On “By what authority do you do these things?” 1–4

The beginning of salvation for human beings is the fear of God, and the root of all the good things in us is the law of God; and there is neither law of God without fear, nor fear without law. For the law has fear as the servant of its commands, and fear has the law as the judge of what has been commanded. So the one who approaches the law, and the God who gave the law, with fear is enrolled as a citizen among the saints and written down among the holy; but the one who is reckless of the divine fear and approaches the divine law with arrogance is not only not counted worthy of grace but is even cast out of godliness. That is why those who approach the divine law with fear and longing are taught and enlightened in all uprightness, and are instructed in godliness by the truth itself; for they fall down before the very fountain of truth, saying: “Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your statutes.” So the saints are this reverent, this God-loving, this ready to learn the truth from the truth itself; but the enemies of the truth, or rather the foes of their own life, preferring arrogance and conceit to simplicity, approach the teacher of godliness with the bearing of tyrants. This is exactly what the children of the Jews did, as you have just heard from the words of the Gospel. For when our Lord Jesus, the king of the saints, was spending time in the temple, they came to him in the temple itself, not with the fear that was fitting, not as servants to a master, not as human beings to God, not even as disciples to a teacher. Enemies of the truth and hunters of wickedness, displaying their own malice, they tried to circumscribe the wisdom that is above the world with human reasonings. “For the priests and the elders of the people,” it says, “came to Jesus in the temple, saying: By what authority do you do these things? And who gave you this authority?” O fearless heart! What it dares! What it utters! To what arrogance it rises! O the folly of the wicked! O the forbearance of the Savior! The clay utters such things, and the potter bears it; the thing formed exalts itself against its maker, and the benefactor who answers to no one forbears. They demand an account from God the Word, and pry into his authority, the summit of sovereignty. Let us too say, fittingly, the words of the wise man: O man, “why are earth and ashes arrogant?” You question God, you demand an account from him for his own works, and you dare to say to the authority above the world: “By what authority do you do these things?” Why do you question him at all, instead of examining the power of the deeds themselves? Examine it carefully yourself in the hidden council chamber of your soul: consider the nature of the deeds, and see whether what is happening belongs to human thought, or whether what the Lord accomplishes belongs to divine sovereignty. Ask the laws of nature, the limits of authority, and the sequence of reasoning: what authority can raise the dead, that of human beings or of God? Who can cleanse lepers, drive away diseases, and chase off every weakness of soul and body by a word alone? Then: who can fashion eyes out of clay, God or a human being? Why do you not question the nature of the deeds itself, instead of boldly prying into the worker, saying, “By what authority do you do these things?” For I repeat again the words of those who dare everything so easily, who demand an account from the Word of God and try to circumscribe by reasonings the one who “catches the wise in their craftiness.” O folly! They bring a test of words to God the Word, by whom every art of words is easily caught, and every well-practised web of reasoning. For what can a human word do against God the Word? What can sophisticated wickedness do against wisdom above the world? “By what authority do you do these things?” Ask the paralytic by what authority he is raised up to health; question the miracles, and do not pry into the authority of the miracle-worker. Divine grace does not answer you, for it judges those who ask wickedly unworthy of an answer. For such is the Word of God: when he sees a crooked and perverse soul, he shakes it off as unworthy of grace, and though it often strives hard to learn, it does not obtain truth from the truth. The Jews ask many times, and do not learn even once, because they ask wickedly. The Savior’s silence so tormented their souls with pain that that wicked council said: “How long will you keep our soul in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” But not even after this word does he answer them; for those who asked wickedly were unworthy of an answer. What then does the Savior say to them? “I told you, and you did not listen; why do you want to hear it again? The works that I do, these bear witness about me.” Do you see that he wants the works to be questioned, and not the authority to be pried into? The Jews ask, “If you are the Christ, tell us plainly; how long will you keep our soul in suspense?” and he gives no solution to the uncertainty; for they were asking not in order to learn, but in order to accuse. And the high priest Caiaphas, worthy of that assembly, came to such madness as to say: “I adjure you by the living God, tell us whether you are the Son of the Blessed.” But the Savior, teaching us to receive words with reverence, answers the oath but gave no solution to what was in doubt. “Tell us,” he says, “whether you are the Son of the Blessed.” The Lord says to him: “You have said so”; and he honored the oath by confessing, and did not satisfy the malice, having undone its craftiness. The Jews sought wickedly and did not obtain an answer, and very rightly so: “for crooked reasonings separate from God.” He did not entrust his wisdom to those who wickedly pry into his wisdom. “For wisdom will not enter a soul that devises evil.”

And while they, though they asked many times, did not find what they sought, a certain woman who came to the Lord guilelessly and with genuine faith, not testing the incomprehensible power but approaching the Lord in simplicity, and saying to him in plain words but with genuine faith, “We know that when the Messiah comes, who is called Christ, he will tell us all things,” immediately heard from him who loves simplicity: “I who speak to you am he.” She had not yet asked, and immediately she learned; she had not yet sown the word of faith, and immediately she reaped the fruit of godliness. For God is holy, and rests upon the simple and the holy; when he sees the simplicity of the one who approaches, he too unfolds the benefit of his own wisdom; when he sees a soul perverted by wickedness, he withholds the benefit and does not admit it to his teaching. Hear him saying through Moses: “If you walk toward me upright, I too will walk toward you upright; but if you are crooked, I too will deal with you in crooked anger”; not that the divine nature bends its own uprightness, but that what comes from the truth does not come straight to the wicked. “By what authority do you do these things? Or who gave you this authority?” And the Savior said to them — pay attention here to how the Lord of all lays down for us a rule and canon of teaching. And what is it? He wants us not to answer every question of wicked heretics, Jews or Greeks, or any others cut off from godliness. For it is possible, it is often possible, to ask things that are not worthy of an answer; and against these worthless questionings one must by all means reply with a just counter-question. That is why the Lord says to them: “I too will ask you one question; if you tell me, I too will answer you. The baptism of John,” he says, “where was it from? From heaven, or from human beings?” See, I pray, the fountain of wisdom refuting the lie by a question; see the Word of God overturning wickedness by syllogisms; and observe how wickedness is consumed by its own arrows, and by its own … “of John, where was it from? From heaven, or from human beings?” They tested the force of the saying among themselves and said: “If we say, From heaven, he will say to us, Why then did you not believe?” Wickedness knows its own slipperiness; it knows that it is destroyed by the very things it puts forward. Since they had not obeyed John, they were afraid to say that he was from God, lest the refutation follow at their heels. “But if we say, From human beings, we fear the crowd, that we may be stoned.” For the people’s prejudice in favor of the righteous man will bring an inescapable penalty upon us. “For all the people held John to be a prophet.” So they were unwilling to say the truth, that he was from God, for they had shaken off the truth of God; and they did not dare to tell a lie, for they had fear as the judge of their shamelessness, and that not divine fear but human. And indeed it is so: many people, who often have no fear of God, are slaves to human fear. “They feared the people.” Would that they had feared God, and not the people; for the one is godliness, the other ungodliness. “They say to him, We do not know.” See how wickedness lurks in its den in the wicked; see how ungodliness proclaims its own absurdity. For just as a viper, or one of the … quietly peeps out of its hole and will not come out entirely, so the Jews too, living with the den of wickedness, do not bring their mind out into the light. That is why the Lord says to them: “Neither do I tell you.” See how silence punished the absurd question; see how he did not satisfy the wickedness, but left them standing in the middle of their syllogisms. And what once happened to Balaam’s ass, which could not turn aside to the right or to the left because of the angel who stood against it, happened to the wickedness of the Jews: it dared to look neither to the right, to the truth, because of its denial of the Savior, nor to the left, to the lie, because of its fear of the people. So we too, brothers, receiving this rule from the Lord, must not give everything in answer to the questions of the heretics. When a heretic asks wickedly, undo his absurd question by a just counter-question. A heretic often asks: “Do you know God, or do you not know him?” If you say, “I know him,” he immediately adds: “Then do you know what you worship?” “Yes,” says the godly man; for who would put up with saying, “What I do not know, I worship”? Again he adds: “Then do you know the essence of God?” If you say, “I do not know,” he immediately objects: “Then you do not know what you worship.” See, I pray, the crooked words; see the many coils of the wicked serpents! Do you see? But one must not be troubled. For this, brothers, one must know: that there are many ways of knowing. One can know that God is, not how he is. For even among us human beings there are many roads to knowledge. I know that this man lives in this city, but I do not also know what trade he follows; I know another man who follows this trade, but I do not also know where his family comes from. For “I know in part,” and in part I am ignorant. And certainly, neither does partial knowledge bring in complete knowledge, nor does not knowing in every respect abolish partial knowledge. What then? I know of God that he is, that he is good, that he is immortal, that he is incorruptible, that he is beyond conception, that he is incomprehensible, incorporeal, unchangeable. All this I know, and knowing it I worship. But how he is I do not know, nor was I taught to pry into how he is, but that he is. For I find no teacher greater than the Apostle, able to set before me a better godliness; and he, using a clear voice, teaches somewhere thus: “For the one who comes to God must believe that he is”—not how he is, but “that he is, and that he becomes a rewarder of those who seek him.” So what I know, I worship. I did not learn to pry into the essence of God; I learned to believe, brothers—to believe, not to pry. Read again your confession, heretic, the one agreed in the hidden and awesome mystery. When you came to be baptized, what did you say? Were you seeking, prying, searching, or believing? You came in another way, and you were counted worthy of that grace under other terms. If indeed you were counted worthy and now think such things, you have broken the covenant: at the awesome and dread mysteries you brought faith, but once outside the mysteries you circumscribe the faith, …

But see what the enemy of the truth says: “Surely God did not give us reasoning for nothing? Surely we did not receive the mind’s power of judgment to no purpose? Faith must also be searched out by reasonings, and godliness must not be left unexamined.” Well said. But the boundary of the examination must be the divine oracles and the rules of godliness given us by him. But you overstep the rules; you do not keep in line with the divinely inspired Scriptures, but pry into divine things, do violence to the truth, and everywhere hasten to follow the unevenness of reasonings rather than to serve faith, as though you had grasped the experience of everything else, or had made trial of all the other things that are seen. Tell me, using the sequence of reasonings: how does the heaven stand, vaulted to so boundless a height and with nothing to support it across so great a span? How does it stand, by what is it carried, what are the foundations on which it is fixed? How in so long a time is its beauty not dissolved, its harmony not destroyed? Show me the columns that carry it, show me the base that lies beneath such masses. But why do I speak of heaven, and not of the earth on which I tread? First explain to me how the earth is set. That it is founded upon the waters I too have received, and you yourself confess. But how it is fixed upon the waters, explain. Do not simply follow the word, but give a reasoned account of what is asked: how are so many and such great mountains, hills and plains borne upon waters? Tell me how the sea is bounded; tell me how the sea that rages with such waves and is heaped up to a boundless height, as soon as it comes near the sand, breaks and reveres the boundary of the lawgiver. Explain, brother, how, when there is one earth, one mother, its shoots are different: where do bitter roots come from, where sweet ones, where the differences of fruits? One earth sprouting, one rain nourishing: where does the difference come from? Explain where the springs come forth from, and from what abysses; how is it possible to comprehend these things? But when we are at a loss about these things, we have one true and godly solution of our perplexities. For blessed David sang thus: “For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his works are done in faith.” The works cannot be comprehended without faith, and is it possible to find God without faith? The works without faith, and the Son by demonstration? “For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his works are done in faith.” But let us leave the enemies of the truth and return to the sound and safe … of the faith, and show the rule of godliness shining out from the truth itself. No one among the ancients is more trustworthy than Moses, no one among the new wiser than Paul. Search the old dispensation, and you will find no one greater than Moses; for … “… you, and you have found favor beyond all.” No one in the New is more perfect than Paul; for he is a vessel of … , and has Christ speaking in himself. Do not overstep the boundaries of Moses and of Paul. What did Moses find: a comprehension of the essence, or the glory of God? Moses, brothers, came to a longing for God, as a God-loving man, and did not know that he desired the impossible; yet he showed it by what he asked of God. For what does he say? “I beg you, Lord, if I have found favor before you, let me see you so as to know you; show yourself to me.” He was a brother of Philip, who said: “Show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” “Lord, you said, You have found favor before me; show yourself to me, that I may see you so as to know you.” For he had seen him in the bush, he had seen him from Mount Sinai, he had seen him appearing from various places and showing his appearance in various ways; but that blessed Moses longed to see the very stamp of his nature; being a man, he imagined human things about the power above the world. But God accepted the longing of his faithful servant, and persuades the human desire that longed for the impossible. For what does he say to him? “No one shall see my face and live.” The power of those who long does not contain the one longed for; mortal sight does not bear the immortal nature. Why then, O Master, do you leave the longing without consolation, and do not grant even a shadow of his desire to one who pictures so great a longing? Hence he says: “I will set you on the rock and cover you with my hand; and when my glory passes by, you will see my back parts, but my front parts you will not see.” “When it passes by”: he did not say “I,” but “my glory”; for it is not possible to go beyond the glory and find the essence. Moses found nothing more than glory, and did not see even this in full, but only the back; not because the divine nature is drawn with back and breast—for it is simple and uncompounded—but because God makes himself known in this way, not according to the dignity that befits him, but according to the capacity of those who are to enjoy the sight. Moses reached glory and did not go beyond glory. And do you, heretic, going beyond glory, pry into the essence of God? Let us come also to blessed Paul. Paul, in the New Dispensation, as if dizzy at the depths of the thought, cried out that great voice full of astonishment, saying thus: “O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become his counselor? Or who has given first to him, and it will be repaid to him?” And the end of the passage: “For from him and through him and to him are all things; to him be the glory forever.” Do you see that when he came to the glory of God he did not overstep the boundary? And why do I speak of human beings? Go up in thought to the things above the world; question the heavens and say: “What can you announce to me about God? Heavens, describe to me what sort of being God is; tell me what God is in essence.” But the heavens do not answer when asked about impossible things. But if you do ask these things boldly, the divine word through the wonderful Jeremiah will … against you: “The heaven shuddered at this.” For the heaven truly shudders when it sees the divine nature pried into. And blessed David too will strike back, punishing the measureless curiosity, and will say: Did you not hear that “the heavens declare” not the nature of God, but “the glory of God”? Did he himself not cry out to you on the holy lyre, “The heavens declare the glory of God,” not the nature of God? They do not interpret an essence; they announce the glory of God. But do not suppose that the powers above the world know anything more. Ask the angels—ask them, I say, not because you are permitted to converse with the powers above, but because from Scripture you have the remedies that muzzle your boldness. Ask the angels; ask them when you see them dancing or singing hymns on earth. Say to them: “What new thing do you teach? What strange thing do you announce?” And at once the divine choir will answer you through the divine Gospels: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men.” Angels came to earth, and did not overstep the boundaries of glory; and heretics did not shrink from overstepping them. But perhaps the highest powers, those above the angels—I mean those of the archangels? These are distinct natures. Ask the cherubim, the royal throne: … the cherubim, as it were a sapphire throne, and on the throne one seated, as it were the likeness of a Son of man. And a voice came from the cherubim, sounding like many waters: “Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place.”

Do you see the reverence of the cherubim too? … to glory, and did not overstep the boundary. “Blessed be the glory of the Lord.” And how? “From his place”: to show you that he dwells in the heavenly places too, and that his dignity lies far higher than the heavenly and invisible powers. They do not speak as those who draw near, but as those who stand far off from the divine dignity: “Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place.” Not that he has a place, for he circumscribes every place; but it calls the dignity that surrounds him the place of God. Have you seen the voice of the cherubim? “Blessed be the glory of the Lord.” And it announced nothing more. For you, who stand around him, ought to know the proclamations of God; for “the seraphim stood around him.” What then can be learned from you? Do not hold it back. But they too will say: “Even though we excel in dignity, we recognize the boundaries of our nature, and do not leap over the measures of knowledge; we do not pry into the one who created us, we do not meddle with the one who honored us. We know the incomprehensible nature: that it is not subject to inquiry, it does not serve sequences of reasoning; the glory of the one who is worshipped surpasses all angelic order, all thought above the world, and every power above the heavens together. That is why we too do not overstep the boundaries.” The cherubim did not overstep them, but with all reverence chant that heavenly hymn: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” Are you not shamed by Paul and Moses, who do not overstep glory? Heaven will shame you, announcing glory. But heaven does not persuade you? Angels will shame you. But you despise angels? Fear the cherubim. But do you overstep even these in your daring? Let the seraphim bring you to your senses. But you are persuaded neither by examples above the world nor by examples on earth? Then become a stranger to the sacred choirs; banish yourself from the divine courts. For you cannot pry into God and be numbered among the faithful. And why do I speak about God? Do you not know that it is a fearful thing to be reckless and to search out the nature of God? If you wish to pry even into the works of God, God does not count you worthy of his intimacy, but casts you far off as one reckless of impossible things. Moses, so great and so eminent a man, the worker of so many miracles, who became mediator between God and human beings, for whom the sea was divided, who brought down the manna from heaven: this man, because he dared to measure one of the things commanded by God by human reasoning, and did not yield to the divine power, received an inexorable penalty. For when he reached the rock, he said to the people: “O stubborn and disobedient people, shall I be able to give you water from this rock?” And what did God say to him? “Because you did not glorify me before the congregation, you shall not enter the land that I swore.” Pay careful attention to me here: “Because you did not glorify me.” For what was it to glorify? To say: “God can do all things.” For it is a sin against God to examine by reasonings what he does, and not to yield to the divine power, which works above all its own works. David defends Moses, who stumbled not in mind but in tongue. For the sins of the righteous are on the lips, but the wrongdoings of the ungodly are in the mind. And just as the ungodly man is cut off in mind, yet seems somehow to draw near to God with his lips—“For this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me”—so the godly man, though his heart is strong, often slips with his tongue. That is why David defends Moses, a prophet speaking for a prophet: “And they provoked him at the water of contradiction, and Moses was ill-treated because of them”—not because of himself. What does “because of them” mean? He did not show unbelief by his own judgment; but, troubled by the people’s contradiction, he no longer found his reasoning clear, as happens in confusion. I have said this about the things brought forward by the workshop of injustice. Where did you hear of “unbegotten” and “begotten”? Where did you hear those frenzied and fantastic dialectics? The things of the Spirit were struck out, and the things of the devil brought in instead. If you seek these things, why do you inscribe Paul as your teacher? If you pry into these things, why do you pride yourself on having Peter? Deny the faith, then, and bring in inquiry. “But I do not depart from Scripture,” he says; “God forbid.” An enemy and … a disciple and an introducer of reasonings? Explain to me, you slave of reasoning, how the Savior came in when the doors were shut. What need is there to busy oneself with the other things? For they often bring harm both to those who speak and to those who hear. I do not say: “Explain the invisible nature: how the Father begot, what is the manner of the divine begetting.” I ask about the dispensation.