Question 51: “And many brought offerings to Jerusalem for the Lord, and gifts to Hezekiah the king of Judah; and he was exalted in the eyes of all the nations” (2 Chr. 32:23). What are these offerings, and what are these gifts? And why does God receive “offerings” while the king receives “gifts”? And what does it mean that “he was exalted in the eyes of all the nations”?
Response
51.2. Having granted existence to the entire visible creation, God did not leave it to be moved about solely by means of sense perception, but implanted, within each of the species comprising creation, spiritual principles [logoi] of wisdom and modes of graceful conduct. His aim was not only that mute creations should loudly herald Him as their Creator, proclaimed by means of the principles of the things that came into being, but also that the human person, being tutored by the natural laws and ways of visible realities, should easily find the road of righteousness, which leads to Him.
51.3. And this in fact was the sign of God’s extreme goodness, namely, that He did not simply establish the divine and incorporeal essences of the intelligible hosts as images of divine glory—each one proportionately receiving, as much as is permitted, the inconceivable splendor of the unapproachable beauty—but He also intermingled even among sensory creatures, who are greatly inferior to the intelligible essences, resonances of His own magnificence. These have the power to bear and convey the human intellect unerringly to God, so that it comes to reside beyond the whole of visible reality, planting its foot on the extremity of blessedness and on all the intermediaries it left behind when it passed through them and so completed its journey. And not only this, but also so that none of those who “worship creation rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25) would have ignorance as a ground for justifying himself, hearing creation heralding its own Creator more clearly and distinctly than any other voice.
51.4. Clearly, then, the nature of visible realities naturally has spiritual principles of wisdom and modes of graceful conduct implanted within it by the Creator. When, like the great king Hezekiah, every intellect naturally crowned with virtue and knowledge attains to rule over Jerusalem (cf. 4 Kgs. 18:1-2), that is, over the state in which one beholds only peace, which is a condition free of every passion—for Jerusalem means “vision of peace”—such an intellect, I say, has all creation at its command, by means of all the species of which it is comprised. Through the mediation of the intellect, creation brings to God, like offerings, the spiritual principles of knowledge. To the intellect, creation brings, like gifts, modes for the realization of virtue, which exist within creation, according to the natural law. Through both [i.e., the offerings and the gifts], creation welcomes and receives the one who is able mightily to esteem both. I mean the philosophical mind perfected in the principle of contemplation and in a life of practice. Thus the word of Scripture establishes a distinction when it says that whereas “offerings” are brought to the Lord, “gifts” are brought to the king. According to the experts on these matters, this is because “offerings” are distinctively said to be things brought to those who have no need of them, while “gifts” are given to those in need. And this is perhaps also why it is the general custom that things brought to kings are called “offerings,” with the idea that they do not stand in need of anything.
51.5. Now someone ambitious for distinction might say that this is why the things the Magi brought to the Lord (who out of His love for us had become like us) were called “offerings” (Matt. 2:11), and in saying this he would not at all miss the mark of truth.
51.6. It follows, then, that when we bring to the Lord the spiritual principles we have discerned in creation, we bring him “offerings,” for by nature He has no need of any of these things (cf. Ps. 15:2). For we do not bring the principles of beings to Him as if He were in need of them as others would be, but rather so that we might, on behalf of all His creatures, praise Him in song for all that He has given us. “Gifts,” on the other hand, are received by the one who eagerly pursues divine philosophy, for by his nature he stands in need of modes for virtue and principles for knowledge.
51.7. We can also understand the “offerings” in another way. Insofar as an “offering” is also something given to those who have previously brought forward nothing, the intellect engaged with knowledge receives “offerings” from the contemplation of beings, and brings them to the Lord. These offerings, which the intellect both receives and gives, are the sustaining principles of faith beyond rational demonstration; a faith to which no one has ever brought anything, insofar as a person naturally beholds his own Creator, proclaimed to him by creation, without any of the technical contrivances of various arguments—for what could one possibly bring forward that would be equal to faith, as if his faith were due to his own efforts, and not an offering to him from God? The same intellect also receives the “gifts” of the natural laws of beings, to the extent that it imitates their modes of existence. In other words, before the intellect can receive such gifts, it must have first offered the labors of repentance, through which it first strips off the clothing of the “old man” (Eph. 4:22), after which it can go forth and gather the fruits of righteousness (cf. Matt. 3:8; Phil. 1.11), selecting from within beings those modes of existence created for the life of virtue, which the intellect would never be able even to approach without first producing much labor and sweat, and without forcing itself to strip itself of the old man, like a snake sloughing off its skin. Thus it is only natural that the intellect engaged with knowledge receives from God the “offerings” of the principles of beings that sustain faith, without previously bringing forward absolutely anything at all, for “who,” it says, “has ever first given anything to God, so that recompense should be given to him” (Rom. 11:35)? The intellect also receives “gifts” by imitating the natural modes of beings.
51.8. What I mean is something like this: when the intellect engaged with knowledge imitates the natural law of heaven, it receives gifts, preserving within itself the perfectly even and unchanging movement of virtue and knowledge, a movement which holds in fixity, like so many stars, the bright and shining principles of created beings. Imitating, on the other hand, the natural law of the sun—which changes its position in the sky from one place to another, relative to the needs of the world—the intellect receives, as another gift, the understanding of how to adapt itself wisely, as it should, to all that happens to it, without ever losing anything of its illuminating identity in virtue and knowledge.
51.9. From the eagle it receives eyes to gaze directly at the vision of the divine brilliance of the eternal light, without the pupil of its intellective eye ever being damaged by the exceedingly shining ray.
51.10. Imitating the deer, the intellect climbs the mountains toward the heights of divine visions, and by means of the principle of discretion it destroys the passions nesting like venomous serpents in the nature of beings; and the venom of evil, which perchance had haunted the memory, it extinguishes by drinking from many and different sources of knowledge.
51.11. It also imitates the sharp-sightedness of the gazelle, and the caution of the bird, when like a gazelle it leaps over and escapes the snares of the demons who war against virtue; and when like a bird it flies over the traps of the spirits who battle against knowledge.
51.12. Some say that when the bones of the lion are struck together they produce fire. The intellect that loves God and is engaged with knowledge also imitates this natural quality of the lion. It does this when, in its search for the truth, it strikes together its pious thoughts, as if they were bones, thereby igniting the fire of knowledge.
51.13. “Be wise like the serpent and gentle as a dove” (Matt. 10:16), in all things guarding the unbruised faith, as the serpent guards its head; and wisely remove all the bitterness from the incensive part of the soul, after the example of the dove, which bears no resentment against those who endeavor to afflict and harm it.
51.14. From the turtledove the intellect receives as a gift the imitation of chastity, transforming all the natural instincts of the body into acts freely chosen and intended.
51.15. In this way, then, according to each principle and mode of nature, the philosophically advanced intellect approaches the unfolding of created beings with knowledge. Insofar as it is engaged with knowledge, it receives as gifts the spiritual principles of beings offered to it by creation; insofar as it is engaged with practice, it receives as offerings the natural laws of beings by imitating their manner of existence, revealing in itself, and through its whole life, the magnificence of the divine wisdom invisibly contained in created beings.
*Excerpted from
On Difficulties in Sacred Scripture: The Responses to Thalassios, translated by Fr. Maximos Constas (Washington, D.C: Catholic University Press, 2018), pp. 305-310. Available for purchase at Eighth Day Books.
