Catechetical Oration preface–5

The discourse of catechesis is necessary for those who have charge of the life of godliness, so that the Church may be multiplied by the addition of those who are being saved, as the faithful word that accords with the teaching is brought to the hearing of unbelievers. Yet the same method of instruction will not suit all who come to the word. Rather, catechesis must be adapted to the differences of religions: aiming at the same goal of the discourse, but not using the same arguments in the same way. For the one who follows Judaism is preoccupied by certain assumptions, and the one who lives in Hellenism by others; and the Anomoean and the Manichaean, and the followers of Marcion, Valentinus, and Basilides, and the rest of the catalogue of those who wander astray in the heresies, each preoccupied by his own assumptions, make it necessary to do battle with their particular notions. For the method of treatment must be fitted to the form of the disease. You will not cure the polytheism of the Greek and the unbelief of the Jew concerning the only-begotten God by the same means; nor will you overturn, from the same starting points, the deluded myth-making about the doctrines among those who have wandered astray in the heresies. For the arguments by which one might set Sabellius right will not also help the Anomoean; nor does the battle against the Manichaean benefit the Jew. Rather, as has been said, one must look to the assumptions of the people and frame the discourse according to the error present in each, putting forward in each discussion certain principles and reasonable premises, so that by means of what is agreed on both sides the truth may be uncovered by logical sequence. So when the discussion is with one of those who follow Hellenism, it would be well to make this the beginning of the discourse: does he suppose that the divine exists, or does he agree with the doctrine of the atheists? If he says that it does not exist, he will be led by the things ordered with art and wisdom throughout the world to acknowledge that through them there is shown a certain power, displayed in them, that transcends the universe. But if he does not doubt that it exists, but is carried away in his notions to a plurality of deities, we will use the following line of reasoning with him: does he consider the divine perfect or deficient? And when, as is likely, he bears witness to the perfection of the divine nature, I will require of him perfection in everything that is observed in the Godhead, so that the divine may not be viewed as a mixture of opposites, of deficient and perfect. But whether in power, or in the notion of goodness, or in wisdom, incorruption, and eternity, or in whatever other conception befitting God may belong to our contemplation, he will agree, by the reasonableness of this sequence, that perfection is to be seen in the divine nature in every respect. Once this is granted us, it would no longer be hard to bring the mind that is scattered among a plurality of gods round to the confession of one Godhead. For if he grants that perfection in every respect is to be acknowledged of the subject, but says that there are many perfect beings marked by the same characteristics, then of necessity, in the case of beings distinguished by no variation but observed in the same attributes, he must either show what is peculiar to each, or, if the mind grasps nothing peculiar, not suppose a distinction where there is nothing that distinguishes. For if he can find the difference neither in more and less, since the very definition of perfection does not admit of diminution; nor in worse and more honourable (for one could no longer hold a notion of deity about that from which the name of the worse is not absent); nor in ancient and recent (for what does not always exist lies outside the notion of the divine); but the definition of the Godhead is one and the same, no peculiarity being reasonably found in anything, then of necessity the deluded fancy of a plurality of gods is forced into the confession of one Godhead. For if goodness and justice, wisdom and power are predicated alike, and incorruption and eternity and every pious conception are acknowledged in the same way, then, when every difference in every respect is removed, the plurality of gods is necessarily removed from the doctrine along with it, since identity in all things brings belief round to the one.

But since the doctrine of godliness knows how to see a certain distinction of hypostases in the unity of the nature, so that in our battle with the Greeks our argument may not slide over into Judaism, it is fitting again to correct the error on this point too by a careful distinction. For not even those outside our doctrine suppose the divine to be without reason; and this, being admitted by them, will sufficiently articulate our argument. For whoever admits that God is not without reason will certainly agree that he who is not without reason has reason, that is, a word. But the human word is called by the same name. So if he says that he understands the Word of God, too, on the analogy of ours, he will thus be brought to a higher conception. For it is altogether necessary to believe that the word corresponds to the nature, like everything else. For a certain power and life and wisdom are seen in the human being; yet no one, from the sameness of the names, would suppose such life or power or wisdom in God as well; rather, the connotations of such names are lowered to match the measure of our nature. Because our nature is perishable and weak, our life is short-lived, our power without substance, our word unstable. But in the case of the transcendent nature, everything said about it is elevated along with the greatness of what is contemplated. So even if the Word of God is spoken of, he will not be thought to have his subsistence in the impulse of the speaker, and then to pass away into non-existence like our word. Rather, just as our nature, being perishable, has a perishable word, so the incorruptible and ever-abiding nature has an eternal and subsistent Word. If, then, it is admitted as a consequence that the Word of God subsists eternally, it is altogether necessary to admit that the subsistence of the Word is in life. For it is not reverent to think that the Word subsists lifelessly, like stones. But if he subsists, being something intellectual and incorporeal, he certainly lives; and if he is separated from life, he certainly does not subsist at all. But it has been shown to be impious that the Word of God should be without subsistence. Therefore it has been shown along with this, as a consequence, that this Word is seen in life. And since the nature of the Word is believed to be simple, showing no doubleness or composition in itself, one could no longer see the Word as being in life by participation in life; for such a conception, which says that one thing is in another, would not be free of composition. Rather, since simplicity is admitted, one must necessarily think that the Word is life itself, not a participation in life. If, then, the Word lives, being life, he certainly also has the power of choice; for no living being is without choice. And it is reverent to conclude that this choice is also powerful. For if one does not admit that it is powerful, he will certainly establish that it is powerless. But powerlessness is far from the notion of the divine; for nothing incongruous is seen in the divine nature. It is altogether necessary to admit that the power of the Word is as great as his purpose, so that no mixture and concurrence of opposites may be seen in what is simple, powerlessness and power being seen in the same purpose, as would be the case if he were able to do one thing but unable to do another. And the will of the Word, being able to do all things, has no inclination toward anything evil (for the impulse toward evil is foreign to the divine nature); but whatever is good, this it also wills; and willing, it is certainly also able; and being able, it is not inactive, but brings every choice of the good into act. Now the world is good, and all the things in it are seen to be ordered wisely and skilfully. All things, then, are works of the Word, who lives and subsists, since he is the Word of God; who chooses, since he lives; who is able to do whatever he chooses; and who chooses what is altogether good and wise and whatever is of the better sort. Since, then, the world is admitted to be something good, and it has been shown by what has been said that the world is the work of the Word, who both chooses and is able to do the good, this Word is other than the one whose Word he is. For this too is in a way one of the relative terms, since the Father of the Word must by all means be understood together with the Word; for he would not be a Word if he were not someone's Word. If, then, the mind of the hearers distinguishes, by the relation implied in the term, both the Word himself and the one from whom he is, the mystery will no longer run the risk, in fighting the Greek notions, of coinciding with those who champion the views of the Jews; rather, it will escape the absurdity of both alike, by confessing both that the Word of God is living, active, and creative, which the Jew does not accept, and that the Word himself and the one from whom he is are not divided in nature. For just as with us we say that the word comes from the mind, being neither wholly the same as the mind nor altogether other (for in that it is from it, it is something else and not that; but in that it brings the mind itself to manifestation, it could no longer be supposed other than it, but, being one with it in nature, it is other as a subject), so also the Word of God, by subsisting in himself, is distinguished from him from whom he has his subsistence; but by showing in himself the things that are seen in God, he is the same in nature as the one who is recognized by the same marks. For whether goodness, or power, or wisdom, or eternal existence, or being incapable of evil, death, and corruption, or being perfect in all things, or anything of that kind whatever should serve as a mark by which to apprehend the Father, you will find by the same marks the Word who subsists from him.

And just as we came to know the Word in the transcendent nature by analogy from things in us, in the same way we shall also be led to the notion of the Spirit, contemplating in our own nature certain shadows and imitations of the ineffable power. With us, breath is the drawing in of air, a thing foreign to us, necessarily drawn in and poured out for the maintenance of the body; at the moment of uttering a word it becomes voice, which makes manifest in itself the power of the word. But in the case of the divine nature it has been thought reverent that there is a Spirit of God, just as it was granted that there is a Word of God, because the Word of God must not be more deficient than our word, as it would be if, while ours is observed together with breath, that one were believed to be without spirit. Yet it is not fitting for God to think that, like our breath, something foreign flows into God from outside and becomes the Spirit in him. Rather, just as, hearing of the Word of God, we did not think the Word to be something without subsistence, nor produced by learning, nor uttered by voice, nor dissolved after being uttered, nor suffering anything else of the kind such as the affections observed in our word, but subsisting substantially, endowed with choice, active, and almighty, so too, having learned of the Spirit of God, which accompanies the Word and makes manifest his activity, we do not conceive of it as an exhalation of breath. For the greatness of the divine power would be brought down to lowliness if the Spirit in it were supposed to be like ours. Rather, we conceive it as a substantial power, contemplated by itself in its own peculiar hypostasis, unable either to be separated from God in whom it is, or from the Word of God whom it accompanies, nor dissolving into non-existence, but, like the Word of God, existing as a hypostasis, endowed with choice, self-moving, active, always choosing the good, and having for every purpose a power that runs together with its will.

So the one who examines precisely the depths of the mystery receives in his soul, in an ineffable way, a moderate comprehension of the teaching about the knowledge of God, but cannot explain in words this inexpressible depth of the mystery: how the same thing is both numerable and escapes enumeration, is seen as divided and is apprehended in unity, is distinguished in hypostasis and is not parted in the underlying subject; and again that one is other, whose the Word and the Spirit are. But when you have perceived what is distinct in these, the unity of the nature in turn does not admit division, so that neither is the might of the monarchy split, being cut up into different deities, nor does our account coincide with the Jewish doctrine; but the truth passes between the two conceptions, overthrowing each of the heresies and accepting from each what is useful. For the doctrine of the Jew is overthrown by the acceptance of the Word and by faith in the Spirit; and the polytheistic error of the Hellenizers is abolished, since the unity of nature cancels the fancy of plurality. On the other hand, from the Jewish conception let the unity of the nature remain, and from Hellenism only the distinction according to hypostases, the impious notion being cured on each side in the appropriate way. For the number of the Trinity is, as it were, a cure for those who err concerning the one, and the doctrine of unity for those who are scattered into plurality.

If the Jew objects to this, our argument with him will no longer be difficult, since it starts from his own ground; for the truth will be made manifest from the teachings he was brought up on. That the Word of God and the Spirit of God are powers subsisting substantially, creative of what has come into being and embracing all that exists, is shown quite plainly from the divinely inspired Scriptures. It is enough to mention one testimony and leave the discovery of more to the more diligent. “By the Word of the Lord,” it says, “the heavens were made firm, and all their power by the Spirit of his mouth.” By what Word and what Spirit? For the Word is not a spoken utterance, nor the Spirit a breath. Otherwise the divine would be made human on the analogy of our nature, and they would be teaching that the maker of the universe used such a word and such a breath. And what power could come from utterances and breath great enough to suffice for the construction of heaven and the powers in it? For if the Word of God is like our utterance, and the Spirit like our breath, then from like things the power is certainly like; and as much strength as our word has, so much has the Word of God. But the breaths that pass out along with utterances are inactive and without subsistence. Those who bring the divine down to the likeness of the word with us make those too altogether ineffective and without subsistence. But if, as David says, the heavens were made firm by the Word of the Lord, and their powers had their constitution in the Spirit of God, then the mystery of the truth stands established, which instructs us to speak of a Word in substance and a Spirit in hypostasis.

That there is a Word of God and a Spirit, the Greek from common notions and the Jew from the Scriptures will perhaps not dispute; but the economy of the Word of God in becoming man both of them will equally reject, as unconvincing and unfitting to be said of God. So we shall bring the objectors to faith on this point from another starting point. They believe that all things came into being by reason and wisdom from him who constituted the universe; or are they reluctant to accept even this belief? But if they do not grant that reason and wisdom preside over the constitution of things, they will set unreason and lack of skill at the origin of the universe. And if this is absurd and impious, it is fully agreed that they will admit that reason and wisdom govern the things that exist. Now it has been shown earlier that the Word of God is not this very utterance, nor the possession of some knowledge or wisdom, but a power subsisting according to substance, choosing every good and having the strength to do all that it chooses. And since the world is good, the power that desires and makes good things is its cause. If the subsistence of the whole world depends on the power of the Word, as the sequence of reasoning has shown, it is altogether necessary also not to conceive of any other cause of the constitution of the parts of the world than the Word himself, through whom all things had their passage into being. Whether one wishes to call this Word, or Wisdom, or Power, or God, or anything else lofty and honourable, we shall not quarrel. For whatever word or name is found to indicate the subject, what is signified by the terms is one: the eternal power of God, creative of the things that exist, inventive of things that do not exist, sustaining what has come into being, foreseeing what is to come. This God, then, the Word, the Wisdom, the Power, has been shown by logical sequence to be the maker of human nature, not driven by any necessity to the construction of man, but creating the existence of such a living being out of the abundance of his love. For his light was not to be unseen, nor his glory unwitnessed, nor his goodness unenjoyed, nor all the other things observed in the divine nature to lie idle, with no one to share and enjoy them. If, then, man comes into being for these purposes, to become a sharer in the divine goods, he is necessarily so constructed as to be suited to the participation of those goods. For just as the eye comes into communion with the light through the radiance naturally lodged in it, drawing to itself by its innate power what is akin to it, so it was necessary that something akin to the divine be blended into human nature, so that through this correspondence it might have a longing for what is its own. For even in the nature of irrational creatures, those that have been allotted life in the water or in the air are each constructed to correspond to their form of life, so that, through the particular fashioning of the body, the air is proper and congenial to the one and the water to the other. So too man, who came into being for the enjoyment of the divine goods, had to have something in his nature akin to what he participates in. For this reason he was adorned with life and reason and wisdom and all the goods that befit God, so that through each of these he might have a desire for what is his own. Since, then, eternity too is one of the goods belonging to the divine nature, it was altogether necessary that the construction of our nature should not be without a share in this either, but should have immortality in itself, so that through the power lodged in it it might recognize what transcends it and be in desire of the divine eternity. The account of the creation of the world indicated this by a comprehensive term in a single phrase, saying that man came into being according to the image of God. For in the likeness according to the image is the enumeration of all that characterizes the divine; and all that Moses relates about these things more in the manner of history, setting doctrines before us in the form of narrative, holds to the same teaching. For that paradise, and the peculiar character of the fruits, whose eating gives those who taste them not fullness of stomach but knowledge and eternity of life: all this agrees with what we have already considered about man, that our nature was in the beginning good and set among good things. But perhaps one who looks at present conditions will object to what has been said and think that he refutes our account as untrue, because man is now seen not in those conditions but in almost all their opposites. “For where is the godlike quality of the soul? Where is the body's freedom from suffering? Where is the eternity of life? Man is short-lived, subject to passion, perishable, liable in soul and body to every form of suffering.” Saying these and similar things and running down nature, he will think he overturns the account given of man. But so that our argument may nowhere be diverted from its sequence, we will treat these matters too in a few words. That human life is now in a sorry condition is not a sufficient proof that man never came into being among good things. For since man is the work of God, who brought this living being into existence through goodness, no one could reasonably suspect him whose constitution has goodness as its cause … Rather, there is another cause of our being in this condition now and of being stripped of better things. And again, the starting point for this argument too is not outside what our opponents agree to. For he who made man for the participation of his own goods, and built into his nature the beginnings of all things fair, so that by each of them desire might be carried toward its like, would not have deprived him of the fairest and most precious of goods: I mean the gift of being without a master and self-determining. For if some necessity presided over human life, the image would have been falsified in that respect, being estranged from the archetype by unlikeness. For how could a nature yoked and enslaved to certain necessities be called the image of the sovereign nature? So what has been made like the divine in every respect had by all means to have in its nature self-rule and freedom from a master, so that the participation of the goods might be the prize of virtue. Whence then, you will say, did he who was honoured in every respect with the fairest things take the worse in exchange for the good? The account of this too is clear. No origin of evil had its beginning from the divine will; for then evil would be beyond blame, inscribing God as its maker and father. Rather, evil somehow grows from within, coming into existence in the will at the moment when the soul withdraws from the good. For as sight is an activity of nature and blindness is the privation of the natural activity, so virtue stands opposed to vice. For one cannot conceive any other origin of vice than the absence of virtue. For as darkness follows when light is removed but does not exist while it is present, so while the good is in the nature, vice has no existence by itself; but the withdrawal of the better becomes the origin of the opposite. Since, then, this is the property of self-determination, to choose freely what one pleases, it is not God who is the cause of your present evils, since he made your nature masterless and free, but thoughtlessness, which chose the worse instead of the better.