The Goal of the Incarnation.
The basic goal of the incarnation of the Word is the
"resurrection and deification of man." Christ "becomes one with our nature and,
in being united with the Divinity, our nature becomes Divine itself, is removed
from the power of death, and is saved from the torments of the enemy."
Athanasius and Irenaeus express themselves in similar terms.
Gregory is aware that for both Jews and Greeks the "human
economy of the Word of God" might seem to be "impossible and even unseemly."
Certain Christian heretical sects, especially the Arians and the Apollinarians,
were guilty of the same error. Gregory sets forth his teaching on the unity of
the two natures in the God-man in order to oppose these heresies. In doing this
he concentrates his attention on the salvation brought by Christ. "It is both
possible and proper only for the one who gave us life in the beginning to return
this life to us when we are perishing." Furthermore, "how would our nature be
corrected if the Divinity were united with some other heavenly nature?" The
reality of our salvation makes it necessary for us to recognize the dual
consubstantiality of Christ and the "unity of the hypostases" of the God-man.
Gregory tries to avoid the expression "two natures." Instead he writes: "We
acknowledge in Christ both Divinity and humanity. By nature He is Divine, and by
economy He is human."
Gregory and the Unity of the God-Man.
Gregory has no definite terminology to describe the unity of
the God-man. Sometimes he talks about συναφεια, a close union, and about μιξις,
a mingling or combination, or κρασις, a blending. He calls Christ the “Bearer of
God” and sometimes he simply refers to ενωσις, a u
nion or unity.
Gregory's usage is frequently careless. He occasionally uses the term "mixture"
to describe the organic unity of the body, and
συναφεια to describe the indivisible unity of the Trinity. The way in
which the unification of natures takes place remains incomprehensible to us but
it may be partially explained by the coexistence of the body and the soul.
Gregory develops his doctrine of the full humanity of Christ in
his polemic with the Apollinarians. He stresses that Christ's assumption of
human nature is complete. "No Christian will say that the man who was united
with God was only half a man, but that his whole nature entered union with the
Divinity." After all, "anyone who lacks something, without which his nature is
incomplete, cannot be called a man." This is vital for Gregory's understanding
of the redeeming work of Christ. The Lord came and was incarnate for the sake of
salvation. "It is not a body which perished but a whole man who had a complete
soul. In fact, it is right to say that the soul perished even before the
body."
The Lord comes to save His sheep which is lost. "He finds it,
and then He raises on His shoulders the whole sheep, not just its fleece"
because "not only a part of the sheep was lost but the whole sheep had gone
astray, and so the Lord returns it whole." Gregory makes another comparison:
when we wash a garment we never do so in such a way that some spots remain while
others are removed. On the contrary, we clean the whole cloth from one end to
the other, so that the whole garment is of a single quality and all of its parts
are purified by the cleansing. "So, since human life has been defiled by sin at
the beginning and at the end and in all its parts, the purifying agent must
penetrate the whole, and not in such a way that part of it is purified through
this treatment while another part remains untreated."
For Gregory "man" is the name of an essential nature and he
emphasizes the integrity of the composition of man: "A body without a soul is a
corpse and a soul without reason is a beast." In order to oppose the teaching of
the Apollinarians Gregory stresses the identity of the flesh of Christ "with the
rest of humanity." "We know what His body was composed of when He lived among
people as a man." Gregory realizes that the corporeal nature of Christ is
disturbing to many: "His human birth, His growth from infancy to maturity, His
need to eat and drink, His weariness and need for sleep, His sorrow, tears,
calumniation, trial, cross, death, and removal to the tomb: all of these things
which make up the mystery weaken the faith of people whose minds are not
elevated."
Gregory answers these doubts by developing an apology for human
nature. None of the actions of Christ's life is unworthy of Him because it is
only base passions which are shameful. "God is born not into anything flawed but
into human nature." The composition of man contains nothing which makes virtue
impossible and there is nothing impure about birth itself. Voluptuousness and
lust are impure but the birth of man into the world is not. "What can be
unseemly about this mystery? God was united with human life through the very
means which nature uses to fight against death." It is only passion, in the
narrow sense of the word, that was not assumed by the Lord. Gregory speaks
frequently and clearly about the true corporeality of Christ in order to expose
the false doctrine of the Apollinarians about the "heavenly flesh of Christ,"
which was their explanation of the mystery of the Incarnation. Gregory
considered this explanation false because in their system creation would be
brought no closer to the Creator and also because the Divinity has no need of
deified flesh.
The human nature of the Savior develops according to the norm
established for mankind before the fall. Furthermore, His humanity becomes
deified through its union with God. This is the source of the salvation of human
nature; it is its salvation, revivification, and restoration to its original
state. Gregory writes that God the Word "becomes flesh because of His love for
mankind and He assumes our nature so that by mingling with the Divinity humanity
can be deified. In this way all the elements of our nature are sanctified." Once
it is united with God, human nature can raise itself to His level, and that
which ascends is that which has been raised up from destruction. "By commingling
with the Divinity, everything that is weak and corrupt in our nature also
becomes Divine."
Two Phases in the Deification of Human Nature in
Christ.
Gregory follows Origen and distinguishes two phases in the
development or deification of human nature in Christ. The first phase is the
period of healing through obedience which occurred before the Resurrection.
Death, which had been introduced by the disobedience of the first man, is driven
out "by the obedience of the second man," Gregory writes. The "True Healer"
frees those who have been afflicted by disease because they have departed from
the will of God "by means of reuniting them with the Divine will." The Divinity
heals both the body and the soul. "Through the union of God with each part of
man, signs of the superior nature appear in both these parts. The body is healed
by contact with the Divinity and reveals the Divinity that was latent within it
and through the strength of the Almighty the soul demonstrates its own Divine
power."
However, it was still necessary for the Savior to suffer and
die and to sacrifice Himself on the Cross. "In a solemn and ineffable rite, the
like of which mankind had never seen before, the Savior gave Himself as an
offering and a sacrifice for us. He was both the priest and the Lamb of God Who
accepted the sins of the world." This indicates that the flesh had still not
been given new life by the Divinity, and Christ's prayer in the garden of
Gethsemane demonstrates that "His weakness was identical to ours." Gregory's
commentary on Gethsemane is similar to Origen's: "The Lord spoke these humble
words and expressed human fear in order to show that He truly shared our nature
and by taking part in our weakness He testified to the reality of His
humanity."
Gregory emphasizes that the Savior's death was unique. Death is
the separation of the soul and the body, after which the body, having lost the
"strength of life" it had in the soul, disintegrates. The Savior's death was a
true death because His soul and body were separated. However, "since He had
united both body and soul within Himself, He Himself was not separated from
either of them." This was the source of the resurrection because both body and
soul remained in communion with the Divinity, with Life. Even in death the
deified body of the Savior was incorruptible and through the incorruptibility of
His body mortality was destroyed. His soul entered paradise and was seated
beside the Father.
It was necessary for the soul and the body to be reunited. "By
the unity of Divine nature, which existed equally in the body and in the soul,
that which had been separated was again joined together. Death results from the
separation of united elements and resurrection comes from the unification of
that which is divided." This was a resurrection of all the elements of human
nature. The Lord gave to humanity the "power and potential, δυναμις, for resurrection." The Lord
descended into hell, "into the heart of the earth," "to destroy that mind which
was great in evil and to bring light to the darkness, so that mortality was
consumed by life and evil and was turned into nothingness."
During the three days of His death the Lord destroyed "all the
evil which had accumulated since the creation of the world." He destroyed it not
by struggling against it but by His descent alone. "The simple and
incomprehensible coming of Life and the presence of Light for those who were
sitting in mortal darkness and shadow destroyed death and made darkness
disappear." The death of the Lord was His resurrection and the resurrection of
all mankind. This is the beginning of the second phase of the life of the
God-man and the ultimate deification and glorification of human nature. "After
the great mystery of death is fulfilled in it, the flesh reveals God in itself,
and by dissolution it will turn into something higher and Divine. When it has
become one with Christ the Lord, the flesh will change into that which He was
even when He was revealed in the flesh." Man will become superior to every name
which is proper to the Divinity (cf. Philippians 2:10). "By mingling with
the Divinity our corruptible nature will be transformed into the superior
nature. It will participate in the strength of the Divinity in the same way that
a drop of vinegar is blended in with the sea and loses its natural qualities in
the infinity of the other, enduring substance."
In this way our salvation was achieved. "The kingdom of life
arrived and the power of death was destroyed. There appeared a new birth,
another life, and our very nature was transformed." Christ at His resurrection
"resurrected with Himself everything that had gone to rest." He destroyed the
bonds and affliction of death in order to establish for us a "path to birth
through resurrection" and a "path to rebirth through death." Thus Christ is the
Path, the Resurrection, and the Life, and through Him God creates a new heaven
and a new earth. "The foundation of the Church is the foundation of the
universe."
Man is a true participant in the death and resurrection of our
Savior not because of his relation to the Savior or his consubstantiality with
Him, but through faith. "Rebirth is achieved in two ways," through baptism and
resurrection. Baptism is a new birth "which does not begin with corruption and
end with decay but which leads the newly born into eternal life." Baptism is the
first stage of resurrection, a way out of the "labyrinth" of this life. "I apply
the figure of a labyrinth to our inescapable bondage to death, which imprisons
the whole wretched human race." The symbolism of the baptismal rite refers to
the "three days' state of death and the return to life of Christ." Baptism is
the "imitation of death," the "imitation of the grace of the resurrection which
was achieved after three days."
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