CONTRA FATUM

“The other class of spiritual substance [i.e. the soul] has been brought into being by creation; thus it constantly looks towards to the first Cause, and is preserved in existence by a continual participation in transcendent Being. Thus in a certain sense, it is constantly being created, ever changing for the better in its growth in perfection; along these lines no limit can be envisaged, nor can its progressive growth in perfection be limited by any term.” (Cant., Or. 6, Musurillo, pp. 196-7)

”We have already said in our prologue that the lives of honored men would be set forth as a pattern of virtue for those who come after them. Those who emulate their lives, however, cannot experience the identical literal events. […] [But] one might substitute a moral teaching for the literal sequence in those things which admit of such an approach.” (De Vita Moysis, p. 65)

“For although what is ever being grasped is always greater than what was previously grasped, it does not put a limit on our final goal; rather, for those who are rising in perfection, the limit of what was discovered becomes the beginning for the discovery of loftier things. Thus they never stop rising, moving from one new beginning to the next, and the beginning of ever greater graces is never limited of itself. For the desire of those who thus rise never rests in what they can already understand; but by an ever greater and greater desire, the soul keeps rising constantly to another which lies ahead, and thus it makes its way through ever higher regions towards the Transcendent.” (Cant., Or. 8, Musurillo, p. 213)

”[...]the the goal of the economy of the Holy Spirit is to set forth the previous accomplishments of holy men for guidance for the life after these accomplishments, the representation leading us forward to good which is equal and similar.” (In ins. Ps. p. 201)

“[...]it is fitting to refer to those admired for virtue and those condemned for evil, so that the eulogy of the good life might be more effective [...] But in addition to all these things it would be necessary to contrive some subtle teaching in relation to each of these two ways of life which will both show what is more excellent and dissuade one from what is inferior by directing the hearing to the former by certain suggestions and bits of advice (ὑποθήκαις τισιν καὶ συμβουλαῖς) [...]” (In ins. Ps. p. 86, TLG 2017.027,28)

“[...]what greater praise of virginity can there be than thus to be shown in a manner deifying those who share in her pure mysteries, so that they become partakers of His glory Who is in actual truth the only Holy and Blameless One; their purity and their incorruptibility being the means of bringing them into relationship with Him? Many who write lengthy laudations in detailed treatises, with the view of adding something to the wonder of this grace, unconsciously defeat, in my opinion, their own end” (De Vir., p. 344)

“In the fruit that Aaron's rod produced it is fitting to perceive the kind of life that must characterize the priesthood – namely, a life self-controlled, tough and dried in appearance, but containing on the inside (hidden and invisible) what can be eaten. It becomes visible when the food ripens and the hard shell is stripped off and the wood-like covering of the meat is removed.” (De Vita Moysis, p. 127)

“You requested, dear friend, that we trace in outline for you what the perfect life is. Your intention clearly was to translate the grace disclosed by my word into your own life, if you should find in my treatise what you were seeking. I am at an equal loss about both things: It is beyond my power to encompass perfection in my treatise or to show in my life the insights of the treatise. And perhaps I am not alone in this. Many great men, even those who excel in virtue, will admit that for them such an acccomplishment as this is unattainable.” (De Vita Moysis, p. 30)

”You have subjected all things to man, declares the word through the prophecy, and in the text it lists the things subject, cattle and oxen and sheep (Ps 8,7-8). Surely human beings have not been produced from your [the slave-owners] cattle? Surely cows have not conceived human stock? Irrationial beasts are the only slaves of mankind. […] But by dividing the human species in two with 'slavery' and 'ownership' you have caused it to be enslaved to itself, and to be the owner of itself. I got me slave-girls and slaves.’ For what price, tell me? What did you find in existence worth as much as this human nature? [...] God said, Let us make man in our own image and likeness (Gen. 1,26). If he is in the likeness of God, and rules the whole earth, and has been granted authority over everything on earth from God, who is his buyer, tell me? Who is his seller? To God alone belongs this power; or, rather, not even to God himself. For his gracious gifts, it says, are irrevocable. Go

”Now liberty [ἐλευθερία] is the coming up to a state which owns no master [ἀδέσποτόν] and is self-regulating [αὐτοκρατὲς]; it is that with which we were gifted by God at the beginning, but which has been obscured by the feeling of shame arising from indebtedness. Liberty too is in all cases one and the same essentially; it has a natural attraction to itself. It follows, then, that as everything that is free will be united with its like, and as virtue is a thing that has no master, that is, is free, everything that is free will be united with virtue. But, further, the Divine Being is the fountain of all virtue. Therefore, those who have parted with evil will be united with Him; and so, as the Apostle says (I Cor. 15.28), God will be "all in all "; for this utterance seems to me plainly to confirm the opinion we have already arrived at, for it means that God will be instead of all other things, and in all.” (De Anima et Resurrectione, PG 46.101-105, NPNF p. 452)

”Since the spirit is in itself something thinking and immaterial, it would have a savage (αμιχτον) and incommunicable beauty if its interior movement had not been capable of being revealed by an ingenious invention (ἐπίνοια). It is to this end that this organic constitution was necessary, so that the interior movement might succeed in being interpreted (ἑρμηνευση) through the varied formation of articulations by touching, like a plectrum, the organs destined for the voice.” (De Op. Hom. tr. Balthasar, p. 60)

“'Who hath known the mind of the Lord?' the apostle asks; and I ask further, who has understood his own mind? Let those tell us who consider the nature of God to be within their comprehension, whether they understand themselves – if they know the nature of their own mind. […] The image [εἰκόνα] is properly an image so long as it fails in none of those attributes which we perceive in the archetype; […] therefore, since one of the attributes we contemplate in the Divine nature is incomprehensibility of essence, it is clearly necessary that in this point the image should be able to show its imitation of the archetype. For if, while the archetype transcends comprehension, the nature of the image were comprehended, the contrary character of the attributes we behold in them would prove the defect of the image; but since the nature of our mind, which is the likeness of the Creator, evades our knowledge, it has an accurate resemblance to the superior nature[...] ” (De Opificio Hominis

“The Divine Nature, whatever It may be in Itself, surpasses (ὑπέρκειται) every mental concept (ἐπινοίας). For It is altogether inaccessible (ἀπρόσιτος) to reasoning (ἐπινοίαις) and conjecture (στοχαστικαῖς), nor has there been found any human faculty (δύναμις) capable of perceiving the incomprehensible; for we cannot devise a means of understanding inconceivable things. Therefore the great Apostle calls His ways unsearchable, meaning by this that the way that leads to (σημαίνων) knowledge (τὴν γνῶσιν) of the Divine Essence is inaccessible to thought (λογισμοῖς). That is to say, none of those who have passed through life before us has made known to the intelligence so much as a trace (σημαινο) by which might be known what is above knowledge. Since such is He whose nature is above every nature, the Invisible and Incomprehensible is seen and apprehended in another manner. Many are the modes (τρόποι) of such perception. For it is possible to see Him who has made all things in wisdom by way

“But if it be part of our religion to attribute to Him none of these things, then it is a sacred duty to use of Him names privative of the things abhorrent to His Nature, and to say all that we have so often enumerated already, viz. that He is imperishable, and unending, and ungenerate, and the other terms of that class, where the sense inherent in each only informs us of the privation of that which is obvious to our perception, but does not interpret the actual nature of that which is thus removed from those abhorrent conditions.” (CE 2, NPNF p. 308) "εἰ δὲ τούτων εὐαγές ἐστιν οὐδὲν περὶ αὐτὸν ἐννοεῖν, εὐσεβὲς ἂν εἴη πάντως τοῖς χωριστικοῖς τῶν ἀπεμφαινόντων ῥήμασιν ἐπ' αὐτοῦ κεχρῆσθαι καὶ λέ γειν ταῦτα ἃ ἤδη πολλάκις εἰρήκαμεν, ἄφθαρτόν τε καὶ ἀτελεύτητον καὶ ἀγέννητον καὶ ὅσα τοῦ τοιούτου εἴδους ἐστί, τῆς ἐγκειμένης ἑκάστῳ τούτων τῶν ὀνομάτων ἐμφά σεως μόνον τὸν χωρισμὸν τῶν ἡμῖν προχείρων εἰς κατα νόησιν διδασκούσης, οὐκ αὐτὴν τὴν φύσιν τὴν τῶν ἀπεμφαι νόντων κεχωρ

”[...]when we consider death's dissolution to be the worst of ills, we give the name of Immortal and Indissoluble at once to Him Who is removed from every conception of that kind[...]” (CE 2, p. 298)

"[...]is it strange that the Prophet, knowing the Divine will, so far as it was lawful for him to tell it and for us to hear it, revealed it by known and familiar words, describing God's discourse after human fashion, not indeed expressed in words, but signified by the effects themselves?” (CE 2, p. 277)

“[...]whereas no suitable word has been found to express the Divine nature, we address God by many names, each by some distinctive touch adding something fresh to our notions respecting Him[...] I say, then, that men have a right to such word-building, adapting their appelations to their subject, each man according to his judgment[...]” (CE 2)

“[...]God is of Himself what also He is believed to be, but He is named, by those who call upon Him, not what He is essentially (for the nature of Him Who alone is is unspeakable), but He receives His appelations from what are believed to be His operations in regard to our life.” (CE 2, p. 265)

”Thus the whole created order is unable to get out of itself through a comprehensive vision, but remains continually enclosed within itself, and whatever it beholds, it is looking at itself. And even if it somehow thinks it is looking at something beyond itself, that which it sees outside itself has no being. One may struggle to surpass or transcend diastemic conception (διάστηματικην εννοιαν) by the understanding of the created universe, but he does not transcend. For in every object it conceptually discovers, it always comprehends the diastema in the being of the apprehended object, and diastema is nothing other than creation itself.” (In Eccl. GNO V, 412, 6-14)

”But if the Divine and unalterable nature is incapable of degeneracy, as even our foes allow, we must regard it as absolutely unlimited in its goodness: and the unlimited (ἀόριστος) is the same as the infinite (ἄπειρόν). But to suppose excess and defect in the infinite and unlimited is to the last degree unreasonable: for how can the idea of infinitude remain, if we posited increase and loss in it? We get the idea of excess only by a comparison of limits: where there is no limit, we cannot think of any excess.” (Contra Eunomium, TLG 2017.030, 5)

”When he [Eunomius] pronounces that the life of the Father is prior to that of the Son, he places a certain interval (διαστήματί) between the two; now, he must mean, either that this interval is infinite (ἄπειρόν), or that it is included within fixed limits (τισι πέρασι). But the principle of an intervening mean will not allow him to call it infinite; he would annul thereby the very conception of Father and Son and the thought of anything connecting them, as long as this infinite were limited on neither side, with no idea of a Father cutting it short above, nor that of a Son checking it below. The very nature of the infinite is, to be extended in either direction, and to have no bounds of any kind. […] What I say, then, is this: that this view of theirs will bring us to the conclusion that the Father is not from everlasting, but from a definite point in time.” (Contra Eunomium, TLG 2017.030, 344)

Καὶ τοῦτό ἐστιν ὄντως τὸ ἰδεῖν τὸν Θεὸν τὸ μηδέποτε τῆς ἐπιθυμίας κόρον εὑρεῖν. ”This truly is the vision of God: never to be satisfied in the desire to see him.” (De Vita Moysis, TLG 2017.042, 239)

"In applying such appelations to the divine essence, 'which passes all understanding', we do not seek to glory in it by the names we employ, but to guide our own selves by the aid of such terms towards the comprehension of things which are hidden." (Contra Eunomium, NPNF, p. 265)