203 Then when he says, grace upon grace, he shows the distribution of graces into us through Christ. Here he does two things. First, he shows that we receive grace from Christ, as its author. Secondly, that we receive wisdom from him (1:18). As to the first he does two things. First, he shows that we have received of his fullness. Secondly, our need to receive it.
204 First, he says that we have received of the fullness of Christ what is described as grace upon grace. In the light of what is said, we are forced to understand that of his fullness we have received grace, and that upon that grace we have received another. Accordingly, we must see what that first grace is upon which we have received a second one, and also what that second grace is.
According to Chrysostom, the first grace, which was received by the whole human race, was the grace of the Old Testament received in the law. And this was indeed a great grace: “I will give you a good gift” (Prv 4:2). For it was a great benefit for idolatrous men to receive precepts from God, and a true knowledge of the one true God. “What is the advantage of being a Jew, or the benefit of circumcision? It is great in every way. First indeed, because the words of God were entrusted to them” (Rom 3:1). Upon that grace, then, which was first, we have received a second far better. “He will follow grace with grace” (Zec 4:7).
But was not the first grace sufficient? I answer that it was not, because the law gives only a knowledge of sin, but does not take it away. “The law brought nothing to perfection” (Heb 7:19). Hence it was necessary that another grace come that would take away sin and reconcile one with God.
205 And so he says, because, while the law was given through Moses, grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ. Here the Evangelist ranks Christ above Moses the lawgiver, whom the Baptist ranked above himself. Now Moses was regarded as the greatest of the prophets: “There did not arise again in Israel a prophet like Moses” (Dt 34:10). But he ranks Christ above Moses in excellence and in dignity of works, because the law was given through Moses; and between these two, the One excels the other as the reality excels the symbol and the truth the shadow: “The law had a shadow of the good things to come” (Heb 10:1). Further, Christ excels him in the way he works, because the law was given by Moses as by one proclaiming it, but not originating it; for “The Lord alone is our lawgiver” (Is 33:22). But grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ, as through the Lord and Author of truth and grace, as was explained above.
206 According to Augustine, however, the first grace is justifying and prevenient grace, which is not given to us because of our works: “If it is by grace, it is not now by works” (Rom 11:6). Upon that grace, then, which is imperfect, we have received another grace which is perfect, i.e., the grace of eternal life. And although eternal life is in some way acquired by merits, nevertheless, because the principle of meriting in everyone is prevenient grace, eternal life is called a grace: “The grace of God is eternal life” (Rom 6:23). To be brief, whatever grace is added to prevenient grace, the whole is called grace upon grace.
The need for this second grace arises from the insufficiency of the law, which showed what was to be done and what avoided; but it gave no help to fulfill what was commanded. Indeed, what seemed to have been directed to life was the occasion for producing death. Hence the Apostle says that the law was a minister of death: “If the ministry that condemned had glory, the ministry that justifies has much more glory” (2 Cor 3:9). Also, it promised the help of grace but did not fulfill, because “The law brought nothing to perfection” (Heb 7:19). Again, it prefigured the truth of the new grace by its sacrifices and ceremonies; indeed, its very rites proclaimed that it was a figure. Hence it was necessary that Christ come, who by his own death would destroy other deaths and grant the help of new grace, in order that we might both fulfill his precepts with ease and joy, and die to our sins and our old way of life: “Our old self was crucified with him” (Rom 6:6), and in order that the truth of the figures contained in the law might be revealed and the promises made to the fathers be fulfilled.
This can be explained in another way: truth has come through Jesus Christ, as to the wisdom and truth which was hidden for centuries, and which he openly taught when he came into the world: “I came into the world for this, to testify to the truth,” as we read below (18:37).
207 But if Christ is the Truth, as it says below (14:6), how did truth come [i.e., come to be, be made] through him, because nothing can make itself? I answer that by his essence he is the uncreated Truth, which is eternal and not made, but is begotten of the Father; but all created truths were made through him, and these are certain participations and reflections of the first Truth, which shines out in those souls who are holy.
LECTURE 11
18 No one has ever seen God;
it is the Only Begotten Son,
who is in the bosom of the Father,
who has made him known.
208 Above, the Evangelist showed how the apostles received grace from Christ as its author; here he shows how they received it from him as a teacher. About this he does three things. First, he shows the need for this teaching. Secondly, the competency of the teacher. Thirdly, the teaching itself.
209 The need for this teaching arose from the lack of wisdom among men, which the Evangelist implies by alluding to the ignorance concerning God which prevailed among men, saying: No one has ever seen God. And he does this fittingly, for wisdom consists properly in the knowledge of God and of divine things. Hence Augustine says that wisdom is the knowledge of divine things, as science is the knowledge of human things.
2 10 But this statement of the Evangelist, No one has ever seen God, seems to contradict many passages of divine Scripture. For it is said in Isaiah (6:1): “I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne.” And about the same is found in 2 Samuel (6:2). Again in Matthew (5:8), the Lord says: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”If someone were to answer this last statement by saying that it is true that in the past no one has seen God, but will see him in the future, as the Lord promises, the Apostle would exclude this, saying, “He dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see” (1 Tim 6:16).
Because the Apostle says, “no man has seen,” someone might say that if he cannot be seen by men, then at least he can be seen by angels; especially since God says, “Their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father” (Mt 18:10). But it cannot be taken in this way either, because it is said, “The sons of the resurrection will be like the angels of God in heaven” (Mt 22:30). If, therefore, the angels see God in heaven, then it is plain that the sons of the resurrection also see him: “When he appears we shall be like him, and we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn 3:2).
211 How then are we to understand what the Evangelist says: No one has ever seen God ? To understand it we must know that God is said to be seen in three ways. First, through a created substitute presented to the bodily sight; as Abraham is believed to have seen God when he saw three [men] and adored one (Gn 18). He adored one because he recognized the mystery of the Trinity in the three, whom he first thought to be men, and later believed to be angels. In a second way, through a representation in the imagination; and in this way Isaiah saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne. Many visions of this sort are recorded in the Scriptures. In a third way, he is seen through an intelligible species abstracted from material things; and in this way he is seen by those who, considering the greatness of creatures, see with their intellect the greatness of the Creator, as it is said: “From the greatness and beauty of creatures, their Creator can be seen accordingly” (Wis 13:5); “The invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made,” as found in Romans (1:20). In another way, God is seen through a certain spiritual light infused by God into spiritual minds during contemplation; and this is the way Jacob saw God face to face, as it says in Genesis (32:30). According to Gregory, this vision came about through his lofty contemplation.
But the vision of the divine essence is not attained by any of the above visions: for no created species, whether it be that by which an external sense is informed, or by which the imagination is informed, or by which the intellect is informed, is representative of the divine essence as it is. Now man knows as to its essence only what the species he has in his intellect represents as it is. Therefore, the vision of the divine essence is not attained through any species.
The reason why no created species can represent the divine essence is plain: for nothing finite can represent the infinite as it is; but every created species is finite; therefore [it cannot represent the infinite as it is]. Further, God is his own esse; and therefore his wisdom and greatness and anything else are the same. But all those cannot be represented through one created thing. Therefore, the knowledge by which God is seen through creatures is not a knowledge of his essence, but a knowledge that is dark and mirrored, and from afar. “Everyone sees him,” in one of the above ways, “from afar” (Jb 36:25), because we do not know what God is by all these acts of knowing, but what he is not, or that he is. Hence Denis says, in his Mystical Theology, that the perfect way in which God is known in this present life is by taking away all creatures and every thing understood by us.
212 There have been some who said that the divine essence will never be seen by any created intellect, and that it is seen neither by the angels nor by the blessed. But this statement is shown to be false and heretical in three ways, First, because it is contrary to the authority of divine Scripture: “We shall see him as he is” (1 Jn 3:2); “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (below 17:3). Secondly, because the brightness of God is the same as his substance; for he does not give forth light by participating in light, but through himself. And thirdly, because it is impossible for anyone to attain perfect happiness except in the vision of the divine essence. This is because the natural desire of the intellect is to understand and know the causes of all the effects that it knows; but this desire cannot be fulfilled unless it understands and knows the first universal cause of all things, which is a cause that is not composed of cause and effect, as second causes are. Therefore, to take away the possibility of the vision of the divine essence by man is to take away happiness itself. Therefore, in order for the created intellect to be happy, it is necessary that the divine essence be seen. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8).
213 Three things should be noted about the vision of the divine essence. First, it will never be seen with a bodily eye, either by sense or imagination, since only sensate bodily things are perceived by the senses, and God is not bodily: “God is spirit” (below 4:24). Secondly, that as long as the human intellect is in the body it cannot see God, because it is weighed down by the body so that it cannot attain the summit of contemplation. So it is that the more a soul is free of passions and is purged from affections for earthly things, the higher it rises in the contemplation of truth and tastes how sweet the Lord is. Now the highest degree of contemplation is to see God through his essence; and so as long as a man lives in a body which is necessarily subject to many passions, he cannot see God through his essence. “Man will not see me and live” (Ex 33:20). Therefore, if the human intellect is to see the divine essence it must wholly depart from the body: either by death, as the Apostle says, “We would prefer to be absent from the body and present with the Lord” (2 Cor 5:8); or by being wholly abstracted by rapture from the senses of the body, as is mentioned of Paul in 2 Corinthians (12:3).
Thirdly, no created intellect (however abstracted, either by death, or separated from the body) which does see the divine essence, can comprehend it in any way. And so it is commonly said that although the whole divine essence is seen by the blessed, since it is most simple and has no parts, yet it is not wholly seen, because this would be to comprehend it. For “wholly” implies a certain mode. But any mode of God is the divine essence. Hence one who does not see him wholly does not comprehend him. For one is properly said to comprehend a thing through knowledge when he knows that thing to the extent that it is knowable in itself; otherwise, although he may know it, he does not comprehend it. For example, one who knows this proposition, “A triangle has three angles equal to two right angles,” by a dialectical syllogism, does not know it as well as it is knowable in itself; thus he does not know it wholly. But one who knows this by a demonstrative syllogism does know it wholly. For each thing is knowable to the extent that it has being and truth; while one is a knower according to his amount of cognitive power. Now a created intellectual substance is finite; hence it knows in a finite way. And since God is infinite in power and being, and as a consequence is infinitely knowable, he cannot be known by any created intellect to the degree that he is knowable. And thus he remains incomprehensible to every created intellect. “Behold, God is great, exceeding our knowledge” (Jb 36:26). He alone contemplates himself comprehensively, because his power to know is as great as his entity in being. “O most mighty, great, powerful, your name is Lord of hosts, great in counsel, incomprehensible in thought” (Jer 32:18).
214 Using the above explanations, we can understand, No one has ever seen God. First, No one, i.e, no man, has seen God, that is, the divine essence, with the eye of the body or the imagination. Secondly, No one, living in this mortal life, has seen the divine essence in itself. Thirdly, No one, man or angel, has seen God by a vision of comprehension. So when it is said that certain ones have seen God with their eyes or while living in the body, he is not seen through his essence, but through a creature acting as a substitute, as was said. And thus it was necessary for us to receive wisdom, because No one has ever seen God.