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| These doctrines of our Faith witnessed to and confirmed by Scripture passages.
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§23. These
doctrines of our Faith witnessed to and confirmed by Scripture
passages.
It is therefore clear that these
are metaphors, which contain a deeper meaning than the obvious one: so
that there is no reason from them that any suspicion that our Lord was
created should be entertained by reverent inquirers, who have been
trained according to the grand words of the evangelist, that “all
things that have been made were made by Him” and “consist
in Him.” “Without Him was not anything made that was
made.” The evangelist would not have so defined it if he had
believed that our Lord was one among the things made. How could all
things be made by Him and in Him consist, unless their Maker possessed
a nature different from theirs, and so produced, not Himself, but them?
If the creation was by Him, but He was not by Himself, plainly He is
something outside the creation. And after the evangelist has by these
words so plainly declared that the things that were made were made by
the Son, and did not pass into existence by any other channel, Paul 129
| 129 in the
Canon. (Oehler’s stopping is here at fault, i.e. he begins a new
paragraph with ᾽Εκδέχεται
τὸν λόγον
τοῦτον ὁ
Παῦλος). We need
not speculate whether Gregory was aware that the Epistle to the
Colossians (quoted below) is an earlier ‘Gospel’ than S.
John’s. | follows and, to leave no ground at all for
this profane talk which numbers even the Spirit amongst the things that
were made, he mentions one after another all the existencies which the
evangelist’s words imply: just as David in fact, after having
said that “all things” were put in subjection to man, adds
each species which that “all” comprehends, that is, the
creatures on land, in water, and in air, so does Paul the Apostle,
expounder of the divine doctrines, after saying that all things were
made by Him, define by numbering them the meaning of “all.”
He speaks of “the things that are seen130
” and “the things that are not
seen:” by the first he gives a general name to all things
cognizable by the senses, as we have seen: by the latter he shadows
forth the intelligible world.
Now about the first there is no
necessity of going into minute detail. No one is so carnal, so brutelike, as to
imagine that the Spirit resides in the sensible world. But after Paul
has mentioned “the things that are not seen” he proceeds
(in order that none may surmise that the Spirit, because He is of the
intelligible and immaterial world, on account of this connexion
subsists therein) to another most distinct division into the things
that have been made in the way of creation, and the existence that is
above creation. He mentions the several classes of these created
intelligibles: “131
thrones,”
“dominions,” “principalities,”
“powers,” conveying his doctrine about these unseen
influences in broadly comprehensive terms: but by his very silence he
separates from his list of things created that which is above them. It
is just as if any one was required to name the sectional and inferior
officers in some army, and after he had gone through them all, the
commanders of tens, the commanders of hundreds, the captains and the
colonels132
| 132 ταξιάρχας
καὶ λοχαγοὺς,
ἑκατοντάρχους
τε καὶ
χιλιάρχους. The difference between the two pairs seems to be the
difference between ‘non-commissioned’ and
‘commissioned’ officers. | , and all the other names given to the
authorities over divisions, omitted after all to speak of the supreme
command which extended over all the others: not from deliberate
neglect, or from forgetfulness, but because when required or intending
to name only the several ranks which served under it, it would have
been an insult to include this supreme command in the list of the
inferior. So do we find it with Paul, who once in Paradise was admitted
to mysteries, when he had been caught up there, and had become a
spectator of the wonders that are above the heavens, and saw and heard
“things which it is not lawful for a man to utter133
.” This Apostle proposes to tell us of
all that has been created by our Lord, and he gives them under certain
comprehensive terms: but, having traversed all the angelic and
transcendental world, he stops his reckoning there, and refuses to drag
down to the level of creation that which is above it. Hence there is a
clear testimony in Scripture that the Holy Spirit is higher than the
creation. Should any one attempt to refute this, by urging that neither
are the Cherubim mentioned by Paul, that they equally with the Spirit
are left out, and that therefore this omission must prove either that
they also are above the creation, or that the Holy Spirit is not any
more than they to be believed above it, let him measure the full intent
of each name in the list: and he will find amongst them that which from
not being actually mentioned seems, but only seems, omitted. Under
“thrones” he includes the Cherubim, giving them this Greek
name, as more intelligible than the Hebrew name for them. He knew that
“God sits upon the Cherubim:” and so he calls these Powers
the thrones of Him who sits thereon. In the same way there are included
in the list Isaiah’s Seraphim134
, by whom the
mystery of the Trinity was luminously proclaimed, when they uttered
that marvellous cry “Holy,” being awestruck with the beauty
in each Person of the Trinity. They are named under the title of
“powers” both by the mighty Paul, and by the prophet David.
The latter says, “Bless ye the Lord all ye His powers, ye
ministers of His that do His pleasure135
:” and
Isaiah instead of saying “Bless ye” has written the very
words of their blessing, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts:
the whole earth is full of His glory” and he has revealed by what
one of the Seraphim did (to him) that these powers are ministers that
do God’s pleasure, effecting the ‘purging of sin’
according to the will of Him Who sent them: for this is the ministry of
these spiritual beings, viz., to be sent forth for the salvation of
those who are being saved.
That divine Apostle perceived
this. He understood that the same matter is indicated under different
names by the two prophets, and he took the best known of the two words,
and called those Seraphim “powers:” so that no ground is
left to our critics for saying that any single one of these beings is
omitted equally with the Holy Ghost from the catalogue of creation. We
learn from the existences detailed by Paul that while some existences
have been mentioned, others have been passed over: and while he has
taken count of the creation in masses as it were, he has (elsewhere)
mentioned as units those things which are conceived of singly. For it
is a peculiarity of the Holy Trinity that it is to be proclaimed as
consisting of individuals: one Father, one Son, one Holy Ghost: whereas
those existences aforesaid are counted in masses,
“dominions,” “principalities,”
“lordships,” “powers,” so as to exclude any
suspicion that the Holy Ghost was one of them. Paul is wisely silent
upon our mysteries; he understands how, after having heard those
unspeakable words in paradise, to refrain from proclaiming those
secrets when he is making mention of lower beings.
But these foes of the truth rush
in upon the ineffable; they degrade the majesty of the Spirit to the
level of the creation; they act as if they had never heard that the
Word of God, when confiding to His disciples the secret of knowing God,
Himself said that the life of 136
the
regenerate was to be completed in them and imparted in the name of
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and, thereby ranking the Spirit with the
Father and Himself, precluded Him from being confused with the
creation. From both, therefore, we may get a reverential and proper
conception with regard to Him: from Paul’s omitting the
Spirit’s existence in the mention of the creation, and from our
Lord’s joining the Spirit with His Father and Himself in
mentioning the life-giving power. Thus does our reason, under the
guidance of the Scripture, place not only the Only-begotten but the
Holy Spirit as well above the creation, and prompt us in accordance
with our Saviour’s command to contemplate Him by faith in the
blessed world of life giving and uncreated existence: and so this unit,
which we believe in, above creation, and sharing in the supreme and
absolutely perfect nature, cannot be regarded as in any way a
‘less,’ although this teacher of heresy attempt to curtail
its infinitude by introducing the idea of degrees, and thus contracting
the divine perfection by defining a greater and a less as residing in
the Persons.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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