Catechetical Oration 37–40

But since the human being is twofold, compounded of soul and body, those who are saved must follow the leader to life through both. The soul, then, blended with him through faith, has from this the beginnings of salvation; for union with the life has fellowship with the life. But the body comes into participation and blending with the Saviour in another way. For just as those who have taken poison through treachery quench its destructive power with another drug (and the antidote, like the deadly thing, must enter the human vitals, so that through them the power of the remedy may be distributed through the whole body), so, having tasted what dissolves our nature, we necessarily needed in turn what brings together what was dissolved, so that such an antidote, coming to be in us, might drive out by its own counteracting power the harm of the poison previously put into the body. What, then, is this? Nothing else than that body which was shown to be stronger than death and became the beginning of our life. For just as a little leaven, as the Apostle says, makes the whole lump like itself, so the body made immortal by God, coming to be in ours, changes and transposes the whole to itself. For as, when something destructive is mixed with what is healthy, the whole mixture is made useless, so too the immortal body, coming to be in the one who received it, changed the whole also to its own nature. But nothing can come to be inside the body except by being mixed with the vitals through eating and drinking. So the body must receive the life-giving power of the Spirit in the manner possible to its nature. And since only that body which received God received this grace, and it has been shown that our body cannot come to be in immortality otherwise than by coming into participation of incorruption through fellowship with the immortal, we must consider how it was possible that that one body, being distributed forever to so many myriads of believers throughout the whole world, comes to be whole in each through the portion, and itself remains whole in itself. So that our faith, looking to the sequence, may have no doubt about the thought before us, it is fitting to turn the discussion aside a little to the physiology of the body. For who does not know that the nature of our body has no life by itself in its own subsistence, but holds itself together and remains in being through the power that flows into it, drawing to itself by unceasing movement what is lacking and pushing away what is superfluous? And just as a skin full of some liquid, if what is in it escapes at the bottom, would not keep the shape of its bulk unless something else came in from above to replace what is emptied, so that one who sees the bulky outline of this vessel knows that it does not belong to what he sees, but that what flows in, coming to be in it, shapes what contains the bulk, so too the construction of our body has nothing of its own known to us for its maintenance, but remains in being through the power brought into it. And this power both is and is called nourishment. And it is not the same for all bodies that are nourished, but a suitable one has been allotted to each by the one who orders nature. Some animals are nourished by digging up roots; for others grass is food; for some the food is flesh. For man, principally, bread; and for the persistence and preservation of the moist element there is drink, not water alone, but often sweetened with wine to support the heat within us. So he who looks at these potentially looks at the bulk of our body. For those things, coming to be in me, become blood and body correspondingly, the nourishment being changed into the form of the body by the power of alteration. These things having been distinguished in this way, we must bring the mind back to the matter before us. For the question was how that body of Christ gives life to the whole nature of human beings, in as many as have faith, being distributed to all and not itself diminished. Perhaps, then, we are coming near a probable account. If the subsistence of every body comes from nourishment, and this is eating and drinking; and in eating there is bread, and in drinking water sweetened with wine; and the Word of God, as was distinguished at the beginning, being both God and Word, was blended with human nature, and, coming to be in our body, did not innovate another constitution for human nature, but gave his own body persistence through customary and suitable means, maintaining its subsistence by eating and drinking, and the food was bread: then, just as with us, as has already been said many times, one who sees bread in a way sees a human body, because that, coming to be in this, becomes this, so there too the body that received God, taking the nourishment of bread, was in a sense the same as it, the nourishment, as has been said, being changed into the nature of the body. For what is proper to all was acknowledged of that flesh too: that that body too was sustained by bread. And the body, by the indwelling of God the Word, was changed to divine dignity. Rightly, then, do I believe that now too the bread sanctified by the Word of God is changed into the body of God the Word. For that body too was potentially bread; and it was sanctified by the tabernacling of the Word who tabernacled in the flesh. So from the same cause from which the bread changed in that body into divine power … made a holy body, whose constitution was from bread, and which was in a way itself bread; and here likewise the bread, as the Apostle says, is sanctified through the Word of God and prayer, not passing into the body of the Word by eating and drinking, but changed immediately into the body of the Word, as was said by the Word: “This is my body.” And all flesh is nourished also by the moist (for without being joined to this nothing earthy in us would remain alive); just as we support the solid part of the body through solid and firm food, in the same way we make the addition to the moist from the kindred nature; and this, coming to be in us, is turned into blood by the power of alteration, especially if it receives through the wine the power to be changed into heat. Since, then, the flesh that received God also received this part for its constitution, and the Word who was manifested mingled himself with the perishable nature of human beings for this reason, that by fellowship with the Godhead humanity might be deified together with him, for this reason he sows himself, by the economy of grace, in all who have believed, through the flesh whose constitution is from wine and bread, blending himself with the bodies of those who have believed, so that by union with the immortal man too may become a sharer in incorruption. And he gives these things by the power of the blessing, transelementing the nature of the things that appear into that.

I think nothing of what is sought concerning the mystery is lacking in what has been said, except the account of faith, which we shall set out briefly in the present treatise too. For those who seek the fuller account, we have already set it out in other works, unfolding the account with precision with all the diligence possible to us; in them we both grappled combatively with our opponents and examined by ourselves the questions brought against us. In the present discourse we thought it well to say only as much about faith as the words of the Gospel contain: that the one born by the spiritual regeneration should know from whom he is born and what kind of living being he becomes. For only this form of birth has it in its power to become whatever it chooses.

For the other things that are born come into existence by the impulse of those who beget them; but the spiritual birth depends on the power of the one who is born. Since, then, the danger lies in this, in not missing what is profitable, the choice being freely open to everyone, I say it is well for one who is moving toward his own birth to discern beforehand by reasoning what father will profit him, and from whom it is better for his nature to be constituted. For it has been said that by free power … Existing things being divided into the created and the uncreated, and the uncreated nature possessing in itself unchangeableness and immutability, while creation is altered toward change, which will one who chooses the profitable by reasoning prefer to become the child of: of the nature seen in change, or of that which possesses a nature unchanging, firm, and ever the same in the good? Now in the Gospel the three persons and names have been handed down through which birth comes to believers, and the one born in the Trinity is born equally from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (for thus the Gospel says about the Spirit, that “what is born of the Spirit is spirit”; and Paul begets in Christ; and the Father is the father of all): here, I pray, let the mind of the hearer be sober, lest it make itself the offspring of the unstable nature, when it may make the unchangeable and unalterable nature the founder of its own. For according to the disposition of the heart of the one who comes to the economy, what happens also has its power: so that one who confesses the Holy Trinity to be uncreated enters the unchangeable and unalterable life, but one who, through a deceived conception, sees the created nature in the Trinity and then is baptized in it, is born again into the changeable and altering life. For what is born is necessarily of the same kind as the nature of those who beget it. What, then, would be more profitable: to enter the unchangeable life, or again to be tossed in the waves of the unstable and altering life? Since, then, it is clear to everyone who has any share of understanding that what stands is far more honourable than what does not stand, the perfect than the deficient, what does not need than what needs, and what has nowhere to advance but always remains in the perfection of the good than what climbs up by progress, it would be necessary for one who has sense to choose one of the two: either to believe that the Holy Trinity is of the uncreated nature, and so to make it the founder of his own life through the spiritual birth; or, if he thinks the Son or the Holy Spirit to be outside the nature of the first, true, and good God, I mean of the Father, not to take belief in them along with him at the time of the birth, lest he unwittingly adopt himself into the deficient nature that needs one to make it good, and in a way bring himself back into what is of the same kind as himself, having removed his faith from the transcendent nature. For whoever has yoked himself to one of the creatures has unwittingly not placed his hope of salvation in the divine. For all creation, by coming equally from non-being into being, is akin to itself; and just as in the construction of bodies all the members have a natural union with one another, even if some happen to be placed below and others above, so the created nature is united with itself by the principle of creation, and no difference in us of superiority or inferiority separates it from its natural union with itself. For in things of which non-existence is equally conceived beforehand, even if there is difference in other respects, we find no variation of nature in this respect. If, then, man, being created, thinks the Spirit, and the only-begotten God too, to be created, he would be foolish, returning to himself with no hope of change to the better. For what happens is like the notions of Nicodemus, who, learning from the Lord that one must be born from above, because he did not yet grasp the meaning of the mystery, was dragged in his reasonings to his mother's womb. So if he brings himself not to the uncreated nature but to the kindred creation, his fellow slave, he is of the birth from below, not from above. And the Gospel says that the birth of those who are saved is from above.

But it seems to me that the catechesis does not yet have sufficient teaching with what has been said. For I think we must also consider what follows, which many of those who come to the grace of baptism overlook, leading themselves astray by deceit and being born only in appearance, not in reality. For the change of our life that comes about through regeneration would not be a change if we remained in what we are. For I do not know how one who is in the same state can be thought to have become someone else, when none of his distinguishing marks has been changed. For it is clear to all that the saving birth is received for the renewal and change of our nature. Yet humanity in itself does not admit change from baptism: neither the rational, nor the intellectual, nor the capacity for knowledge, nor anything else that properly characterizes human nature undergoes change. For the change would be for the worse if any of these properties of the nature were exchanged. If, then, the birth from above becomes a recomposition of the man, and these things do not admit change, we must consider by the change of what the grace of regeneration is complete. Clearly, when the evil marks of our nature have been wiped out, the change to the better takes place. So if, as the prophet says, having washed in this mystical washing, we become clean in our wills, having washed away the wickedness of our souls, we have become better and have been changed for the better. But if the washing is applied to the body, but the soul does not cast off the stains of passion, and the life after initiation matches the uninitiated life, then, even if it is bold to say, I will say it and not turn back: in their case the water is water, the gift of the Holy Spirit nowhere appearing in what is done, when not only the shame of anger outrages the divine … and the indecent mind, and conceit, and envy, and pride, but also the gains from injustice remain with him, and the woman acquired by him through adultery serves his pleasures even after this. If these and such things surround the life of the baptized alike before and after, it is not possible to see what has been changed, since one sees the same man as before. The one who was wronged, the one who was falsely accused, the one who was driven from his property see no change of what is spoken of in their own case. They have not heard from this man too the voice of Zacchaeus: “If I have falsely accused anyone of anything, I give it back fourfold.” What they said before the baptism, the same they now relate about him, calling him by the same names: greedy, coveter of others' goods, living in luxury on human misfortunes. Let, then, the one who is in the same state, and then prates to himself of the change to the better through baptism, hear the voice of Paul: “If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” For what you have not become, you are not. “As many as received him,” the Gospel says of those who were born again, “he gave them power to become children of God.” And the child of someone is altogether of the same kind as the one who begot him. If, then, you have received God and become a child of God, show also by your will the God who is in you; show in yourself the one who begot you. By the things by which we know God, the kinship with God of one who has become a son of God must be shown. “He opens his hand and fills every living thing with good pleasure”; “he passes over iniquities”; “he relents over evils”; “the Lord is kind to all,” “not bringing on wrath every day”; “the Lord God is upright, and there is no injustice in him”; and whatever such things we are taught here and there by the Scripture. If you are in these, you have truly become a child of God. But if you remain in the marks of vice, in vain do you prate to yourself of the birth from above. The prophecy will say to you: “You are a son of man, not a son of the Most High. You love vanity, you seek falsehood.” Do you not know that man becomes a son of God in no other way than by becoming holy? It would be necessary to add to this what remains: that the goods set forth in the promises for those who have lived well are not such as to come under description in words. For how could the things “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered the heart of man”? Nor is the painful life of those who have sinned equal to any of the things that pain the senses here. But even if one of the punishments there is named with names known here, the difference is not small. For hearing “fire,” you have been taught to think of something other than this fire, from something being attached to that fire that is not in this one: for that is not quenched, while for this experience has found many means of quenching; and great is the difference between what is quenched and what does not admit quenching. So it is something else, and not this. Again, one who hears “worm,” let him not be carried in thought by the sameness of name to this earthly creature. For the addition of its being endless suggests thinking of another nature besides the known one. Since, then, these things are set before the hope of the life to come, growing up in life correspondingly from each one's will according to the just judgment of God, it would belong to the prudent to look not to the present but to what comes after, and in this short and temporary life to lay down the beginnings of the ineffable blessedness, and by a good will to estrange themselves from the experience of evils, now in life, and afterwards in the eternal recompense … Christ wills …