mortification that is given by the water, not certainly a complete effacement, but a kind of break in the continuity of the evil, two things concurring to this removal of sin—the penitence of the transgressor and his imitation of the death. By these two things the man is in a measure freed from his congenital tendency to evil; by his penitence he advances to a hatred of and averseness from sin, and by his death he works out the suppression of the evil. But had it been possible for him in his imitation to undergo a complete dying, the result would be not imitation but identity; and the evil of our nature would so entirely vanish that, as the Apostle says, “he would die unto sin once for all?"°!,” But since, as has been said, we only so far imitate the transcendent Power as the poverty of our nature is capable of, by having the water thrice poured on us and ascending again up from the water, we enact that saving burial and resurrection which took place on the third day, with this thought in our mind, that as we have power over the water both to be in it and arise out of it, so He too, Who has the universe at His sovereign disposal, immersed Himself in death, as we in the water, to 2032 +4 His own blessedness. If, therefore, one looks to that which is in reason, and return judges of the results according to the power inherent in either party, one will discover no disproportion in these results, each in proportion to the measure of his natural power 2030 €ntxedpevoc. This may be pressed to imply that immersion was not absolutely necessary. So below to USWP TPG EMLYEAPEVOL 2031 épdmaé. So Rom. vi. 10, “He died unto sin once” (A.V.); i.e. once for all. 2032 dvadverv. Cf. Philip. i. 23 (avadtdoat).
Chapter XXXV working out the effects that are within his reach. For, as it is in the power of man, if he is so disposed, to touch the water and yet be safe, with infinitely greater ease may death be handled by the Divine Power so as to be in it and yet not to be changed by it injuriously. Observe, then, that it is necessary for us to rehearse beforehand in the water the grace of the resurrec- tion, to the intent that we may understand that, as far as facility goes, it is the same thing for us to be baptized with water and to rise again from death. But as in matters that concern our life here, there are some which take precedence of others, as being those without which the result could not be achieved, although if the beginning be compared with the end, the beginning so contrasted will seem of no account (for what equality, for instance, is there between the man and that which is laid as a foundation for the constitution of his animal being? And yet if that had never been, neither would this be which we see), in like manner that which happens in the great resurrection, essentially vaster though it be, has its beginnings and its causes here; it is not, in fact, possible that that should take place, unless this had gone before; I mean, that without the laver of regeneration it is impossible for the man to be in the resurrection; but in saying this I do not regard the mere remoulding and refashioning of our composite body; for towards this it is absolutely necessary that human nature should advance, being constrained thereto by its own laws according to the dispensation of Him Who has so ordained, whether it have received the grace of the laver, or whether it remains without that initiation: but I am thinking of the restoration to a blessed and divine condition, separated from all shame and sorrow. For not everything that is granted in the resurrection a return to existence will return to the same kind of life. There is a wide interval between those who have been purified, and those who still need purification. For those in whose life- time 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 abso- lutely 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.
2033 oie 5é MpocenwpwOn ta n4ON.
Chapter XXXVI Chapter XXXVI.
For common sense as well as the teaching of Scripture shows that it is impossible for one who has not thoroughly cleansed himself from all the stains arising from evil to be ad- mitted amongst the heavenly company. This is a thing which, though little in itself, is the beginning and foundation of great blessings. I call it little on account of the facility of the means of amendment. For what difficulty is there in this matter? viz. to believe that God is everywhere, and that being in all things He is also present with those who call upon Him for His life-supporting power, and that, thus present, He does that which properly belongs to Him to do. Now, the work properly belonging to the Divine energy is the salvation of those who need it; and this salvation proves effectual”°>* by means of the cleansing in the water; and he that has been so cleansed will participate in Purity; and true Purity is Deity. You see, then, how small a thing it is in its beginning, and how easily effected; I mean, faith and water; the first residing within the will, the latter being the nursery companion of the life of man. But as to the blessing which springs from these two things, oh! how great and how wonderful it is, that it should imply relationship with Deity itself!
2034S. John iii. 5 Chapter XXXVII Chapter XXXVII.
But since the human being is a twofold creature, compounded of soul and body, it is £?°5° the Author of the new life through both their component parts. Accordingly, the soul being fused into Him through faith derives from necessary that the saved should lay hold o that the means and occasion of salvation; for the act of union with the life implies a fellowship with the life. But the body comes into fellowship and blending with the Author of our salva- tion in another way. For as they who owing to some act of treachery have taken poison, allay its deadly influence by means of some other drug (for it is necessary that the antidote should enter the human vitals in the same way as the deadly poison, in order to secure, through them, that the effect of the remedy may be distributed through the entire system), in like manner we, who have tasted the solvent of our nature??*° , necessarily need something that may combine what has been so dissolved, so that such an antidote entering within us may, by its own counter-influence, undo the mischief introduced into the body by the poison. What, then, is this remedy to be? Nothing else than that very Body which has been shown to be superior to death, and has been the First-fruits of our life. For, in the manner that, as 2037 4 little leaven assimilates to itself the whole lump, so in like manner the Apostle says that body to which immortality has been given it by God, when it is in ours, translates and transmutes the whole into itself. For as by the admixture of a poisonous liquid with a wholesome one the whole drought is deprived of its deadly effect, so too the immortal Body, by being within that which receives it, changes the whole to its own nature. Yet in no other way can anything enter within the body but by being transfused through the vitals by eating and drinking. It is, therefore, incumbent on the body to admit this life-producing power in the one way that its constitution makes possible. And since that Body only which was the receptacle of the Deity received this grace of immortality, and since it has been shown that in no other way was it possible for our body to become immortal, but by participating in incorruption through its fellowship with that immortal Body, it will be necessary to consider how it was possible that that one Body, being for ever portioned to so many myriads of the faithful throughout the whole world, enters through that portion, whole into each individual, and yet remains whole in itself. In order, therefore, that our faith, with eyes fixed on logical probability, may harbour no doubt on the subject before us, it is fitting to make a slight di- gression in our argument, to consider the physiology of the body. Who is there that does not know that our bodily frame, taken by itself, possesses no life in its own proper subsistence, 2035 épanteoOar. Krabinger prefers this to €pémeoOa1 (Paris Edit.), as more suitable to what follows. 2036 Gregory seems here to refer to Eve’s eating the apple, which introduced a moral and physical poison into our nature. General Gordon’s thoughts (“in Palestine”) took the same direction as the whole of this passage; which Fronto Duczeus (as quoted by Krabinger) would even regard as a proof of transubstantiation.
Chapter XXXVII but that it is by the influx of a force or power from without that it holds itself together and continues in existence, and by a ceaseless motion that it draws to itself what it wants, and repels what is superfluous? When a leathern bottle is full of some liquid, and then the contents leak out at the bottom, it would not retain the contour of its full bulk unless there entered in at the top something else to fill up the vacuum; and thus a person, seeing the circumference of this bottle swollen to its full size, would know that this circumference did not really belong to the object which he sees, but that what was being poured in, by being in it, gave shape and roundness to the bulk. In the same way the mere framework of our body possesses nothing belonging to itself that is cognizable by us, to hold it together, but remains in exist- ence owing to a force that is introduced into it. Now this power or force both is, and is called, nourishment. But it is not the same in all bodies that require aliment, but to each of them has been assigned a food adapted to its condition by Him who governs Nature. Some animals feed on roots which they dig up. Of others grass is the food, of others different kinds of flesh, but for man above all things bread; and, in order to continue and preserve the moisture of his body, drink, not simply water, but water frequently sweetened with wine, to join forces with our internal heat. He, therefore, who thinks of these things, thinks by implication?”°8 of the particular bulk of our body. For those things by being within me became my blood and flesh, the corresponding nutriment by its power of adaptation being changed into the form of my body. With these distinctions we must return to the consideration of the question before us. 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. Ifthe subsist- ence 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, 2038 = duvdpet.
Chapter XXXVII 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 2040 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), by the Word of God and prayer”; not that it advances by the process of eating 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 2040 by the process of eating, 81a Bpwoews. There is very little authority for kai méoews which follows in some Codd. If Krabinger’s text is here correct, Gregory distinctly teaches a transmutation of the elements very like the later transubstantiation: he also distinctly teaches that the words of consecration effect the change. There seems no reason to doubt that the text is correct. The three Latin interpretations, “a verbo transmutatus,” “statim a verbo transmutatus,” “per verbum mutatus,” of Hervetus, Morell, and Zinus, all point to their having found TIPOS TO OMpa 51a to’ Adyov pEtamo1obpEVos in the text: and this is the reading of Cod. Reg. (the other reading is TpOG TO Opa Tod Adyov). A passage from Justin Mart., Apol. ii. p. 77, also supports Krabinger’s text. Justin says, “so we are taught that that food which has been blessed by the pronouncing of the word that came from Him, which food by changing nourishes our blood and flesh, is the flesh and blood of that Incarnate Jesus.” As to the nature of the change (1p0¢ tO o@pa pEtaToLovpEVOG), another passage in Gregory (In Baptism. Christi, 370 A) should be compared: “The bread again, was for a while common bread, but when the mystic word shall have consecrated it (igpovpyrjon), it is called, and moreover is, the body of Christ.” He says also at the end of this chapter, “He gives these gifts by virtue of the benediction through which He transelements (uetaotoiye1woas) the natural quality (pvotv) of these visible things to that immortal thing.” Harnack does not attempt to weaken the force of these and other passages, but only points out that the idea of this change does not exactly correspond (how could it?) with the medizeval scholastically-philosophical “transubstantiation.” Gregory’s belief is that, just as the Word, when Christ was here in the flesh, rendered holy His body that assimilated bread, which still in a manner remained bread, so now the bread is sanctified by the Word of God and by prayer. “The idea,” says Neander, “of the repetition of the consecration of the Adyoc had taken hold of his mind.” The construction is Tpot& 241-v (ote) yevéoOan Eig TO Opa tod Adyou, “eo progrediens, ut verbi corpus evadat.”
Chapter XXXVIT 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 bea 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.
2041 = petaoto1yerwoas. Suicer labours, without success, to show that the word is not equivalent to transele- mentare or wetouvoiobv, but only to substantiam convertere, i.e. to change by an addition of grace into another mode or use. In the passages from Epiphanius which Suicer adduces for “figure,” “mode,” as a meaning of otoixeiov itself, that word means a sign of the zodiac (as in our Gregory’s De Anima et Resurr., it means the moon), only because the heavenly bodies are the elements or first principles as it were of the celestial alphabet. The other meaning of uetaoto1xeobv which he gives, i.e. to unteach, with a view to obscure the literal meaning here, is quite inapplicable. Gregory defines more clearly than Chrysostom (uetappvOutJeo8a1), Theophylact (uetamotetoBa1), and John Damascene (uetaBaAAgo8an), the change that takes place: but all go beyond Theodoret’s (Dial. ii), “not changing nature, but adding grace to the nature,” which Suicer endeavours to read into this word of Gregory’s. It is to be noticed, too, that in Philo the word is used of Xerxes changing in his march one element into another, i.e. earth into water, not the mere use of the one into the use of the other.
Chapter XXXVITI Chapter XXXVIII.
There is now, I think, wanting in these remarks no answer to inquiries concerning the h?04?; which we give briefly in the present treatise. For Gospel mystery, except that on Fait those who require a more elaborate account we have already published it in other works of ours, in which we have explained the subject with all the earnestness and accuracy in our power. In those treatises we have both fought???
controversially with our opponents, and also have taken private consultation with ourselves as to the questions which have been brought against us. But in the present discussion we have thought it as well only to say just so much on the subject of faith as is involved in the language of the Gospel, namely, that one who is begotten by the spiritual regeneration may know who it is that begets him, and what sort of creature he becomes. For it is only this form of generation which has in it the power to become what it chooses to be.
2042 Faith. Cf. Church Catechism; “Faith whereby they steadfastly believe the promises of God made to them in that Sacrament (of Baptism).”
2043 ovvenAdknuev, i.e. against Eunomius, in defence of the equality of the Trinity in the Baptismal symbol. Often as Gregory in that treatise opposes Eunomius for placing the essence of Christianity in mere yv@o1c and dSoypdtwv aKpiPera, as against God’s incomprehensibility, and knowledge only by the heart, he had yet spent his whole life in showing the supreme importance of accuracy in the formulas upon which the Faith rested. This helps to give a date for the Great Catechism.
Chapter XXXIX Chapter XXXIX.
For, while all things else that are born are subject to the impulse of those that beget them, the spiritual birth is dependent on the power of him who is being born. Seeing, then, that here lies the hazard, namely, that he should not miss what is for his advantage, when to every one a free choice is thus open, it were well, I think, for him who is moved towards the begetting of himself, to determine by previous reasoning what kind of father is for his advantage, and of what element it is better for him that his nature should consist. For, as we have said, it is in the power of such a child as this to choose its parents. Since, then, there is a twofold division of existences, into created and uncreated, and since the uncreated world possesses within itself immutability and immobility, while the created is liable to change and alteration, of which will he, who with calculation and deliberation is to choose what is for his benefit, prefer to be the offspring; of that which is always found in a state of change, or of that which possesses a nature that is changeless, steadfast, and ever consistent and unvarying in goodness? Now there have been delivered to us in the Gospel three Persons and names through whom the generation or birth of believers takes place, and he who is begotten by this Trinity is equally begotten of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost—for thus does the Gospel speak of the Spirit, that “that which is born of Spirit is spirit?°4” and it is “in Christ?°*” that Paul begets, and the Father is the “Father of all;” here, then, I beg, let the mind of the hearer be sober in its choice, lest it make itself the off- spring of some inconstant nature, when it has it in its power to make the steadfast and un- alterable nature the founder of its life. For according to the disposition of heart in one who comes to the Dispensation will that which is begotten in him exhibit its power; so that he who confesses that the Holy Trinity is uncreate enters on the steadfast unalterable life; while another, who through a mistaken conception sees only a created nature in the Trinity and then is baptized in that, has again been born into the shifting and alterable life. For that which is born is of necessity of one kindred with that which begets. Which, then, offers the greater advantage; to enter on the unchangeable life, or to be again tossed about by the waves of this lifetime of uncertainty and change? Well, since it is evident to any one of the least understanding that what is stable is far more valuable than what is unstable, what is perfect than what is deficient, what needs not than what needs, and what has no further to advance, but ever abides in the perfection of all that is good, than what climbs by progressive toil, it is incumbent upon every one, at least upon every one who is possessed of sense, to make an absolute choice of one or other of these two conditions, either to believe that the Holy Trinity belongs to the uncreated world, and so through the spiritual birth to make It the foundation of his own life, or, if he thinks that the Son or the Holy Ghost is external to the Chapter XXXIX being of the first, the true, the good, God, I mean, of the Father, not to include these Persons in the belief which he takes upon him at the moment of his new birth, lest he unconsciously make himself over to that imperfect nature*”“6 which itself needs some one to make it good, and in a manner bring himself back again to something of the same nature as his own by thus removing his faith?°*” from that higher world. For whoever has bound himself to any created thing forgets that, as from the Deity, he has no longer hope of salvation. For all creation, owing to the whole equally proceeding from non-existence into being, has an in- timate connection with itself; and as in the bodily organization all the limbs have a natural and mutual coherence, though some have a downward, some an upward direction, so the world of created things is, viewed as the creation, in oneness with itself, and the differences in us, as regards abundance or deficiency, in no wise disjoint it from this natural coherence with itself. For in things which equally imply the idea of a previous non-existence, though there be a difference between them in other respects, as regards this point we discover no variation of nature. If, then, man, who is himself a created being, thinks that the Spirit and the Only-begotten Goa to a better state will be a vain one; for he only returns to himsel are likewise created, the hope which he entertains of a change £2949 What happens then is ona par with the surmises of Nicodemus; he, when instructed by our Lord as to the necessity of being born from above, because he could not yet comprehend the meaning of the mystery, had his thoughts drawn back to his mother’s womb”, So that if a man does not conduct himself towards the uncreated nature, but to that which is kindred to, and equally in bondage with, himself, he is of the birth which is from below, and not of that which is from above.
But the Gospel tells us that the birth of the saved is from above.
2046 imperfect nature: i.e. of a creature (kt10t6c); for instance, of a merely human Christ, which himself needs, and therefore cannot give, perfection. 2047 removing his faith: i.e. as he would do, if he placed it on beings whom he knew were not of that higher, uncreated, world 2048 and the Only-begotten God. One Cod. reads here vi& 231'v (not 6¢év), as it is in S. John i. 18, though even there “many very ancient authorities” (R.V.) read 8gov. The Latin of Hervetus implies an ovk here; “et unigenitum Deum non esse existimant;” and Glauber would retain it, making KTLOTOV = Gedv ovK Eivar. But Krabinger found no ovx in any of his Codd. 2049 mpoc Exvtov &vadvwv, as explained above, i.e. Eig TO OMOYEVES EaUTOV Eloayayn. 2050 S. John iii. 4 Chapter XL Chapter XL.
But, as far as what has been already said, the instruction of this Catechism does not seem to me to be yet complete. For we ought, in my opinion, to take into consideration the pve! overlook, sequel of this matter; which many of those who come to the grace of baptism being led astray, and self-deceived, and indeed only seemingly, and not really, regenerate. For that change in our life which takes place through regeneration will not be change, if we continue in the state in which we were. I do not see how it is possible to deem one who is still in the same condition, and in whom there has been no change in the distinguishing features of his nature, to be any other than he was, it being palpable to every one that it is for a renovation and change of our nature that the saving birth is received. And yet human nature does not of itself admit of any change in baptism; neither the reason, nor the under- standing, nor the scientific faculty, nor any other peculiar characteristic of man is a subject for change. Indeed the change would be for the worse if any one of these properties of our nature were exchanged away~”>” for something else. If, then, the birth from above is a def- inite refashioning of the man, and yet these properties do not admit of change, it is a subject for inquiry what that is in him, by the changing of which the grace of regeneration is perfec- ted. It is evident that when those evil features which mark our nature have been obliterated a change to a better state takes place. If, then, by being “washed,” as says the Prophet”°*?, in that mystic bath we become “clean” in our wills and “put away the evil” of our souls, we thus become better men, and are changed to a better state. But if, when the bath has been applied to the body, the soul has not cleansed itself from the stains of its passions and affec- tions, but the life after initiation keeps on a level with the uninitiate life, then, though it may be a bold thing to say, yet I will say it and will not shrink; in these cases the water is but water, for the gift of the Holy Ghost in no ways appears in him who is thus baptismally born; whenever, that is, not only the deformity of anger”?
, or the passion of greed, or the un- bridled and unseemly thought, with pride, envy, and arrogance, disfigures the Divine image, but the gains, too, of injustice abide with him, and the woman he has procured by adultery still even after that ministers to his pleasures. If these and the like vices, after, as before, surround the life of the baptized, I cannot see in what respects he has been changed; for I 2051 We need not consider this passage about Regeneration as an interpolation, with Aubertin, De Sacram. Eucharist. lib. ii. p. 487, because Gregory has already dealt with Baptism in ch. xxxv.-xxxvi.; and then with the Eucharist: his view of the relation between the two Sacraments, that the Eucharist unites the body, as Baptism the soul to God, quite explains this return to the preliminaries of this double union.
2052 = bmaperpOein. A word almost peculiar to this Gregory.
2054 tO Kata Tov BvpOV aioxoc. Quite wrongly the Latin translators, “animi turpitudo,” i.e. baseness of mind, which is mentioned just below.
Chapter XL observe him the same man as he was before. The man whom he has unjustly treated, the man whom he has falsely accused, the man whom he has forcibly deprived of his property, these, as far as they are concerned, see no change in him though he has been washed in the laver of baptism. They do not hear the cry of Zacchzeus from him as well: “If I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore fourfold?”°°.” What they said of him before his baptism, the same they now more fully declare; they call him by the same names, a covetous person, one who is greedy of what belongs to others, one who lives in luxury at the cost of men’s calamities. Let such an one, therefore, who remains in the same moral condition as before, and then babbles to himself of the beneficial change he has received from baptism, listen to what Paul says: “If a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself”?°°.” For what you have not become, that you are not. “As many as received Him,” thus speaks the Gospel of those who have been born again, “to them gave He power to become the sons of Go Now the child born of any one is entirely