anchors 401–410

18. The faculties which search out divine realities were implanted by the Creator in the essence of human nature at its very entrance into being; but divine realities themselves are revealed to man through grace by the power of the Holy Spirit descending upon him. When, as a result of the fall, the devil had riveted the attention of these faculties to visible things, nobody understood or sought out God, because in all who participated in human nature intellect and intelligence were confined to the superficial aspects of sensible things, and so they acquired no understanding of what lies beyond the senses. But then, in those who had not of their own free will become inwardly subject to deceit, the grace of the Holy Spirit broke the attachment of these faculties to material things and restored them to their original state. On receiving them back thus purified, men again sought out divine realities, and they have continued to search them out through the same grace of the Holy Spirit. [00402] 19. The soul’s salvation is the consummation of faith (cf. 1 Pet. 1:9). This consummation is the revelation of what has been believed. Revelation is the inexpressible interpenetration of the believer with the object of belief and takes place according to each believer’s degree of faith (cf. Rom. 12:6). Through that interpenetration the believer finally returns to his origin. This return is the fulfillment of desire. Fulfillment of desire is ever-active repose in the object of desire. Such repose is eternal uninterrupted enjoyment of this object. Enjoyment of this kind entails participation in supra-natural divine realities. This participation consists in the participant becoming like that in which he participates. Such likeness involves, [00403] Fourth Century so far as this is possible, an identity with respect to energy between the participant and that in which he participates by virtue of the likeness. This identity with respect to energy constitutes the deification of the saints. Deification, briefly, is the encompassing and fulfillment of all times and ages, and of all that exists in either. This encompassing and fulfillment is the union, in the person granted salvation, of his real authentic origin with his real authentic consummation. This union presupposes a transcending of all that by nature is essentially limited by an origin and a consummation. Such transcendence is effected by the almighty and more than powerful energy of God, acting in a direct and infinite manner in the person found worthy of this transcendence. The action of this divine energy bestows a more than ineffable pleasure and joy on him in whom the unutterable and unfathomable union with the divine is accomplished. This, in the nature of things, cannot be perceived, conceived or expressed. [00404] 20. Nature does not contain the inner principles of what is beyond nature any more than it contains the laws of what is contrary to nature. By what is beyond nature I mean the divine and inconceivable pleasure which God naturally produces in those found worthy of being united with Him through grace. By what is contrary to nature I mean the indescribable pain brought about by the privation of such pleasure. This pain God naturally produces in the unworthy when He is united to them in a manner contrary to grace. For God is united with all men according to the underlying quality of their inner state; and, at the creation of each person, He provides each person with the capacity to perceive and sense Him when He is united in one way or another with all men at the end of the ages. [00405] 21. The Holy Spirit leads those who seek the spiritual principles and qualities of salvation to an understanding of them; for He does not allow the power with which they naturally seek divine things to remain inactive and unproductive in them. [00406] 22. First a man seeks to make his will dead to sin and sin dead to his will, and to this end he investigates how and by what means he should make these two dead to one another. When that has been done, he seeks to make his will alive in virtue and virtue alive in his will; and to this end he investigates how and by what means he should vivify each in the other. To seek is to have an appetite for [00407] Fourth Century some object of desire; to investigate is to employ effective means by which the appetite can attain that object. [00408] 23. He who is to be saved must make not only sin dead to his will but also his will dead to sin. He must resurrect not only his will by means of virtue but also virtue by means of his will. In this way the will, being put to death and entirely disjoined from the totality of sin, which likewise has been put to death, becomes impervious to sin, while as revivified it becomes wholly conscious, through its unbroken union with it, of the totality of virtue, which itself has been revivified. For he who has made his will dead to sin has been united with the likeness of the death of Christ; and he who has given his will new life through righteousness has also become one with His resurrection (cf. Rom. 6:5). [00409] 24. When sin and will become dead to each other they become mutually impervious to each other; and when righteousness and will have life in each other they become mutually conscious of each other. [00410] 25. Christ is by nature both God and man. In an ineffable and supernatural manner we participate by grace in Him as God, while He in His incomprehensible love for men shares as man in our lot for our sake by making Himself one with us with a form like ours. The saints foresaw Him mystically in the Spirit and were taught that the glory to be revealed in Christ in the future because of His virtue must be preceded by the sufferings which He would endure for the sake of virtue (cf. 1 Pet. 1:11).