A treatise on the saying that the Son Himself will be subjected to Him who subjected all things to Him (1 Cor 15:24-28).
All the words of the Lord, as the prophet says, are holy and pure words. When the mind is purified from every heretical speculation, it receives from these words its proper and natural illumination of truth, as silver is purified in fire.
I think it necessary first to bear witness to the clarity and purity of all Saint Paul's teachings. He was in paradise, trained in the knowledge of ineffable things, and had Christ speaking within him. Therefore he spoke what should be spoken by one who had grown through the instructions given under the guidance and teaching of the Word.
Fraudsters try to make God's silver unfit. They deprive the Word of its brightness by mixing it with heretical and counterfeit notions. In the same way, they either fail to understand the Apostle's mystical thoughts, or wickedly interpret them as they think best. Thus they absurdly defend their fraud.
In order to destroy the glory of the Only-begotten God, they claim that their thoughts agree with the Apostle's saying: 'Then the Son will be subjected to Him who subjected all things to Him' (cf. 1 Cor 15:28). They say this text indicates some servile obedience.
It therefore seems necessary to examine this text carefully. We must prove that the apostolic silver is truly free from every defilement, and is not mixed with heretical thought.
We know that Sacred Scripture uses this word in many senses. It does not always agree with its proper sense. At one time it has one meaning, and afterward it indicates another.
For example: 'Let slaves be subject to their masters' (cf. Tit 2:9). Of the irrational nature which God subjected to man, the prophet says: 'He subjected all things under his feet' (cf. Ps 8:7). Of those conquered in war he says: 'He subjected peoples and tribes to us under our feet' (cf. Ps 59:10). But when he mentions those saved through knowledge, he speaks as from the person of God: 'Foreigners were subjected to me' (cf. Ps 59:10).
I think what we find in Psalm 61 is in some sense close to this: 'Shall not my soul be subject to God?' (cf. Ps 61:2). Beyond all these is the saying from Corinthians with which our enemies reproach us, that then the Son Himself will be subjected to Him who subjected all things to Himself (1 Cor 15:28).
Since the meaning of this word brings many thoughts to mind, it would be good to examine each sense in itself. Then we may understand which meaning of the word subjection is close to the Apostle's saying.
Concerning those violently captured in war by those who rule over them, we say that subjection means submission to the victor against one's will and by compulsion. If the captives are given any opportunity that gives hope of prevailing over their rulers, they consider subjection to enemies an insult and disgrace. Then they rise up again of themselves against those in power.
According to another example, the irrational is subject to the rational. Its nature lacks the greatest of goods, namely reason. According to the good ordering of nature, what has less must be subject to what has the advantage.
Likewise, those who, because of a certain law, could not resist the law even if they were equal in nature, are constrained under the yoke of slavery. They receive the status of the subjected, being led into subjection by inexorable necessity.
The aim of our subjection is salvation. We learn this from the prophecy which says: 'Be subject, my soul, to God, for my salvation is from Him' (cf. Ps 61:6, 2).
Therefore, when the apostolic word saying that the Son will be subjected to the Father is thrown at us by our enemies, we should ask them a fitting question. Since the word has many meanings, which meaning of subjection do they think worthy to apply to the Only-begotten God?
It is obvious what they will say. The subjection of the Son cannot be understood according to any of the forms mentioned. He is not an enemy put under constraint in war, so that He might rise again against the victor with hope and zeal.
Nor is the Word one of the irrational creatures. He does not lack the good mentioned above. He has no subjection necessary by nature, such as sheep, herds, and oxen have in relation to man.
Nor does He long to be freed from the yoke of slavery by favor or grace, like slaves bought with silver or born in the house and held in bondage by law.
Let no one say that the Only-begotten God is subject to the Father for the sake of salvation. That would imply that salvation, because of His likeness to men, is not accomplished by God through Him.
For changeable nature to participate in the good, subjection to the Father is necessary. In this way we have participation in the good.
But in the unchangeable and uncorrupted power, in which every good is contemplated, there is no place for subjection. There are name and concept, eternity, incorruption, blessedness, the ability always to be the same, and the inability to become either better or worse.
This power admits neither increase in good nor inclination to evil. He who pours forth salvation to others does not Himself lack what serves unto salvation.
What meaning of subjection, then, do they piously ask us to consider fitting for Him? All the examples examined are acknowledged to stand far from what is understood and deemed suitable for the Only-begotten Son.
If to this must be added the form of subjection spoken of in Luke's Gospel, that the Lord, when He reached twelve years of age, was subject to His parents (cf. Lk 2:51, 41, 42), it would not accord with what is said of the pre-eternal and true Son in relation to His true Father.
In that passage, He who was tempted in all things according to our likeness, yet without sin, took our nature and led it through growth. He became as a child to whom childish food is fitting, feeding on butter and honey. Thus He attained the age proper to a youth.
He did not refuse what befits such years, but became an image of exemplary life. In other people the understanding at this age is still imperfect. Since guidance by the more mature toward the better benefits the youth, the Twelve-year-old is subject to His mother.
By this He shows that before one reaches maturity through gradual growth, it is useful to accept subjection as guidance toward the good.
Those who speak rashly can scarcely say to whom the Son is subject. He is always perfect in all goods. Through His self-sufficient and undiminished nature, He could receive in Himself neither growth nor diminution.
By living in human nature through the flesh, He prescribed subjection for His youth in all that He did during childhood. Clearly, when He reached the maturity of His age, He no longer looked to maternal authority.
When she urged Him at Cana of Galilee to show His power over what was lacking at the wedding feast, and to make the feast pleasant through the use of wine, He did not refuse to provide what was needed. Yet He rejected His mother's counsel as untimely, saying: 'What is that to Me and to you, woman? Do you wish to direct Me when I have reached this age? Has not My hour come, giving independence and freedom to My age?' (Jn 2:4).
Therefore, if in life according to the flesh the measure of fitting age leaves behind subjection to a parent, who could say what subjection means for Him who rules in His might over this age?
It belongs to the divine and blessed life always to remain in Him and not to undergo change through corruption. Therefore, since the Word who is from the beginning, the Only-begotten God, is alien to every growth and corruption, how does He who is not now so become so afterward?
The Apostle does not speak as though the Son had always been subject. He says that He must be subjected at the end, at the fulfillment of all things.
But if subjection is called good and worthy of God, how can the good now be absent from God? The good is equal for both, for the Son who is subjected and for the Father who receives the Son's subjection.
Does this good now lack both Father and Son? Will what neither the Father nor the Son had before the ages be added to both Father and Son at the fulfillment of times? One would undergo subjection, and the other would receive some increase and enlargement of His own glory, which He did not have before.
Where, then, is immutability in all this? What appears afterward and does not now exist is by itself a changeable nature.
Either subjection is a good, and one must believe that the good exists for God, or it is unworthy of God, whether now or at another time. But the Apostle says that then the Son will be subjected to God and the Father, not that He is now subject.
In truth, the apostolic word has another aim. The meaning of the word stands far from the poverty of heretical thought.
What is the word? Perhaps, with the help of the expression written in this passage, we may better discern some meaning. The epistle is a dispute with the Corinthians. They had received faith in the Lord, but considered the teaching about human resurrection a myth.
They said: 'How will the dead rise, and with what body will those return whose bodies after death vanished in many different ways? Some decayed. Some were destroyed by flesh-eating, creeping, swimming, or flying animals.'
Therefore he provided them with many arguments. He persuaded them not to measure the power of God by their own power, nor to think that what is impossible for man is also impossible for God.
Rather, he urges them to compare the greatness of God's authority with examples known to us. Thus he turns their attention to the wonder concerning bodies, namely seeds, which are forever transformed by divine power.
He shows that divine wisdom does not grow weary in finding many bodily forms in all things. There are rational and irrational forms, those of the air and those of the earth, and those appearing to us in heaven: the sun and the other stars.
Each of these came into being through divine power. This proves for us that God has no difficulty concerning the resurrection of our bodies.
If all existing things did not change from some hidden matter into visible form, but the will of God became the matter and substance of what was created, then it is far more possible to restore them again to their own form.
For He shapes what already exists rather than bringing into being and substance what did not exist at all.
In his words to them, he shows that through sin the first man died in the earth and is therefore called earthy. According to his image, all who proceeded from him also had to become earthy and mortal, all those born from him.
It is necessary to establish a second corresponding sequence. Through it man is restored again from death to immortality. In a similar way, he speaks of the good that appeared in nature through being spread from one to all.
So also evil was spread through one to many, extending itself through inheritance among descendants. Expressing this teaching, he uses the following words of the Apostle: 'The first man,' says the Apostle, 'is of the earth, earthy. The second is from heaven. As is the earthy, so are the earthy. As is the One from heaven, so are those from heaven. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly' (cf. 1 Cor 15:47-49).
Having established the teaching of the resurrection by these and the preceding arguments, he binds the conclusions of the heretics by many other arguments. In these he shows that the one who does not believe in the resurrection of men does not accept the resurrection of Christ either.
By joining arguments close to one another, he expresses the necessary conclusion, saying: 'If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not risen. And if Christ has not risen, your faith in Him is vain' (cf. 1 Cor 15:13, 17).
If the first proposition is wholly true, namely that Christ rose from the dead, then what is linked to it must also be true, namely that there is a resurrection of the dead. Through the particular proof, the universal is also proved.
THEOSIS