On the Soul and the Resurrection 117–141

“… riage. And what is still more absurd, most of the irrational creatures mate in spring. Can one say, then, that spring, coming on in the revolution above, produces vice, so that souls fall filled with evil at the same time as the wombs of irrational creatures conceive? And what would one say about the farmer who plants cuttings of plants in the earth? How has his hand buried a human soul together with the plant, the shedding of wings coinciding with the man’s impulse to plant? The same absurdity attends the other account too, thinking that the soul busies itself about the unions of living things in pairs or watches for births, so as to enter the bodies being born. And if the man renounces marriage, and the woman frees herself from the necessity of labour pains, will vice not weigh down the soul? Then either marriage gives the signal to the vice above against souls, or even without it the attachment to the opposite takes hold of the soul. Then the soul will wander homeless and vagrant in the middle, having fallen from heaven and perhaps having no body to receive it. Then too, how will they suppose by this that the divine presides over existing things, ascribing the beginnings of human life to this accidental and irrational fall of souls? For what follows must necessarily agree with the beginning. If life began from some spontaneous chance, its course too will certainly be by chance. And in vain do such people make existing things depend on the divine power, when they say that the things in the world grow not by divine will but refer the beginnings of what comes to be to an evil chance, as though human life could not have come to exist unless evil had given the signal to life. If, then, the beginning of life is such, clearly what follows will move according to the beginning; for no one would say that good grows from evil or the opposite from good; but we expect the fruits according to the nature of the seed. This spontaneous and chance movement, then, would rule the whole of life, no providence passing through existing things.”

“For everything will certainly lie with the one who carries it along, and life will differ in nothing from ships without ballast, carried now to one harbour, now to another, of good or bad fortune, by spontaneous chances as by waves. For there can be no gain from virtue for those whose nature has its beginning from the opposite. For if our life is governed by God, it is admitted that vice cannot begin our life; but if we grow through vice, we shall live entirely and altogether according to it. The tribunals after life here, and repayment according to worth, and all else that is said and believed for the abolition of vice, will then be shown by this to be nonsense. For how can a man who grew through vice be outside it? And how could there be any impulse of choice in man toward the life of virtue, if his nature has its beginning from vice, as they say? For as none of the irrational creatures attempts to speak like a human being, but, using the voice natural to it and bred with it, thinks it no loss to lack speech, in the same way those for whom vice is thought to be the beginning and cause of life would not come to desire virtue, as being outside their nature. But for all who have purified their soul by reasoning, the life of virtue is a matter of zeal and desire. By this, then, it is clearly shown that vice is not older than life, and that nature did not have its first beginnings from it, but that the wisdom of God, which governs the universe, begins our life. And when the soul has come into being in the manner pleasing to the Creator, then it chooses by its own authority, from its power of choice, whatever it wishes, and becomes that. We may learn the point from the example of the eyes, for which seeing is from nature and not seeing from choice or from affliction. For what is against nature may sometimes come in place of nature, either when someone closes his eye of his own will or is deprived of sight by affliction. So one may say that the soul has its constitution from God, and, since no vice is conceived in the divine, it is outside the necessity of vice; but having come into being in this way, it is led by its own judgment to what it thinks good, either closing its eye to the good by choice, or having its eye harmed by the plotting of the enemy who dwells with our life, and living in the darkness of deceit …”

“… and, conversely, looking purely at the truth, comes to be far from the passions of darkness. When, then, someone will say, does it come into being, and how? But the inquiry into how each thing came to be must be removed from the discussion altogether. For not even about the things readily open to our understanding, which we perceive through sense, would it be possible for searching reason to understand how what appears came to exist, so that such a thing was not thought within the grasp even of inspired and holy men. ‘For by faith we understand,’ says the Apostle, ‘that the ages were framed by the word of God, so that what is seen came to be from things that do not appear’; he would not have said this, I think, if he had thought that what is sought could be known by reasonings. But the Apostle says he has believed that the age itself, and all that has come to be in it (whatever this age is, in which the whole visible and invisible creation is seen), was framed by the divine will; but the how he left unsearched. For I think such a thing is not attainable by those who search, since the question about these things shows us many perplexities: how the moving comes from the stable nature, and the extended and composite from the simple and unextended. From the transcendent substance itself? But what exists does not admit being of a different kind from it. From elsewhere, then? But reason sees nothing outside the divine nature. For our conception would be split into different principles if anything were thought to be outside the making cause, from which the skilful wisdom collected its materials for creation. Since, then, the cause of existing things is one, while the things brought into being through it are not of the same kind as the transcendent nature, and the absurdity is equal either way in the suppositions, both to think that creation is from the nature of God and that all things came to exist from some other substance (for either the divine will be supposed to be in the properties of creation, if the things that came to be are of the same kind as God, or some material nature outside the divine substance will be set up against God …”

“… as unbegotten, made equal to the eternity of Being; which indeed the Manichees imagined, and some of the Greek philosophy, carried along by like suppositions, have made this fancy a doctrine). So that we may best escape the absurdity on either side in our inquiry into existing things, following the Apostle’s example we shall leave the question how each thing exists uninquired into, pointing out only this: that the impulse of the divine choice, when it wills, becomes fact, and the purpose at once becomes nature and is given substance, the all-powerful authority not leaving unrealized whatever it wills wisely and skilfully; and the existence of the will is substance. Since existing things are divided in two, into the intellectual and the bodily, the creation of intellectual things does not seem in any way out of keeping with the incorporeal nature, but shows its nearness in being formless, intangible, and unextended; and one who supposes this about the transcendent nature too will not be wrong. But since bodily creation is seen in properties that have no communion with the divine, it produces the greatest perplexity for reason, which cannot see how the visible comes from the invisible, the solid and resistant from the intangible, the limited from the unlimited, from what has no quantity or magnitude what is certainly bounded by measures seen in quantity, and each of the other things grasped about bodily nature. About these we say only this: that nothing seen about the body is body by itself, not shape, not colour, not weight, not extension, not magnitude, nor anything else seen as a quality; but each of these is a principle (a thought); and their concurrence and union with one another becomes body. Since, then, the qualities that complete the body are grasped by mind and not by sense, and the divine is intellectual, what labour is it for the intelligible to produce the thoughts, whose concurrence with one another has produced for us the nature of the body? But these things …”

“… were examined outside the subject. What was sought was whether souls exist before bodies, and when or how they come to be. And for this reason the argument left the inquiry about how uninvestigated, as being beyond reach. It remains to seek when souls have the beginning of their existence, as following from what was examined earlier. For if it were granted that the soul lives in a state of its own before the body, it would necessarily follow that those absurd doctrines have force which settle souls in bodies because of vice. But no sensible person would suppose that souls are later in their genesis and younger than the forming of bodies, since it is plain to all that nothing … of what is soulless has in itself a power of motion and growth. But of those nourished in the womb neither growth nor local motion is doubtful …”

“… of the human constitution, the power of the soul too shows itself in proportion to the bodily quantity: first arising in those being formed within through the nourishing and growing power, then bringing the gift of sense to those who have come out into the light, and then, like a fruit when the plant has already grown, showing the rational power moderately, not all at once, but growing along with the plant’s rising by a sequence of progress. Since, then, what is taken from living beings as the beginning of a living constitution cannot be dead (for deadness comes by privation of soul, and privation would not come before the possession), we gather from this that the compound made of both has a common passage into being, neither the one coming first nor the other later. But reason necessarily foresees a halt one day to the increase in the number of souls, so that nature may not always be flowing, always poured forward through those who come after and never ceasing its motion. And we think the reason why our nature too must certainly one day become stable is this: since the whole intelligible nature stands in its own fullness, it is likely that humanity too will one day come to an end; for this too is not estranged from the intelligible nature; so that it may not always seem to be seen in want. For the continual addition of those born afterward becomes a charge that the nature has something lacking. When, then, humanity reaches its own fullness, this flowing movement of nature will certainly stop, having come to its necessary end, and another state will succeed life, separated from the present one carried on in birth and corruption. For when there is no birth, there will by every necessity be nothing that perishes either. For if composition comes before dissolution (and by composition we mean the passage through birth), it certainly follows that if composition does not go before, dissolution will not follow. The life after this, then, appears by consequence to be stable and indissoluble, not altered by birth …”

Gregory: When my teacher had gone through this, since it seemed to the many sitting by that the discussion had reached its fitting end, I was afraid that there would no longer be anyone to resolve for us the objections brought by those outside against the resurrection, if anything should happen to my teacher from her illness, as indeed it did. “The discussion,” I said, “has not yet touched the most important of the questions of doctrine. For the inspired Scripture says, both in the new and in the ancient teaching, that when our nature has passed through the passing movement of time in a certain order and sequence, this flowing course, which proceeds through the succession of those born afterward, will certainly stop one day; and when the completion of the universe no longer admits increase, the whole fullness of souls will return from the invisible and scattered to the compacted and visible, the same elements running together again in the same order. And such a state of life is called resurrection in the Scriptures of divine teaching, the whole movement of the elements being named together with the raising up of what is earthy.” Macrina: “What, then,” she said, “of these things has not been mentioned in what was said?” Gregory: “The very doctrine of the resurrection,” I said.

Macrina: “… the face of the earth.’ He says that the power of the Spirit, working all in all, gives life to those in whom it comes to be and removes from life again those from whom it departs. Since, then, he says that the failing of the living comes about by the withdrawal of the Spirit, and the renewal of those who have failed by its presence, and in the order of the saying the failing of those renewed comes first, we say that by this the mystery of the resurrection is proclaimed to the Church, the prophetic spirit of David having foretold this grace. And elsewhere this same prophet says that the God of all, the Lord of existing things, appeared to us to establish the feast with thick branches, interpreting the feast of Tabernacles by the word ‘thick branches.’ This feast had long been customary from the tradition of Moses, the lawgiver, I think, foretelling the future prophetically; and though it was always being kept, it had not yet taken place. For the truth was foreshown figuratively in the riddles of what was done, but this true pitching of tabernacles had not yet come. For this reason, according to the prophetic word, the God and Lord of all showed himself to us, so that the pitching of the tabernacle of our dissolved dwelling might be established for human nature, being covered again bodily, thick with branches, through the coming together of the elements. For the word ‘thick branches’ by its proper sense signifies the covering and the adornment from it. The saying of the psalm runs thus: ‘God is the Lord, and he has appeared to us; establish the feast with thick branches, up to the horns of the altar.’ This seems to me to foretell in a riddle that one feast is being established for the whole rational creation, the lesser dancing together with the higher in the gathering of good things. For in the figurative construction of the temple not all were allowed within the outer enclosure, but every Gentile and foreigner was kept from entering; and of those who came within, not all had equal share in the passage further in, unless purified by a purer way of life and certain sprinklings; and again even among these the inner temple was not accessible to all, but …”

“… it was lawful only for the priests to go within the veil as the service required; while the hidden and inaccessible part of the temple, in which the altar stood adorned with projecting horns, was not to be entered even by the priests themselves, except by the one at the head of the priesthood, who slipped in alone once a year on a certain appointed day, bringing a more secret and mystical service. Since there was such distinction in this temple, because it was an image and imitation of the intelligible state, the bodily observance taught this: that not the whole rational nature draws near to the temple of God, that is, to the confession of the great God; but those who have wandered into false suppositions are outside the divine enclosure; and of those who have come within through confession, those purified beforehand by sprinklings and purifications are more honoured than the others, and of these, those already consecrated have more, so as to be counted worthy of the inner initiation, as one might bring the sense of the riddle to greater clarity. One can learn this from the word’s teaching: that of the rational powers some are set like the holy altar in the sanctuary of the Godhead; others again among these are seen in prominence, projecting like horns; and others around them come first and second in an order of sequence; while the human race, because of the vice that came about, was driven outside the divine enclosure, and is brought within when purified by the washing of sprinkling. But since the barriers by which vice walled us off from what is within the veil will one day be dissolved, when our nature has its tabernacle pitched again through the resurrection and all the corruption that came about through vice has disappeared from existing things, then a common feast around God will be established for those covered thick through the resurrection, so that one and the same joy is set before all, no longer any difference in sharing equal things dividing the rational nature, but those who are now outside because of vice will one day be within the sanctuary of the divine blessedness, and will join themselves to the horns of the altar, that is, to the prominent ones among the supramundane powers.”

“The Apostle says this more plainly, explaining the harmony of the universe in the good, that to him every knee will bow, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father; meaning by the horns the angelic and heavenly, and signifying by the rest the creation understood as coming after them, us, all of whom one harmonious feast will hold. The feast is the confession and recognition of Him who truly is. There are also many other passages of holy Scripture,” she said, “that one could gather for establishing the doctrine of the resurrection. For Ezekiel, by the prophetic spirit, passing over the whole intervening time and the interval in it, stands at the very moment of the resurrection by his power of foreknowledge, and, as having already seen what will be, brings it before our eyes in his narrative. He saw a great plain spread out without limit, and a great heap of bones on it, scattered here and there at random; then, by divine power, moving to what was akin and their own and growing into their proper joints; then covered with sinews and flesh and skin (which the psalm calls being covered with thick branches); and a spirit giving life and raising up all that lay there. And why should one speak of the Apostle’s description of the wonders at the resurrection, since it is ready to hand for readers: how, at a command and the sound of trumpets, the word says, in an instant of time all at once everything dead and lying will be changed into an immortal nature? We have passed over the sayings of the Gospel too, as plain to all. For the Lord does not only say by word that the dead will rise, but works the resurrection itself, beginning his miracles from things nearer to us and less able to be disbelieved. First …”

“… he shows his life-giving power in deadly diseases, driving away the afflictions by command and word; then he raises a child just dead; then he raises a young man already being carried to the tomb from the bier and gives him to his mother; after this he brings Lazarus, already decayed after four days, out of the tomb, giving life to the one lying there by voice and command; then he raises his own man, pierced with nails and spear, from the dead on the third day, bringing the marks of the nails and the wound of the spear as witness of the resurrection. About these I think there is no need to go through anything, since no doubt remains for those who have accepted what is written.” Gregory: “But that was not what was in question,” I said. “Most of those who hear will agree, both from the proofs of Scripture and from what has already been examined, that there will one day be a resurrection and that man will be brought to the impartial judgment. What remains to consider,” I said, “is whether the body will be such as it is now. If it really is, I said, people should flee the hope of the resurrection. For if human bodies are restored to life such as they are when they cease to live, then an endless misfortune is expected for people through the resurrection. For what could be a more pitiable sight than when bodies, shrivelled in extreme old age, are changed into what is hideous and shapeless, the flesh withered away, the skin hardened, the sinews contracted because no longer fattened by natural moisture, and so the whole body drawn together; an absurd and pitiable sight arises, the head bent down toward the knee, the hands on either side idle for their natural activity and always shaking with involuntary trembling? And what of the bodies of those wasted by long diseases, which differ from bare bones only in seeming to be covered with thin and already consumed skin? And what of those swollen with dropsical …”

“… diseases; and the shameful mutilation of those overcome by the sacred disease, what word could bring before the eyes, how the rot, advancing little by little, feeds on all their organic and sentient members? And what could one say about those maimed in earthquakes or wars or from some other cause, who live in this misfortune for some time before death, or those born with some mutilation in twisted limbs? About newborn infants, those exposed, those smothered, and those who die of themselves, what can one reckon, if such are brought back to life? Will they remain in infancy, and what could be more wretched? Or will they reach full age, and with what milk will nature nurse them again? So if our body comes to life again the same in all respects, what we expect will be a misfortune; but if not the same, the one raised will be someone other than the one who lies dead. For if a child has fallen but a grown man rises, or the opposite, how can one say that the one who lay dead has been raised, when the one who fell has been changed in the difference of age? For one who sees a grown man instead of the child, and one in his prime instead of the old man, has seen one instead of another; and one whole instead of the mutilated, and well-fleshed instead of the wasted, and so with all the rest, so that one need not burden the discussion by going through each. If, then, the body does not come to life again such as it was when it was mingled with the earth, the dead will not rise, but the earth will be formed into another man. What, then, is the resurrection to me, if another will come to life instead of me? How could I recognize myself, seeing in myself not myself? For I would not truly be I, unless I were in every respect the same as myself. For as in the present life, if I have in memory the features of someone, and let it be supposed for argument that he is bald, with thick lips, snub-nosed, pale, grey-eyed, grey-haired, and wrinkled, then looking for him …”

“… such a one, I met a young man, long-haired, hook-nosed, dark-skinned, and differing in all the rest of the features of his form, would I, seeing this one, think him to be that one? But rather, why should I linger on the lesser objections and pass over the stronger? For who does not know that human nature is like a stream, always advancing by a kind of motion from birth to death, and ceasing from motion only when it ceases to exist? This motion is not a change of place (for nature does not step out of itself), but proceeds by alteration, and never remains in the same state (for how could what is altered be kept in sameness?); but as the fire on a wick seems always to appear the same (for the continuity of its motion shows it unbroken and united with itself), but in truth always succeeds itself and never remains the same (for the moisture drawn up by the heat is at once set ablaze and burned into smoke, and the motion of the flame is always worked by its altering power, turning what underlies it into smoke through itself); as, then, one who touches the flame twice in the same place cannot touch the same flame twice (for the quickness of the alteration does not wait for one who touches it a second time, however quickly he does it), but the flame is always new and fresh, always coming to be and succeeding itself and never remaining the same: something of this kind is the nature of our body too. For what flows into our nature and what flows out of it, always proceeding by the altering motion, stops moving only when it ceases from life; while it is in life it has no rest; for it is either being filled or exhaled, or always carried on by both. If, then, a person is not the same even as yesterday, but becomes another by the change, when the resurrection brings our body back to life the one man will certainly become a whole crowd of people, so that nothing may be lacking to the one who rises: the baby, the infant, the child, the boy, the man, the father, the old man, and all the stages between. And since self-control and licentiousness are exercised through the flesh, and of those who endure …”