Cursus Theologicus, Tomus I: In Primam Partem

Since unanimous agreement of the Fathers about it is one of the principal proofs of the mysteries of our faith, while for the other mysteries there is no lack of a reason for doubting whether those same Fathers knew the possibility of the vision of God by essence on the part of a created intellect—which is, as it were, the basis of several other mysteries—after we have shown that the aforementioned intellect can see God by essence, we judged it fitting to examine in detail what the Fathers thought on this matter.

§ I. Recent opinion.

21 Vazq., 1 part., disp. 37, cap. 4, holds that almost all the Fathers denied with such explicit language the possibility of the vision of God by essence on the part of a created intellect that, if we wish to speak candidly, they can scarcely be interpreted in a favorable sense.

This is proved first. For Ambrose, lib. 1 in Lucam, cap. 1, asserts that God is invisible by his very nature. Jerome, in his Commentaries on Isaiah, lib. 3, on the words “I saw the Lord”, shortly afterward, holds that man cannot see God. Basil, lib. 1 contra Eunomium, shortly afterward: “The substance of God, apart from the Only-Begotten, is invisible.” Augustine, tom. 4, in the booklet On the Essence of Divinity: “The latter things” (he says), “that is, you will see my Incarnation, but you will not be able to see my divinity.” Theodoret, in the dialogue On the Immutability: “For they do not see” (namely, the angels) “the divine substance, which can neither be circumscribed, nor comprehended, nor perceived by the intellect.”

22 Secondly, it is proved from Chrysostom, whom Vázquez cites most insistently in favor of the error of the Anomoeans. For in homil. 14 on John, shortly after the beginning, he says: “That which is God was not only never seen by the prophets, but neither by angels nor archangels; and if you should question them, you will hear nothing from them about God's substance, but only this report: glory to God in the highest, since, if all created nature is dependent, with what rationale could it see the uncreated?” Likewise, tom. 5, homil. 3, On the Incomprehensibility of God's Nature, he states in explicit words that no creature, whether human or angelic, can behold God.

23 Nor will it suffice, if, with St. Thomas, you say that Chrysostom wishes only to deny comprehensive vision, not however quidditative and intuitive vision; since there he argues against the Anomoeans, who asserted that they comprehensibly attained to God.

Against this, first, the Anomoeans did not assert that they knew God comprehensibly, but only quidditatively. Therefore, if Chrysostom speaks against them, he denies to the angels not only comprehensive knowledge, but also quidditative knowledge, which is the vision of God by essence. The consequence is evident. Vázquez proves the antecedent in this way: the Anomoeans were not so mad as to persuade themselves of this; whence, when they said that they knew God so well and so exactly as God knows himself, they meant only that they knew God quidditatively, because quidditative knowledge is equal on the part of the object with respect to everyone, insofar as all who see God see him according to everything that is formally in him.

Next. Because in that homil. 14 on John, Chrysostom denies to the angels all that knowledge which would suffice for them to say anything about God's substance as it is in itself, as is clear from the words already adduced; therefore, since the vision of God as he is in himself suffices the angels (as is clear from the same passage), it follows that he denies them this, comprehensible vision, and not merely comprehensive vision.

24 Likewise, in that homily 3 On the Incomprehensibility of God's Nature, he denies not only comprehensive vision of God, but also quidditative and intuitive vision; for he holds that the substance of God is seen by no angelic intellect, but only something derived from it, which plainly conflicts with the vision of God by essence, since that vision tends immediately to God as he is in himself, as is clear from what has been said. Hence, when he there explains the vision of Isaiah, cap. 5, he says that the Seraphim veil their faces with two wings because they could not bear the surpassing splendor of God. He adds: “Although they did not see the pure light itself, nor the pure substance itself, but what they saw was a condescension and an indulgence.” Here it is plainly apparent that he denies intuitive vision of God as he is in himself, because this is the vision of God's pure and true substance, and grants only the vision of something that God condescends.

This is confirmed and explained. For, in order to show what this condescension is, he added: “When God does not manifest himself as he is, but only insofar as he can be seen by the person who has merited such a regard, we say that he measures and tempers his own representation according to the strength of the beholder's sight; and we call a thing of this kind a condescension and an indulgence.” He adds that the prophets saw that condescension, but more obscurely than the angels. Therefore, since God's accommodation and condescension toward the minds of the prophets is such that he does not manifest himself to them as he is in himself, but through another means much lower and proportioned to their minds, the same must be said concerning the angels, who see God only under this condescension and accommodation.

§ II. The contrary opinion, established as altogether certain.

25 Nevertheless, it must be said that the Fathers truly knew that the created intellect can be supernaturally elevated to see God by essence. Thus the scholastics hold in common, with Gabriel Vázquez alone excepted. It would therefore be superfluous to examine anyone in particular.

This assertion could be proved by bringing forward the testimonies of all the Fathers in a precise way. But since it would be long to recount all of them verbatim, we shall mention here only some of the places in which other Fathers confess this very thing.

First, then, this is taught by Gregory of Nazianzus, orat. 2 On Theology, who says: “What, after all, God is in his nature and essence, no mortal has ever discovered, nor will discover in this life with ease, at least in my judgment; he will discover it for the first time when God shall have united to a thing known and familiar that which is Godlike and divine—that is, our mind and reason—and shall have kindled our image after his own exemplar, for which it now burns with desire.”

Next, Augustine teaches this in tom. 2, epist. 6, and also in epist. 112, cap. 15: “If you ask” (he says) “whether God can also be seen someday as he is, I answer that this is promised to sons, concerning whom we have been told, ‘we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.’ If you ask whence we shall see him, I answer: whence the angels see him, with whom we shall then be equal.” Origen also says, lib. 7 contra Celsum, col. 15: “Now we see God through a glass darkly; afterward, face to face.”

26 Likewise, Chrysostom (whom Vázquez cites as the leader of several other Fathers on behalf of the contrary opinion) confesses this very point in epist. 5 to Theodorus the Fallen, in these words: “If Peter, who saw a certain obscure image of future things, immediately rejected everything from his mind because of the pleasure that such a vision had planted in his soul, what shall we say when truth itself will be present, when, with the royal chambers opened, it will be permitted to behold the King himself—not through an enigma, nor through a glass, but face to face; no longer, I say, through faith, but through sight.” Nothing could be said more clearly in support of a true confession of our beatitude, which consists in the clear vision of God.

Finally, this is confessed by Dionysius, cap. 4 On the Celestial Hierarchy; Ignatius, in his epistle to the Romans; Augustine, On the City of God, cap. 30; Epiphanius, lib. 3 Against Heresies, heresy 70; Gregory of Nyssa, lib. On the Beatitudes, in his explanation of “Blessed are the pure in heart”; Isidore, lib. 1 Sent., cap. 26; On Divine Offices, cap. On the Rule of Faith; Bernard, sermon 31 on the Canticles, and lib. 5 De Consider.; Theophylact, on John 1; Euthymius there, and many others.

All these points can also be confirmed from the preceding Difficulty. For there we said that this truth, namely that the blessed see God by essence, and consequently that this vision is possible for them, was defined by the Church; it is therefore a sign that this was the mind of the Fathers, and consequently that their unanimous agreement decidedly does not stand with the contrary opinion; otherwise the Church would contradict itself, because it would overturn the surest supports by which it is fortified and defended, namely the statements of the Fathers, whom it duly and carefully consults in definitions of this kind, so that it may thereby be better disposed to define even the truth itself.

§ III. The arguments proposed at the outset are answered.

27 To the first argument, therefore, an answer is given along with St. Thomas, in 4, dist. 49, quaest. 2, art. 1, ad 1, and Augustine, epistles 111 and 112: the aforementioned Fathers, and indeed any others, are to be explained by one of the three ways set forth in the preceding Difficulty, namely, whether the reference is to vision in this mortal life, or vision through the bodily eye, or finally comprehensive vision; in such a way, however, that the one which is more consonant with the context be adapted to each Father. Hence Ambrose, Jerome, Basil, and Augustine, in the places cited, call God invisible either because, according to the ordinary course of things, he cannot be seen in this mortal life, or because he is invisible to bodily eyes. In this way they meant to signify that God is not bodily and therefore cannot be seen as a body even by the angels. Augustine thus explains the aforementioned Fathers in the place cited. By this, incidentally, the other objections that Vázquez brings against this explanation can also be clearly seen to fail.

28 To the second argument, the best answer is the solution given by St. Thomas there. First, because in homil. 14 on John, Chrysostom is dealing with the explanation of that testimony: “No one has ever seen God; the Only-Begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” This is indeed to be understood not of any kind of vision, but of comprehensive vision. Next, because this is taught by Ambrose, lib. 5 in Lucam, the chapter on the apparition of the angel to the priest Zechariah; Epiphanius, heresy 70; and Augustine, epist. 112 On Seeing God, cap. 5 and 6, who says that the statement is to be understood with regard to the fullness of divinity, because no one except the Son, who is true God, comprehends the divinity.

Next, because John wished there, as is clear from the context, to explain the distinction between Moses and Christ: Moses was the minister of the Law, as a servant; Christ, however, was the Author of grace, as the Only-Begotten Son. Hence, to show that he is God, and consequently equal to the Father, he says that God is seen comprehensibly by no creature; yet he is indeed fully known by the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, because he is of one nature with him, and thus the Son himself has made known everything belonging to the Father, however hidden it may be. Therefore, Chrysostom, having penetrated the force of this testimony and speaking accordingly about comprehensive vision, rightly said that no creature can see the uncreated nature of God; and, to explain altogether that this was his intention, he added shortly after the quoted words that here vision is called the most certain contemplation of the Father, and such comprehension as the Father has of the Son.

Finally, because, as we indicated above, in that homily and in his other writings On the Incomprehensibility of God's Nature, Chrysostom argues against the Anomoeans, who—as is clear from Theodoret, lib. 4 of Heretical Fables, and from Chrysostom himself in the immediately cited passage—asserted that they were ignorant of nothing about God, but knew God's very substance so exactly that they had the same knowledge of God as God himself has of himself, and consequently attained not somehow or other, but comprehensibly, to the divine essence. Thus he wished to refute this error alone, as is clear from what the same holy Doctor teaches in the same book, hom. 4, immediately following, in these words: “It would now be enough, dearest brothers, if, after we have recently shown that God is incomprehensible to human beings, and even to the Cherubim and Seraphim, relieved of the importunity of human heretics, we should admonish nothing further.”

29 Therefore, against the first proof offered there by St. Thomas in opposition to the solution, the antecedent must be denied. Against his proof, the antecedent must also be denied. For the Anomoeans are called not only mad but also furious by Epiphanius, heresy 76. Indeed, Chrysostom, hom. 5 On the Incomprehensibility of God's Nature, recounting their madness, says: “This kind of men must be despised and rejected no less than fools and madmen.”

Add, that the words of the Anomoeans quoted in this solution are so explicit in affirming comprehension that the scholastics and several of the Fathers use them to explain it; consequently, when all are considered, they do not permit a benign interpretation in this respect: indeed, the truth of the Catholic faith is contained in the testimonies of the Fathers, as will be still more evident from what has been said and what will be said immediately.

30 To the second proof, the answer is that Chrysostom intends there only that the Only-Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father and of one nature with him, can say anything when asked about God's substance, or can tell it forth if he pleases—not somehow or other, but as the Author and Teacher of this doctrine. The angelic office, however, is not to be teachers and authors of the aforesaid doctrine, but its ministers and God's praisers; hence they always proclaim: “Glory to God in the highest.”

That this was Chrysostom's intention is clear, because, as we said, he was there explaining that testimony of John: “No one has ever seen God; the Only-Begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” There, just as he ascribes comprehensive vision of God to the Only-Begotten alone, and consequently distinguishes him from Moses in this, that Moses had been the minister of the Law, as a servant, whereas Christ was the Author of grace, as the Only-Begotten, as we have already shown, so likewise he intends there that only Christ can answer, or tell forth anything about God's substance, as the Teacher and Author of this doctrine, and not the others.

31 Nevertheless, it must be added that things that are God's are known to no one according to their dignity except God himself, and thus cannot be told forth according to their dignity by anyone except him. Hence it is no wonder that, from the defect of this worthy telling-forth, which cannot be found in the angels, Chrysostom said that the angels cannot answer when asked about God's substance; no more than Paul, after the vision of the divine essence, asserted: “I heard secret words which it is not lawful for a man to utter,” because he could not tell them forth according to their dignity.

To the third proof, the answer is that Chrysostom did not say, as Vázquez maintains, that the angels see only something derived from the divine essence, as the text will show to one considering it closely. Even if he had said this, nothing would follow against St. Thomas. For the sense would be that they can comprehensibly attain only to something derived from God's essence, but not to the essence itself as it is in itself.

We admit, moreover, that those words taken from the vision of Isaiah, cap. 6, are Chrysostom's; yet in them he means only that the Seraphim do not comprehensibly see that wondrous light and pure substance of God, but in proportion to the light of glory, by which the intellect is not only strengthened but also accommodated to the object, insofar as, according to the measure and strength of the light, the divine essence is united as intelligible form with the intellects of the blessed, as will be evident from what is said below.

32 Chrysostom explained this very well, both in the words brought forward above in confirmation, namely: “He measures and tempers his own representation according to the strength of the beholder's sight,” and also by the term condescension. For the divine essence, considered under the aspect of form, is united in the highest degree of union and identification with the divine intellect, and consequently wholly, totally, and with reference to comprehension; but with the created intellect of the blessed it is united only in a lower degree, by condescension from that highest degree: for although it is wholly united to it, it is not nevertheless totally united. Likewise, although it is identified with it in intelligible being, as we shall say below, this identification is far less and infinitely deficient in comparison with the former; therefore, this mode of condescension removes comprehension, but not vision: for the divine essence, as it is in itself, is united to either intellect.

Hence the same Chrysostom, in that same book On the Incomprehensibility of God's Nature, hom. 4, expressly explains how this condescension removes only comprehensive knowledge of God, saying: “Since, therefore, he says that God, though condescending, was unable to sustain those powers, he teaches nothing except that his explicit, ample, and complete knowledge could not be received.” And he immediately adds: “Hence also the Evangelist knows more certainly that such a great thing is not concerned with human nature, and that God is not comprehensible even by the highest powers.” Here it is clear, as has been shown, that he teaches only that this condescension removes from the angels the knowledge that would be at once explicit, ample, and complete—that is, adequate to God, and thus extended in the order of knowledge as God is in the order of knowability; and therefore he added those final words: “That God is not comprehensible even by the highest powers.” By this, the confirmation is sufficiently clear.

33 Nor does the statement added at the close of the same confirmation stand in the way, namely, that the Prophets were deprived of the vision of the divine essence and nevertheless saw the aforesaid condescension, though more obscurely than the angels. For Chrysostom called that condescension and indulgence which is the degree of divine knowledge that God grants to each person, whether in this life, as to the Prophets and other human beings, or in the future life, as to the blessed: not because there is no vision of the divine essence in the blessed, as we have seen above from the same Chrysostom, or because it is equal in all, both blessed and unblessed; but because it is inferior to the knowledge adequate to the divine essence, which is comprehensive, and in both is limited according to God's good pleasure and indulgence, as from the first principle, and according to the nature of the light—whether dim or clear—which is conferred by God. Thus, although the same knowledge is obscure in the Prophets because the prophetic light is not indicative of God as he is in himself, it is not so in the blessed; even though in them too it falls short of that clarity which comprehensive knowledge of God seeks. Hence it is said to be obscure in some sense only by comparison with that clarity. Chrysostom indicates this obscurity, so to speak, when he said that the Prophets also saw the aforesaid condescension, but more obscurely than the angels.