On the Divine and Deifying Communion or on the Divine and Supernatural Simplicity

Treatise of St. Gregory Palamas “On divine and deifying communion or on divine and supernatural simplicity” (30 chapters, 1341-1342) is devoted to the concepts of Divine simplicity and the possibility of a person’s real participation in Divine life (deification) through uncreated energies. The author's main goal in this work is to show how God can be absolutely simple and uncomplicated in His essence, while possessing many uncreated energies through which He acts and is known. This was a direct response to the objections of his opponents, Barlaam of Calabria and Gregory Akindinus, who argued that the presence in God of anything other than His essence (such as energies) inevitably destroys His absolute simplicity and introduces complexity into Him, making Him composite. Saint Gregory shows that Divine simplicity is a supernatural simplicity that surpasses all human understanding and thinking. Divine energies are not “parts” of God or additions to His essence. They are His very essence in Its free manifestation and self-outpouring, without introducing into It any complexity or composition. Energies are His natural, uncreated actions, which are an expression of His one and simple Divine Will. Thus, God is simple and absolutely indivisible, but at the same time actively manifests itself outside. It is through these uncreated and simple Divine energies that man’s deifying communion with God is realized. A person does not partake of the incomprehensible Divine essence, which remains completely transcendental, but he really and experientially unites with the uncreated grace of God - His energies. This communion transforms the whole person - his soul and body - making him “God by grace.” Unity with God is not a fusion or dissolution of human nature into the Divine, because the distinction between the Creator and the creature remains. *Title of the work in Greek –Περὶ θείας καὶ θεοποιοῦ μεθέξεως ἢ περὶ τῆς θείας καὶ ὑπερφυοῦς ἁπλότητος. 1. Let us state what is openly said by both sides and, as it seems, contains some reason for the difficulty. Our opponents say: “If you call the grace bestowed upon the saints uncreated only because they partake of God, Whom all created things partake—after all, He extends to everything, giving to others being, and to others, in addition to being, also sensual, or rational, or mental life—then in everything there will be something uncreated: in one - being, in another - life, in a third, moreover, - reason and thinking.” We, in agreement with the saints, would consider them not worthy of objection - in Christian dogmas, faith, and not proof, predominates; but for the sake of those who are carried away by these seemingly plausible speeches, they should answer: “If, dear ones, you call the grace that deifies the saints created because all created things participate in God, then everything will be glorified as holy among you, and you will idolize every creature; not only rational creatures - or rather, those of them who have become partakers of the deifying gift of the spirit - will turn out to be holy, but also the unreasonable ones, and besides them - those without a soul. What happens if one gets a better existence and a better life than another? You will see the difference between your saints. This means that a bee will be holier for you than a fly, a lamb will be holier than a bee, other animals will be a lamb, and a man will be holier than them, even if it is Jezebel. And one more thing: an ant is holier than a mosquito, and its holier than a ram, or, if you like, a bull or an elephant, or some other animal, and their holier, again, is man, even if he is like Ahab. Such a saint will be the one who, with his ridiculous teachings, pushes us to such ridiculous reasoning, although he is an obvious opponent of the Gospel of Christ.” 2. After all, if the deifying gift of the Spirit is created and abides in the saints like a certain natural state or imitation, as those who attack us teach us everywhere, then the deified saints do not rise above nature, and are not born of God, and are not the Spirit, as those born of the Spirit, and are not one spirit with the Lord, for they cleave to Him, and not only to those who believe in His name did Christ give the power to be children of God, when He came to His people, and not only to His own, but instead - if He is present in us by nature - He remained with all the pagans, and even now He remains with both the wicked and the godless. Listen to what the godlike Maximus says, talking with Pyrrhus: “By the command of God, Moses and David walked, and all who, by the deposition of human and carnal properties, became receptacles of Divine action.” And again, in another place: “... as if the image returned to the prototype and acquired the Divine action, or, rather, by deification it became God’s and, by the grace of the Spirit that conquered it, began to more fully enjoy the exit from what by nature exists and is thought in it.” 3. This means that the deified do not simply improve their nature, but acquire the Divine action itself, the Holy Spirit Himself; That’s why, in the words of the great Basil, “when we reflect on His own dignity, we see Him with the Father and the Son, but when we think about the grace acting in the participants, we say that He abides in us.” If He is present in the saints as well as in creatures, and as God creates holiness in the saints, according to your wise reflection, as He does other properties in everything else, then what is the need for Christ and His coming? What need is there for Christ's baptism and the authority and power it bestows? What need is there first for a second breath, and for the sending down of the spirit, and for its infusion? And so He was in us, as in everything. And God, it turns out, equally creates and deifies. However, the great Basil wisely says: “If God equally creates and gives birth, then Christ is equally our Creator and Father, because He is God, and there is no need for adoption by the Holy Spirit.” “He raised us up together,” says the apostle, “and made us sit together in heaven in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming centuries He might reveal the exceeding riches of His grace in kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, but the gift of God; not by works, so that no one can boast” (Eph. 2:6-9). And will you invent for us deification, achieved only by deeds of imitation of nature, arguing that natural imitation is the deifying gift and Divine grace? “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His” (Rom. 8:9), and “The Spirit of God dwells in us” (1 Cor. 3:16), and “we are all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13), and “he who cleaves to the Lord is one Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17), and Christ dwells in the hearts of the faithful by the Spirit, and “having heard the word of truth and believed in it, they were sealed the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance" (Eph. 1:13,14), and "we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, by what He has given us of His Spirit" (1 John 4:13), and "we have not received," says the apostle, "the spirit of slavery, but the Spirit of adoption as sons" (Rom. 8:15). 4. And do you call those who, out of perfect purity of heart, clearly saw and experienced the radiance of the glory of God and accepted the Son, who came with the Father to create an abode in them and appear to them, as He promised, partakers and contemplatives of created things? What are you saying? The Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit of promise, the guarantee of the inheritance of the saints, the Spirit of adoption, the promise of the Spirit, which the Son received from the Father and gave to those who believe in Him, the Spirit, according to the word of the prophet Joel, poured out from the Spirit of God on His servants and handmaids - you imagine it to be created and consider it a natural imitation, and those who abstain from blasphemy Do you think you are proclaiming the wicked everywhere? Are you not ashamed of the apostle who says “that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in us” (1 Cor. 6:19), and also: “You are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you” (1 Cor. 3:16)? Could he honor the dwelling of a slave with the name of a church? If in us, as in everything, then the church of God is also every unreasonable creature, and every wild beast, and every reptile, not to mention the fact that also every one of the Hellenes who worship them, and every other idol of theirs. And in vain, in spite of this, the apostle extols those who believe and are good in faith: “Do you not know that you are the church of God, and the spirit of God lives in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16), “unless,” he says, “you are not what you ought to be” (2 Cor. 13:5). 5. But our opponent says: “You fragment the Divine Spirit, calling the lower uncreated, and measure out God, attributing to one saint greater, to another lesser grace, which, in addition, is not that likeness to God, which everyone achieves in his own measure by imitation, but something different from him, coming from above, given, uncreated.” To whom do you want to object in this way, us or the prophet? Rather, to the God of the prophets, who said through the mouth of one of them: “I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh” (Joel 2:28), and to the apostle, speaking about “the dispensing of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:11), and to Dionysius, who wisely writes: “That to which all who are like the One strive is one, but although it always remains one and unchanging, they partake of it not all in the same way, but to each the Divine scales weigh out a share according to his dignity.” This means that it is not the spirit that is weighed and measured, but rather He Himself measures what He partakes of, and allocates Himself to each according to his dignity, in accordance with His saving justice. And it is not He who shares, but we are able to accommodate only a small fraction of His immeasurable radiance. 6. That is why it is written about Paul that he spent a short time in communion with the radiance of the great light. And those who ascended the mountain with the Lord saw His glory “not entirely, lest in seeing it they should lose their lives.” The Spirit not only abides inseparably in the separate, but also those who partake of Him, to the extent possible, as a uniting force, unites and lifts them to the unity and deifying simplicity of the uniting Father. Thus, the Spirit, as befits something good, proceeds and multiplies for the sake of uniting those for whom it has providence, while remaining in its abode with supernatural power. And since this outpouring, sending down and procession turns out to be a manifestation - “after all, it is given to everyone,” according to the apostle, “the manifestation of the Spirit for the benefit” (1 Cor. 12:7), then will we really measure the Spirit, which determines the measure of the Epiphany for those who mysteriously encounter Him? And useless to everyone, never fully revealed and infinitely superior to all appearance and thought, will it be divided and composed of lower and higher? And you do not understand this, O omniscient ones, that what is manifested, or thought, or received through communion is not a part of God, so that God would not suffer division among us, but all of Him in some way both appears and does not appear, is thought and not thought, is given in the sacrament and is not available for communion? 7. And since, according to the words of the great Dionysius, “deification is likeness to God and union with Him,” how can we accept that deification is a natural imitation? After all, we need assimilation in order to correspond to this union by which deification is completed. Without union, likeness will not be sufficient for deification. Moreover, what is needed, I say, is the likeness that comes from doing and keeping the commandments of God, and it is accomplished not simply by natural imitation, but by the power of the Spirit, coming to us from above during holy rebirth and ineffably uniting with those who are baptized. By it those who “were born not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God” (John 1:13), like newborn babies, “are able to come to the measure of the fulfillment of Christ” (Eph.4:13). After all, “never,” says Dionysius, “nothing given from God will be known or fulfilled by anyone who has not been given Divine existence.” So, my dear, learn thoroughly, as they say, about the supernatural nature of deification: since nature does not give it a beginning from itself, then how can its completion be natural and created? And if in its beginning it is much superior to natural imitation, how, when completed, will it be natural imitation? John, the son of Zechariah, baptizes, but with water only. Jesus, the Son of God, also baptizes, but with water and the Spirit. What is added? Is it just the name? Not at all. But the deifying grace and power itself, the Holy Spirit Himself, is not poured out by nature on the baptized person, but descends according to the inherent grace of sanctification. If she was created, and having received from her, we became partakers of something created, how can the Holy Spirit be uncreated? 8. “If by communion of the Spirit,” in the words of the great Athanasius, “we become partakers of the Divine nature, then only a madman can say that the Spirit has a created nature, and not the nature of the Son.” If Christ Himself, the Son of God, baptized, like John, in created things and infused created power and grace into those who were baptized, how could He, in the words of Paul, “be revealed”, that is, be definitely recognized, “the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, through the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4)? What kind of power was revealed and revealed Jesus as the Son of God - was it really created? And how could He then be known through her as God? And don’t tell me that she cleansed the lepers, enlightened the blind, straightened the bowed, strengthened the paralytic - after all, paying attention first of all to this is typical of the myopia of the Pharisees - but think that first she invisibly destroyed the shackles of sin, and prepared a place for the Spirit of holiness, and corrects and enlightens the inner man, and through union with God raises the soul from the dead and gives it life in God - the Divine and truly eternal life of God. After all, the resurrection of the body is only a consequence of this resurrection, just as death initially followed the death of the soul; and the death of the soul is alienation from life in God. It is this death that is truly terrible, and the physical death that follows it is very desirable when it is completed, and is the mercy of God, which, alas, many of the condemned will lose at the coming judgment. This is the kind of resurrection that awaits those who have not used the God-given talent of Divine grace for good - a resurrection forever connected with that other death, as John revealed to us in Revelation, and worse than death. If in this way some live immortally, although they have died, and many others who live here are dead, as the Lord of life and death has shown, then there is also death of the soul, although by nature the soul remains immortal. How will she live if she has received created life as her inheritance, and while living it, she ends up dead? This means that in order to be reborn to a better being, she needs to receive a share in uncreated life, without being separated from the spirit. Therefore, Vasily, who partook of it, speaks from experience: “And the life that the Spirit infuses into someone else’s hypostasis is not separated from Him, but He also has life in Himself, and those who partake of Him live God-like, having acquired Divine and heavenly life.” 9. Do you also want to truly know that those who are worthy of deification acquire the Holy Spirit Himself not by nature, but by uncreated illumination and grace? Listen to what Dionysius says: “The purpose of the hierarchy is to assimilate, as far as possible, to God and to unite with Him, making those who worship Him Divine likenesses, the clearest unsullied mirrors, capable of receiving the rays of the Divine First Light.” If what everyone partakes of is one thing, but is given not equally, but differently, then what prevents both saints and non-saints from communing with God, with the difference between these communions being that one is uncreated and the other created? Like Athanasius the Great, who said: “One God is the Father” (1 Cor. 8:6), the beginning of everything, according to the word of the Apostle, “and the Word is from Him in the manner of generation, and the Spirit from Him in the manner of procession,” - if someone asked him why he only calls the Son and the Spirit true God and inseparable from the Father, although everything comes from the Father, in essence he would answer that because of the difference in being: after all, the Son and the Spirit receive being from the Father - true, as independent hypostases as radiance and a ray from the light, and everything else - as creations from the creator - we will also say that although everything participates in God, we see the greatest difference in the communion of the saints. After all, why, tell me, is the life of none of the creatures that partake of the Divine life in a sensual, or rational, or mental way, is and is not called God-like or God-inspired, and not one of them is Divine, or God-chosen, or God-bearing, much less God, unless it is one of the deified? Those who by their nature live only sensually - and some live and are completely devoid of feeling - are in no way capable of Divine life, although they also participate in God. 10. Do you see that although there is the Divine in everything, and everything partakes of It, yet only in the saints It abides completely, and only they partake of It completely? And, therefore, it is true and true that just as we have one true God, although there are many gods, and they are called that way, and just as only one is truly glorified among us, the Son of God, for He is the only begotten Son, although there are many sons of God, and they are called so, so also some saints are called partakers of God and partakers of Christ, although many - or rather, all - partake of God “For it is impossible,” says Paul, “once enlightened, and having tasted the heavenly gift, and becoming partakers of the Holy Spirit...” (Heb. 6:4) completely as if they had not received communion before. And the Lord promises to come and create an abode with those who love Him and those beloved by Him, completely as if he had not been with them before and had not lived in them. This means that it was necessary for those who were deified to become very similar to God, and those who were adopted by nature to be like the Son. Just as one God exists, living, holy, good, “one having immortality, dwelling in the unapproachable light,” although many exist, and live, and are holy and good, and immortal, and dwell in the light and in the land of the living, so the saints alone are partakers of God, although all partake of Him. 11. Don’t you think that such a great difference is enough for us to consider the communion of those living the Divine life uncreated, even if Paul had not said: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20)? Even if Maxim had not said again about Paul and those like him: “They carry within themselves not a temporary life, which has a beginning and an end, but the Divine and eternal life of the indwelling Word”? And again: “The divine and incomprehensible life, even if it allows those who partake of it by grace to taste it, does not allow it to be comprehended; after all, it always, even with the communion of those who partake of it, remains incomprehensible, because, as the unborn, by nature it has infinity.” And again: “Granting unborn deification as a reward to those who obey Him”; unborn deification is called “an illumination that is hypostatic in appearance, which has not a birth, but an incomprehensible manifestation in the worthy.” 12. And the great Athanasius says: “That we are called partakers of Christ and partakers of God is shown by our anointing and sealing, which does not have the nature of a begotten thing.” And again: “God’s love for mankind also lies in the fact that for those for whom He was the creator, for those by grace he later becomes a father - when created people accept “into their hearts the Spirit of the Son, crying: “Abba, Father!” (Gal4:6). Otherwise, as creatures by nature, they would not have become sons if they had not received the Spirit of Him Who by nature is Existent and True. Therefore, “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14), in order to make human nature capable of receiving the Divine.” And again: “As the Spirit and power of the Most High were promised to the apostles, so also to the Virgin.” And the great Basil says: “Become a sharer of the grace of Christ by the Holy Spirit, be called a child of light, partake of eternal glory.” And again: “That to which the Holy Spirit imparted eternal motion became a holy animal. Through the infusion of the Spirit into him, man received the dignity of a prophet, an apostle, an angel, a god, having previously been earth and dust.” And again: “It is not by accepting slavery that a slave is made a son, and it is not by servitude that he receives the freedom to call God father.” And again: “Those created in His image are partakers of the Creator, and therefore are born of the Spirit. After all, everything created would be pitiful in comparison with God and, by its created nature, deprived of the glory of the Creator, if it did not partake of the Divine. It would be unworthy to say about God that He neglects creation, as if it were completely deprived of Him and abandoned by Him. However, neither creation is so pitiful, nor God is so powerless, that holy provision should not be bestowed upon creatures.” And again: “The creation was renewed, having received from the Spirit, having lost Whom it had fallen into decay”; “After all, the current renewal and agreement must correspond to the original novelty. This means that it was not someone else who sealed the breath with a breath than the one who initially blew, but the same One to whom God gave the breath - then together with the soul, now into the soul.” And Father Chrysostom, chanting the grace of Divine Baptism, says: “Then “man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7), and now “a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). And the difference is great: after all, the soul does not communicate life to another, but the spirit not only lives itself, but also communicates life to others. This is how the apostles raised the dead.” 13. The divine Cyril also expounds this at greater length, refuting those who claim that the Divine breath has become the soul of man. Already concluding his speech, he says: “What He breathed in is thought to belong completely to Him, or to His nature. Was the Spirit who proceeded from God cast down into the nature of the soul? Consequently, the animal received a soul,” he says, “by the ineffable power of God and through likeness to Him became, as far as possible by nature, good, righteous and capable of all virtue. It was sanctified, becoming a participant in the Divine Spirit, which it lost through sin.” What can they say to this who claim that the deifying gift of the Spirit is a created and natural imitation, and not a Divine, ineffable, and ineffably infusing action? And Saint Maximus says: “We experience deification as something beyond nature, but we do not accomplish it.” And again: “Nothing by nature can accomplish deification.” 14. Let us return, however, to what we digressed from, and continue our speech in order. Nothing prevents us from saying that just as “no one is good except God alone” (Matthew 19:17), so nothing participates in God except the good angels and those people who mysteriously again received into their souls the Divine breath that initially departed from Adam due to the violation of God’s command. To the one who denies this idea, I would gladly ask: “Is it not absolutely necessary that what communes with another could exist before this communion and be first something in itself? However, beings who live by the communion of God in a sensual, or rational, or mental way, no matter what feeling - or reason and mind - falls to their lot, have they not yet communed with God? Will anyone say that they only had an existence to which these abilities were added? But they also have their existence through the participation of God. It is clear, therefore, that they do not partake of God completely, but in the way that is said about God’s creations, that they partake of His creative energy and power - like any products that, in the form of a vague reflection, contain the intention of a craftsman, but have absolutely no participation in active thinking.” 15. The saints, having originally a created nature, add to it the supernatural and Divine communion - not as a craft is added to what is done according to its rules, but as they perceive and assimilate a skill, “always present, and manifested by action when necessary” - in the variety of gifts of the Spirit. And just as the word abides in us, says the great Basil, so does the Spirit in us: sometimes it is in our heart, when “the Spirit bears witness to our spirit” (Rom. 8:16) and when He “cries out in our hearts: “Abba, Father!” (Gal.4:6), sometimes it is expressed in language - “for it is not you who will speak,” according to the word of the one who teaches the wisdom of non-dispute, “but the Spirit of your Father will speak in you” (Matthew 10:20). But, as the apostle says, He must think about the distribution of gifts as a whole in parts. Therefore, “we are all members of one another” (Eph. 4:25). Moreover, “as the power of sight is in the healthy eye, so is the work of the Spirit in the purified soul.” Therefore, he also calls the radiance emanating from the Spirit His outflow. “Just as something lying next to something brightly colored,” he says, “is itself colored in a flowing brilliance, so he who clearly sees the Spirit is transformed by His glory and enlightened, as if illuminated by some light from the truth emanating from Him.” And Gregory, who received the nickname in theology, enumerating what awaited his deceased sister Gorgonia, says, turning to her: “I know for sure: what you now abide in is immeasurably better and much more precious than what is visible physically - the doxology of the celebrants, the round dance of angels, the heavenly army, the contemplation of glory, the purest and most perfect radiance of another, the highest Trinity, shining to our full souls.” the light of the Divine,” and then, continuing the speech, he briefly summarizes: “You partake of everything that was given to you in the form of outflows on earth, according to the sincerity of your aspiration for this.” This means that the nature of the outflow is that it is given without being separated from the one who gives, and while it is giving, it does not undergo any diminution; and how could something like this be experienced by light, emitting a ray, or a ray, producing radiance? 16. And please, do not talk about the outflows of matter, but, if possible, consider the method of giving the spirit to the saints, clearing this word of any inappropriate meaning. How can He shine inexpressibly in all the saints in a visible way? “Like the rays of the sun,” says the great Basil, “they make the cloud glow and shine, giving it the appearance of gold.” Imagine, please, that such clouds, vestments of light, are capable of sensing this Divine light and have become, as it were, some kind of eyes through participation in this light; then they become almost equal in light and see in such light. In the same way, the saints, having become inspired and God-like, alone fully commune with God. They not only receive communion, but also receive communion. They can not only judge what has already happened, but they also know something of what has not yet been brought out of oblivion. They not only live, but also give life, which is impossible for created power. However, after the truth has been presented, it is necessary to listen again to the preachers of the truth, who claim that only the saints commune with God; After all, we always present them as witnesses of the truth. 17. So, the great Basil says: “Having been cleansed of the shame that stained vice, and returning to natural beauty, as if returning to the royal image the purity of its original appearance, this is the only way to approach the Comforter.” And again: “The Holy Spirit is inaccessible by nature, but can be contained by goodness; fills everything with strength, and is given only to the worthy; is not given equally, but according to the degree of faith, measuring His action.” And again: “How should one who is uncontainable by the world, but seen only by the saints out of purity of heart, be revered, or what honor is due to Him?” And again: “The Lord, having testified to the purity of the life of His disciples according to the teaching, now grants them the vision and contemplation of the Spirit.” And again: “It is testified that those who trample upon earthly things and ascend above them are worthy of the gift of the Holy Spirit.” 18. And in order to give you an example of the difference in communion in a vague similarity, let us say that a clay cup that receives communion of fire retains traces of fire even after it is taken out of the oven for use; after all, the reddishness of the color, and the appropriate dryness, and the strength of the material are directly from the fire, because when the moisture is destroyed from it, and the fire devours it and blackens it with heat, the yellowness of the fire combines with the natural whiteness of the clay, and thus, from the mixed yellow, white and black on the surface of the fired batch, color appears, and the loose clay contracts, because in the depths of its pores they are so compressed from the strength of the fire, that it no longer allows water, consisting of thick particles, to pass through. Therefore, even when doused with water, it is not destroyed, since it is not wetted. And stone or earth, taken in the same quantity, is much lighter and warmer, which, of course, it acquired from fire. This means that the clay cup partakes of the fire even when it is already exposed for use. He also receives communion when he lies in a burning oven and, being burned through and through, unites with the fire. But then she partakes not only of the accomplishments of action, but also of almost all the actions of fire themselves, yielding neither in heat nor in burning power. She can easily give away from the action of which she herself participates, to everything that approaches her, if only it is capable of such communion, although its nature does not change and is itself earth. When taken out of the oven for use, the cup participates only in the accomplishments of the actions of the fire, but no longer the actions themselves. 19. Now imagine, if possible, choosing what is suitable for present consideration from the example of the vessels, that natural life, and existence, and knowledge, and all the like are the essence of the accomplishment of Divine actions, and not entirely the actions themselves. The divinely inspired life and grace of those who exist and live in God in a supernatural way are truly Divine and supernatural action, which brings about the unity of God and those worthy of God. After all, created things - everything that was brought out of non-existence by creative command - is also the accomplishment of Divine actions, but not the actions themselves. When the Lord, according to the promise, creates an abode with the Father among the worthy, then what arises in the God-bearing ones is accomplished not by creative command, but by Divine union with God and the indwelling of God, deifying power and grace dispensing to those merging with Him from what belongs to His nature. Consequently, not only the accomplishments, but also the very actions of God, the saints partake in a manner worthy of angels and in an angelic manner; in angels, after all, the great Basil sees that difference from the Holy Spirit, “that the sacred belongs to Him by nature, and they are sanctified by the sacrament.” 20. Just as the Lord shone on the mountain, the righteous will shine, and their kingdom will not be created and not completely different, but the same as His. So Christ once lived and spoke in Paul, although Paul also lived and spoke. Thus Peter killed and gave life, although God alone kills and gives life. So James and John, who ascended the mountain with Him, saw with their bodily eyes a never-setting and unceasing light, which then illuminated Paul, darkening his vision, which could not bear the excess of radiance - after all, the carnal nature does not accommodate the power of this light. So Stefan looked into the sky from the ground, remaining in his body. And through the touch of bodily hands, the gift of the Holy Spirit occurs, who approaches with sincere faith, distributing from Divine action and grace, which through him can be given again to another, and through him to a third, and so it spreads in turn all the time. O, who will worthily sing, O only-begotten Word of God, of the power of Your coming to earth? After all, on your Divine altar it is not an alien, earthly fire that is kindled, but in another sense alien - heavenly, preserved inextinguishably by transmission, which you came to plant on earth through the incomparable abyss of love for mankind, of which the serving spirits partake and from which demons flee, which Moses saw on the thorn bush and with which Elijah was raptured from the earth, which the host of Your apostles saw pouring out from Your body and with which Paul was illuminated, from a persecutor turned into a disciple, who is the power of resurrection and the action of immortality, the radiance of holy souls and the union of all verbal powers. 21. But to demonstrate what was said, evidence was obtained for a time and obvious to the senses, so that those who were not completely set in stubbornness could be convinced: after all, the child of the ruler of the synagogue and the son of the widow received communion with the touch and voice of the Lord, and Tabitha from Joppa and the young man Eutychus from Troas received communion, one with the voice of Peter, the other with the touch of Paul. What kind of lives did they partake of? Is it not the life-giving one that the Lord possesses, although he did not partake of it? Can anyone really say that all saints partake of something not inherent in the nature of God and an uncreated action, putting aside the natural by their own will and being known by grace alone, by which they will show as much power as God by nature, having become incarnate, received from our weakness - for He knew that the deification of those saved by grace would be proportionate to His humiliation? How could it be otherwise if they inherit the Kingdom of God, which is “the dispensation by grace of the good that belongs to the nature of God”? He allows them to enter entirely into Himself and allocates them from His own glory and radiance, so that it is completely impossible to distinguish Him from them - like transparent air, completely enlightened by light, or rather like genuine verbal gold, calcined by immaterial Divine fire: “by deification they became gods and by the prevailing grace of the Spirit they appropriated to themselves only the Divine action, so that the same in all respects the action of God and those worthy of God,” saying in the divinely inspired words of Maximus, “when God completely and completely embraced the worthy, as befits the Good.” 22. After all, just as all prints partake of the seal, although each nevertheless moves wherever it is carried, and if you, taking one of them, attach it to the seal, then it will no longer be able to move anywhere except by moving in one movement with its prototype, becoming one with it except for the difference in substance - so when the Divine image in us returns to the prototype, what is asked for in that wonderful prayer for us is fulfilled: grant to them, says Christ, “that they may all be one: just as I, Father, am in You, and You in Me, and they may be one in Us” (John 17:21) in truth. So “he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17). So it is truly a great mystery when bodies are united into one flesh and flocked together - but “into Christ and into the Church” (Eph. 5:32). Print, after all, gives all of itself to the impressions, and each of them, if possible, receives its share, mind you, of letters, but also of unity with that which leaves the imprint. 23. What else are you afraid of, lest there be complexity in God, when His actions are uncreated and are called that way? Rather, you should be afraid that you might make God created, believing that His natural actions are created, while the divine Damascene speaks of two actions in Christ, that “the created will reveal the created nature, and the uncreated will express the uncreated essence - after all, it is necessary that natural manifestations correspond to natures.” The divine Maximus also says in agreement with him: “If we take away the natural will and essential action, as well as the Divine and human essence, how can He be God or man?” Well, aren’t the properties of the hypostases of the Most High Trinity uncreated, although there are many of them? Why then are there not many gods, or is the One not complex because of this? Or will you call these properties completely fused together, identical to the essence of God, and completely indistinguishable, as you do with action? I’m afraid that you might introduce to us a completely essenceless and non-existent God: after all, all these properties in themselves have no independent existence at all. And you say that they are identical in everything to the essence of God, and God is in all respects one and has no parts, not understanding that He multiplies, remaining one, and divides, remaining indivisible, and is given in various ways in the sacraments, being everywhere inseparable and by a super-essential power without being separated from His unity. 24. Tell me, doesn’t each individual hypostasis have many properties? After all, the Father is uncaused, and the cause, and the parent and the begetter - and, of course, the Father possesses all these properties in an uncreated way. Do you really consider the hypostatic properties to be completely identical to the hypostasis, as if there were no difference between natural properties and nature and essential properties from essence? So, will you call hypostatic properties hypostasis, as you have already called natural ones nature, meaning not similarity, but identity? But the fathers did not say so: they call hypostatic properties hypostatic, and not hypostasis, just as essential properties are not essence, but fully existing. In particular, when each individual hypostasis has many and different properties, how can hypostasis and property be identical? And since many and various uncreated properties of the hypostases were revealed, then according to your witty, sublime, and irrefutable reasoning, it turns out that either there are many gods, or each Divine hypostasis is complex. Thus, self-proclaimed defender of simplicity that surpasses all understanding, you have proclaimed to us that God is super-complex. 25. But, my dear, independently existing elements are subject to addition, and not those contemplated in another (and this is the general teaching of both external and ancient sages), and nothing that exists is called complex because of its own action - after all, neither a burning force is complex due to the fact that it also heats, nor a ray because of light. Therefore, you, an admirer of the imaginary indistinguishability of the uncreated in all respects, will rather have to call the complex Trinity of Hypostases - after all, several uncreated Persons merge into one, and Each of Them is hypostasized as independently existing. And in God, although many natural and hypostatic properties merge together, not one of them exists as an independent hypostasis, and did not exist before, and will not exist later; and none of these natural properties can belong to any other entity, for they are innate to this one. Everything complex is made up of different essences, either by mixture or unfused combination, in which more than one hypostatic qualities are seen, and no more than one perfect hypostasis in each * because they do not merge together and are not composed; because of them, the complex contains within itself a difference either in the difference of essences, or in the presence of an essence and various essential properties and opposites, which are contemplated as being subject to it. However, they are not inherent in her alone, but also in other natures, because of which everything created is subject to change through increase and decrease, addition and subtraction, action undergoing - and thus experiences the disunion of what was previously united, which is fully demonstrated by its divisibility; and everything divisible is necessarily complex. 26. And since in God there is one indivisible essence, there is no decrease or increase, no addition or subtraction - that means there is no difference that would show us the previous complexity. And “all the properties that God possesses,” I will say in the words of the great Athanasius, “He possesses by nature, and not by acquisition,” and he only acts by them, but does not suffer. Therefore, there can be no opposition in Him that carries change, and He alone of all that exists has no essential differences, but has, as has already been proven, actions through which everything is subject to Him as matter, even rational creatures, and He contains everything and rules everything by His speech, or rather by will, that is, eternal, inexhaustible, and impassive action. But in no case will you see anything inherent in Him innate to anything else. And it is precisely for this reason that He only acts: “no one,” says the evangelist, is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18), “the blessed and the only strong one, the only one who has immortality, dwelling in the unapproachable light” (1 Tim. 6:15,16). Where do you get the heterogeneous complexity of the Divine, when everything shows His unity? And each of the three Hypostases is perfect and different, even in the most ineffable unity, surpassing all understanding and reasoning. But no one can imagine any of Them ever separated from the others, so that complexity does not follow from this: “as soon as I think about the Unity,” says Gregory the Theologian, “I am illuminated by the Trinity.” This means that the connection and at the same time the independence of the Hypostases eliminates complexity here too. 27. In this way of thinking, please, protect the simplicity of God, and do not eliminate His natural manifestations as non-existent, and do not consider the non-sunset and unceasing light to be subordinate (arktou), and do not say that there are two Deities, and two Divine Principles, and two good things - of course, created and uncreated: this is how it really turns out to be two. But since both essence and action together are uncreated, nothing prevents unity - just as the ray and the sun are one light. And do not think that the very divinity of God and His Kingdom is created, for they are the natural actions of God. And do not bring down deifying grace into created things, lest at the same time you bring down there also the One who by nature possesses this grace and bestows it. And do not rashly prove that the Son of God was born like us; for how could the birth for our sake be considered similar to ours, as if He did not dispense from the Holy Spirit, but from created things, or even as if He did not give us the Spirit of adoption in exchange for our flesh, which He received from the Virgin in order to become the son of man? And do not make the churches of God - that is, the saints - the habitations of created things, nor do you make yourself so pitiful that you have not only the Divine and deifying communion, but also absolutely no hope for it, nor God so powerless that He cannot impart the holy division of Himself into the rational beings He created when they are purified. Moreover, do not make Him insubstantial and non-existent, asserting His complete identity with actions, insubstantial and non-existent in themselves - after all, they, of course, are not essences or hypostases. And do not make the super-essential, and surpassing all naming, and in itself inaccessible to communion, and the inexpressible essence of God accessible to communion, saying that everything is an uncreated essence. And do not appear as a second Eunomius, under the pretext of defending Divine simplicity, arguing, like him, that all hypostatic properties relate to the essence, since they are uncreated. And do not become a Monothelite, considering the Divine nature of Christ to be devoid of action, nor the new Sabellius in a different way, considering the names of God to have no real content, because they all mean one thing, and holding on to one name for the essence. And so that all this does not happen to you, who declare the actions of God to be created - after all, there is never any simplicity in empty inventions - believe me that the same God contains and does not contain division, is united in difference and is distinguished in unity, is not separated from Himself in processes and eternally moves in immobility, is inseparably divided and is entirely given in communion in the image of a solar ray. 28. But let the great Basil - after all, if anyone proclaimed God to be one and simple, it was he - again ascend to the pulpit and clearly show that God does not become complex because of His actions. “How,” he asks, “will there not be a lack of complexity in Him Who is simple by nature? After all, expressions indicating His properties do not in any way affect the discussion of His simplicity; otherwise, everything that is said about God will proclaim His complexity, and, apparently, if we want to preserve the idea of ​​​​simplicity and indivisibility, then either we will say nothing about God except that He is not begotten, and we will avoid calling Him incorruptible, unchangeable, Creator, Judge and all the other names that we now use to glorify Him - or what will we do if we accept these names? Let's eliminate them, take it all to the essence? Then we will show God not only to be complex, but also to consist of heterogeneous parts, because each of the names means something different.” 29. So, when you hear from us that essence is one thing, and action is another, understand that we are talking about the difference between what each word means, as the great Basil said. And again: “If we considered unbornness to be part of the essence, then the reasoning would take place that what is composed of different parts is complex; If we consider the essence of God to be light, or life, or good, so that all of God will be completely life, and all light, and all good, and ungeneracy will be, as it were, a companion of life, then how will there not be a lack of complexity in Him Who is simple by nature? And objecting to the heretics, who then said the same thing as those recently arguing with us - that God is simple, and any enumeration of His properties is supposedly knowledge of the essence, the great Basil also says that “this is sophistry, containing an abyss of absurdities; After all, with so many listed properties, do these names refer to one essence and are equivalent to each other? And again: “We say that we know the greatness of God, and power, and wisdom, but not the essence itself.” Therefore, when you hear from us that in God the essence is one thing, and the power or action is another, know that we are saying that the power or action of God is somehow cognizable, but the essence is not recognized by anyone. 30. The owner of all knowledge, who teaches man knowledge, who bestows wisdom and corrects the wise, “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3), “may He give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, and may He enlighten the eyes of your heart, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and how abundantly the greatness of His power is in us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ" (Eph. 1:17-20), "who is able to do exceedingly abundantly more than we ask or think, by the power that is at work in us" (Eph. 3:20), to whom is due glory forever and ever. Amen. so in the text; in meaning, it seems, it should be “no less.” You might be interested in: