Chapter 38. Why Man Was Not Made Perfect from the Beginning
Chapter 38
1. If, at this point, someone says, “What then? Could not God have made man perfect from the beginning?,” let him know that as far as God is concerned, since he is always the same and ingenerate, all things are possible. But created things, by the very fact that they had a beginning or origin, must by virtue of this be inferior as creatures to him who created them, for things recently made could not have been ingenerate. For this very reason that they are not ingenerate, they are inferior to the Perfect Being, because inasmuch as they are of more recent origin, they are infantile; and as such they are unaccustomed to, and unexercised in, perfected discipline. For just as a mother can give solid food to her infant, but the infant is not yet able to take the more substantial food, so also God could have given man perfection from the beginning, but man was incapable of receiving it, since he was still an infant. And for this reason Our Lord, recapitulating all things in himself, came to us in these last times, not as he could have come, but as we were capable of beholding him. To be sure, he could have come to us in his ineffable glory, but we could by no means have endured the greatness of his glory. Therefore, he who was the perfect Bread of the Father offered himself as milk to us who were like infants—that [milk] was his coming as Man—that we, having been fed from the breasts of his flesh, as it were, and having by such nourishment of milk become accustomed to eat and drink the Word of God, may be able to retain in ourselves the Bread of immortality, which is the Father’s Spirit.
2. And on this account Paul said to the Corinthians, I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it, that is, you learned the coming of the Lord in human nature, but God’s Spirit had not yet rested on you, because of your weakness. For when there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh, behaving like ordinary men?, that is, because the Father’s Spirit was not yet with them, because of their imperfection and weakness in their mode of living. So, just as the Apostle could have given them solid food—for on whom the Apostles laid hands, these received the Holy Spirit, who is the solid food of life—but they could not receive it because the faculty of perception of the mode of living that leads to God was still weak and unexercised. And so, God was able in the beginning to grant perfection to man; but man, having been but recently made, could not receive it; nor, having received it, could he have comprehended it; nor having comprehended it, could he have retained it. And for this reason the Word of God, though he was perfect, became an infant together with and for man. He made himself comprehensible in this wise, as far as man could comprehend him, not because of himself, but because of man’s infancy. So, the impossibility and the need were not on God’s part but on man’s, who was but lately created and was not ingenerate.
3. In regard to God there are manifested at one and the same time power and wisdom and goodness: power and goodness, inasmuch as he created and made freely the things that did as yet not exist; wisdom, inasmuch as he gave order and harmony to the things that did exist. Some of these, through his immense kindness, receive an increase and continue for a long time, and then partake of the glory of the Ingenerate. God gives them what is good without being jealous. For, inasmuch as these things are created, they are not ingenerate; but inasmuch as they continue for long ages, they receive the power of the Ingenerate; God gratuitously bestows on them perpetual continuance.
In this way God will hold the primacy in all things, because he alone is ingenerate and prior to all and is the cause of existence for all things; whereas all things remain subjected to God. But subjection to God spells imperishability; and continuance of imperishability is the glory of the Ingenerate. So by that order and by such harmony and such guidance, man, who has been created and fashioned, is made according to the image and likeness of the Ingenerate God: The Father being well pleased and giving orders, the Son administering and fashioning, the Spirit nourishing and giving growth; while man gradually makes progress and comes to the Perfect, that is, comes to the Ingenerate. For the Ingenerate is perfect, but that is God. Now, it was necessary for man to be first created and, having been created, to grow, and, having grown, to become mature, and having become mature to multiply, and having multiplied to grow strong, and having grown strong to be glorified, and having been glorified to see his Sovereign; for it is God who would be seen. The vision of God, however, effects imperishability, but imperishability brings one near to God.
4. Those, then, who do not wait for the time of growth and ascribe to God the weakness of their own nature are altogether irrational. Certainly, they know neither God nor themselves; they are insatiable and ungrateful. They refuse to be first that they were made, namely, men capable of suffering; they transgress the law of the human race, and before they are men, they already wish to be like God the Creator and believe that there should be no difference between the Ingenerate God and the recently created man. They are more irrational than the dumb animals. For these do not blame God for not having made them men; but each one of them, by the very fact that it was made, gives thanks to God for having made it. We, however, blame him because we were not made gods from the beginning, but first men and at length gods; although God acted thus out of his sheer goodness, lest anyone think him jealous or greedy. He declares, I have said, “You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.” Since we, however, could not sustain the power of the divinity, he adds, “Nevertheless, you shall die like men.” Thus he referred both to the kindness of his gift, and to our weakness, and that we have power of self-determination. For, in keeping with his great kindness, he endowed man well and made him like himself in giving him power of self-determination. Whereas, through his foreknowledge, he knew the weakness of men and its consequences, still, in keeping with his love and power, he will overcome the [weak] nature of creatures. It was necessary, however, that first nature should exist; then, what was mortal should be conquered and swallowed up by immortality and the imperishable by imperishability, and that man, having received the knowledge of good and evil, should be made according to the image and likeness of God.