Questions and Answers to the Orthodox 129–144

[Question.] If what is by itself is simple, as among the letters of the alphabet, for instance iota, and what is with another is composite, for instance pi, and both are of the same essence, both the iota and the pi composed of three iotas, and [the pi] composed of three iotas is not deprived of being from … ; how is God — who is said to have the composition of two persons of the same essence, I mean Father and Son, and of one person who gives, on the face of it, the impression of a distinct essence, I mean the Holy Spirit — called one and uncircumscribed, when there is so great a distinction and division of his hypostases, or persons? Answer. Iota and pi do not differ from each other in essence. For each is a line; and a line does not differ from a line, inasmuch as it is a line. But iota differs from pi by such and such a position; and [pi] is both composite and generated. By parts and by extension in time, pi came into being through the one who put it together and made it. One must, then, when contemplating by some natural analogy him who is beyond nature, take from the analogy only those things that fit what is contemplated through the analogy: for example, both one and three belong to pi and to God; but to pi in a generated and composite way, to God in an ungenerated and uncomposite way. For he who has no one who made and composed him is neither generated nor composite. Therefore in God we speak of eternal co-existence, but no longer of composition; but in pi of composition, because of its generation by parts. Pi, then, inasmuch as it is a line, is one; inasmuch as it is pi, it is three; and God, the Trinity, [is one] in the unity of the essence, without any division and distinction in this respect, just as pi is one in the unity of the line, without any division and distinction in this respect. The difference in the holy Trinity is according to the modes of existence of the hypostases, but in pi according to the position of the line.

[Question.] If, because of the Greeks' [saying] that the heaven is a sphere and moves in place, … , or because it is fixed like a vault, or stretched out like a skin, according to Scripture, [we say that] the heaven is not in place? For as what moves, so also what is fixed must be thought to be in place. And if this is so, how shall we not have a just condemnation of one another concerning the circumscription of the heaven? And if the heaven is in place according to both, and the quality and quantity of the place are unknown to both, what more is there of condemnation and ignorance for each of those mentioned? Answer. If the Christians said that the heaven is not in place, as the Greeks say, the condemnation of each other would be equal, since both say that the heaven is not in place and yet use to one another expressions that signify that the heaven is in place. But if it is impossible that the heaven is a sphere and moves spherically, while it is shown to be possible that it is like a vault, then there is no condemnation of the Christians for ignorance. As to its place, [we speak] from what we conjecture about it from the things among us: as among us, when a round body, smooth and hollow, equal in circumference on every side, is placed upside down on the waters, it is borne up by the waters, in this way the heaven is borne up by the waters. “Who set up,” it says, “the heaven like a vault.” By the name of vault it indicated the roundness of the body of the heaven. The waters, then, bear the heaven, the earth bears the waters, and the divine command bears the earth: “Who hung,” it says, “the earth upon nothing.” [131] Question. [If Matthew and] Luke, in giving the genealogy of the Lord according to the flesh, wrote, the one the genealogy according to nature and the other the genealogy according to the law, because in this way [the arguments] against the Jews are established, how is the blessed Luke not shown to fight with Matthew, since he set out in his own Gospel more fathers of Christ according to the law than according to nature, though the contrary ought to have been written by him? For one must reckon those by adoption fewer than the fathers by nature. For it is possible to become [father] according to the law … when the natural father who begot the child has died. How then, as I said, … is it reversed in the evangelists, and Luke, who ought to name the [fathers] of Christ according to the law as equal to, or rather fewer than, those according to nature, … and [if] such a [wife] was also barren, how is he found naming more fathers? And if they are found fighting with themselves and with one another in the genealogy, how will they be able to have credibility in the rest of what they say about the Savior, provoking from the very beginning to contradiction the one who wishes with reason to join our religion? Answer. In the genealogy according to Luke, Heli alone is the father of Joseph according to the law; and from Heli to Nathan all who are set below are sons by nature of those placed above them, because of the relation that Heli has with Joseph: Joseph alone [is his son] according to the law, and all the others according to nature. This being so, all the slander about the evangelists' contradicting each other, which comes from the misunderstanding of those men, is abolished …

[Question.] If, according to the law of Moses, the brother of one who died childless [takes his wife, raising up seed] by nature to himself but by law to his brother, then if it happened that the surviving brother had a wife, did he take, together with her, also the wife of his dead brother as wife? And how is this not absurd? [If he did not,] the marriage would [not] bring absurdity and uselessness, and the command of the law would be shown absurd in every way, since the dead man would not receive the memorial through procreation. And what benefit comes to the dead man, that through another's procreation he is named, after his end, father of another's offspring? Answer. Since the law did not forbid the Israelites to take [more than one] wife if they wished, there is nothing absurd or harmful in taking [another] wife, since the law is not broken. For all absurdity lies in the transgression of the law. And even if it should happen [that the wife was barren] … this is unclear … ; and what is unclear is not … against the law. This law was laid down so that what death took from the dead man, that is, fatherhood and an heir, the providence of the law might supply to him. For if men come to marriage for the sake of a memorial and an inheritance, clearly [what] God might be asked to supply to men does not become useless. There is also another benefit attached to this law: that by this marriage the inheritance might remain in the same tribe and not pass to another tribe. And since the wife, once joined to her first husband, became one body with him, for this reason the dead man does not become father of another's offspring, but of one born from his own body. For as the [child] born of such a union is named [son] of the dead man, so also the wife [is named] his … [133] Question. [If …] of David was commanded to the Israelites, how did the evangelist Matthew mention the natural fathers before David and after David, while Luke made mention of the natural fathers before David, but of the legal fathers after David? And if the names of the natural and legal fathers after the deportation to Babylon are not found complete in the divine Scriptures, but are written on mere assertion, how [are] the things written on assertion [to be believed]? Answer. Luke too mentioned the natural fathers of Heli, both those before David and those after David. Heli alone was the legal father of Joseph, who because of the legal sonship is reckoned in the same relation up to Nathan. That the Master Christ was named son of Joseph, who had two fathers, one by law and the other by nature, divine grace arranged, so that when we hear that Christ was son of Joseph but not born of him by nature, we may not be surprised. For just as Joseph himself was called son of Heli, though not born of him, because it seemed good to the divine law to give a son to Heli from Heli's wife, so it seemed good to God to give a son to Joseph from Joseph's wife, not born of him by nature. “Joseph,” it says, “[do not fear to take Mary] your wife.” For what is born of a woman without [another man's] seed is necessarily the son of the husband and the wife, in whatever way God wishes to give a son to the husband, either through union or without union. The evangelists did not set out the names in the genealogies on assertion, but from written histories. For the holy evangelists who wrote the genealogies were Hebrews of Hebrews, among whom there was great zeal to have the genealogy of the royal and priestly tribe in writing. Indeed, after the return from Babylon, Ezra expelled from the priestly service those whom he did not find genealogized in the list of the priests. And this is shown from the book of Chronicles …

[Question.] If God sent down the law to the Israelites through Moses, how is it that in many places of the divine Scripture Moses is called the law, and not the lawgiver? Answer. It is the custom not only of men but also of the divine Scripture to call a book by the name of the one who spoke it, to show whose the words are; as in “The eunuch was sitting in the chariot and reading the prophet Isaiah”; and again, “The abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel.” Likewise it is our custom to say, “I have acquired the prophet Jeremiah,” or “the Apostle.” [135] Question. [If the Lord] showed [his name by] his acts and the calling according to the divine Scripture, and the divine Scripture foretold that Christ would be called Emmanuel, how will the Lord be thought to be true, when after his birth he nowhere received the name Emmanuel? For no one addressed the Christ who had come by the name Emmanuel in so many words. Answer. If the Gospel narratives contain the fulfillment of the divine predictions about Christ, and the blessed Matthew has handed down to us that he is the one foreordained by divine prediction to be called by the name Emmanuel, how is he not called by the name Emmanuel? Nor has the holy Church of God, taught by the holy Gospel, ceased to name the Lord Emmanuel. We have, in the name of Christ, all the other names of Christ contained, even if we do not always use them all. Nor is he Emmanuel because he is called so; but because he is so, he is called so.

[Question.] If disregarding one's parents is forbidden by the divine Scripture, and he who pursues forbidden things is called a sinner, how is the Master Christ shown to be sinless, who disregarded his own parents in various places? For at the wedding he rebuked his mother by saying, “What is there between me and you, woman?” And when his mother wished to see him, he named as his mother and brothers those who do the will of God. And again, when the womb that bore him and the breasts that he sucked were blessed, he himself blessed those who do the will of God. All these sayings are thought to have been said by him to slight his mother, because when his mother was named and blessed, others were blessed by him in contrast to her; and a contrast is clearly drawn between contrary things. Besides, if he chose the holy Virgin for the service of so great a dispensation, how is she unworthy? But if the things said are contrary to one another, how do contraries not destroy one another? Answer. “What is there between me and you, woman?” was said to his mother by the Savior not as a rebuke but to show this: “We,” he says, “are not the ones who have undertaken the care of the wine consumed at the wedding; yet out of great love, if you wish that they not lack wine, tell the servants to do what I tell them, and you will see that they will not lack wine”; which is what happened. He would not, then, rebuke in word the mother whom he honored in deeds. And in the other sayings he does not deprive his mother of the honor that befits her, but shows according to what motherhood the Virgin is blessed. For if he who hears the word of God and keeps it is brother, sister, and mother of God, and both these belonged to his mother, it is clear that his mother ought to be blessed according to this motherhood. For to hear the word of God and keep it belongs to virtue and to a pure soul wholly inclined toward God. And since God did not choose an ordinary woman to become mother of Christ, but the one who surpassed all women in virtues, for this reason Christ too wished his mother to be blessed for this virtue, through which she was counted worthy to become a mother while a virgin. That Christ in no way appears to have done anything to dishonor or disobey his parents, Luke the evangelist bears witness, saying about him that he went down with Joseph and Mary from Jerusalem, and was subject to them. [137] Question. [If the woman] anointed the Lord with ointment [before his passion], and we in baptism perform the symbols of his passion and resurrection, how is it that we are first anointed with oil, and then, after the symbols mentioned in the font, we are sealed with the ointment afterwards, and do not think we do these things in the reverse of what happened in the Lord's case, since the Lord was first anointed with ointment and afterwards suffered? And how is the anointing with oil offered to those about to be baptized not superfluous, since the Lord was anointed only with ointment before the passion? Answer. Since what [one does] for burial one does after the death of the one buried, but the blessed Mary anointed the Lord before his death (according to what is written: “What she has done,” he says, “she did for my burial; for she anointed my body beforehand”; and “beforehand” means: before the proper time she anointed my body); for this reason it does not happen in reverse, but what happened in the Lord's case before the time happens in the case of the baptized at the proper time. We are anointed with the old oil so that we may become christs; and with the ointment in remembrance of the one who … ; in type in the present, and in truth in the future, of the Savior Christ, who called us to the fellowship of his sufferings and glory. [138] Question. [If each one who] has sinned is punished for what he sinned, how is God just, who put to death so great a people for the faults of others? I mean those who were at fault, Jonathan and David: the one broke the fast in ignorance by tasting the honey, the other rashly numbered the people. And if someone should say that the death of the subjects took place to punish the rulers, how does he not do wrong, subjecting the innocent to punishments? And this contradicts the Scripture that says, “The soul that sins, it shall die.” [Answer.] That the punishment of the people [is a punishment] of the kings who sinned the blessed David himself shows, asking God to transfer the blow from the people to himself and his house. For the diminishing of the subjects is a shaking of the kingdom. Likewise Saul too was going to kill his son Jonathan, so that by his death he might heal the blow on the people, had not the people first sworn not to let Jonathan die. And as man is composed of soul and body, so the kingdom is composed of the king and the subjects. And as, when a man commits a sin with his hand and is beaten on the back, the one who beats him does no wrong, so God does no wrong in punishing the people for the faults of kings. For the blow on the people is known to grieve kings greatly; for the blow on the people is a punishment of the kingdom.

[Question.] If God is one, it is clear that he possesses each thing as one: for instance, the simple or the composite, the mortal or the immortal, the begotten or the unbegotten, begetting or not begetting. How then, since the Father begot and the Son did not beget, and the Son was begotten while the Father was not begotten, can the Father, the Son, and the Spirit be called one God, when from being begotten or not being begotten, and from begetting and not begetting, he is thought to possess contrariety? Answer. God is one in the co-existence of the three divine hypostases, which differ from one another not in essence but in the modes of existence. And the difference in the modes of existence does not divide the oneness in essence. And just as in the case of Adam, Eve, and Seth there is one account of the essence, a rational soul and a mortal body, but the modes of existence differ (for Adam came into being from the earth, Eve from the rib, and Seth from seed), and in the different modes of existence the account of the essence remains one, undivided and unchanged; so also in the case of God, by the identity of the essence of the persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are believed to be one God. For the mode of existence contributes nothing to the account of the essence. Whatever, then, is said of the three divine hypostases alike and without difference, in these understand the oneness of the essence; and whatever is not said alike, understand these of the mode of existence of the persons.

[Question.] If Christ called himself the heir, and the tenants, that is, the Jews, recognized him according to the parable, and killed the heir because of the inheritance, how did Christ himself and the apostle Paul bear witness to their ignorance in that bold deed? The one saying, “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”; the other declaring, “If they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” Answer. Ignorance is spoken of in two ways. Either one is ignorant without willing it, when he does not have the things that lead to knowledge; or one is ignorant willingly, when he has the things that lead to knowledge but does not wish to know. This willing ignorance the divine Scripture is accustomed to call sometimes ignorance and sometimes knowledge: knowledge, as when it says, “You both know me and know where I am from,” instead of “You can know, from what I do, both [the truth] of my name and of my words”; for one who lies cannot do such works. The heir's being recognized by the tenants [means] that, according to the figure of the parable, they saw him to be above every man in the present life by the works he did and by his calling. But that after his death God would raise him from the dead to immortal life and make him heir of all, they did not know; for the figure of the parable did not contain any indication of this. According to this ignorance Christ said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”; and likewise the apostle: “For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” [141] Question. [If Christ alone] fulfilled the law exactly, how did Zechariah and Elizabeth walk blameless in the law, to whom Luke bore this witness, and Paul too, who became blameless according to the righteousness that is in the law? Answer. The blameless is one thing and the sinless another. … [The sinless is necessarily] blameless, but the blameless is not necessarily also sinless. For he who sins against the law with a pardonable sin, and receives forgiveness by bringing the sacrifices and confessing the fault, becomes pure and blameless according to the righteousness from the law. But Christ, being sinless and in no way transgressing the law, did nothing that needed correction; and he also accepted John the Baptist and was baptized by him, to fulfill all righteousness — which Paul had not yet accepted before believing in Christ, since otherwise he would not have persecuted the Church. For this reason Christ alone is called sin[less] …

[Question.] If an angel is higher than a man, and Scripture names men gods, how is it not fitting that the angels too be named gods by us? Answer. Those of the angels who appeared in the rank of God, or spoke to men, have themselves also received the name of God, as the one who spoke to Jacob and to Moses. Men too were called gods. To each of these, because of the task entrusted to them, it was given to have the rank and title of God; but when the task is fulfilled, those who received the name of God for the sake of some task cease to be called gods. For when he entrusted to the angel the oversight of the people, he said to Moses about him, “Do not disobey him, for my name is upon him.” When … [he said to] them, “Judge just judgment, for the judgment is God's”; and again, “I said, You are gods, and all sons of the Most High.” He called them gods, meaning: “I have given you my honor and rank and name; as I judge, so judge the people.” [143] Question. … [if God] has come down to [being] man, how is man not improperly called God? Answer. This question suits neither a Christian nor a Greek. … according to each one's opinion. One ought not to build a difficulty out of things agreed, but out of …

[Question.] If God has an existing hypostasis, and an indwelling will, and an existing Son, how is he, composed of so many things, named simple? Answer. Just as God is whole everywhere, and whole in each thing, and whole by himself, and we have faith in this, so also his simplicity is whole. He is wholly Son and wholly has a Son; he is wholly will and wholly has will. For God is not according to created nature, so that his being and his having should be understood as composition, as … ; but as being by nature, so also … composition.