Orthodox Britain

Orthodoxy for the English speaking world.

“Freely you have received, freely give.” (Matthew 10:8)

The Creation of Man: The Complexity of Describing the Primordial World.

The life of our first parents in paradise is an exceptional period in human history. It is not even history in the traditional sense of the word, for we do not know in the least how our perception of historical facts can be reconciled with the biblical narrative of paradisiacal life. We are separated from this life by the abyss of the Fall, and from that day on it is beyond our personal experience, beyond the limits of human memory, on the verge of, and perhaps beyond, our ability to understand. The history of the primordial world is described in the Bible in simple terms, but as we read them, we often forget that the Fall distorted the meaning of our words, which then corresponded to the essence of things. Therefore, the biblical narrative of the creation and life of the first people in paradise should be perceived, first of all, as a revelation of the mystery of God, as religious truths that we are granted to accept by faith.

“It is difficult in our state of falling,” writes St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov), to get a clear understanding of the state of perfection in which our forefathers were created, in soul and body. It is impossible for us to conclude about their holy body and holy soul from our souls and bodies, stricken and killed by sinful death. They began to exist blameless and holy; We begin to exist defiled and sinful. They were at unceasing peace with themselves, with everything that surrounded them, in unceasing spiritual delight, in contemplation of the graces of the universe, in contemplation of God, in vision of God; we are agitated and torn apart by various sinful passions, which shake and torment both soul and body, we constantly struggle with ourselves and with everything that surrounds us, we suffer and are tormented, or we find pleasure in the pleasures of cattle and beasts; Everything around us is in the most terrible confusion, in incessant and for the most part in vain labour, in plinth making and slavery of Pharaoh. In a word, we who have fallen and perished from our very birth, they have been holy and blessed from their very creation. All the conditions of our existence and the original existence of our forefathers are far, far away.1

We can make judgments about the existence of our forefathers in paradise only on the basis of the Holy Scriptures and the works of the Holy Fathers, who knew by the Holy Spirit who Adam was and who he became. In explaining the paradisiacal existence of man, the Holy Fathers proceed from the principle that “one and the same thing did not happen in him from the beginning and is now seen by his nature as a certain inevitable consequence.”2

Biblical Narrative

The creator of man is God Himself. Unlike all other creations of the visible world, which came into existence by God’s command, in the creation of man He does not limit Himself to His word, but Himself creates the first man from the dust of the ground. It is necessary to take into account that all three Persons of the Holy Trinity take part in each act of creation. “In creation… imagine the original cause, the Father, and the founding cause, the Son, and the final cause, the Spirit… Therefore, imagine the Three, the commanding Lord, the Word that creates, and the Spirit that affirms,” says St. Basil the Great.3

The creation of the first humans and their paradisiacal life are described in the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis.

“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. 31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” (Gen. 1:26–31).

“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.8 The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil… 15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”18 And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” 19 Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. 21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. 23 And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” (Gen. 2:7–9, Gen. 2:15–25).

Human Dignity

The brief biblical description vividly presents the idea that man is God’s highest creation in the visible world.

Testimonies to the greatness and dignity of man are numerous.

  1. The Lord creates man Himself, and does not command the earth or the water to produce him, as was the case with all other living creatures of the visible world (see: Gen. 1:26–27; Gen. 1:2, Gen. 1:7, Gen. 1:22).
  2. All creation bears the mysterious seal of the all-wise and all-good God, but only man in the visible world is created in the image of God and is called to attain the divine likeness (see: Gen. 1:26–27).
  3. Only the creation of man was preceded by the Divine counsel, expressed in the Bible with the phrase: “ThenGod said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over [a]all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (Gen. 1:26). So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.(Gen. 1:27). When reading these texts, one gets the impression that God stops before the creation of man and the council of the Persons of the Holy Trinity takes place. Such a structure of the biblical text emphasises the uniqueness of man among all other creatures. The constitution of man is preceded by counsel, and the Artist of the Word prefigures the future creation, and what it should be, and what kind of Prototype it should wear, and for what purpose it will be, and what it will produce after creation, and over what it will rule – all this is provided by the Word, so that man may assume a dignity that is higher than his being, acquire power over creatures before, than he himself came into existence4.
  4. At creation, the Lord Himself breathes into man the breath of eternal life, and man becomes a living soul (Gen. 2:7). Among the creatures of the visible world, only man is partaken of grace in the very act of creation directly by God. Unity with Him becomes an indispensable condition of human life. Uncreated grace is included in the creative act itself, and the soul receives life and grace at the same time, for grace is the breath of God, the divine stream, the life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit.5
  5. Man has become the last, final creation of God, and in this there is also an indication of his worthiness. St. Gregory of Nyssa explains: “Man, this great and honourable creature, did not yet dwell in the world of creatures, because it was unnatural for a ruler to appear before the rulers, but after the possession had been prepared first, the king had to be shown as well.”6.
  6. Created man received power and authority over the visible world, which is also expressed in the divine words about the dominion of man (see: Gen. 1:26–28; 2, 15), and in the actions of the first-created Adam – the naming of animals, “so that as man shall name every living soul, so shall its name be” (Gen. 2:19). This is just one example that confirms not only the wisdom of Adam, but also his royal superiority over all living creatures. St. John Chrysostom says about naming: “And I will bring me, it is said, to Adam, to see what I will name. However, this is done not only so that we may see his wisdom, but also so that in the naming of names a sign of dominion may be seen. And it is the custom of people to consider the sign of their power in the fact that, having bought slaves for themselves, they change their names. In the same way, God forces Adam, as a ruler, to give names to all the dumb… and moreover, proper names corresponding to each breed.”7.

The Destiny of Man

St. Augustine expresses the destiny of man in one beautiful phrase addressed to God: “Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart knows no rest until it rests in Thee.”8. God creates not only the first people, but also their descendants, up to all those living today, for Himself. The destiny of man is to live forever in blessed unity with God. Here is how St. Macarius the Great writes about it: “As God created heaven and earth for man to dwell in, so did He create the body and soul of man in His dwelling place, in order to dwell and rest in his body, as in His house, having as a beautiful bride a beloved soul, created in His image”9.

However, this does not mean that man is a necessary condition for God’s existence. God is eternal and all-blessed. He has no need for anyone or anything external. The created world did not add or subtract anything in God. God the Trinity dwells in the eternal love and joy of communion between the Divine Persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In His mercy He desired to share this joy with other creatures, and for this purpose He conceived and created them, including man. St. Gregory of Nyssa teaches: “God the Word… is the Creator of human nature, who was not brought to the order of man by any necessity, but through an abundance of love brought such a living being into being. For His invisible light, and unwitnessed glory, and unexplored goodness, and everything else that is seen in the nature of God, should not have remained idle, if there had not been a partaker enjoying them.”10.

St. Gregory the Theologian, proceeding from the predestination of man, explains the complexity of human nature as a union of both the visible and the super-sensible realms. He teaches that divine Goodness could not remain enclosed within self-contemplation; rather, by its very nature, it sought to overflow and communicate itself ever more widely. Because the highest Goodness is characterised by generosity, God desired that the number of beings capable of receiving and participating in this goodness should be as great as possible. For this reason, God first brought into being the angelic and heavenly powers, purely intelligible creatures. When these initial creations were pleasing to Him, God then fashioned another order of existence: the material and visible world. Thus, intellect (the angelic realm) and sensation (the material world), though radically distinct, each in their own way proclaimed the greatness of the divine Logos, serving as silent adorers and articulate heralds of divine splendour. Yet, at this stage, there was still no being in whom mind and sense were united, no synthesis of these opposites, no single creature that manifested the full depth of divine wisdom and creative generosity. The richness of divine goodness had not yet been fully revealed. In order to make this union manifest, the creative Logos formed a living being in whom the invisible and the visible were brought together into one nature. This being, Gregory concludes, is man.”11.

The created world came into being by the command of God ex nihilo. Because all created existence comes into being through change, mutability is an ontological property of everything that is created. This changeability, however, possesses a profound spiritual meaning. According to the divine plan, it is not meant to be expressed merely as cyclical or neutral change, but as movement toward the good, that is, toward perfection. This movement is realised in different ways according to the nature of created beings. Rational creatures are called to participate in this ascent freely and consciously through the fulfilment of the will of God. Irrational creatures, by contrast, do not move toward perfection by their own deliberate choice, but are dependent upon humanity; they are transformed in accordance with the spiritual state of their master. In this way, the whole of creation is capable of participating in the joy of communion with God, each according to its own measure of perfection. Man, standing at the summit of the hierarchy of the sensible world, possesses the greatest capacity for this communion among all visible creatures.

Since God is the highest Good, perfection in God is at the same time an ascent to a blissful life, to true happiness. This was the destiny of man: not just to live with God, but to be transformed and grow in Him, thereby reaching new degrees of bliss. According to St. Basil the Great, man is a creature who has received the command to become a god.12 St. John of Damascus expresses the same idea more extensively: By virtue of man’s inherent attraction to God, He created man, which is the limit of mystery, to be transformed into a god by participation in divine illumination, but not to pass into the Divine essence13. The destiny of man to infinite perfection through communion with God is briefly defined by our Saviour in the words: Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect (Matt. 5:48). With these words, God again reminds us of the true purpose of man, which we have forgotten. This destiny is intrinsically expressed in the desire for happiness or bliss inherent in every person14. Since God is absolute Goodness, the pursuit of happiness and bliss is essentially the pursuit of God.

Man’s Destiny in Relation to God

On the personal level, the human being was created by God for communion in love. The presence of the image of God in humanity is the first and foremost testimony to this vocation. For in any dialogue there must be some common ground for mutual understanding. The human being bears the image of God in order to be ontologically capable of entering into personal communion with his Creator. The Godlike human being is not merely one of God’s perfected creatures; he has the capacity to become a son of God (Wisdom 2:18; Wisdom 5:5), worthy of divine love. He was created and called to love his Heavenly Father, and this love is expressed in the glorification of God, in prayer, and in a God pleasing life. Love unites God and the human being, and thus the ontological gulf between the divine and the created worlds becomes surmountable. Yet God remains God, and man remains man15.

The love that unites God and the human being enables the human being to receive grace—the uncreated divine power. Through love, the human being becomes a participant in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). Grace transfigures and perfects human nature. This process is called in theology deification [theosis]. Therefore, one may say that, on the level of nature, the human being is destined for unceasing perfection through communion with God that is, for deification16.

It should be noted at once that, although we distinguish the personal and natural aspects of human life, they cannot be regarded as two autonomous layers of human existence. They are closely interconnected and inseparably united; at the same time, the human person possesses his nature and determines the possible changes in it. We shall speak further below about the relationship between the personal and the natural in the human being.

Man’s Destiny in Relation to His Neighbour

God, having created the first human pair, determined for them and for their descendants a life in unity and love. Their love and unity were to become the earthly image of the divine being of the Most Holy Trinity. For just as the three divine hypostases, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are consubstantial and abide in the unity of love, so too Godlike humanity, possessing a single nature, through mutual love was to prefigure this great mystery and by its life bear witness that God is love, and that he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him (1 John 4:16).

Man’s Destiny in Relation to the World Around Him

Man is placed as lord over the visible world. This is directly expressed in Holy Scripture: “Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the beasts, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth” (Gen 1:26). Man’s dominion is not limited to earthly space: God in the beginning created man as king not only of the earthly, but also of that which is under the heavens: for the sun, the moon, and the stars were created for man.17

The surrounding world is subject to the human being and therefore depends on him—on his desires, will, and actions. In the primordial world, before the Fall, man already manifested his authority over it by giving names to all the animals. However, the human right to dominion is not a right to despotism or tyranny. The bestowal of dominion had a definite purpose. Man received this authority in order to cultivate and preserve paradise (Gen. 2, 15), that is, to transform and perfect the surrounding world. The means of transformation were to be not so much his natural efforts as divine grace, which, depending on human actions, was to act upon the entire universe. In a certain sense, the human being is the formative principle of all earthly existence. According to Vladimir Lossky, he is the hypostasis of the earthly cosmos, and earthly nature is the continuation of his corporeality18. Therefore, the spiritual changes of man become the property of the entire universe, and by virtue of this internal ontological connection, the whole world had to be transformed through the spiritual perfection of man.

Overcoming (Five Divisions)

Theology, like history, does not deal in hypotheticals; yet it is difficult to resist asking what would have become of humanity if Adam had not sinned. St. Maxim the Confessor tries to answer this question and describes the stages of implementation of God’s plan by man in the primordial world.19 His aim is not idle speculation. He begins from the conviction that God’s eternal purpose for humanity was not altered by the Fall. Adam’s sin did not cancel man’s vocation; it merely delayed its fulfilment. For this reason, St. Maximus’ reflections are less a reconstruction of the past than a vision of humanity’s intended destiny. In describing man’s calling, St. Maximus identifies five fundamental stages corresponding to the structure of the created world. He speaks of five ontological divisions (διαιρέσεις), or concentric spheres of being, at the centre of which stands man.

In the fulfillment by man of his destiny, St. Maximus identifies five fundamental stages determined by the state of the created world. He points to the five ontological divisions (divisions) (διαιρεσεις) existing in the world created by God, or the five concentric spheres of existence in the center of which man is.

  1. God and the created world. This is the division between uncreated and created being. The divine essence is transcendental in relation to the world He created. God and the world are not consubstantial with each other, therefore there is an eternal ontological abyss between them.
  2. The world is visible and intelligible. This is the division of the created world into the sensual and super-sensible spheres of existence. One part of the world is accessible to perception through the external senses of a person, and the other – only for spiritual contemplation (the angelic world). These two worlds form a single whole, but the way of perception, knowledge and existence in them is fundamentally different for a person.
  3. Earth and sky. This is the physical, spatial division of the sensory, visible world into heaven and earth. In relation to this division, created beings and elements are divided into those who are «chained» to the ground (water, heavy objects, most animals, etc.), and those who are not strictly limited by such dependence (fire, air, birds, etc.).
  4. Paradise and the rest of the earth. This is the original division of the earth into two spheres of human existence. In paradise he had extremely favorable conditions for his existence, while the rest of the land was given to him for creative transformation.
  5. Man and woman. This is already a division within human nature into two sexual types of human existence.

Saint Maximus teaches that man’s purpose in paradise was to overcome all these five divisions through a godly life. The means for such an ascent are inside the person. Personal improvement in accordance with God’s plan would be the basis for overcoming these ontological boundaries. Of course, the world created by God was beautiful, but through the fulfillment of his destiny, man had to elevate it to a qualitatively different, beneficent state. He was called to realize the unity of the whole world, to inhabit the entire created cosmos through the fullness of his unity with God. Man had to overcome these divisions, successively ascending from the last to the first. Overcoming these divisions is not their destruction, but their elevation above them through spiritual improvement.

First, a person, following the path of impassive heavenly life, had to reveal in himself the fullness of the likeness of God. Since God does not have a division into masculine and feminine principles in Himself, then man, having achieved a certain fullness of the likeness of God, could overcome sexual separation and limitation in the sense that he could live without natural conditioning in sexual relation. During New Testament times, the path of monastic life became a real example of spiritual overcoming this division. Those who take monastic vows imitate angels who have no division into masculine and feminine natures. The Apostle Paul also teaches about this state, saying that in Christ there is no male, nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28).

The division between heaven and the rest of the earth man was called to overcome through the holiness of his life, namely: first, to get rid of any predilections and preferences for heaven and the rest of the earth; secondly, to transform the whole earth into paradise. For man, the entire earthly space was supposed to become a single home, Kingdom of God.

The division between earth and heaven could be eliminated through the entire aspiration of the human soul to God. In this case, man would get rid of many physical limitations of his nature. The lives of the saints describe cases when the saints of God during prayers by the grace of God, they rose above the earth and moved in space e.g. St. Mary of Egypt, St. John the Russian et al, which confirms the idea of St. Maximus on the conventionality of the physical framework of existence for a person striving for God.

Overcoming the separation between the sensory world and the spiritual was to occur in man through intelligent contemplation of the supersensible world. The perfect purity of a person’s mind and heart would make this facet of existence insignificant for him. Man had to become like angels in super-sensible knowledge.

The last and most important division, between God and the created world, man was called to overcome through perfect love, which would connect him, and in him the entire universe, with God. In this case, man would acquire by grace much of what God has by nature.

Thus, the deification of man and the universe, which the primordial Adam was called to realize, had to be accomplished.

The Primordial State of Man

Scripture clearly testifies that pre-lapse man was a beautiful creation of God, for the Lord created all… very good (Gen. 1:31).

The creaturely perfection of Adam signifies that he was originally endowed with the full integrity of human nature: a pure intellect, free will, an untainted soul, and a perfect body, everything that belongs essentially to human existence. Any line of reasoning that in any degree denies or diminishes the fullness of Adam’s original nature is foreign to the meaning of the biblical narrative of human creation and has always been rejected by the Orthodox Church.

The perfection of our forefather prior to the Fall implies that all his natural qualities and powers were undamaged, sound, and aligned with the purpose for which humanity was created. Sacred Scripture teaches: “God made man upright” (Ecclesiastes 7:29). There was in him neither the shadow of sin nor even the slightest inclination toward resistance to the good. St. John of Damascus writes that God created man “blameless, upright, loving the good, free from sorrow and care, adorned with every virtue, abounding in all blessings, as a kind of second world, great in the small, like a new angel, worshipping God… He created him sinless by nature and free by will.”20 St. Macarius the Great adds that even the elements of the world were subject to Adam as their lord: fire did not overpower him, water did not drown him, wild beasts did not harm him, and venomous creatures could not exert any power over him.21 St. Maximus the Confessor testifies that Adam, by virtue of his wisdom and divine illumination, was exceedingly great, for he directly contemplated the logoi and causes of beings22; therefore, St. Gregory the Theologian calls Adam a “cultivator of divine thoughts.” It is difficult even to enumerate, let alone imagine fully, all the perfections of the primordial human being.23

However, Adam’s original creaturely perfection was not absolute. It was only a natural foundation for his further ascent toward God and the fulfillment of his moral vocation: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). St. Gregory of Nyssa explains that human nature “was originally created by God as a vessel capable of receiving perfection.”24 The creaturely limitation of Adam’s nature was overcome through divine grace, in which he participated by means of unceasing communion with God and contemplation of the glory of his Creator. St. Irenaeus of Lyons writes that the human being, created and ordered by God, was made “according to the image and likeness of the uncreated God,” and gradually advanced and ascended toward perfection. “It was necessary,” he says, “that man should first receive being, and having received it should grow; growing should mature; maturing should be strengthened; being strengthened should be perfected; being perfected should be glorified; and being glorified should be granted to see God.”25

This understanding of Adam’s relative perfection has been confessed since the earliest times by the Fathers of the Church and is inseparably linked to the concept of God as the only being who possesses absolute perfection.

In Sacred Tradition, creaturely perfection is not conceived as static. It is not a frozen aggregate of absolute qualities; rather, it is dynamic and capable of manifesting itself in various forms. A plant, for example, possesses creaturely perfection at every stage of its existence: as a seed, in which all the necessary elements are harmoniously united; as a shoot, whose proportions correspond fully to the conditions of proper development; as a flower; and as fruit. Another example is the human nature of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was a perfect Infant, a perfect Child, a perfect Youth, and a perfect Man. Yet His human nature, like that of all people, underwent continuous change.

Adam possessed not only creaturely perfection but also many divine gifts: impassibility, incorruptibility, holiness, and immortality. These qualities, however, did not belong to him by nature but by grace, in which he participated from the very act of creation and in which he grew through further communion with God.26 By nature, holiness, impassibility, incorruptibility, and immortality belong only to God. As the image of God, humanity was granted participation in these gifts; but in the event of falling away from God, they could be lost. St. Symeon the New Theologian writes that God created man holy, impassible, and sinless according to His image and likeness, and that man was then truly like the God who created him.27 Yet since immutability and unchangeability are properties of the uncreated and eternal God alone, the created human being was by nature mutable and changeable, although he had the capacity and possibility, with God’s help, not to undergo corruption and alteration.

The primordial human being was sinless not in the sense that he was incapable of sin by nature, but in the sense that his nature was uncorrupted and he freely lived without sin. Sin did not belong to his God-created nature, yet it could become a possession of his free will. St. John of Damascus teaches that God created man sinless, not because he was unable to sin, for only the Godhead is inaccessible to sin, but because nothing sinful was inherent in his nature.28 The possibility of sin lay not in his nature but in his free will. With the cooperation of divine grace, Adam had the capacity to remain and grow in goodness, and also, by virtue of his freedom and by God’s permission, to abandon goodness and fall into evil. Thus Adam’s sinlessness and holiness were not absolute or necessary properties of his nature, but contingent upon his free will.

For a being though supremely beautiful yet not self-subsistent and limited, continual assistance from God was necessary for a God-pleasing existence. Only God gives “life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25), for “in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). St. Basil the Great writes that creation is preserved, lives, and exists not by its own power, but by the power of the Creator; the Divine Spirit sustains in being everything that is from God and through the Son. No created being, however perfect, is capable of autonomous existence apart from God, for this contradicts the very nature of the created world, which is brought into being by God and rooted in Him. Humanity is no exception to this fundamental principle at any level of its creaturely existence. St. Macarius the Great writes that God created the body in such a way that it does not derive life, food, drink, or clothing from its own nature but receives everything necessary for life from without.29 Just as the body cannot live without external nourishment, so the soul, lacking divine light in itself and being created in the image of God, does not derive spiritual food, drink, or heavenly clothing, that is, its true life, from its own being, but from God, from His Spirit, and from His light.

Thus, the human being in paradise was a participant in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), a sharer in the greatest benefactions by which God mercifully supplied the deficiency of our nature. The uncreated divine energies that transfigured Adam’s created nature were the life-giving core of the primordial human being, the pledge of immortality, and the power that raised him toward his Creator.

Desiring finally to strengthen the human will in goodness, the Lord gave a law for the exercise of freedom; that law was the commandment regarding which plants to use and which not to touch. For keeping this commandment, God promised immortality of life and the enjoyment of eternal blessings, while granting full freedom of action, so that goodness might belong no less to the one who chose it than to the One who sowed its seeds. The dynamics of Adam’s condition in paradise may be expressed graphically and formulated through the crucial distinction between the natural, the supernatural, and the sub-natural states of human nature.

  1. St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov), A Word about Man. St. Petersburg, 1995, p. 28. ↩︎
  2. St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Structure of Man. St. Petersburg, 1995, p. 9. ↩︎
  3. St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit. To Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium. Ch. 16 // Creations. Part 3. Moscow, 1891. ↩︎
  4. St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Structure of Man. Ch. 3 // Creations: In 8 ch. Ch. 1. Moscow, 1861, p. 14. ↩︎
  5. Lossky V.N. Essay on the Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. Dogmatic Theology. Moscow, 1991, p. 239. ↩︎
  6. St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Decrees. cit. 2, p. 13. ↩︎
  7. St. John Chrysostom, Discourses on the Book of Genesis. Conversation 14 // Creations: In 12 vols. Vol. 4. Book. 1. St. Petersburg, 1898, pp. 115–116. ↩︎
  8. St. Augustine of Hippo, Confession. Book. 1,1. Moscow, 1997, p. 5. ↩︎
  9.  St. Macarius the Great, Conversation 49 // Spiritual Conversations. Reprint. STSL, 1994, p. 312. ↩︎
  10. St. Gregory of Nyssa, A large catechetical sermon. Ch. 5. Kiev, 2003, p. 76. ↩︎
  11. St. Gregory the Theologian, Homily 45. On Holy Easter // Collection of Works: In 2 vols. Reprint. T. 1. STSL, 1994, pp. 664–665. ↩︎
  12. Op. cit. by: St. Gregory the Theologian, Homily 43. Tombstone of Basil, Archbishop of Caesarea of Cappadocia // Collection of Works: In 2 vols. Reprint. T. 1. STSL, 1994, p. 633 ↩︎
  13. St. John of Damascus, An accurate exposition of the Orthodox faith. Book. 2. Ch. 12. Moscow, 1992, p. 50. For similar considerations, see: Gregory the Theologian, St. Homily 38 on the Epiphany or the Nativity of the Saviour and Homily 45 on Holy Pascha // Collection of Works: In 2 vols. Reprint. T. 1. STSL, 1994, p. 527. ↩︎
  14.  Happiness is understood by people in different ways and often contradictory. But in the Orthodox understanding, everything is simple. God created man for a blessed life in union with Him. He is all-blissful and is the source of bliss for all beings. Therefore, happiness is a blissful life in the unity of love with God. In a theological context, the word “happiness” and the phrase “blessedness in God” have the same meaning. ↩︎
  15. St. Macarius the Great, Conversation 49 // Spiritual Conversations. Reprint. STSL, 1994, p. 312. ↩︎
  16. For more information on deification, see this edition. Part I. Ch. 3.8. ↩︎
  17. St. Symeon the New Theologian, Word 66, 2 // Creations: In 3 vols. Reprint. STSL, 1993. ↩︎
  18. Lossky V.N. An Essay on the Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. Dogmatic theology. M, 1991, pp. 240 ↩︎
  19. St. Maximus the Confessor, On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua // PG 91, 1305AB–1308B. ↩︎
  20. St. John of Damascus, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. Book. 2. Ch. 12, 1992, page 50 ↩︎
  21. St. Macarius the Great, Word 4. Ch. 3 //Spiritual conversations. Reprint. STSL, 1994, p. 384. ↩︎
  22. St. Maximus the Confessor, Mystagogy. Ch. 5//Creations. Book. 1 /Trans. Epifanovich, A.I. Sidorova. M, 1993, page 166. ↩︎
  23. St. Gregory the Theologian, Word 45. For Holy Easter //Collected Writings: In 2 vols. Reprint. T. 1. STSL, 1994, p. 666. ↩︎
  24.  St. Gregory of Nyssa, Oration on Pulcheria // PG 46, 864C–877B. ↩︎
  25. St. Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies. Book. 3. Ch. 23, 5//Essays. St. Petersburg, 1900, p. 309. ↩︎
  26. St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) wrote: «Divine grace was abundantly poured out on the soul of the primordial at its very creation; the soul of the primordial was primarily alive, as moved, enlightened and governed by the Holy Spirit» (The Word of Man, 1995, page 26). ↩︎
  27. St. Symeon the New Theologian,Word 2, 1 //Creations: In 3 vols. Reprint. T. 1. STSL, 1993, p. 28. ↩︎
  28. St. John of Damascus, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. Book. 2. Ch. 12, 1992, page 50 ↩︎
  29. St. Macarius the Great, Conversation 1, 10 // Spiritual conversations. Reprint. STSL, 1994, p. 11. ↩︎