Answers to Various Questions: Photios of Constantinople
Tractates 2-5
Amphilochia, or explanations of sacred words and questions to Amphilochius, the most venerable metropolitan of Kyzikos, who requested the resolution of various trying questions, numbering up to three hundred.
Respecting your sincere zeal, I decided to fulfill your request, as you hoped, although there was much that could have held back this intention of mine, – firstly, that the majority of your doubts had been properly clarified by a considerable number of holy men who lived before us; and secondly, that we ourselves have resolved much of this in other writings. Moreover, to sort out such a multitude requires a long time, although, according to the divine voice of the preacher, "time is short" (1 Corinthians 7:29) and draws to an end, and for us, as you see, the term is reduced not only by the common human lifespan but now also by our special reason. How then can the abundance of questions, amounting to three hundred (for so your generosity has deemed to expand our current confinement), not take a long time and not exhaust our leisure? And that these questions are mixed up, and that you heard how we orally in your presence eliminated doubts about some of them (why, if you can remember what you heard, do you demand from us repeated labor?), and that the writing turns out to be lengthy – all these are no less obstacles than those mentioned above, although others would have been satisfied with those alone.
However, I will not blame you for this – so, despite so much and significant opposition, as already said, you have what you asked for, in a composition that is not adorned with an exquisite style, but clarifies the meaning of puzzling matters with words at hand and not despising the hearing of the crowd. And you did well not only to ask and receive, but also to show me even more zeal in using the gift.
Tractate 2. If God rested on the seventh day from all His works (Genesis 2:2), why does the salvific Word of the Father say: "My Father is working until now, and I am working" (John 5:17)?
We observe four acts of creation by the Creator. The first of these is the very initial act of producing and creating existence. In this sense, it is said: "And on the seventh day God rested from all His works," because the Creator, having completed and actualized the natures of all that exists in seven days, no longer manifests the creation of any entity.
The second is the ongoing act of maintaining and preserving what has once arisen, in no way allowing the whole kind to perish and vanish into non-existence – and such action and preservation is called providence and care of God. And for this action and deed, as known to the true word, there is never any cessation as long as this earthly composition exists.
We also recognize a third act of the Creator, by which each nature, doing what it is assigned, does not produce anything unlike or foreign to it, but every time, shaping and forming offspring as its own and similar to itself, it reveals an undeniable succession. This act, too, perhaps, relates to providence and care. Thus, of the three mentioned acts, one is directed towards actualization, another towards persistence, and the third towards resemblance. Here we can also include the unchangeable and unbreakable continuity of the order of things that have arisen. For neither the sun nor the moon can be faulted for changing their risings and settings, approaches and departures, and other actions embedded in them by the creative Word, or for distorting the originally established orderly circular motion. Nor can the rest of the starry host be caught in altering or violating the initially bestowed sequence of rotation and order, appearance and disappearance. And the nights, alternating with the days, and vice versa, the days giving way to nights, maintain an ordered correspondence that is inviolable and immutable; likewise, the natures of the seasons, passing the turn to one another, do not adopt any innovation but preserve this ancient and marvelous change unaltered and indestructible. And it is clear that such an orderliness and correspondence of existence is maintained and arranged by the providential principle – and this too can be called an act of the wisdom of God who created all things.
There is, besides these, another act of creation, which, due to the lordly love for humanity, is observed primarily in the human race. This act is also dual in nature: one part applies to the body, through which injuries and countless other sufferings are driven away from creation, as done and accomplished by the universal Savior of mankind during His coming, freeing humanity from all sorts of sufferings and maladies. The other part concerns the soul – for it, buried under many sins and entirely stained by thousands of torments inflicted by the evil one, our Creator and Maker Himself, having cleansed and washed it with His incomprehensibly profound coming, raised it to its former dignity and gave it the strength and grace to regain the image of God. Thus, His action in relation to His creation grants sight to the blind, strengthens the paralytic, raises the four-day-dead from the tomb, and manifests countless supernatural acts. And when the Lord performs this according to the law and decree of His love for humanity, the ungrateful Jewish people revile Him, using the observance of the Sabbath as a pretext and cover for their envy and malice, and hear from the Lord a partly authoritative, partly instructive, and salvific speech: "My Father is working until now, and I am working" (John 5:17). But the Lord, thus silencing the ungrateful Jews who reproach and blaspheme the healing of the body because it occurred on the Sabbath, clearly lets us understand that neither the Father has rested from these and similar works, nor does He Himself cease working.
From this lordly response, it will be easy for you to understand those meanings of "working" that were discussed a little earlier, from which works the Father and the Son have rested, and which they continue to perform. For He long ceased to create natures, but it is not at all apparent that the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit has ceased to preserve the created from destruction, as well as to support with His providence the entirety of actualized things with unalterable and authentic integrity, and to maintain the established orderliness and sequence without change. For with the supernatural, omnipotent, and all-creating Essence, the will, power, and action are the same, and it is clear that even at the time when our Savior performed miracles, the Son was working, but the Father and the Holy Spirit were working with Him.
Tractate 3. Why did the Lord heal the eyes of the blind man using clay (John 9:6–7) and not by another method?
The Creator renewed the eyes of the blind using clay to lead the minds of the doubters to indisputable faith, just as the first man was created from dust, since there is neither a witness nor a testimony to such creation. Indeed, the creation of the most precious part of the human body, performed in the sight of all, provides great strength and support to also not doubt and not be divided into perplexed opinions regarding the rest of the body, for whose creation no observer was present. For one who sees the best and most precious thing that we have, as a creation and essence produced from dust, will surely recognize by irrefutable judgment that other organs also originated from the same material and power.
On the other hand, to make it clear to you that by all the attributes through which the Father is known as God – I mean power, glory, essence, and dominion – the Son is understood as having equality and being indistinguishable, He restores the eyes of the blind, taking not some other substance, but dust, just as the Father once created man from dust together with Him. At the same time, it is revealed that God, now dwelling in human form and having transformed dust into the nature of eyes, is the same One who once created man from dust together with the Father.
Tractate 4. What does it mean: "Hating even the garment spotted by the flesh" (Jude 23)?
The Divine Scripture teaches us that a virtuous life, free and pure from transgressions, is the bridal garment. Those clad in it are esteemed by the Bridegroom Christ as worthy of the mystical chamber and to recline at this blessed and sovereign feast. Those who have stained such garments are driven away from this communion and subjected to bitter disgrace. If we understand this, it will be clear to us what the divinely inspired apostle calls the defiled garment and rightly commands us to hate. For the garment, entirely stained and defiled by sins, is the defiled one. Making this even clearer, he does not speak simply of the defiled garment, but of the flesh defiled, as if marred and polluted by fleshly passions, pleasures, and fleshly sins, and all that through which the flesh, lusting against the spirit, makes our life foul and stained. Such should be avoided and hated in every way because it closes the doors of the mystical chamber to us, makes us unworthy of the glorious Bridegroom, and drives us far away from the dreadful and salvific feast.
Tractate 5. If everything that is subject to necessity acts violently even against its will, and if it is necessary for temptations to come into the world (Matthew 18:7), then it is unjust to curse and punish the one who has been subjected to violence for his transgression.
The construction of this argument has some persuasiveness, but it is external and ungodly - for it calls God to account for punishing the one who has been subjected to violence and pronouncing a severe judgment on His own creation. For if, it is argued, it is necessary for temptations to come, then our race is necessarily subjected to temptations, and if I am enslaved against my will, then why does the Judge, ignoring the cause, curse and punish me, the coerced one? For it is said: "Woe to that man by whom the offense comes" (Matthew 18:7) - for the one who has become the victim of offense and violence should not be cursed and punished, but rather considered worthy of mercy and compassion, not to mention that it would have been better to save His own creation from violence beforehand.
Such an argument might further entangle your perplexity. However, the beginning of the solution to the problem is, as they say, the statement that [logically] follows. To say, "One should not curse one's own creation but punish the cause of the violence" is nothing other than asserting, "Man should be cursed." For if temptations came from somewhere else, not from our own self-willed will, the argument would justly require that none of the people be even cursed. But if I myself sow the seeds of temptations, and when the thorns are sown, they necessarily grow and bear fruit, then I, who have incurred condemnation through the thorns of temptation, justly make myself guilty of curse and punishment, and cannot at all be considered worthy to demand forgiveness (for what?) and mercy.
Temptations are those obstacles that stand in the way to eternal life. What are they? Adultery, theft, drunkenness, slander, and even before that, envy and avarice, and all other vices generated by them. The human mind, created in the image of God, giving in to frivolity and laziness, causes them to come into the world, and the one created to be a cultivator of virtues makes himself a sower of evil. And such passions, once stirred by us, then necessarily enter our lives and act freely. For even when the old enemy of our race incites and nudges nature to the worst, if we do not listen and do not move towards evil, waiting for some impulses or calls from another source, it turns out that he does not prevail in anything. But if the courage and steadfastness of virtue in us weaken, then the advice of the evil one takes effect and becomes an assistant, but not the initiator of sin. And it is clear that as such passions and temptations harm virtuous life and destroy it, so too the word of piety is subjected to attacks and raids by heretical and unstable teachings and opinions of the ungodly, who, initially conceiving and begetting them with their wicked mind, not by compulsion or violence, but by free will and intention, filled the hearing of neighbors with blasphemy and made it necessary for temptations to come into the world through themselves and those who accepted them. For them, who made themselves unworthy of any regret, God's judgment impartially proclaims "woe," as elsewhere it is said, "it would be better for them if they had a millstone hung around their neck and were drowned in the sea" (Matthew 18:6). Thus, the perplexity is resolved by what seemed to strengthen it, and not the one who suffered violence incurs the curse, but the sower of temptations, through whom the temptations came, - for when he sows, temptations already necessarily settle in the world and gain will.