Questions and Answers to the Orthodox 95–109

[Question.] If creation was brought forth for our need and benefit, and likewise for our need some things perish and others will put on incorruption at the consummation — cattle, birds, and beasts perish, while heaven and earth are freed from corruption; the former perish because our body rises without needs, while the elements mentioned will remain in incorruption, since we are to receive in them the requital of our deeds — how are the air and the sea not useless, if they remain incorruptible, when we will need them neither for breathing, nor for trade, nor for eating fish, nor for any other help from them, because of the body's freedom from need, as I said? Answer. If, according to the apostle Paul, God makes the form of this world pass away, clearly all the other things that came to be for the sake of the form of the world will by necessity pass away along with the form of the world; and a new heaven and earth will be brought in, in which the rewards of their deeds are to be given to the just and the unjust. And even if we do not then need the air for breathing, we shall necessarily use it for motion and change of place. For “we shall be caught up,” it says, “in clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” [96] Question. [If] praise from God [is not due to those who are good not by their own will, what praise justly owed have] those who received death from Herod … , and those who uttered the hymn when the Lord, seated on the beast, was entering the city? Answer. … those too [received] the slaughter that they received against their will; and these uttered that hymn in Jerusalem not by their own will but by divine grace. [For if] “it has been granted to us,” it says, “not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him,” and the infants too suffered for Christ, then they were counted worthy of divine grace. Who then would not praise those whom God justly praised by the gift of divine grace, he who lavishes praise even on those who are good against their will? Further, if, for the praise of those afflicted for piety, God repays affliction to those who afflict them, then the infants killed by Herod must be praised with this praise too, which comes through the avenging of afflictions. “It is just [for God] …” [Displaced end of the previous ref: “… that by its destruction the folly may be shown and refuted of all who have foolishly said that the heaven is unbegotten and eternal.” The question repeated: “If praise from God is not due to those good not by their own will, … those who received death by the sword from Herod for the Lord's sake, and those who uttered the hymn when the Lord, seated on the beast, was entering the city, what praise justly owed do they have?”] … “to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give you who are afflicted rest with us” … in his kingdom.

[Question.] If grace is called grace because it is readier [to forgive] than the provisions of the law, how are the things that befit grace found rather in the law? For the law, by certain sprinklings and sacrifices of irrational animals and different washings, releases from blame those who stumble day by day; but grace grants one baptism only. If we fell into faults only once, we would need forgiveness only once. But since we sin many times, clearly we need forgiveness many times; and this not grace but the law provides, through the sprinklings mentioned and the rest. How then will grace be shown to be more loving toward sinners than the law, if things are as I said? Answer. The law gives release, through washing and sacrifice, from such faults as contribute nothing to the harm of the way of life and the life of men: for example, touching a corpse or a leper or something of the kind. But for the other faults, committed to the harm of the way of life or the life of men, the law gives no pardon for such faults, either through washing or through the sacrifice of irrational animals, but gives to those who stumbled a just and fitting requital by equal retaliation: … tooth for tooth. And where equality of requital is unfitting, there it repays death by fire, or stone, or sword to the [offenders]. For the daughter of a priest who commits fornication it consumes by fire, the daughter of a layman by stone, and the married woman by the sword. And nowhere does the law have the strength, out of love for men, to save any such person through washings and sacrifices. But grace has great strength for the [salvation] of sinners. For even while the law held sway, if grace had not overtaken the man in his sins, opening to him the door of repentance, he would not have found with the law a saving love for sinners. Grace established in the world for sinners a proven physician, repentance, which heals them, if only they are willing to use the will to repent.

[Question.] If the Lord shows by what he says that fear is not [good] — for he says, “He who fears is not perfected in love” — how again does the same teach the disciples, saying, “Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna”? Answer. “He who fears is not perfected in love” was not said by the Lord, even if the one who said it said it according to the Lord; and “Fear rather him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna” was not said to abolish perfect love. For he who by the greater fear of God dissolves the lesser fear of men does this through love of God; so that the greater fear of God exists for the sake of not falling from the things loved. For as precious as what is believed is, so much is it loved; and as much as it is loved, so much does the lover fear its loss, as long as he is in the contest for what he loves. When the contest is ended, with it ends also the fear of losing what is loved. So until then the fear of God is necessary. For fearing is not destructive of love as hating is (for it is impossible for the same person to love and hate); but the same person can both love and fear. [99] Question. [If God] commanded [sacrifices of irrational animals] to be made in the law, so that men might show their honor toward him by them, how are the Greeks shown to be more impious for sacrificing men? This, they say, was done by the ancients for the sake of greater honor, thinking the one held among them to be a god worthy of greater [honor], and honoring him with the sacrifice of rational beings. For as much as the rational is more honorable than the irrational, so much is its sacrifice more august. And this is shown more clearly by the case of Jephthah, who offered his own daughter as a sacrifice and is [numbered] by the Apostle in the letter to the Hebrews in the list of the [righteous]. Answer. [One must not] consider [only] the sacrifice offered to God in the law, that it was the blood of irrational animals, but how God received it when it was offered to him. For if he received the blood of irrational animals that was offered as if the one offering it were offering his own soul, clearly the sacrifice had the first rank because of the good pleasure of the one who so received it, and God had the first honor. That the one who offered the blood of irrational animals offered it to God as his own soul, the divine Scripture bears witness, saying: “For the soul,” it says, “of those who offer, the blood of their sacrifices is offered in the holy of holies.” Not, then, from the nature of what is offered, but from the disposition of the one who receives it, must the rank of the sacrifice and the honor of God be [judged] … because he spared the human race, not wishing to consume men offered in sacrifice day by day and to destroy the race, [he willed it] to remain, and gave their sacrifices the greatest rank. But the gods worshiped among the Greeks, being wicked and man-hating demons, delighted in sacrifices that diminished and destroyed the human race; and this is the greatest sign of the beastly inhumanity of the Greek gods and of the godlessness of the Greeks, who honor their own gods, as they say, more greatly, or rather most shamefully, by the destruction of the human race. The reason why Jephthah was numbered in the list of the pious is this. Jephthah asked for victory over his enemies; and for this victory he vowed a vow of thanksgiving without limit, to offer as a sacrifice whatever came out of his house to meet him on his return from the war. … Since, then, Jephthah, keeping his piety toward God, was shown [faithful] through the sacrifice of his daughter, for this reason his memory is in the list of the righteous. … [The devil, seeing] the open-endedness of the vow, contrived from it to set a snare of transgression for Jephthah, and moved his daughter, who was an only child, to go out of the house with the lyre to meet him, so that Jephthah, sparing his daughter, would be compelled to break his vow. But though the devil set the snare, he did not get his prey, since Jephthah held the fulfillment of the vow more important than his daughter's life. God allowed her to be offered as a sacrifice, not as one delighting in the shedding of blood, but for the instruction of those who came after, never to make an open-ended vow to God. For many absurd things are to be feared from a vow so open-ended; and God, providing that they should not happen, allowed Jephthah's daughter to become a sacrifice; which was not primarily the choice either of God or of Jephthah, but something that in a way followed from the open-endedness of the vow.

[Question.] If, to establish that the worship practiced by the orthodox is true, the Master at the beginning gave the grace of miracles in their churches, why, when the heretics, having worshiped in them, [drove out] the orthodox themselves, did the divine gifts not depart from the churches together with the orthodox? Instead, the worship of error took hold of the churches, while the gifts given by God for the growth of orthodoxy kept the same activity in the churches even under the heretics. Answer. If divine grace worked the gifts through the heretics, living or dead, what happens would cause a reasonable perplexity. But if those who work the divine miracles in the churches are saints — apostles, prophets, and martyrs — through whom God by divine works testifies to the world, then the churches belong to those through whom the miracles are accomplished, that is, to the orthodox. [101] Question. … ; and the law of knowledge is to set the lesser before the greater; which is shown more clearly to have prevailed among the Jews, who received first the teachings of the law and then those of the Gospels. How then do we not learn out of order, being taught the greater before the lesser? I mean the things of the law as lesser, and those of the Gospels as greater. For since our nature and theirs [is one], there ought to be one order of learning; since if in studies the worse things come first, the better are hindered. Answer. If our teachings had the necessity that those studies have, that unless the learning of the lesser comes first the better are hindered, [it would not be possible] to learn our teachings out of order. But since it is possible to learn our teachings even out of order, clearly our teachings are freed from that necessity. And what is freed from necessity is blameless with respect to order, however it happens. So much in reply to the sophism in the question. To the question itself we answer thus: we too are not taught out of order; but as the apostles learned, first the things of the law and later the Gospels, so they also taught us. Their own words bear witness to this, in which they proclaimed the Gospel. For everywhere they preached Christ from the law, the later from the first, and the greater from the lesser. For “The Lord our God will raise up for you a prophet from your brothers like me”; and “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet”; and “You did not abandon my soul to Hades, nor did my flesh see corruption,” are words of the law that proclaim Christ beforehand, which the apostle also used when he preached the Gospel to the Jews. As to learning, the Gospels did not differ from the law; but as to promise and fulfillment, they differ. For what is the law? The Gospel proclaimed beforehand. And what is the Gospel? The law fulfilled. … [as] the Apostle [says], “You were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands …”

[Question.] If the Creator made nothing superfluous in the constitution of our [body], how was the part of the foreskin of the Jews cut off as superfluous? And for what useful purpose did those before the coming of the Master Christ receive circumcision not in another part but in the procreative member? And why, if it was useful for them, are we not likewise [treated] with such surgery? Answer. Since [Abraham], because of his age, was in despair of begetting children from his free wife, … received the promise of procreation from God, and believed that beyond the time of his age he would be the father of a son born to him from the aged barren woman, God gave him as a seal of this [faith] the circumcision of the foreskin of the member that had become useless for procreation because of age, but through Abraham's faith had become useful for procreation. And he passed this circumcision on to the whole race that came from the father who became one beyond hope, as an indelible memorial of the faith of Abraham and of the power of God, who gives life to the dead and calls the things that are not as though they were. And we too are circumcised with the circumcision of Christ through baptism, putting off Adam, through whom we became sinners and died, and putting on Christ, through whom we are justified and rise from the dead. “In whom,” he says, “[you were circumcised with a circumcision] not made with hands, in the putting off of your body …”

[Question.] If one who is commanded to do what is within his power receives praise or blame for doing it or not doing it, clearly one who does not do what is beyond his power, since it is impossible, is not accountable. How then does [God], commanding what is beyond our power, that is, not to sin, subject the sinner [to punishment], when man is incapable of fulfilling the law? And the Apostle bears witness to this, saying, “No flesh will be justified by works of the law.” Answer. What is impossible for every man is also impossible for any one man, such as flying in the air like an eagle; … and conversely, what is possible for some man, such as sailing, is possible for every man. But if, as the divine Scripture says, some under the law became blameless in righteousness, clearly it was possible for all under the law likewise to become blameless according to the righteousness that comes from the law. For the blessed apostle Paul says about himself that “according to the righteousness that is in the law, I became blameless.” And the blessed evangelist Luke says about Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth that “they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.” And what is the whole righteousness according to the law? To love God above oneself, and one's neighbor as oneself; which is not impossible for men who are willing. “No flesh will be justified by works of the law,” then, is said not because of an inability to do the impossible, but because of an unwillingness to do the possible. For we use the will for what is possible, not for what is impossible; for praise or blame belongs to the things that are possible and up to us, whether they are done or not done. And a sign that we men sin through not choosing, and not through not being able, is this: not all men fall into all kinds of sin, but some fall into this kind of sin and others into that; some into more, some into fewer, and some into none, like the righteous mentioned before. This would not happen to men — to sin in one kind of sin and never to sin in another — if men sinned from an inability of nature and not from an ill will of choice.

[Question.] If in the case of crimes the law gives those who have sinned no room for repentance, but brings on them an inexorable danger, how did the prophet David, who committed adultery and murder, not obtain pardon contrary to the law? And if pardon is good, why is unpardonableness joined to the law? But if it is bad, which I do not think, how did the giver of good things grant what is bad to the prophet? Answer. If in the case of crimes the law gives no room for repentance to the one who has sinned, how was the law [said in the earlier question to be] readier and more loving toward sinners for the forgiveness of sins, since day by day it released them from blame through washing and the sacrifice of irrational animals; while now, in the present question, not a drop of love is left to the law, but unpardonableness is joined to it, bringing an inexorable danger on the sinner? Let this be said to show the contradiction between the questions. To the question itself we answer that, even if the law has unpardonableness, yet grace has given repentance to the sinner. For “Though [your sins are] like scarlet, I will make them white as snow,” and “I do not wish the death of the sinner so much as that he turn and live,” are words of divine grace, calling sinners to obedience to the law, once they have received through repentance pardon for their past sins. Pardon, then, is good and a gift of divine grace; it is neither according to the law nor against the law, but above the law and on behalf of the law: above the law, because it is grace; on behalf of the law, because through repentance it leads sinners to obedience to the law, just as also …

[Question.] If the help that comes through prayer is necessary for all men because of the weakness of their nature, but these things do not belong to the Master Christ, since he is Master and possesses power sufficient for all things, why do we learn from Scripture that Christ prayed more often than the apostles? Answer. As the Lord hungered and thirsted, though he could by the abundance of his power have endured not even these, but willingly endured the weaknesses of nature to give a mark of his human nature, so also with praying, for the same reason. For if, when he had willingly endured the weaknesses of his own nature, some dare to say that he was not of our nature, how would they not have said this very thing, [had he declined] with the abundance [of his power] to pray to God the Father? And since there was no doubt about the apostles, whether they were men, but there was going to be doubt about the Savior, for this reason the divine Scripture announced that he prayed more often than the other men. For if, having become higher than the weaknesses of the flesh through the resurrection, he intercedes with God for us as the high priest of our confession, how much more, while he was still subject to the weakness of the flesh, did he need the loud cries and the tears with which he offered his prayer to the one who was able to save him from death?

[Question.] If the flesh of all men has one [essence], and the soul one essence, how is one man slow and another sharper in understanding? But if the soul is the cause of such a difference, one must suppose the essence of souls to differ according to the difference of understanding; and if the flesh is the cause, the same argument would fit it. And if, from some humor, dry or moist, hot or cold, by excess or deficiency, the one prevails over the other, producing for instance folly or prudence, from where or how did the prevailing of such a quality come about …? Answer. Some have given as the cause of sharpness or slowness of understanding the good or bad blending of the elements of which our bodies are composed, and the proportion of the bodily organs, and they seem to have given the causes rightly. For there are some who in youth are inventive and receptive and sharp in thought, but in old age, changing to the contrary, become slow in understanding. Further, this is a sign that good and bad blending is the cause of such a share [in understanding]. Likewise those with very large heads, called heavy-headed, because they do not keep a proportion with the other parts of the body through an excess of smallness or greatness, are themselves unfit to be able [to understand] … And others are sharp and ready for grasping the things that are constituted by nature also by divine grace, as in, “The Lord gave Solomon breadth of heart like the sand by the shore of the sea”; and, “To one is given through the Spirit a word of wisdom, to another a word of knowledge.”

[Question.] If songs were invented by unbelievers for deception, and were introduced to those under the law because of the childishness of their minds, why do those who have received the perfect teachings of grace, which are foreign to the ways mentioned, use songs in the churches like the children under the law? Answer. It is not simply singing that befits children, but singing with lifeless instruments, and with dancing and castanets; therefore in the churches the use of such instruments, and of the other things that befit children, is removed from the songs, and simple singing is left. For it sweetens the soul toward an ardent longing for what is delighted in in the songs; it lulls to sleep the passions that rise up from the flesh; it drives away the wicked thoughts cast at us by the invisible enemies; it waters the soul to bear the fruit of divine goods; it makes the contestants of piety noble in endurance amid dangers; it becomes for the pious a remedy for all the griefs of life. Paul calls this the sword of the Spirit, with which he arms the soldiers of piety against the invisible enemies. For it is the word of God, both when it is meditated and when it is sung and … the things that perfect the soul in the virtues of piety, through the church's songs, for the pious …

[Question.] If involuntary ignorance draws pardon after it, as we are taught by Scripture, how is it that the Jews of old, who crucified Christ out of ignorance, suffered very many unbearable evils, as Josephus bears witness in his account of the capture [of Jerusalem], while those of the present who disobey Christ have been driven out of their own homeland and scattered over all the earth, and given over to the nations in dishonorable slavery, as the facts proclaim more clearly than an inscribed pillar? [Scripture] establishes [their ignorance] in both cases: at one time [the Lord saying], “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do”; at another the Apostle saying, “For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” This is said about the Jews of old; and about those of the present: “I bear them witness,” he says, “that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” Answer. When involuntary ignorance is thought by the ignorant to be knowledge, then the outcome of what is done in ignorance shows whether it was in truth knowledge, or error and ignorance. And when the supposed knowledge has been shown by the outcome to be ignorance of the matter, if the one who was ignorant remains in the same ignorance, he draws no pardon after him, but inexorable punishment. But that [they crucified him] thinking him an opponent of God … , as having God [on their side] in killing him, is clear to everyone. For they would not have crucified him if they had known that after his death God would raise him from the dead. And when he was raised from the dead by God, he showed that the supposed knowledge of the Jews against Christ was in truth ignorance. Since, then, after the Lord had risen from the dead, and it had been shown that God had not agreed with the Jews in the death of Christ, and that Christ did not remain in death without rising, as those who crucified him expected, the Jews still remained in unbelief, for this reason they were not worthy of pardon. For paying money against his resurrection, considering it a theft, and forbidding the apostles to accomplish in his name the divine works done in the power of the Holy Spirit, is not the mark of an involuntary ignorance that draws pardon, but of a known and voluntary fighting against God that draws punishment. For if the Jews crucified Christ with this hope, that his teaching would not prevail and Judaism would not be dissolved, how is not the failure of both a dissolving of the Jews' involuntary ignorance concerning Christ? And “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” was said in this sense: when they know that they crucified me in ignorance, and ask for ransom from their offenses, grant it to them. For forgiveness is not given to one who thinks that his own sin is not sin but righteousness. And what Paul said, “I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge,” was said sparingly, by the condescension of the word, becoming weak to the weak, so that, according to what was said, he might save the weak.

[Question.] If God promised to give the gift of resurrection to all the dead, and all, rising from the tombs, are to stand before the Judge, how will the Lord's judging the living and the dead be fulfilled? And how will the dead be able to be judged, when their bodies lie cast in tombs and their souls are separated from their bodies? Answer. “We shall not all sleep,” it says. He will judge, then, as living those who are alive at that time, and as dead those who rise from the dead. “The hour is coming,” it says, “and now is, when all who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who have done good will come out to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” One should, then, consider the possibility of the thing according to the trustworthiness of the word, and not raise an irrational perplexity.