Theological Orations 27-30 2-1 part 1/2

[Purified] as far as is possible, that light may be apprehended by light;

and [addressed] to the more diligent, lest the word fall fruitless upon fruitless ground;

and when we have calm within, away from the outer whirl, so that we are not, like those in a frenzy, cut short in our breath;

and as far as we have made room, or are given room.

Since these things are so, and we have broken up for ourselves divine fallows, so as not to sow among thorns, and have leveled the face of the earth, being stamped by the Scripture and stamping it [in turn];

come now, let us approach the discourses of theology, setting before our word the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, of whom we speak—so that the One may approve, the Other cooperate, and the Third inspire;

or rather, that there may come to be one illumination from the one Godhead, unitedly divided and dividedly conjoined—which is indeed a paradox.

As I eagerly ascend the mountain—or, to speak more truly, as I am at once eager and anxious, the one because of hope, the other because of weakness—that I may come within the cloud and be in fellowship with God (for this God commands): if there be any Aaron, let him ascend with me and stand near, even if he must remain outside the cloud—accepting this lot.

But if there be any Nadab, or Abihu, or one of the elders, let him ascend too, but stand afar off, according to the worth of his purification.

But if there be any one of the many and unworthy of such a height and contemplation: if he is altogether unclean, let him not even approach, for it is not safe;

but if he has at least been temporarily purified, let him remain below, and listen only to the voice and the trumpet—the bare words of piety;

and let him behold the mountain smoking and lightning-struck, a threat and a wonder at once to those unable to ascend.

But if anyone is an evil and savage beast, wholly incapable of [receiving] the contemplation and theology of [these] discourses, let him not lurk maliciously and treacherously in the thickets, that he may seize upon some doctrine or word, leaping out suddenly and tearing apart the sound words with his slanders; but let him stand still far off, and withdraw from the mountain, or else he will be stoned and crushed, and will perish wretchedly, wretched as he is;

for to such bestial men the true and solid words are stones.

Whether it be a leopard, let it die together with its spots;

or a lion, snatching and roaring and seeking some food for itself among our souls or our words;

or a swine, trampling the fair and lustrous pearls of the truth;

or an Arabian and alien wolf, or one even sharper than these in its sophistries;

or a fox—some crafty and faithless soul, now this, now that, conforming itself to the times and the needs, which dead and stinking carcasses feed, or small vineyards, the great ones having escaped it;

or anything else of the raw-flesh-eating kind, rejected by the law, and unclean for food and enjoyment.

For the word, having withdrawn from these, wishes to be inscribed thus on solid stone tablets, and these on both sides, on account of both the manifest and the hidden [meaning] of the law;

the one for the many who remain below, the other for the few who reach above.

What is this I have experienced, O friends and initiates and fellow-lovers of the truth? I was running as one who would lay hold of God, and so I ascended the mountain, and pierced the cloud, getting within, away from matter and material things, and gathering myself into myself as far as possible.

But when I looked, I scarcely saw the back parts of God;

and that while sheltered by the Rock, the Word made flesh for us;

and peering out a little, I beheld not the first and unmixed Nature, known to itself—I mean to the Trinity—and that which abides within the first veil and is concealed by the cherubim, but only that which is last and reaches down to us.

For these are the back parts of God: whatever, after Him, are tokens of Him, like the shadows and images of the sun in the waters, displaying the sun to weak eyes, since it is not possible to look at it directly, as it overcomes the sense by the sheer purity of its light.

Thus, then, will you theologize, even were you a Moses and "a god to Pharaoh," even if you reach, like Paul, the third heaven and hear "unspeakable words";

even if you come to be above that one, deemed worthy of some angelic or archangelic standing and rank.

For even if anything be wholly heavenly, or even super-heavenly, and far higher in nature than we, and nearer to God, yet it is farther from God and from perfect comprehension [of Him] than it is exalted above our composite, lowly, and earthward-sinking mixture.

To express [Him] is impossible, as one of the theologians among the Greeks philosophized—not without skill, it seems to me, so that he might both appear to have comprehended, by saying it is difficult, and might escape refutation, by the inexpressibility [of it].

But to express [Him] is impossible, as my reasoning [holds], and to conceive [Him] is yet more impossible.

For what is conceived, speech might perhaps disclose, if not adequately, yet at least dimly, to one whose ears are not wholly corrupted and whose mind is not sluggish.

But to embrace so great a matter with the mind is altogether impossible and beyond contrivance—not only for the slack and the downward-looking, but even for those who are very lofty and God-loving, and likewise for every begotten nature, and for those upon whom this gloom presses and this thick flesh hinders the understanding of the truth.

And I do not know whether it is not so even for the higher and intellectual natures, which, because they are near to God and illumined by the whole light, may perhaps see clearly—if not entirely, yet more perfectly and distinctly than we, and some of them more or less than others, according to the analogy of their rank.

Let this, then, be set down here.

But as for us: not only does the peace of God surpass all mind and comprehension, nor only those things laid up in promises for the righteous, which are neither visible to eyes, nor audible to ears, nor conceivable by the mind, at least to any small degree—nor even the exact understanding of creation;

for of this too be persuaded that you have only the shadows, when you hear:

"I will look upon the heavens, the works of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars," and the fixed reason in them;

as not now seeing, but as one who shall see at some time;

but far before these is the Nature that is above them, and from which they come—a Nature ungraspable and incomprehensible;

I mean, not that it exists, but what it is.

For our preaching is not empty, nor is our faith vain, nor is this what we teach;

do not again take our candor as a starting-point for atheism and slander, and exalt yourself as though we were confessing ignorance.

For it differs very greatly to be persuaded that something exists and to know what this something is.

For that God exists, and is the productive and sustaining cause of all things, both sight teaches and the natural law;

the one [sight], striking upon the things seen, which are well fixed and yet move along, and are moved and borne, so to speak, unmovingly;

and the other [natural law], reasoning from the things seen and ordered to their Author.

[For one] hearing [a lyre] will think of nothing other than the maker of the lyre and the lyre-player, and will run back to him in his mind, even if he happens not to know him by sight.

So to us too the Maker is manifest, and that which moves and preserves the things made, even if it is not embraced by the mind;

and very senseless is he who does not willingly advance even thus far and follow the natural proofs.

But neither is God that which we have imagined, or sketched out, or which speech has outlined.

But if anyone ever came into the apprehension of this even to some degree, what is the proof? Who has thus reached the utmost of wisdom? Who was ever deemed worthy of so great a gift? Who so opened the mouth of his mind and drew in breath, that by the Spirit who searches and knows all things, even the depths of God, he might comprehend God, and no longer need [to go] further—already possessing the ultimate object of desire, toward which all the life and mind of the lofty soul presses? For whatever will you suppose the Divine to be, if you trust wholly to the rational approaches? Or to what will the reasoning lead you, when put to the test, O most philosophical and theological one, you who boast beyond measure? Is it a body? And how then is it the infinite, and undefined, and shapeless, and impalpable, and invisible? Or are these too bodies? O the license [of such talk]!

For such is not the nature of bodies.

Or is it a body, but not these [attributes]? O the grossness [of the notion]!

—so that the Divine should have nothing more than we.

For how could it be venerable, if circumscribed? Or how will it escape being composed of elements and again resolved into them, or dissolved altogether? For composition is the beginning of conflict;

and dissolution is wholly alien to God and to the first Nature.

Therefore [there is] no separation, lest there be dissolution;

nor conflict, lest there be separation;

nor composition, lest there be conflict;

for this reason [there is] no body either, lest there be composition.

Thus the reasoning, ascending from the last to the first, comes to a stand.

And how will it be preserved that God pervades all things and fills all things, according to the saying:

"Do I not fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord," and:

"The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world"—if the one [God] circumscribes, while the other [body] is circumscribed? For either He will pass through empty space, and the universe will vanish for us—so that God may be insulted, both by becoming a body and by not having the things He has made;

or He will be a body within bodies, which is impossible;

or He will be interwoven and set side by side, like fluids that mix, the one cutting and being cut by the other—which is even more absurd and more old-wifish than the atoms of the Epicureans;

and so the argument about the body will collapse for us, and He will have no body, nor any consistency.

But if we shall say [He is] immaterial: if [He is] the fifth element, as some have thought, borne in a circular motion—let it be some immaterial and fifth body, or, if they wish, even incorporeal, according to their own self-licensed flight and fabrication of argument;

for I will not at present dispute about this.

But in which class of moving and borne things will He be—not to speak of the insult, if the Maker is to be moved like the things made, and borne like the things borne, if indeed they will grant even this? And what again is it that moves this? And what is it that moves the whole? And that again, what? And what once more moves that? And so on to infinity.

And how is He not altogether in place, if indeed He is borne? But if they shall say [He is] something other than the fifth [element]: if angelic, whence [comes the claim] that angels are bodies, and what sort are these? And how much would God, whose minister the angel is, be above the angel? But if [He is] above these, again an irrational swarm of bodies has been introduced, and an abyss of nonsense, able to stand nowhere.

Thus, then, God is not a body for us.

For none of the divinely inspired men has either said or accepted this, nor is the doctrine of our court.

It remains, then, to suppose [Him] incorporeal.

But if [He is] incorporeal, this too is not yet expressive and comprehensive of the essence—just as neither is "unbegotten," nor "without beginning," nor "unchangeable," nor "incorruptible," nor whatever else is said to be "of God" or "about God."

[These matters call for] further philosophizing and examination, at least by one who truly has the mind of God and a more perfect contemplation.

For just as it is not enough to say "body," or "begotten," in order to present and disclose the subject of these [predicates], but one must also state the substratum underlying them, if the thing conceived is to be perfectly and adequately presented—

for it is either a man, or an ox, or a horse, that is this embodied and begotten and perishing thing;

so neither there will he who busies himself about the nature of Being stop at saying what it is not, but must, besides saying what it is not, also say what it is—inasmuch as it is easier to embrace some one thing than to deny all things one by one—so that, from the removal of what it is not and the positing of what it is, the thing conceived may be comprehended.

But he who says what it is not, while keeping silent about what it is, does much the same as one who, when asked what twice five is, should say it is not two, nor three, nor four, nor five, nor twenty, nor thirty, nor any number, to put it briefly, within or of the decade;

but does not say that it is ten, nor settle the mind of the questioner upon the thing sought.

For it is far easier and more concise to disclose what a thing is not from [knowing] what it is, than to show what it is by abolishing what it is not.

But since the Divine is for us incorporeal, let us examine a little further.

Is it nowhere, or is it somewhere? For if nowhere, one of the over-inquisitive might ask how it could even exist.

For if what does not exist is nowhere, then perhaps what is nowhere does not exist either.

But if it is somewhere, then, since it exists, it must be either in the universe or above the universe.

But if in the universe, then either in some part, or everywhere.

And if in some part, He will be circumscribed by something smaller than Himself, namely that part; but if everywhere, by something greater and much else—I mean the contained by the container—if the universe is to be contained by the universe, and no place is to be free of circumscription.

These [difficulties arise], if [He is] in the universe.

And where was He before the universe came to be? For this too is no small puzzle.

But if [He is] above the universe, was there then nothing distinguishing Him from the universe? And where is that which is above this? And how was the transcending and the transcended conceived, when there is no boundary cutting and dividing these? Or must there altogether be a middle term, by which the universe and what is above the universe are bounded? And what else is this but place—the very thing we were fleeing? And I do not yet say that the Divine is altogether circumscribed, even if it be comprehensible by the mind;

for comprehension too is one kind of circumscription.

For what purpose, then, have I gone through these things,

and perhaps more elaborately than suits the ears of the many, and according to the now prevailing fashion of discourse, which, having dishonored the noble and simple, has introduced the crooked and riddle-like—

[is it] as the tree is known from its fruits—I mean, the darkness that works such doctrines from the gloom of what is said? For it is not that I too may seem to speak paradoxes, and appear superfluous in wisdom, weaving knots and untying things already mastered;

but that I might make clear that one thing which my discourse set out from the beginning to say.

And what was this? That the Divine is not graspable by the human mind, nor can we picture the whole of what it is;

and this neither through envy—for envy is far from the divine Nature, which is impassible and alone good and sovereign, and especially [envy] toward the most honored of His own creatures;

for what is [more akin] to the Word than rational beings? Since even their very coming into being is [a work] of the supreme goodness;

nor [is it] for the sake of His own honor and the glory of His fullness, that He might have what is precious and venerable through being unattainable.

For this would be altogether sophistical and alien—not [only] to God, but not even [worthy] of a moderately decent man, conscious of some integrity in himself—to procure for himself the primacy by preventing others [from attaining it].

But whether [it is also] for other causes, those nearer to God may know, the beholders and contemplators of His unsearchable judgments—if indeed there are any so great in virtue, and walking "in the footsteps of the abyss," as the saying goes.

[Perhaps it is] so that, with the ease of acquisition, the casting away of what is acquired might also become easy;

for what is acquired with toil is wont to be held the more firmly, while what is acquired easily is also most quickly spat out, as being capable of being acquired again;

and thus the non-readiness of the benefaction is itself constituted a benefaction, at least to those who have sense.

But perhaps [it is] so that we may not suffer the same as the fallen Lucifer—who, having received the whole light, grew stiff-necked against the Lord Almighty, and fell from his exaltation a fall most pitiable of all.

But perhaps, that there may be there some greater prize of toil and of a brilliant life for those who here have been purified and have long-sufferingly [striven] toward what is longed for.

On this account this bodily gloom stands between us and God, as the cloud of old between the Egyptians and the Hebrews;

and this is perhaps what "He made darkness His hiding-place"—our grossness, on account of which few, and only a little, peer through.

Let those, then, to whom it is a care philosophize about this, and ascend to the utmost in their inquiry;

but for us, at least, this is clear—to us prisoners of earth, as the divine Jeremiah says, and clothed in this thick flesh—that just as it is impossible to overleap one's own shadow, however much one hastens (for it always outstrips us by as much as it is overtaken), or for sight to approach visible things apart from the light and air in between, or for the swimming nature [of fish] to glide outside the waters, so it is impracticable for those in bodies to come to be wholly among intelligible things apart from bodily [media].

For something of ours will always intrude, even though the mind, having separated itself as much as possible from things seen and become by itself, attempts to attach itself to its kindred and invisible things.

Are not spirit and fire and light, love and wisdom and righteousness, mind and reason, and such things, the titles of the first Nature? What then? Will you conceive of spirit apart from motion and diffusion? Or of fire apart from matter and upward motion and its own color and shape? Or of light not blended with air and released from that which, as it were, begets and illumines it? And what mind [will you conceive]? Not that which is in another, and whose movements are the thoughts, whether at rest or put forth? And what reason apart from that which is at quiet within us, or is poured forth—I shrink to say, dissolved?

And if [you conceive of] wisdom too, what [will you conceive] apart from the disposition and that [wisdom which is] in contemplations, whether divine or human? And righteousness and love—are they not praiseworthy dispositions, the one the opponent of injustice, the other of hatred, intensified and relaxed, coming and going, and in general making us and altering us, as colors do bodies? Or must we, standing apart from these, behold the Divine in itself by itself from these, as far as is possible, gathering some partial impression from the likenesses? What then is the device for [reaching God] from these things and yet [conceiving Him as] not these things? Or how [can He be] all these, and each perfectly—the One that is by nature uncompounded and incomparable? So does our mind labor to step outside bodily things and to consort, naked, with incorporeal things, so long as it surveys, together with its own weakness, things beyond its power.

For every rational nature longs for God and for the first Cause;

but it is unable to apprehend [Him], for the reasons I have stated.

And laboring with the longing, and as it were convulsing, and not bearing the loss, it makes a second voyage—either to look to things seen and make some one of these a god (judging ill—for what among visible things is higher and more godlike than the one who sees, that the one should be the worshipper, the other the worshipped?), or through the beauty and good order of the things seen to come to know God, and to use sight as a guide to things beyond sight, yet not to lose God through the magnificence of the things seen.

Hence some [have worshipped] the sun, some the moon, some the multitude of stars, some heaven itself together with these, to which they have given the leading of the universe according to the quality or quantity of [their] motion;

others [worshipped] the elements—earth, water, air, fire—because of their usefulness, without which human life cannot even subsist;

they venerated [these], setting up as gods those whose fairest [features] they beheld.

And there are those who [worship] even images and figures—first those of their own [dead], at least the more emotional and bodily-minded among them, honoring the departed with memorials;

then [those] of strangers also—those after them and far removed from them, in ignorance of the first Nature, and following the honor handed down as lawful and necessary, since custom, confirmed by time, was reckoned as law.

And I think too that some, courting power, or praising strength, or admiring beauty, in time made the one [thus] honored into a god, adding also some myth to abet the deception.

And the more passionate among them even reckoned the passions as gods, or honored them with [the rank of] gods—anger, and bloodthirstiness, and licentiousness, and drunkenness, and I know not what else of things like these—finding therein no fair nor just defense for their own sins.

And some [gods] they left below, and some they hid beneath the earth—this alone [done] sensibly—and some they led up into heaven.

O the ridiculous allotment!

Then, having attached to each of these figures some name of gods or demons, according to the license and self-will of [their] error, and having set up statues, whose costliness too was a bait, they reckoned it [piety] to honor these with blood and the savor of sacrifices—and there are even those [who honored them] with deeds exceedingly shameful, with madnesses and human slaughter.

For such honors befitted such gods.

Nay, they even disgraced themselves with vermin, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things, and with the most shameful and most ridiculous of these, and bringing to these [creatures] the glory of God, they bestowed it [on them];

so that it is not easy to judge whether one ought rather to despise the worshippers or the worshipped.

But perhaps far more [should one despise] the worshippers, because, being of a rational nature and having received the grace of God, they set up the worse as if it were the better.

And this is the sophistry of the evil one, who abused the good for evil—as are most of his villainies.

For having taken their longing, wandering in its search after God—in order to wrest the power to himself and steal away the yearning, leading them by the hand like a blind man desiring some road—he flung them headlong, some here, some there, and scattered them into one pit of death and destruction.

But the Word, having received us who long for God and cannot endure to be without a leader and helmsman, then, striking upon the things seen and meeting with the primal things, did not stop even at these (for it was not [right] to give the leadership of reason to things equal in rank [with us] in respect of sense), and through these leads us up to that which is above these, and through which they have their being.

For what is it that ordered the heavenly things and the earthly, and all that is through the air and all that is in the water—or rather, [the things] before these: heaven, and earth, and air, and the nature of water? Who mingled these and apportioned them? What is the communion of these with one another, and their concord, and their conspiration? For I praise him who said it, even if he be a stranger.

What is it that set these in motion and drives this ceaseless and unhindered course? Is it not the Craftsman of these, who has implanted in all things a reason according to which the universe is borne and conducted? And who is the Craftsman of these? Is it not He who made them and brought them into being? For surely we must not assign so great a power to chance.

For grant that the coming-into-being were of chance;

whose is the ordering? And this too, if you please, let us grant.

Whose is the keeping and guarding [of them] according to the principles by which they first subsisted? Some other's, or chance's? Some other's, clearly, than chance.

And what is this other but God? So the reason that is from God, and implanted in all, and the first law within us, and conjoined to all, has led us up to God from the things seen.

Come then, let us begin again and speak.

As to what God is in nature and essence: no one among men has ever yet found out, nor shall find out.

But whether it shall ever be found out, let this be sought and philosophized about by those who wish.

[It will be found out] when this godlike and divine thing—I mean our mind and reason—shall be mingled with its kindred, and the image shall ascend to the Archetype, of which it now has the yearning.

And this seems to me to be that highly philosophized truth: that we shall one day know even as we are known.

But for the present, all that reaches us is a short emanation, and as it were a small effulgence of a great light.

So that even if anyone has known God, or is attested to have known [Him], he has known only so much as to appear, compared with another not equally illumined, more full of light.

And this superiority was reckoned perfect, not in truth, but measured by the capacity of one's neighbor.

Hope was what was achieved; and this not of knowledge, but of invocation.

Enoch was translated, but it is not yet clear whether he had comprehended, or shall comprehend, the nature of God.

And fair was the well-pleasing [life] of Noah, who was entrusted with saving a whole world—or the seeds of a world—from the waters, in a little wooden vessel fleeing the deluge.

And Abraham was justified by faith, the great patriarch, and offers a strange sacrifice, the antitype of the great [Sacrifice];

yet he saw God not as God, but entertained Him as a man, and was praised, having revered Him as far as he apprehended.

And Jacob imagined a certain lofty ladder, and an ascent of angels, and anoints a pillar mystically—perhaps that he might foreshadow the Stone anointed for us—and gives to a certain place the name "Form of God" in honor of Him who appeared, and wrestles with God as with a man—whatever that wrestling of God with man may be, or perhaps the comparison of human virtue against God—and bears upon his body tokens of the wrestling, which display the defeat of the created nature, and receives as the prize of piety the change of his name, being renamed Israel instead of Jacob—that great and honorable name;

but neither he nor anyone above him among the twelve tribes, of whom he was the father, has to this day boasted that he contained the nature or the whole vision of God.

And to Elijah [it was] neither a violent wind, nor fire, nor earthquake, as you hear from the history, but a certain gentle breeze that sketched out the presence of God—and that not [His] nature;

to which Elijah? The one whom even a chariot of fire leads up to heaven, signifying the more-than-human [quality] of the righteous man.

And how have you not marveled at Manoah the judge of old, and Peter the disciple of later times?—the one not even bearing the sight of the God who appeared, and therefore saying, "We are undone, O wife, we have seen God";

as if neither the divine vision, much less the [divine] nature, were containable by men;

and the other not admitting the manifest Christ into the boat, and on this account praying [Him] to depart.

And yet Peter was warmer than the others in the recognition of Christ, and on this account was blessed, and was entrusted with the greatest things.

And what would you say about Isaiah, and Ezekiel the beholder of the greatest things, and the rest of the prophets? Of whom the one saw the Lord of Sabaoth seated upon a throne of glory, and Him encircled and praised and concealed by the six-winged seraphim, and himself purified by the coal and made ready for prophecy;

and the other depicts the cherubim, the chariot of God, and the throne above them, and the firmament above it, and Him who appeared in the firmament, and certain voices, and impulses, and acts—and whether this was some daytime vision, beheld by the saints alone, or a truthful sight by night, or an impression of the ruling faculty consorting with things future as if present, or some other ineffable kind of prophecy, I cannot say;

but the God of the prophets knows, and those in whom such things were wrought.

But neither these of whom we speak, nor any other of their like, has stood "in the substance and essence of the Lord," according to what is written, nor has either seen or declared the nature of God.

And as for Paul, if the things which the third heaven afforded had been utterable, and that progress or ascent or assumption up to it, perhaps we should have known something more about God—if indeed this was the mystery of the rapture.

But since they were unspeakable, let them be honored by us also with silence.

But let us hear so much of Paul himself, saying that "we know in part, and we prophesy in part."

These and such things are confessed by him who is no layman in knowledge, who threatens to give proof of the Christ speaking in him, the great champion and teacher of the truth.