De dogmate et constitutione episcoporum

Discourse 20. On the Dogma and Ordination of Bishops. 1. When I see the present-day loquacity, the instant sages, and the hand-picked theologians, for whom merely wishing is enough to be wise, I long for the highest philosophy, and I seek the ultimate measure, as Jeremiah says, and I wish to consort only with myself. For nothing seems to me so desirable as to close the senses, to become free from flesh and world, to touch nothing human except under absolute necessity, conversing with oneself and with God, to live beyond the visible, and always to bear within oneself the pure divine reflections, unmixed with the lower and wandering characters, like an unblemished mirror of God and of divine things, both being and ever becoming, adding light to light, the dimmer to the clearer, until we reach the source of these earthly radiances and attain the blessed end, when the mirrors are dissolved into truth. For only with difficulty might someone, either by long philosophical training, gradually separating the noble and luminous part of the soul from that which is lowly and yoked to darkness, or by finding a merciful God, or by both, and by making it his chief practice to look upward, overcome the dragging matter. But before surpassing this, as far as possible, and sufficiently purifying both the ears and the mind, I know it is not safe either to undertake the oversight of souls or to approach theology.

2. And so that you may not think me more timid than I ought to be, but rather praise my foresight, I will tell you why I was led into this fear. I hear from Moses himself, when God was giving him oracles, that when many were summoned to the mountain—among whom were Aaron and his two sons, the priests—all the rest were ordered to worship from afar, and only Moses was to approach, but the people were not to go up with him. And shortly before this, lightning, thunder, trumpets, the whole mountain smoking, terrifying threats, and such horrors kept the others below; and it was a great thing for them merely to hear the voice of God, and that only after they had been well purified. But Moses both went up, entered the cloud, conversed with God, and received the law—the law of the letter for the many, and the law of the spirit for those above the many. 3. I know also about Eli the priest, and a little later about a certain Uzzah: the former was punished even for the lawlessness of his sons, which they dared to commit against the sacrifices, even though he did not accept their impiety but rebuked them many times; the latter, because he merely dared to touch the ark when it was jostled by the ox, saved the ark but perished himself, God thus preserving the sanctity of the ark. And I know that it is not safe for the many even to touch the walls of the sanctuary, and for this reason other walls were needed outside; nor is it safe for the sacrifices themselves to be consumed by those, at that time, or in a place where it is not fitting.

approached the Holy of Holies with confidence, or the veil, or the mercy-seat, or the ark, or to look upon or touch them, was permitted to anyone. 4. Knowing these things, then, and that no one is worthy of the great God, and of the sacrifice, and of the high priest, who has not first presented himself to God as a living sacrifice, or rather, become a holy temple of the living and life-giving God—how could I either rashly undertake discourses concerning God, or approve of one who rashly undertakes them? Such desire is not praiseworthy; the undertaking is fearful. And for this reason one must first purify oneself, and then converse with the pure; unless we are to suffer the fate of Manoah, and say, having been in the presence of God in a vision, "We are lost, O woman, we have seen God," or, like Peter, to send Jesus away from the ship as unworthy of such a visitation, or, like that centurion, to demand the healing but not to receive the healer. Let each of us also say, while he is a centurion, and rules over many in wickedness, and still serves Caesar, the world-ruler of those who are dragged down below: "I am not worthy for you to enter under my roof." But when I behold Jesus, even though I am small in spiritual stature, like that Zacchaeus, and am raised above the sycamore tree, having mortified my earthly members and withered the body of humility—then I will receive Jesus, and I will hear, "Today salvation has come to this house," and I will attain salvation, and I will philosophize on the more perfect things, scattering well what I have gathered badly, whether money or doctrines. 5.

Since we have cleansed the theologian by our discourse, come now, let us also discuss God briefly, having taken courage in the Father himself, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, concerning whom the discourse is. And I pray to experience what Solomon did, to conceive nothing of my own about God, nor to utter anything. For when he says, "I am the most foolish of all men, and there is no wisdom of man in me," he does not, of course, say this in condemnation of his own lack of understanding. For how could he, who indeed asked for this from God before all else, and received wisdom, and contemplation, and breadth of heart, richer and more abundant than sand? And how does one so wise, and having obtained such a gift, call himself the most foolish of all? Evidently because he has no wisdom of his own, but is actuated by the divine and more perfect wisdom. For Paul, saying, "I no longer live, but Christ lives in me," was not speaking of himself as if he were dead, but as living a life superior to that of the many, by having partaken of true life, which is terminated by no death. Therefore we worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, separating the properties but uniting the divinity; and we neither blend the three into one, so as not to suffer the disease of Sabellius, nor do we divide them into three foreign and alien entities, so as not to rave with Arius. For why must we, like a plant bent entirely to one side, forcibly turn it to the other side, correcting distortion by distortion, instead of straightening it toward the middle, standing within the boundaries of piety?

6. When I say "mean," I mean the truth, to which alone we must look rightly; and we reject both the base contraction and the more absurd division—so that the account is neither contracted into one hypostasis, leaving us with bare names, out of fear of polytheism, as those suppose who take the same as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and who define that all things are one rather than that each is nothing (for they would flee from being what they are, passing and changing into one another); nor is it divided into three natures that are foreign, dissimilar, and separated, according to the madness of Arius, well-named, or into three that are unoriginate, disorderly, and, so to speak, antigods—the one confining divinity to the unbegotten alone, shutting it up in Jewish pettiness; the other falling into the opposite but equally evil error, positing three principles and three gods, which is more absurd than the former. For it is necessary neither to be so fond of the Father as to abolish his being Father (for of what would he be Father, if the Son’s nature is estranged and alienated along with creation?), nor to be so fond of the Son as not to preserve this, that he is Son (for of what would he be Son, if not referred to the Father as cause?), nor to the Father the

of the beginning to diminish the dignity, that of the Father and begetter; for it would be a small and unworthy beginning, not being the cause of the divinity observed in the Son and the Spirit. Since it is necessary both to preserve the one God and to confess the three hypostases, or three persons, each with its own property. 7. This would be preserved, according to my account, as one God, if the Son and the Spirit are referred to one cause, not compounded nor fused together; and according to the one and the same, so to speak, movement and will of the divinity, and the identity of substance. And the three hypostases, with no fusion, dissolution, or confusion conceived, lest the whole be destroyed, through which the one is more honored than is proper. And the properties: of the Father, both without beginning and conceived and spoken of as beginning (beginning, as cause, and as source, and as eternal light); of the Son, not at all without beginning, but beginning of all things; and when I say beginning, do not insert time, nor place any interval between the begetter and the offspring, nor divide the nature by what is badly interposed between things coeternal and conjoined. For if time is older than the Son, then the Father would evidently be the cause of that first. And how is the maker of times subject to time? And how is he Lord of all, if he is anticipated and ruled by time? Therefore the Father is without beginning; for his being is not from elsewhere, nor from himself. But the Son, if you take the Father as cause, is not without beginning; for the Father is the beginning of the Son as cause; but if you conceive of beginning in terms of time, he is also without beginning; for the Lord of times does not begin from time.

8. If, because bodies are subject to time, you would also claim that the Son is subject to time, you will also clothe the bodiless with a body. And if, because what is born among us, not existing at one time and then coming into being, you would also compel the Son to have passed from non-existence into existence, you are comparing incomparables: God and man, body and the bodiless. Then he will also suffer and be dissolved, because our bodies also do so. You, then, claim that God is born in this way because bodies are; I, on the other hand, claim that he is not born in this way because bodies are born in this way. For things whose being is not alike do not have a like begetting, unless you also enslave other things to matter, such as suffering, grieving, hungering, thirsting, and all the affections of the body or of the composite. But your mind does not accept these; for the discourse is about God. Do not, therefore, accept generation in any other way than as divine. 9. But if he has been begotten, how has he been begotten? he says. Answer me, you dialectician and inescapable one: If he has been created, how has he been created? Demand of me also the "How has he been begotten?" Is there passion involved in generation? There is passion also in creation; for is not the impression, the thought, and the sudden unfolding of what is conceived into detail a passion? Is there time involved in generation? Created things also exist in time. Is there place here? Place there. Is there failure in generation? Failure also in creation. I have heard these things from you who philosophize; for what the mind has sketched, the hand often has not executed. But by word, he says, he constituted everything and by will. For he himself spoke, and they came to be; he himself commanded, and they were created.

When you say that all things were created by the Word of God, you are not introducing human creation; for none of us accomplishes what comes to be by means of a word. For nothing would be higher than us, nor more effortless, if speaking were the completion of a deed. So that even if God creates what is created by a word, creating is not human for him. For either show a man doing something by a word, or accept that God does not create as a man does. For conceive a city by an act of will, and let the city appear; wish a son to be born to you, and let the child appear; wish something else among things that are done, and let the will proceed to deed. But if none of these things follows from willing, while for God willing is action, man creates in one way, and God, the creator of all, in another. How then does he create not in a human manner, but is compelled to beget in a human manner? You, not existing, then came to be, then beget; for this reason you bring what does not exist into being. Or, to speak more deeply, perhaps you yourself do not bring forth from non-existence; for even Levi, it is said, was still in the loins of his father before coming into being. And let no one cavil at the argument. For I do not mean that the Son exists from the Father as being previously in the Father and afterwards proceeding into being; nor as imperfect first and then perfect, as is the law of our generation. 10. These things belong to those who cavil; these belong to those who leap readily upon all that is said. But we do not think thus, we do not hold this opinion; but together with the Father being unbegotten (and he always was, for the mind does not fall into his ever not being), the Son also was, in a begotten manner.

Thus the being of the Father coincides with the being-begotten of the Only-Begotten, who exists from him and not after him, except in thought alone, that of the beginning—beginning, that is, as cause. For I often turn the same argument, fearing your thick and material mind. But if you do not busy yourself with the Son—whether one should speak of generation, or hypostasis, or something else more authoritative than these (for what is thought and said overcomes my tongue)—then do not scrutinize the procession of the Spirit either. I am content to hear that he is Son, and that he is from the Father; and that one is Father, the other Son; and I busy myself with nothing beyond this, lest I suffer the same as voices which, when overstrained, collapse entirely, or as the eye straining toward the sun’s ray. For the more and the more precisely one wishes to see, the more one damages the sense and is deprived even of whatever sight one had, because the excess overcomes the vision of the object seen, if one wishes to see the whole and not what it is safe to see.

11. You hear of a generation? Do not busy yourself with the how. You hear that the Spirit proceeds from the Father? Do not pry into the manner. But if you pry into the generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit, I also pry into your mixture of soul and body: How are you dust and yet an image of God? What is it that moves you, or what is moved? How does the same thing both move and be moved? How does sensation remain in the same subject and yet draw in what is external? How does the mind remain in you and generate a word in another mind? How is a thought transmitted by speech? And I am not yet speaking of greater things: What is the revolution of the heavens? What is the motion of the stars, or their order, or their measures, or their conjunction, or their distance? And what are the boundaries of the sea? Whence the streams of the winds, or the turnings of the seasons, or the outpourings of rains? If you have understood none of these things, O man (and you will perhaps understand them at some time, when you receive perfection. For I shall see, it is said, the heavens, the works of your fingers; so that it is suggested that what is now seen is not the truth, but images of the truth); if you have not known yourself, who you are who are discoursing about these things, if you have not grasped these things, of which even sensation is a witness, how do you suppose you know God exactly, what he is and how great he is? This is great folly. 12. But if you will be persuaded by me, who am not a rash theologian, grasp one thing, and pray to grasp another. Love one thing that remains in you, and let the other remain in the treasures above. Ascend through conduct; through purification, acquire the pure. Do you wish to become a theologian at some time, and worthy of the divinity? Keep the commandments; travel through the precepts; for action is the stepping-stone to contemplation; labor from the body for the soul.

Is there any man who can be raised so high as to reach the measure of Paul? Yet he says he sees through a mirror and an enigma, and that there is a time when he will see face to face. You may be more philosophical than another in words, but you are certainly inferior to God. You may be more intelligent than another, perhaps, but you fall short of the truth by as much as your being is secondary to the being of God. We have a promise that we will one day know, to the extent that we are known. If it is not possible to have perfect knowledge of beings here, what is left for me? What is hoped for? The kingdom of heaven, you will surely say. But I consider that this is nothing other than attaining the purest and most perfect; and the most perfect of beings is knowledge of God. But let us hold fast to one thing and grasp another while we are above the earth; and let us store up the other for later, so that we may have this fruit of our labor, the full illumination of the Holy Trinity, which is, and what it is, and how great it is, if it is permitted to say this, in Christ our Lord himself, to whom are glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.