The "Immortality" of the soul (part 3)

“I am the Resurrection,

and the Life.”

The Incarnation of the Word was an absolute manifestation of God. And above all it was a revelation of Life. Christ is the Word of Life, o Logos tis zois (1 John 1:1). The Incarnation itself was, in a sense, the quickening of man, as it were the resurrection of human nature. In the Incarnation human nature was not merely anointed with a superabundant overflowing of Grace, but was assumed into an intimate and "hypostatical" unity with Divinity itself. In that lifting up of human nature into an everlasting communion with the Divine Life, the Fathers of the early Church unanimously saw the very essence of salvation. "That is saved which is united with God," says St. Gregory of Nazianzus. And what was not so united could not be saved at all (Epist. 101, ad Cledonium). This was the fundamental motive in the whole of early theology, in St. Irenaeus, St. Athanasius, the Cappadocians, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Maximus the Confessor. Yet, the climax of the Incarnate Life was the Cross, the death of the Incarnate Lord. Life has been revealed in full through death. This is the paradoxical mystery of the Christian faith: life through death, life from the grave and out of the grave, the Mystery of the life-bearing grave. And Christians are born again to real and everlasting life only through their baptismal death and burial in Christ; they are regenerated with Christ in the baptismal font (cf. Rom. 6:3-5).

Such is the invariable law of true life. "That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die" (1 Cor. 15:36). Salvation was completed on Golgotha, not on Tabor, and the Cross of Jesus was spoken of even on Tabor (cf. Luke 9:31). Christ had to die, in order to bestow an abundant life upon the whole of mankind. It was not the necessity of this world. This was, as it were, the necessity of Love Divine, a necessity of a Divine order. And we fail to comprehend the mystery. Why had the true life to be revealed through the death of One, Who was Himself "the Resurrection and the Life"? The only answer is that Salvation had to be a victory over death and man's mortality. The ultimate enemy of man was precisely death. Redemption was not just the forgiveness of sins, nor was it man's reconciliation with God. It was the deliverance from sin and death. "Penitence does not deliver from the state of nature (into which man has relapsed through sin), it only discontinues the sin," says St. Athanasius. For man not only sinned but "fell into corruption." Now, the mercy of God could not permit "that creatures once made rational, and having partaken of the Word, should go to ruin and turn again to non-existence by the way of corruption." Consequently the Word of God descended and became man, assumed our body, "that, whereas man turned towards corruption, He might turn them again towards incorruption, and quicken them from death by the appropriation of his body and by the grace of the Resurrection, banishing death from them like a straw from the fire." (De incarnatione, 6-8).

Thus, according to St. Athanasius, the Word became flesh in order to abolish "corruption" in human nature. However, death is vanquished, not by the appearance of Life in the mortal body, but rather by the voluntary death of the Incarnate Life. The Word became incarnate on account of death in flesh, St. Athanasius emphasizes. "In order to accept death He had a body" (c. 44). Or, to quote Tertullian, forma moriendi causa nascendi est (De carne Christi, 6). The ultimate reason for Christ's death must be seen in the mortality of Man. Christ suffered death, but passed through it and overcame mortality and corruption. He quickened death itself. "By death He destroyed death." The death of Christ is therefore, as it were, an extension of the Incarnation. The death on the Cross was effective, not as the death of an Innocent One, but as the death of the Incarnate Lord. "We needed an Incarnate God, God put to death, that we might live," to use a bold and startling phrase of St. Gregory of Nazianzus (Orat. 45, in S. Pascha, 28; edeithimen Theu sarkomenu ke nekrumenu). It was not a man that died on the Cross. In Christ there is no human hypostasis. His personality was Divine, yet incarnate. "For He who suffered was not common man, but God made man, and fighting the contest of endurance," says St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech. 13, 6). It may be properly said that God died on the Cross, but in His own humanity (which was, however, "consubstantial" with ours). This was the voluntary death of One Who was Himself Life Eternal.

A human death indeed, death "according to humanity," and yet death within the hypostasis of the Word, of the Incarnate Word. And thence a resurrecting death. "I have a baptism to be baptized with" (Luke 12:50). It was the death on the Cross, and the shedding of blood, — "the baptism of martyrdom and blood, with which Christ Himself also was baptized," as St. Gregory of Nazianzus suggested (Orat. 37, 17). The death on the Cross as a baptism of blood, this is the very essence of the redeeming mystery of the Cross. Baptism is a cleansing. And the Baptism of the Cross was, as it were, the cleansing of the human nature, which was travelling the path of restoration in the Hypostasis of the Incarnate Word. This was, as it were, a washing of human nature in the outpoured sacrificial blood of the Divine Lamb, and first of all a washing of the body: not only a washing away of sins, but a washing away of human infirmities and of mortality itself. It was the cleansing in preparation for the coming resurrection: a cleansing of all human nature, a cleansing of all humanity in the person of its new and mystical First-born, in the "Last Adam." This was the baptism by blood of the whole Church, and indeed of the whole world. "A purification not for a small part of man's world, not for a short time, but for the whole Universe and through eternity," to quote St. Gregory of Nazianzus once more (Orat. 45, 13). The Lord died on the Cross. This was a true death. Yet not wholly like ours, simply because this was the death of the Incarnate Word, death within the indivisible Hypostasis of the Word made man, the death of the "enhypostatized" humanity. This does not alter the ontological character of death, but changes its meaning. The "Hypostatic Union" was not broken or destroyed by death, and therefore the soul and the body, though separated from each other, remained still united through the Divinity of the Word, from which neither was ever estranged. This was an "incorrupt death," and therefore "corruption" and "mortality" were overcome in it, and in it begins the resurrection.

The very death of the Incarnate reveals the resurrection of human nature (St. John of Damascus, De fide orth., 3.27; cf. homil. in Magn. Saиbat., 29). "Today we keep the feast, for our Lord is nailed upon the Cross," in the sharp phrase of St. John Chrysostom (In crucem et latronem, hom. 1). The death on the Cross is a Victory over death not only because it was followed by the Resurrection. It is itself the victory. The Resurrection only reveals and sets forth the victory achieved on the Cross. It is already accomplished in the very falling asleep of the God-man. "Thou diest and quickenest me." As St. Gregory of Nazianzus puts it: "He lays down His life, but He has the power to take it again; and the veil is rent, for the mysterious doors of Heaven are opened; the rocks are cleft, the dead arise. He dies, but He gives life, and by His death destroys death. He is buried, but He rises again. He goes down into Hades, but He brings up the souls" (Orat. 41). This mystery of the resurrecting Cross is commemorated especially on Good Saturday. It is the day of the Descent into-Hell (Hades). And the Descent into Hades is already the Resurrection of the dead. By the very fact of His death Christ joins the company of the departed. It is the new extension of the Incarnation. Hades is just the darkness and shadow of death, rather a place of mortal anguish than a place of penal torments, a dark "sheol," a place of hopeless disembodiment and disincarnation, which was only scantily and dimly fore-illuminated by the slanting rays of the not-yet-risen Sun, by the hope and expectation yet unfulfilled. It was, as it were, a kind of ontological infirmity of the soul, which, in the separation of death, had lost the faculty of being the true entelechia of its own body, the helplessness of fallen and wounded nature. Not a "place" at all, but rather a spiritual state: "the spirits in prison" (1 Peter 3:19).

It was into this prison, into this "Hell," that the Lord and Savior descended. Amid the darkness of pale death shone the unquenchable light of Life, the Life Divine. The "Descent into Hell" is the manifestation of Life amid the hopelessness of mortal dissolution, it is victory over death. "It was not from any natural weakness of the Word that dwelt in it that the body had died, but in order that in it death might be done away by the power of the Savior," says St. Athanasius (De inc. 26). Good Saturday is more than Easter-Eve. It is the "Blessed Sabbath," "Sanctum Sabbatum," — requies Sabbati magni, in the phrase of St. Ambrose. "This is the Blessed Sabbath, this is the day of rest, whereon the Only-Begotten Son of God has rested from all His deeds" (Anthem, Vespers of Good Saturday, according to the Eastern rite). "I am the first and the last: I Am He that liveth, and was dead: and behold, I am alive for evermore. Amen. And I have the keys of death and of Hades" (Rev. 1:17-18).

The Christian "hope of immortality" is rooted in and secured by this victory of Christ, and not by any "natural" endowment. And it means also that this hope is rooted in a historical event, i.e., in a historical self-revelation of God, and not in any static disposition or constitution of human nature.

The Last Adam.

The reality of death is not yet abolished, but its powerlessness has been revealed. "It is true, we still die as before," says St. John Chrysostom, "but we do not remain in death, and this is not to die. The power and very reality of death is just this, that a dead man has no possibility of returning to life; but if after death he is to be quickened and moreover to be given a better life, then this is no longer death, but a falling sleep" (In Hebr., hom. 17, 2; u thanatos tuto estin, alla kimisis). Or in the phrase of St. Athanasius, "like seed cast on the earth, we do not perish when we die, but having been sown, we rise" (De inc., 21). This was a healing and renewal of human "nature," and therefore all will rise, all will be raised and restored to the fullness of their natural being, yet transformed. From henceforth every disembodiment is but temporary. The dark vale of Hades is abolished by the power of the life-giving Cross. In the first Adam the inherent potentiality of death by disobedience was disclosed and actualized. In the second Adam the potentiality of immortality by purity and obedience was sublimated and actualized into the impossibility of death. This parallel was drawn already by St. Irenaeus. Apart from the hope of the General Resurrection, belief in Christ would be vain and to no purpose. "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruit of them that slept" (1 Cor. 15:20). The Resurrection of Christ is a new beginning. It is a "new creation," i keni krisis. One may say even, an eschatological beginning, an ultimate step in the history of Salvation.

And yet, we have to make a dear distinction between the healing of nature and the healing of the will. "Nature" is healed and restored with a certain compulsion, by the mighty power of God's omnipotent and invincible grace. The wholeness is as it were, "forced" upon human nature. For in Christ all human nature (the "seed of Adam") is fully and completely cured from unwholeness and mortality. This restoration will be actualized and revealed to its full extent in due time, in the General Resurrection, in the resurrection of all, both of the righteous and the wicked. And no one, so far as nature is concerned, can escape Christ's kingly rule, or alienate himself from the invincible power of the resurrection. But the will of man cannot be cured in the same invincible manner. The will of man must turn itself to God. There must be a free and spontaneous response of love and adoration, a "free conversion." The will of man can be cured only in the "mystery of freedom." Only by this free effort does man enter into that new and eternal life which is revealed in Christ Jesus.

A spiritual regeneration can be wrought only in perfect freedom, in an obedience of love, by a self-consecration and self-dedication to God, in Christ. This distinction was made with great insistence by Nicolas Cabasilas in his remarkable treatise on The Life in Christ. Resurrection is a "rectification of nature" (i anastasis physeos estin epanorthosis) and this God grants freely. But the Kingdom of Heaven, and the beatific vision, and union with Christ, presuppose the desire (trofi estin tis theliseos), and therefore are available only for those who have longed for them, and loved, and desired. And immortality will be given to all, just as all can enjoy Divine providence. It does not depend upon our will whether we shall rise after death or not, just as it is not by our will that we are born. The death and resurrection of Christ bring immortality and incorruption to all in the same manner, because all have the same nature as the Man Christ Jesus. But nobody can be compelled to desire. Thus Resurrection is a gift common to all, but the blessedness will be given only to some (De vita in Christo II, 86-96). And again, the path of life is the path of renunciation, of mortification, of self-sacrifice and self-oblation. One has to die to oneself in order to live in Christ. Each one must personally and freely associate himself with Christ, the Lord, the Savior, and the Redeemer, in the confession of faith, in the choice of love, in the mystical oath of allegiance. He who does not die with Christ cannot live with Him. "Unless of our own free choice we accept to die unto His passion, His life is not in us" (St. Ignatius, Magnes, 5; the phraseology is Pauline).

This is no mere ascetical or moral rule, no mere discipline. This is the ontological law of spiritual existence, even the law of life itself. For only in communion with God and through life in Christ does the restoration of human wholeness gain meaning. To those in total darkness, who have deliberately confined themselves "outside God," the Resurrection itself must seem rather unnecessary and unmotivated. But it will come, as a "resurrection to judgment" (John 5:29 (anastasis tis kriseos). And in this will be completed the tragedy of human freedom. Here indeed we are on the threshold of the inconceivable and incomprehensible. The apokatastasis of nature does not abolish free will, and the will must be moved from within by love.

St. Gregory of Nyssa had not a clear understanding of this. He anticipated a kind of universal conversion of souls in the after-life, when the Truth of God will be revealed and manifested with some ultimate and compelling evidence. Just at this point the limitations of the Hellenistic mind are obvious. Evidence seemed to it to be the decisive reason or motive for the will, as if "sin" were merely "ignorance." The Hellenistic mind had to pass through its long and hard experience of asceticism, of ascetical self-examination and self-control, in order to free itself from this intellectualistic naiveté and illusion, and discover a dark abyss in the fallen soul. Only in St. Maximus, after some centuries of ascetic preparation, do we find a new, remodeled and deepened interpretation of the apokatastasis.

St. Maximus did not believe in the inevitable conversion of obstinate souls. He taught an apokatastasis of nature, i.e., a restitution of all beings to an integrity of nature, of a universal manifestation of the Divine Life, which will be evident to every one. But those who have deliberately spent their lives on earth in fleshly desires, "against nature," will be unable to enjoy this eternal bliss. The Light is the Word, that illuminates the natural minds of the faithful; but as a burning fire of the judgment (ti kavsi tis kriseos), He punishes those who, through love of the flesh, cling to the nocturnal darkness of this life. The distinction is between an epignosis, and a methesis. "Acknowledgment" is not the same as "Participation." God will be in all indeed, but only in the Saints will He be present "with grace" (dia tin harin) ; in the reprobate He will be present "without grace" (para tin harin). And the wicked will be estranged from God by their lack of a resolute purpose of good." We have here the same duality of nature and will. In the resurrection the whole of creation will be restored, i.e., brought to perfection and ultimate stability. But sin and evil are rooted in the will. The Hellenistic mind concluded therefrom that evil is unstable and by itself must disappear inevitably. For nothing can be perpetual, unless it be rooted in a Divine decree.

The Christian inference is exactly the opposite. There is the inertia and obstinacy of the will, and this obstinacy may remain uncured even in the "universal Restoration." God never does any violence to man, and communion with God cannot be forced upon the obstinate. In the phrase of St. Maximus, "the Spirit does not produce an undesired resolve but it transforms a chosen purpose into theosis" (Quaest. ad Thalass., 6). We live in a changed world: it has been changed by Christ's redeeming Resurrection. Life has been given, and it will prevail. The Incarnate Lord is in very truth the Second Adam and in Him the new humanity has been inaugurated. Not only an ultimate "survival" is assured, but also the fulfillment of God's creative purpose. Man is made "immortal." He cannot commit an ultimate "metaphysical suicide" and strike himself out of existence. Yet even the victory of Christ does not force "Eternal Life" upon the "closed" beings. As St. Augustine says, for the creature "being is not the same thing as living" (De Genesi ad litt. I, 5). Cont...

- Archpriest G. Florovsky