To the Soldiers, on What Is Impossible with God

Human nature is everywhere the same, but people’s pursuits in life are many and varied. Some prefer a sailor’s career, some a soldier’s; some become athletes, some farmers; some practice one craft and some another. To pass over all other differences, some are zealous and diligent about divine things, and get themselves taught the exact teaching of the apostolic doctrines. Others, on the contrary, become slaves of the belly, and suppose that the enjoyment of base pleasures is happiness. Others again lie in the middle between these two extremes. They do not show that praiseworthy enthusiasm, nor do they take up a life without self-control, but they still honor the simplicity of the faith. Those who attack the statement that some things are altogether impossible with God must not, I think, be counted among the zealous and those well taught in divine things. They belong rather either with those who have no exact knowledge of the apostolic doctrines, or with those who have been enslaved by pleasures and shift this way and that at the whim of a moment, putting forward now one thing and now another. [a] You have asked me to write on these points. At the present time I would prefer to keep silent. But in obedience to the Lord’s command, “Give to everyone who asks of you,” I feel bound to reply briefly. [b]

I say, then, that the God of the universe can do all things, but that the word “all” includes only what is right and good. For he who is by nature both wise and good admits nothing of the opposite nature, but only what befits his nature. If any objectors dispute this statement, ask them whether the God of the universe, the lawgiver of truth, can lie. If they say that lying is possible for God, drive them out of your company as impious and blasphemous. If they agree that lying is not possible for the God of the universe, ask them next whether he who is the fountain of justice can become unjust. If they grant that this too is impossible for the God of all, you must ask yet again whether the unfathomable depth of wisdom can become unwise, God cease to be God, the Lord cease to be the Lord, the Creator be no Creator, the Good be not good but evil, and the true Light be not light but its opposite. If they admit that all these things and the like are impossible for God, you must say to them, “Then many things are impossible with God.” And their being impossible, far from proving a lack of power, shows on the contrary the greatest power.

Even with our own soul, when we say that it cannot die, we are not charging it with weakness; we are proclaiming that it is capable of immortality. In the same way, when we confess that God is unchangeable, unable to suffer and immortal, we cannot attribute change, suffering or death to the divine nature. Suppose they press the point that God can do whatever he wills. You must answer them that he wills to do nothing that it is not his nature to do. He is by nature good, so he wills nothing evil. He is by nature just, so he wills nothing unjust. He is by nature true, so he loathes falsehood. He is by nature unchangeable, so he does not admit of change; and if he does not admit of change, he is always in the same state and condition. He himself declares this through the prophet: “I am the Lord; I do not change.” And the blessed David says, “You are the same, and your years will have no end.” If he is the same, he undergoes no change. If he is by nature above change and alteration, he has not become mortal from immortal, nor able to suffer from unable to suffer; for if this had been possible, he would not have taken our nature on himself. But since he has an immortal nature, he took a body capable of suffering, and with the body a human soul. He kept both of these unstained by the defilements of sin, and gave his soul for the sake of the souls that had sinned, and his body for the sake of the bodies that had died. And since the body he took is called the body of the very only Son of God, he refers the suffering of the body to himself. But the four evangelists testify that it was not the divine nature but the body that was nailed to the cross. All of them teach with one voice that Joseph of Arimathea came to Pilate and begged for the body of Jesus; that he took the body of Jesus down from the tree, wrapped it in fine linen, and laid the body of Jesus in his own new tomb; and that Mary Magdalene came to the tomb looking for the body of Jesus, and when she could not find the body of Jesus, ran to his disciples and told them these things. [c]

This is the unanimous teaching of the evangelists. But if your opponents argue that the angels said, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay,” let these foolish people learn that the divine Scripture also says of the victorious Stephen, “And devout men carried Stephen to his burial.” Yet it was only the body that was thought fit for burial; the soul was not buried with the body. Even so, the body alone was spoken of by the common name. In the same way the blessed Jacob said to his sons, “Bury me with my fathers.” He did not say, “Bury my body.” Then he went on, “There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah.” He did not say, “their bodies.” The names are common to bodies and souls, but still it was only the bodies he called by the common names. In this way too we constantly speak of the shrines of the holy apostles, prophets and martyrs: one, it may be, of Dionysius, another of Julian, another of Cosmas. Yet we know that only fragments of bodies lie there, while the souls are at rest in diviner regions. Exactly the same custom is found in ordinary speech, for we say that so-and-so died, and so-and-so lies in this place, though we know that the soul is immortal and does not share the tomb with the body. In this sense the angel said, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay,” not because he shut the Godhead up in the tomb, but because he spoke of the Lord’s body by the Lord’s name. [g]

To prove that this is the view of the holy Fathers, let them note the words of Athanasius, the illustrious archbishop of Alexandria, who adorned his time as bishop with his confession of the faith. He cries out, “Life cannot die, but rather gives life to the dead.” [k] Let them hear too the words of the far-famed Damasus, bishop of Rome: “If anyone claims that on the cross the pain was borne by the Godhead, and not by the body with the soul, the form of the servant which he had taken in its completeness, let him be anathema.” [l] Let them hear too the most sacred and holy bishop of the church of the Romans, the lord Leo, who has now written, “The Son of God suffered as he was capable of suffering, not in the nature that took but in the nature that was taken. For the nature unable to suffer took the body able to suffer, and gave it for us, so that he might work out our salvation and at the same time keep his own nature unable to suffer.” And again: “For he did not come to destroy his own nature, but to save ours.” [m]

If, then, they accuse us for saying that God can do what he wills, but that he wills what befits his own nature, and neither wills nor is capable of what does not befit it, let them accuse these saints too, and all the others who hold this position. Let them accuse even the apostle, who says, “that by two unchangeable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie.” And again, “If we do not believe, yet he remains faithful; he cannot deny himself.” [n] Repeat these passages to your opponents. If they are convinced, praise the good Lord that through your zeal he has done them good. If they remain unconvinced, enter into no discussion of doctrines with them, for the divine apostle forbids us to “quarrel about words to no profit, but to the ruin of those who hear.” But keep the teaching of the Gospels inviolate, so that on the day of his appearing you may bring the righteous Judge what was entrusted to you, with its due interest, and may hear the longed-for words, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord.” [o]