Letter 8

8. To the Caesareans, an apology for his withdrawal, and concerning the faith

I have often wondered what you have felt toward us, and whence comes so great an attachment to our littleness—small and slight and having perhaps nothing lovable about it—that you urge us with words, reminding us of friendship and fatherland, as though trying with a father's tenderness to turn back to yourselves certain exiles. As for my having become an exile, I confess it and do not deny it; but you will now learn the reason, since you long to hear it.

Above all, struck at that time by the unexpected, like those suddenly dismayed by abrupt noises, I did not keep hold of my reasonings, but fled far away into exile, and I lodged for a considerable time apart from you. Then, too, a certain longing crept over me for the divine doctrines and for the philosophy that concerns them. For how, I said, could I master the wickedness that dwells with me? Who would become my Laban, freeing me from Esau and leading me as a guide to the highest philosophy? But since, with God's help, I have attained my aim as far as I am able, having found a chosen vessel and a deep well—I mean the mouth of Christ, Gregory—grant us, I beg, grant us a little time. We ask this, not because we cherish a sojourn in the cities; for it has not escaped us that the evil one contrives his deceit for men through such things; but because we judge the company of the saints to be especially profitable. For in saying something about the divine doctrines and in hearing it more frequently, we acquire a settled habit of contemplation hard to lose. Such, then, is our case.

But you, my divine and most beloved of all heads, guard yourselves against the shepherds of the Philistines, lest any of them, unnoticed, stop up your wells and muddy the purity of the knowledge that concerns the faith. For this is always their care: not to teach the more guileless souls from the divine Scriptures, but to corrupt the truth by wisdom from outside. For the man who brings into our faith the ingenerate and the generate, who lays it down as doctrine that He who always is once was not, and that He who is by nature and always Father became a Father, and that the Holy Spirit is not eternal—is he not openly a Philistine, grudging the sheep of our patriarch, so that they may not drink from the pure water that leaps up unto eternal life, but may draw to themselves the oracle of the prophet: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water"—when one ought to confess God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, as the divine words and those who have understood them more loftily have taught?

To those who slander us with the charge of tritheism, let this be said: that we confess one God, not in number, but in nature. For everything that is called one in number is not really one, nor simple in nature; but God is confessed by all to be simple and uncompounded. Therefore God is not one in number. What I mean is this. We say the world is one in number, but not one in nature, nor indeed simple; for we divide it into the elements of which it is composed, into fire and water and air and earth. Again, man is named one in number; for we often speak of one man. But he is not simple, being composed of body and soul. Likewise too we will call an angel one in number, but not one in nature nor simple; for we conceive the substance of the angel as a hypostasis together with sanctification. If, then, everything that is one in number is not one in nature, and what is one in nature and simple is not one in number, while we say that God is one in nature, how do they bring number in upon us, when we altogether banish it from that blessed and intelligible nature? For number belongs to quantity, and quantity is yoked to bodily nature; for number belongs to bodily nature. And we have believed our Lord to be the Maker of bodies. Therefore every number signifies those things which have been allotted a material and circumscribed nature, while the monad and the unit are significant of the simple and incomprehensible substance. Whoever, then, confesses the Son of God or the Holy Spirit to be a number or a creature, unwittingly introduces a material and circumscribed nature. And by circumscribed I mean not only what is contained by place, but also what He who is about to bring it from non-being into being has comprehended in His foreknowledge, and what it is possible to comprehend by knowledge. Everything holy, then, which has a circumscribed nature and has its holiness as something acquired, is not incapable of receiving evil. But the Son and the Holy Spirit are a fountain of sanctification, by which the whole rational creation is sanctified in proportion to its virtue.

Yet we, according to the true account, say that the Son is neither like nor unlike the Father. For each of these is equally impossible. For likeness and unlikeness are spoken of according to qualities; and the divine is free of quality. But confessing identity of nature, we accept the consubstantial and flee the composite, since God and Father, who is God by His essence, has begotten the Son, who is God by His essence; for from this the consubstantial is shown. For He who is God by His essence is consubstantial with Him who is God by His essence.

But since man too is called god, as in "I said, you are gods," and the demon is called god, as in "The gods of the nations are demons"—yet the former are so named by grace, the latter falsely—God alone is God by His essence. And when I say "alone," I mean the holy and uncreated essence of God. For "alone" is said both of a particular man and of nature simply, in the universal sense: of a particular man, as, for example, of Paul, that he alone was caught up to the third heaven and heard unspeakable words that are not lawful for a man to utter; and of nature in the universal sense, as when David says, "Man, his days are as grass." For here he means not the particular man, but the universal nature; for every man is temporary and mortal. So too we understand those sayings spoken of nature: "Who alone has immortality," and "To the only wise God," and "No one is good except one, God" (for here "one" means the same as "alone"), and "Who alone stretched out the heaven," and again, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve," and "There is no God besides me." For "one" and "alone," said of God in Scripture, are not said in contradistinction to the Son or the Holy Spirit, but against those who are not gods but are falsely so named; as in "The Lord alone led them, and there was no foreign god with them," and "The sons of Israel removed the Baalim and the groves of Astaroth, and served the Lord alone," and again Paul: "As there are many gods and many lords, yet to us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things."

But here we inquire how, having said "one God," he was not content with the word (for we said that "alone" and "one," of God, signify the nature), but added "Father" and made mention of Christ. I suspect, then, that Paul, the chosen vessel, thought it not sufficient now to proclaim the Son God and the Holy Spirit God—which he showed by the phrase "one God"—unless he should also, by the addition of "Father," signify Him from whom are all things, and by the mention of "Lord" indicate the Word through whom are all things; and again, by the inclusion of "Jesus Christ," announce the incarnation and present the passion and make manifest the resurrection. For "Jesus Christ" brings such thoughts before us. Therefore before the passion the Lord forbids that He be proclaimed Jesus Christ, and charges the disciples to tell no one that He is Jesus the Christ. For it is His purpose, when He has fulfilled the dispensation, after the resurrection from the dead and the ascension into heaven, to permit them to proclaim Him as Jesus the Christ. Such too is the saying, "That they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent," and "Believe in God, and believe in me"; the Holy Spirit everywhere securing our thought, that we may not, by approaching the one, fall away from the other, and, attending to the theology, despise the dispensation, and so impiety arise in us through what is lacking.

But the words of the divine Scripture which the adversaries take and distort according to their own conscience, bringing them forward to us for the overthrow of the glory of the Only-Begotten, let us examine thus, unfolding their sense as far as we are able. And first let there be set before us, "I live because of the Father"; for this is one of the arrows shot at heaven by those who use it impiously. Here the saying does not, I think, name His pre-eternal life (for everything that lives because of another cannot be Life itself, just as what is warmed by another cannot be Heat itself; but Christ our God has said, "I am the Life"), but this life lived in the flesh and in this time, which He lived because of the Father. For by His will He sojourned in the life of men; and He did not say, "I lived because of the Father," but "I live because of the Father," clearly indicating the present time. And He can also call "life" that which Christ gives, having the Word of God in Himself. And that this is what is meant, we shall know from what follows. "And he who eats me," He says, "shall live because of me"; for we eat His flesh and drink His blood, becoming partakers, through the incarnation and the perceptible life, of the Word and of wisdom. For He named His whole mystical sojourn flesh and blood, and indicated the teaching composed of the practical, the natural, and the theological, by which the soul is nourished and prepared for the contemplation of beings for the time being. And this is perhaps what is indicated by the saying.

And again, "My Father is greater than I"; for the ungrateful creatures, the offspring of the evil one, use this saying too. But I have believed that from this very utterance it is shown that the Son is consubstantial with the Father. For I know that comparisons are properly made between things of the same nature. For we call one angel greater than another, and one man more just than another, and one bird swifter than another. If, then, comparisons are made between things of the same kind, and the Father is said by comparison to be greater than the Son, the Son is consubstantial with the Father. But there is also another thought laid up in the saying. For what wonder is it if He confessed the Father greater than Himself, being the Word and having become flesh, when He was seen to be less than angels in glory and than men in form? For "You have made him a little lower than the angels," He says; and again, "Him who was made a little lower than the angels"; and, "We saw him, and he had no form nor beauty, but his form was lacking beyond all men." All these things He endured because of His great love for mankind toward His own creation, that He might rescue the lost sheep and unite the one saved, and might bring back again, healthy, to his own fatherland the man who had gone down from Jerusalem to Jericho and on that account had fallen among robbers.

Or will the heretic reproach Him also with the manger, in which, being without speech, He was nourished by the Word? And will he bring forward His poverty, that the carpenter's son had no abundance even of a bed? On this account is the Son less than the Father, because for your sake He became dead, that He might free you from deadness and make you a partaker of heavenly life?—just as if one should also blame the physician, because, stooping over the sicknesses, he shares in the foul odour, that he may heal the afflicted.

For your sake too He is ignorant of the hour and the day of judgment; and yet nothing escapes the wisdom that truly is, for all things came into being through it, and no man is ever ignorant of what he has made. But He dispenses this because of your weakness, so that neither may those who have sinned, through the narrowness of the appointed time, fall into despondency, as though no time were left for repentance; nor again may those who war long against the opposing power desert their post because of the length of time. He dispenses for both, then, by His feigned ignorance: for the one cutting short the time because of the noble contest, and for the other reserving a season for repentance because of his sins. And yet, having in the Gospels numbered Himself among the ignorant because of the weakness of the many, as I said, in the Acts of the Apostles, conversing privately with them as with perfect ones, He says, with Himself excepted, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has set in His own authority."

And let these things be said in a coarser way, according to the first attempt. But now we must examine the sense of the saying more loftily, and knock at the door of knowledge, if somehow I might be able to rouse the householder, who gives spiritual loaves to those who ask Him, since they are friends and brothers whom we are eager to feast.

The holy disciples of our Saviour, having come beyond contemplation, as far as is possible for men, and having been purified by the Word, seek the end and long to know the ultimate blessedness, which our Lord declared that even His angels and He Himself are ignorant of; calling "day" the whole exact apprehension of the thoughts of God, and "hour" the contemplation of the unity and the monad, the knowledge of which He assigned to the Father alone. I suspect, then, that God is said to know that concerning Himself which is, and not to know that which is not. For God is said to know justice and wisdom, being Himself absolute justice and wisdom, but to be ignorant of injustice and wickedness; for God who created us is not injustice and wickedness. If, then, God is said to know that concerning Himself which is, and not to know that which is not (and our Lord, according to the conception of the incarnation and the coarser teaching, is not the ultimate object of desire), then our Saviour does not know the end and the ultimate blessedness. But neither do the angels know it, He says; that is, neither the contemplation in them nor the principles of their ministries are the ultimate object of desire. For the knowledge of these too is coarse in comparison with the face-to-face vision.

But the Father alone knows, He says, since He Himself is the end and the ultimate blessedness. For when we no longer recognize God in mirrors nor through other things, but approach Him as the one and only, then we shall know the ultimate end. For they say that all material knowledge is the kingdom of Christ, but the immaterial—and, as one might say, the contemplation of the Godhead itself—is the kingdom of God and the Father. And our Lord Himself too is the end and the ultimate blessedness, according to the conception of the Word. For what does He say in the Gospel? "And I will raise him up on the last day"; calling "resurrection" the passage from material knowledge to immaterial contemplation, and naming this knowledge "the last day," after which there is no other. For then our mind rises up and is roused to a blessed height, whenever it contemplates the unity and the monad of the Word.

But since our mind, coarsened, has been bound to the dust and is mingled with the clay and is unable to gaze upon contemplation bare, being led by the orderings akin to its own body, it perceives the activities of the Creator and recognizes Him for the time being from His effects, that thus, increased little by little, it may at length be strong enough to approach the very Godhead unveiled. According to this conception, I think, are said both "My Father is greater than I" and "It is not mine to give, but to those for whom it has been prepared by My Father." For this too is what is meant by Christ's delivering the kingdom to God and the Father, being a beginning and not an end, according to the coarser teaching, as I said, which is contemplated with reference to us and not with reference to the Son Himself. And that this is so, again, when the disciples in the Acts of the Apostles asked, "When will you restore the kingdom to Israel?", He says, "It is not yours to know times or seasons which the Father has set in His own authority"—that is, the knowledge of such a kingdom does not belong to those bound to flesh and blood.

For this contemplation the Father has laid up in His own authority; calling "authority" those over whom He has authority, and "His own" those who are not held by ignorance of the lower things. And do not understand "times" and "seasons" to mean perceptible ones, but certain intervals of knowledge produced by the intelligible sun. For that prayer of our Master must be brought to its end; for it is Jesus who prayed, "Grant to them that they also may be one in us, as I and you are one, Father." For God, being one, coming to be in each, unites them all; and number is destroyed by the sojourn of the monad.

Thus I have set upon the saying according to a second attempt. But if anyone should say something better, or piously correct our words, let him both say it and correct it, and the Lord will repay him on our behalf. For no envy lodges with us, since it was neither for the sake of contention nor of vainglory that we proceeded to this examination of the words, but for the benefit of the brethren, so that the earthen vessels which hold the treasure of God may not seem to be cheated by the stony-hearted and uncircumcised men, armed with foolish wisdom.

Again, through the wise Solomon in the Proverbs He is created: "The Lord," he says, "created me." And He is named the beginning of the evangelical ways that lead us to the kingdom of heaven—not a creature according to essence, but having become a way according to the dispensation. For "to have become" and "to have been created" signify the same thing. For as He became a way, and a door, and a shepherd, and an angel, and a sheep, and again a high priest and an apostle, the names being applied under different conceptions.

What, again, would the heretic say about the God who is unsubjected and who became sin for our sake? For it is written, "When all things shall be subjected to Him, then shall the Son Himself also be subjected to Him who subjected all things to Him." Do you not fear, man, that God is named unsubjected? For He makes your subjection His own, and in your striving against virtue He names Himself unsubjected. So too He once said that He Himself was the one persecuted; for "Saul," He says, "Saul, why do you persecute me?"—when he was running to Damascus, wishing to bind together the disciples of Christ. And again He names Himself naked, when one of the brethren is naked; for "I was naked," He says, "and you clothed me." And when another is in prison, He said that He Himself was the one imprisoned. For He Himself bore our weaknesses and carried our diseases. And one of the weaknesses is also insubordination, and this too He bore. Therefore the Lord makes our circumstances His own, taking up our sufferings out of His fellowship with us.

But the heretics take also "The Son can do nothing of Himself" for the ruin of those who hear them. To me, however, this saying too especially proclaims that the Son is of the same nature as the Father. For if each of the rational creatures can do something of itself, having free will, with its inclination toward the worse and toward the better, but the Son cannot do anything of Himself, the Son is not a creature. And if not a creature, He is consubstantial with the Father. And again, none of the creatures can do all that it wishes. But the Son, in heaven and on earth, did all that He wished. Therefore the Son is not a creature. And again, all creatures are either composed of opposites or capable of receiving opposites. But the Son is absolute justice and is immaterial. Therefore the Son is not a creature. And if not this, He is consubstantial with the Father.

And this examination of the cited sayings is sufficient for us, according to our ability. But now let us proceed in argument against those who set themselves against the Holy Spirit also, casting down every high thought of theirs that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. You say the Holy Spirit is a creature. But every creature is a servant of the Creator; for "all things," it says, "are your servants." And if it is a servant, it has its holiness as something acquired; and everything that has its holiness as something acquired is not incapable of receiving evil. But the Holy Spirit, being holy by His essence, has been named a fountain of sanctification. Therefore the Holy Spirit is not a creature. And if not a creature, He is consubstantial with God. But how can you call Him a servant, tell me, who through baptism frees you from servitude? For "the law," it says, "of the Spirit of life has freed me from the law of sin." But neither will you ever dare to call His essence changeable, looking to the nature of the opposing power, which has fallen like lightning from heaven and fell away from true life because it had its holiness as something acquired and change followed upon its evil purpose. Therefore, having fallen from the monad and cast away the angelic dignity, from his manner he was named the devil, his former and blessed state being quenched, and this opposing power kindled.

Then, if he calls the Holy Spirit a creature, he introduces a limited nature for Him. How, then, will "The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world" stand, and "Where shall I go from your Spirit?" But neither does he confess Him, as it seems, to be simple in nature. For he names Him one in number. But everything that is one in number is not simple, as I said. And if the Holy Spirit is not simple, He is composed of essence and sanctification; and such a thing is composite. And who is so foolish as to call the Holy Spirit composite, and not simple, and by the principle of simplicity consubstantial with the Father and the Son?

But if we must advance in the argument and behold the greater things, from this especially let us contemplate the divine power of the Holy Spirit. We have found three creations named in Scripture: one, the first, the bringing forth from non-being into being; a second, the change from the worse to the better; and a third, the raising of the dead. In these you will find the Holy Spirit working together with the Father and the Son. For there is the bringing into substance of the heavens. And what does David say? "By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the breath of His mouth all their power." Again, man is created through baptism, for "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation." And what does the Saviour say to His disciples? "Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." You see here too the Holy Spirit present together with the Father and the Son. And what would you say also about the resurrection of the dead, when we shall fail and return to our dust? For "We are earth, and to the earth we shall depart," and "He will send forth the Holy Spirit, and He will create us, and He will renew the face of the earth." For what the holy Paul called resurrection, this David named renewal.

And let us hear again him who was caught up to the third heaven. What does he say? That "You are a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you." But every temple is a temple of God. And if we are a temple of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is God. And the temple of Solomon is also so called, but as of one who built it. And if in this way we are a temple of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is God, for "He who built all things is God." But if as of one worshipped and dwelling in us, let us confess that He is God. For "You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve." And if they object to the word "God," let them learn of what this name is significant. For God is named either from having placed all things or from beholding all things. If, then, "God" is said from having placed or from beholding all things, and the Spirit knows all the things of God, as the spirit in us knows our own things, then the Holy Spirit is God.

And again, if the sword of the Spirit is the word of God, the Holy Spirit is God; for the sword belongs to Him whose word it is also called. And if He is also named the right hand of the Father (for "The right hand of the Lord has wrought power," and "Your right hand, O Lord, has shattered the enemies"), and the Holy Spirit is the finger of God, according to the saying, "If I by the finger of God cast out demons"—which in another Gospel is written, "If I by the Spirit of God cast out demons"—then the Holy Spirit is of the same nature as the Father and the Son.

And about the adorable and holy Trinity let so much be said by us for the present; for it is not now possible to examine the argument concerning it more fully. But you, having received seeds from our lowliness, cultivate for yourselves a ripe ear of grain, since, as you know, we are required to render the interest on such things. And I trust in God that you will bear fruit thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold, because of the purity of your life. For "Blessed," it says, "are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." And do not think the kingdom of heaven to be anything else, brothers, than the true apprehension of beings, which the divine Scriptures also call blessedness. For "The kingdom of heaven is within you." And about the inner man nothing else is constituted but contemplation. The kingdom of heaven, then, would be contemplation. For of the things whose shadows we now behold, as in a mirror, later, freed from this earthly body and clothed with the incorruptible and immortal, we shall behold the archetypes. And we shall behold them, if at least we steer our own life toward what is right and make provision for the right faith, without which no one shall see the Lord. For "Into an ill-contriving soul," it says, "wisdom will not enter, nor dwell in a body subject to sin." And let no one object, saying that, ignorant of the things at our feet, you philosophize to us about the incorporeal and wholly immaterial essence. For I judge it absurd to let the senses be filled without hindrance with their own materials, while the mind alone is barred from its proper activity. For as sense reaches the perceptibles, so the mind reaches the intelligibles.

And at the same time this too must be said, that God who created us has made the natural faculties of judgment require no teaching. For no one teaches the sight to apprehend colours or shapes, nor the hearing sounds and voices, nor the smell fragrant and foul vapours, nor the taste juices and flavours, nor the touch soft and hard things, or hot and cold. Nor would anyone teach the mind to reach the intelligibles. And just as, if these senses suffer anything, they need only care, and easily fulfil their proper activity, so too the mind, bound to flesh and filled with the imaginings from it, needs faith and a right way of life, which make its feet like a deer's and set it upon the heights. This very thing the wise Solomon enjoins, and sometimes brings before us the unashamed worker, the ant, and through it sketches for us the practical way; and sometimes the wax-moulded instrument of the wise bee, and through it hints at natural contemplation, in which the account of the holy Trinity too is mingled, since from the beauty of creatures the Author of their being is contemplated by analogy.

But having given thanks to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, let us set an end to the letter, since every measure is best, as the proverb says.