1. 1 hesitated to address your excellency, from the idea that, just as to the eye when inflamed even the mildest of remedies causes pain, so to a soul distressed by heavy sorrow, words offered in the moment of agony, even though they do bring much comfort, seem to be somewhat out of place. But I bethought me that I should be speaking to a Christian woman, who has long ago learned godly lessons, and is not inexperienced in the vicissitudes of human life, and I judged it right not to neglect the duty laid upon me. I know what a mother's heart is, and when I remember how good and gentle you are to all, I can reckon the probable extent of your misery at this present time. You have lost a son whom, while he was alive, all mothers called happy, with prayers that their own might be like him, and on his death bewailed, as though each bad hidden her own in the grave.
His death is a blow to two provinces, both to mine and to Cilicia. With him has fallen a great and illustrious race, dashed to the ground as by the withdrawal of a prop. Alas for the mighty mischief that the contact with an evil demon was able to wreak! Earth, what a calamity thou hast been compelled to sustain! If the sun bad any feeling one would think he might have shuddered at so sad a sight. Who could utter all that the spirit in its helplessness would have said?
2. But our lives are not without a Providence. So we have learnt in the Gospel, for not a sparrow falls to the ground without the will of our Father. Whatever has come to pass has come to pass by the will of our Creator. And who can resist God's will? Let us accept what has befallen us; for if we take it ill we do not mend the past and we work our own ruin. Do not let us arraign the righteous judgment of God. We are all too untaught to assail His ineffable sentences. The Lord is now making trial of your love for Him. Now there is an opportunity for you, through your patience, to take the martyr's lot. The mother of the Maccabees saw the death of seven sons without a sigh, without even shedding one unworthy tear. She gave thanks to God for seeing them freed from the fetters of the flesh by fire and steel and cruel blows, and she won praise from God, and fame among men. The loss is great, as I can say myself; but great too are the rewards laid up by the Lord for the patient. When first you were made a mother, and saw your boy, and thanked God, you knew all the while that, a mortal yourself, you had given birth to a mortal. What is there astonishing in the death of a mortal? But we are grieved at his dying before his time. Are we sure that this was not his time? We do not know how to pick and choose what is good for our souls, or how to fix the limits of the life of man. Look round at all the world in which you live; remember that everything you see is mortal, and all subject to corruption. Look up to heaven; even it shall be dissolved; look at the sun, not even the sun will last for ever. All the stars together, all living things of land and sea, all that is fair on earth, aye, earth itself, all are subject to decay; yet a little while and all shall be no more. Let these considerations be some comfort to you in your trouble. Do not measure your loss by itself; if you do it will seem intolerable; but if you take all human affairs into account you will find that some comfort is to be derived from them. Above all, one thing I would strongly urge; spare your husband. Be a comfort to others. Do not make his trouble harder to bear by wearing yourself away with sorrow. Mere words I know cannot give comfort. Just now what is wanted is prayer; and I do pray the Lord Himself to touch your heart by His unspeakable power, and through good thoughts to cause light to shine upon your soul, that you may have a source of consolation in yourself.
LETTER VH To Gregory my friend.
W hen I wrote to you, I was perfectly well aware that no theological term is adequate to the thought of the speaker, or the want of the questioner, because language is of natural necessity too weak to act in the service of objects of thought. If then our thought is weak, and our tongue weaker than our thought, what was to be expected of me in what I said but that I should be charged with poverty of expression? Still, it was not possible to let your question pass unnoticed. It looks like a betrayal, if we do not readily give an answer about God to them that love the Lord. What has been said, however, whether it seems satisfactory, or requires some further and more careful addition, needs a fit season for correction. For the present I implore you, as I have implored you before, to devote yourself entirely to the advocacy of the truth, and to the intellectual energies God gives you for the establishment of what is good. With this be content, and ask nothing more from me. I am really much less capable than is supposed, and am more likely to do harm to the word by my weakness than to add strength to the truth by my advocacy.
LETTER Vm To the Caesareans.
A defense of his withdrawal, and concerning the faith.
1. 1 have often been astonished at your feeling towards me as you do, and how it comes about that an individual so small and insignificant, and having, may be, very little that is lovable about him, should have so won your allegiance. You remind me of the claims of friendship and of fatherland, and press me urgently in your attempt to make me come back to you, as though I were a runaway from a father's heart and home. That I am a runaway I confess. I should be sorry to deny it; since you are already regretting me, you shall be told the cause. I was astounded like a man stunned by some sudden noise. I did not crush my thoughts, but dwelt upon them as I fled, and now I have been absent from you a considerable time. Then I began to yearn for the divine doctrines, and the philosophy that is concerned with them. How, said I, could I overcome the mischief dwelling with us? Who is to be my Laban, setting me free from Esau, and leading me to the supreme philosophy? By God's help, I have, so far as in me lies, attained my object; I have found a chosen vessel, a deep well; I mean Gregory, Christ' s mouth. Give me, therefore, I beg you, a little time. I am not embracing a city life. I am quite well aware how the evil one by such means devises deceit for mankind, but I do hold the society of the saints most useful. For in the more constant change of ideas about the divine dogmas I am acquiring a lasting habit of contemplation. Such is my present situation.
2. Friends godly and well beloved, do, I implore you, beware of the shepherds of the Philistines; let them not choke your wills unawares; let them not befoul the purity of your knowledge of the faith. This is ever their object, not to teach simple souls lessons drawn from Holy Scripture, but to mar the harmony of the truth by heathen philosophy. Is not he an open Philistine who is introducing the terms "unbegotten" and "begotten" into our faith, and asserts that there was once a time when the Everlasting was not; that He who is by nature and eternally a Father became a Father; that the Holy Ghost is not eternal? He bewitches our Patriarch's sheep that they may not drink "of the well of water springing up everlasting life," but may rather bring upon themselves the words of the prophet, "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water;" when all the while they ought to confess that the Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy Ghost God, as they have been taught by the divine words, and by those who have understood them in their highest sense. Against those who cast it in our teeth that we are Tritheists, let it be answered that we confess one God not in number but in nature. For everything which is called one in number is not one absolutely, nor yet simple in nature; but God is universally confessed to be simple and not composite. God therefore is not one in number. What I mean is this. We say that the world is one in number, but not one by nature nor yet simple; for we divide it into its constituent elements, fire, water, air, and earth. Again, man is called one in number. We frequently speak of one man, but man who is composed of body and soul is not simple. Similarly we say one angel in number, but not one by nature nor yet simple, for we conceive of the hypostasis of the angel as essence with sanctification. If therefore everything which is one in number is not one in nature, and that which is one and simple in nature is not one in number; and if we call God one in nature how can number be charged against us, when we utterly exclude it from that blessed and spiritual nature? Number relates to quantity; and quantity is conjoined with bodily nature, for number is of bodily nature. We believe our Lord to be Creator of bodies. Wherefore every number indicates those things which have received a material and circumscribed nature. Monad and Unity on the other hand signify the nature which is simple and incomprehensible. Whoever therefore confesses either the Son of God or the Holy Ghost to be number or creature introduces unawares a material and circumscribed nature. And by circumscribed I mean not only locally limited, but a nature which is comprehended in foreknowledge by Him who is about to educe it from the non-existent into the existent and which can be comprehended by science. Every holy thing then of which the nature is circumscribed and of which the holiness is acquired is not insusceptible of evil. But the Son and the Holy Ghost are the source of sanctification by which every reasonable creature is hallowed in proportion to its virtue.
3. We in accordance with the true doctrine speak of the Son as neither like, nor unlike the Father. Each of these terms is equally impossible, for like and unlike are predicated in relation to quality, and the divine is free from quality. We, on the contrary, confess identity of nature and accepting the consubstantiality, and rejecting the composition of the Father, God in substance, Who begat the Son, God in substance. From this the consubstantiality is proved. For God in essence or substance is co-essential or con-substantial with God in essence or substance. But when even man is called "God" as in the words, "I have said ye are gods," and "demon" as in the words, "The gods of the nations are demons," in the former case the name is given by favor, in the latter untruly. God alone is substantially and essentially God. When I say "alone" I set forth the holy and uncreated essence and substance of God. For the word "alone" is used in the case of any individual and generally of human nature. In the case of an individual, as for instance of Paul, that he alone was caught into the third heaven and "heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter," and of human nature, as when David says, "as for man his days are as grass," not meaning any particular man, but human nature generally; for every man is short-lived and mortal. So we understand these words to be said of the nature, "who alone hath immortality" and "to God only wise," and "none is good save one, that is God," for here "one" means the same as alone. So also, "which alone spreadest out the heavens," and again "Thou shall worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve." "There is no God beside me." In Scripture "one" and "only" are not predicated of God to mark distinction from the Son and the Holy Ghost, but to except the unreal gods falsely so called. As for instance, "The Lord alone did lead them and there was no strange God with them," and "then the children of Israel did put away Baalim and Ashtaroth, and did serve the Lord only." And so St. Paul, "For as there be gods many and lords many, but to us there is but out God, the Father, of whom are all things; and one Lord Jesus Christ by Whom are all things." Here we enquire why when he had said "one God" he was not content, for we have said that "one" and "only" when applied to God, indicate nature. Why did he add the word Father and make mention of Christ? Paul, a chosen vessel, did not, I imagine, think it sufficient only to preach that the Son is God and the Holy Ghost God, which he had expressed by the phrase "one God." without, by the further addition of "the Father," expressing Him of Whom are all things; and, by mentioning the Lord, signifying s the Word by Whom are all things; and yet further, by adding the words Jesus Christ, announcing the incarnation, setting forth the passion and publishing the resurrection. For the word Jesus Christ suggests all these ideas to us. For this reason too before His passion our Lord deprecates the designation of "Jesus Christ," and charges His disciples to "tell no man that He was Jesus, the Christ." For His purpose was, after the completion of the oeconomy, after His resurrection froth the dead, and His assumption into heaven, to commit to them the preaching of Him as Jesus, the Christ. Such is the force of the words "That they may know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent," and again "Ye believe in God, believe also in me." Everywhere the Holy Ghost secures our conception of Him to save us from falling in else direction while we advance in the other, heeding the theology but neglecting the oeconomy, and so by omission falling into impiety.
4. Now let us examine, and to the best of our ability explain, the meaning of the words of Holy Scripture, which our opponents seize and wrest to their own sense, and urge against us for the destruction of the glory of the Only -begotten. First of all take the words "I live because of the Father," for this is one of the shafts hurled heavenward by those who impiously use it. These words I do not understand to refer to the eternal life; for whatever lives because of something else cannot be self-existent, just as that which is warmed by another cannot be warmth itself; but He Who is our Christ and God says, "I am the life." I understand the life lived because of the Father to be this life in the flesh, and in this time. Of His own will He came to live the life of men. He did not say "I have lived because of the Father," but "I live because of the Father," clearly indicating the present time, and the Christ, having the word of God in Himself, is able to call the life which He leads, life, and that this is His meaning we shall learn from what follows. "He that eateth me," He says, "he also shall live because of me;" for we eat His flesh, and drink His blood, being made through His incarnation and His visible life partakers of His Word and of His Wisdom. For all His mystic sojourn among us He called flesh and blood, and set forth the teaching consisting of practical science, of physics, and of theology, whereby out soul is nourished and is meanwhile trained for the contemplation of actual realities. This is perhaps the intended meaning of what He says.
5. And again, "My Father is greater than I." This passage is also employed by the ungrateful creatures, the brood of the evil one. I believe that even from this passage the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father is set forth. For I know that comparisons may properly be made between things which are of the same nature. We speak of angel as greater than angel, of man as juster than man, of bird as fleeter than bird. If then comparisons are made between things of the same species, and the Father by comparison is said to be greater than the Son, then the Son is of the same substance as the Father. But there is another sense underlying the expression. In what is it extraordinary that He who "is the Word and was made flesh" confesses His Father to be greater than Himself, when He was seen in glory inferior to the angels, and in form to men? For "Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels," and again "Who was made a little lower than the angels," and "we saw Him and He had neither form nor comeliness, his form was deficient beyond all men." All this He endured on account of His abundant loving kindness towards His work, that He might save the lost sheep and bring it home when He had saved it, and bring back safe and sound to his own land the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and so fell among thieves. Will the heretic cast in His teeth the manger out of which he in his unreasonableness was fed by the Word of reason? Will he, because the carpenter's son had no bed to lie on, complain of His being poor? This is why the Son is less than the Father; for your sakes He was made dead to free you from death and make you sharer in heavenly life. It is just as though any one were to find fault with the physician for stooping to sickness, and breathing its foul breath, that he may heal the sick.
6. It is on thy account that He knows not the hour and the day of judgment. Yet nothing is beyond the ken of the real Wisdom, for "all things were made by Him; " and even among men no one is ignorant of what be has made. But this is His dispensation because of thine own infirmity, that sinners be not plunged into despair by the narrow limits of the appointed period, no opportunity for repentance being left them; and that, on the other hand, those who are waging a long war with the forces of the enemy may not desert their post on account of the protracted time. For both of these classes He arranges by means of His assumed ignorance; for the former cutting the time short for their glorious struggle's sake; for the latter providing an opportunity for repentance because of their sins. In the gospels He numbered Himself among the ignorant, on account, as I have said, of the infirmity of the greater part of mankind. In the Acts of the Apostles, speaking, as it were, to the perfect apart, He says, "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power." Here He implicitly excepts Himself. So much for a rough statement by way of preliminary attack. Now let us enquire into the meaning of the text from a higher point of view. Let me knock at the door of knowledge, if haply I may wake the Master of the house, Who gives the spiritual bread to them who ask Him, since they whom we are eager to entertain are friends and brothers.
7. Our Savior's holy disciples, after getting beyond the limits of human thought, and then being purified by the word, are enquiring about the end, and longing to know the ultimate blessedness which our Lord declared to be unknown to His angels and to Himself. He calls all the exact comprehension of the purposes of God, a day; and the contemplation of the Oneness and Unity, knowledge of which He attributes to the Father alone, an hour. I apprehend, therefore, that God is said to know of Himself what is; and not to know what is not God, Who is, of His own nature, very righteousness and wisdom, is said to know righteousness and wisdom; but to be ignorant of unrighteousness and wickedness; for God who created us is not unrighteousness and wickedness. If, then, God is said to know about Himself that which is, and not to know that which is not; and if our Lord, according to the purpose of the Incarnation and the denser doctrine, is not the ultimate object of desire; then our Savior does not know the end and the ultimate blessedness. But He says the angels do not know; that is to say, not even the contemplation which is in them, nor the methods of their ministries are the ultimate object of desire. For even their knowledge, when compared with the knowledge which is face to face, is dense. Only the Father, He says, knows, since He is Himself the end and the ultimate blessedness, for when we no longer know God in mirrors and not immediately, but approach Him as one and alone, then we shall know even the ultimate end. For all material knowledge is said to be the kingdom of Christ; while immaterial knowledge, and so to say the knowledge of actual Godhead, is that of God the Father. But our Lord is also Himself the end anti the ultimate blessedness according to the purpose of the Word; for what does He say in the Gospel? "I will raise him up at the last day." He calls the transition from material knowledge to immaterial contemplation a resurrection, speaking of that knowledge after which there is no other, as the last day: for our intelligence is raised up and roused to a height of blessedness at the time when it contemplates the Oneness and Unity of the Word. But since our intelligence is made dense and bound to earth, it is both commingled with clay and incapable of gazing intently in pure contemplation, being led through adornments cognate to its own body. It considers the operations of the Creator, and judges of them meanwhile by their effects, to the end that growing little by little it may one day wax strong enough to approach even the actual unveiled Godhead. This is the meaning, I think, of the words "my Father is greater than I," and also of the statement, "It is not mine to give save to those for whom it is prepared by my Father." This too is what is meant by Christ's "delivering up the kingdom to God even the Father;" inasmuch as according to the denser doctrine which, as I said, is regarded relatively to us and not to the Son Himself, He is not the end but the first fruits. It is in accordance with this view that when His disciples asked Him again in the Acts of the Apostles, "When wilt thou restore the kingdom of Israel?" He replied, "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power." That is to say, the knowledge of such a kingdom is not for them that are bound in flesh and blood. This contemplation the Father hath put away in His own power, meaning by "power" those that are empowered, and by "His own" those who are not held down by the ignorance of things below. Do not, I beg you, have in mind times and seasons of sense but certain distinctions of knowledge made by the sun apprehended by mental perception. For our Lord's prayer must be carried out. It is Jesus Who prayed "Grant that they may be one in us as I and Thou are one, Father." For when God, Who is one, is in each, He makes all out; and number is lost in the indwelling of Unity.
This is my second attempt to attack the text. If any one has a better interpretation to give, and can consistently with true religion amend what I say, let him speak and let him amend, and the Lord will reward him for me. There is no jealousy in my heart. I have not approached this investigation of these passages for strife and vain glory. I have done so to help my brothers, lest the earthen vessels which hold the treasure of God should seem to be deceived by stony-hearted and uncircumcised men, whose weapons are the wisdom of folly.
8. Again, as is said through Solomon the Wise in the Proverbs, "He was created;" and He is named "Beginning of ways" of good news, which lead us to the kingdom of heaven. He is not in essence and substance a creature, but is made a "way" according to the oeconomy. Being made and being created signify the same thing. As He was made a way, so was He made a door, a shepherd, an angel, a sheep, and again a High Priest and an Apostle, the names being used in other senses. What again would the heretics say about God unsubjected, and about His being made sin for us? For it is written "But when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him." Are you not afraid, sir, of God called unsubjected? For He makes thy subjection His own; and because of thy struggling against goodness He calls himself unsubjected. In this sense too He once spoke of Himself as persecuted — "Saul, Saul," He says, "why persecutest thou me?" on the occasion when Saul was hurrying to Damascus with a desire to imprison the disciples. Again He calls Himself naked, when any one of his brethren is naked. "I was naked," He says, "and ye clothed me;" and so when another is in prison He speaks of Himself as imprisoned, for He Himself took away our sins and bare our sicknesses. Now one of our infirmities is not being subject, and He bare this. So all the things which happen to us to our hurt He makes His own, taking upon Him our sufferings in His fellowship with us.
9. But another passage is also seized by those who are fighting against God to the perversion of their hearers: I mean the words "The Son can do nothing of Himself." To me this saying too seems distinctly declaratory of the Son' s being of the same nature as the Father. For if every rational creature is able to do anything of himself, and the inclination which each has to the worse and to the better is in his own power, but the Son can do nothing of Himself, then the Son is not a creature. And if He is not a creature, then He is of one essence and substance with the Father. Again; no creature can do what be likes. But the Son does what He wills in heaven and in earth. Therefore the Son is not a creature. Again; all creatures are either constituted of contraries or receptive of contraries. But the Son is very righteousness, and immaterial. Therefore the Son is not a creature, and if He is not a creature, He is of one essence and substance with the Father.
10. This examination of the passages before us is, so far as my ability goes, sufficient. Now let us turn the discussion on those who attack the Holy Spirit, and cast down every high thing of their intellect that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. You say that the Holy Ghost is a creature. And every creature is a servant of the Creator, for "all are thy servants." If then He is a servant, His holiness is acquired; and everything of which the holiness is acquired is receptive of evil; but the Holy Ghost being holy in essence is called "fount of holiness," Therefore the Holy Ghost is not a creature. If He is not a creature. He is of one essence and substance with the Father. How, tell me, can you give the name of servant to Him Who through your baptism frees you from your servitude? "The law," it is said, "of the Spirit of life hath made me free from the law of sin." But you will never venture to call His nature even variable, so long as you have regard to the nature of the opposing power of the enemy, which, like lightning, is fallen from heaven and fell out of the true life because its holiness was acquired, and its evil counsels were followed by its change. So when it had fallen away from the Unity and had cast from it its angelic dignity, it was named after its character" Devil," its former arid blessed condition being extinct and this hostile power being kindled.
Furthermore if he calls the Holy Ghost a creature he describes His nature as limited. How then can the two following passages stand? "The Spirit of the Lord filleth the world;" and "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?" But he does not, it would seem, confess Him to be simple in nature; for he describes Him as one in number. And, as I have already said, everything that is one in number is not simple. And if the Holy Spirit is not simple, He consists of essence and sanctification, and is therefore composite. But who is mad enough to describe the Holy Spirit as composite, and not simple, and consubstantial with the Father and the Son?
1 1. If we ought to advance our argument yet further, and turn our inspection to higher themes, let us contemplate the divine nature of the Holy Spirit specially flora the following point of view. In Scripture we find mention of three creations. The first is the evolution from non-being into being. The second is change from the worse to the better. The third is the resurrection of the dead. In these you will find the Holy Ghost cooperating with the Father and the Son. There is a bringing into existence of the heavens; and what says David? "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth." Again, man is created through baptism, for "if any man be in Christ he is a new creature." And why does the Savior say to the disciples, "Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost"? Here too you see the Holy Ghost present with the Father and the Son. And what would you say also as to the resurrection of the dead when we shall have failed and returned to our dust? Dust we are and unto dust we shall return. And He will send the Holy Ghost and create us and renew the face of the earth. For what the holy Paul calls resurrection David describes as renewal. Let us hear, once more, him who was caught into the third heaven. What does he say? "You are the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you." Now every temple is a temple of God, and if we are a temple of the Holy Ghost, then the Holy Ghost is God. It is also called Solomon's temple, but this is in the sense of his being its builder. And if we are a temple of the Holy Ghost in this sense, then the Holy Ghost is God, for "He that built all things is God." If we are a temple of one who is worshipped, and who dwells in us, let us confess Him to be God, for thou shale worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shall thou serve. Supposing them to object to the word "God," let them learn what this word means. God is called Qebc, either because He placed (xeGeiKevoci) all things or because He beholds (QeaaQai) all things. If He is called Qebc, because He "placed" or "beholds" all things, and the Spirit knoweth all the things of God, as the Spirit in us knoweth our things, then the Holy Ghost is God. Again, if the sword of the spirit is the word of God, then the Holy Ghost is God, inasmuch as the sword belongs to Him of whom it is also called the word. Is He named the right hand of the Father? For "the right hand of the Lord bringeth mighty things to pass;" and "thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy." But the Holy Ghost is the finger of God, as it is said "if I by the finger of God cast out devils," of which the version in another Gospel is "if I by the Spirit of God cast out devils." So the Holy Ghost is of the same nature as the Father and the Son.