Excerpts from St. Gregory of Nyssa (A.D. 331-395)
on Scripture, Unity, Sacraments, and
Last Things
His doctrine concerning the general
restoration of all (Apocatastasis) to favor with God and the temporary nature
of the pains of hell show us that The Ultimate Reconciliation of All or God’s
Systematic Reconciliation of all is not a modern theology, but has always been
a belief held by some men of God.
Further studies concerning the life and
teaching of Gregory of Nyssa are available on the Internet.
An Opening
Benediction
May the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort,
who disposeth all things in wisdom for the best, visit you by His own grace,
and comfort you by Himself, working in you that which is well-pleasing to Him,
and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ come upon you, and the fellowship of the
Holy Spirit, that ye may have healing of all tribulation and affliction, and
advance towards all good, for the perfecting of the Church, for the edification
of your souls, and to the praise of the glory of His name.
Sola
Scriptura
We now proceed to their next position, after a short
defining and confirmation of our own doctrine.
For an inspired testimony is a sure test of the truth of any doctrine:
and so it seems to me that ours may be well guaranteed by a quotation from the
divine words. In the division of all
existing things, then, we find these distinctions. There is, as appealing to our perceptions,
the Sensible world: and there is, beyond
this, the world which the mind, led on by objects of sense, can view: I mean the Intelligible: and in this we
detect again a further distinction into the Created and the Uncreate: to the latter of which we have defined the
Holy Trinity to belong, to the former all that can exist or can be thought of
after that. But in order that this
statement may not be left without a proof, but may be confirmed by Scripture,
we will add that our Lord was not created, but came forth from the Father, as
the Word with His own lips attests in the Gospel.
(Against Eunomius, Book I)
But of what life does the Holy Spirit, that quickeneth all things, stand in
need, that by subjection He should obtain salvation for Himself? Since then it is not on the basis of any
Divine utterance that he [Eunomius—jh] asserts such an attribute of the Spirit,
nor yet is it as a consequence of probable arguments that he has launched this
blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, it must be plain at all events to sensible
men that he vents his impiety against Him without any warrant whatsoever,
unsupported as it is by any authority from Scripture or by any logical
consequence.
(Against Eunomius, Book II)
It is true that we learn from Holy Scripture not to speak of the Holy Ghost as
brother of the Son: but that we are not to say that the Holy Ghost is
homogeneous with the Son, is nowhere shown in the divine Scriptures.
(Against Eunomius, Book II)
But if it is to the Only-begotten God that he [Eunomius] applies such phrases,
so as to say that He is a thing made by Him that made Him, a creature of Him
that created Him, and to refer this terminology to “the use of the saints”
[Eunomius had claimed “the saints” also taught that the Son of God was a
creature], let him first of all show us in his statement what saints he says
there are who declared the Maker of all things to be a product and a creature,
and whom he follows in this audacity of phrase.
The Church knows as saints those whose hearts were divinely guided by
the Holy Spirit—patriarchs, lawgivers, prophets, evangelists, apostles. If any among these is found to declare in his
inspired words that God over all, who “upholds all things with the word of His
power,” and grasps with His hand all things that are, and by Himself called the
universe into being by the mere act of His will, is a thing created and a
product, he will stand excused, as following, as he says, the “use of the
saints” in proceeding to formulate such doctrines. But if the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures
is freely placed within the reach of all, and nothing is forbidden to or hidden
from any of those who choose to share in the divine instruction, how comes it
that he endeavours to lead his hearers astray by his misrepresentation of the
Scriptures, referring the term “creature,” applied to the Only-begotten, to
“the use of the saints”? For that by Him
all things were made, you may hear almost from the whole of their holy
utterance, from Moses and the prophets and apostles who come after him, whose
particular expressions it would be tedious here to set forth.”
(Against Eunomius, Book III)
And if he [Eunomius] says that he has some of the saints who declared Him [the
Only-Begotten God] to be a slave, or created, or made, or any of these lowly
and servile names, lo, here are the Scriptures.
Let him, or some other on his behalf, produce to us one such phrase, and
we will hold our peace. But if there is
no such phrase (and there could never be found in those inspired Scriptures
which we believe any such thought as to support this impiety), what need is
there to strive further upon points admitted with one who not only
misrepresents the words of the saints, but even contends against his own
definitions?
(Against Eunomius, Book III)
If these doctrines [of Eunomius] approve themselves to some of the sages “who
are without,” let not the Gospels nor the rest of the teaching of the Holy
Scripture be in any way disturbed. For
what fellowship is there between the Creed of Christians and the wisdom that
has been made foolish? But if he leans
upon the support of the Scriptures, let him show one such declaration from the
holy writings and we will hold our peace.
(Against Eunomius, Book X)
Such is the conception of Him [i.e., the Holy Spirit] that possesses them [the
followers of Macedonius]; and the logical consequence of it is that the Spirit
has in Himself none of those marks which our devotion, in word or thought,
ascribes to a Divine nature. What, then,
shall be our way of arguing? We shall
answer nothing new, nothing of our own invention, though they challenge us to
it; we shall fall back upon the testimony in Holy Scripture about the Spirit,
whence we learn that the Holy Spirit is Divine, and is to be called so. Now, if they allow this, and will not
contradict the words of inspiration, then they, with all their eagerness to
fight with us, must tell us why they are contending with us, instead of with
Scripture. We say nothing different from
that which Scripture says.
(On the Holy Spirit)
Now they charge us with innovation, and frame their complaint against us in
this way: They allege that while we
confess three Persons we say that there is one goodness, and one power, and one
Godhead. And in this assertion they do
not go beyond the truth; for we do say so.
But the ground of their complaint is that their custom does not admit
this, and Scripture does not support it.
What then is our reply? We do not
think that it is right to make their prevailing custom the law and rule of
sound doctrine. For if custom is to
avail for proof of soundness, we too, surely, may advance our prevailing
custom; and if they reject this, we are surely not bound to follow theirs. Let the inspired Scripture, then, be our
umpire, and the vote of truth will surely be given to those whose dogmas are
found to agree with the Divine words.
(On the Holy Trinity, and of the Godhead
of the Holy Spirit)
As for ourselves, if the Gentile philosophy, which deals methodically with all
these points [concerning the principles of anger and of desire], were really
adequate for a demonstration, it would certainly be superfluous to add a
discussion on the soul to those speculations.
But while the latter [presumably Aristotle is meant] proceeded, on the
subject of the soul, as far in the direction of supposed consequences as the
thinker pleased, we are not entitled to such licence, I mean that of affirming
what we please; we make the Holy Scriptures the rule and measure of every
tenet; we necessarily fix our eyes upon that, and approve that alone which may
be made to harmonize with the intention of those writings.
(On the Soul and the Resurrection)
And to those who are expert only in the technical methods of proof a mere
demonstration suffices to convince; but as for ourselves, we were agreed that
there is something more trustworthy than any of these artificial conclusions,
namely, that which the teachings of Holy Scripture point to: and so I [Gregory] deem that it is necessary
to inquire, in addition to what has been said, whether this inspired teaching
harmonizes with it all.
And who, she [Gregory’s sister Macrina] replied, could deny that truth is to be
found only in that upon which the seal of Scriptural testimony is set?
(On the Soul and the Resurrection)
On Faith in the Trinity as a Basis for
Christian Unity
Now when the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are with orthodox devotion
being glorified and adored by those who believe that in a distinct and
unconfused Trinity there is One Substance, Glory, Kingship, Power, and
Universal Rule, in such a case as this what good excuse for fighting can there
be? At the time, certainly, when the heretical views prevailed, to try issues
with the authorities, by whom the adversaries' cause was seen to be
strengthened, was well; there was fear then lest our saving Doctrine should be
over-ruled by human rulers. But now, when over the whole world from one end of
heaven to the other the orthodox Faith is being preached, the man who fights
with them who preach it, fights not with them, but with Him Who is thus
preached. What other aim, indeed, ought that man's to be, who has the zeal for
God, than in every possible way to announce the glory of God?
As long, then, as the Only-begotten is adored with all the heart and soul and
mind, believed to be in everything that which the Father is, and in like manner
the Holy Ghost is glorified with an equal amount of adoration, what plausible
excuse for fighting is left these over-refined disputants, who are rending the
seamless robe, and parting the Lord's name between Paul and Cephas, and
undisguisedly abhorring contact with those who worship Christ, all but
exclaiming in so many words, "Away from me, I am holy"? Granting that the knowledge which they
believe themselves to have acquired is somewhat greater than that of others:
yet can they possess more than the belief that the Son of the Very God is Very
God, seeing that in that article of the Very God every idea that is orthodox,
every idea that is our salvation, is included?
It includes the idea of His Goodness, His Justice, His Omnipotence: that
He admits of no variableness nor alteration, but is always the same; incapable
of changing to worse or changing to better, because the first is not His
nature, the second He does not admit of; for what can be higher than the
Highest, what can be better than the Best?
In fact, He is thus associated with all perfection, and, as to every
form of alteration, is unalterable; He did not on occasions display this
attribute, but was always so, both before the Dispensation that made Him man,
and during it, and after it; and in all His activities in our behalf He never
lowered any part of that changeless and unvarying character to that which was
out of keeping with it. What is
essentially imperishable and changeless is always such; it does not follow the
variation of a lower order of things, when it comes by dispensation to be
there; just as the sun, for example, when he plunges his beam into the gloom,
does not dim the brightness of that beam; but instead, the dark is changed by
the beam into light; thus also the True Light, shining in our gloom, was not
itself overshadowed with that shade, but enlightened it by means of itself.
Well, seeing that our humanity was in darkness, as it is written, 'They know
not, neither will they understand, they walk on in darkness," the
Illuminator of this darkened world darted the beam of His Divinity through the
whole compound of our nature, through soul, I say, and body too, and so
appropriated humanity entire by means of His own light, and took it up and made
it just that thing which He is Himself.
And as this Divinity was not made perishable, though it inhabited a
perishable body, so neither did it alter in the direction of any change, though
it healed the changeful in our soul: in medicine, too, the physician of the
body, when he takes hold of his patient, so far from himself contracting the
disease, thereby perfects the cure of the suffering part.
(Letter to Eustathia, Ambrosia, and
Basilissa)
Baptism
In Holy Baptism, what is it that we secure thereby? Is it not a participation in a life no longer
subject to death? I think that no one
who can in any way be reckoned amongst Christians will deny that statement.
(On the Holy Spirit)
Baptism, then, is a purification from sins, a remission of trespasses, a cause
of renovation and regeneration. By regeneration, understand regeneration
conceived in thought, not discerned by bodily sight. For we shall not,
according to the Jew Nicodemus and his somewhat dull intelligence, change the
old man into a child, nor shall we form anew him who is wrinkled and
gray-headed to tenderness and youth, if we bring back the man again into his
mother's womb: but we do bring back, by royal grace, him who bears the scars of
sin, and has grown old in evil habits, to the innocence of the babe. For as the
child new-born is free from accusations and from penalties, so too the child of
regeneration has nothing for which to answer, being released by royal bounty
from accountability. And this gift it is not the water that bestows (for in
that case it were a thing more exalted than all creation), but the command of
God, and the visitation of the Spirit that comes sacramentally to set us free.
But water serves to express the cleansing. For since we are wont by washing in
water to render our body clean when it is soiled by dirt or mud, we therefore
apply it also in the sacramental action, and display the spiritual brightness
by that which is subject to our senses.
(On the Baptism of Christ)
On the Lord’s Supper
The question was, how can that one Body of Christ vivify the whole of mankind,
all, that is, in whomsoever there is Faith, and yet, though divided amongst
all, be itself not diminished? Perhaps, then, we are now not far from the probable
explanation. If the subsistence of every body depends on nourishment, and this
is eating and drinking, and in the case of our eating there is bread and in the
case of our drinking water sweetened with wine, and if, as was explained at the
beginning, the Word of God, Who is both God and the Word, coalesced with man's
nature, and when He came in a body such as ours did not innovate on man's
physical constitution so as to make it other than it was, but secured
continuance for His own body by the customary and proper means, and controlled
its subsistence by meat and drink, the former of which was bread, just, then,
as in the case of ourselves, as has been repeatedly said already, if a person
sees bread he also, in a kind of way, looks on a human body, for by the bread
being within it the bread becomes it, so also, in that other case, the body
into which God entered, by partaking of the nourishment of bread, was, in a
certain measure, the same with it; that nourishment, as we have said, changing
itself into the nature of the body. For that which is peculiar to all flesh is
acknowledged also in the case of that flesh, namely, that that Body too was
maintained by bread; which Body also by the indwelling of God the Word was
transmuted to the dignity of Godhead. Rightly, then, do we believe that now
also the bread which is consecrated by the Word of God is changed into the Body
of God the Word. For that Body was once, by implication, bread, but has been
consecrated by the inhabitation of the Word that tabernacled in the flesh.
Therefore, from the same cause as that by which the bread that was transformed
in that Body was changed to a Divine potency, a similar result takes place now.
For as in that case, too, the grace of the Word used to make holy the Body, the
substance of which came of the bread, and in a manner was itself bread, so also
in this case the bread, as says the Apostle, "is sanctified by the Word of
God and prayer"; not that it advances by the process of eating to the
stage of passing into the body of the Word, but it is at once changed into the
body by means of the Word, as the Word itself said, "This is My
Body." Seeing, too, that all flesh is nourished by what is moist (for
without this combination our earthly part would not continue to live), just as we
support by food which is firm and solid the solid part of our body, in like
manner we supplement the moist part from the kindred element; and this, when
within us, by its faculty of being transmitted, is changed to blood, and
especially if through the wine it receives the faculty of being transmuted into
heat. Since, then, that God-containing flesh partook for its substance and
support of this particular nourishment also, and since the God who was
manifested infused Himself into perishable humanity for this purpose, viz. that
by this communion with Deity mankind might at the same time be deified, for
this end it is that, by dispensation of His grace, He disseminates Himself in
every believer through that flesh, whose substance comes from bread and wine, blending
Himself with the bodies of believers, to secure that, by this union with the
immortal, man, too, may be a sharer in incorruption. He gives these gifts by
virtue of the benediction through which He transelements the natural quality of
these visible things to that immortal thing.
(The Great Catechism, ch. XXXVII)
’ApokatastasiV, or
the Restitution of All Things
We know well that all evil that happens admits of being annihilated by its
opposite.
(Against Eunomius, Book I)
As for the future subjection of all men to the Only-begotten, and through Him,
to the Father, in the passage where the Apostle with a profound wisdom speaks
of the Mediator between God and man as subject to the Father, [he] impl[ies] by
that subjection of the Son who shares humanity the actual subjugation of
mankind.
(Against Eunomius, Book I)
He becomes the firstborn of the new creation of men in Christ by the twofold
regeneration, alike that by Holy Baptism and that which is the consequence of the
resurrection from the dead, becoming for us in both alike the Prince of Life,
the first-fruits, the firstborn. This
firstborn, then, hath also brethren, concerning whom He speaks to Mary, saying,
“Go and tell My brethren, I go to My Father and your Father, and to My God and
your God.” In these words He sums up the
whole aim of His dispensation as
(Against Eunomius, Book II)
Again, he speaks of the subjection of all men to God, when we all, being united
to one another by the faith, become one body of the Lord who is in all, as the
subjection of the Son to the Father, when the adoration paid to the Son by all
things with one accord, by things in heaven, and things on earth, and things
under the earth, redounds to the glory of the Father; as Paul says elsewhere, “To
Him every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things
under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to
the glory of God the Father.” For when
this takes places, the mighty wisdom of Paul affirms that the Son, who is in
all, is subject to the Father by virtue of the subjection of those in whom He
is. What kind of “subjection once for
all” Eunomius asserts of the Holy Spirit, it is thus impossible to learn from the
phrase which he has thrown out—whether he means the subjection of irrational
creatures, or of captives, or of servants, or of children who are kept in
order, or of those who are saved by subjection.
For the subjection of men to God is salvation for those who are so made
subject, according to the voice of the prophet, who says that his soul is
subject to God, since of Him cometh salvation by subjection, so that subjection
is the means of averting perdition. As
therefore the help of the healing art is sought eagerly by the sick, so is
subjection by those who are in need of salvation.
(Against Eunomius, Book II)
For assuredly every knee would not thus bow, did it not recognize in Christ Him
who rules it for its own salvation.
(Against Eunomius, Book II)
The Son has accomplished the Father’s will, and this, in the language of the
Apostle, is “that all men should be saved.”
(Against Eunomius, Book XII)
How are we to feel about such deaths [of infants]? Will a soul such as that behold its
Judge? Will it stand with the rest
before the tribunal? Will it undergo its
trial for deeds done in life? Will it
receive the just recompense by being purged, according to the Gospel
utterances, in fire, or refreshed with the dew of blessing?
(On Infants’ Early Deaths)
Wickedness is not so strong…as to prevail over the power of good; nor is the
folly of our nature more powerful and more abiding than the wisdom of God…for
as evil does not extend to infinity, but is comprehended by necessary limits,
it would appear that good once more follows in succession upon the limit of
evil…I think that we ought to understand about ourselves, that on passing the
limit of wickedness we shall again have our conversation in light, as the
nature of good, when compared with the measure of wickedness, is incalculably
superabundant.
(On the Making of Man, ch. XXI)
God governs all things in a certain order and sequence…[so] that when the
generation of men is completed, time should cease together with its completion,
and then should take place the restitution of all things, and with the
World-Reformation humanity also should be changed from the corruptible and earthly
to the impassible and eternal.
(On the Making of Man, ch. XXII)
[The Apostle] says that every reasoning creature, in the restitution of all
things, is to look towards Him who presides over the whole. In that passage in the Epistle to the
Philippians he makes mention of certain things that are “under the earth”;
“every knee shall bow” to Him “of things in heaven, and things in earth, and
things under the earth.”
(On the Soul and the Resurrection)
We certainly believe, both because of the prevailing opinion, and still more of
Scripture teaching, that there exists another world of beings besides, divested
of such bodies as ours are, who are opposed to that which is good and are
capable of hurting the lives of men, having by an act of will lapsed from the
nobler view, and by this revolt from goodness personified in themselves the
contrary principle; and this world is what, some say, the Apostle adds to the
number of the “things under the earth,” signifying in that passage that when
evil shall have been some day annihilated in the long revolutions of the ages,
nothing shall be left outside the world of goodness, but that even from those
evil spirits shall rise in harmony the confession of Christ’s Lordship.
(On the Soul and the Resurrection)
Why, seeing that Lazarus’ soul is occupied with his present blessings and turns
round to look at nothing that he has left, while the rich man is still
attached, with a cement as it were, even after death, to the life of feeling,
which he does not divest himself of even when he has ceased to live, still
keeping as he does flesh and blood in his thoughts (for in his entreaty that
his kindred may be exempted from his suffering he plainly shows that he is not
free yet from fleshly feeling)—in such details of the story (she [Gregory’s
sister Macrina] continued) I think our Lord teaches us this; that those still
living in the flesh must as much as ever they can separate and free themselves
in a way from its attachments by virtuous conduct, in order that after death
they may not need a second death to cleanse them from the remnants that are
owing to this cement of the flesh.
(On the Soul and the Resurrection)
If, then, whether by forethought here, or by purgation hereafter, our soul
becomes free from any emotional connection with the brute creation, there will
be nothing to impede its contemplation of the Beautiful; for this last is
essentially capable of attracting in a certain way every being that looks
towards it.
(On the Soul and the Resurrection)
As every being is capable of attracting its like, and humanity is, in a way,
like God, as bearing within itself some resemblances to its Prototype, the soul
is by a strict necessity attracted to the kindred Deity. In fact what belongs
to God must by all means and at any cost be preserved for Him. If, then, on the
one hand, the soul is unencumbered with superfluities and no trouble connected
with the body presses it down, its advance towards Him Who draws it to Himself
is sweet and congenial. But suppose, on the other hand, that it has been
transfixed with the nails of propension so as to be held down to a habit
connected with material things, a case like that of those in the ruins caused
by earthquakes, whose bodies are crushed by the mounds of rubbish; and let us
imagine by way of illustration that these are not only pressed down by the
weight of the ruins, but have been pierced as well with some spikes and
splinters discovered with them in the rubbish. What then, would naturally be
the plight of those bodies, when they were being dragged by relatives from the
ruins to receive the holy rites of burial, mangled and torn entirely,
disfigured in the most direful manner conceivable, with the nails beneath the
heap harrowing them by the very violence necessary to pull them out? Such I think is the plight of the soul as
well when the Divine force, for God's very love of man, drags that which
belongs to Him from the ruins of the irrational and material. Not in hatred or
revenge for a wicked life, to my thinking, does God bring upon sinners those
painful dispensations; He is only claiming and drawing to Himself whatever, to
please Him, came into existence. But while He for a noble end is attracting the
soul to Himself, the Fountain of all Blessedness, it is the occasion
necessarily to the being so attracted of a state of torture. Just as those who
refine gold from the dross which it contains not only get this base alloy to
melt in the fire, but are obliged to melt the pure gold along with the alloy,
and then while this last is being consumed the gold remains, so, while evil is
being consumed in the purgatorial fire, the soul that is welded to this evil
must inevitably be in the fire too, until the spurious material alloy is
consumed and annihilated by this fire. If a clay of the more tenacious kind is
deeply plastered round a rope, and then the end of the rope is put through a
narrow hole, and then some one on the further side violently pulls it by that
end, the result must be that, while the rope itself obeys the force exerted,
the clay that has been plastered upon it is scraped off it with this violent
pulling and is left outside the hole, and, moreover, is the cause why the rope
does not run easily through the passage, but has to undergo a violent tension
at the hands of the puller. In such a manner, I think, we may figure to
ourselves the agonized struggle of that soul which has wrapped itself up in
earthy material passions, when God is drawing it, His own one, to Himself, and
the foreign matter, which has somehow grown into its substance, has to be
scraped from it by main force, and so occasions it that keen intolerable
anguish.
Then it seems, I said, that it is not punishment chiefly and principally that
the Deity, as Judge, afflicts sinners with; but He operates, as your argument
has shown, only to get the good separated from the evil and to attract it into
the communion of blessedness.
That, said the Teacher, is my meaning; and also that the agony will be measured
by the amount of evil there is in each individual. For it would not be reasonable
to think that the man who has remained so long as we have supposed in evil
known to be forbidden, and the man who has fallen only into moderate sins,
should be tortured to the same amount in the judgment upon their vicious habit;
but according to the quantity of material will be the longer or shorter time
that that agonizing flame will be burning; that is, as long as there is fuel to
feed it. In the case of the man who has acquired a heavy weight of material,
the consuming fire must necessarily be very searching; but where that which the
fire has to feed upon has spread less far, there the penetrating fierceness of
the punishment is mitigated, so far as the subject itself, in the amount of its
evil, is diminished. In any and every case evil must be removed out of
existence, so that, as we said above, the absolutely non-existent should cease
to be at all. Since it is not in its nature that evil should exist outside the
will, does it not follow that when it shall be that every will rests in God,
evil will be reduced to complete annihilation, owing to no receptacle being
left for it?
But, said I, what help can one find in this devout hope, when one considers the
greatness of the evil in undergoing torture even for a single year; and if that
intolerable anguish be prolonged for the interval of an age, what grain of
comfort is left from any subsequent expectation to him whose purgation is thus
commensurate with an entire age?
Why, either we must plan to keep the soul absolutely untouched and free from
any stain of evil; or, if our passionate nature makes that quite impossible,
then we must plan that our failures in excellence consist only in mild and
easily-curable derelictions. For the Gospel in its teaching distinguishes
between a debtor of ten thousand talents and a debtor of five hundred pence,
and of fifty pence and of a farthing, which is "the uttermost" of
coins; it proclaims that God's just judgment reaches to all, and enhances the
payment necessary as the weight of the debt increases, and on the other hand
does not overlook the very smallest debts. But the Gospel tells us that this
payment of debts was not effected by the refunding of money, but that the
indebted man was delivered to the tormentors until he should pay the whole
debt; and that means nothing else than paying in the coin of torment the
inevitable recompense, the recompense, I mean, that consists in taking the
share of pain incurred during his lifetime, when he inconsiderately chose mere
pleasure, undiluted with its opposite; so that having put off from him all that
foreign growth which sin is, and discarded the shame of any debts, he might
stand in liberty and fearlessness. Now liberty is the coming up to a state
which owns no master and is self-regulating; it is that with which we were gifted
by God at the beginning, but which has been obscured by the feeling of shame
arising from indebtedness.
What then, I asked, are we to say to those whose hearts fail at these
calamities?
We will say to them, replied the Teacher, this. "It is foolish, good
people, for you to fret and complain of the chain of this fixed sequence of
life's realities; you do not know the goal towards which each single
dispensation of the universe is moving. You do not know that all things have to
be assimilated to the Divine Nature in accordance with the artistic plan of
their author, in a certain regularity and order. Indeed, it was for this that
intelligent beings came into existence; namely, that the riches of the Divine
blessings should not lie idle.
(On the Soul and the Resurrection)
Now this passage from the Psalms [Psalm 118, LXX] runs as follows: "God
and Lord hath showed Himself to us; keep the Feast amongst the decorators even
unto the horns of the altar;" and this seems to me to proclaim in
metaphors the fact that one single feast is to be kept by the whole rational
creation, and that in that assembly of the saints the inferiors are to join the
dance with their superiors. For in the
case of the fabric of that Temple which was the Type it was not allowed to all
who were on the outside of its circuit to come within, but everything that was
Gentile and alien was prohibited from entering; and of those, further, who had
entered, all were not equally privileged to advance towards the centre; but
only those who had consecrated themselves by a holier manner of life, and by
certain sprinklings; and, again, not every one amongst these last might set
foot within the interior of the Temple; the priests alone had the right of
entering within the Curtain, and that only for the service of the sanctuary;
while even to the priests the darkened shrine of the Temple, where stood the
beautiful Altar with its jutting horns, was forbidden, except to one of them,
who held the highest office of the priesthood, and who once a year, on a stated
day, and unattended, passed within it, carrying an offering more than usually
sacred and mystical. Such being the
differences in connection with this Temple which you know of, it was clearly a
representation and an imitation of the condition of the spirit-world, the
lesson taught by these material observances being this, that it is not the
whole of the rational creation that can approach the temple of God, or, in
other words, the adoration of the Almighty; but that those who are led astray
by false persuasions are outside the precinct of the Deity; and that from the
number of those who by virtue of this adoration have been preferred to the rest
and admitted within it, some by reason of sprinklings and purifications have
still further privileges; and again amongst these last those who have been
consecrated priests have privileges further still, even to being admitted to
the mysteries of the interior. And, that
one may bring into still clearer light the meaning of the allegory, we may
understand the Word here as teaching this, that amongst all the Powers endued
with reason some have been fixed like a Holy Altar in the inmost shrine of the
Deity; and that again of these last some jut forward like horns, for their
eminence, and that around them others are arranged first or second, according
to a prescribed sequence of rank; that the race of man, on the contrary, on
account of indwelling evil was excluded from the Divine precinct, but that
purified with lustral water it re-enters it; and, since all the further
barriers by which our sin has fenced us off from the things within the veil are
in the end to be taken down, whenever the time comes that the tabernacle of our
nature is as it were to be fixed up again in the Resurrection, and all the
inveterate corruption of sin has vanished from the world, then a universal
feast will be kept around the Deity by those who have decorated themselves in
the Resurrection; and one and the same banquet will be spread for all, with no
differences cutting off any rational creature from an equal participation in
it; for those who are now excluded by reason of their sin will at last be
admitted within the Holiest places of God's blessedness, and will bind
themselves to the horns of the Altar there, that is, to the most excellent of
the transcendental Powers. The Apostle
says the same thing more plainly when he indicates the final accord of the
whole Universe with the Good: "That" to Him "every knee should
bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth: And
that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God
the Father": instead of the "horns," speaking of that which is angelic
and "in heaven," and by the other terms signifying ourselves, the
creatures whom we think of next to that; one festival of united voices shall
occupy us all; that festival shall be the confession and the recognition of the
Being Who truly Is.
(On the Soul and the Resurrection)
His end is one, and one only; it is this: when the complete whole of our race
shall have been perfected from the first man to the last—some having at once in
this life been cleansed from evil, others having afterwards in the necessary
periods been healed by the Fire, others having in their life here been
unconscious equally of good and of evil—to offer to every one of us
participation in the blessings which are in Him, which, the Scripture tells us,
"eye hath not seen, nor ear heard," nor thought ever reached. But
this is nothing else, as I at least understand it, but to be in God Himself;
for the Good which is above hearing and eye and heart must be that Good which
transcends the universe. But the difference between the virtuous and the
vicious life led at the present time will be illustrated in this way; viz. in
the quicker or more tardy participation of each in that promised
blessedness. According to the amount of
the ingrained wickedness of each will be computed the duration of his
cure. This cure consists in the
cleansing of his soul, and that cannot be achieved without an excruciating
condition, as has been expounded in our previous discussion.
(On the Soul and the Resurrection)
For "this corruptible must put on incorruption"; and this
incorruption and glory and honour and power are those distinct and acknowledged
marks of Deity which once belonged to him who was created in God's image, and
which we hope for hereafter. The first
man Adam, that is, was the first ear; but with the arrival of evil human nature
was diminished into a mere multitude; and, as happens to the grain on the ear,
each individual man was denuded of the beauty of that primal ear, and mouldered
in the soil: but in the Resurrection we are born again in our original
splendour; only instead of that single primitive ear we become the countless
myriads of ears in the cornfields. The virtuous life as contrasted with that of
vice is distinguished thus: those who while living have by virtuous conduct
exercised husbandry on themselves are at once revealed in all the qualities of
a perfect ear, while those whose bare grain (that is the forces of their
natural soul) has become through evil habits degenerate, as it were, and hardened
by the weather (as the so-called "hornstruck" seeds, according to the
experts in such things, grow up), will, though they live again in the
Resurrection, experience very great severity from their Judge, because they do
not possess the strength to shoot up into the full proportions of an ear, and
thereby become that which we were before our earthly fall. The remedy offered
by the Overseer of the produce is to collect together the tares and the thorns,
which have grown up with the good seed, and into whose bastard life all the
secret forces that once nourished its root have passed, so that it not only has
had to remain without its nutriment, but has been choked and so rendered
unproductive by this unnatural growth. When from the nutritive part within them
everything that is the reverse or the counterfeit of it has been picked out,
and has been committed to the fire that consumes everything unnatural, and so
has disappeared, then in this class also their humanity will thrive and will
ripen into fruit-bearing, owing to such husbandry, and some day after long
courses of ages will get back again that universal form which God stamped upon
us at the beginning. Blessed are they,
indeed, in whom the full beauty of those ears shall be developed directly they
are born in the Resurrection. Yet we say
this without implying that any merely bodily distinctions will be manifest
between those who have lived virtuously and those who have lived viciously in
this life, as if we ought to think that one will be imperfect as regards his
material frame, while another will win perfection as regards it. The prisoner
and the free, here in this present world, are just alike as regards the
constitutions of their two bodies; though as regards enjoyment and suffering
the gulf is wide between them. In this
way, I take it, should we reckon the difference between the good and the bad in
that intervening time. For the perfection of bodies that rise from that sowing
of death is, as the Apostle tells us, to consist in incorruption and glory and
honour and power; but any diminution in such excellences does not denote a
corresponding bodily mutilation of him who has risen again, but a withdrawal
and estrangement from each one of those things which are conceived of as
belonging to the good. Seeing, then,
that one or the other of these two diametrically opposed ideas, I mean good and
evil, must any way attach to us, it is clear that to say a man is not included
in the good is a necessary demonstration that he is included in the evil. But then, in connection with evil, we find no
honour, no glory, no incorruption, no power; and so we are forced to dismiss
all doubt that a man who has nothing to do with these last-mentioned things
must be connected with their opposites, viz. with weakness, with dishonour,
with corruption, with everything of that nature, such as we spoke of in the
previous parts of the discussion, when we said how many were the passions,
sprung from evil, which are so hard for the soul to get rid of, when they have
infused themselves into the very substance of its entire nature and become one
with it. When such, then, have been purged from it and utterly removed by the
healing processes worked out by the Fire, then every one of the things which
make up our conception of the good will come to take their place; incorruption,
that is, and life, and honour, and grace, and glory, and everything else that
we conjecture is to be seen in God, and in His Image, man as he was made.
(On the Soul and the Resurrection)
What therefore does Paul teach us? It
consists in saying that evil will come to nought and will be completely
destroyed. The divine, pure goodness
will contain in itself every nature endowed with reason; nothing made by God is
excluded from his kingdom once everything mixed with some elements of base
material has been consumed by refinement in fire. Such things had their origin in God; what was
made in the beginning did not receive evil.
(Treatise on I Corinthians XV.28)
The goal of our hope is that nothing contrary to the good is left, but the
divine life permeates everything. It
completely destroys death, having earlier removed sin which, as it is said,
held dominion over all mankind. No
longer do any of our passions rule our nature, since it is necessary that none
of them dominate—all are subjected to the one who rules over all. Subjection to God is complete alienation from
evil…In the last of his words [in I Cor. XV.28], Paul plainly speaks of the
nonexistence of evil by stating that God is in all things and present to each
one of them. It is clear that God will
truly be in all things when no evil will be found. It is not proper for God to be present in
evil; thus, he will not be in everything as long as some evil remains.
(Treatise on I Corinthians XV.28)
Subjection to God is our chief good when all creation resounds as one voice,
when everything in heaven, on earth and under the earth bends the knee to him,
and when every tongue will confess that has become one body and is joined in
Christ through obedience to one another, he will bring into subjection his own
body to the Father.
Once Paul has been subjected to God, he is brought to the One who lives, speaks
and effects good things. The supreme good is subjection to God. This fact which
occurred in one person [Paul] will be harmoniously applied to every human being
"when," as the Lord says, "the Gospel will be preached
throughout the world". All who have rejected the old man with its deeds
and desires have received the Lord who, of course, effects the good done by
them. The highest of all good things is salvation effected in us through
estrangement from evil. However, we are separated from evil for no other reason
than for being united to God through subjection. Subjection to God then refers
to Christ dwelling in us. What is beautiful is his; what is good is from him,
which God expresses through the prophets. Because subjection is both beautiful
and good—for Christ himself demonstrated this to us—the good is entirely from
him who is good by nature, as the prophet says. According to the promise made
in the Gospel, we are no longer slaves of the Lord; but once reconciled, we are
numbered among his friends. However, "it is necessary for him to reign,
until he places his enemies under his feet." We reverently take this, I
believe, as Christ valiantly holding sway in his power. Then the strong man's
ability in battle will cease when all opposition to the good will be destroyed.
Once the entire kingdom is gathered to himself, Christ hands it over to God and
the Father who unites everything to himself. For the kingdom will be handed
over to the Father, that is, all persons will yield to God, through whom we
have access to the Father.
(Treatise on I Corinthians XV.28)
But since there is a necessity that the defilements which sin has engendered in
the soul as well should be removed thence by some remedial process, the
medicine which virtue supplies has, in the life that now is, been applied to
the healing of such mutilations as these. If, however, the soul remains
unhealed, the remedy is dispensed in the life that follows this. Now in the
ailments of the body there are sundry differences, some admitting of an easier,
others requiring a more difficult treatment. In these last the use of the
knife, or cauteries, or draughts of bitter medicines are adopted to remove the
disease that has attacked the body. For the healing of the soul's sicknesses
the future judgment announces something of the same kind, and this to the
thoughtless sort is held out as the threat of a terrible correction, in order
that through fear of this painful retribution they may gain the wisdom of
fleeing from wickedness: while by those of more intelligence it is believed to
be a remedial process ordered by God to bring back man, His peculiar creature,
to the grace of his primal condition. They who use the knife or cautery to
remove certain unnatural excrescences in the body, such as wens or warts, do
not bring to the person they are serving a method of healing that is painless,
though certainly they apply the knife without any intention of injuring the
patient. In like manner whatever material excrescences are hardening on our
souls, that have been sensualized by fellowship with the body's affections,
are, in the day of the judgment , as it were cut and scraped away by the ineffable
wisdom and power of Him Who, as the Gospel says, "healeth those that are
sick." For, as He says again, "they that are whole have no need of
the physician, but they that are sick." Since, then, there has been inbred
in the soul a strong natural tendency to evil, it must suffer, just as the
excision of a wart gives a sharp pain to the skin of the body; for whatever
contrary to the nature has been inbred in the nature attaches itself to the
subject in a certain union of feeling, and hence there is produced an abnormal
intermixture of our own with an alien quality, so that the feelings, when the
separation from this abnormal growth comes, are hurt and lacerated. Thus when
the soul pines and melts away under the correction of its sins, as prophecy
somewhere tells us, there necessarily follow, from its deep and intimate
connection with evil, certain unspeakable and inexpressible pangs, the
description of which is as difficult to render as is that of the nature of
those good things which are the subjects of our hope. For neither the one nor
the other is capable of being expressed in words, or brought within reach of
the understanding. If, then, any one looks to the ultimate aim of the Wisdom of
Him Who directs the economy of the universe, he would be very unreasonable and
narrow-minded to call the Maker of man the Author of evil; or to say that He is
ignorant of the future, or that, if He knows it and has made him, He is not
uninfluenced by the impulse to what is bad. He knew what was going to be, yet
did not prevent the tendency towards that which actually happened. That
humanity, indeed, would be diverted from the good, could not be unknown to Him
Who grasps all things by His power of foresight, and Whose eyes behold the
coming equally with the past events. As, then, He had in sight the perversion,
so He devised man's recall to good. Accordingly, which was the better
way?—never to have brought our nature into existence at all, since He foresaw
that the being about to be created would fall away from that which is morally
beautiful; or to bring him back by repentance, and restore his diseased nature
to its original beauty? But, because of the pains and sufferings of the body
which are the necessary accidents of its unstable nature, to call God on that
account the Maker of evil, or to think that He is not the Creator of man at
all, in hopes thereby to prevent the supposition of His being the Author of
what gives us pain—all this is an instance of that extreme narrow-mindedness
which is the mark of those who judge of moral good and moral evil by mere
sensation. Such persons do not understand that that only is intrinsically good
which sensation does not reach, and that the only evil is estrangement from the
good. But to make pains and pleasures the criterion of what is morally good and
the contrary, is a characteristic of the unreasoning nature of creatures in
whom, from their want of mind and understanding, the apprehension of real
goodness has no place. That man is the work of God, created morally noble and
for the noblest destiny, is evident not only from what has been said, but from
a vast number of other proofs; which, because they are so many, we shall here
omit. But when we call God the Maker of man we do not forget how carefully at
the outset we defined our position against the Greeks. It was there shown that
the Word of God is a substantial and personified being, Himself both God and
the Word; Who has embraced in Himself all creative power, or rather Who is very
power with an impulse to all good; Who works out effectually whatever He wills
by having a power concurrent with His will; Whose will and work is the life of
all things that exist; by Whom, too, man was brought into being and adorned
with the highest excellences after the fashion of Deity. But since that alone
is unchangeable in its nature which does not derive its origin through
creation, while whatever by the uncreated being is brought into existence out
of what was nonexistent, from the very first moment that it begins to be, is
ever passing through change, and if it acts according to its nature the change
is ever to the better, but if it be diverted from the straight path, then a
movement to the contrary succeeds—since, I say, man was thus conditioned, and
in him the changeable element in his nature had slipped aside to the exact
contrary, so that this departure from the good introduced in its train every
form of evil to match the good (as, for instance, on the defection of life
there was brought in the antagonism of death; on the deprivation of light darkness
supervened; in the absence of virtue vice arose in its place, and against every
form of good might be reckoned a like number of opposite evils), by whom, I
ask, was man, fallen by his recklessness into this and the like evil state (for
it was not possible for him to retain even his prudence when he had estranged
himself from prudence, or to take any wise counsel when he had severed himself
from wisdom)—by whom was man to be recalled to the grace of his original state?
To whom belonged the restoration of the fallen one, the recovery of the lost,
the leading back the wanderer by the hand? To whom else than entirely to Him
Who is the the Lord of his nature? For Him only Who at the first had given the
life was it possible, or fitting, to recover it when lost. This is what we are
taught and learn from the Revelation of the truth, that God in the beginning
made man and saved him when he had fallen.
(The Great Catechism, ch. VIII)
But he who has regard for truth will agree that the
essential qualities of justice and wisdom are before all things these; viz. of
justice, to give to every one according to his due; of wisdom, not to pervert
justice, and yet at the same time not to dissociate the benevolent aim of the
love of mankind from the verdict of justice, but skilfully to combine both
these requisites together, in regard to justice returning the due recompense,
in regard to kindness not swerving from the aim of that love of man. Let us
see, then, whether these two qualities are not to be observed in that which
took place. That repayment, adequate to the debt, by which the deceiver was in
his turn deceived, exhibits the justice of the dealing, while the object aimed
at is a testimony to the goodness of Him who effected it. It is, indeed, the
property of justice to assign to every one those particular results of which he
has sunk already the foundations and the causes, just as the earth returns its
harvests according to the kinds of seeds thrown into it; while it is the
property of wisdom, in its very manner of giving equivalent returns, not to
depart from the kinder course. Two persons may both mix poison with food, one
with the design of taking life, the other with the design of saving that life;
the one using it as a poison, the other only as an antidote to poison; and in
no way does the manner of the cure adopted spoil the aim and purpose of the
benefit intended; for although a mixture of poison with the food may be
effected by both of these persons alike, yet looking at their intention we are
indignant with the one and approve the other; so in this instance, by the
reasonable rule of justice, he who practised deception receives in return that
very treatment, the seeds of which he had himself sown of his own free will. He
who first deceived man by the bait of sensual pleasure is himself deceived by
the presentment of the human form. But as regards the aim and purpose of what
took place, a change in the direction of the nobler is involved; for whereas
he, the enemy, effected his deception for the ruin of our nature, He Who is at
once the just, and good, and wise one, used His device, in which there was
deception, for the salvation of him who had perished, and thus not only
conferred benefit on the lost one, but on him, too, who had wrought our ruin.
For from this approximation of death to life, of darkness to light, of
corruption to incorruption, there is effected an obliteration of what is worse,
and a passing away of it into nothing, while benefit is conferred on him who is
freed from those evils. For it is as when some worthless material has been
mixed with gold, and the gold-refiners burn up the foreign and refuse part in
the consuming fire, and so restore the more precious substance to its natural
lustre: (not that the separation is effected without difficulty, for it takes
time for the fire by its melting force to cause the baser matter to disappear;
but for all that, this melting away of the actual thing that was embedded in it
to the injury of its beauty is a kind of healing of the gold.) In the same way
when death, and corruption, and darkness, and every other offshoot of evil had
grown into the nature of the author of evil, the approach of the Divine power,
acting like fire , and making that unnatural accretion to disappear, thus by
purgation of the evil becomes a blessing to that nature, though the separation
is agonizing. Therefore even the adversary himself will not be likely to
dispute that what took place was both just and salutary, that is, if he shall
have attained to a perception of the boon. For it is now as with those who for
their cure are subjected to the knife and the cautery; they are angry with the
doctors, and wince with the pain of the incision; but if recovery of health be
the result of this treatment, and the pain of the cautery passes away, they
will feel grateful to those who have wrought this cure upon them. In like
manner, when, after long periods of time, the evil of our nature, which now is
mixed up with it and has grown with its growth, has been expelled, and when
there has been a restoration of those who are now lying in sin to their primal
state, a harmony of thanksgiving will arise from all creation, as well from
those who in the process of the purgation have suffered chastisement, as from
those who needed not any purgation at all. These and the like benefits the
great mystery of the Divine incarnation bestows. For in those points in which
He was mingled with humanity, passing as He did through all the accidents
proper to human nature, such as birth, rearing, growing up, and advancing even
to the taste of death, He accomplished all the results before mentioned,
freeing both man from evil, and healing even the introducer of evil himself.
For the chastisement, however painful, of moral disease is a healing of its
weakness.
(The Great Catechism, ch. XXVI)
There is a wide interval between those who have been
purified, and those who still need purification. For those in whose lifetime
here the purification by the laver has preceded, there is a restoration to a kindred
state. Now, to the pure, freedom from passion is that kindred state, and that
in this freedom from passion blessedness consists, admits of no dispute. But as
for those whose weaknesses have become inveterate, and to whom no purgation of
their defilement has been applied, no mystic water, no invocation of the Divine
power, no amendment by repentance, it is absolutely necessary that they should
come to be in something proper to their case, just as the furnace is the proper
thing for gold alloyed with dross, in order that, the vice which has been mixed
up in them being melted away after long succeeding ages, their nature may be
restored pure again to God. Since, then, there is a cleansing virtue in fire
and water, they who by the mystic water have washed away the defilement of
their sin have no further need of the other form of purification, while they
who have not been admitted to that form of purgation must needs be purified by
fire.
(The Great Catechism, ch. XXXV)
Compiled by Joel
Herndon
28 August 2004