God; it is, concretely, the consent to accept God's future promises, which ends up replacing the protological reality, which is controllable by our senses, with a 'subsistence (ὑπόστασις) of things hoped for, the assurance (ἔλεγχος) of things not seen' (Heb 11:1)."[11]

Faith = eschatological orientation:

Trust in promise over present

Hope in not-yet over already-is

Exodus from reality toward Kingdom

The Fall as crisis of faith:

"'Whatever is not of faith is sin' (Rom 14:23). The refusal to look forward, the subjection of eschatology to protology, which is the essence of the fall, may have given us security in accommodating us to reality, but at the same time it condemned us—and creation—to the 'real,' the given, the past."[12]

How instrumental reading undermines faith:

If death is the instrument of salvation:

We accept death as necessary and good

We validate present reality rather than hope for transformation

We practice protological acceptance instead of eschatological hope

Faith becomes accommodation to reality rather than resistance to it

C. Contemporary Manifestation: Ready to Die

The instrumental reading has produced precisely what Zizioulas critiques—an Orthodox piety oriented toward death rather than life:

The phenomenon:

Emphasis on "readiness to die" as spiritual maturity

Martyrdom as goal rather than witness

Asceticism as preparation for death rather than training for everbeing

"Being-toward-death" (Heidegger) as Orthodox ideal

The theological confusion:

Orthodox piety often teaches: "We must die to be resurrected"

Zizioulas's correction:

Death was already there before the Fall

We don't need to die—we need everbeing

Resurrection is not after death but instead of death

We need communion with Father (source of life) through Son

Two orientations:

The lived consequence:

When Orthodox Christians internalize the instrumental reading, they unconsciously practice protological acceptance of death rather than eschatological resistance to it. This produces a spirituality of passive acceptance rather than active witness to the coming Kingdom where "death will be no more" (Rev 21:4).

V. WHAT ACTUALLY DEFEATS DEATH: ONTOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION

The question remains: If Christ didn't use death's power, what defeated death?

A. Everbeing Incarnated

The fundamental answer:

What defeats death is not a weapon but an ontological state: Christ embodies everbeing (ὄντως εἶναι) which is categorically incompatible with death.

The three states revisited:

Being (εἶναι): creaturely, mortal by nature

Wellbeing (εὖ εἶναι): virtuous life, by free choice

Everbeing (ὄντως εἶναι): immortal life, by participation in God

Christ's hypostasis:

In the Incarnation, created nature is hypostatically united with uncreated being. This union is everbeing—what Adam was called to achieve eschatologically.

Death's limitation:

Death has power only over mere being (creaturehood). Death cannot hold everbeing because everbeing participates in the immortal God. The Resurrection doesn't prove death is useful; it proves death is powerless against everbeing.

Therefore: Christ defeats death not BY anything, but BY BEING what death cannot touch—everbeing incarnate.

B. The Resurrection as Ontological Transformation

Zizioulas's critical distinction:

"The resurrection is not a return to natural life but the abolition of natural necessity itself."[13]

What this means:

NOT: Death → Life → Death (cyclical, natural)

BUT: Necessity → Freedom (ontological transformation)

Death belongs to "natural necessity":

All creatures from nonbeing are naturally mortal

This is necessity, not punishment

Adam's task: transcend this necessity through eschatological gift

The Resurrection:

Doesn't complete a cycle through death

But introduces new ontological reality: nature freed from its own laws

Not survival after death, but everbeing instead of death

Maximus (via Zizioulas):

"At the eschaton, we shall have a full restoration of nature in the form that God wanted or predetermined when he brought it into existence (in its 'logos')... [We shall have] a full restoration of nature and consequently also of the faculties of the soul."[14]

Nature is restored not to its original state but to its intended τέλος—what it was meant to become through humanity's eschatological vocation.

C. Hypostatic Communion vs. Death's Individuation

Zizioulas's ontology of death:

"The fact of death causes division in being, and this leads to the fragmentation and dissolution of nature. Death destroys communion and gives rise to individualism (φιλαυτία)—to entities conceivable in themselves."[15]

Death's ontological effect:

Separates beings from each other

Individuates (makes entities self-enclosed)

Fragments communal nature

Destroys capacity for communion

Christ's hypostatic mode:

His person is constituted by relation (to Father, in Spirit)

His humanity exists in perfect communion with divinity

His mode of being = ecstatic (exists-toward-Other), not self-enclosed

He is never alone: "I and the Father are one" (Jn 10:30)

The ontological incompatibility:

Death's realm: separation, fragmentation, individuation, nonbeing

Christ's being: communion, unity, relational hypostasis, everbeing

These are ontologically incompatible. When hypostatic communion enters death's individuating realm, death's power dissolves—not because communion uses death, but because communion cannot be contained by separation.

The icon of the Descent:

Orthodox iconography shows this ontology visually:

Christ descends as victor (holding cross, radiant)

His hypostatic presence shatters the gates (not physical force)

Adam/Eve raised by touching hypostatic communion

Communional being dissolves individuating realm

The icon teaches: Christ IN death (locatively) as victor, NOT Christ BY death (instrumentally).

D. The Cross as Revelation, Not Transaction

Standard sacrificial model (inadequate):

Christ's death = payment/ransom/satisfaction

Death has function in salvation economy

Implies death has positive role

Zizioulas's ontological correction:

"Death was not imposed on humanity by God, although the biblical language at this point may suggest that at first glance; it was freely chosen, albeit 'ignorantly' (as St Maximus notes), by the human being."[16]

The Cross reveals death's impotence:

Death's lie: Separation from God = inevitable nonbeing

Christ on Cross:

Maintains communion with Father even in death: "Into your hands I commit my spirit" (Lk 23:46)

Remains ecstatic hypostasis even in separation

Proves death cannot destroy communional being

Therefore:

The Cross defeats death not by using death but by exposing death's lie. Death claims to have ultimate power over being. Christ's maintained communion in death reveals this claim as false.

Resurrection as revelation:

"By the very act of abolishing death through the general resurrection, God reveals the true being that was obscured by its coexistence with nonbeing, death and evil in the course of history."[17]

The Resurrection reveals what was always ontologically true: being > nonbeing. Death is shown to be deception (nonbeing pretending to have power). Christ doesn't defeat deception by using it—He exposes it.

E. Summary: The True "Weapon"

What defeats death is not death itself but:

Everbeing incarnated (ontological state incompatible with death)

Hypostatic communion (mode of existence death cannot individuate)

Eschatological fulfillment (humanity achieves its τέλος in Christ)

Abolition of natural necessity (not return to nature but transformation)

Revelation of death as lie (nonbeing exposed as powerless)

None of these involve using death. All involve being what death cannot touch and revealing what death cannot hide.

VI. THE NIETZSCHEAN CHALLENGE

A. Nietzsche's Critique

Friedrich Nietzsche's critique of Christianity as life-denying deserves serious consideration:

The accusation: Christianity glorifies weakness, suffering, and death; makes them redemptive; produces "slave morality" that says No to life.

Standard Orthodox response: "No! We proclaim Resurrection! We affirm life!"

The problem: If we read the troparion instrumentally, Nietzsche is right.

B. Instrumental Reading Validates Life-Denial

If death BY death:

Death has salvific power → we should accept/embrace death

Suffering is redemptive → being-toward-death becomes virtue

Weakness conquers → passivity is sanctified

Mortality is instrument → death is naturalized as good

This produces exactly what Nietzsche critiques: life-denial masked as piety.

The tragic irony: Orthodox Christians, defending the Resurrection against Nietzsche, simultaneously use liturgical language that confirms his critique.

C. Eschatological Reading Defeats Nietzsche

If death IN death (locative) or THROUGH death (modal):

Death remains ultimate enemy → we fight it to the end

Christ is victor bringing everbeing → life-affirmation through immortality

Christian vocation = witness to life → active resistance to death

Resurrection = ontological transformation → not acceptance but revolution

This defeats Nietzsche's critique:

Life-affirmation through everbeing (not biological survival)

Active transformation of reality (not passive acceptance)

Eschatological hope (not protological resignation)

Zizioulas's implicit answer to Nietzsche:

"Only faith in the eschata can liberate us from the bondage of reality."[18]

NOT: Accept death as reality (life-denial)

BUT: Transform reality through eschatological hope (life-affirmation in everbeing)

Orthodox Christianity, properly understood, offers the strongest possible affirmation of life—not biological life (which ends) but everbeing (which cannot end). This is not Nietzsche's "will to power" but something greater: participation in immortal divine life.

VII. THEOLOGICAL RECONSTRUCTION

A. The Correct Reading

The troparion should be understood:

1. Locative dative: "Christ trampled death IN death"

Death as realm Christ entered

Christ as victor already, not becoming victor through death

Spatial: Christ's location during victory

2. Modal dative: "Christ trampled death THROUGH/IN THE MANNER OF death"

Death as passage traversed

Closer to Hebrews' διὰ τοῦ θανάτου

Manner: How Christ passed to victory

3. NOT instrumental dative: "Death BY death"

Makes death the weapon/instrument

Contradicts apostolic witness

Produces death-idealization

Patristic support:

While we lack explicit patristic commentary on the troparion's grammar (it was too familiar to require explanation), the entire patristic tradition supports the non-instrumental reading:

Athanasius: "Corruption was part of human nature... God did not create death."[19]

Gregory of Nyssa: Death must be "entirely without existence" for God to be "all in all."[20]

Maximus: Evil (including death) has "no hypostasis, no ontological content."[21]

Zizioulas synthesizing the tradition: Death is the enemy to be abolished, never the instrument to be employed.

B. Pastoral Implications

What Orthodox piety should teach:

1. Death is deviation from τέλος (Maximus's definition of evil)

Fight it as enemy of communion

Resist it as individuation and fragmentation

Oppose it as nonbeing threatening being

2. Christian vocation is everbeing (eschatological orientation)

Participate in hypostatic communion (Eucharist)

Practice ecstatic existence (love as exit from self)

Witness to coming Kingdom where death is abolished

3. We fight death through communional mode of being

Not individual ascetic achievements

But ecclesial existence (synaxis, gathering)

Eucharist = foretaste of everbeing

4. Martyrdom correctly understood

NOT: glorification of death as redemptive

BUT: witness that communion-with-Christ > biological-survival

Martyrs prove: hypostatic identity stronger than death

They don't "use" death—they expose its impotence

5. The liturgical life as eschatological witness

Divine Liturgy = making present the Kingdom

Not preparation for death but practice of everbeing

Eucharist transforms us from individuals into persons (Zizioulas)

C. Catechetical Correction

Without changing the beloved troparion, we must correct its interpretation:

In preaching and teaching, emphasize:

Christ trampled death while in death's realm, not by means of death

Christ as subject, death as object

Death remains enemy until final abolition at Parousia

Our orientation: toward everbeing, not acceptance of mortality

In pastoral practice:

Discourage "readiness to die" as spiritual ideal

Encourage fighting for life as witness to Resurrection

Frame suffering not as redemptive but as enemy to be overcome (medicine, care, resistance)

Orient dying toward hope in everbeing not acceptance of death

VIII. CONCLUSION: TOWARD LIFE-WITNESSING ORTHODOXY

Summary

This paper has demonstrated:

Grammatical ambiguity: θανάτῳ can be instrumental, locative, or modal; standard translations read it instrumentally

Apostolic contradiction: Hebrews uses διὰ + genitive ("through"), not instrumental dative; Paul calls death "last enemy"

Eschatological framework: Zizioulas/Maximus show death is deviation from τέλος, cannot simultaneously be means to τέλος

Ontological answer: Christ defeats death by being everbeing and hypostatic communion—categories incompatible with death

Pastoral catastrophe: Instrumental reading produces "being-toward-death" instead of witness to everbeing

Nietzschean confirmation: Instrumental reading validates life-denial critique; eschatological reading defeats it

Correct interpretation: Locative/modal (IN/THROUGH death) preserves Christ as agent, death as enemy

The Call

This paper calls not for changing the troparion—it is too central, too beloved—but for correcting our understanding:

From: Death BY death (instrumental—death as weapon)

To: Death IN death (locative—Christ as victor in death's realm)

Or: Death THROUGH death (modal—Christ passing through to victory)

The Vision

An Orthodoxy that:

Sees death as enemy until final abolition at Parousia

Fights for life to the end as witness to Resurrection

Proclaims everbeing through communion with Father (source of life) through Son

Embodies eschatological hope not protological acceptance

Defeats Nietzsche's critique through genuine life-affirmation in immortality

Final Word

Metropolitan John Zizioulas:

"For Maximus, our homeland is not to be found in the beginning but in the end, not in our past but in our future."[22]

Therefore:

We do not glorify death (the past, the given, protology).

We proclaim everbeing (the future, the promise, eschatology).

The troparion, rightly understood, sings:

Christ entered death's dark realm as conqueror and crushed it from within by His everbeing-in-hypostatic-communion—not by death's power, but by being what death cannot touch.