Letters 1 part 24/32

But pray for him, that God may grant him one day to behold his own church healed of the wounds of heretical terrors; and deem us worthy of a visit indeed, while we are still upon the earth.

Do a deed consistent with your own character, and worthy of the greatest prayer on our part.

One must also marvel at the intent of your blessings, in that through riddles you prayed for us a vigorous old age.

For you showed that, by the carriages, you rouse us to nightly labors, while by the sweetmeats you pledge us to being braced in vigor throughout every part of the body.

For chewing hard food does not suit my age, since my teeth have long since been worn away, both by time and by illness.

As for the questions you asked, certain answers have been given in the memorandum, such as were possible for me, and as the occasion allowed.

TO AMPHILOCHIUS, BISHOP, WHO HAD ASKED A QUESTION. I myself also know, having heard of this, and I recognize the constitution of human beings.

namely, that humanity is made according to the image of its Creator, and that the activity of the mind is good, and that, since it is ever in motion, it often forms images of things that do not exist as though they existed, but often too is carried straight to the truth.

But since, according to our belief - that of those who have come to believe in God - two powers have grown up alongside it: the one evil, that of the demons, dragging us along toward their own apostasy, and the other more divine and good, leading us up toward likeness to God: when the mind remains by itself, it perceives small things, things proportionate to itself; but when it gives itself over to those who deceive it, having obliterated its own faculty of judgment, it keeps company with strange fantasies.

Then it supposes that wood is not wood, but a god, and it judges gold to be not money, but an object of worship.

But if it inclines toward the more divine portion and receives the graces of the Spirit, then it becomes capable of apprehending the more divine realities, to the extent that is proportionate to its nature.

There are, then, as it were three states of life, and our mind's activities are equal in number to these.

For either our pursuits are wicked, and clearly our mind's movements are wicked as well;

such as adulteries, thefts, idolatries, slanders, contentions, fits of anger, rivalries, arrogances, and whatever else the apostle Paul enumerated among the works of the flesh.

Or the soul's activity is a certain middle state, having in it nothing condemnable nor anything praiseworthy;

as is the practice of these manual crafts, which indeed we call "middle" arts, inclining in their own nature neither toward virtue nor toward vice.

For what evil is there in the art of navigation or of medicine? Yet neither are these virtues in themselves; rather, from the intention of those who practice them, they incline toward one or the other of the opposite portions.

The mind, however, that has been mingled with the divinity of the Spirit, this now becomes a beholder of the great contemplations and perceives the divine beauties — yet only to the extent that grace grants and its own constitution can receive.

Therefore, let them abandon those dialectical questionings, and examine the truth not with malicious cunning, but with reverence.

For our God is Truth itself.

Therefore it is the mind's foremost task to come to know our God;

to know him, that is, in the way that the infinitely great can be known by the very smallest.

For it is not the case that, because the eyes are appointed for the perception of visible things, all visible things are therefore brought under sight.

For not even the hemisphere of heaven is beheld in a single glance; rather, an impression of vision surrounds us, but in truth there are many things in it — not to say all — that remain unknown;

the nature of the stars, their magnitudes, their distances apart, their motions, their conjunctions, their separations, their other relations, the very substance of the firmament, the depth from its concave circumference to its convex surface.

Yet even so we would not say that the heaven is invisible because of what remains unknown, but rather that it is visible on account of our moderate comprehension of it.

If the mind has been harmed by demons, it will fall into idolatry or be turned aside into some other form of impiety.

But if it has given itself over to the help of the Spirit, it will come to know the truth and will come to know God.

It will know him, however, as the Apostle said, in part;

but in the life that comes after this, more perfectly;

for when that which is more perfect comes, that which is in part will be done away.

Thus the mind's faculty of judgment is good, and given for a useful end, namely the comprehension of God, yet it operates only to the extent that it is capable of receiving.

TO THE SAME, ON ANOTHER QUESTION. Do you worship what you know, or what you do not know? If we answer that we worship what we know, their retort comes swiftly:

"Then you worship what you do not know."

But we say that "to know" has many meanings.

For we say that we know the majesty of God, and his power, and his wisdom, and his goodness, and the providence by which he cares for us, and the justice of his judgment — but not his very essence.

So the question is malicious.

For one who does not claim to know his essence has not thereby confessed that he does not know God, since our concept of God is gathered from the many attributes we have enumerated.

"But," he says, "God is simple, and whatever attribute one enumerates of him is a knowable aspect of his essence."

But this is a sophism containing countless absurdities.

Since so many attributes have been enumerated, are all of these names of a single essence? And is his terribleness equivalent to his love of mankind, and his justice to his creative power, his foreknowledge to his retributive power, his greatness to his providence — or, whichever of these we name, do we thereby signify the essence? For if this is what they mean, let them not ask whether we know the essence of God, but let them inquire of us whether we know God to be terrible, or just, or loving toward mankind. These things we confess we know.

But if they mean something else by "essence," let them not deceive us by appealing to simplicity.

For they themselves have admitted that the essence is one thing, and each of the enumerated attributes another.

"But," they say, "the activities are various, while the essence is simple."

But we say that we know our God from his activities, while we do not profess to approach his very essence.

For his activities descend to us, but his essence remains inaccessible.

"But," he says, "if you do not know the essence, you do not know him."

We reply that, if you claim to know his essence, then in fact you do not know him.

For neither does the man bitten by a mad dog, who sees the dog's image in the water-basin, see more than those who are healthy; rather, he is pitiable precisely because he thinks he sees what he does not see.

Do not, then, admire this man for his profession, but judge him pitiable for his derangement.

Know, then, that this saying is the voice of those who are merely playing games:

"If you do not know the essence of God, then you worship what you do not know."

But I know that he exists; what his essence is, I place beyond the reach of my understanding.

Faith is sufficient to know that God is, not what he is, and he becomes a rewarder of those who seek him.

Knowledge of the divine essence, then, consists in the perception of its incomprehensibility; and what is to be revered is not the comprehension of what the essence is, but the comprehension that the essence exists.

No one has ever seen God;

the Only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.

What did the Only-begotten make known of the Father? His essence, or his power? If it was his power, then we know exactly as much as he made known to us.

But if it was his essence, tell me, where did he say that the Father's unbegottenness is essence? When did Abraham worship? Was it not when he believed? And when did he believe? Was it not when he was called? Where, then, is comprehension of the essence attested to him by Scripture? And when did the disciples worship him? Was it not when they saw creation made subject to him? For it was from the sea and the winds obeying him that they came to know his divinity.

Therefore knowledge comes from the activities, and worship comes from knowledge.

"Do you believe that I am able to do this?" "I believe, Lord," and he worshiped him.

Thus worship follows upon faith, and faith is confirmed by power.

But if you say that the one who believes also knows, then it is from the very things by which he believes that he also knows;

or, conversely, it is from the things by which he knows that he also believes.

But we come to know God from his power.

Thus we believe in him who has been known, and we worship him in whom we have believed.

Which comes first, knowledge or faith? We say that, in general, in the case of learning, faith precedes knowledge;

but in the case of our own subject, even if someone says that knowledge precedes faith, we do not disagree (meaning, of course, the knowledge that is proportionate to human comprehension).

For in the case of learning, one must first believe that a certain letter is called "alpha," and, having learned its shape and pronunciation, afterward attain also the precise understanding of the letter's function.

But in faith concerning God, the concept that God exists comes first, and this we gather from his creatures.

For, perceiving from the creation of the world that he is wise and powerful and good, and all his invisible attributes, we come to know him.

For since God is the creator of the whole world, and we are a part of the world, God is therefore also our creator.

Faith follows upon this knowledge, and worship follows upon such faith.

Now, since the term "knowledge" has many meanings, those who mock the more guileless, showing off in the same way with their paradoxes — like the sleight-of-hand performers in the theaters who steal the pebbles right before everyone's eyes — by their question about the general term snatch away the whole matter.

For since the term "knowledge" extends widely, and a thing is knowable in one respect according to number, in another according to magnitude, in another according to power, in another according to its mode of existence, in another according to the time of its generation, and in another according to essence, these men, taking up the whole matter in a single question — if they find us confessing that we know — demand of us knowledge of the essence;

but if they see us hesitating to make a flat denial, they turn upon us the reproach of impiety.

But we confess that we know what is knowable of God, while at the same time we know that there is something that escapes our comprehension.

So then, if you ask me whether I know what sand is, and I answer that I do, you would clearly be slandering me if you immediately also demanded of me its number; for your first question concerned the form of sand, but your second, an unfair accusation, turned instead upon its number.

This sophism is similar to the one who says:

"Do you know Timothy? Then, if you know Timothy, you also know his nature;"

But indeed you admitted that you know Timothy;

give us, then, an account of Timothy's nature.

I both know Timothy, and do not know him;

not, however, in the same respect and in the same way.

For it is not in the respect in which I know him that I also do not know him;

but in one respect I know him, and in another I do not know him.

For I know him according to his distinguishing mark and his other characteristic properties, but I do not know his substance.

Since even myself I both know and do not know in this same way.

For I know myself, who I am, but I do not know myself insofar as I am ignorant of my own substance.

Let them then explain to us how Paul said:

"Now we know in part."

Do we then know his substance in part, as though we knew parts of his substance? But that is absurd, for God is without parts.

But do we know it wholly? How then...

"when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away"? And of what are the idolaters accused? Is it not that, having known God, they did not glorify him as God? Or why are the foolish Galatians reproached by Paul, when he says:

"and the ass its master's manger"?

Did the ass, then, come to know the substance of the manger?

"But Israel," he says, "has not known me." Is this, according to you, the accusation against Israel — that it did not come to know whatever the substance of God happens to be?

"Pour out," he says, "your wrath upon the nations that do not know you" — that is, upon those who have not grasped your substance?

But knowledge, as we have said, is spoken of in many senses.

there is comprehension of him, and the keeping of his commandments, and intimacy with him.

But they, having thrust aside all these, drag the word "knowledge" toward a single meaning — the contemplation of the very substance of God.

"You shall place it before the testimonies, from there I will be known to you." Is "I will be known," then, equivalent to "I will manifest my substance"? "The Lord knew those who are his." Did he, then, know the substance of his own people, while being ignorant of the substance of the disobedient? "Adam knew his wife." Did he then come to know her substance? And concerning Rebecca:

"a virgin, whom no man had known." And:

"How shall this be, since I know not a man?" Did no one, then, come to know the substance of Rebecca? Does Mary mean this when she says:

"I have perceived the substance of no man"? Or is it rather Scripture's custom to use the word "knew" for marital union? And likewise "God shall be known from the mercy-seat" — that is, he shall be made manifest to those who worship him.

And "the Lord knew those who are his" means that he received them, through their good works, into intimacy with himself.

TO AMPHILOCHIUS, BISHOP. The gospel saying concerning our Lord Jesus Christ's ignorance of the day and the hour of the end has already been examined by many, and is especially and repeatedly put forward by the Anomoeans, for the overthrow of the glory of the Only-begotten, in proof of his unlikeness in substance and his inferiority in dignity — as though he who does not know all things could neither possess the same nature nor be conceived of as sharing one likeness with him who encompasses the knowledge of all things through his own foreknowing and all-surveying power over what is to come;

this has now been put forward to us by your intelligence as though it were something new.

What, then, we have heard from our fathers since childhood, and accepted without scrutiny because of our love for what is good, this we are able to say — not that it will dissolve the shamelessness of the Christ-fighters (for what argument could ever prove stronger than their impetuosity?), but as offering, perhaps, sufficient assurance to those who love the Lord and who possess, stronger than any answer from argument, the presupposition that comes from faith.

The word "no one" seems to be a universal expression, such that not even a single person is excepted by this term.

But it is not always so used in Scripture, as we have observed in the case of "No one is good but one, God." For there too the Son, in saying this, does not place himself outside the nature of the good, but we believe that the word "no one" is said with "first" understood along with it, since the Father is first good;

and likewise "No one knows the Son except the Father." For there too he does not accuse the Son of ignorance, but testifies that the knowledge of his own nature belongs, first, to the Father.

In the same way we think that "No one knows" is said, referring the primary knowledge of both things that are and things that shall be to the Father, and thereby showing men, through all things, the first cause.

For otherwise, how could the saying agree either with the rest of the testimonies of Scripture, or accord with the common conceptions of us who have believed that the Only-begotten is the image of the invisible God — an image, not of a bodily form, but of the very Godhead itself and of the majesties conceived in the substance of God, an image of power, an image of wisdom, according to which Christ is called "the power of God and the wisdom of God"? And knowledge is clearly a part of wisdom, which he would not image fully, if he fell short in some respects.

does he not know the end? For where he says, "the end is not yet," he speaks decisively, not as one in doubt, but as one who knows.

Moreover, indeed, to one who considers fairly, the Lord often speaks also from the human side.

And yet the one who asked was not soulless flesh, but the Godhead making use of ensouled flesh.

Thus, then, whoever applies the term "ignorance" to him who was advancing in wisdom and grace before God and men will not be carried outside of pious understanding.

It would belong to your diligence to set forth the gospel sayings and to compare with one another those of Matthew and of Mark.

For these two alone appear to agree with one another concerning this passage.

Matthew's wording, then, runs thus:

"But of that day no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but the Father only." And Mark's:

"But of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father." What, then, is worthy of note in these passages? That Matthew said nothing about the Son's ignorance, yet he seems to agree in sense with Mark by his saying, "but the Father only." But we hold that "only" is said in contradistinction to the angels, and that the Son is not included together with his own servants in respect of the ignorance.

For he who said, "All things that the Father has are mine," does not lie. And one of the things he has is the knowledge of that day and that hour.

Having therefore passed over in silence his own person in Matthew's wording, as a thing already acknowledged, the Lord said that the angels are ignorant, but that the Father alone knows — declaring, through this very silence, that the Father's knowledge is also his own, since he has also said elsewhere:

"As the Father knows me, I also know the Father." And if the Father knows the Son wholly and entirely, so as to understand all the wisdom laid up within him, then, by the same measure, he will evidently also be known by the Son, together with all the wisdom dwelling in him and the foreknowledge of things to come.

This, then, is the interpretation we deem fitting for the passage found in Matthew:

"but the Father only." But as for Mark's, since it manifestly seems to exclude the Son also from the knowledge, we understand it thus: that no one knows, neither the angels of God — indeed the Son himself would not have known, had it not been from the Father;

that is, the cause of the Son's knowing comes from the Father.

And to one who listens fairly, this explanation is not forced, since the word "only" is not added there, as it is in Matthew.

The sense in Mark, then, is as follows:

"but of that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels of God — indeed the Son himself would not have known, had it not been from the Father;"

for the knowledge belonged to him as given from the Father.

And this is the most reverent and God-befitting thing to say about the Son: that from him with whom he is consubstantial, he has both his knowing and his being contemplated in all the wisdom and glory that befits his Godhead.

Now concerning Jeconiah, whom the prophet Jeremiah says was cast out from the land of Judea, saying:

But when Shealtiel and Zerubbabel and their company returned, they led the people in a more civic manner, since the rule had by then passed over to the priesthood, because the priestly and royal tribes had become intermingled.

Whence the Lord is both king and high priest in matters pertaining to God.

And the royal tribe did not fail until the coming of Christ;

yet the tribe of Judah did not fail until he came for whom it was reserved — who himself did not sit upon the bodily throne, since by then the Judean kingdom had passed over to Herod, son of Antipater the Ascalonite, and to his sons, who divided Judea into four principalities, Pilate being governor, while Tiberius held the whole power of Roman rule.

For he himself is the expectation of the nations, not of the smallest part of the inhabited world.

"For there shall be," he says, "the root of Jesse, even he who rises up to rule the nations;"

"For I have appointed you as a covenant of the people, as a light of the nations."

"And I will establish," he says, "his seed forever and ever, and his throne as the days of heaven." Thus, then, he also remained a priest, even though he did not take up the scepters of Judea, and God is king of all the earth, and the blessing of Jacob was confirmed:

"And in his seed all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed," and all the nations shall call Christ blessed.

But to the clever Encratites, in answer to their solemn objection — why do we too not eat everything? — let this be said: that we also abhor our own excretions.

For in point of value, meats are to us as the herbs of the field; but in the discernment of what is beneficial, just as among herbs we distinguish the harmful from the fitting, so also among meats we distinguish the harmful from the useful, since hemlock too is an herb, just as vulture's flesh too is meat;

yet, all the same, no one in his right mind would eat henbane, nor would he touch dog's flesh unless great necessity pressed him — just as one who did eat it did not thereby break the law.

As for those who say that human affairs are governed by fate, do not seek arguments from us, but pierce them through with the very darts of rhetoric that belong to them;

for the problem is too lengthy for my present infirmity.

But concerning the raising of the head in baptism, I do not know what occurred to you to ask, if indeed you have accepted that the immersion fulfills the type of the three days.

For it is impossible to be baptized three times without rising up from the water that many times.

But we accent the word 'phagon' as paroxytone (on the penultimate syllable).

'Essence' [ousia] and 'hypostasis' differ from each other in the same way that the common differs from the particular — as, for example, 'animal' stands in relation to a certain man.

...but a distinct hypostasis, so that our conception of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit may remain unconfused and clearly articulated within us.

For if we do not conceive the distinguishing marks proper to each — such as fatherhood, sonship, and sanctification — but confess God merely from the common notion of being, it is impossible to give a sound account of the faith.

We must, therefore, confess the faith by joining the particular to the common, in this way:

the Godhead is common; fatherhood is particular;

And again, in confessing the Son, to do likewise, joining the particular to the common, and to say:

Likewise also concerning the Holy Spirit, shaping the utterance according to the sequence of the confession, to say:

'I believe also in the divine Holy Spirit'; so that throughout, the unity may be preserved in the confession of the one Godhead, and the distinctiveness of the persons confessed in the delimitation of the properties conceived of each.

they are compelled to confess only different persons, and by shrinking from saying 'three hypostases,' they are found not to have escaped the error of Sabellius, who likewise, confusing the concept in many places, attempts to divide the persons, saying that the same hypostasis is transformed according to whatever need arises at each moment.

And concerning what you asked — how the intermediate and varying things around us are ordered, whether by some spontaneous coincidence or by the just providence of God — we say this: health and sickness, wealth and poverty, glory and dishonor, insofar as they do not make those who possess them good, are not among the goods that are so by nature; but insofar as they afford a certain smooth course to life, the former are more choiceworthy than their opposites and, when so described, have a certain value.

These things, indeed, are given by God to some for the sake of dispensation, as to Abraham and Job and such as these,

but to the baser sort they are given as an inducement to become better in their conduct, since the man who, after receiving such kindness from God, persists in wrongdoing, indisputably renders himself liable to condemnation.

The righteous man, indeed, neither is attached to wealth when it is present, nor seeks it when it is absent;

for he is not one who indulges in what has been given, but a steward of it.

And none of those who have sense rushes into the business of distributing what belongs to others, unless he has an eye to the reputation among the many, who admire and envy those established in positions of authority.

The righteous receive sickness as a contest, awaiting great crowns for their endurance.

But for someone else to set himself over the management of these matters is not merely unfitting, but impious.

TO EUSEBIUS, BISHOP OF SAMOSATA. I wrote to your piety both through the vicar of Thrace, and, through a certain praepositus of the treasuries stationed at Philippopolis who was crossing from our region into Thrace, I wrote further letters, and asked him to take them up when he departed.

But the vicar did not receive our letters,

for while we were making our rounds of the diocese, he arrived at the city in the evening and set off again at deep dawn, so that the stewards of the church were unaware of the man's presence, and thus the letters remained with us.

And the praepositus, perhaps detained by some unwelcome circumstance, set out without either taking up the letters or seeing us.

And there was no one else to be found;

hence we remained grieved, that it is possible for us neither to write to nor to receive letters from your piety.

And yet I would wish, if it were possible for me, to report to you the things that befall us each day.

For our affairs are so numerous and so extraordinary that they call for a daily chronicle — which, be well assured, I would indeed have composed, had not the ceaseless succession of events kept driving my thoughts away from the matters at hand.

A vicar came to reside among us — the first and greatest of our misfortunes;

a man of whom I do not know whether he is heretical in his mind (for I think he is unversed in all discourse, and has neither zeal nor practice concerning such matters;

for I see him occupied, in soul and in flesh, night and day, with other things) — yet he is a friend of heretics, and is no more fond of them than he is hostile toward us.

For he convened a synod of dissenters in the middle of winter, in Galatia;

and he expelled Hypsis, and installed Ecdicius in his place.

And he ordered my brother to be led off under arrest, upon a single man's accusation — and an obscure man at that.

Then, having been occupied for a short while about the army camp, he came upon us again breathing fury and murder, and by a single decree handed over all the clergy of the church at Caesarea to the city Council,

calling those in communion with us curial-office holders and condemning them to public service, while showering those attached to Eustathius with the greatest honors.

Again he ordered a synod of Galatians and Pontics to be convened concerning Nyssa.

And they obeyed, and, gathering together, sent someone to the churches — what sort of man he is, I would rather not say, but your good sense may well conjecture what kind of man is likely to serve the purposes of men of such designs.

And even now, as I write this, this same faction has set out for Sebaste, to join with Eustathius and, together with him, to overturn the affairs of the people of Nicopolis;

for the blessed Theodotus has fallen asleep.

And for a time they nobly and steadfastly repelled the vicar's first assaults.

For he was trying to persuade them to receive Eustathius, and through him to obtain their bishop.

But when he saw that they were of their own will refusing to yield, he now attempts, with a more violent hand, to install the one being given to them.

There is also a rumor circulating of an expected synod, at which they intend, having summoned us, either to gain us as partners in communion or to resort to their customary tactics.

Such, then, are the affairs of the churches.

As for myself, how I am faring bodily, I think it better to keep silent than to write, since if I speak the truth I shall cause grief, and I cannot bear to lie.

TO THE PRESBYTERS OF NICOPOLIS. I received the letter of your reverence, and found nothing in it newer to learn than what I already knew.