In illud Tunc et ipse filius

Gregory Bishop of Nyssa, On the Passage "Then Also the Son Himself Will Be Subject to the One Who Subjected All Things to Him." All the sayings of the Lord are pure and clean sayings, as the prophet says, when, like the purification of silver in fire, the mind of the sayings, cleansed of every heretical notion, possesses its own and natural radiance of truth. Before all else, I think it necessary to ascribe every brilliance and purity to the teachings of the holy Paul, because, initiated in paradise into the knowledge of mysteries and having Christ speaking within him, he uttered such things as it is fitting for one educated in such a school to utter, under the guidance and teaching of the Word. But since wicked dealers attempt to make the divine silver counterfeit, darkening the radiance of the Word by the admixture of heretical and spurious thoughts, and either not understanding or maliciously interpreting the apostle's mystical thoughts according to their own inclination, they drag them in to support their own wickedness, claiming that the apostolic word contributes to the overthrow of the glory of the only-begotten God, which says that "Then the son will be subject to the one who subjected all things to him," as if such a phrase indicated some servile humility. For this reason, it seemed necessary to examine carefully the discourse on this matter, so as to show that the apostolic silver is truly pure, separated from and unmixed with any base and heretical notion.

We know, then, that in the usage of holy scripture such an expression is of many meanings and is not always applied to the same concepts, but sometimes signifies one thing and at other times indicates something else. For example: "Let slaves," it says, "be subject to their own masters." And concerning the irrational nature, that it has been subjected to man by God, as the prophet says: "You have subjected all things beneath his feet." And concerning those subdued through war, it says: "You have subjected peoples and nations beneath our feet." And again, when mentioning those saved through knowledge, it speaks in the person of God: "Foreigners have been subjected to me." To this seems somehow akin what we examined in the first and sixtieth psalm through the words: "Shall not my soul be subjected to God?" And above all these, there is that passage brought forward against us by our enemies from the epistle to the Corinthians: "Then also the Son himself will be subject to the one who subjected all things to him." Since, then, the meaning of this expression is carried over many concepts, it would be well to distinguish each of these on its own and to recognize to which signification of subjection the apostle's statement is properly related. We say, therefore, that in the case of those subdued through war to the dominion of their conquerors, the signification of subjection indicates an involuntary and forced submission to the victors. For if some power should come to the captives, suggesting hope of prevailing over their conquerors, they again rouse themselves against those who have prevailed, judging it an outrage and a reproach to have been subjected to enemies.

but irrational beings are subject to rational ones in another way, because their nature is deficient in the greatest of goods, that is, reason, so that it is necessary for that which is superior by the good fortune of nature to have the inferior placed under it. Those who are held in the yoke of slavery through some lawful sequence, even if they have equality of nature, yet, being unable to resist the law, accept the rank of subjects, being driven to submission by the necessity that cannot be avoided. But the purpose of our submission to God is salvation, as we have learned from the prophecy which says: "Let my soul be subject to God; for from him is my salvation." When, therefore, the apostolic utterance which says that the Son will be subject to the Father is brought forward by our opponents, it would be consistent, according to the distinct meaning of such an expression, to ask them with reference to which signification of submission they think this utterance ought to be applied to the only-begotten God. But it is clear that they will not say that the Son's submission is to be understood in any of the ways mentioned; for he is not an enemy who has become subject through war, so that he might again have rebellion against the ruler as a hope and object of endeavor; nor is the Logos, as one of the irrational beings, through deficiency of the good, having submission necessary in his nature, as sheep and cattle and oxen are subject to man; nor yet, like slaves bought with money or born in the house, is he enslaved by law, waiting to become free from the yoke of slavery at some time through goodwill or favor.

But neither could one say, with regard to the aim of salvation, that the only-begotten God is subordinated to the Father, as if by this, in likeness to human beings, he were procuring salvation for himself from God. For in the case of the changeable nature, which comes to participate in the good through participation, subordination to God is necessary because our communion in goods comes from that source; but in the unchangeable and immutable power, subordination has no place, in which every good name and concept is contemplated—the eternal, the imperishable, the blessed, that which always holds the same state, that which can become neither better nor worse; for it admits neither addition in the good nor a inclination toward the worse; for that which pours forth salvation to others is not itself in need of the one who saves. What, then, will they reasonably say is the proper meaning of subordination in his case? For all the examined points have been found to be far removed from being properly thought or said of the only-begotten God. And if one must add that form of subordination which the Gospel according to Luke mentions, that the Lord, having advanced to his twelfth year, was subject to his parents, not even that would be appropriate to be said of the pre-eternal and true Son in relation to his true Father.

There, for the one who was tested, in all respects according to likeness without sin, he also accepted to advance through the ages of our nature, and just as, having become a child, he partook of infant nourishment, eating butter and honey, so also, having advanced to youth, he did not refuse what is suitable and fitting for that age, becoming a pattern of good order for life. For since in the case of other human beings the mind is imperfect in such matters and youth has need of the guidance toward the better that comes through those more perfect, for this reason the twelve-year-old submits to his mother, in order to show that what is perfected through progress, before it reaches the perfect, rightly accepts submission as a guide toward the good. But he who is always perfect in every good and can admit neither progress nor diminution in himself because of the self-sufficiency and unimpairedness of his nature—for what purpose would he submit? Those who speak all things without consideration would not be able to say. For that, while associating with human nature through flesh, he legislated in his childhood, through what he did, submission for youth, is clear from the fact that, having advanced to the perfection of age, he no longer looks to the authority of his mother. For when she urged him in Cana of Galilee to show his power by supplying what was lacking for the banquet of the wedding and granting the need for wine to the feast, he did not refuse to provide the grace to those in need, but the maternal

He rejected the counsel as no longer timely, saying, "What have I to do with you, woman? Do you wish to oversee even this age of mine? Is not my hour yet come, which grants self-rule and independence to my age?" If, then, in life through the flesh, the fitting measure of age shakes off the submission of the one who bore it, what place could submission have in the case of the Lord, in the dominion of his own age, no one could say. For it is proper to the divine and blessed life always to remain in the same state and not to admit change through alteration. Since, therefore, the Word who was in the beginning, the only-begotten God, is foreign to all progress and alteration, how does what now is not become afterwards? For the apostle does not speak of the Son as always being subordinated, but as about to be subordinated at the end of the completion of the universe. Yet if submission is good and worthy to be said of God, how is the good now absent from God? For it is equally good for both, for the subordinated Son and for the Father who receives the Son's submission. Therefore, such a good is lacking at present for both the Father and the Son, and what neither the Father nor the Son had before the ages, this will accrue to both the Father and the Son at the completion of time, the one undergoing submission, the other receiving some addition and increase of his own glory through this, which he does not yet have at present. Where, then, in this is the unchangeable? For that which becomes something afterwards but is not now is proper to a changeable nature.

If, then, submission is good, it is fitting to believe that the good belongs to God even now; but if such a thing is unworthy in the case of God, it is so neither now nor at any other time. Yet the Apostle says that the Son will then be subject to God the Father, not that he is now subject; therefore the passage looks to some other purpose, and the meaning of the term is far from the malice of the heretics. What, then, is the meaning? Perhaps one might better discern the sense through the context of the writings composed in this section. For since he undertook a polemical discourse against the Corinthians, who accepted faith in the Lord but considered the doctrine of the resurrection of men a myth, saying, "How are the dead raised, and with what body do they come, when the bodies, after death, have perished into oblivion in manifold and various ways, either through decay or through being consumed by flesh-eating reptiles, fish, birds, or quadrupeds?" For this reason he set forth many arguments for them, persuading them not to compare God's power with their own, nor to suppose that what is impossible for man is equally so for God, but to infer the grandeur of divine authority from examples familiar to us.

and thus he sets before them the wonder-working concerning the bodies of seeds, which are always being renewed by divine power, and shows that the wisdom of God has not been at a loss to devise countless forms of bodies throughout the whole, both rational and irrational, aerial and terrestrial, and those that appear to us in the heavens, both the sun and the remaining stars, each of which, having come to be by divine power, becomes for us a demonstration that God would not be at a loss for our bodies at the resurrection. For if all existing things were not transformed from some underlying matter into what appears, but the divine will became matter and substance of the creations, it is much more possible to construct that which already exists to be brought back again into its own form than for that which originally was not to come into subsistence and substance. Having then shown in his words to them that, since the first man was dissolved into earth through sin and for this reason was called earthy, it followed that according to that man all those born from him would be earthy and mortal, he necessarily added also the second sequence through which man is again re-elemented from the mortal to immortality, speaking in like manner the good

has been poured out from one into all by nature, just as evil also spread through one into a multitude, being expanded by the succession of those who come after. And he has used these words to construct the doctrine concerning this. The first man, he says, is earthy from the earth; the second is from heaven; as the earthy man is, so are the earthy men, and as the heavenly man is, so are the heavenly men; and just as we have borne the image of the earthy man, so we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man. Having thus strengthened the argument concerning the resurrection by these and similar reasonings, and having entangled the heretics in syllogisms through many other arguments in which he demonstrated that one who disbelieves in the resurrection of men does not even accept the resurrection of Christ, he constructed through the interweaving of connected propositions the inescapable conclusion, saying: If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not risen; but if Christ has not risen, then faith in him is vain. For since the proposition that Christ has risen from the dead is true, the conditional statement must also be entirely true: that there is a resurrection of the dead; for by the particular demonstration the universal is also demonstrated. And conversely, if one says that the universal—that there is a resurrection of the dead—is false, then the particular—that Christ has risen from the dead—will certainly not be found true; for if it is universally impossible, it is certainly not possible in any particular case. But indeed this is trustworthy and uncontroversial for those who have accepted the Word: that Christ has risen from the dead.

Necessarily, in the particular faith in the resurrection of Christ, the universal will also have credibility. Thus, having compelled them syllogistically to accept the doctrine by saying that if it is not (for the universal, not being, cannot exist in anything either; but if we believe that this one has been raised, the faith concerning this becomes a demonstration of the universal resurrection of men) and having added to the argument that by which the entire construction of this doctrine is concluded—namely, "Just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive"—he clearly reveals the mystery concerning this, toward what it looks, directing the argument in what follows through some necessary sequence toward the end of the things hoped for. And the aim of what is said is this. I will first set forth in my own words the meaning of what has been written, and then I will place the apostle's word, which is applied to the meaning previously set forth by us. What, then, is the aim of the argument which the divine apostle dogmatizes in that part? That at some time the nature of evil will pass over into non-being, having been utterly obliterated from being, and that the divine and pure goodness will encompass every rational nature in itself, none of the things that have come into being from God falling away from the kingdom of God, when all the evil that has been mixed in with existing things, like some base metal, has been consumed through the smelting of the purifying fire, and everything that had its genesis from God becomes such as it was from the beginning, when it had not yet admitted evil. And he says that this happens in the following way:

It happened, he says, in the mortal and perishable nature of human beings, the pure and undefiled divinity of the only-begotten. And from the whole of human nature with which the divine was mingled, like a kind of firstfruit of the common dough, the man according to Christ subsisted, through whom the whole human race was grafted to the divinity. Since, then, in that one every nature of evil was obliterated—who committed no sin, as the prophet says, nor was any guile found in his mouth—and along with sin in the same one, the death that follows it was also obliterated (for there is no other origin of death than sin), from that one began both the disappearance of evil and the dissolution of death. Then, as it were, a certain order was imposed upon what happens through some sequence. For that which, according to the descent of the good, is either more distant from the first or found to be closer, according as each has worth and power, follows in this way upon what leads; so that after the man in Christ, who became the firstfruit of our nature, having received the divinity in himself, who also became the Firstfruit of the fallen asleep and the Firstborn from the dead, having loosed the pangs of death—after this man, then, who is wholly separated from sin and has abolished in himself the power of death and dissolved all its beginning, authority, and power, if anyone, according to Paul, should be found who has become, as far as possible, an imitator of Christ in the alienation from evil, such a one will follow after the firstfruit in the time of the presence.

And again this one—I mean by hypothesis Timothy, if it so happens, who, being a son, imitated the teacher in himself, or some other such person—and so on in succession, all those who, through the gradual diminution of the good, are found behind those who always take precedence, until the sequence of those following reaches those in whom, with evil predominating, the portion of the better is found to be lesser. According to the same proportion, the sequence from those who have the lesser in wickedness makes the order of those ascending toward the better, until the advance of the good reaches the utmost limit of evil, annihilating wickedness. This indeed is the end of hope, that nothing opposed to the good should be left behind, but that the divine life, passing through all things, should utterly annihilate death from among beings, its sin having been first removed, from which, as has been said, death held its kingdom over human beings.

Since, then, every evil authority and rule in us has been dissolved and no passion any longer dominates our nature, it is absolutely necessary, with no other power prevailing, that everything be subjected to the authority over all. And subjection to God is the complete alienation of evil. Therefore, when, in imitation of the firstfruits, we all become outside of evil, then the whole lump of nature, mingled with the firstfruits and having become one continuous body, will receive the hegemony of the good alone over itself, and thus, with the whole body of our nature blended into the divine and pure nature, that so-called subjection of the Son takes place through us, the subjection accomplished in his body being referred back to him who worked the grace of subjection in us. This, then, is the meaning of the doctrines of the great Paul, as we have understood it. And it would be opportune to set forth the very words of the apostle, which run thus: "For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive; each in his own order: Christ as firstfruits, then those of Christ at his coming, then the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God and Father, when he abolishes every rule and authority and power. For he must reign until he places the enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be abolished is death; for he subjected all under his feet. And when he says that he subjected all, it is clear that this is excepting the one who subjected all to him.

When he has subjected everything to himself, then he himself will be subjected to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all things in all. For clearly, in the last of the statements, the argument demonstrates the non-existence of evil by saying that God becomes all things in all, becoming everything for each. For it is evident that then it will be true that God is in all, when no evil is observed in beings. For it is not likely that God comes to be in evil. So either he will not be in all when some evil remains in beings, or, if one must truly believe that he is in all, the non-existence of evil is demonstrated together with this belief. For it is not possible for God to come to be in evil. And that God becomes all things in all beings indicates the simple and uniform character of the life hoped for by us. For the argument presents this: that our life is no longer assembled through many and varied things, as in the present life, by the fact that God becomes for us all things that seem necessary for this life, each being partaken of through some analogy to the divine; so that God is for us food, as it is fitting for God to be eaten, and drink, likewise, and clothing and shelter, air, place, wealth, enjoyment, beauty, health, strength, prudence, glory, blessedness, and everything that is judged in the good portion, of which nature is in need, the meaning of the terms being elevated to what is befitting to God; so that through this one may learn that he who has come to be in God has everything in having him. And having God is nothing other than being united with God.

No one could be united otherwise unless he became co-corporeal with him, as Paul names it; for all, being joined to the one body of Christ through participation, become one body of him. When, therefore, the good passes through all things, then his whole body will be subjected to the life-giving authority, and thus the subjection of this body is said to be the subjection of the Son who is mingled with his own body, which is the church, as the apostle says to the Colossians, speaking thus in these very words: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings and I fill up the deficiencies of the afflictions for Christ in my flesh for the sake of his body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the economy." And to the church of the Corinthians he says: "You are the body of Christ and members in part." And more clearly to the Ephesians he sets forth the doctrine concerning this in what he says: "But speaking truth in love, let us increase into him all things, who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted together and compacted through every contact of the supply, according to the activity in the measure of each part, effects the growth of the body for the building up of himself in love"; as through those always being added to the faith, Christ builds himself up.

He will cease building himself when the growth and perfection of his body reaches its own measure, and there is no longer anything lacking to the body that is added by building, when all have been built upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles and have been added to the faith, when, as the apostle says, we all arrive at the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, into a perfect man, into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. If, therefore, being himself the head, he builds his subsequent body through those who are continually added, fitting together and uniting all into what each is naturally suited for according to the measure of his activity, so as to become a hand or an eye or a foot or hearing or something else of the things that complete the body according to the proportion of each one's faith, and if in doing these things he builds himself, as has been said, it would be clear from these things that, becoming in all, he receives into himself all who are united to him through the communion of the body, and makes all members of his own body, so that there are many members but one body. Therefore, the one who has united us to himself and has been united to us, and has become one with us through all things, appropriates all our things. And the chief of our goods is submission to the divine, when all creation becomes harmonious with itself and every knee bends to him, of heavenly and earthly and subterranean beings, and every tongue confesses that Lord Jesus Christ.

Then, when all creation has become one body and all have grown together with each other in him through obedience, he refers the submission of his own body to the Father back to himself. Let no one be astonished at what is said. For we also, by some custom, attribute to the soul what occurs through our body, as that speaker attributes to his own soul, on account of the fertility of the land, the fullness of the flesh, saying, "Eat, drink, and be merry," and refers the satiety of the flesh to the soul. So too there, the submission of the ecclesiastical body is referred to the one who dwells in the body. And since everything that has come to be is preserved in him, and preservation is interpreted through submission, as the psalmody suggests for understanding, we accordingly learn in this part of the Apostle to believe that nothing is outside those who are preserved. And this the word signifies by the destruction of death and the submission of the Son, because these things coincide with each other: that death never exists and that all come to be in life. And life is the Lord, through whom, according to the apostolic word, the approach to the Father occurs for his whole body, "when he delivers our kingdom to God and Father." And his body, as has been said many times, is the whole human nature with which he was mingled. For this very meaning, the Lord was also called by Paul the Mediator between God and men. For he who is in the Father and has come to be among men fulfills the mediation in this: in uniting all in himself and through himself to the Father, as the Lord says in the Gospel, addressing his speech to the Father.

that all may be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, so that they also may be one in us. For this clearly demonstrates that he who is in the Father, having united us to himself, through himself accomplishes our connection to the Father. And the subsequent parts of the Gospel also agree with what has been said: "The glory which you have given me, I have given to them." For I think that here he means by "glory" the Holy Spirit, which he gave to the disciples through the breath. For it is not possible for those who are separated from each other to be united unless they grow together through the unity of the Spirit. For if someone does not have the Spirit of Christ, that person is not his. And the Spirit is the glory, as he says elsewhere to the Father: "Glorify me with the glory which I had from the beginning with you before the world existed." For the God Logos, who before the world had the glory of the Father, when he became flesh in the last days, it was necessary that the flesh also, through its mixture with the Logos, become that which the Logos is. And this happens by its receiving that which the Logos had before the world; and this was the Holy Spirit, for nothing else is pre-eternal except Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Therefore, he says here also: "The glory which you have given me, I have given to them," so that through it they may be united to me and through me to you. Let us also see what is added next in the Gospel: "That they may be one, just as we are one; you in me and I in them; for I and you are one; that they may be perfected into the one.

These things, I think, require no further explanation to be fitted to the preceding thought, since the wording itself clearly sets forth the doctrine concerning them: that they may be one, just as we are one. For it is not possible for all to become one, just as we are one, unless, having been separated from all that divides them from one another, they are united to us who are one, that they may be one, just as we are one. And how does this happen? Because I am in them. For it is not possible that I alone be in them, but certainly also you, since I and you are one. And thus those who are perfected in us will be perfected into the one, for we are the one. And this grace is more clearly indicated in the subsequent discourse, when he says: You have loved them as you have loved me. For if the Father loves the Son, and we all become in the Son, becoming his body through faith in him, then consequently he who loves his own Son also loves the Son's body as the Son himself; and we are the body. Therefore, through what has been said, the apostolic meaning has become clear: that the subordination of the Son to the Father signifies the coming knowledge and salvation of the whole human nature.

The discourse would become clearer to us also from certain other apostolic thoughts, of which I will mention only one, declining the many testimonies out of caution not to extend the discourse to excess. For Paul says somewhere in his own words: "I have been crucified with Christ; I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." Therefore, if Paul, who was crucified to the world, no longer lives, but Christ lives in him, everything done and said by Paul is reasonably referred to the Christ living in him. For the one who said, "Do you seek proof of the Christ speaking in me?" declares that Paul's words are spoken by Christ. And he attributes the evangelical achievements not to himself but to the grace of Christ dwelling in him. If, then, the Christ living in him is said, as a consequence, to act and speak his words, and Paul, having withdrawn from all the things that formerly prevailed, when he was blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent, looks only to the true good and makes himself obedient and submissive to it, then Paul's submission to God also has its reference to the one living in him, who both speaks the good things in Paul and works them. And the chief of all good things is submission to God. What the discourse found in the case of one will reasonably be applied to the whole creation of men, when, as the Lord says, the gospel comes to be in the whole world.

For when all have put off the old man together with his deeds and desires and have received the Lord within themselves, of necessity the one living in them works the good things that come from them. And the highest of all goods is the salvation that comes to us through the alienation of evil; but it is not possible to be separated from evil otherwise than by being mingled with God through submission; therefore this very submission to God has its reference to the one living in us. For if anything is beautiful, it is from him, and if anything is good, it is from him, as one of the prophets says. Since, then, submission has been shown to be beautiful and good and from him, the good of this also is entirely from him from whom the nature of every good comes, as the word of the prophet says. And let no one, looking at the common misuse of the name of submission, reject the name. For the wisdom of the great Paul knows how to use words as it sees fit, and to adapt the meanings of words to the particular sequence of his thought, even if custom brings the misuse of expressions to some other notions. For whence did he take the use of "he emptied himself," and "my boast no one will empty," and "faith has been emptied," and "lest the cross of Christ be emptied"? From what usage did he admit these into his own discourse? And who will judge the one who said, "longing for you," by which expression he indicates the affectionate relationship? And whence did he indicate the unpretentiousness of love through the expression "not to be boastful"?

But the contentious and defensive rivalry—how is it indicated by him through the word "eritheia," when it is clear to all that "erithos" is named from wool-working outside of Scripture, and we are accustomed to signify zeal for wool by the name "eritheia"? Yet Paul, having dismissed cold etymologies, sets forth the meaning he wishes through whatever words he chooses. For indeed many other things could be found by those examining accurately in the apostle's words that do not serve the usage of custom, but are uttered by him with authority according to some peculiar concept, with no regard for custom. Thus, then, also here the signification of "subjection" has been understood by Paul as something other than the common notions. And proof of the argument is that even in this part the subjection of the enemies mentioned by him does not have the forced and involuntary character, as those who serve custom would say, but clearly in their case salvation is interpreted by the name "subjection." A proof is that in this part Paul has distinguished the name "enmity" into a double signification; for of the enemies, some will be subjected.

He says that some will be destroyed, while others will be subjected. The enemy by nature, that is, death, and the rule, authority, and power of sin that surrounds it, is destroyed. But those who are called enemies of God in another sense—those who have deserted from the kingdom to sin—will be subjected. He also mentions them in the Epistle to the Romans, saying, "For if we, being enemies, were reconciled to God." For he calls the subjection here reconciliation, indicating one meaning, salvation, through each of the terms. For just as being saved comes from subjection, so too he says elsewhere, "Having been reconciled, we shall be saved in his life." He says, then, that such enemies are subjected to God the Father, but that death and the rule around it will no longer exist. For the word "katargēthēsetai" indicates this: that through this it becomes clear that the dominion of evils will be completely annulled. But those who were called enemies of God through disobedience will become friends of the Lord through subjection, when they are persuaded by the one who says, "We are ambassadors for Christ," as God entreats through us: "We beseech you for Christ's sake, be reconciled to God." And according to the promise made in the Gospel, they will no longer be numbered among the slaves by the Lord, but among the friends, having been reconciled. And as for the statement, "For he must reign until he places his enemies under his feet," we will piously accept it, I think, understanding that he excels through reigning.

For then the one who is mighty in war ceases from his valour, when everything opposed to the good has been obliterated, when he has gathered together his entire kingdom and presented it to God and Father, having united all things to himself. For handing over the kingdom to the Father is identical in meaning to presenting all to God, through whom we have access in one Spirit to the Father. Therefore, when all those who were once enemies have become a footstool for the feet of God by receiving the divine footprint within themselves, and when death has been abolished (for if there are no dying persons, death will certainly not exist either), then, in the submission of us all—which is understood not as slavish abasement but as kingdom, incorruption, and blessedness—the one who lives in us is said by Paul to submit to God, the one who perfects our good through himself and makes what is pleasing to himself in us. These things, according to the measure of our understanding, we have perceived from the great wisdom of Paul, as far as we were capable, in this part, wishing to show that the champions of heretical doctrines have not examined the apostle’s aim, with a view to which he composed the present discourse. If, then, the assurance on this question through what has been said is sufficient for you, the grace is to be referred to God; but if something should appear to you to be lacking, we shall gladly accept the filling up of what is lacking, if it should be made known to us by you through your letter and revealed by the Holy Spirit through our prayers—the revelation of hidden things.