Exposition of the Faith 1 part 5/15

For there is no living creature or plant in which the Creator has not deposited some operation useful for the need of men;

for He who knew all things before their coming to be, knowing that man would fall into transgression by his own free choice and be given over to corruption, created all things for his timely use—both those in the firmament and those on the earth and those in the waters.

Before the transgression, then, all things were subject to man;

for God set him as ruler over all things on the earth and in the waters.

And the serpent too was familiar with man, more than the other animals approaching him and conversing with him by its pleasing movements.

Whence through it the devil, the author of evil, introduced his most wicked counsel to our first parents.

And the earth of its own accord brought forth its fruits for the need of the creatures subject to him; and there was neither rain nor winter upon the earth.

But after the transgression, when he was compared to the senseless beasts and became like them—having allowed irrational desire to rule within him over the rational mind, and having become disobedient to the Master's command—the creation subject to him rose up against the ruler ordained by the Creator, [and he was condemned] to till in sweat the earth from which he was taken.

Yet even now the use of wild beasts is not without profit, terrifying [man] and leading him to the knowledge and invocation of God who made him.

And the thorn too sprang up from the earth after the transgression, according to the Lord's sentence, after which the thorn was joined even to the enjoyment of the rose, leading us to the remembrance of the transgression, on account of which the earth was condemned to bring forth for us thorns and thistles.

That these things are so, one must believe from the fact that [the One who gave the command] makes their continuance effective even until now [in the words]:

"Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth."

Some say that the earth is spherical, others that it is cone-shaped.

[It too is far smaller than the heaven, suspended in its midst, as it were, like a point.]

And it too shall pass away and be changed.

Blessed is he who inherits the land of the meek;

for the land that is to receive the saints is immortal.

Who, then, could worthily marvel at the boundless and incomprehensible wisdom of the Creator? Or who could attain to fitting thanksgiving to the Giver of so many good things? Now these are the known provinces of the earth, that is, the satrapies:

Of Europe there are thirty-four provinces, ten map-tables.

1. Iuverna (Ireland), a British island; 2. the island of Albion, British; 3. Spain Baetica; 4. Spain Lusitania; 5. Spain Tarraconensis; 6. Gaul Aquitania; 7. Gaul Lugdunensis; 8. Gaul Celtica; 9. Gaul Narbonensis; 10. Greater Germany; 11. Raetia and Vindelicia; 12. Noricum; 13. Upper Pannonia; 14. Lower Pannonia; 15. Illyria; 16. Dalmatia; 17. Italy; 18. the island of Corsica; 19. the island of Sardinia; 20. the island of Sicily; 21. Sarmatia in Europe; 22. the Tauric Chersonese; 23. the Iazyges Metanastae; 24. Dacia; 25. Upper Moesia; 26. Lower Moesia; 27. Thrace; 28. the Chersonese; 29. Macedonia; 30. Epirus; 31. Achaea; 32. the island of Euboea; 33. the Peloponnese; 34. the island of Crete.

Of Libya there are twelve provinces, eight map-tables.

1. Mauretania Tingitana; 2. Mauretania Caesariensis; 3. Numidia; 4. all Africa; 5. the Cyrenaican Pentapolis; 6. Marmarica; 7. Libya; 8. Lower Egypt; 9. Egypt the Thebaid; 10. interior Libya within Africa; 11. Ethiopia above Egypt; 12. innermost of all these, the southernmost Ethiopia.

Of the great continent of Asia there are forty-eight provinces, twelve map-tables.

1. Bithynia of Pontus; 2. Asia properly so called, by Ephesus; 3. Greater Phrygia; 4. Lycia; 5. Galatia; 6. Paphlagonia; 7. Pamphylia; 8. Cappadocia; 9. Lesser Armenia; 10. Cilicia; 11. Sarmatia within Asia; 12. Colchis; 13. Iberia; 14. Albania; 15. Greater Armenia; 16. the island of Cyprus; 17. Coele-Syria; 18. Syria Phoenicia; 19. Syria Palestine; 20. Arabia Petraea; 21. Mesopotamia; 22. Desert Arabia; 23. Babylonia; 24. Assyria; 25. Susiana; 26. Media; 27. Persis; 28. Parthia; 29. Desert Carmania; 30. the other Carmania; 31. Arabia Felix; 32. Hyrcania; 33. Margiana; 34. Bactriana; 35. Sogdiana; 36. of the Sacae; 37. Scythia within Mount Imaus; 38. Scythia beyond Mount Imaus; 39. Serica; 40. Areia; 41. the Paropanisadae; 42. Drangiana; 43. Arachosia; 44. Gedrosia; 45. India within the river Ganges; 46. India beyond the river Ganges; 47. the Sinae (China); 48. the island of Taprobane (Sri Lanka).

In all there are: of Europe, ten map-tables, thirty-four provinces, one hundred eighteen notable cities; of Libya, eight map-tables, twelve regions, fifty-two notable cities; of great Asia, twelve map-tables, forty-eight provinces, one hundred eighty notable cities; all the regions of the inhabited world are ninety-four, the cities three hundred fifty.

Toward the east (Apeliotes), the Bactrians; toward the southeast (Eurus), the Indians; toward Phoenix (south-southeast), the Red Sea and Ethiopia; toward Leuconotus (south-southwest), the Garamantes beyond the Syrtis; toward Lips (southwest), the Ethiopians and the western Hypermauri; toward Zephyrus (west), the Pillars and the borders of Libya and Europe; toward Argestes (northwest), Iberia, now Spain; toward Thrascias (north-northwest), the Celts and the bordering peoples; toward Aparctias (north), the Scythians beyond Thrace; toward the north (Boreas), the Pontus, the Maeotis, and the Sarmatians; toward Caecias (northeast), the Caspian Sea and the Sacae.

Concerning Paradise. Since God was about to fashion man out of visible and invisible creation, in His own image and likeness, as a kind of king and ruler of all the earth and of the things in it, He first prepared for him, as it were, a royal residence, in which, dwelling, he might have a blessed and most happy life.

This is the divine Paradise, planted by God's hands in Eden, a storehouse of all gladness and delight.

For Eden is interpreted "delight."

Lying in the east, higher than all the earth, temperate and bathed in the most subtle and purest air, luxuriant with ever-flourishing plants, full of fragrance, filled with light, surpassing every conception of sensible beauty and loveliness, truly a divine

region and a dwelling worthy of him who was made in the image of God, in which none of the irrational creatures dwelt, but man alone, the handiwork of the divine hands.

In the midst of it God planted the tree of life and the tree of knowledge.

Now the tree of knowledge was a kind of test and trial and exercise of man's obedience and disobedience.

Wherefore it was also called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or because it gave a power of discernment to those who partook, [a knowledge] of their own nature—which is good for the perfect, but evil for the more imperfect, and for those still more greedy in their perception, just as solid food is for those still in need of milk;

for God who created us did not wish us to be anxious and to be troubled about many things, nor to become careful planners and providers for our own life.

Which is just what Adam suffered;

for having tasted, he knew that he was naked, and made for himself a covering;

for taking fig leaves, he girded himself.

But before the tasting they were both naked, both Adam and Eve, and were not ashamed.

Such, free from passion, did God wish us to be (for this belongs to the highest impassibility), and moreover free from care, having one work, that of the angels, to praise the Creator unceasingly and without intermission, to delight in the contemplation of Him, and to cast our care upon Him.

This He also declared to us through the prophet David, saying:

"Cast your care upon the Lord," He says, "and He will sustain you"; and in the sacred Gospels, teaching His own disciples, He says:

"Do not be anxious for your soul, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on"; and again:

"Seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you"; and to Martha:

"Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful;

for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken from her"—namely, to sit at His feet and to hear His words.

But the tree of life was either a tree having an operation bestowing life, or one edible only for those worthy of life and not subject to death.

Some, then, imagined Paradise to be sensible, others intelligible.

However, it seems to me that, just as man was created at once sensible and intelligible, so also his most sacred precinct was at once sensible and intelligible, having a twofold aspect;

for dwelling in the body in that most divine and exceedingly beautiful region, as we have related, he abode in the soul in a higher, incomparable, and far more beautiful place, having God as the in-dwelling House, and having Him as a glorious garment, clothed with His grace, and delighting in the one most sweet fruit of the contemplation of Him, like another angel, and being nourished thereby.

Which indeed has worthily been named the tree of life;

for it imparts to those who partake the sweetness of divine participation, of a life not cut short by death.

Which indeed God also called "every tree," [saying]:

"Of every tree that is in Paradise you shall freely eat," He says; for He Himself is the All, in whom and through whom is the All.

But the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the discernment of manifold contemplation.

And this is the knowledge of one's own nature, which is good for the perfect and for those who have lived in divine contemplation—publishing of itself the magnificence of the Creator—for those who do not fear a fall, because through time they have advanced to a certain settled habit of such contemplation; but it is not good for those still young and more greedy in their appetite, whom—on account of the instability of their abiding in the better state, and because they are not yet firmly established in attendance upon the one Good—the care of their own body is wont to drag back toward itself and to distract.

Thus I consider the divine Paradise to be twofold.

And truly the God-bearing Fathers handed this down, both those who taught it thus and those who taught it otherwise.

It is possible to understand "every tree" as the knowledge of the divine power that comes from all created things, as the divine Apostle says:

"For His invisible things have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood by the things that are made."

But higher than all these conceptions and contemplations is that which concerns ourselves,

I mean that of our own constitution, as the divine David says:

"Your knowledge has become wonderful from me"—that is, from my own framing.

But this was perilous for Adam, who was newly fashioned, for the reasons we have stated—or [we may say] that the tree of life is the more divine conception that comes from all sensible things, and the ascent through them to the Author and Creator and Cause of all, which He also named "every tree," the full and undivided one, bearing the participation of the good alone; while the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the sensible and pleasurable food, which seems to be sweet but in reality sets the partaker in the participation of evils.

"Of every tree that is in Paradise you shall eat"—meaning, I think: through all created things ascend to Me the Maker, He says, and pluck one fruit out of all, namely Me, who am the true life.

"Let all things bear life for you as fruit, and make participation in Me the constitution of your own existence";

"but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it.

In whatever day you eat of it, you shall surely die";

for by nature sensible food is the replenishment of what has flowed away, and it passes into the privy and into corruption;

and it is impossible for one who shares in sensible food to remain incorruptible.

Or [we may say] that the tree of life is the participation in God, by which the angels too are nourished, by which we were to receive incorruptibility;

for we needed first to be subjected without questioning to the law of God, until we came to the perfect habit of virtue, and thus to receive from God as a gift the discernment of good and evil, which is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

For the discernment of thoughts and the power of refutation is not safe for one newly fashioned, because his reasoning is still subject to passions and to pleasure.

By the tree of life, then, I mean the commandment given by God—for righteousness is a tree of life to all who lay hold of it;

and "Blessed is the tree through which righteousness has been planted," says Solomon—but by the tree of knowledge I mean the discernment of good and evil.

Adam, then, ought through unquestioning obedience to have been united to God and, by this union, to have grown rich in deification in due time, when God who is God by nature was well pleased, and [to have grown rich] in the true knowledge and discernment of all things and in life everlasting.

But there had to be a test of his unquestioning obedience.

God therefore gives a commandment not to taste of the tree of knowledge, not to trust his own discernment, nor to eat from any tree having a natural operation that produces the knowledge of itself, that is, of its own nature.

When, then, the evil one assailed [him] through the serpent and said:

"You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil, if you eat"—he trusted his own discernment, and deification and knowledge seemed good to him.

And he did not reckon that all things are good in their season, and that the good is not good if it does not come to be in a good way, and that one ought not to snatch beforehand what is to be given, contrary to the mind of the Giver of being and of well-being.

And he saw that it was good, and ate, and was stripped of his ecstatic union with God; and the bodily eyes were opened, and the passions were stirred, and they knew that they were naked, and were ashamed.

And they were drawn away from God, and like children were enticed toward pleasure, and were banished from the tree of life, and became mortal.

But the enemy knew from experience that to attend upon God becomes the procurer of deification and of eternal life.

Concerning man. Thus, then, God brought into being the intelligible substance—I mean the angels and all the heavenly orders—for these are clearly of an intellectual and incorporeal nature;

and by "incorporeal" I mean as compared with the grossness of matter;

for the Divine alone is truly immaterial and incorporeal—and moreover the sensible [substance], heaven and earth and the things that lie between them; and the one [He made] proper to Himself (for the rational nature is proper to God and apprehensible by the mind alone), the other lying altogether at the farthest remove, as falling under sense perception.

But there had to be a mixture from both

—and a token of greater wisdom and of a richness regarding the natures, as the God-proclaiming Gregory says—a kind of bond, as it were, of the visible and the invisible nature.

And by "there had to be" I mean, intimating the will of the Creator;

for this is the most fitting ordinance and law, and no one will say to the Maker:

"Why have you made me thus?" For the potter has authority to make different vessels out of his own clay, for the demonstration of his own wisdom.

Since, then, these things were so, He fashions man out of visible and invisible nature with His own hands, in His image and likeness—molding the body from earth, and giving him a rational and intellectual soul by His own in-breathing, which indeed we call the divine image;

for "according to the image" denotes the intellectual and self-determining, while "according to the likeness" denotes the likeness in virtue so far as is possible.

And the body and the soul were fashioned at the same time, not the one first and the other afterward, according to the nonsensical doctrines of Origen.

God therefore made man innocent, upright, virtuous, free from grief, free from care, resplendent with every virtue, adorned with all good things—like a kind of second world, a microcosm within the macrocosm; another angel, a composite worshiper, an overseer of the visible creation, an initiate of the intelligible; king of the things on earth, ruled from on high; earthly and heavenly, temporal and immortal, visible and intelligible, midway between greatness and lowliness; at once spirit and flesh—flesh because of pride, spirit because of grace; the one that he might suffer and, suffering, be reminded and chastened, the other that he might endure and glorify his Benefactor, exalted by his greatness; a living being administered here, that is, in the present life, and removed elsewhere, in the age to come; and—the crowning point of the mystery—being deified by his inclination toward God, deified, however, by participation in the divine illumination, and not by being transformed into the divine essence.

And He made his nature sinless and his will self-determining.

By "sinless" I mean not as being incapable of receiving sin (for the Divine alone is incapable of receiving sin), but as not having sinfulness in his nature but rather in his free choice—that is, having the power to abide and to advance in the good with the cooperation of divine grace, and likewise to turn from the good and to come to be in evil, God permitting it on account of self-determination;

for that which comes about by force is not virtue.

The soul, then, is a living substance, simple, incorporeal, by its own nature invisible to bodily eyes, rational and intellectual, without shape, making use of an organic body and bestowing upon it life and growth and sensation and generation; not having the mind as something other than itself, but the purest part of itself (for as the eye is in the body, so is the mind in the soul); self-determining, endowed with will and energy, mutable—that is, voluntarily changeable, because it is also created—having received all these things according to nature from the grace of Him who created it, from which it received both its being and its being thus by nature.

We conceive of "incorporeal" and "invisible" and "shapeless" in two ways:

some things in substance, others by grace; and some things being so by nature, others as compared with the grossness of matter.

In the case of God, then, [it is] by nature; but in the case of angels and demons and souls, [it is said] by grace, and as compared with the grossness of matter.

A body is that which has three dimensions, that is, which has length and breadth and depth, that is, thickness.

And every body is composed of the four elements, but the bodies of living creatures from the four humors.

One must know that there are four elements.

Likewise also there are four humors, corresponding to the four elements:

black bile corresponding to earth (for it is dry and cold), phlegm corresponding to water (for it is cold and moist), blood corresponding to air (for it is moist and warm), and yellow bile corresponding to fire (for it is warm and dry).

Now the fruits are composed of the elements, the humors of the fruits, and the bodies of living creatures of the humors, and [they dissolve again into them];

for everything that is composed dissolves again into the same things out of which it was composed.

One must know that man has communion with inanimate things, partakes of the life of irrational creatures, and shares in the intelligence of rational beings.

For he has communion with inanimate things in respect of his body and the blending from the four elements; with plants in respect of these and of the nutritive, augmentative, and seminal (that is, generative) power; with irrational creatures in respect of these things too, but additionally in respect of appetite—that is, of incensive desire (anger) and concupiscence—and in respect of sensation and of self-impelled motion.

There are, then, five senses:

sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch.

To self-impelled motion belongs the passing over from place to place, the moving of the whole body, and the faculties of speech and breathing;

for it is in our power to do these things or not to do them.

Through the faculty of reason he is joined to the incorporeal and intellectual natures, reasoning and understanding and judging each thing, pursuing the virtues, and embracing piety, the crown of the virtues;

wherefore man is also a microcosm (a little world).

One must know that cutting, flux, and change are proper to the body alone.

Change is that which is according to quality, that is, heat and cold and the like.

Flux is that which is according to evacuation;

for dry and moist things and breaths are evacuated, of which it has need of replenishment;

so that hunger and thirst are natural passions.

Proper to the soul are piety and understanding.

Common to soul and body are the virtues, since these too have their reference to the soul, the soul, as it were, making use of the body.

One must know that the rational by nature governs the irrational;

for the powers of the soul are divided into the rational and the irrational.

And of the irrational there are two parts:

one is deaf to reason, that is, does not obey reason; the other is attentive and obedient to reason.

That which is deaf to reason and does not obey it is the vital power, which is also called the pulsative, and the seminal—that is, the generative—and the vegetative, which is also called the nutritive;

and to this belongs also the augmentative power, which also forms the bodies.

For these are not governed by reason, but by nature.

But that which is attentive and obedient to reason is divided into concupiscence and the incensive faculty (anger).

The irrational part of the soul is commonly called the passible and the appetitive.

One must know that self-impelled motion also belongs to the part that is obedient to reason.

It must be understood that of things, some are good and some are evil.

Now a good that is expected gives rise to desire, while one that is present gives rise to pleasure;

likewise an expected evil gives rise to fear, while one that is present gives rise to grief.

But it must be recognized that when we here speak of a good, we mean either the truly good or the apparently good, and likewise of an evil.

On pleasures. Of pleasures, some are of the soul and some of the body.

Those are of the soul which belong to the soul alone, by itself, such as the pleasures of learning and contemplation.

Those are bodily which come about through the communion of soul and body, and are therefore called bodily, such as the pleasures of food, sexual union, and the like.

But of the body alone one could find no pleasures.

Again, of pleasures some are true and some are false; some belong to the intellect alone, in knowledge and contemplation, and some are joined with the body, in sense-perception.

And of the pleasures joined with the body, some are at once natural and necessary, without which life is impossible, such as foods that fill up our lack and clothing that is necessary; others are natural but not necessary, such as unions according to nature and law (for these contribute to the continuance of the whole race, yet it is possible to live without them in virginity); and others are neither necessary nor natural, such as drunkenness, lust, and gluttony that exceed what is needful;

for these neither contribute to the maintenance of our life nor to the succession of the race, but actually do harm.

Therefore the one who lives according to God must pursue the pleasures that are at once necessary and natural; in the second place set the natural but not necessary ones, indulged in at the fitting time, manner, and measure; and the rest he must by all means avoid.

We must regard as good those pleasures which are not entangled with grief, nor

those which bring on regret, nor beget any other harm, nor go beyond measure, nor drag us long away from worthy works or enslave us.

On grief. Of grief there are four kinds:

anguish, dejection, envy, and pity.

Anguish is grief that causes speechlessness; dejection is grief that weighs one down; envy is grief over others' goods; pity is grief over others' ills.

On fear. Fear too is divided into six:

into hesitation, modesty, shame, consternation, amazement, and anxiety.

Hesitation, then, is fear of an action about to be undertaken.

Modesty is fear in the expectation of blame;

and this is a most excellent passion.

Shame is fear over a disgraceful deed already done;

yet this too is not without hope for salvation.

Consternation is fear arising from a great impression.

Amazement is fear arising from an unfamiliar impression.

Anxiety is fear of failing, that is, of falling short;

for fearing to fail in the undertaking, we feel anxious.

On anger. Anger is a boiling of the blood about the heart, arising from the vaporization or turbid stirring of the bile.

Hence it is also called bile (chole) and wrath (cholos).

And there are times when anger is also a craving for retaliation;

for when we are wronged, or think we are being wronged, we become angry, and then the passion becomes a mixture of desire and anger.

wrath (orge), which is called bile and gall, and rancor (menis) and grudge (kotos).

For anger, in its beginning and movement, is called wrath and bile and gall.

Rancor is bile that persists, that is, remembrance of wrongs;

it is so called from its remaining (menein) and being committed to memory.

Grudge is wrath that watches for an opportunity for revenge;

and this too is so called from its lying in wait (keisthai).

Anger is the bodyguard of reason, the avenger of desire;

for when we desire something and are hindered by someone, we grow angry at him as having been wronged, reason of course having judged what is happening to be deserving of indignation, in the case of those who keep their own proper order according to nature.

To the part that does not obey reason belong the nutritive, generative, and pulsatile faculties;

the nutritive and generative are called the growth-producing faculty, and the pulsatile the vital faculty.

Of the nutritive faculty, then, there are four powers:

the attractive, which draws in the food; the retentive, which holds the food and does not let it be excreted at once; the alterative, which changes the food into the humors; and the excretive, which separates and casts out the residue through the bowel.

It must be understood that of the powers belonging to the living being, some are of the soul, some natural, and some vital.

Those are of the soul which act by choice, namely, voluntary movement and sense-perception.

To voluntary movement belong the power of moving from place to place and of moving the whole body, the power of speech, and that of breathing;

for it lies in us to do these things and not to do them.

The natural and vital powers are the involuntary ones.

And the natural ones are the nutritive, the growth-producing, and the seminal; the vital is the pulsatile;

for these operate whether we will or not.

On the imaginative faculty. The imaginative faculty is a power of the irrational soul that operates through the sense-organs, and it is called sense-perception.

The imaginable and the perceptible is that which comes under imagination and perception;

as sight is the visual power itself, and the visible is what comes under sight, say a stone or something of that kind.

Imagination is an affection of the irrational soul produced by something imaginable, while a phantasm is an empty affection in the irrational part of the soul, arising from nothing imaginable.

The organ of the imaginative faculty is the front ventricle of the brain.

On sense-perception. Sense-perception is a power of the soul that apprehends, that is, discerns, material things;

the sense-organs are the instruments, that is, the members, through which we perceive;

the perceptibles are the things that come under perception;

and the perceptive being is the living creature that possesses perception.

There are five senses, and likewise five sense-organs.

The sense-organs and instruments of sight are the nerves from the brain and the eyes.

The sight primarily perceives color, but together with the color it also discerns the colored body, its size, shape, the place where it is, the intervening distance, number, motion and rest, the rough and smooth, even and uneven, the sharp and blunt, and the consistency, whether watery or earthy, that is, wet or dry.

The second sense is hearing, which perceives voices and sounds.

It discerns their highness and lowness, smoothness and roughness, and loudness.

Its organs are the soft nerves from the brain and the structure of the ears.

Of all creatures, only man and the ape do not move their ears.