The Instructor (Paedagogus) 1 part 2/15

So then the King, who is Christ, looks down upon our laughter from above; and stooping through the lattice, as the Scripture says, He gazes upon the thanksgiving and the blessing, the gladness and the joy, and moreover the patience that works together, and the interweaving of these—His own Church—showing only His face, which is what the Church still lacks, she being perfected with Him as her royal Head.

And where, then, was the lattice through which the Lord was shown? The flesh, through which He was made manifest.

And Isaac himself—for there is yet another way to take it—is a type which is of the Lord: a child in that he was a son, for he was the son of Abraham as Christ is the Son of God; and a victim, as the Lord was.

But he was not offered up as the Lord was; Isaac only bore the wood of the sacrifice, as the Lord bore the cross-wood.

And he laughed mystically, prophesying that the Lord would fill us with joy—us who have been redeemed from corruption by the blood of the Lord.

And he did not suffer; not only does Isaac fittingly yield to the Word the primacy of the passion, but in not being slain he also hints at the divinity of the Lord.

For Jesus rose again after the burial, having not suffered, just as Isaac was released from the sacrifice.

I shall add yet another point, a very great one, in support of the matter before us.

The Spirit calls the Lord Himself a "little child," foretelling this through Isaiah:

"Behold, a child is born unto us, a son is also given unto us, whose government is upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called the Angel of great counsel."

Who, then, is this infant child, after whose image we who are infants are formed? Through the same prophet He sets forth His greatness:

"Wonderful Counsellor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of peace, in the increase of His instruction;"

"and of His peace there shall be no end."

O the great God! O the perfect little child!

The Son in the Father, and the Father in the Son.

And how is the instruction of that child not perfect, which extends to all of us children, instructing us, His infants? He stretched out His hands toward us, those hands that have been clearly believed in.

To this child John also bears witness, the greatest prophet among those born of women.

For since Scripture names the little ones, the infants, as lambs, it has called God the Word—who for our sake became man, willing to be likened to us in all things—the Lamb of God, the Son of God, the Infant of the Father.

This is addressed to those who suppose that the title of "children" and "infants" hints at the teaching of merely the first lessons.

But we are at liberty, out of our abundance, to strip for the contest against these fault-finders.

For we are not called children and infants in reference to anything childish or contemptible in our learning, as those who are puffed up with knowledge have slanderously asserted.

On the contrary, as soon as we are born again we at once receive that perfection toward which we were striving;

and this is to come to know God.

Surely, then, he who has come to know the Perfect is not himself imperfect.

And do not take me to task for confessing that I have come to know God.

For in some such way it seemed good to the Word to speak.

Indeed, when the Lord was being baptized, a voice resounded from the heavens as a witness: "You are My beloved Son; this day have I begotten You."

Having this day been born again, is Christ already perfect, or—what would be most absurd—deficient? But if the latter, then He would need to learn something further.

But it is not likely that He, being God, should learn even one thing further.

Nor indeed could anyone be a teacher of the only Teacher.

Will they not then admit, even against their will, that the Word—who issued perfect from the perfect Father—was, according to the foreordained plan of the economy, born again in perfection? And if He was already perfect, why was the perfect One baptized? They say it was necessary to fulfill the human profession.

Was it then at the moment of His being baptized by John that He became perfect? Clearly not.

Did He then learn anything from him? No, indeed.

Is He then perfected by the washing alone, and sanctified by the descent of the Spirit? So it is.

And this very same thing comes to pass in our case also, of whom the Lord became the pattern;

being baptized, we are enlightened; being enlightened, we are made sons; being made sons, we are perfected; being perfected, we are made immortal.

"I have said," He declares, "you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High."

Now this work is called by many names—grace, illumination, perfection, and washing;

it is a washing, by which we are cleansed from our sins; a gift of grace, by which the penalties due for our sins are remitted; an illumination, through which that holy, saving light is beheld—that is, through which we gain keen sight of the divine; and we call it perfection because it lacks nothing.

For what is yet lacking to the one who has come to know God? It would indeed be truly absurd for that which is incomplete to be called the gift of God.

But being perfect, He will surely bestow perfect gifts.

And just as all things come into being at His mere command, so it follows that, at His merely willing to bestow grace, that grace is fulfilled.

For what belongs to the future in respect of time is anticipated by the power of His will.

Moreover, the deliverance from evils is itself the beginning of salvation.

Are then only those who have first set foot within the bounds of life already perfect? Indeed, we who have been separated from death are already alive.

Salvation, therefore, is to follow Christ.

For "that which has come into being in Him is life."

"Truly, truly, I say to you," He declares, "he who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life."

Thus merely to believe and to be born again is perfection in life;

for God is never weak.

For just as His will is His work, and this is called "the world," so also His desire is the salvation of men, and this is called "the Church."

He knows, therefore, whom He has called; and those whom He has called, He has saved;

and He has called and saved them at one and the same moment.

"For you yourselves," says the Apostle, "are taught of God."

It is therefore not lawful for us to regard as imperfect that which is taught by Him; and that lesson is the eternal salvation of the eternal Savior, to whom be the grace unto the ages. Amen.

And he who has merely been born again—as the very name indicates, having been enlightened—is at once delivered from the darkness, and immediately receives the light.

Just as those who shake off sleep are at once awake within—or rather, just as those who try to remove a cataract from the eyes do not supply themselves light from without, which they do not possess, but, removing the obstruction from their sight, leave the pupil free—so also those who are baptized, wiping away by the divine Spirit the sins that darken them like a mist, gain a free, unhindered, and luminous eye of the spirit, by which alone we behold the divine, while the Holy Spirit flows in upon us from heaven.

This is a blending with the eternal radiance, which is able to behold the eternal light;

since like is dear to like, and the holy is dear to Him from whom the holy comes—He who is properly called Light.

"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord."

Hence I suppose man was called "light" by the ancients.

"But he has not yet," they say, "received the perfect gift."

I too agree—except that he is in the light, and the darkness does not overtake him;

and between light and darkness there is nothing whatever in between;

but the consummation is laid up in the resurrection of those who believe;

and this is to partake of nothing other than to obtain the promise foretold beforehand.

For eternity and time are not the same thing, nor indeed are impulse and goal; they are not.

But both are concerned with one thing, and about both the one is occupied.

So then, to put it thus, faith is the impulse begotten in time, while the goal is the attainment of the promise, made sure unto the ages.

And the Lord Himself most plainly revealed the equality of salvation, saying:

"For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes on Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

Insofar, then, as it is possible in this world—which He hinted at as the last day, kept reserved until the time when it shall cease—we believe that we are made perfect.

For faith is the perfection of learning.

For this reason He says, "He who believes in the Son has eternal life."

If, then, we who have believed possess life, what remains beyond the possession of everlasting life? Nothing is lacking to faith, which is perfect and complete of itself.

But if anything is lacking to it, it is not wholly complete, nor is it faith, limping in some respect. Nor after our departure hence do other things await those who have believed; rather, since we have here without distinction been given the pledge, and have already by believing laid hold beforehand of that which shall be, we receive it as fully come to pass after the resurrection, so that what was spoken may be fulfilled: "Be it unto you according to your faith."

Where faith is, there is the promise; and the consummation of the promise is rest.

So that knowledge consists in illumination, and the term of knowledge is rest, which is conceived as the ultimate object of desire.

Just as, then, inexperience is dissolved by experience and perplexity by resource, so of necessity by illumination is darkness made to vanish.

And ignorance is the darkness, according to which we fall into sins, our sight dimmed regarding the truth.

Knowledge, therefore, is illumination, which makes ignorance to vanish and implants the power of clear vision.

But indeed the casting away of the worse things is the revelation of the better.

For the things which ignorance had bound together for ill, these through full knowledge are loosed for good.

And these bonds are loosed, with all speed, by human faith and by divine grace, our transgressions being remitted by one saving remedy, the rational baptism.

We are indeed washed clean of all our sins, and are no longer evil at our heels.

This is the one grace of illumination—that one is no longer the same in character as before the washing.

And that knowledge rises together with illumination, flashing round about the mind, is shown by this: that immediately we, the unlearned, are called disciples, that learning having at some point previously been added.

For you could not tell the precise moment of time.

For catechism leads round to faith, and faith, together with baptism, is trained by the Holy Spirit.

Since indeed faith is the one universal salvation of humankind, and the equality and fellowship of the just and benevolent God is the same toward all, the Apostle most plainly set forth, speaking somewhat thus:

"But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed;"

"so that the law has become our instructor unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith;"

"but after faith has come, we are no longer under an instructor."

Do you not hear that we are no longer under that law which was attended with fear, but under the word of free choice, the Instructor? Then indeed he added the utterance that is free from all respect of persons:

"For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus;"

"for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ."

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female;"

"for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

It is not, then, that in the Word Himself some are spiritually enlightened and others merely natural; rather, all who have put off the fleshly lusts are equal and spiritual in the sight of the Lord.

And again in another place he writes:

"For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free;"

"we were all made to drink one drink."

And it is not out of place to make use also of the very words of those men themselves, who say that the filtering of the spirit is the remembrance of the better things.

And by "filtering" they understand the separation of the worse things from the recollection of the better;

and there follows of necessity, for the one who has been reminded of the better things, repentance over the inferior ones;

for they confess that the spirit itself, having repented, runs back again.

In the same manner, then, we also, having repented of our sins, having renounced their shortcomings, being filtered clean by baptism, run back to the everlasting light, as children to the Father.

Jesus, then, having rejoiced in the Spirit, says: "I thank You, Father, O God of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babes;"

The Instructor and Teacher calls us babes—us who are more fit for salvation than the wise of this world, who, deeming themselves wise, are puffed up.

And He cries aloud, exulting and rejoicing exceedingly, as it were prattling along with the babes:

"Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight."

On this account the things hidden from the wise and prudent of this present age have been revealed unto babes.

Babes, then, fittingly are the children of God who have put off the old man and stripped off the garment of wickedness, and have put on the incorruption of Christ, that, being made new, a holy people, born again, we may keep the man undefiled, and may be babes as an infant of God, cleansed from fornication and from evil.

Most plainly, then, the blessed Paul freed us from the inquiry in the former Epistle to the Corinthians, writing somewhat thus:

"Brethren, do not be children in understanding; rather, in malice be babes, but in understanding be mature."

And the saying, "When I was a child, I thought as a child, I spoke as a child," hints at the manner of life under the law, according to which, no longer as one who is simple but as one still senseless, thinking childish things he persecuted, and speaking childish things he blasphemed the Word.

For the term "infant" signifies two things.

"When I became a man," he says—Paul again speaks—"I put away the things of the infant."

It is not an undeveloped stature of age that he hints at, nor yet some fixed measure of time, nor again the teaching of other secret doctrines belonging to manly and more perfect lessons, when the apostle—who confesses that he does away with infancy—banishes infancy beyond the borders; rather, by "infants" he means those under the Law, who are terrified by fear, just as children are by bogeymen, while "men" he has called those who are obedient to the Word and masters of themselves;

we who have believed are saved by our own voluntary choice, prudently—not

foolishly—being frightened by fear.

The apostle himself will bear witness concerning this, when he calls the Jews heirs according to the former covenant, but us heirs according to the promise.

"I say," he says, "that as long as the heir is an infant, he differs in nothing from a slave, though he is lord of all; but he is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father."

"So we also, when we were infants, were enslaved under the elements of the world;"

"but when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, in order that he might redeem those under the Law, that we might receive through him the adoption as sons."

See how he has confessed that those under fear and sin are infants, while, calling those under faith "sons," he has made them men, by way of contrast with the infants who are in the Law.

"For you are no longer a slave," he says, "but a son;"

"and if a son, then also an heir through God."

What then is lacking to the son after he has received the inheritance? It is therefore elegant to interpret "when I was an infant" thus, that is, "when I was a Jew"—for he was a Hebrew from of old—"I thought as an infant," since I followed the Law;

that is, the things of Christ—whom alone the Scripture, as we have said before, calls a man—"I have put away the things of the infant."

But infancy in Christ is perfection, as compared with the Law.

Having come to this point, we must speak in defense of our infancy.

Furthermore, the saying of the apostle must also be expounded: "I gave you milk to drink, as to infants in Christ, not solid food;"

"but neither even now are you able to bear it."

For it does not seem to me that the saying ought to be understood in a Jewish manner.

For I will set over against it that Scripture also: "I will bring you into the good land … the land flowing with milk and honey."

There arises, then, a very great difficulty in the comparison of these Scriptures: what do they mean?

For if the beginning of faith in Christ is the infancy that comes through milk, and this is disparaged as childish and imperfect, how is it that the rest of the perfect and gnostic man, which comes after the eating of solid food, is once more honored with infants' milk? Does not perhaps the "as," which is indicative of a comparison, suggest some such meaning, so that the saying ought to be read somewhat thus:

"I gave you milk to drink in Christ"; and after pausing a little, let us add "as to infants," so that, according to this division of the reading, we may receive the following sense:

"I instructed you in Christ with simple, true, and natural spiritual nourishment;"

for such is the life-nourishing substance of milk, welling up from loving breasts;

just as nurses nourish newborn children with milk, so I too, with Christ's milk—the Word—instilling into you spiritual nourishment.

Thus, then, the milk is the perfect nourishment, and it leads on to that consummation which knows no end.

Therefore also in the rest [that is to come] this very same thing, milk and honey, is promised.

Fittingly, then, the Lord again promises milk to the righteous, so that the Word may be plainly shown to be both—Alpha and Omega, beginning and end—the Word being allegorized as milk.

Something of this sort even Homer prophesies in spite of himself, when he calls the righteous among men "milk-eaters."

It is possible also to take the Scripture in this way:

"And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to fleshly, as to infants in Christ"—so that those recently catechized and still infants in Christ may be understood as "fleshly."

For he called "spiritual" those who had already believed in the Holy Spirit, but "fleshly" the newly catechized and not yet cleansed, whom he fittingly still calls fleshly, as being on a par with the Gentiles, since they still mind the things of the flesh.

"For where there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly and walking according to man?" Therefore, he says, "I also gave you milk to drink"—meaning, "I poured into you the knowledge which, from catechesis, nourishes up unto everlasting life."

But the very word "I gave to drink" is a symbol of perfect participation.

For the perfect are said to drink, but infants to suck.

"For my blood," says the Lord, "is true drink."

Did he not, then, in saying "I gave milk to drink," hint at the perfect gladness which is in the Word as milk, the knowledge of the truth? And the phrase added next, "not solid food," can hint that you were not yet able [to receive], in the manner of solid food, the clear revelation in the age to come, face to face.

"For now we see as through a mirror," the same apostle says, "but then face to face."

"But neither even now are you able, for you are still fleshly"—minding the things of the flesh, lusting, loving, envying, wrathful, grudging;

for it is not because we are still in the flesh, as some have supposed;

for, together with the flesh, having a face equal to the angels, face to face we shall behold the promise.

But how—if that is truly the promise which comes after our departure from here, which eye has not seen nor has it entered into the heart of man—do they claim to know it, not having conceived it by the Spirit, but having received by instruction that which the ear never heard, except only that which was caught up into the third heaven? But even that, he was then commanded to keep silent about.

What remains to be understood is the boastfulness of [their] knowledge; hear the law of the Scripture:

"Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast in his might; but let him who boasts boast in the Lord."

But we are taught by God, and boast in the name of Christ.

How then must we not suppose that the apostle understands the milk of infants in this way: that if we who lead the churches are shepherds after the image of the Good Shepherd, and the sheep are we ourselves, must he not be allegorizing when he calls the Lord the milk of the flock, keeping up the sequence of the figure? And so the saying must once more be fitted to the meaning:

"I gave you milk to drink, not solid food;"

"for you were not yet able"—taking the solid food to be nothing other than the milk, but the very same in substance;

for in the same way the very same Word is either loosened and gentle, like milk, or curdled and compacted, like solid food.

Nevertheless, on this interpretation too, the milk can be understood by us to mean the preaching, which is poured out far and wide, while the solid food is the faith, which from catechesis has been compacted into a foundation; this, being more solid than mere hearing, is likened to solid food, since it is built up into a body within the soul itself.

This same kind of nourishment the Lord also set forth differently elsewhere, in the Gospel according to John, by means of symbols, when he said, "Eat my flesh and drink my blood," allegorizing the clear evidence of faith and of the promise as something to be eaten and drunk;

through these the Church—just like a man composed of many members—is watered and grows, and is welded together and compacted out of both: of the body, which is faith, and of the soul, which is hope; just as the Lord too is [composed] of flesh and blood.

For in reality the blood of faith is hope, by which faith is held together, as by a soul.

But when hope has breathed out, like blood that has flowed away, the vital power of faith fails.

But if perhaps some should wish to wrangle, saying that the milk signifies the first lessons, as it were the first nourishment, while the solid food signifies the spiritual kinds of knowledge—exalting themselves to gnosis—let them know that, in calling the solid food strong nourishment, they are in fact bringing in upon themselves the flesh and blood of Jesus, [leading them away] from their own boastful wisdom to the true simplicity.

For the blood is found to be the first-born thing in man, which some have even dared to call the substance of the soul;

this blood, then, being transformed by natural digestion when the mother has conceived, blossoms forth in sympathetic tenderness and matures toward the [coming] safety of the child;

and the blood is more fluid than the flesh, being as it were a kind of fluid flesh, but the milk is more wholesome than the blood and finer in its particles.

For whether it be the blood supplied to the embryo, sent first through the maternal navel, or again the menstrual flow itself—shut off from its proper course—it is bidden, by a natural overflow, to make its way, at the command of the all-nourishing and life-producing God, toward the breasts now swelling; and being altered by warm breath, it is prepared as a longed-for nourishment for the infant: the blood is the very thing that is transformed.

For of all the members the breasts are most sympathetic with the womb.

When, then, at the time of birth, the vessel through which the blood was conveyed to the embryo is severed, the passage is closed up, and the blood takes its impetus toward the breasts; and when a great influx has occurred, they become distended, and the blood is changed into milk, analogously to the change of blood into pus in an ulceration;

or again, the blood, from the veins lying near in the breasts, which open up during the distensions of pregnancy, is transferred into the natural cavities of the breasts; and the breath, sent down from the neighboring arteries, being mingled with it—while the underlying substance of the blood still remains intact—is, as it surges, whitened, and by such churning is transformed into froth, undergoing something very like what happens to the sea, which the poets say spits forth "foam of brine" when the winds dash against it;

in this same way the rivers too, rushing along with a roar, fretted by the enveloping pressure of the surrounding air, murmur out foam; and the moisture in our mouth is whitened by the breath.

What absurd assignment of fate, then, would refuse to confess that the blood too is turned by the breath into something most luminous and most white? Yet it undergoes the change in quality, not in substance.

Indeed, you could find nothing else more nourishing, nor yet sweeter, nor again whiter than milk.

In every respect the spiritual nourishment resembles this: being sweet because of grace, nourishing as life, white as the day of Christ; and the blood of the Word has been made manifest as milk.

In this way, then, at the time of birth, the milk is supplied to the babe by [divine] dispensation; and the breasts, which until now stood upright, gazed at by the man, now incline downward toward the child, being taught to offer the easily-taken nourishment which nature has labored to produce, for the rearing up of salvation;

for the breasts are not full like springs, with ready milk flowing in, but, transforming the nourishment within themselves, they produce milk and exhale it.

And this nourishment, suitable and fitting for a newly-formed and newly-grown child, is wrought by God, the nourisher and father of those who are born and born again—just as the manna was rained down from heaven upon the ancient Hebrews, the heavenly nourishment of angels.

Indeed even now nurses have called the first-flowing draught of milk by the same name as that [ancient] nourishment, "manna."

But while women who conceive, having become mothers, well forth milk,

the Lord Christ, the fruit of the Virgin, did not pronounce blessed the breasts of women, nor judge them to be nourishers; rather, when the loving and benevolent Father had rained down the Word, he himself has now become spiritual nourishment to those who are temperate.

One is the Father of all, and one also is the Word of all, and the Holy Spirit is one and the same everywhere; and one alone there is who becomes a virgin mother:

I am pleased to call her the Church.

This mother alone had no milk, because she alone did not become a woman; rather, she is at once virgin and mother, undefiled as a virgin, loving as a mother. And, calling her own children to herself, she nurses them with holy milk, with the Word who is as a babe.

Therefore she had no milk, because this fair and proper child—the body of Christ—was itself the milk, nourishing with the Word the young flock which the Lord himself brought forth in the travail of the flesh, and which the Lord himself swaddled in his precious blood.

O holy birth-pangs! O holy swaddling-clothes!

The Word is all things to the infant: both father and mother, both Instructor and nourisher.

"Eat my flesh," he says, "and drink my blood."

These foods, proper to us, the Lord supplies: he holds out his flesh and pours out his blood;

and nothing is lacking for the children's growth.

O marvellous mystery!

He bids us put off the old and fleshly corruption, just as we put off the old food; and, partaking instead of another, the new manner of life that is Christ's, that we may—if it be possible—take him into ourselves and lay him up within us, and enfold the Saviour in our breast, so that we may put to death the passions of our flesh.

But perhaps you do not wish to understand it in this way, but rather in a more common sense.

The Holy Spirit allegorizes for us the flesh, for indeed by him the flesh was created;

the Word he intimates to us by the blood, for indeed like rich blood the Word has been poured out upon our life;

and the blending of the two is the Lord, the food of the infants;

the Lord is Spirit and Word.

The food—that is, the Lord Jesus, that is, the Word of God—is Spirit made flesh, sanctified heavenly flesh.

The food is the milk of the Father, by which alone we infants are suckled.

Indeed the Word himself, our beloved and our nourisher, poured out his own blood for us, saving humanity;

to the care-soothing breast of the Father—the Word—we flee for refuge; and he, as it seems, alone supplies to us infants the milk of love, and those alone are truly blessed who suck at this breast.

For this reason Peter also says:

"Therefore, putting away all malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and evil speaking, like newborn babes long for the rational milk, that by it you may grow up unto salvation, if you have tasted that the Lord is good."