Letters 124.2–124.15

Receive, then, what you asked for, but on the understanding that there are very many things in these books you must detest, and that, in the Lord’s words, you must walk among scorpions and serpents. Such is the following—and in the very first book: that Christ, the Son of God, was not born but made; that God the Father, being invisible by nature, is not seen even by the Son; that the Son, who is the image of the invisible Father, compared with the Father is not the truth, but that to us, who cannot receive the truth of almighty God, he appears as an image of the truth, so that the majesty and greatness of the greater is perceived as in some way circumscribed in the Son; that God the Father is an incomprehensible light, while Christ, in comparison with the Father, is a very small brightness, who seems great to us because of our weakness. He gives the example of two statues, a larger and a very small one—the one filling the world and in a way invisible by its size, the other falling under the eyes—comparing the Father to the former and the Son to the latter. He calls God the Father almighty good and of perfect goodness, but says that the Son is not good but a kind of breath and image of goodness, so that he is not called good absolutely but with an addition, “the good shepherd” and the like. He asserts that the Holy Spirit is third in dignity and honor after the Father and the Son. And though he says he does not know whether the Spirit was made or unmade, in later passages he expressed what he thought, affirming that nothing is unmade except God the Father alone; that the Son too is less than the Father, because he is second from him; that the Holy Spirit, inferior to the Son, dwells in all the saints; and that in this order the power of the Father is greater than that of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and again the power of the Son greater than that of the Holy Spirit, and consequently the power of the Holy Spirit himself greater than that of the other things that are called holy.

When he came to rational creatures and had said that they fell through negligence into earthly bodies, he added this too: “It is a mark of great negligence and sloth for each one to flow down and be emptied to such a degree that, coming to the vices of irrational beasts, he can be bound to a gross body.” And in what follows: “Moved by these arguments,” he says, “we think that some are of their own will in the number of the saints and in the ministry of God, while others, falling from holiness through their own fault, have fallen into such negligence that they were even turned into the opposing powers.” And again he says that the beginning is born from the end and the end from the beginning, and that everything changes in such a way that one who is now a man may become a demon in another world, and one who is a demon, if he acts more negligently, may be bound again in grosser bodies, that is, become a man. And so he mixes everything together, so that from an archangel the devil may come to be, and the devil turn back again into an angel. “But those who have wavered, and, though their feet were moved, have not fallen altogether, will be subjected, to be managed and ruled and guided to better things, to the principalities, powers, thrones and dominions; and perhaps from these the human race will be constituted in some one of the worlds, when, according to Isaiah, heaven and earth will be made new. But those who have not deserved to return to their former state through the human race will become the devil and his angels and the worst demons, and according to the variety of their merits will be allotted different offices in the several worlds.” And he says that the demons themselves and the rulers of darkness in some world or worlds, if they wish to turn to better things, become men and so return to their ancient beginning—in such a way, however, that through the punishments and torments which they have endured for a long or a short time, being trained in human bodies, they come again to the heights of the angels. From this it is shown by consequent reasoning that all rational creatures can come to be out of all, not once and suddenly but repeatedly; that we shall become both angels and, if we act more negligently, demons; and again that demons, if they will take hold of virtues, attain angelic dignity.

He says too that bodily substances will pass away entirely, or at any rate that at the end of all things bodies will be what the ether and the heaven now are, or any other body that can be conceived as clearer and purer. Since this is so, it is plain what he thinks of the resurrection. He says that the sun and moon and the other stars are living beings; indeed, that just as we humans, because of certain sins, have been clothed with these bodies that are gross and heavy, so the lights of heaven have received bodies of this or that kind, so as to shine more or less, and the demons, for their greater offenses, have been clothed with an airy body; and that every creature, according to the apostle, is subject to vanity and will be set free at the revelation of the sons of God. And lest anyone think that what we say is our own, let us set down his own words: “At the end and consummation of the world, when souls and rational creatures have been released by the Lord as from barriers and prisons, some of them go forward more slowly because of sluggishness, while others fly on a swift course because of diligence. And since all have free will and can of their own accord take up either virtues or vices, the former will be in a much worse condition than they are now, the latter will attain a better state; because different movements and various wills in either direction will receive a different state—that is, angels will become men or demons, and again from these men or angels will come to be.” And having treated all this in various language, asserting that the devil is not incapable of virtue and yet does not yet wish to take up virtue, at the end he argued at very great length that an angel, or a soul, or even a demon—which he asserts to be of one nature but of different wills—can, in proportion to the greatness of its negligence and folly, become a beast, and, because of the pain of punishments and the burning of the fire, prefer to be a brute animal and to live in the waters and the waves, and to take the body of this or that beast; so that we must fear not only the bodies of four-footed creatures but even those of fishes. And at the end, lest he be held guilty of the Pythagorean doctrine that asserts metempsychōsis, after so abominable a discussion, by which he wounded the reader’s mind, he says: “Let these things, in our view, not be dogmas, but only inquiries and suggestions put forward, so that they may not seem left entirely untreated.”

In the second book he asserts innumerable worlds—not, as Epicurus does, many at the same time and like one another, but that after the end of one world there is the beginning of another; that before this world of ours there was another world, and after this there will again be another, and after that another, and so on, one after another. And he is in doubt whether there will be a world so completely like another world that they seem in no way to differ from each other, or whether a world will never be entirely indistinguishable from and like another. And again shortly after: “If all things,” he says, “as the very order of the argument compels, live without a body, the whole bodily nature will be consumed and reduced to nothing, as it was once made from nothing; and there will be a time when its use will be needed again.” And in what follows: “But if, as has been shown by reason and by the authority of the Scriptures, this corruptible puts on incorruption and this mortal puts on immortality, death is swallowed up in victory, and perhaps all bodily nature, in which alone death can operate, will be taken away.” And a little after: “If these things are not contrary to the faith, perhaps we shall at some time live without bodies. But if he who is perfectly subject to Christ is understood to be without a body, and all are to be subjected to Christ, we too shall be without bodies when we have been perfectly subjected to him.” And in the same place: “When all have been subjected to God, all will lay aside their bodies, and then the whole nature of bodily things will be dissolved into nothing; and if necessity should require it a second time, because of the fall of rational creatures, they will exist again. For God has left souls to the contest and the struggle, so that they may understand that they have obtained full and complete victory not by their own strength but by the grace of God. And therefore I think that different worlds come to be according to the variety of causes, and the errors of those who contend that the worlds are like one another are refuted.” And again: “A threefold conjecture about the end is thus suggested to us; let the reader inquire which of them is true and better. Either we shall live without a body, when, being subject to Christ, we shall be subjected to God and God will be all in all; or, as the things subjected to Christ will be subjected to God together with Christ himself and bound together into one covenant, so all substance will be reduced to the best quality and dissolved into ether, which is of a purer and simpler nature; or else that sphere which we called above the aplanēs, and whatever is contained within its circle, will be dissolved into nothing, while the sphere by which the antizōnē itself is held and girded will be called the good earth; and also the other sphere, which surrounds this very earth with its revolution and is called heaven, will be kept as the dwelling of the saints.”

When he says these things, does he not most manifestly follow the errors of the Gentiles and thrust the ravings of the philosophers upon Christian simplicity? And in the same book: “It remains that God is invisible. But if he is invisible by nature, he will not be visible even to the Savior.” And further down: “No other soul that descended into a human body has expressed in itself a pure and genuine likeness of its former seal except that of which the Savior says: No one takes my soul from me, but I lay it down of myself.” And in another place: “Hence it must be treated with infinite caution, lest perhaps, when souls have attained salvation and come to the blessed life, they cease to be souls. For as the Lord and Savior came to seek and to save what was lost, and it will cease to be lost, so the soul which was lost, and for whose salvation the Lord came, will cease to be a soul when it has been saved. This too must likewise be inquired: whether, as what is lost was once not lost and there will be a time when it will not be lost, so the soul too was once not a soul, and there will be a time when it will by no means continue a soul.” And after a long treatment of the soul he added this: “The nous, that is, the mind, falling, became a soul, and again the soul, furnished with virtues, will become mind.” “We can find this also by examining the soul of Esau, that he was condemned to a worse life because of ancient sins. And concerning the heavenly bodies it must be asked whether the soul of the sun—or whatever it ought to be called—began to exist not at the time when the world was made, but before it entered that shining and burning body. Let us think likewise of the moon and the stars: that for preceding causes, although unwillingly, they were compelled to be subject to vanity, and, for the rewards of the future, do not their own will but the will of the Creator, by whom they were assigned to these offices.”

The fire of Gehenna, too, and the torments which Holy Scripture threatens to sinners, he places not in punishments but in the conscience of sinners, when by the power and might of God the whole memory of their offenses is set before our eyes, and, as if from certain seeds left in the soul, the whole harvest of vices springs up, and whatever we had done in life, whether shameful or impious, is all portrayed as a picture before our sight; and the mind, beholding past pleasures, is punished by the burning of conscience and pierced by the goads of regret. And again: “Unless perhaps this heavy and earthly body is to be called mist and darkness, through which, when this world is ended, whoever must pass into another world will take up again the beginnings of birth.” In saying this he plainly defends the metempsychōsis of Pythagoras and Plato. And at the end of the second book, discussing our perfection, he added: “And when we have made such progress that we are no longer flesh and bodies, perhaps not even souls, but mind and understanding, coming to perfection and darkened by no cloud of passions, will behold rational and intelligible substances face to face.”

In the third book too these faults are contained: “But if we once accept that one vessel was created for honor and another for dishonor from preceding causes, why do we not go back to the secret of the soul and understand that it acted of old in such a way that in the one case it was loved and in the other hated, before it supplanted in the body of Jacob and was held by the heel by his brother in that of Esau?” And again: “That some souls should come to be for honor and others for dishonor, the merits of earlier causes went before.” And in the same place: “According to us, a vessel fashioned for honor from preceding merits, if it does not do work worthy of its name, will become a vessel of dishonor in another age; and again another vessel, which from an earlier fault had received the name of dishonor, if it is willing to be corrected in the present life, will become in the new creation a vessel sanctified and useful to the Lord, prepared for every good work.” And at once he adds: “I think that some men, beginning from small vices, can come to such great wickedness—if they will not turn to better things and amend their sins by repentance—that they even become opposing powers; and again that some from among the hostile and opposing powers can, over long periods, so apply medicine to their wounds and restrain their formerly flowing faults that they pass over to the place of the best. We have often said that in the infinite and everlasting ages in which the soul subsists and lives, some souls so fall to worse things that they hold the lowest place of wickedness, and some so advance that from the lowest degree of wickedness they come to perfect and complete virtue.” By these words he tries to show that men too, that is, souls, can become demons, and demons again be restored to angelic dignity. And in the same book: “But this too must be inquired, why the human soul is moved to different things now by these powers, now by others.” And he thinks that in the case of some, merits went before, before they came into bodies, as in the case of John leaping in his mother’s womb, when at the sound of Mary’s greeting Elizabeth confesses herself unworthy of her conversation. And at once he adds: “And on the contrary, little children, though scarcely weaned, are filled with evil spirits and inspired as soothsayers and diviners, so much so that even a Pythonic demon possesses some from a tender age. To say that these were abandoned by the providence of God, when they had done nothing to deserve such madness, is not the part of one who holds that nothing happens without God and that all things are governed by his justice.”

And again, on the world: “Our view,” he says, “is that there was another world before this world, and that there will be another after it. Do you wish to learn that after the corruption of this world there will be another? Hear Isaiah saying: There will be a new heaven and a new earth, which I make to remain in my sight. Do you wish to know that before the making of this world there were other worlds in the past? Listen to Ecclesiastes: What is it that has been? The very thing that will be. And what is it that has been done? The very thing that is to be done. And there is nothing new under the sun of which one may speak and say: Behold, this is new; for it has already been in the former ages which were before us. This testimony bears witness not only that worlds have been but that worlds will be—not that all come to be together and at once, but one after another.” And at once he adds: “I think that by the divine dwelling and the true rest among those above is meant the state in which rational creatures dwelt, enjoying their ancient blessedness, before they descended to lower places, migrated from invisible things to visible, and, falling to the earth, needed gross bodies. Hence God the Creator made for them bodies suited to their lowly places, and fashioned this visible world, and sent ministers into the world for the salvation and correction of those who had fallen; of these some were to occupy fixed places and obey the necessities of the world, while others were to carry out with diligent mind the offices laid on them at the particular times which God the craftsman knows. And of these, the sun and moon and stars, which the apostle calls the creation, received the loftier places of the world. This creation has been subjected to vanity, because it is clothed with gross bodies and is open to view. And yet it was not subjected to vanity willingly, but because of the will of him who subjected it in hope.” And again: “Others, in the several places and times which only the craftsman of the world knows, serve its government; we believe them to be his angels.” And a little after: “This order of things and the whole world are ruled by the providence of God, while some powers fall from the higher places and others glide gradually down to the earth; these descend by their own will, others are cast down unwillingly; these undertake ministries of their own accord, to stretch out a hand to those who are falling, those are compelled against their will and persist in the office they have undertaken for this or that length of time.” And again: “From this it follows that, because of various movements, various worlds too are created, and after this one which we inhabit another world very unlike it will come to be. And no one else can dispense merits by diverse falls and advances, by rewards of virtues or punishments of vices, both in the present and in the future and in all times, past and earlier, and draw all things back again to one end, except God alone, the Creator of all, who knows the causes for which he lets some enjoy their own will and slip gradually from greater things to the lowest, while he begins to visit others and, as though giving them his hand, draws them back step by step to their former state and places them on high.” And when he had begun to discuss the end, he added this: “Since, as we have often said already, the beginning is generated again from the end, it is asked whether there will then be bodies, or whether we must at some time live without bodies, when they have been reduced to nothing, and whether the life of incorporeal beings must be believed to be incorporeal, such as we know the life of God to be. And there is no doubt that, if all bodies belong to this perceptible world, which the apostle calls visible things, the life of incorporeal beings will be incorporeal.” And a little after: “What is said by the same apostle, The whole creation will be set free from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God, we understand thus: we say that the first creation is that of rational and incorporeal beings, which now serves corruption because it is clothed with bodies—and wherever there are bodies, corruption at once follows; but afterward it will be set free from the bondage of corruption, when it has received the glory of the Son of God and God has become all in all.” And in the same place: “That we should believe the end of all things to be incorporeal, we are prompted by that prayer of the Savior in which he says: As I and you are one, so may these also be one in us. For we ought to know what God is and what the Savior will be at the end, and how likeness to the Father and the Son has been promised to the saints, so that, as they are one in themselves, so these too may be one in them. For either we must accept that the God of the universe is clothed with a body, and that, as we are with flesh, so he is surrounded with some kind of matter, so that the likeness of the life of God can at the end be made equal for the saints; or, if this is unfitting—especially for those who desire to perceive the majesty of God in even the smallest part and to conceive the glory of the unbegotten nature that surpasses all—we are compelled to accept one of two things: either we despair of likeness to God, if we are always to have the same bodies, or, if the blessedness of the same life as God’s is promised to us, we must live in the same condition in which God lives.”

From all this it is proved what he thinks of the resurrection, and that he affirms that all bodies will perish, so that we shall be without bodies, as we were before we were clothed with gross bodies. And again, discussing the variety of worlds and maintaining that demons will come from angels, or angels or men from demons, and conversely demons from men, and all from all, he confirms his opinion with this conclusion: “And there is no doubt that after certain intervals of time matter will again subsist, and bodies come to be, and a diversity of worlds be constructed, because of the various wills of rational creatures, which after perfect blessedness, down to the end of all things, have slipped gradually to lower things and taken on so much wickedness that they were turned into the opposite, since they would not keep their beginning and possess incorrupt blessedness. Nor must we be unaware that many rational creatures keep their beginning up to a second, third and fourth world and give no room for change in themselves; that others will lose so little of their former state that they seem to have lost almost nothing; and that some are to be hurled with a great ruin into the lowest abyss. And God, the dispenser of all things, knows how, in founding the worlds, to use each one according to merit and to the occasions and causes by which the government of the worlds is sustained and begun, so that he who has surpassed all in wickedness and levelled himself completely with the earth may, in another world which is to be made afterward, become the devil, the beginning of the Lord’s handiwork, to be mocked by the angels who have lost the virtue of their beginning.” By these words what else does he try to show, but that sinful men of this world can become devils and demons in another world, and that those who are now demons can in another world be produced again as either angels or men? And after a very long discussion, in which he says that all bodily nature will be changed into spiritual and fine bodies, and the whole of substance converted into one body, most pure and clearer than any splendor, and such as the human mind cannot now conceive, at the end he added: “And God will be all in all, so that the whole bodily nature may be reduced to that substance which is better than all—namely, the divine, than which none is better.”

In the fourth book too, which is the last of this work, he inserts these things, which the churches of Christ must condemn: “And perhaps, as in this world those who die by the separation of flesh and soul obtain different places in the underworld according to the difference of their works, so those who die, so to speak, from the administration of the heavenly Jerusalem descend to the underworld of our world, so as to possess different places on earth according to the quality of their merits.” And again: “And since we have compared souls that go from this world to the underworld with those souls that, coming from the higher heaven to our dwellings, have in a certain way died, we must search with prudent inquiry whether we can say the same of the birth of each soul: that, as the souls born on this earth of ours either come up again from the underworld, desiring better things, and take a human body, or come down to us from better places, so too those places which are above in the firmament are possessed by some souls who advance from our abodes to better things, and by others who have slipped from the heavenly places down to the firmament but have not sinned so much as to be thrust down to the lower places which we inhabit.” By these words he tries to prove that the firmament, that is, the heaven, is an underworld compared with the higher heaven, and that this earth which we inhabit is called an underworld in comparison with the firmament; and again that, compared with the underworld beneath us, we are called heaven, so that what is hell to some is heaven to others. Not content with this discussion, he says that at the end of all things, when we are to return to the heavenly Jerusalem, wars of the opposing powers will arise against the people of God, so that the valor of God’s people may not be idle but be exercised for battles and have matter for strength—which they cannot attain unless they have first bravely resisted their adversaries, who, we read in the book of Numbers, were overcome by reason, order and skill in fighting.

And when he had said that, according to John’s Apocalypse, the eternal Gospel—that is, the one to be in the heavens—surpasses this Gospel of ours as much as the preaching of Christ surpasses the mysteries of the old Law, at the end he added—what it is sacrilege even to have thought—that for the salvation of demons Christ will suffer also in the air and in the places above. And although he did not say it, yet what follows from it is understood: that as for men he became man in order to free men, so also for the salvation of demons he will become what those are whom he is to come to set free, a demon. Lest perhaps we be thought to assert this from our own understanding, his own words must be set down: “For as through the shadow of the Gospel he fulfilled the shadow of the Law, so, since the whole Law is a pattern and shadow of heavenly ceremonies, we must inquire more carefully whether we rightly understand that the heavenly law too and the ceremonies of the worship above do not have fullness but need the truth of the Gospel, which in John’s Apocalypse we read of as the eternal Gospel—in comparison, that is, with this Gospel of ours, which is temporal and preached in a world and an age that will pass away. And even if we wish to inquire as far as the passion of the Lord and Savior—although it is bold and rash to seek his passion in heaven—yet if there are spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places, and we do not blush to confess the Lord’s cross for the destruction of those things which he destroyed by his passion, why should we fear to suspect something similar also in the places above at the consummation of the ages, so that the nations of all places may be saved by his passion?”

And again, blaspheming about the Son, he spoke thus: “For if the Son knows the Father, it seems that, in that he knows the Father, he can comprehend him—as if we should say that the mind of a craftsman knows the measure of his craft. And there is no doubt that, if the Father is in the Son, he is also comprehended by him in whom he is. But if we mean by comprehension that the one who knows not only grasps with understanding and wisdom but holds all things by power and might, we cannot say that the Son comprehends the Father. But the Father comprehends all things, and among all things is the Son too; therefore he comprehends the Son also.” And that we might know the reasons why the Father comprehends the Son and the Son cannot comprehend the Father, he adds these words: “Let the curious reader inquire whether the Father is known by himself in the same way as he is known by the Son; and, knowing what is written, The Father who sent me is greater than I, he will maintain that this is true in all respects, so as to say that the Father is greater than the Son in knowledge too, since he is known by himself more perfectly and purely than by the Son.”

Here again he is convicted of holding metempsychōsis and the abolition of bodies: “If anyone can show that the incorporeal and rational nature, when it has stripped itself of the body, lives by itself, and is in a worse condition when it was clothed with bodies and in a better one when it lays them aside, no one doubts that bodies do not subsist primarily, but are made from time to time because of the various movements of rational creatures, so that those who need them may be clothed; and again, when they have corrected themselves from the depravity of their falls to better things, bodies are dissolved into nothing, and so things are always changing in this succession.” And lest we should think the impiety of what he had said before too small, at the end of the same book he joins all rational natures—that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, angels, powers, dominions and the other virtues, and even man himself according to the dignity of the soul—as being of one substance. “God,” he says, “and his only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit are sharers in an intellectual and rational nature; the angels and powers and the other virtues share in it; the inner man, who was made in the image and likeness of God, shares in it. From this it is concluded that God and these are in a certain way of one substance.” He adds one word, “in a certain way,” to escape the charge of so great a sacrilege; and he who elsewhere will not have the Son and the Holy Spirit to be of the Father’s substance, lest he seem to cut the divinity into parts, bestows the nature of almighty God on angels and men.

Since this is so, what madness is it, after changing a few things about the Son and the Holy Spirit that displayed open blasphemy, to bring out the rest just as it was written and to praise it with an impious voice, when both the one and the other proceeded from one fountain of impiety? To write against everything is not for this occasion; and all who have written against Arius, Eunomius, Mani and the various heresies must be believed to have answered these impieties too. Whoever, then, wishes to read these books and to go with shod feet to the land of promise, lest he be bitten somewhere by serpents and struck by the arched sting of the scorpion, let him first read this book and, before he enters on the road, know what he must beware of.