To Theopompus on the Impassibility and Passibility of God

Contents

Reading pages: 1–14 · 15–30 · 31–32

1. 1Theopompus asks Gregory before a gathering of friends whether God is impassible, and argues that if God's nature is impassible, it would prevent him from suffering even if he willed it.
2. 2Gregory warns against subjecting God's will to the necessity of his nature, since God alone is free; Theopompus grants God's freedom but presses whether an impassible nature can take on human suffering.
3. 3Gregory explains that man, a compound of body and soul bound by his Creator's law, cannot do all he wills, whereas the indescribable divine nature is subject to no necessity and can do all things.
4. 4Gregory argues that in God, who is simple and one in essence and will, nature and will cannot conflict, unlike man, who is composed of body and soul whose wills differ.
5. 5Theopompus accepts God's freedom and lordship but asks whether God ever intended to subject himself to human sufferings, since his impassible nature never changes.
6. 6Gregory answers that it is no suffering for God willingly to humble himself and serve men for their healing and salvation, since his impassible nature proves its impassibility in suffering.
7. 7Using the image of a physician who willingly humbles himself to serve the sick without losing his dignity, Gregory argues that God's willing entry into suffering defeats suffering itself.
8. 8Like a diamond struck by iron, God remains unharmed when he enters suffering and death, so that his entry into death was the death of death.
9. 9As iron is damaged by the stone it strikes, God remains impassible in his sufferings, and his presence within suffering is the true proof of his impassibility and immortality.
10. 10God's impassibility becomes known only by his entering into sufferings, against which the sufferings cannot stand.
11. 11God's entry into death shows not weakness but his unchangeable power; like a king visiting a prison without becoming a criminal, he entered death without being subject to it.
12. 12God came to death and went forth from it as almighty, mocking death as no mortal can, whereas transgressors remain in death; so those who mock his coming to death are wrong.
13. 13As the salamander, a mortal creature, endures fire unharmed, so God truly came to death and remained impassible, becoming like mortal men without losing anything of his Godhead.
14. 14God, who took on the form of mortal men by his own will for a short time, remained unchanged and undiminished, so the sufferings that came about by his counsel are not sufferings of God.
15. 15As a sword passes through fire without dividing it, so the divine nature, finer than all bodies, entered sufferings without being divided or harmed, and so revealed its impassibility.
16. 16As sunlight passes through glass without being lessened, God passes through sufferings unharmed and gives his gifts without loss, so his coming to men is not an impossible suffering.
17. 17Only a God who does not fear fire, iron or death is truly free; and God, who willingly takes on human sufferings without suffering their pains, alone is impassible.
18. 18A God harmed by sufferings would cease to be God; the true God comes to help, taking human form for our sake while remaining unchanged.
19. 19A God who chose idle rest would be inferior to the many famous pagans who died for their city or friends; but God, needing no praise, came willingly and fearlessly to death.
20. 20God suffers no dishonor by going into death to free men from it, since he has no pride or fear of losing glory; vainglory would be a suffering incurable even by him.
21. 21God, who is life and above death, can go into death without suffering from it, and hastens gladly into death in order to destroy it.
22. 22As light enters darkness without being darkened and lights it up, so God willingly emptied himself into death while his divine nature remained incorrupt and conquered the sufferings.
23. 23Things like the salamander, the diamond and talc keep their nature in contact with what harms them, so God remains impassible in suffering; and a God who did nothing for men would not be blessed, since true impassibility kills men's sufferings.
24. 25As an artist is known by his works, so God's perfection becomes known through the deeds that reveal it.
25. 26Gregory rejects the idea of a God who only contemplates himself at rest, insisting that the perfect God is the one who comes to men as helper and savior of the hopeless.
26. 27As men's character is known only from their deeds, God's perfection is known from the good works he performs, the visible bearing witness to the invisible.
27. 28A God who did not call men by his good deeds could not be known as perfect; the idea of a God occupied only with himself makes him weak.
28. 29Helping men lost in ignorance brings no suffering on God; a God who did not call back those sinking in the sea of the world would not be perfect.
29. 30A self-absorbed God would be more loveless than the philosophers, who labor to heal those sick in soul; as Diogenes said, physicians go to the sick, not the healthy.
30. 31If human philosophy hastens to heal sick souls, God, the teacher of all philosophy, must go willingly to those struck down by sufferings; love of money is the soul's sickness, and envy has no place in God.
31. 32Gregory concludes that Jesus, King over all, came to heal men's sufferings, scattering them by his impassibility like darkness before light, and made mortals immortal.