16. The Symbol of Abraham's Migration (Against Eunomius,
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16. The Symbol of Abraham's Migration (Against Eunomius, lib. 12, PG 45.940A-941D)15 How far these men of today have departed from the bosom of their father Abraham's faith! But let us, if we may, in terpret the meaning of the sacred history (Gen. 12.1-4) ac cording to the profound insight of the Apostle (Hebr. 11.810) by transposing the story to an allegorical level, even though we allow the validity of the literal meaning. Abra ham at the divine command went forth from his own coun try and from his own kin, but his migration was such as befitted a prophet in quest of the knowledge of God. In deed, there is no physical migration, I think, that can pre pare us for the knowledge of those things which are discovered by the spirit. But by going out of his native land, that is, out of himself, out of the realm of base and earthly thoughts, Abraham raised his mind as far as possible above the common limits of our human nature and abandoned the association which the soul has with the senses. Thus, un hindered by sense data, his mind was clear for the appre hension of the invisible, and neither the operation of his sight or hearing could cause his mind to err because of ap pearances. And so, as the Apostle says, walking by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5.7), Abraham was so raised in the grandeur of his knowledge that he understood the limita tion of human perfection; he knew God insofar as it was possible for his weak and mortal faculties to attain Him when strained to their capacity.
Hence the Lord of all creation is called the God of Abra ham, almost as though He had been discovered by the patri arch himself. And yet, what does the text say of him ? That
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he went out, not knowing whither he went (Heb. n.8). He was not even allowed to know the name of Him whom he loved; yet he was not ashamed or disturbed by this ignorance.
Here, at any rate, was the sure path to his goal, in that he was not guided in his knowledge of God by anything merely on the surface; nor was his mind ever overwhelmed by what he had already learned so as to stop in its progress towards that which transcends all knowledge.
Abraham surpassed in understanding his native wisdom, that is, the philosophy of Chaldaea, which rested merely in appearances; he went far beyond that which can be perceived by the senses, and from the beauty that he saw around him and from the harmony of the heavenly phenomena he gained a yearning to gaze upon the archetypal Beauty. So too, all the other qualities which are attributed to the divine nature, such as goodness, omnipotence, necessity, infinity and the like, Abraham understood them all as he advanced in thought; and he took all these as his provisions on his journey to heaven, using them as steps; and relying on what he had already found he stretched himself forth to the things that were before (Phil. 3.13), by way of those glorious ascensions that the Prophet speaks of (Ps. 85.6). And as he disposed all these things in his heart, he kept constantly transcending what he had grasped by his own power, for this was far inferior to what he sought.
Abraham passed through all the reasoning that is possible to human nature about the divine attributes, and after he had purified his mind of all such concepts, he took hold of a faith that was unmixed and pure of any concept, and he fashioned for himself this token of knowledge of God that is completely clear and free of error, namely the belief that
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God completely transcends any knowable symbol.16 And so, after this ecstasy which came upon him as a result of these lofty visions, Abraham returned once more to his human frailty: I am, he admits (Gen. 18.27), dust and ashes, mute, inert, incapable of explaining rationally the Godhead that my mind has seen. (And the dust and ashes, I think, sym bolizes all that is dead and unfruitful.) Thus this became the norm of faith for all that followed; for in his life we are taught that for those who are advancing in the divine paths there is no other way of drawing near to God than by the intermediary of faith; it is only through faith that the quest ing soul can unite itself with the incomprehensible Godhead.
Abandoning, then, the curiosity of the mind, Abraham, says the text, believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice (Rom. 4.3; cf. Gen. 15.6). And this, says the Apostle, was written not for Abraham but for us, for it is by faith and not knowledge that men are accounted just before God.
For knowledge has a kind of market value, accorded to the knower alone. But this is not so of Christian faith. For it is the substance of things to be hoped for (Heb. 11.1), not of things that are known. We do not hope for what we already possess. As the Apostle says, For what a man hath, why doth he hope for? (Rom. 8.24).
Faith, therefore, takes the place of that which escapes our knowledge, being by its own security a guarantee for what is invisible. So the Apostle says of the faithful soul: he en dured as seeing him that is invisible (Heb. 11.27).17 Hence foolish is the man who claims that it is possible to know the divine nature by a knowledge that is vain and futile. Nor is any man so great as to be able to equate his reason with the Lord. For who in the clouds, says David (Ps. 88.7), can be