excerpt (full article at the end[source]):
Eschatological insights
According to the teaching of Eastern Fathers, deification of the human person begins in the present life but is fully realized in the future age.[1] As Gregory says, ‘here’ one prepares for deification but only ‘there’, after transition to the other world, can reach it: this is ‘the completion of the mystery’ of Christian faith.[2]
Unlike Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen usually avoided discussions on questions of eschatology. There are only a few passages in the entire corpus of his writings dealing with eschatological matters. The life of the age to come is a mystery which is revealed only to those who have already crossed the border between the two worlds; therefore any discussion on this is necessarily limited to conjectures and hypotheses. Yet there is a traditional eschatology of the Christian Church, upon which the insights of the Church Fathers into the mystery of the last things are based. Gregory Nazianzen, in particular, follows these traditional lines when he writes on eschatological matters. However, he does not limit himself to scriptural and traditional sources; he also borrows something from ancient Greek philosophy. Echoes of Plato[3] are discernible in the following text:
I believe the words of the wise, that every fair and God-beloved soul, when, set free from the bonds of the body,[4] it departs from here, at once enjoys perception and contemplation of the blessings which await it… and goes rejoicing to meet its Lord… Then, a little later, it receives its kindred flesh… in some way known to God, who knit them together and dissolved them, enters with it upon the inheritance of the glory there. And, as it shared, through their close union, in its hardships, so also it bestows upon it a portion of its joys, gathering it up entirely into itself, and becoming with it one spirit, one intellect and one god… Why am I faint-hearted in my hopes? Why behave like a mere creature of a day? I await the voice of the archangel, the last trumpet, the transformation of the heavens, the transfiguration of the earth, the liberation of the elements, the renovation of the universe.[5]
As we see, Gregory believes in the reconciliation of the body and soul at the moment of resurrection, when both elements of the human person are deified and become ‘one god’. The question here is not about the material body, which has long since disintegrated and decomposed, but about a new body of another kind, which is somehow related to the material body the person had in his earthly life. Gregory does not speculate about the nature of this new body:[6] he only points to the moment of bodily resurrection as the final stage of the process of deification of the human person.
When speaking of the last things, Gregory sounds enthusiastic and optimistic: in this he is similar to St Paul.[7] How does this mood correspond to Christian dogmas of the Last Judgment, of retribution, of Hell, of the eternal fire reserved for sinners? Gregory mentions the Last Judgment many times in his writings, but he understands it also in the context of the doctrine of deification, as a moment when God ‘rises up in judgment of the earth,[8] dividing the saved and the lost’, after which ‘God stands in the midst of the gods,[9] meaning “the saved”, appointing to each the particular honour, the special mansion, of which he is worthy’.[10] Gregory speaks also of the fire of Hell, but allows for the possibility that it may be a sort of last baptism for sinners: ‘May be they will be baptized by fire, the last baptism, the most painful and the longest, which consumes matter, like straw, and destroys the lightness of every evil’.[11] In other place Gregory refers to the fire of Hell as ‘avenging’ and calls it ‘eternal’, while consenting to the possibility of a ‘more merciful’ understanding:
I know also a fire which is not cleansing, but avenging; either that fire of Sodom which He pours down on all sinners, mingled with brimstone and storms, or that which is prepared for the Devil and his angels[12] or that which proceeds from the face of the Lord, and shall burn up His enemies round about;[13] and one even more fearful still than these, the unquenchable fire which is ranged with the worm that dieth not[14] but is eternal for the wicked. For all these belong to the destroying power; though some may prefer even in this place to take a more merciful view of this fire, worthily of Him Who chastises.[15]
Under ‘some’ who prefer to ‘take a more merciful view’ of the fire of Hell, Gregory may mean someone like his friend Gregory of Nyssa. The latter was in fact the main defender in the Christian East of the teaching about the purifying nature of the fire of Hell.[16] According to Gregory of Nyssa, the torments of Hell exist in order that the soul of the sinner may be purified in their fire from the dust of sin: having passed through the ‘baptism of fire’, the souls of sinners become able to take part in the restoration of all (apokatastasis ton panton), when not only all people, but also demons and the Devil will return to their primordial sinless and blessed state. This idea, which was dear to Gregory of Nyssa,[17] is based on the teaching of St Paul that, after the resurrection of all and the final victory of Christ over death, everything will be subjected to God and He will be ‘all in all’.[18] As to the term apokatastasis panton (restoration, or restitution of all), it is borrowed from the Book of Acts.[19]
In his Theological Discourses Gregory Nazianzen speaks directly of the final ‘restoration’, when people will reach the state of deification and assimilation to God:
God will be all in all[20] at the time of restoration (apokatastaseos)…[21] God will be all in all when we are no longer what we are now, a multiplicity of impulses and emotions, with little or nothing of God in us, but are fully like God, with room for God and God alone. This is the maturity towards which we speed. Paul himself is a special witness here… I quote: Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all in all.[22]
It seems that Gregory Nazianzen is in agreement with Gregory of Nyssa that there will be a final restoration of all. However, unlike the Bishop of Nyssa, he never brings eschatological insights to their ultimate outcome: for him, eschatology is a realm of questions rather than answers, conjectures rather than definitions. ‘Restoration of all’ is an object of hope rather than a dogma of faith. He rejects neither the idea of eternal Hell, nor the idea of universal salvation: both concepts remain for him with a big question mark. Speaking of the resurrection of the dead, Gregory asks: ‘Is it that all will later encounter God?’,[23] and leaves this question unanswered. Eschatological deification of humanity is one of the many mysteries of the Christian faith which are beyond the limits of rational comprehension.
The heavenly Kingdom is perceived by Gregory primarily as a realm of light, where people, liberated from the turmoils of earthly life, will rejoice, ‘like small lights around the great Light’.[24] It is that Kingdom, ‘where there is an abode of all who rejoice and sing an incessant hymn, where there is a sound of those who celebrate and the voice of joy, where there is most perfect and most pure illumination by the Godhead, which we now taste in enigmas and shadows’.[25] It is in this Kingdom that final reconciliation of the human person with God takes place, participation in the Divine light, restoration and deification of the entire human nature.
Unlike Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen usually avoided discussions on questions of eschatology. There are only a few passages in the entire corpus of his writings dealing with eschatological matters. The life of the age to come is a mystery which is revealed only to those who have already crossed the border between the two worlds; therefore any discussion on this is necessarily limited to conjectures and hypotheses. Yet there is a traditional eschatology of the Christian Church, upon which the insights of the Church Fathers into the mystery of the last things are based. Gregory Nazianzen, in particular, follows these traditional lines when he writes on eschatological matters. However, he does not limit himself to scriptural and traditional sources; he also borrows something from ancient Greek philosophy. Echoes of Plato[3] are discernible in the following text:
I believe the words of the wise, that every fair and God-beloved soul, when, set free from the bonds of the body,[4] it departs from here, at once enjoys perception and contemplation of the blessings which await it… and goes rejoicing to meet its Lord… Then, a little later, it receives its kindred flesh… in some way known to God, who knit them together and dissolved them, enters with it upon the inheritance of the glory there. And, as it shared, through their close union, in its hardships, so also it bestows upon it a portion of its joys, gathering it up entirely into itself, and becoming with it one spirit, one intellect and one god… Why am I faint-hearted in my hopes? Why behave like a mere creature of a day? I await the voice of the archangel, the last trumpet, the transformation of the heavens, the transfiguration of the earth, the liberation of the elements, the renovation of the universe.[5]
As we see, Gregory believes in the reconciliation of the body and soul at the moment of resurrection, when both elements of the human person are deified and become ‘one god’. The question here is not about the material body, which has long since disintegrated and decomposed, but about a new body of another kind, which is somehow related to the material body the person had in his earthly life. Gregory does not speculate about the nature of this new body:[6] he only points to the moment of bodily resurrection as the final stage of the process of deification of the human person.
When speaking of the last things, Gregory sounds enthusiastic and optimistic: in this he is similar to St Paul.[7] How does this mood correspond to Christian dogmas of the Last Judgment, of retribution, of Hell, of the eternal fire reserved for sinners? Gregory mentions the Last Judgment many times in his writings, but he understands it also in the context of the doctrine of deification, as a moment when God ‘rises up in judgment of the earth,[8] dividing the saved and the lost’, after which ‘God stands in the midst of the gods,[9] meaning “the saved”, appointing to each the particular honour, the special mansion, of which he is worthy’.[10] Gregory speaks also of the fire of Hell, but allows for the possibility that it may be a sort of last baptism for sinners: ‘May be they will be baptized by fire, the last baptism, the most painful and the longest, which consumes matter, like straw, and destroys the lightness of every evil’.[11] In other place Gregory refers to the fire of Hell as ‘avenging’ and calls it ‘eternal’, while consenting to the possibility of a ‘more merciful’ understanding:
I know also a fire which is not cleansing, but avenging; either that fire of Sodom which He pours down on all sinners, mingled with brimstone and storms, or that which is prepared for the Devil and his angels[12] or that which proceeds from the face of the Lord, and shall burn up His enemies round about;[13] and one even more fearful still than these, the unquenchable fire which is ranged with the worm that dieth not[14] but is eternal for the wicked. For all these belong to the destroying power; though some may prefer even in this place to take a more merciful view of this fire, worthily of Him Who chastises.[15]
Under ‘some’ who prefer to ‘take a more merciful view’ of the fire of Hell, Gregory may mean someone like his friend Gregory of Nyssa. The latter was in fact the main defender in the Christian East of the teaching about the purifying nature of the fire of Hell.[16] According to Gregory of Nyssa, the torments of Hell exist in order that the soul of the sinner may be purified in their fire from the dust of sin: having passed through the ‘baptism of fire’, the souls of sinners become able to take part in the restoration of all (apokatastasis ton panton), when not only all people, but also demons and the Devil will return to their primordial sinless and blessed state. This idea, which was dear to Gregory of Nyssa,[17] is based on the teaching of St Paul that, after the resurrection of all and the final victory of Christ over death, everything will be subjected to God and He will be ‘all in all’.[18] As to the term apokatastasis panton (restoration, or restitution of all), it is borrowed from the Book of Acts.[19]
In his Theological Discourses Gregory Nazianzen speaks directly of the final ‘restoration’, when people will reach the state of deification and assimilation to God:
God will be all in all[20] at the time of restoration (apokatastaseos)…[21] God will be all in all when we are no longer what we are now, a multiplicity of impulses and emotions, with little or nothing of God in us, but are fully like God, with room for God and God alone. This is the maturity towards which we speed. Paul himself is a special witness here… I quote: Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all in all.[22]
It seems that Gregory Nazianzen is in agreement with Gregory of Nyssa that there will be a final restoration of all. However, unlike the Bishop of Nyssa, he never brings eschatological insights to their ultimate outcome: for him, eschatology is a realm of questions rather than answers, conjectures rather than definitions. ‘Restoration of all’ is an object of hope rather than a dogma of faith. He rejects neither the idea of eternal Hell, nor the idea of universal salvation: both concepts remain for him with a big question mark. Speaking of the resurrection of the dead, Gregory asks: ‘Is it that all will later encounter God?’,[23] and leaves this question unanswered. Eschatological deification of humanity is one of the many mysteries of the Christian faith which are beyond the limits of rational comprehension.
The heavenly Kingdom is perceived by Gregory primarily as a realm of light, where people, liberated from the turmoils of earthly life, will rejoice, ‘like small lights around the great Light’.[24] It is that Kingdom, ‘where there is an abode of all who rejoice and sing an incessant hymn, where there is a sound of those who celebrate and the voice of joy, where there is most perfect and most pure illumination by the Godhead, which we now taste in enigmas and shadows’.[25] It is in this Kingdom that final reconciliation of the human person with God takes place, participation in the Divine light, restoration and deification of the entire human nature.
[1] Cf. M. Lot-Borodine, La déification de l’homme selon la doctrine des Pères grecs (Paris, 1970), p. 21.
[2] Disc.38,11,22-24; SC 358,126.
[3] Cf. Phaedrus 246a-256a.
[4] Cf. the Platonic image of the body as a prison for the soul: Plato, Phaedo, 62b; Kratylus 400c.
[5] Disc.7,21,2-33; SC 405,232-236.
[6] A long discussion on this is found in Gregory of Nyssa’s On the Soul and Resurrection.
[7] Cf. 1 Cor.15:35-58.
[8] Cf. Ps.93/94:2.
[9] Cf. Ps.81/82:1.
[10] Disc.30,4,22-26; SC 250,232 (Wickham, 264).
[11] Disc.39,19,18-23; 194.
[12] Cf. Matt.25:41.
[13] Cf. Ps.96/97:3.
[14] Cf. Mk.9:44.
[15] Disc.40,36,23-32; SC 358,282.
[16] Cf. On the Soul and Resurrection (PG 46,89 B, 100 A, 105 D, 152 A); Great Catechetical Oration 8,9; 8,12; 26,8 (PG 45,36-37; 69), et al.
[17] This teaching of Gregory of Nyssa must be distinguished from the Origenist understanding of apokatastasis which was condemned in the sixth century. Gregory of Nyssa did not share Origen’s idea of the preexistence of the soul; unlike Origen, Gregory also taught that the body will take part in the final restoration. The teaching of Gregory was therefore never formally condemned, though it never became a dogma. See J. Pelikan, The Christian Tradition I: The Emergence of the Catholic Thought (100-600) (Chicago-London, 1971) , p. 151.
[18] 1 Cor.15:22-28.
[19] Cf. Acts 3:21.
[20] 1 Cor.15:28.
[21] Acts 3:21.
[22] Disc.30,6,31-44; SC 250,238 (Wickham, 266). Cf. Col.3:11.
[23] PG 37,1010.
[24] Disc.18,42; PG 37,1041.
[25] Disc.24,19,9-13; SC 284,82.
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