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| He has no right to assert a greater and less in the Divine being. A systematic statement of the teaching of the Church.
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§22.
He has no right to assert a greater and less in the Divine being. A
systematic statement of the teaching of the Church.
Then they discover in His being
a certain shortness in the way of deficiency, though they do not tell
us by what method they measure that which is devoid of quantity and
size: they are able to find out exactly by how much the size of the
Only-begotten falls short of perfection, and therefore has to be
classed with the inferior and imperfect: much else they lay down,
partly by open assertion, partly by underhand inference: all the time
making their confession of the Son and the Spirit a mere
exercise-ground for their unbelieving spirit. How, then, can we fail to
pity them more even than the condemned Jews, when views never ventured
upon by the latter are inferred by the former? He who makes the being
of the Son and of the Spirit comparatively less, seems, so far as words
go perhaps, to commit but a slight profanity: but if one were to test
his view stringently it will be found the height of blasphemy. Let us
look into this, then, and let indulgence be shown me, if, for the sake
of doctrine, and to place in a clear light the lie which they have
demonstrated, I advance into an exposition of our own conception of the
truth.
Now the ultimate division of all
being is into the Intelligible and the Sensible. The Sensible world is
called by the Apostle broadly “that which is seen.” For as
all body has colour, and the sight apprehends this, he calls this world
by the rough and ready name of “that which is seen,”
leaving out all the other qualities, which are essentially inherent in
its framework. The common term, again, for all the intellectual world,
is with the Apostle “that which is not seen117
:” by withdrawing all idea of
comprehension by the senses he leads the mind on to the immaterial and
intellectual. Reason again divides this “which is not seen”
into the uncreate and the created, inferentially comprehending it: the
uncreate being that which effects the Creation, the created that which
owes its origin and its force to the uncreate. In the Sensible world,
then, is found everything that we comprehend by our organs of bodily
sense, and in which the differences of qualities involve the idea of
more and less, such differences consisting in quantity, quality, and
the other properties.
But in the Intelligible
world,—that part of it, I mean, which is created,—the idea
of such differences as are perceived in the Sensible cannot find a
place: another method, then, is devised for discovering the degrees of
greater and less. The fountain, the origin, the supply of every good is
regarded as being in the world that is uncreate, and the whole creation
inclines to that, and touches and shares the Highest Existence only by
virtue of its part in the First Good: therefore it follows from this
participation in the highest blessings varying in degree according to
the amount of freedom in the will that each possesses, that the greater
and less in this creation is disclosed according to the proportion of
this tendency in each118
| 118 i.e.
according as each inclines more or less to the First Good. | . Created intelligible
nature stands on the borderline between good and the reverse, so as to
be capable of either, and to incline at pleasure to the things of its
choice, as we learn from Scripture; so that we can say of it that it is
more or less in the heights of excellence only in proportion to its
removal from the evil and its approach to the good. Whereas119
| 119 uncreate intelligible nature is far removed from such
distinctions. This was the impregnable
position that Athanasius had taken up. To admit that the Son is less
than the Father, and the Spirit less than the Son, is to admit the
law of emanation such as hitherto conceived, that is, the gradual
and successive degradation of God’s substance; which had
conducted oriental heretics as well as the Neoplatonists to a sort of
pantheistic polytheism. Arius had indeed tried to resist this tendency
so far as to bring back divinity to the Supreme Being; but it was at
the expense of the divinity of the Son, Who was with him just as much a
created Intermediate between God and man, as one of the Æons: and
Aetius and Eunomius treated the Holy Ghost also as their master had
treated the Son. But Arianism tended at once to Judaism and, in making
creatures adorable, to Greek polytheism. There was only one way of
cutting short the phantasmagoria of divine emanations, without having
recourse to the contradictory hypothesis of Arius: and that was to
reject the law of emanation, as hitherto accepted, altogether.
Far from admitting that the Supreme Being is always weakening and
degrading Himself in that which emanates from Him, Athanasius lays down
the principle that He produces within Himself nothing but what is
perfect, and first, and divine: and all that is not perfect is a work
of the Divine Will, which draws it out of nothing (i.e. creates it),
and not out of the Divine Substance. This was the crowning result of
the teaching of Alexandria and Origen. See Denys (De la Philosophie
d’Origene, p. 432, Paris, 1884). | uncreate intelligible nature is far removed
from such distinctions: it does not possess the good by
acquisition, or participate only in the goodness of some good which
lies above it: in its own essence it is good, and is conceived as such:
it is a source of good, it is simple, uniform, incomposite, even by the
confession of our adversaries. But it has distinction within itself in
keeping with the majesty of its own nature, but not conceived of with
regard to quantity, as Eunomius supposes: (indeed the man who
introduces the notion of less of good into any of the things believed
to be in the Holy Trinity must admit thereby some admixture of the
opposite quality in that which fails of the good: and it is blasphemous
to imagine this in the case either of the Only-begotten, or of the Holy
Spirit): we regard it as consummately perfect and incomprehensibly
excellent yet as containing clear distinctions within itself which
reside in the peculiarities of each of the Persons: as possessing
invariableness by virtue of its common attribute of uncreatedness, but
differentiated by the unique character of each Person. This peculiarity
contemplated in each sharply and clearly divides one from the other:
the Father, for instance, is uncreate and ungenerate as well: He was
never generated any more than He was created. While this uncreatedness
is common to Him and the Son, and the Spirit, He is ungenerate as well
as the Father. This is peculiar and uncommunicable, being not seen in
the other Persons. The Son in His uncreatedness touches the Father and
the Spirit, but as the Son and the Only-begotten He has a character
which is not that of the Almighty or of the Holy Spirit. The Holy
Spirit by the uncreatedness of His nature has contact with the Son and
Father, but is distinguished from them by His own tokens. His most
peculiar characteristic is that He is neither of those things which we
contemplate in the Father and the Son respectively. He is
simply, neither as ungenerate120
| 120 But He
is not begotten. Athanasian Creed. | , nor as
only-begotten: this it is that constitutes His chief peculiarity.
Joined to the Father by His uncreatedness, He is disjoined from Him
again by not being ‘Father.’ United to the Son by the bond
of uncreatedness, and of deriving His existence from the Supreme, He is
parted again from Him by the characteristic of not being the
Only-begotten of the Father, and of having been manifested by means of
the Son Himself. Again, as the creation was effected by the
Only-begotten, in order to secure that the Spirit should not be
considered to have something in common with this creation because of
His having been manifested by means of the Son, He is distinguished
from it by His unchangeableness, and independence of all external
goodness. The creation does not possess in its nature this
unchangeableness, as the Scripture says in the description of the fall
of the morning star, the mysteries on which subject are revealed by our
Lord to His disciples: “I saw Satan falling like lightning from
heaven121
.” But the very attributes which part
Him from the creation constitute His relationship to the Father and the
Son. All that is incapable of degenerating has one and the same
definition of “unchangeable.”
Having stated thus much as a
preface we are in a position to discuss the rest of our
adversaries’ teaching. “It necessarily follows,” he
says in his system of the Son and the Spirit, “that the Beings
are relatively greater and less.” Let us then inquire what is the
meaning of this necessity of difference. Does it arise from a
comparison formed from measuring them one with another in some material
way, or from viewing them on the spiritual ground of more or less of
moral excellence, or on that of pure being? But in the case of this
last it has been shown by competent thinkers that it is impossible to
conceive of any difference whatever, if one abstracts being from
attributes and properties, and looks at it according to its bare
definition. Again, to conceive of this difference as consisting in the
case of the Only-begotten and the Spirit in the intensity or abatement
of moral excellence, and in consequence to hint that their nature
admits of change in either direction, so as to be equally capable of
opposites, and to be placed in a borderland between moral beauty and
its opposite—that is gross profanity. A man who thinks this will
be proving that their nature is one thing in itself, and becomes
something else by virtue of its participation in this beauty or its
opposite: as happens with iron for example: if it is approached some
time to the fire, it assumes the quality of heat while remaining iron:
if it is put in snow or ice, it changes its quality to the mastering
influence, and lets the snow’s coldness pass into its
pores.
Now just as we cannot name the
material of the iron from the quality now to be observed upon it (for
we do not give the name of fire or ice to that which is tempered with
either of these), so the moment we grant the view of these heretics,
that in the case122
| 122 τῆς
ζωοποιοῦ
δυνάμεως. | of the Life-giving
Power good does not reside in It essentially, but is imparted to it
only, it will become impossible to call it properly good: such a conception of it
will compel us to regard it as something different, as not eternally
exhibiting the good, as not in itself to be classed amongst genuine
goods, but as such that the good is at times not in it, and is at times
not likely to be in it. If these existences become good only by sharing
in a something superior to themselves, it is plain that before this
participation they were not good, and if, being other than good, they
were then coloured by the influence of good they must certainly, if
again isolated from this, be considered other than good: so that, if
this heresy prevails, the Divine Nature cannot be apprehended as
transmissive of good, but rather as itself needing goodness: for how
can one impart to another that which he does not himself possess? If it
is in a state of perfection, no abatement of that can be conceived, and
it is absurd to talk of less of perfection. If on the other hand its
participation of good is an imperfect one, and this is what they mean
by ‘less,’ mark the consequence that anything in that state
can never help an inferior, but will be busied in satisfying its own
want: so that, according to them, Providence is a fiction, and so is
the judgment and the Dispensation of the Only-begotten, and all the
other works believed to be done, and still doing by Him: for He will
necessarily be employed in taking care of His own good, and must
abandon the supervision of the Universe123
| 123 τοῦ
παντὸς. It is
worth while to mention, once for all, the distinction in the names used
by the Stoics for the world, which had long since passed from them into
the common parlance. Including the Empty, the world is called
τὸ
πᾶν, without it, ὅλον (τὸ ὅλον, τὰ
ὅλα frequently occurs with the
Stoics). The πᾶν, it was said, is
neither material nor immaterial, since it consists of both. | .
If, then, this surmise is to
have its way, namely, that our Lord is not perfected in every kind of
good, it is very easy to see the conclusion of the blasphemy. This
being so, our faith is vain, and our preaching vain; our hopes, which
take their substance from our faith, are unsubstantial. Why are they
baptized into Christ124
| 124 Τί γὰρ
βαπτίζονται
εἰς
Χριστὸν.
This throws some light on the much discussed passage, ‘Why are
these baptized for the dead?’ Gregory at all events seems
here to take it to mean, ‘Why are they baptized in the name of a
dead Christ?’ as he is adopting partially S. Paul’s
words, 1 Cor. xv. 29; as well as
Heb. xi.
1 above. | , if He has no power
of goodness of His own? God forgive me for saying it! Why do they
believe in the Holy Ghost, if the same account is given of Him? How are
they regenerate125
by baptism from their
mortal birth, if the regenerating Power does not possess in its own
nature infallibility and independence? How can their ‘vile
body’ be changed, while they think that He who is to change it
Himself needs change, i.e. another to change Him? For as long as a
nature is in defect as regards the good, the superior existence exerts
upon this inferior one a ceaseless attraction towards itself: and this
craving for more will never stop: it will be stretching out to
something not yet grasped: the subject of this deficiency will be
always demanding a supply, always altering into the grander nature, and
yet will never touch perfection, because it cannot find a goal to
grasp, and cease its impulse upward. The First Good is in its nature
infinite, and so it follows of necessity that the participation in the
enjoyment of it will be infinite also, for more will be always being
grasped, and yet something beyond that which has been grasped will
always be discovered, and this search will never overtake its Object,
because its fund is as inexhaustible as the growth of that which
participates in it is ceaseless126
| 126 Cf.
Gregory’s theory of human perfection; De anima et
Resurrectione, p. 229, 230. ‘The All-creating Wisdom
fashioned these souls, these receptacles with free wills, as vessels as
it were, for this very purpose, that there should be some capacities
able to receive His blessings, and become continually larger with the
inpouring of the stream. Such are the wonders that the participation in
the Divine blessings works; it makes him into whom they come larger and
more capacious.…The fountain of blessings wells up unceasingly,
and the partaker’s nature, finding nothing superfluous and
without a use in that which it receives, makes the whole influx an
enlargement of its own proportions.…It is likely, therefore, that
this bulk will mount to a magnitude wherein no limit checks the
growth. | .
Such, then, are the blasphemies
which emerge from their making differences between the Persons as to
the good. If on the other hand the degrees of more or less are to be
understood in this case in some material sense, the absurdity of this
surmise will be obvious at once, without examination in detail. Ideas
of quality and distance, weight and figure, and all that goes to
complete the notion of a body, will perforce be introduced along with
such a surmise into the view of the Divine Nature: and where a compound
is assumed, there the dissolution also of that compound must be
admitted. A teaching so monstrous, which dares to discover a smaller
and a larger in what is sizeless and not concrete lands us in these and
suchlike conclusions, a few samples only of which are here indicated:
nor indeed would it be easy to unveil all the mischief that lurks
beneath it. Still the shocking absurdity that results from their
blasphemous premiss will be clear from this brief notice. We now
proceed to their next position, after a short defining and confirmation
of our own doctrine. For an inspired testimony is a sure test of the
truth of any doctrine: and so it seems to me that ours may be well
guaranteed by a quotation from the divine words.
In the division of all existing
things, then, we find these distinctions. There is, as appealing to our
perceptions, the Sensible world: and there is, beyond this, the
world which the mind, led on by objects of sense, can view: I mean the
Intelligible: and in this we detect again a further distinction into
the Created and the Uncreate: to the latter of which we have defined
the Holy Trinity to belong, to the former all that can exist or can be
thought of after that. But in order that this statement may not be left
without a proof, but may be confirmed by Scripture, we will add that
our Lord was not created, but came forth from the Father, as the Word
with His own lips attests in the Gospel, in a manner of birth or of
proceeding ineffable and mysterious: and what truer witness could be
found than this constant declaration of our Lord all through the
Gospel, that the Very Father was a father, not a creator, of Himself,
and that He was not a work of God, but Son of God? Just as when He
wished to name His connexion with humanity according to the flesh, He
called that phase of his being Son of Man, indicating thereby His
kinship according to the nature of the flesh with her from whom He was
born, so also by the title of Son he expresses His true and real
relationship to the Almighty, by that name of Son showing this natural
connexion: no matter if there are some who, for the contradiction of
the truth, do take literally and without any explanation, words used
with a hidden meaning in the dark form of parable, and adduce the
expression ‘created,’ put into the mouth of Wisdom by the
author of the Proverbs127
| 127 Proverbs viii.
22 (LXX). For another discussion of this passage, see Book II. ch. 10
(beginning) with note. | , to support their
perverted views. They say, in fact, that “the Lord created
me” is a proof that our Lord is a creature, as if the
Only-begotten Himself in that word confessed it. But we need not heed
such an argument. They do not give reasons why we must refer that text
to our Lord at all: neither will they be able to show that the idea of
the word in the Hebrew leads to this and no other meaning, seeing that
the other translators have rendered it by “possessed” or
“constituted:” nor, finally, even if this was the idea in
the original text, would its real meaning be so plain and on the
surface: for these proverbial discourses do not show their aim at once,
but rather conceal it, revealing it only by an indirect import, and we
may judge of the obscurity of this particular passage from its context
where he says, “When He set His throne upon the winds128
,” and all the similar expressions. What
is God’s throne? Is it material or ideal? What are the winds? Are
they these winds so familiar to us, which the natural philosophers tell
us are formed from vapours and exhalations: or are they to be
understood in another way not familiar to man, when they are called the
bases of His throne? What is this throne of the immaterial,
incomprehensible, and formless Deity? Who could possibly understand all
this in a literal sense?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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