Great Catechism 1 part 1/6

The word of catechesis is necessary for those who preside over the mystery of godliness, so that the Church may be increased by the addition of those who are being saved, as the faithful word of the teaching is brought to the hearing of the unbelievers.

Yet the same manner of teaching will not suit all who come to the faith; rather, the catechesis must be adapted according to the differences of religious beliefs, while looking to the same aim of the message, though not using the same methods of construction in each case.

For the one inclined to Judaism is preoccupied with one set of presuppositions, the one living by Hellenism with others; the Anomoean, the Manichaean, the followers of Marcion, Valentinus, and Basilides, and the rest of the catalogue of those who err in their heresies, each being preoccupied with his own presuppositions, make it necessary to contend against their particular notions.

For the manner of treatment must be adapted to the kind of disease.

You will not heal the Greek's polytheism and the Jew's unbelief concerning the only-begotten God by the same means, nor will you overturn the deceived fables about doctrines held by those who err in their heresies from the same arguments.

For one will not benefit the Anomoean by the same means by which one might correct Sabellius, nor does the contention against the Manichaean also profit against the Jew; rather, as has been said, one must look to people's preconceptions and frame the argument according to the error inherent in each, putting forward certain reasonable starting-points and premises in each discussion, so that through what is conceded by both sides the truth may be uncovered in due sequence.

Therefore, when the discussion is with one of the Hellenizers, it would be well to make this the starting-point of the argument.

Does he suppose that the Deity exists, or does he go along with the doctrine of the atheists? If he should say it does not exist, he will be led, from the things wisely and skilfully ordered in the cosmos, to confess that there is some power manifested in these things and transcending the whole.

But if he does not doubt that it exists, yet is carried away in his notions toward a plurality of gods, let us use this kind of sequence with him.

Does he consider the Deity perfect or deficient? When he, as is reasonable, attests perfection to the divine nature, let us require that it be perfect in all that is contemplated in the Godhead, lest the Deity be regarded as compounded of opposites, of the deficient and the perfect.

But whether in respect of power, or of the conception of the good, or of wisdom and incorruptibility and eternity, or whatever other thought befitting God may attach to the contemplation, he will agree, by the reasonableness of this sequence, that perfection is contemplated in every respect concerning the divine nature.

This being granted, it would no longer be difficult to bring the mind, scattered into a plurality of gods, around to the confession of one Godhead.

For if he grants that perfection is confessed in every respect about the subject, yet says that there are many perfect beings characterized by the same attributes, it is altogether necessary, in the case of things distinguished by no variation but contemplated in the same attributes, either to point out the distinguishing property, or, if the mind grasps nothing distinctive where there is nothing to distinguish, not to suppose a distinction.

For if he can find the difference neither in the more and the less—since the principle of perfection does not admit diminution—

nor by the worse—for that to which the appellation of "worse" is not absent could no longer hold the supposition of divinity—

nor according to the ancient and the recent;

for that which does not always exist is outside the supposition concerning the Deity;

but the principle of the Godhead is one and the same, no distinctive property being reasonably found in any one, it is altogether necessary that the mistaken imagination concerning a plurality of gods be compressed into the confession of one Godhead.

For if the good and the just, the wise and the powerful, are spoken of in like manner, and incorruptibility and eternity and every godly conception are confessed in the same way, every difference in every respect being removed, the plurality of gods is of necessity removed together from the doctrine, since the identity in all things leads faith around to the One.

But since the doctrine of godliness also knows how to discern a distinction of hypostases in the unity of nature, lest our argument, in the contest against the Greeks, be carried over into Judaism, it is again fitting by some skilful distinction to correct the error in this matter as well.

For not even by those outside our doctrine is the Deity supposed to be without reason (Logos);

and this, being confessed by them, will sufficiently articulate our argument.

For he who confesses that God is not without reason will altogether agree that the one who is not without reason possesses reason.

But indeed the human "word/reason" (logos) is also spoken of homonymously.

Therefore, if he should say that he conceives the Word of God after the likeness of what is among us, he will thus be led on to the higher supposition.

For it is altogether necessary to believe that the word is suited to the nature, as are all other things.

For a certain power and life and wisdom is seen in what is human;

but no one would, from the homonymy, suppose such a life or power or wisdom also in God; rather, the connotations of such names are brought down together to the measure of our nature.

For since our nature is corruptible and weak, on this account our life is short-lived, our power without subsistence, our word fleeting.

But in the case of the transcendent nature, everything spoken of it is lifted up together by the greatness of what is contemplated.

Therefore, even if the Word of God is spoken of, it will not be thought to have its subsistence merely in the impulse of the speaker, passing over, like ours, into non-existence;

but just as our nature, being perishable, has also a perishable word, so the incorruptible and ever-abiding nature has an eternal and subsisting Word.

If, then, this be consistently confessed, that the Word of God subsists eternally, it is altogether necessary to confess that the subsistence of the Word is in life.

For it is not pious to think that the Word subsists lifelessly, after the likeness of stones.

But if it subsists, being an intellectual and incorporeal thing, it is altogether alive;

and if it is separated from living, then it is not at all in subsistence.

But indeed it has been shown to be impious that the Word of God is without subsistence.

Therefore it has consequently been shown together that this Word is to be contemplated in life.

And the nature of the Word being reasonably believed to be simple and showing in itself no duplicity or composition, one could no longer contemplate the Word as being in life by participation in life;

for such a supposition—to say that one thing is in another—would not be outside composition;

but it is altogether necessary, simplicity being confessed, to think that the Word is Life Itself, not a participation in life.

If, then, the Word, being Life, lives, it altogether has also a power of free choice;

for none of living beings is without free choice.

And it is pious, by consequence, to reckon that this free choice is also powerful.

For if one does not confess the powerful, he will altogether establish the powerless.

But indeed powerlessness is far from the supposition concerning the Deity.

For nothing incongruous is contemplated in the divine nature, and it is altogether necessary to confess that the power of the Word is as great as its purpose, lest some mixture of opposites and concurrence be contemplated about the Simple One, with weakness and power being contemplated in the same purpose, if indeed it could do one thing

yet were powerless toward another.

But the free choice of the Word, being able to do all things, has its inclination toward none of evils;

for the impulse toward evil is alien to the divine nature;

rather, whatever is good, this it also wills; and willing, it altogether is also able; and being able, it is not inactive, but brings every purpose of good into actuality.

And the cosmos and all things in it, contemplated wisely and skilfully, are good.

Are then all things the works of the Word, which lives and subsists, because it is the Word of God, and which exercises free choice, because it lives;

and which is able to do whatever it may choose, and which altogether chooses the good and wise, and whatever is of the better signification.

Since, then, the cosmos is confessed to be something good, and it has been shown by what has been said that the cosmos is the work of the Word, who both chooses and is able to do the good, and this Word is other than the One whose Word he is;

for in a certain manner this also is among things spoken in relation to something, since with the Word the Father of the Word must altogether be understood together;

for it could not be a Word, were it not the Word of someone;

if, then, the mind of the hearers distinguishes, by the relational character of the signification, both the Word itself and the one from whom he is, the mystery would no longer be in danger of being driven together, in its conflict with the Hellenic suppositions, with those who advocate the views of the Jews;

but it will escape the absurdity of both equally, confessing the Word of God to be living and active and creative—which the Jew does not accept—and that the Word and the One from whom he is do not differ in nature.

For just as in our case we say that the word is from the mind, being neither wholly the same as the mind nor altogether other;

for by being from it, it is something else and is not it;

yet by bringing the mind itself into manifestation, it could no longer be supposed to be something other than it, but, being one in nature, it is other in the underlying subject;

so also the Word of God, by subsisting in itself, is distinguished from the One from whom it has its subsistence;

yet by showing in itself the things which are seen concerning God, it is the same in nature as that One who is found by the same marks;

for whether goodness, or power, or wisdom, or eternal being, or the being unsusceptible of evil and death and corruption, or perfection in everything, or any such thing at all one makes a sign of the apprehension of the Father, one will find through the same signs also the Word who subsists from Him.

And just as we have come to know the Word, ascending from what is among us to the transcendent nature, in the same manner we shall be led also to the conception concerning the Spirit, contemplating certain shadows and imitations of the ineffable power in our own nature.

But with us the spirit is the drawing of air, an alien thing being necessarily drawn in and poured out for the constitution of the body, which at the moment of utterance of the word becomes voice, manifesting in itself the power of the word.

But in the case of the divine nature, that there is a Spirit of God has been piously held, just as it was granted that there is a Word of God, lest the Word of God should be more deficient than our word, if, while ours is contemplated with breath, that One were believed to be apart from spirit.

It is not, however, befitting God to think that something alien, after the likeness of our spirit, flows into God from without and comes to be in Him.

But just as, on hearing of the Word of God, we did not think the Word to be something without subsistence, nor coming about from learning, nor manifested through voice, nor dissolved after being uttered, nor undergoing any other such thing as is contemplated about our word; rather, subsisting essentially, exercising free choice, active and all-powerful;

so also, having learned of the Spirit of God, which accompanies the Word and manifests its activity, we do not conceive it as a breath of air;

for the greatness of the divine power would be lowered to baseness, if, after the likeness of ours, the Spirit in Him too were so conceived.

Rather, [we conceive it as] an essential power, contemplated in itself in its own proper hypostasis, neither able to be separated from God in whom it is, nor from the Word of God whom it accompanies;

neither dissolving into non-existence, but, after the likeness of the Word of God, existing according to hypostasis, exercising free choice, self-moved, active, always choosing the good, and having the power running together with the will for every purpose.

So that one who accurately examines the depths of the mystery receives in the soul, in an ineffable manner, a certain moderate comprehension of the teaching concerning the knowledge of God, yet is not able to make clear in words this inexpressible depth of the mystery;

how the same is both numerable and escapes enumeration, is seen as distinct and is grasped in a unity, is distinguished in hypostasis and is not divided in the underlying subject.

For the Spirit is something other in hypostasis, and the Word is other, and again that One is other, of whom are both the Word and the Spirit;

but when you have understood what is distinct in these, again the unity of the nature does not admit the division, so that neither is the might of the monarchy split, being cut up into differing godheads, nor does the doctrine coincide with the Jewish dogma; rather, the truth passes through the middle of the two suppositions, both demolishing each of the heresies and accepting from each what is useful.

For the dogma of the Jew is demolished both by the acceptance of the Word and by the faith in the Spirit;

while the polytheistic error of the Hellenizers is done away with, the unity of nature cancelling the imagination of plurality.

And again, conversely, from the Jewish supposition let the unity of nature abide;

and from Hellenism only the distinction according to the hypostases, the impious notion on each side being suitably healed.

For there is, as it were, a remedy: for those erring concerning the One, the number of the Trinity; and for those scattered into plurality, the principle of the unity.

And if the Jew should contradict these things, the argument against him will no longer be equally difficult for us.

For from the teachings familiar to him will come the manifestation of the truth.

For that there is a Word of God and a Spirit of God, powers subsisting essentially, both creative of the things that have come to be and comprehending the things that are, is shown more clearly from the divinely-inspired Scriptures.

And it is enough, having recalled one testimony, to leave the discovery of the more numerous to the more diligent.

"By the word of the Lord," it says, "the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their power."

By what word and by what spirit? For the Word is not an utterance, nor is the Spirit a breath.

For the Deity would be humanized after the likeness of our nature, if they should dogmatize that the Maker of the universe used such a word and such a spirit.

And what power from utterances and breath could be so great as to suffice for the constitution of the heavens and the powers in them? For if the Word of God is like our utterance and the Spirit like our breath, the power is altogether alike, coming from like things;

and as much strength as ours has, so much also the Word of God would have.

But indeed our utterances are without effect and without subsistence, and the breath that issues forth together with the utterances likewise.

Those too they will render altogether ineffectual and without subsistence, who bring the Deity down to the likeness of the word among us.

But if, as David says, the heavens were established by the word of the Lord and their powers had their constitution in the Spirit of God, then the mystery of the truth stands firm, teaching us to speak of a Word in essence and a Spirit in hypostasis.

But that there is a Word of God and a Spirit—the Greek through the common notions and the Jew through the Scriptures—perhaps will not contradict;

but the economy of the Word of God according to man, each of them will alike reject as implausible and unfitting to be said about God.

Therefore from another starting-point we will lead those who contradict toward

the faith concerning this.

Do they believe that all things came to be by word and wisdom from the One who constituted the whole, or are they disposed unbelievingly even toward this supposition?

But if they should not grant that word and wisdom govern the constitution of the things that are, they will attribute irrationality and lack of art to the principle of the universe.

But if this is absurd and impious, it is altogether confessed that they will acknowledge that word and wisdom preside over the things that are.

But indeed it has been demonstrated in what precedes that the Word of God is not this very thing—an utterance, or a possession of some knowledge or wisdom—but a power subsisting according to essence, choosing every good and having in strength all that is according to its choice;

and, the cosmos being good, [it is shown] that the power productive and creative of good things is the cause.

But if the subsistence of the whole cosmos is suspended from the power of the Word, as the sequence has shown, it is altogether necessary also to conceive of no other cause for the constitution of the parts of the cosmos than the Word himself, through whom all things had their passage into coming-to-be.

And whether one wishes to name him Word, or Wisdom, or Power, or God, or any other of the lofty and honourable names, we will not dispute.

For whatever utterance or name be found indicative of the subject, one thing is signified through the words: the eternal power of God, creative of the things that are, inventive of the things that are not, sustaining of the things that have come to be, foreseeing of the things to come.

This God, then—the Word, the Wisdom, the Power—has been shown, by consequence, to be the maker of human nature, not driven to the fashioning of man by any necessity, but by abundance of love bringing into being the genesis of such a living being.

For it was fitting that the light should not be unseen, nor the glory without witness, nor the goodness unenjoyed, nor all the other things that are seen concerning the divine nature lie idle, there being none to partake and to enjoy.

If, then, on these accounts man comes into being, in order to become a partaker of the divine goods, he is of necessity so fashioned as to be fit for the participation in the goods.

For just as the eye, through the light naturally inherent in it, comes into communion with the light, drawing what is akin by its innate power, so it was necessary that something akin to the divine be blended into human nature, so that through the corresponding it might have its longing toward the kindred.

For indeed even in the nature of irrational creatures, those that have obtained the aquatic and aerial life have each been suitably furnished according to the form of life, so that, through a certain moulding of the body, the air belongs to the one as proper and kindred, and the water to the other.

So then man too, having come into being for the enjoyment of the divine goods, must have something kindred in his nature toward that which is partaken.

For this reason he was adorned with life and word and wisdom and all the goods befitting God, so that through each of these he might have his desire toward the kindred.

Since, then, one of the goods belonging to the divine nature is also eternity, it was altogether fitting that the constitution of our nature should not be without a share even of this, but should have in itself immortality, so that through the inherent power it might both recognize what is transcendent and be in desire of the divine eternity.

These things the word of the cosmogony indicated in a comprehensive utterance, by a single phrase, saying that man came to be "according to the image of God";

for in the likeness according to the image is the enumeration of all that characterizes the divine, and whatever Moses recounts more in the manner of narrative concerning these things, setting forth doctrines for us in the form of a story, holds to the same teaching.

For that paradise, and the peculiar nature of the fruits—whose eating gives not the filling of the belly but knowledge and eternity of life to those who taste—all these accord with what has been previously contemplated concerning man, namely that our nature was good and in goods at the beginning.

But perhaps one who looks at present things contradicts what has been said and thinks to convict the argument as untrue, in that man is not now in those [goods],

but is seen in almost all the contraries.

For where is the godlike of the soul? Where the impassibility of the body? Where the eternity of life? Short-lived, subject to passion, perishable, prone to every kind of suffering both in body and soul—saying these and such things and railing against our nature, he will think to overturn the account given concerning man.

But that the argument may nowhere be turned aside from its sequence, we will treat briefly of these matters too.

That human life is now in wretched conditions is not a sufficient proof that man never came to be in goods;

for since man is the work of God, who brought this living being into existence through goodness, no one could reasonably suspect that the one whose cause of constitution is goodness was brought into being in evils by his Maker;

but there is another cause both of these things being now about us and of our being bereft of the more honourable things.

And again, the starting-point for us toward this argument too is not outside the agreement of those who contradict.

For He who made man for the participation of His own goods, and who built into the nature the starting-points of all noble things, so that through each the appetite might be borne suitably toward the like, would not have deprived him of the noblest and most honourable of the goods—I mean the grace of being unmastered and self-determining.

For if some necessity presided over human life, the image would have been falsified in that part, being alienated from the archetype by its unlikeness;

for how could that which is yoked under certain necessities and enslaved be called an image of the ruling nature? Therefore that which was in all respects made like to the divine must altogether have had in its nature self-rule and freedom from a master, so that the participation in the goods might be the prize of virtue.

Whence then, you will say, did he who was honoured in all things with the noblest exchange the better of the goods for the worse? The account of this too is clear.

No generation of evil had its beginning from the divine will;

for evil would be outside blame, were it to inscribe God as its maker and father;

but evil springs up somehow from within, taking its constitution in the will at that moment when one [turns away] from the good.

For just as sight is an activity of nature, while blindness is a privation of the natural activity, so also virtue stands opposed to vice.

For it is not possible to conceive of the generation of vice otherwise than as the absence of virtue.

For just as, when light is removed, darkness follows, but when light is present it does not exist, so, as long as the good is present in the nature, vice is something non-existent in itself;

but the withdrawal of the better becomes the generation of its opposite.

Since, then, this is the property of free will—to choose at will what is desired—God is not the author to you of present evils, having fashioned your nature unmastered and unconstrained, but it is your ill-counsel, which preferred the worse instead of the better.

But you also seek, perhaps, the cause of the failure in counsel;

for the sequence brings the argument to this.

Therefore again a certain starting-point will reasonably be found by us, which will also clarify this question.

Such an account we have received from the Fathers;

and the account is not a mythical narrative, but draws its credibility from our very nature.

There is a twofold apprehension in the things that are, the contemplation being divided into the intelligible and the sensible.

And nothing could be apprehended in the nature of the things that are as falling outside this division.

And these are divided from one another by a great interval, so that the sensible is not among the marks of the intelligible, nor that one among the sensible, but each is characterized by opposites.

For the intelligible nature is an incorporeal thing, intangible and without form;

while the sensible, according to its very name, is within the apprehension that comes through the senses.

But just as in the sensible cosmos itself, though there is much opposition of the elements to one another, a certain harmony has been devised, fitted together through opposites

by the wisdom presiding over the whole, and thus there comes about a concord of all creation with itself, the natural opposition nowhere dissolving the bond of the common breath;

in the same manner there comes about also, by divine wisdom, a certain mixing and blending of the sensible with the intelligible, so that all things may share equally in the good and nothing of the things that are may be deprived of the better nature.

For this reason, the region suited to the intelligible nature is the subtle and easily-moved substance, having in its supra-cosmic allotment much kinship, by the peculiarity of its nature, with the intelligible; and by a superior providence a certain blending of the intelligible with the sensible creation comes about, so that nothing of creation may be cast away, as the Apostle says, nor disinherited from the divine communion.

On this account the compound that constitutes man is brought forth by the divine nature out of both intelligible and sensible, as the word of the cosmogony teaches;

"For God," it says, "having taken dust from the earth, fashioned man, and by His own in-breathing implanted life in the moulded thing," so that the earthly might be raised up together with the divine and one grace, in equal honour, might pervade all creation, the lower nature being mingled with the supra-cosmic.

Since, then, the intelligible creation pre-existed, and to each of the angelic powers a certain activity for the constitution of the whole had been assigned by the authority presiding over all, there was also a certain power appointed to hold together and have charge of the terrestrial region, empowered for this very thing by the power that administers the whole;

then the earthly moulded thing was fashioned, an image of the power above;

and this living being is man;

and in him was the godlike beauty of the intelligible nature, blended in by a certain ineffable power.

He who had obtained the terrestrial administration deems it terrible and intolerable, that from the nature subject to him there should be displayed a being made like to the surpassing dignity.

But how he, who was created for no evil by the One who constituted all in goodness, sank down into the passion of envy—to pursue this with precision is not of the present treatise, yet it would be possible to set the account before the more docile even in brief.

For the contradistinction of virtue and vice is not contemplated as of two things appearing in hypostasis;