Great Catechism 1 part 6/6

What, then, would be more profitable: to enter into the unchangeable life, or again to be tossed by waves in the unstable and altering life? Since, then, it is plain to everyone who partakes of understanding in any way whatever, that the stable is by far more honorable than the unstable, and the perfect than the defective, and that which has no need than that which is in need, and that which has nowhere further to advance, but ever abides in the perfection of the good, than that which ascends by progress—it would be necessary for anyone who has sense by all means to choose one of two: either to believe that the Holy Trinity is of the uncreated nature, and so to make it, through spiritual birth, the author of one's own life; or, if he should suppose the Son or the Holy Spirit to be outside the nature of the first, true, and good God—I mean the nature of the Father—not to take up faith in these at the time of birth, lest, unawares, he make himself over to a defective nature in need of one to better it, and in a certain manner introduce himself again into what is of the same kind, having withdrawn his faith from the superior nature.

For he who has yoked himself to any one of created things has, without knowing it, his hope of salvation in that thing and not in the Divine.

For all creation, by virtue of equally proceeding from non-being into being, stands in proper relation to itself;

and just as in the construction of bodies all the members are by nature joined together with one another, even though some happen to be lower and others higher, so the created nature is united with itself according to the principle of creation, and the difference among us in respect of superior and inferior in no way separates it from its connaturality with itself;

for in those things whose non-existence is conceived equally beforehand, even if the difference lies in other respects, we find no variation of nature in this particular point.

If, then, man is created, and one should suppose the Spirit too to be created, and the Only-begotten God to be created, he would be vain in his hope of the change for the better, resolving himself into himself.

For what comes to pass is like the suppositions of Nicodemus, who, having learned from the Lord concerning the necessity of being born from above, because he had not yet made room for the word of the mystery, was dragged down in his reasonings to the maternal womb.

So that, if he should withdraw himself not to the uncreated nature, but to the kindred and fellow-servant creation, he is of the birth from below, not of that from above.

But the Gospel says that the birth of those who are saved is from above.

But it does not seem to me that the catechesis has sufficient teaching if it stops with what has been said.

For we must, I think, consider also that which comes after this, which many of those approaching the grace of baptism overlook, leading themselves astray through delusion, and being born only in seeming, not in reality.

For the transformation of our life that takes place through regeneration would not be a transformation, if we remained in that which we are.

For one who is in the same condition—I do not know how one is to suppose that he has become someone else, in whom none of the distinguishing marks has been transformed.

For that the saving birth is taken up for the renewal and change of our nature is plain to everyone.

But indeed humanity itself, considered in itself, admits of no change from baptism: neither the rational, nor the intellectual, nor the receptive of knowledge, nor any other of the things that characterize human nature properly, comes to be in any transformation.

For indeed the transformation would be for the worse, if any of these proper to nature were exchanged away.

If, then, the birth from above is a kind of re-elementing of man, and these things do not admit of change, it must be considered what it is that, being transformed, makes the grace of regeneration complete.

It is plain that, the wicked distinguishing marks being wiped out of our nature, the change for the better comes to pass.

Accordingly, if—as the prophet says—having washed in this mystical laver we become pure in our choices, having washed off the wickednesses of our souls, we have become better and have been transformed for the better.

But if the laver be applied to the body, while the soul does not wash off its passion-stained blemishes, but the life after the initiation matches the uninitiated life—though it be a bold thing to say, I will say it and not turn back—that in such cases the water is water, the gift of the Holy Spirit nowhere appearing in what takes place; whenever not only the disgrace of anger outrages the divine form, or the passion of covetousness and the licentious and unseemly mind and arrogance and envy and pride, but also the gains from injustice remain with him, and the woman acquired through adultery still ministers to his pleasures even after this.

If these and the like are in the life of the baptized person, alike both before and after, I cannot see what has been transformed, beholding the same person as before.

The one wronged, the one slandered, the one despoiled of his own—these see no change in him who has been washed.

They did not hear, from him too, the voice of Zacchaeus, 'If I have wrongfully accused anyone of anything, I restore fourfold' (Luke 19:8).

The very things they said of him before baptism, the same they recount concerning him now also; by the same names they name him: covetous, lusting after what belongs to others, luxuriating upon human misfortunes.

He, then, who is in the same condition, and yet noises abroad to himself the change for the better through baptism, let him hear the voice of Paul, 'If anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself' (Gal. 6:3).

'As many as received Him,' says the Gospel concerning those who were reborn, 'to them He gave authority to become children of God' (John 1:12).

The child, having become someone's, is altogether of the same kind as the one who begot it.

If, then, you have received God and have become a child of God, show forth also, through your choice, the God who is in you; show forth in yourself the One who begot you.

By those things through which we recognize God, by these it is fitting that the kinship of the son of God who has come to be with God should be shown.

He opens His hand and fills every living thing with good pleasure (Ps. 145:16); He passes over iniquities, He relents over evil (cf. Joel 2:13);

the Lord is kind to all, not bringing wrath upon them every day (cf. Ps. 7:11);

the Lord God is upright, and there is no iniquity in Him (cf. Ps. 92:15)—and all such things we are taught here and there from the Scripture.

If you are in these things, you have truly become a child of God;

but if you persist in the distinguishing marks of evil, in vain do you noise abroad to yourself the birth from above.

The prophecy will say to you, 'You are a son of man, not a son of the Most High' (cf. Ps. 4:2; 82:6);

'You love vanity, you seek after a lie' (Ps. 4:2).

You did not know how a man is made wondrous—that it is in no other way, except by being holy (cf. Ps. 4:3).

It would be necessary to add to these also what remains: that neither are the good things set before those who have lived well in the promises such as to come within the description of speech;

for how could 'those things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man' (1 Cor. 2:9)? Nor indeed is the grievous life of those who have transgressed on a par with any of the things that here pain the senses.

But even if any of those punishments there be named by the names recognized here, it has no small difference.

For when you hear 'fire,' you have been taught to conceive of something other than this, from the fact that something is attached to that fire which is not in this one;

for the one is not quenched, but of this one many means of quenching have been discovered by experience, and there is a great difference between what can be quenched and what does not admit of quenching.

Accordingly, it is something other, and not this.

Again, when one hears 'worm,' let him not, through the sameness of name, be carried away in his mind to this earthly creature;

for the addition that it is unending suggests the conception of some nature other than the one known.

Since, then, these things lie before the hope of the life that comes after this, springing up for our life suitably out of each one's choice according to the righteous judgment of God, it would be the part of prudent men to look not to the present but to that which comes after, and in this brief and temporary life to lay the foundations of unspeakable blessedness, and through good choice to estrange oneself from the experience of evils—now, in this life, and afterward, in the eternal recompense.