Milk Before Solid Food

Suppose someone says: “What of it? Could God not have produced man perfect from the beginning?” Here is the answer. God is always the same, and he himself was never made, so everything is possible to him. But created things have to be less than the one who created them, for the simple reason that they came later; things that have just been made could not have been uncreated. And since they are not uncreated, that alone is why they fall short of what is perfect. Because they came later, they are also in their infancy: unused to perfect discipline, and unpracticed in it. [a]

A mother is perfectly able to give solid food to her baby, but she does not, because the child cannot yet take heavier nourishment. In the same way God was able to make man perfect from the first, but man could not have received it; he was still an infant. That is why our Lord, in these last times, when he had gathered up all things into himself, came to us — not as he might have come, but as we were able to look at him. He could easily have come to us in his undying glory; but then we could never have borne the sheer size of that glory. So the one who is the Father’s perfect bread offered himself to us as milk, because we were infants. He did that by appearing as a man, so that we might be fed, so to speak, from the breast of his flesh; and so that, having been brought up on that milk, we might grow used to eating and drinking the Word of God, and be able to hold within us the Bread of immortality, which is the Spirit of the Father.

This is why Paul says to the Corinthians, “I fed you with milk, not with solid food, for up to now you were not able to take it.” He means: you have indeed learned that our Lord came as a man; but because you are still weak, the Spirit of the Father has not yet come to rest on you. “For while there is jealousy and quarreling among you,” he says, “and divisions, are you not people of the flesh, living the way men do?” That is, the Spirit of the Father was not yet with them, because they were not yet complete and because their way of life fell short.

So the apostle was able to give them solid food — the people the apostles laid hands on received the Holy Spirit, who is the food of life — but they could not take it in, because the senses of their soul were still weak and untrained in the practice of the things of God. In the same way God had it in his power at the beginning to give man perfection; but man had only just been made, and there was no way he could have received it — or, if he had received it, held it — or, holding it, kept it. That is why the Son of God, though he was perfect, went through infancy along with the rest of mankind, sharing in it not for his own benefit but for the sake of man in his infancy, so that man could receive him. So the fact that man was not an uncreated being implies nothing impossible in God, and no lack in him. It says something only about the one who had just been made — about man.

In God, power and wisdom and goodness are all displayed at once. His power and his goodness show in this, that of his own will he called into being and shaped things that had not existed before. His wisdom shows in his having made created things parts of one whole that fits together and holds together. And the things that receive growth and a long stretch of existence through his surpassing kindness reflect the glory of the Uncreated, of that God who gives what is good without grudging it. Because these things were created, it follows that they are not uncreated; but by continuing in being through a long course of ages they will take on a capacity belonging to the Uncreated, since God freely grants them existence without end. So in everything God holds first place: he alone is uncreated, first of all things, the original cause that anything at all exists, while everything else stays subject to God. And being subject to God means going on in immortality, and immortality is the glory of the Uncreated. By this arrangement, then, and by these harmonies, and by an order of this kind, man — a made and fitted-together creature — is brought to the image and likeness of the uncreated God. The Father plans everything well and gives the commands; the Son carries them out and does the work of forming; the Spirit feeds and increases what is made; and man goes forward day by day, climbing toward what is perfect — that is, drawing near to the Uncreated. For the Uncreated is perfect, that is, God. Man had to be created first; and once created, to grow; and once grown, to be made strong; and once made strong, to come into plenty; and once in plenty, to recover; and once recovered, to be glorified; and once glorified, to see his Lord. For God is the one who is yet to be seen, and seeing God produces immortality, and immortality brings a man close to God.

So they are unreasonable at every point, these people who will not wait for the time of growth but lay the weakness of their own nature to God’s account. They know neither God nor themselves. They are never satisfied and never grateful, unwilling to be at the start the very thing they were also created — men who can suffer. Instead they overstep the law of the human race: before they have even become men they want to be, already now, like God who made them. They have less sense than the animals that cannot speak, and they insist there is no difference between the uncreated God and man, a creature made today. The animals bring no charge against God for not having made them men; each one, just as it was made, gives thanks that it was made. But we blame him, because we were not made gods from the beginning — because we were merely men first, and only at length gods; though God took this course out of his pure good will, so that no one could charge him with spite or grudging. He declares: “I have said, You are gods, and you are all sons of the Most High.” But since we could not hold up under the power of divinity, he adds: “But you will die like men.” He sets out both things at once: the kindness of his free gift, and our weakness — and also that we had power over ourselves. Out of his great kindness he freely gave us what is good and made men like himself in this, that they had power over themselves; while at the same time he knew beforehand how weak human beings are and what would come of it. But by his love and his power he will overcome the stuff of created nature. For nature had to be displayed first; and after that, what is mortal had to be beaten and swallowed up by immortality, and what decays by what cannot decay; and man had to be made in the image and likeness of God, having received the knowledge of good and evil.

Man has received the knowledge of good and evil. It is good to obey God, to trust him, and to keep his command; and this is man’s life. Not to obey God is evil; and this is his death. Since God gave man that largeness of mind, man came to know both the good of obeying and the evil of disobeying, so that the eye of the mind, having had experience of both, could judge and choose the better things; and so that he would never grow lazy or careless about God’s command; and so that, learning by experience that the thing which robs him of life — disobedience to God — is evil, he would never try it at all; and so that, knowing that what keeps him alive — obedience to God — is good, he would hold to it carefully and with all seriousness. So he has had a double experience, with knowledge of both kinds, in order that, being trained by it, he may choose the better things. For how could he have been taught what is good if he had no knowledge of its opposite? Grasping a matter set before us in that way is surer and leaves no doubt, as against merely guessing at it from an opinion. Just as the tongue learns sweet and bitter by tasting, and the eye tells black from white by seeing, and the ear picks out the differences between sounds by hearing, so the mind too, getting the knowledge of what is good through experience of both, holds on to it more tightly by acting in obedience to God. First it throws off disobedience by repentance, as something distasteful and sickening; and afterwards it comes to understand what disobedience really is, that it is the opposite of goodness and sweetness — so that the mind may never so much as try the taste of disobeying God. But anyone who shuns the knowledge of both these kinds of things, and the double perception of knowledge, strips himself, without noticing it, of what makes him a human being. [k]

How, then, will he be a god, when he has not yet been made a man? How can he be perfect, when he was only just created? And how can he be immortal, if in his mortal nature he did not obey his Maker? You must first hold a man’s rank, and only afterwards share in the glory of God. You do not make God; God makes you. So if you are God’s handiwork, wait for the hand of your Maker, which makes everything at the right time — the right time for you, whose making is still going on. Hand him your heart soft and workable. Keep the shape the Creator gave you when he formed you. Keep the moisture in you, or you will harden and lose the print of his fingers. By keeping the frame you will climb to what is perfect, for the wet clay in you is hidden there by the workmanship of God. His hand shaped the stuff you are made of. He will overlay you inside and out with pure gold and silver, and he will decorate you so richly that even “the King himself will take pleasure in your beauty.” But if you set yourself hard and refuse the working of his skill, and show yourself ungrateful to him because you were created a mere man, then by that ingratitude toward God you have lost at one stroke both his handiwork and life itself. For creating belongs to the goodness of God; being created belongs to human nature. So if you hand over to him what is yours — trust in him, and submission — you will receive his handiwork, and you will be a perfect work of God.

But if you will not trust him, and you run from his hands, the cause of your unfinished state will be in you, who did not obey — not in him, who called you. He sent men out to call people to the wedding, and those who would not listen to him cut themselves off from the king’s dinner. God’s skill, then, is not at fault, for he is able to raise up children for Abraham out of the stones; the man who fails to receive it is himself the cause of his own unfinished state. In the same way, the light does not fail because of those who have blinded themselves. It stays exactly what it always was, and those who are blinded are wrapped in darkness by their own fault. Light never enslaves anyone by force, and God never uses force on anyone who is unwilling to accept the working of his skill. So the people who have deserted the light the Father gives, and have broken the law of freedom, have done it by their own fault, since they were created free and with power over themselves.

But God, who knows all things beforehand, prepared suitable homes for both, kindly giving the light they want to those who seek after the light that cannot decay and come to it. But for the despisers and the mockers, who dodge this light and turn away from it and in effect blind themselves, he has prepared a darkness that suits people set against the light; and he has laid a fitting punishment on those who try to avoid being subject to him. Submission to God is rest without end. So those who shun the light have a place worthy of their running away, and those who run from eternal rest have a home that matches their running. And since all good things are with God, those who by their own decision run from God cheat themselves of all good things; and having so cheated themselves of everything good that God has, they fall, as follows from that, under God’s just judgment. For people who shun rest justly bring punishment on themselves, and people who avoid the light justly live in darkness. Take the light we have in this present time: those who shun it hand themselves over to darkness, so that they themselves are the reason they have no light and live in the dark — and, as I said before, the light is not the cause of that state of theirs. In the same way, those who run from the eternal light of God, which holds every good thing in itself, are themselves the reason they live in eternal darkness with no good thing at all, having brought on themselves a dwelling of that kind.

So it is one and the same God the Father who has prepared good things in his own keeping for those who want his company and stay subject to him — and who has the eternal fire ready for the leader of the revolt, the devil, and for those who rebelled along with him. The Lord has declared that the men who have set themselves apart on his left hand will be sent into that fire. And this is what was spoken by the prophet: “I am a jealous God, making peace and creating evil things.” He makes peace and friendship with those who repent and turn to him, and brings them into one; but for the unrepentant, the people who shun the light, he prepares eternal fire and the darkness outside, which are real evils to those who fall into them. [r]

Now if it were really one Father who gives rest and a different God who prepared the fire, then their sons would be just as different from each other — the one sending men into the Father’s kingdom, the other into eternal fire. But it is one and the same Lord who has pointed out that the whole human race will be divided at the judgment, “as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” To some he will say: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take the kingdom that has been prepared for you.” And to others: “Go away from me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire that my Father has prepared for the devil and his angels.” So in that passage one and the same Father is plainly declared — the one “making peace and creating evil things” — preparing what suits each of the two. And there is one Judge who sends both to the place that fits them, as the Lord sets it out in the parable of the weeds and the wheat, where he says: “So, just as the weeds are gathered up and burned in the fire, that is how it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom everything that trips people up, and those who do what is lawless, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; there will be weeping and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous will shine out like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” So the Father who has prepared the kingdom for the righteous, into which the Son has taken those worthy of it, is the same one who has prepared the furnace of fire, into which the angels the Son of Man sends out will put the people who deserve it, at God’s command.

The Lord sowed good seed in his own field, and he says, “The field is the world.” But while men were asleep the enemy came and “sowed weeds among the wheat, and went off.” From this we learn who it was: the angel who deserted, the enemy, because he was envious of God’s handiwork and set out to turn that handiwork into something at enmity with God. That is also why God banished from his presence the one who of his own accord sowed the weeds in secret — the one, that is, who brought about the transgression. But he had compassion on man, who fell into disobedience through carelessness, no doubt, but through another’s malice as well. And the enmity by which the devil had meant to make man God’s enemy, God turned back against the one who started it: he took his own anger off man, turned it in another direction, and sent it against the serpent instead. As Scripture tells us, God said to the serpent: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head, and you will strike at his heel.” And the Lord gathered up this enmity into himself when he was made man from a woman, and trod on the serpent’s head, as I pointed out in the previous book.