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 coales 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 utterance that is the messenger of thought. God therefore is Word 5 essential and enhypostatic and the other three kinds of word are faculties of the soul, and are not contem-cence or commingling or confusion 8. And plated as having a proper subsistence of their own. The first of these is the natural off spring of the mind, ever welling up naturally out of it the second is the thought: and the third is the utterance. : 6 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, immaterial7, 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, containing 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 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 and 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 simplicity 9. For all things long after it and have their existence in it. It gives also to all things being according to their several natures 1, 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 being 2. 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 do 3. CHAPTER I. Concerning aeon or age. BOOK II. HE created the ages Who Himself was before the ages, Whom the divine David thus addresses, From age to age Thou art1. The divine apostle also says, Through Whom He created the ages 2. It must then be understood that the word age has various meanings, for it denotes many things. The life of each man is called an age. Again, a period of a thousand years is called an age 3. Again, the whole course of the present life is called an age: also the future life, the immortal life after the resurrection, is spoken of as an age. Again, the word age is used to denote, not time nor yet a part of time as measured by the movement and course of the sun, that is to say, composed of days and nights, but the sort of temporal motion and interval that is co-extensive with eternity 5. For age is to things eternal just what time is to things temporal. 6 Seven ages of this world are spoken of, that is, from the creation of the heaven and earth till the general consummation and resurrection of men. For there is a partial consummation, viz., the death of each man: but there is also a general and complete consummation, when the general resurrection of men will come to pass. And the eighth age is the age to come. Before the world was formed, when there was as yet no sun dividing day from night, there was not an age such as could be measured 7, but there was the sort of temporal motion and interval that is co-extensive with eternity. And in this sense there is but one age, and God is spoken of as alános and рonovios, for the age or aeon itself is His creation. For God, Who alone is without beginning, is Himself the Creator of all things, whether age or any other existing thing. And when I say God, it is evident that I mean the Father and His Only begotten Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, and His all-holy Spirit, our one God. But we speak also of ages of ages, inasmuch as the seven ages of the present world include many ages in the sense of lives of men, and the one age embraces all the ages, and the present and the future are spoken of as age of age. Further, everlasting (i.e. alúvios) life and everlasting punishment prove that the age or aeon to come is unending 9. For time will not be counted by days and nights even after the resurrection, but there will rather be one day with no evening, wherein the Sun of Justice will shine brightly on the just, but for the sinful there will be night profound and limitless. In what way then will the period of one thousand years be counted which, according to Origen, is required for the complete restoration? Of all the ages, therefore, the sole creator is God Who hath also created the universe and Who was before the ages. CHAPTER II. Concerning the creation. Since, then, God, Who is good and more than good, did not find satisfaction in selfcontemplation, but in His exceeding goodness wished certain things to come into existence which would enjoy His benefits and share in His goodness, He brought all things out of nothing into being and created them, both what is invisible and what is visible. Yea, even man, who is a compound of the visible and the invisible. And it is by thought that He creates, and thought is the basis of the work, the Word filling it and the Spirit perfecting it. CHAPTER III. Concerning angels. He is Himself the Maker and Creator of the angels for He brought them out of nothing into being and created them after His own image, an incorporeal race, a sort of spirit or immaterial fire in the words of the divine David, He maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire3: and He has described their lightness and the ardour, and 9 Variant, kai àæépavτov dŋdoi. In Regg. aivos is absent. See his Contr. Cels, iv. Cf. Justin Martyr. Apai. xi Basil. Hex.. hom. 3; Greg. Nyss.. Orat. Catech. 26, &c. 2 Greg. Naz, Orat. 38, 42; Dionys., De Eccl. Hier., ch. 43 Ps. civ. 4. heat, and keenness and sharpness with which they hunger for God and serve Him, and how they are borne to the regions above and are quite delivered from all material thought. An angel, then, is an intelligent essence, in perpetual motion, with free-will, incorporeal, ministering to God, having obtained by grace an immortal nature: and the Creator alone knows the form and limitation of its essence. But all that we can understand is, that it is incorporeal and immaterial. For all that is compared with God Who alone is incomparable, we find to be dense and ma terial. For in reality only the Deity is immaterial and incorporeal. The angel's nature then is rational, and intelligent, and endowed with free-will, change able in will, or fickle. For all that is created is changeable, and only that which is uncreated is unchangeable. Also all that is rational is endowed with free-will. As it is, then, rational and intelligent, it is endowed with free-will: and as it is created, it is changeable, having power either to abide or progress in goodness, or to turn towards evil. men to whom God wishes them to appear, but in a changed form which the beholders are capable of seeing. For that alone is naturally and strictly unlimited which is uncreated. For every created thing is limited by God Who created it. Further, apart from their essence they receive the sanctification from the Spirit: through the divine grace they prophesy 2: they have no need of marriage for they are immortal. Seeing that they are minds they are in mental places 3, and are not circumscribed after the fashion of a body. For they have not a bodily form by nature, nor are they extended in three dimensions. But to whatever post they may be assigned, there they are present after the manner of a mind and energise, and cannot be present and energise in various places at the same time. Whether they are equals in essence or differ from one another we know not. God, their Creator, Who knoweth all things, alone knoweth. But they differ from each other in brightness and position, whether it is that It is not susceptible of repentance because their position is dependent on their brightit is incorporeal. For it is owing to the weakness, or their brightness on their position: ness of his body that man comes to have repentance. It is immortal, not by nature5 but by grace. For all that has had beginning comes also to its natural end. But God alone is eternal, or rather, He is above the Eternal: for He, the Creator of times, is not under the dominion of time, but above time. They are secondary intelligent lights derived from that first light which is without beginning, for they have the power of illumination; they have no need of tongue or hearing, but without uttering words 7 they communicate to each other their own thoughts and counsels 8. Through the Word, therefore, all the angels were created, and through the sanctification by the Holy Spirit were they brought to perfection, sharing each in proportion to his worth and rank in brightness and grace 9. They are circumscribed for when they are in the Heaven they are not on the earth and when they are sent by God down to the earth they do not remain in the Heaven. They are not hemmed in by walls and doors, and bars and seals, for they are quite unlimited. Unlimited, I repeat, for it is not as they really are that they reveal themselves to the worthy and they impart brightness to one another, because they excel one another in rank and nature 5. And clearly the higher share their brightness and knowledge with the lower. They are mighty and prompt to fulfil the will of the Deity, and their nature is endowed with such celerity that wherever the Divine glance bids them there they are straightway found. They are the guardians of the divisions of the earth: they are set over nations and regions, allotted to them by their Creator: they govern all our affairs and bring us succour. And the reason surely is because they are set over us by the divine will and command and are ever in the vicinity of God. With difficulty they are moved to evil, yet they are not absolutely immoveable: but now they are altogether immoveable, not by nature but by grace and by their nearness to the Only Good 7. They behold God according to their capacity, and this is their food 8. They are above us for they are incorporeal, and are free of all bodily passion, yet are not passionless: for the Deity alone is passionless. Ibid. 34. They take different forms at the bidding ceived from his Creator no trace whatever of of their Master, God, and thus reveal themselves to men and unveil the divine mysteries to them. They have Heaven for their dwelling-place, and have one duty, to sing God's praise and carry out His divine will. evil in himself. But he did not sustain the brightness and the honour which the Creator had bestowed 5 on him, and of his free choice was changed from what was in harmony to what was at variance with his nature, and became roused against God Who created him, Moreover, as that most holy, and sacred, and determined to rise in rebellion against and gifted theologian, Dionysius the Areo- Him: and he was the first to depart from good pagite 9, says, All theology, that is to say, the and become evil 7. For evil is nothing else holy Scripture, has nine different names for than absence of goodness, just as darkness the heavenly essences 1. These essences that also is absence of light. For goodness is the divine master in sacred things divides into light of the mind, and, similarly, evil is the three groups, each containing three. And darkness of the mind. Light, therefore, being the first group, he says, consists of those who the work of the Creator and being made good are in God's presence and are said to be di- (for God saw all that He made, and behold rectly and immediately one with Him, viz., they were exceeding good 3) produced darkness the Seraphim with their six wings, the many- at His free-will. But along with him an ineyed Cherubim and those that sit in the numerable host of angels subject to him were holiest thrones. The second group is that torn away and followed him and shared in his of the Dominions, and the Powers, and the fall. Wherefore, being of the same nature 9 Authorities; and the third, and last, is that of as the angels, they became wicked, turning the Rulers and Archangels and Angels away at their own free choice from good to Some, indeed, like Gregory the Theolo- evil. gian, say that these were before the crea- Hence they have no power or strength tion of other things. He thinks that the against any one except what God in His angelic and heavenly powers were first and dispensation hath conceded to them, as for that thought was their function 3. Others, again, hold that they were created after the first heaven was made. But all are agreed that it was before the formation of man. For myself, I am in harmony with the theologian. For it was fitting that the mental essence should be the first created, and then that which can be perceived, and finally man himself, in whose being both parts are united. instance, against Job and those swine that are mentioned in the Gospels 3. But when God has made the concession they do prevail, and are changed and transformed into any form whatever in which they wish to appear. Of the future both the angels of God and the demons are alike ignorant : yet they make predictions. God reveals the future But those who say that the angels are to the angels and commands them to procreators of any kind of essence whatever are phesy, and so what they say comes to pass. the mouth of their father, the devil. For But the demons also make predictions, somesince they are created things they are not times because they see what is happening creators. But He Who creates and provides at a distance, and sometimes merely making for and maintains all things is God, Who alone is uncreate and is praised and glorified in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. CHAPTER IV. Concerning the devil and demons. guesses: hence much that they say is false and they should not be believed, even although they do often, in the way we have said, tell what is true. Besides they know the Scriptures. All wickedness, then, and all impure passions are the work of their mind. But while He who from among these angelic powers the liberty to attack man has been granted was set over the earthly realm, and into whose to them, they have not the strength to overhands God committed the guardianship of master any one: for we have it in our power the earth, was not made wicked in nature but to receive or not to receive the attack *. was good, and made for good ends, and re- Wherefore there has been prepared for the devil and his demons, and those who follow Further, some have thought that the heahim, fire unquenchable and everlasting punish-ven encircles the universe and has the form ment 5. Note, further, that what in the case of man is death is a fall in the case of angels. For after the fall there is no possibility of repentance for them, just as after death there is for men no repentance 6. CHAPTER V. Concerning the visible creation. of a sphere, and that everywhere it is the highest point, and that the centre of the space enclosed by it is the lowest part and, further, that those bodies that are light and airy are allotted by the Creator the upper region: while those that are heavy and tend to descend occupy the lower region, which is the middle. The element, then, that is lightest and most inclined to soar upwards is fire, and hence they hold that its position is immeOur God Himself, Whom we glorify as diately after the heaven, and they call it ether, Three in One, created the heaven and the earth and after it comes the lower air. But earth and all that they contain 7, and brought all and water, which are heavier and have more things out of nothing into being: some He of a downward tendency, are suspended in made out of no pre-existing basis of matter, the centre. Therefore, taking them in the such as heaven, earth, air, fire, water and the rest out of these elements that He had created, such as living creatures, plants, seeds. For these are made up of earth, and water, and air, and fire, at the bidding of the Creator. CHAPTER VI. reverse order, we have in the lowest situation earth and water: but water is lighter than earth, and hence is more easily set in motion: above these on all hands, like a covering, is the circle of air, and all round the air is the circle of ether, and outside all is the circle of the heaven. Further, they say that the heaven moves in a circle and so compresses all that is within it, that they remain firm and not liable to fall asunder. The heaven is the circumference of things created, both visible and invisible. For within its boundary are included and marked off both the They say also that there are seven zones mental faculties of the angels and all the world of the heaven, one higher than the other. of sense. But the Deity alone is uncircum- And its nature, they say, is of extreme finescribed, filling all things, and surrounding ness, like that of smoke, and each zone conall things, and bounding all things, for He tains one of the planets. For there are said is above all things, and has created all things. to be seven planets: Sol, Luna, Jupiter, Since therefore, the Scripture speaks of Mercury, Mars, Venus and Saturn. But someheaven, and heaven of heaven 9, and heavens times Venus is called Lucifer and sometimes of heavens, and the blessed Paul says that Vesper. These are called planets because he was snatched away to the third heaven 2, their movements are the reverse of those we say that in the cosmogony of the universe of the heaven. For while the heaven and we accept the creation of a heaven which the all other stars move from east to west, these foreign philosophers, appropriating the views alone move from west to east. And this can of Moses, call a starless sphere. But further, easily be seen in the case of the moon, which God called the firmament also heaven 3, which moves each evening a little backwards. He commanded to be in the midst of the All, therefore, who hold that the heaven waters, setting it to divide the waters that is in the form of a sphere, say that it is are above the firmament from the waters that equally removed and distant from the earth are below the firmament. And its nature, at all points, whether above, or sideways, according to the divine Basilius, who is or below. And by 'below' and 'sideways' versed in the mysteries of divine Scripture, I mean all that comes within the range of is delicate as smoke. Others, however, hold our senses. For it follows from what has that it is watery in nature, since it is set in the midst of the waters: others say it is composed of the four elements: and lastly, others speak of it as a fifth body, distinct from the four elements 5. been said, that the heaven occupies the whole of the upper region and the earth the whole of the lower. They say, besides, that the heaven encircles the earth in the manner of a sphere, and bears along with it in its most rapid revolutions sun, moon and stars, and that when the sun is over the earth it becomes day there, and when it is under the earth it is 6 Basil, Hom. 3, in Hexameron. |