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TOPIC: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 09 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 29.02.04 Orthodox Faith Bk I Pt 4
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Chapter XII.
Concerning the Same.
The following, then, are the mysteries which we have learned from the holy oracles, as the divine Dionysius the Areopagite said194 : that God is the cause and beginning of all: the essence of all that have essence: the life of the living: the reason of all rational beings: the intellect of all intelligent beings: the recalling and restoring of those who fall away from Him: the renovation and transformation of those that corrupt that which is natural: the holy foundation of those who are tossed in unholiness: the steadfastness of those who have stood firm: the way of those whose course is directed to Him and the hand stretched forth to guide them upwards. And I shall add He is also the Father of all His creatures (for God, Who brought us into being out of nothing, is in a stricter sense our Father than are our parents who have derived both being and begetting from Him195 ): the shepherd of those who follow and are tended by Him: the radiance of those who are enlightened: the initiation of the initiated: the deification of the deified: the peace of those at discord: the simplicity of those who love simplicity: the unity of those who worship unity: of all beginning the beginning, super-essential be cause above all beginning196 : and the good revelation of what is hidden, that is, of the knowledge of Him so far as that is lawful for and attainable by each.
Further and more accurately concerning divine names197 .
The Deity being incomprehensible is also assuredly nameless. Therefore since we know not His essence, let us not seek for a name for His essence. For names are explanations of actual things198 . But God, Who is good and brought us out of nothing into being that we might share in His goodness, and Who gave us the faculty of knowledge, not only did not impart to us His essence, but did not even grant us the knowledge of His essence. For it is impossible for nature to understand fully the supernatural199 . Moreover, if knowledge is of things that are200 , how can there be knowledge of the super-essential? Through His unspeakable goodness, then, it pleased Him to be called by names that we could understand, that we might not be altogether cut off from the knowlege of Him but should have some notion of Him, however vague. Inasmuch, then, as He is incomprehensible, He is also unnameable. But inasmuch as He is the cause of all and contains in Himself the reasons and causes of all that is, He receives names drawn from all that is, even from opposites: for example, He is called light and darkness, water and fire: in order that we may know that these are not of His essence but that He is super-essential and unnameable: but inasmuch as He is the cause of all, He receives names from all His effects.
Wherefore, of the divine names, some have a negative signification, and indicate that He is super-essential201 : such are “non-essential202 ,” “timeless,” “without beginning,” “invisible”: not that God is inferior to anything or lacking in anything (for all things are His and have become from Him and through Him and endure in Him203 ), but that He is pre-eminently separated from all that is. For He is not one of the things that are, but over all things. Some again have an affirmative signification, as indicating that He is the cause of all things. For as the cause of all that is and of all essence, He is called both Ens and Essence. And as the cause of all reason and wisdom, of the rational and the wise, He is called both reason and rational, and wisdom and wise. Similarly He is spoken of as Intellect and Intellectual, Life and Living, Power and Powerful, and so on with all the rest. Or rather those names are most appropriate to Him which are derived from what is most precious and most akin to Himself. That which is immaterial is more precious and more akin to Himself than that which is material, and the pure than the impure, and the holy than the unholy: for they have greater part in Him. So then, sun and light will be more apt names for Him than darkness, and day than night, and life than death, and fire and spirit and water, as having life, than earth, and above all, goodness than wickedness: which is just to say, being more than not being. For goodness is existence and the cause of existence, but wickedness is the negation of goodness, that is, of existence. These, then, are the affirmations and the negations, but the sweetest names are a combination of both: for example, the super-essential essence, the Godhead that is more than God, the beginning that is above beginning and such like. Further there are some affirmations about God which have in a pre-eminent degree the force of denial: for example, darkness: for this does not imply that God is darkness but that He is not light, but above light.
God then is called Mind and Reason and Spirit and Wisdom and Power, as the cause of these, and as immaterial, and maker of all, and omnipotent204 . And these names are common to the whole Godhead, whether affirmative or negative. And they are also used of each of the subsistences of the Holy Trinity in the very same and identical way and with their full significance205 . For when I think of one of the subsistences, I recognise it to be perfect God and perfect essence: but when I combine and reckon the three together, I know one perfect God. For the Godhead is not compound but in three perfect subsistences, one perfect indivisible and uncompound God. And when I think of the relation of the three subsistences to each other, I perceive that the Father is super-essential Sun, source of goodness, fathomless sea of essence, reason, wisdom, power, light, divinity: the generating and productive source of good hidden in it. He Himself then is mind, the depth of reason, begetter of the Word, and through the Word the Producer206 of the revealing Spirit. And to put it shortly, the Father has no reason207 , wisdom, power, will208 , save the Son Who is the only power of the Father the immediate209 cause of the creation of the universe: as perfect subsistence begotten of perfect subsistence in a manner known to Himself, Who is and is named the Son. And the Holy Spirit is the power of the Father revealing the hidden mysteries of His Divinity, proceeding from the Father through the Son in a manner known to Himself, but different from that of generation. Wherefore the Holy Spirit is the perfecter of the creation of the universe. All the terms, then, that are appropriate to the Father, as cause, source, begetter, are to be ascribed to the Father alone: while those that are appropriate to the caused, begotten Son, Word, immediate power, will, wisdom, are to be ascribed to the Son: and those that are appropriate to the caused, processional, manifesting, perfecting power, are to be ascribed to the Holy Spirit. The Father is the source and cause of the Son and the Holy Spirit: Father of the Son alone and producer of the Holy Spirit. The Son is Son, Word, Wisdom, Power, Image, Effulgence, Impress of the Father and derived from the Father. But the Holy Spirit is not the Son of the Father but the Spirit of the Father as proceeding from the Father. For there is no impulse without Spirit. And we speak also of the Spirit of the Son, not as through proceeding from Him, but as proceeding through Him from the Father. For the Father alone is cause.
Chapter XIII.
Concerning the place of God: and that the Deity alone is uncircumscribed.
Bodily place is the limit of that which contains, by which that which is contained is contained210 : for example, the air contains but the body is contained211 . But it is not the whole of the containing air which is the place of the contained body, but the limit of the containing air, where it comes into contact with the contained body: and the reason is clearly because that which contains is not within that which it contains.
But there is also mental place where mind is active, and mental and incorporeal nature exists: where mind dwells and energises and is contained not in a bodily but in a mental fashion. For it is without form, and so cannot be contained as a body is. God, then, being immaterial212 and uncircumscribed, has not place. For He is His own place, filling all things and being above all things, and Himself maintaining all things213 . Yet we speak of God having place and the place of God where His energy becomes manifest. For He penetrates everything without mixing with it, and imparts to all His energy in proportion to the fitness and receptive power of each: and by this I mean, a purity both natural and voluntary. For the immaterial is purer than the material, and that which is virtuous than that which is linked with vice. Wherefore by the place of God is meant that which has a greater share in His energy and grace. For this reason the Heaven is His throne. For in it are the angels who do His will and are always glorifying Him214 . For this is His rest and the earth is His footstool215 . For in it He dwelt in the flesh among men216 . And His sacred flesh has been named the foot of God. The Church, too, is spoken of as the place of God: for we have set this apart for the glorifying of God as a sort of consecrated place wherein we also hold converse with Him. Likewise also the places in which His energy becomes manifest to us, whether through the flesh or apart from flesh, are spoken of as the places of God.
But it must be understood that the Deity is indivisible, being everywhere wholly in His entirety and not divided up part by part like that which has body, but wholly in everything and wholly above everything.
Marg. ms. Concerning the place of angel and spirit, and concerning the uncircumscribed.
The angel, although not contained in place with figured form as is body, yet is spoken of as being in place because he has a mental presence and energises in accordance with his nature, and is not elsewhere but has his mental limitations there where he energises. For it is impossible to energise at the same time in different places. For to God alone belongs the power of energising everywhere at the same time. The angel energises in different places by the quickness of his nature and the promptness and speed by which he can change his place: but the Deity, Who is everywhere and above all, energises at the same time in diverse ways with one simple energy.
Further the soul is bound up with the body. whole with whole and not part with part: and it is not contained by the body but contains it as fire does iron, and being in it energises with its own proper energies.
That which is comprehended in place or time or apprehension is circumscribed: while that which is contained by none of these is uncircumscribed. Wherefore the Deity alone is uncircumscribed, being without beginning and without end, and containing all things, and in no wise apprehended217 . For He alone is incomprehensible and unbounded, within no one’s knowledge and contemplated by Himself alone. But the angel is circumscribed alike in time (for His being had commencement) and in place (but mental space, as we said above) and in apprehension. For they know somehow the nature of each other and have their bounds perfectly defined by the Creator. Bodies in short are circumscribed both in beginning and end, and bodily place and apprehension.
Marg. ms. From various sources concerning God and the father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And concerning the Word and the Spirit.
The Deity, then, is quite unchangeable and invariable. For all things which are not in our hands He hath predetermined by His foreknowledge, each in its own proper and peculiar time and place. And accordingly the Father judgeth no one, but hath given all judgment to the Son218 . For clearly the Father and the Son and also the Holy Spirit judged as God. But the Son Himself will descend in the body as man, and will sit on the throne of Glory (for descending and sitting require circumscribed body), and will judge all the world in justice.
All things are far apart from God, not in place but in nature. In our case, thoughtfulness, and wisdom, and counsel come to pass and go away as states of being. Not so in the case of God: for with Him there is no happening or ceasing to be: for He is invariable and unchangeable: and it would not be right to speak of contingency in connection with Him. For goodness is concomitant with essence. He who longs alway after God, he seeth Him: for God is in all things. Existing things are dependent on that which is, and nothing can be unless it is in that which is. God then is mingled with everything, maintaining their nature: and in His holy flesh the God-Word is made one in subsistence and is mixed with our nature, yet without confusion.No one seeth the Father, save the Son and the Spirit219 .
The Son is the counsel and wisdom and power of the Father. For one may not speak of quality in connection with God, from fear of implying that He was a compound of essence and quality.
The Son is from the Father, and derives from Him all His properties: hence He cannot do ought of Himself220 . For He has not energy peculiar to Himself and distinct from the Father221 .
That God Who is invisible by nature is made visible by His energies, we perceive from the organisation and government of the world222 .
The Son is the Father’s image, and the Spirit the Son’s, through which Christ dwelling in man makes him after his own image223 .
The Holy Spirit is God, being between the unbegotten and the begotten, and united to the Father through the Son224 . We speak of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the mind of Christ, the Spirit of the Lord, the very Lord225 , the Spirit of adoption, of truth, of liberty, of wisdom (for He is the creator of all these): filling all things with essence, maintaining all things, filling the universe with essence, while yet the universe is not the measure of His power.
God is everlasting and unchangeable essence, creator of all that is, adored with pious consideration.
God is also Father, being ever unbegotten, for He was born of no one, but hath begotten His co-eternal Son: God is likewise Son, being always with the Father, born of the Father timelessly, everlastingly, without flux or passion, or separation from Him. God is also Holy Spirit, being sanctifying power, subsistential, proceeding from the Father without separation, and resting in the Son, identical in essence with Father and Son.
Word is that which is ever essentially present with the Father. Again, word is also the natural movement of the mind, according to which it is moved and thinks and considers, being as it were its own light and radiance. Again, word is the thought that is spoken only within the heart. And again, word is the utterance226 that is the messenger of thought. God therefore is Word227 essential and enhypostatic: and the other three kinds of word are faculties of the soul, and are not contemplated as having a proper subsistence of their own. The first of these is the natural offspring of the mind, ever welling228 up naturally out of it: the second is the thought: and the third is the utterance.
The Spirit has various meanings. There is the Holy Spirit: but the powers of the Holy Spirit are also spoken of as spirits: the good messenger is also spirit: the demon also is spirit: the soul too is spirit: and sometimes mind also is spoken of as spirit. Finally the wind is spirit and the air is spirit.
Chapter XIV.
The properties of the divine nature.
Uncreate, without beginning, immortal, infinite, eternal, immaterial229 , good, creative, just, enlightening, immutable, passionless, uncircumscribed, immeasurable, unlimited, undefined, unseen, unthinkable, wanting in nothing, being His own rule and authority, all-ruling, life-giving, omnipotent, of infinite power, con-raining and maintaining the universe and making provision for all: all these and such like attributes the Deity possesses by nature, not having received them from elsewhere, but Himself imparting all good to His own creations according to the capacity of each.
The subsistences dwell and are established firmly in one another. For they are inseparable and cannot part from one another, but keep to their separate courses within one another, without coalescing or mingling, but cleaving to each other. For the Son is in the Father and the Spirit: and the Spirit in the Father and the Son: and the Father in the Son and the Spirit, but there is no coalescence or commingling or confusion230 ú And there is one and the same motion: for there is one impulse and one motion of the three subsistences, which is not to be observed in any created nature.
Further the divine effulgence and energy, being one anti simple and indivisible, assuming many varied forms in its goodness among what is divisible and allotting to each the component parts of its own nature, still remains simple and is multiplied without division among the divided, and gathers and converts the divided into its own simplicity231 . For all things long after it and have their existence in it. It gives also to all things being according to their several natures232 , and it is itself the being of existing things, the life of living things, the reason of rational beings, the thought of thinking beings. But it is itself above mind and reason and life and essence.
Further the divine nature has the property of penetrating all things without mixing with them and of being itself impenetrable by anything else. Moreover, there is the property of knowing all things with a simple knowledge and of seeing all things, simply with His divine, all-surveying, immaterial eye, both the things of the present, and the things of the past, and the things of the future, before they come into being233 . It is also sinless, and can cast sin out, and bring salvation: and all that it wills, it can accomplish, but does not will all it could accomplish. For it could destroy the universe but it does not will so to do234 .
Footnotes
194 Dionys., De div. nom., c. I.
195 Athan., Orat. 2, Cont. Arian.; Cyril, Thes., assert. 13.
196 Text reads, w9j u0pa/rxioj: surely a misprint for w9j u9pera/rxij.
197 This chapter is not found in the oldest copies, but only in a few of the latest date. In Cod. Reg. 3109 it comes in after bk. iv. c. 9, and in Cod. Reg. 3451, after bk. ii. c. 2.
198 Greg. Naz., Orat. 36.
199 Dioyns., De div. nom., c. I
200 Text, ei0 de\ kai\ tw=n o!ntwn ai0 gnwseij, to\ #perou/sion pw=j gnwqh/setai; a variant, ei0 de\ ai9 fu/sei: a!gnwstoi, au0to\ u9perou/sion pw=j gnwqhsetai. If the natures are unknown how can the superessential itself be known?
201 Or, super-substantial, u9perou/sioj.
202 a9nou/sioj, non-substantial, without substance.
203 Coloss. i. 17.
204 Dionys., De div. nom., c. 5.
205 Text, a0paralei/prwj: variant, a0paralla/ktwj, unchangeably, an adverb used by the Greeks in connection with the equality of the divine persons.
206 proboleu/j, Lat. productor, Emitter.
207 Or, Word: lo/goj.
208 qe/khsij, cf. Cyril, Th., assert. 7; Athan., Contr. Arian. 4 ; Greg. Nyss., Contr. Eunom., p. 345.
209 h9 monh\ du/namij tou Patro\j, h prokatartikh\ th=j tw=n pa/ntwn poih/sewj. The h9 prokatartikh/ is understood by some to mean the primordial or immediate Cause, by others to be better rendered as the primordial Power or Energy. Basil in his De Spiritu Sancto speaks of the Father as the primordial Cause (prokatartikh; aijtiva) in the creation of the world.
210 Arist., Physic, bk. iv. 4.
211 Text, oi[on o9 a0h\r perie/cei, to= de= sw=ma perie/xetai' ou0x o!loj de o9 perie/xwn a9h/r, &c. Variant, oi[on o9 a0h\r perie/xei to/de sw=ma, ou0x o!loj, &c.
212 a!5loj w!n. Greg. Naz., Orat. 34, Greg. Nyss., De anim. et resurr., &c. speak of God as nowhere and as everythere.
213 Greg. Naz., Orat. 34.
214 Isai. vi. I, seq.
215 Isai. lxvi. i..
216 Baruch iii. 38
217 Greg. Naz., Orat. 44.
218 St. John v.22.
219 St. John vi. 46.
220 Ibid. v. 30.
221 Greg., Orat. 36.
222 Wisd. xii. 5.
223 Basil, Cont. Eun., bk. v.
224 me/son tou= a0gennh/ tou kai\ tou= gennhtoy=, kai di' Ui0ou= tw= Patri\ sunpto/henon.
225 au0toku/rioj.
226 proforiko/j is absent in mss. but added by a second hand in one codex.
227 ou0siw/dhj te/ e0sti kai\e0nupo/statoj. Against the Sabellian doctrine, the views of Paul of Samosata., &c.
228 phgazo/menon.
229 Text, to\ a!u>\lon: in one codex there is added as emendation or explanation, to; a0plouj/, to\ a0su/nqeton.
230 Greg. Naz., Orat. I, 13 and 40.
231 Dioyns., De div. nom., c. 5.
232 Text, kaqw\j e!xei fu/sewj: in the margin of the manuscript is w9j e!xousi.
233 Dan. ii. 22.
234 Greg., Orat. 40.BOOK II.