CONTRA FATUM

"human governments experience such quickly-repeated revolutions for this very reason, that it is impracticable that those to whom nature has given equal rights should be excluded from power, but her impulse is instinct in all to make themselves equal with the dominant party, when all are of the same blood. αἱ δὲ ἀνθρώπιναι δυναστεῖαι τούτου χάριν ἀγχιστρόφους ἔχουσι τὰς μεταβολάς, ὅτι οὐ δέχεται τὸ κατὰ τὴν φύσιν ὁμότιμον μὴ ἰσομοιρεῖν [ἐν] τῷ κρείττονι, ἀλλά τις ἔγκειται φυσικὴ πᾶσιν ἐπιθυμία πρὸς τὸ ἐπικρατοῦν ἐξισάζεσθαι, ὅταν ὁμόφυλον ᾖ" (Against Eunomius, p. 84, 1.1.527-528)

“ Knowing, then, how widely the Divine nature differs from our own, let us quietly remain within our proper limits.” (Gregory NPNF p. 260, GNO, 95)

“We should […] beware of thinking that […] the life of the virtuous is conceived as a duality; on the contrary, when the partition wall of evil that blocks us up has been taken away, the two will become one and coalesce, because both are united to the good.” (Beat., p. 165)

“It has been said by wise men that man is a little world in himself and contains all the elements which go to complete the universe. If this view is a true one (and so it seems), we perhaps shall need no other ally than it to establish the truth of our conception of the soul.” (De An. et Res., NPNF, p. 433)

”Our surest refuge is not to fail to recognize ourselves, not to believe that we are seeing ourselves when we are seeing only something that surrounds us[...]” (In Cant., PG 44,804 tr. quoted from Balthasar, Presence and Thought, p. 121)

"Since then, it is believed that the divine nature ( τό θεῖον) is simple ( ἁπλοῦν), free from composition (ἀσύνθετον) and impossible to represent (ἀσχημάτιστον), when human nature ( τό ἀντθρώπινον) is liberated from the double composition, and returns perfectly ( ἀκριβῶς) to the good, having become simple and impossible to represent and truly one ( ώς αληθῶς ἕν γενομενον), then that which appears will be the same as that which is hidden, and that which is hidden the same as that which appears, then truly is carried to accomplishment the beatitude and such man are truly called sons of God, proclaimed blessed according to the promise of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for eternity. Amen" (Gal 1.5, Heb 13.21 and 2 Tm 4.18) (On the Beatitudes, GNO VII/2, 160, tr. Maspero, 2007, p. 73)

"[...]whosoever searches the whole of Revelation ( θεόπνευστον) will find therein no doctrine of the Divine nature, nor indeed of anything else that has a substantial existence, so that we pass our lives in ignorance of much, being ignorant first of all of ourselves, as men, and then of all things besides. For who is there who has arrived at a comprehension of his own soul?" (Contra E. 2. book, NPNF, p. 261, GNO 106)

“How can a man be master [a magistrate] of another's life, if he is not even master of his own? Hence he ought to be poor in spirit, and look at Him who for our sake became poor of His own will; let him consider that we are all equal by nature, and not exalt himself impertinently against his own race on account of that deceptive show of office[...]" (On the Beatitudes, Graef, 1954, pp. 94-95)

"[...] man was brought into the world last after the creation, not being rejected to the last as worthless, but as one whom it behoved to be king over his subjects at his very birth. And as a good host does not bring his guest to his house before the preparation of his feast, but, when he has made all due preparation, and decked with their proper adornments his house, his couches, his table, brings his guest home when things suitable for his refreshment are in readiness,—in the same manner the rich and munificent Entertainer of our nature, when He had decked the habitation with beauties of every kind, and prepared this great and varied banquet, then introduced man, assigning to him as his task not the acquiring of what was not there, but the enjoyment of the things which were there; and for this reason He gives him as foundations the instincts of a twofold organization, blending the Divine with the earthy, that by means of both he may be naturally and properly dispos...

”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...

”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...