Catechetical Oration 23–31

In the same way, since we had willingly sold ourselves, it was necessary that he who through goodness was taking us back into freedom should devise not the tyrannical but the just manner of recall. And this is, in a way, to give the one in power whatever he might wish to take as ransom for the one held. What, then, was it likely that the ruler would choose to take? It is possible by inference to form some conjecture of his desire, if the evidence of what we are seeking becomes plain to us. He, then, who, as the account given at the beginning of this treatise said, shut his eyes to the good through envy of the one who prospered, and begot in himself the darkness of vice, and fell sick with the love of rule, the beginning and foundation of the inclination to the worse and, as it were, the mother of the rest of vice: for what would he exchange the one he held, if not clearly for something higher and greater in exchange, so that by trading lesser things for greater he might feed the more his passion of pride? Now in all that had been recorded from the beginning of the ages he had known nothing such as he beheld in the one who then appeared: a conception without union, a birth without corruption, nursing from virginity, and voices from the invisible world bearing witness from above to his surpassing worth; the correction of the sicknesses of nature …, accomplished by him simply by a word alone and the impulse of his will; the return of the dead to life; the fear of the demons; authority over the disturbances of the air; the journey through the sea, not with the sea parting on either side and baring its bottom for those passing through, as in the miracle of Moses, but with the surface of the water becoming like dry land under his feet and supporting his step with firm resistance; the disregard of food for as long as he wished; and the abundant feasts in the wilderness of those who were feasted by many thousands, for whom neither did heaven rain down manna, nor did the earth, making grain by its own nature, supply the need, but the munificence came from the ineffable storehouses of the divine power: bread ready, springing up in the hands of those serving as though harvested, and increasing through the fullness of those eating; and the meal of fish, not with the sea contributing to their need, but he who had also sown the race of fishes in the sea. And how could one go through each of the Gospel miracles one by one? Seeing, then, this power in him, the enemy saw in the exchange that what was offered was more than what he held; for this reason he chooses him to be the ransom for those shut up in the prison of death. But it was impossible for him to look at the bare appearance of God without seeing in him some portion of the flesh which he had already subdued through sin. For this reason the Godhead was veiled in the flesh, so that, looking at what was familiar and akin to him, he might not be terrified by the approach of the transcendent power, and, perceiving the power gradually shining out more and more through the miracles, he might think what appeared to be desirable rather than fearful. You see how the good has been joined to the just, and the wise has not been separated from them. For to devise that the divine power should become containable through the covering of the body, so that the economy on our behalf might not be hindered by fear of the lofty manifestation, gives proof at once of the good, the wise, and the just. For to will to save is testimony of goodness; to make the redemption of the one held a matter of exchange shows justice; and by a device to make the uncontainable containable for the enemy gives proof of the highest wisdom.

But it is likely that one who attends to the sequence of what has been said will ask where the power of the Godhead, where the incorruption of the divine power, is seen in what has been said. So that these too may become clear, let us examine what follows in the mystery, in which power is shown above all blended with love for humankind. First, then, that the almighty nature was able to descend to the lowliness of humanity gives greater proof of power than the great and supernatural miracles. For that something great and lofty should be accomplished by the divine power is somehow natural and consistent; and it would bring no strangeness to the ear to say that all creation in the world, and whatever is apprehended beyond things visible, was constituted by the power of God, his will itself giving substance to what he pleased. But the descent to lowliness is a kind of superabundance of power, hindered in nothing even in what is against nature. For upward motion is proper to the substance of fire, and no one would think what is naturally done by the flame worth wondering at; but if one should see the flame flowing downward like heavy bodies, one would count it a wonder how the fire remains fire and yet in the manner of its motion goes beyond its nature, being carried downward. So too the divine and transcendent power is shown not so much by the greatness of the heavens, the radiance of the luminaries, the ordering of the universe, and the continual governance of things that exist, as by the condescension to the weakness of our nature: how the lofty is seen in the lowly, and the height does not come down; how the Godhead, intertwined with human nature, both becomes this and is that. For since, as was said before, it was not in the nature of the opposing power to come into contact with the undiluted presence of God and to endure his unveiled manifestation, so that what is given in exchange for us might be easily taken by the one seeking it, the divine …, so that, as with greedy fish, the hook of the Godhead might be swallowed together with the bait of the flesh; and so, life taking up dwelling in death and light appearing in darkness, what is conceived as their opposite might vanish before the light and the life. For it is not in the nature of darkness to remain in the presence of light, nor of death to exist when life is at work. So, taking up the sequence of the mystery in summary, we shall make our defence complete against those who accuse the divine economy, asking why the Godhead works human salvation through itself. For the divine must in all things be held in fitting conceptions: one thing must not be thought loftily of him while another is cast out of the dignity befitting God; rather, every lofty and pious thought must by all means be believed of God, and each must be bound to the other in sequence. It has been shown, then, that the good, the wise, the just, the powerful, and the incapable of corruption are all displayed in the account of the economy concerning us. Goodness is apprehended in his choosing to save the lost; wisdom and justice were shown in the manner of our salvation; power in his coming to be in the likeness and form of man, according to the lowliness of our nature, and in his being able to be expected, like human beings, to be overcome by death, and yet, having come to be so, doing what was proper to him by nature. And it is proper to light to make darkness vanish, and to life to destroy death. Since, then, having been carried away from the straight road, we turned aside from the life that was ours at the beginning and were brought down into death, what do we learn from the mystery that is beyond reason, if purity touches those defiled by sin, and life the dead, and guidance the wanderers, so that the defilement may be cleansed, the error healed, and what was dead return to life?

That the Godhead came to be in our nature would reasonably bring no strangeness to those who consider things without too much pettiness of mind. For who is so childish in soul as, looking at the universe, not to believe that the divine is in everything, clothing itself in it, embracing it, and dwelling in it? For all things depend on him who is, and it is not possible for anything to exist that does not have its being in him who is. If, then, all things are in him and he in all things, why are they ashamed of the economy of the mystery, which teaches that God came to be among men, when he is believed not to be outside human beings even now? For even if the manner of God's presence in us is not the same as that one, still his being in us is equally acknowledged both now and then. Now he who holds nature together in being is blended with us; but then he was mingled with what is ours, so that by the mingling with the divine it might become divine, rescued from death and set outside the tyranny of the adversary; … becomes for the mortal race the beginning of the return to immortal life.

But perhaps someone, examining the justice and wisdom seen in this economy, is led to think that God devised some deceit of this kind on our behalf. For that God, unrecognized by the enemy, came within the grasp of the one who held power, not in bare Godhead but veiled by human nature, is in a way a deceit and a trick, since it is the mark of deceivers to turn the hopes of those they plot against in another direction and to accomplish something other than what was expected. But one who looks to the truth will agree that this above all belongs to justice and wisdom. For it belongs to the just to assign to each according to desert, and to the wise neither to pervert the just nor to separate the good aim of love for humankind from the judgment of justice, but skilfully to join both together, rendering to justice what is deserved, and, for goodness, not departing from the aim of love for humankind. Let us consider, then, whether these two are not seen in what took place. The repayment according to desert, by which the deceiver is deceived in turn, shows the just; the aim of what was done becomes testimony to the goodness of the one at work. For it is proper to justice to assign to each those things whose beginnings and causes he has laid down, as the earth too yields fruits according to the kinds of seeds sown. It belongs to wisdom, in the manner of repaying like with like, not to fall away from the better. For both the one who plots and the one who heals the victim mix a drug into the food alike, but the one the poison, the other the antidote to the poison, and the manner of treatment in no way spoils the aim of the benefit (for even if a drug is mixed into food by both, yet looking to the aim we praise the one and are angry with the other); so here too, by the principle of justice, the deceiver receives in return those things whose seeds he sowed by his own will. For he who first deceived man by the bait of pleasure is himself deceived by the screen of the man. But the aim of what took place changes things for the better. For he worked the deceit for the corruption of the nature; but he who is at once just, good, and wise used the device of the deceit for the salvation of the one who had been corrupted, benefiting by these means not only the one who had perished but also the very one who had worked destruction against us. For from the approach of death to life, of darkness to light, of corruption to incorruption, there comes the annihilation of the worse and its passing into non-existence, and benefit to the one cleansed from these. … the refiners of gold, consuming by the expenditure of fire what is foreign and to be rejected, bring the more precious material back to its natural lustre; the separation is not without pain, since in time the fire by its consuming power makes the base matter vanish; but still, the melting out of what lay in it to the ruin of its beauty is a kind of healing of the gold. In the same way, since death, corruption, darkness, and whatever is the offspring of vice had grown upon the inventor of evil, the approach of the divine power, working like fire the annihilation of what is against nature, benefits the nature with incorruption, even if the separation is painful. So not even the adversary himself could doubt that what was done was just and saving, if he should come to perceive the benefit. For now, just as those who are cut and burned for treatment are angry with those treating them, stung by the pain of the incision, but if health comes through this and the pain of the burning passes, they will be grateful to those who worked the treatment on them, in the same way, when over long periods evil has been removed from the nature, which is now mixed and grown together with them, when the restoration to their ancient state of those now lying in vice takes place, there will be a thanksgiving with one voice from all creation, both from those who have been punished in the purification and from those who had no need of purification at all. These and such things the great mystery of the divine becoming human hands down. For through the ways by which he was mingled with humanity, passing through all the properties of nature, birth, upbringing, and growth, and going as far as the experience of death, he accomplished all that has been said, freeing man from vice and healing the very inventor of vice. For the cleansing of the disease is the healing of sickness, even if painful …

It follows altogether that he who blended himself with our nature should receive the blending with us through all its properties. For just as those who wash the dirt out of garments do not leave some of the stains and remove others, but cleanse the whole fabric of its spots from beginning to end, so that the garment may be of equal worth throughout, brightened equally by the washing, so, since human life had been defiled by sin in its beginning and end and in everything between, the cleansing power had to pass through all of it, and not to treat one part with the purgative while overlooking another as untreated. For this reason, since our life is bounded on either side by two limits, I mean that of the beginning and that of the end, the power that corrects our nature is found at each limit, taking hold of the beginning, extending itself to the end, and taking in everything between. And since there is one entry into life for all human beings, from where was he who was entering among us to be settled into life? “From heaven,” perhaps says one who spurns the form of human birth as shameful and inglorious. But there was nothing human in heaven, nor had any disease of vice become native in the supramundane life. And he who mingled himself with man made the blending with a view to benefit. Where, then, there was no evil and no human life was lived, how does anyone seek that man should be intertwined with God there, or rather not man, but some phantom and likeness of man? And what correction of our nature would there have been if, while the earthly creature was sick, some other of the heavenly beings had received the divine sojourn? For the sick person cannot be healed unless the suffering part receives the cure itself. If, then, the sick part was on earth, and the divine power, looking to what befitted itself, did not touch the sick part, the occupation of the divine power with things that have nothing in common with us would have been useless to man. For in the case of the Godhead the unfitting is equal everywhere (if indeed it is right to conceive anything unfitting at all besides vice); but for one who pettily judges the divine majesty to consist in not accepting fellowship with the properties of our nature, the indignity is in no way relieved by the divine being conformed to a heavenly rather than an earthly body. For from the one who is lofty and unapproachable in the height of his nature the whole creation stands equally distant below, and the universe is equally beneath him. For what is altogether unapproachable is not approachable to one thing and inaccessible to another, but rises equally above all things that exist. So neither is the earth further from his dignity nor heaven nearer, nor do the creatures living in each of the elements differ from one another in this respect, so that some touch the unapproachable nature and others are separated from it. Otherwise we would suppose that the power that governs the universe does not pass equally through all things, but abounds in some and is more deficient in others; and by the difference of less and more the divine will appear, by consequence, composite and inconsistent with itself, if it were supposed to be far from us in the principle of its nature, but neighbour to some other creature and easily grasped from close by. But the true account of the lofty dignity looks neither downward nor upward by comparison; for all things lie equally beneath the power that presides over the universe. So if they think the earthly nature unworthy of union with the divine, no other would be found to have any worthiness. But if all things equally fall short of the dignity, it befits God to benefit the one in need. When, then, we confess that the healing power went where the disease was, what have we believed that is outside the conception fitting to God?

But they mock our nature and harp on the manner of our birth, and think by this to make the mystery ridiculous, as if it were unfitting for God to take hold of fellowship with human life through such an entrance. But this was already spoken of in the earlier discussions: that only evil is shameful by its own nature, or whatever is akin to vice; but the sequence of nature, arranged by divine will and law, is far from the reproach of vice. Otherwise the accusation against nature would rise up to the Creator, if anything about it were reproached as shameful and unfitting. If, then, the divine is separated from vice alone, and nature is not vice, and the mystery says that God came to be in man, not in vice; and if the entry of man into life is one, through which what is begotten comes into life: what other manner of entry into life do they lay down as law for God, those who judge it reasonable that the nature weakened in vice should be visited by the divine power, but are displeased with the manner of the visitation, not knowing that the whole construction of the body is of equal honour throughout, and that nothing among the things in it that contribute to the maintenance of life is reproached as dishonourable or wicked? For the whole arrangement of the organic members has been ordered toward one aim; and the aim is that man should remain in life. The other organs maintain man's present life, divided among various activities, by which the powers of sense and action are managed; but the generative organs have forethought for the future, bringing in succession by themselves through nature. If, then, you look to usefulness, to which of the things thought honourable would these be second? And than which would they not reasonably be judged more honourable? For not by eye and ear and tongue or any other of the senses is our race carried on continuously; these, as has been said, belong to present enjoyment; but by those, immortality is preserved for humanity, so that death, always at work against us, is in a way ineffective and unaccomplished, since nature always brings itself in again through those who are born to fill what is lacking. What unfitting thing, then, does our mystery contain, if God was mingled with human life through those means by which nature fights against death?

But passing from this, they try again to disparage the doctrine by other means. And they say: “If what took place was good and fitting for God, why did he postpone the benefit? Why, when vice was in its beginnings, did he not cut off its advance to greater extent?” To this our answer is brief: that the delay came about by wisdom and by forethought for what is profitable to our nature, for our benefit. For in bodily diseases too, when some corrupt humour creeps under the pores, before all of what lies there against nature has been uncovered to the surface, those who treat diseases by art do not medicate with things that make the body dense, but wait for all that lurks within to come out, and so apply the treatment to the disease laid bare. Since, then, the disease of vice had lodged in the nature of humanity, the healer of the universe waited until no form of wickedness was left hidden in the nature. For this reason he did not bring the treatment to man immediately after the envy and fratricide of Cain; for the vice of those destroyed in Noah's time had not yet blazed out, nor had the grievous disease of Sodomite lawlessness been uncovered, nor the Egyptians' fighting against God, nor the pride of the Assyrians, nor Herod's lawless murder of children, nor all the other things that are recorded, and those outside history, that were done in the following generations, the root of evil sprouting in many ways in the choices of human beings. When, then, vice had reached its utmost measure, and no wickedness was left undared among men, so that the treatment might proceed through the whole of the sickness, for this reason he treats the disease not when it is beginning, but when it has been completed.

If someone thinks he refutes our account because, even after the treatment was applied, human life still goes wrong through sins, let him be led to the truth by a familiar example. For as with a snake, if it receives the fatal blow on the head, the coil behind does not die at once along with the head, but while the head is dead the tail is still animated by its own spirit and is not deprived of its vital power, so one can see vice, struck by the fatal blow, still troubling life with its remnants. But giving up finding fault with the doctrine of the mystery on these points, they make it a charge that faith does not reach all people. “And why,” they say, “did the grace not come to all, but, while some have joined themselves to the word, the part left over is not small? Either God did not wish the benefit to be granted to all ungrudgingly, or he was not able at all. Neither of these is free of blame; for it befits God neither to be unwilling nor unable to do good. If, then, faith is something good, why,” they say, “is the grace not upon all?” If, then, we too had maintained in our account that faith is allotted to human beings by the divine will, some being called while the rest had no share in the calling, there would be occasion to bring such a charge against the mystery. But if the call is of equal honour for all, making no distinction of worth, or age, or … at the first beginning of the proclamation those who served the word were suddenly, by divine inspiration, made to speak the language of all the nations, so that no one might be without a share in the goods, how could they still reasonably blame God that the Word did not prevail over all? For he who has authority over the universe, through the excess of his honour toward man, left something to be under our authority too, of which each alone is master. And this is the will, a thing unenslaved and self-determining, lying in the freedom of the mind. So such a charge would more justly be transferred to those who were not brought to faith, not to him who called them to assent. For not even when Peter at the beginning preached the word in a crowded assembly of the Jews, and three thousand received the faith at once, did those who disobeyed, though more numerous than those who believed, blame the Apostle for what they were persuaded of. For it was not reasonable, when the grace had been set before all in common, for one who had willingly gone away to blame not himself but another for his ill fortune.

But they are not at a loss for a contentious rejoinder even to this. For they say that God could, if he wished, draw even those who resist by force to the acceptance of the proclamation. Where, then, in this is self-determination? Where is the praise of those who do right? For it belongs only to inanimate or irrational things to be led about by another's will to what seems good to him. But the rational and intellectual nature, if it lays aside what is in its power, loses along with it the gift of intellect. For to what will it use its thought, if the power of choosing anything according to its inclination lies in another? And if the will remains inactive, virtue necessarily vanishes, fettered by the immobility of the will; and if there is no virtue, life is dishonoured, reason goes the way of fate, the praise of those who do right is taken away, sin is unconquerable, and the difference between lives cannot be judged. For who could still reasonably either reproach the licentious or praise the self-controlled, when everyone has this answer ready: that none of our inclinations is in our power, but human wills are led about by a stronger dominion to what seems good to the one who rules? So the charge that faith has not come to be in all does not fall on the goodness of God, but on the disposition of those who receive the proclamation.