THE LIFE OF THE AGE TO COME
I am of the opinion that he is going to manifest some wonderful outcome, a matter of immense and ineffable compassion on the part of the glorious Creator …
II/39,6
God is not One who requites evil, but he sets evil aright.
II/39,15
The majority of humankind will enter the kingdom of heaven without the experience of gehenna.
II/40,12
THE LAST THEME in our investigation into the thought of Saint Isaac the Syrian is his eschatology. It is an integral part of his theological system and derives from his conviction that God is love. Although based upon his own mystical insights, Isaac’s eschatological ideas are confirmed by the authority of earlier Church Fathers.
The traditional monastic themes of the ‘meditation on the future world’ and the ‘remembrance of death’ begin this chapter. In the second section we shall collect Isaac’s eschatological opinions which are spread throughout the corpus of his writings, excluding Chapters XXXIX and XL of Part II. As these two chapters (together with Chapter XLI) contain a systematic treatment of specifically eschatological themes, it seems appropriate to analyze them in the two concluding sections of this chapter.
1. MEDITATION ON THE FUTURE WORLD
The monastic tradition of the Christian East assigns great value to the ‘remembrance of death’. ‘Always remember your departure and do not be forgetful of eternal judgment’, advises Evagrius.1 ‘Each day have death before your eyes. … Prepare yourself for the fearful day of answering on the Judgment of God’, repeats Abba Isaias the Solitary.2 In the syriac tradition, the themes of remembrance of death and the Last Judgment are developed by Saint Ephrem,3 one of whose eschatological texts Isaac quotes in the following passage:
So long as we are in this world, God does not affix his seal either to what is good or to what is evil, even up to the moment of our departure. … And as Saint Ephrem says, we should make our soul like a ready ship that does not know when a favourable wind will blow, or like a tenant who does not know when the landlord will give the order to depart. And if, he says, merchants are so well prepared for the sake of a little gain, though they may perhaps return soon from their voyage, how much more should we make ourselves ready, and prepare ourselves in advance, before the coming of that decisive day, that bridge and door into the new age?4
The transitory character of human nature, according to Isaac, is the first thought which descends from God into a human person and creates in him a good foundation for the way leading to profound contemplation.5 Every evening, before sleeping, one should remind oneself of death, imagining that this night may be his last:
When you approach to your bed, say to it, ‘This very night, perchance, you will be my tomb, O bed; for I know not whether tonight instead of a transient sleep, the eternal sleep of death will be mine’.6
It is necessary always to remember the Last Judgment, and to prepare oneself to encounter God:
What is concern over God’s Judgment? It is: a continual quest after his rest; mourning at all times and a contrite meditation on account of those things which always remain imperfect because of the wretchedness of our nature; constant sadness on their account which the mind retains through powerful thoughts and which in prayer it offers up before God as an offering with humble compunction; and, inasmuch as it is possible and is within a man’s power, to hold solicitude for the body in disdain. Such is the man who carries in his soul the continuous memory of God. As Saint Basil says, ‘Undistracted prayer is that which produces in the soul a distinct reflection on God. And God’s indwelling is this: to have God established in us by unceasing memory of him’.7 In this manner we become temples of God.8
Remembrance of death and the age to come helps us overcome our fear of death:
As long as a man chooses to be free of possessions, departure from this life always arises in his mind. He makes the life after the resurrection his continual study, and at all times he contrives to make preparation that will be useful yonder. … He does not even fear death itself, because his attention is always upon it, as something that approaches him, and he awaits it.9
Remembrance of the Last Judgment, which occurs to a person as a result of spiritual illumination, is conducive to his progress to spiritual perfection. Remembering his last hour, he becomes more collected and attentive to his deeds:
When the faculty of reason begins to become illumined in us, fear of death is completely scorned, and a person is continually stirred by expectation of the resurrection, … concern over divine judgment is strong in that person, and he begins night and day to examine his manner of life, his words and his thoughts; and if he conducts himself in all sorts of good ways and fine manners of labours, then this concern and recollection is never far removed from him.10
‘Reflection upon the restitution to come’11 must be a constant activity of an ascetic. Isaac cites as an example a monk who, during his prayer, reflects upon eschatological matters:
How did God bring creation … out of non-being into being? And how will he again cause creation to perish from its wondrous harmony, the beauty of nature and the well-ordered course of its creatures: times and seasons, the union of night and day, the beneficial changes of the year, the many-hued flowers of the earth, the beautiful buildings of the cities, their magnificent palaces, the swift course of men and their nature which endures hardship from its beginning in life till its departure? How will he suddenly abolish this wondrous order and establish another age, wherein the memory of the former creation will never again enter into the heart of any man, but a change of another thought will come to pass, and other deliberations, other concerns?
And Isaac continues:
The human nature will in no wise remember the world of the way of life which was therein. For the gaze of man’s mind will be held in bondage by the vision of that state and it will never again have time to turn back in recollection to the conflict with flesh and blood. At the destruction of that former age, the future age will commence straightway.12
This prayerful meditation leads the ascetic to the state of wonder at the greatness of God:
Once someone has stood amazed, and filled his intellect with the majesty of God, amazed at all these things he has done and is doing, then he wonders in astonishment at his mercifulness, how, after all these things, God has prepared for them another world that has no end, whose glory is not even revealed to the angels, even though they are involved in his activities insofar as is possible in the life of the spirit, in accordance with the gift with which their nature has been endowed. That person wonders too at how excelling is that glory, and how exalted is the manner of existence at that time; and how insignificant is the present life compared to what is reserved for creation in the New Life… .13
Eschatological meditation on the things of the future age is a source of spiritual rebirth and renewal. It gradually extinguishes all bodily cares, replacing them with thoughts of the age to come:
The beginning of the renewal of the inner person consists, then, in meditation and constant reflection on the things to come. By this means the person is little by little purified of customary distraction on earthly things: he becomes like a snake which has sloughed off its old skin, and is renewed and rejuvenated. Similarly, inasmuch as bodily thoughts, and concern for these, diminish in the mind, accordingly reflection on things heavenly, and the gazing on things to come, increasingly springs up in the soul. Delight in the ministry of these things overcomes and proves stronger than the pleasure of the bodily thoughts.14
2. LIFE AFTER DEATH
To highlight the main elements of Isaac’s views on christian eschatology we shall look at the passages where he speaks of death and the resurrection of the dead, of the separation of the righteous from the sinners, and of the torment of gehenna and the blessing of paradise.
By Isaac’s decription, death is that blessed Sabbath when human nature rests on the eve of its final resurrection:
Six days are accomplished in the husbandry of life by means of keeping the commandments; the seventh is spent entirely in the grave; and the eight is in departure from it. … The true Sabbath, the Sabbath that is not a similitude, is the tomb, which reveals and manifests perfect repose from the tribulations of the passions and from the toil against them. The whole man, both soul and body, then keeps the Sabbath.15
Understanding the Sabbath as a symbol of death is very traditional: we find it in both patristic literature and liturgical texts. No less traditional is the interpretation of the eighth day as a symbol of the resurrection. According to Isaac, the bodily resurrection of the age to come is also symbolized by the resurrection of the body from sin during earthly life:
The true resurrection of the body is when it receives that ineffable transformation in that future state, at the stripping off of all fleshly refuse and what belongs to it. The symbolic resurrection of the body is when it rises from all the sin to which it was attached in its activity, and applies itself to the excellent practice of service to God.16
The Last Judgment is the moment of the human person’s encounter, not only with God, but also with the people with whom he was linked during his earthly life. The sentence of the Judge will mean that a person either enters into the kingdom of Christ together with the righteous, or is separated from them. This sentence will do no more than confirm the state reached by that person during his life. Somone who was separated from his fellows by his sinful life will be separated from them in the life to come:
Woe to that monk who has proven false to his vow, who, trampling upon his conscience, stretches forth his hand to the devil! … With what countenance will he meet the Judge when his companions who have attained purity will greet one another? For he had parted ways with them and walked the path of perdition. … But what is more terrible, just as he has separated his path from theirs, so Christ will separate him from them in that day when the shining cloud will bear upon its back their bodies made resplendent by purity and carry them through the gates of heaven.17
The life of the age to come is, in Isaac, ‘a continual and ineffable rest in God’.18 It is characterized by the absence of ‘bodily actions’, which are replaced by the mind’s reflection, the ‘delightful gaze and vision without distraction’.19 The mind of a person in the age to come will be occupied with the contemplation of God’s beauty in the state of wonder:
There human nature never ceases from its awestruck wonder at God. … But since all the beauty of things to exist in the newness to come is inferior to his beauty, how can the intellect depart from the beauty of God in its contemplation?20
In the future age, the hierarchical order of the universe through which revelations devolve from God to the higher ranks of angels, and from them to the lower ranks and to the humankind, will no longer have any place:
In the future age … this order of things will be abolished. For then one will not receive from another the revelation of God’s glory to the gladness and joy of his soul; but to each by himself the Master will give according to the measure of his excellence and his worthiness, and he will not receive the gift from his comrade as he does here. Then there will be no teacher and no pupil, nor one whose deficiency must be filled up by another. For one is the Giver there, who gives without mediation to those who receive; and those who win joy, procure it from him. … There the order of those who teach and those who learn ceases, and on One alone hangs the ardent love of all.21
Nobody can enter in future blessing by compulsion: everyone has to make his own choice for God. Once made, this choice is manifested in the present life in the rejection of the passions and in repentance:
It is not a case of the created beings’ inheriting the glory to come by compulsion or against a person’s will, without any repentance being involved; rather, it so pleased his wisdom that they should choose the good out of the volition of their own free will, and thus have a way of coming to him.22
Future blessing will be the lot of those who during their life have reached ‘the land of promise’ and united themselves with God. Yet Isaac does not exclude from the kingdom of heaven those who, without having seen this land close at hand, died in the hope of attaining it. Those who hoped to reach perfection, but did not, will be added to the Old Testament righteous who never saw Christ in their lifetimes, but died in the hope of seeing him.23
Those who enter the kingdom of heaven will find themselves in varying degrees of closeness to God, each in accordance with his capacity for accommodating the light of the Godhead. Even so, a difference in degree will not involve hierarchical inequality among those who have been saved, and no one will be inferior to the other:
The Saviour calls the ‘many mansions’ of his Father’s house24 the noetic levels of those who dwell in that land, that is, the distinctions of the gifts and the spiritual degrees which they noetically take delight in, as well as the diversity of the ranks of the gifts. But by this he did not mean that each person yonder will be confined in his existence by a separate spatial dwelling and by the manifest, distinguishing mark of the diverse placement of each man’s abode. Rather, it resembles how each one of us derives a unique benefit from this visible sun though a single enjoyment of it common to all, each according to the clarity of his eyesight and the ability of his pupils to contain the sun’s constant effusion of light. … In the same manner, those who at the appointed time will be deemed worthy of that realm will dwell in one abode which will not be divided into a multitude of separate parts. And according to the rank of his discipline each man draws delight for himself from the one noetic Sun in one air, one place, one dwelling, one vision, and one outward appearance. He whose measure is less will not see the great measure of his neighbour’s rank, lest he should think that this arises from the multitude of his neighbour’s gifts and the fewness of his own, and this very thing should become for him a cause of sadness and mental anguish. Far be it that one should suppose such a thing to occur in that realm of delights! Each man inwardly takes delight in the gift and the lofty rank whereof he has been deemed worthy.25
Though there are many mansions in the kingdom of heaven, none is to be found anywhere except inside that kingdom. Beyond its borders, there is only gehenna. Isaac was not aware of any other intermediate state between these two realms:
In the future separation there will be no middle realm between the state that is completely on high and the state that is absolutely below. A person will either belong entirely to those who dwell on high, or entirely to those below; but within both the one state and the other are diverse degrees of recompense. If this is true, which it most certainly is, what is more senseless and more foolish than those who say that ‘It is enough for me to escape gehenna, I do not seek to enter into the kingdom’! For to escape gehenna means precisely to enter the kingdom, even as falling away from the kingdom is entering gehenna. Scripture has taught us nothing about the existence of three realms, but ‘When the Son of God will come in his glory, he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left’.26 [Other references to the Gospel follow at this point.]… .27 How have you not understood by these things that falling short of the order on high is, in fact, the gehenna of torment?28
What, then, are paradise and gehenna in Isaac’s vision? The blessing of paradise, according to him, is human persons’ participation in the love of God—itself ‘the tree of life’ and ‘the heavenly bread’:
Paradise is the love of God, wherein is the enjoyment of all blessedness, and there the blessed Paul partook of supernatural nourishment. When he tasted there of the tree of life, he cried out, saying, ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him’.29 Adam was barred from this tree through the devil’s counsel. The tree of life is the love of God from which Adam fell away. … When we find love, we partake of heavenly bread. … The heavenly bread is Christ, who came down from heaven and gave life to the world… .30 Therefore, the man who lives in love reaps the fruit of life from God, and while yet in this world, he even now breathes the air of the resurrection; in this air the righteous will delight in the resurrection.31
The torment of gehenna, in Isaac’s vision, is constituted by a human person’s inability to participate in the love of God.
This does not mean that sinners in gehenna are deprived of the love of God. On the contrary, this love is given to everyone equally, both to the righteous and to sinners. But for the former it becomes a source of delight and blessedness in paradise; for the latter it is a source of torment:
I also maintain that those who are punished in gehenna are scourged by the scourge of love. Nay, what is so bitter and vehement as the torment of love? I mean that those who have become conscious that they have sinned against love suffer greater torment from this than from any fear of punishment. For the sorrow caused in the heart by sin against love is more poignant than any torment. It would be improper for a man to think that sinners in gehenna are deprived of the love of God. Love … is given to all. But the power of love works in two ways: it torments sinners, even as happens here when a friend suffers from a friend; but it becomes a source of joy for those who have observed its duties. Thus I say that this is the torment of gehenna: bitter regret. But love inebriates the souls of the sons of heaven by its delectability.32
While Isaac, following the Gospel text, believes that on the Day of Judgment, the sheep will be separated from the goats, and that the goats will be sent to gehenna, this belief does not preclude hope in God’s mercy, which, in his view, surpasses every human idea of a just requital. This hope in God’s mercifulness leads Isaac to conclude that the torment of gehenna cannot be eternal. If evil, sin, death, and gehenna do not have their origins in God, how can one presume that they will be eternal? If the devil and demons, as well as all evil people, were created by God as good and sinless, but by their own free choice fell away from God, how can one suppose that God will eternally reconcile himself with this situation? These questions were raised long before Isaac by several Fathers and teachers of the Church, notably by Origen and Gregory of Nyssa.
One of the Homilies in Part I which was not translated into Greek is entitled ‘Against those who say: If God is good, for what reason has he made these things?’ In this homily Isaac opposes a dualistic understanding of the co-eternal existence of good and evil, God and the devil. In this dialectic, Isaac bases himself on a teaching commonly accepted in christian tradition, that God is not the creator of evil and thus evil has no substantial existence. ‘Sin, gehenna, and death do not exist at all with God, for they are effects, not substances,’ Isaac says.
Sin is the fruit of free will. There was a time when sin did not exist, and there will be a time when it will not exist. Gehenna is the fruit of sin. At some point in time it had a beginning, but its end is not known. Death, however, is a dispensation of the wisdom of the Creator. It will rule only a short time over nature; then it will be totally abolished. Satan’s name derives from voluntary turning aside from the truth;33 it is not an indication that he exists as such naturally.34
Therefore, according to Isaac, sin, death, and gehenna will be abolished by God, though the end of gehenna is a mystery which goes beyond human understanding and also beyond the dogmatic teaching of the Church. Isaac does not choose to develop here the notion of a non-eternal gehenna, but simply implies that at some time it will be abolished. His attention is riveted not so much on gehenna as on the future existence of the transfigured universe which will take place after gehenna’s annihilation.
Isaac’s eschatological vision is replete with optimism. In this it is close to the eschatology of Saint Paul, who speaks of the final transfiguration of the whole creation, when death will be ‘swallowed up by victory’35 and God will be ‘all in all’.36 Isaac was thoroughly convinced that this promise will be fulfilled, even though there will be a preceding period when sinners will be tormented in gehenna. Hope in the final transfiguration of all being evoked in Isaac a hymn of thanksgiving to God, whose mercy has no limits:
O the astonishment at the goodness of our God and Creator! O might for which all is possible! O the immeasurable kindness toward our nature, that he will bring even sinners back into existence! Who is able to glorify him? He raises up the transgressor and blasphemer. … Where is gehenna, that can afflict us? Where is the torment that terrifies us in many ways and quenches the joy of his love? And what is gehenna compared with the grace of his resurrection, when he will raise us from sheol and cause our corruptible nature to be clad in incorruption,37 and raise up in glory what has fallen into sheol? Come, men of discernment, and be filled with wonder! Whose mind is sufficiently wise to wonder worthily at the bounty of our Creator? His recompense to sinners is that, instead of a just recompense, he rewards them with resurrection, and instead of those bodies with which they trampled upon his law, he robes them with the glory of perfection. That grace whereby we are resurrected after we have sinned is greater than the grace which brought us into being when we were not, O Lord! Behold, Lord, the waves of thy grace close my mouth in silence, and there is not a thought left in me, not even for giving thanks to thee. … Glory be to thee for the two worlds which thou hast created for our growth and delight… .38
3. ETERNAL PUNISHMENT OR UNIVERSAL SALVATION?
The lot of human beings after death became an object of Isaac’s special attention in the three concluding chapters of Part II. In Chapter XXXIX, called ‘Contemplation on the theme of gehenna, in so far as grace can be granted to human nature to hold opinions on these mysteries’, he includes a detailed discussion, with references to preceding Fathers, on the nature, aim, and duration of the torments of gehenna. This is continued in Chapter XL, where he develops the same sort of ideas while laying special emphasis on the love of God. Finally, in Chapter XLI, he presents the moral conclusions that derive from the two preceding chapters.
The discussion begins in Chapter XXXIX with the question of the purpose for the establishment of gehenna. Isaac emphasizes that God does nothing out of retribution: even to think this way about God would be blasphemous.39 This opinion is all the more unacceptable in view of God’s foreknowledge that humanity would sin and fall even before he created human beings, yet still he created them:
To suppose that retribution for evil acts is to be found in him is abominable. By implying that he makes use of such a great and difficult thing out of retribution we are attributing a weakness to the Divine Nature. We cannot even believe such a thing can be found in those human beings who live a virtuous and upright life and whose thoughts are entirely in accord with the divine will—let alone believe of God that he has done something out of retribution for anticipated evil acts in connection with those whose nature he has brought into being with honour and great love. Knowing them and all their conduct, the flow of his grace did not dry up from them: not even after they started living amid many evil deeds did he withhold his care for them, even for a moment.40
Still worse is the opinion that God allows people to lead sinful lives on earth in order to punish them eternally after death.
If someone says that [God] has put up with them here on earth in order that his patience may be known—with the idea that he would later punish them mercilessly—such a person thinks in an unspeakably blasphemous way about God because of his infantile way of thinking: he is removing from God his kindness, goodness, and compassion: all the things because of which he truly bears with sinners and wicked men. Such a person is attributing to God enslavement to passion, imagining that he has not consented to their being chastised here with a view to a much greater misfortune he has prepared for them, in exchange for a short-lived patience. Not only does such a person fail to attribute something praiseworthy to God, but he also calumniates him.41
‘A right way of thinking about God’, according to Isaac, rejects the view that ‘weakness, or passibility, or whatever else might be involved in the course of retribution’ has anything to do with God. On the contrary, all of God’s actions ‘are directed towards the single eternal good, whether each receives judgment or something of glory from Him—not by way of retribution, far from it!—but with a view to the advantage that is going to come from all these things’.42
Within the context of God’s kindness and mercy, Isaac refers to the biblical story of the damnation of Adam and Eve for the sin they committed, and of their exile from paradise. Though the establishment of death and exile were decreed under the guise of damnation, it concealed a blessing:
Just as [God] decreed death, under the appearance of a sentence, for Adam because of sin, and just as he showed by means of the punishment that the sin existed—even so this punishment was not his real aim. He showed it as something Adam would receive as a repayment for his wrong, but he hid its true mystery, and under the guise of something to be feared he concealed his eternal intention concerning death and what his wisdom was aiming at. Even though this matter might be grievous, ignominious, and hard at first, nevertheless in truth it would be the means of transporting us to that wonderful and glorious world. Without it, there would be no way of crossing over from this world and being there. … The Creator did not say: ‘This will turn out to be the cause of good things to come for you and a life more glorious than this’. Instead, he showed it as something which would bring about our misfortune and dissolution. Again, when he expelled Adam and Eve from paradise, he expelled them under the outward aspect of anger … as though dwelling in paradise had been taken away from them because they were unworthy. But within all this rested the divine plan, fulfilling and guiding everything towards what had been the Creator’s original intention from the beginning. It was not disobedience which introduced death to the house of Adam, nor did transgression remove them from paradise, for it is clear that God did not create Adam and Eve to be in Paradise, just a small portion of the earth; rather, they were going to subjugate the entire earth. For this reason we do not even say that he removed them because of the commandment which had been transgressed; for it is not the case that, had they not transgressed the commandment, they would have been left in paradise for ever.43
Therefore, contrary to widespread opinion, Isaac considered death a blessing in that it intrinsically contains the potential of future resurrection; and the exile from paradise as beneficial, since instead of receiving a ‘small portion of the earth’, humankind was given all of creation as its possession. This approach to the biblical text is based on the exegetical tradition of Theodore of Mopsuestia, according to whom death was profitable for human beings because it opened to them a way to repentance and restoration.44
In the establishment of death, God’s ‘cunning’ was revealed: he concealed his true intention under the guise of punishment for sin. The same ‘cunning’ explains the establishment of gehenna as a punishment whose aim is the profit which humans may derive from it:
You should see that, while God’s caring is guiding us all the time to what he wishes for us, as things outwardly appear, it is from us that he takes the occasion to providing things, his aim being to carry out by every means what he has intended for our advantage. All this is because he knew beforehand our inclination towards all sorts of wickedness, and so he cunningly made the harmful consequences which would result from this into a means of entry to the future good and the setting right of our corrupted state. These are things which are known only to him. But after we have been exercised and assisted little by little as a result of these consequences after they have occurred, we realize and perceive that it could not turn out otherwise than in accordance with what has been foreseen by him. This is how everything works with him, even though things may seem otherwise to us: with him it is not a matter of retribution, but he is always looking beyond to the advantage that will come from his dealings with humanity. And one such thing is the matter of gehenna.45
Thus Isaac gradually arrives at his key idea: the final outcome of the history of the universe must correspond to the majesty of God, and the final destiny of human beings should be worthy of God’s mercifulness. ‘I am of the opinion’, Isaac claims,
that he is going to manifest some wonderful outcome, a matter of immense and ineffable compassion on the part of the glorious Creator, with respect to the ordering of this difficult matter of gehenna’s torment: out of it the wealth of his love and power and wisdom will become known all the more—and so will the insistent might of the waves of his goodness. It is not the way of the compassionate Maker to create rational beings in order to deliver them over mercilessly to unending affliction in punishment for things of which he knew even before they were fashioned, aware how they would turn out when he created them—and whom nonetheless he created. All the more since the foreplanning of evil and the taking of vengeance are characteristic of the passions of created beings, and do not belong to the Creator. For all this characterizes people who do not know or who are unaware of what they are doing … for as a result of some matter that has occurred unexpectedly to them they are incited by the vehemence of anger to take vengeance. Such action does not belong to the Creator who, even before the cycle of the depiction of creation has been portrayed, knew of all that was before and all that was after in connection with the actions and intentions of rational beings.46
To confirm these ideas, Isaac refers to Theodore of Mopsuestia’s teaching on the torment that is not unending,47 and to Diodore of Tarsus’ ideas that torment will last only a short time, whereas the blessing is for all eternity, and that ‘not even the immense wickedness of the demons can overcome the measure of God’s goodness’.48
‘These and similar astounding insights and opinions leading us on to love of and wonder at the Creator’, Isaac comments with enthusiasm,
belong to these very pillars of the Church. … Such opinions will cast away from our way of thinking the childish opinion of God expressed by those who introduce evil and passibility into his nature, saying that he is changed by circumstances and times. At the same time these opinions [of Theodore and Diodore] will teach us about the nature of his chastisements and punishments, whether here or there, instructing us concerning what sort of compassionate intentions and purpose he has in allowing these to come upon us, what are the excellent outcomes resulting from them, how it is not a matter of our being destroyed by them or enduring the same for eternity, how he allows them to come in a fatherly way, and not vengefully—which would be a sign of hatred. Their purpose was that, by thinking in this way, we might come to know about God, and wonder at him would draw us to love of him, and as a result of that love we might feel ashamed at ourselves and set aright the conduct of our lives here.49
Isaac did not think that the end of torment would lead to laxity and the loss of the fear of God. Quite the contrary. This idea, according to him, incites within a person love of God and the repentance that comes from the measureless mercy of the Creator. The thought of God as a caring Father gives birth in a person to a filial love for, and adherence to, him, whereas the notion of God as a chastiser can only cause a slavish fear and dread before him.
All the afflictions and sufferings which fall to someone’s lot are sent from God with the aim of bringing a person to an inner change. Isaac draws an important conclusion: God never retaliates for the past, but always cares for our future. ‘All kinds and manner of chastisements and punishments that come from him,’ Isaac suggests,
are not brought about in order to requite past actions, but for the sake of the subsequent gain to be gotten in them. … This is what the Scriptures bring to our attention and remind us of,… that God is not One who requites evil, but who sets evil aright: the one is characteristic of evil people, while the other is characteristic of a father. Scripture shows him as if he were bringing good and evil by way of requital, whereas his purpose is not in fact this, but instilling in us love and awe. … If this were not the case, what resemblance does Christ’s coming have with the deeds of the generations which were prior to it? Does this immense compassion seem to you to be a retribution for those evil deeds? Tell me, if God is someone who requites evil, and he does what he does by means of requital, what commensurate requital do you see here, O man?50
The idea of love contradicts the idea of requital, Isaac insists. Besides, if we were to suppose that God will punish sinners eternally, this would mean that the creation of the world was a mistake, that God proved unable to oppose evil, which is not within his will. If we ascribe requital to God’s actions, we apply weakness to God:
So then, let us not attribute to God’s actions and his dealings with us any idea of requital. Rather, we should speak of fatherly provision, a wise dispensation, a perfect will which is concerned with our good, and complete love.
If it is a case of love, then it is not one of requital; and if it is a case of requital, then it is not one of love. Love, when it operates, is not concerned with the requiting of former things by means of its own good deeds or correction; rather, it looks to what is most advantageous in the future: it examines what is to come, and not things of the past. If we think otherwise than this, then according to the resulting childish view the Creator will prove to be weak … for after what he had established had become corrupted against his will, he devised some other plan, preparing ills in return for its corruption. Such are the feeble ways of understanding the Creator!51
All of God’s actions are mysteries inaccessible to human reasoning. Gehenna is also a mystery, created in order to bring to a state of perfection those who had not reached it during their lifetime:
In the matter of the afflictions and sentence of gehenna, there is some hidden mystery whereby the wise Maker has taken as a starting point for its future outcome the wickedness of our actions and willfulness, using it as a way of bringing to perfection his dispensation, wherein lies the teaching which makes one wise, and the advantage beyond description, hidden from both angels and human beings, hidden too from those who are being chastised, whether they be demons or human beings, hidden for as long as the ordained period of time holds sway.52
Gehenna, then, is a sort of purgatory rather than hell: it is conceived and established for the salvation of both human beings and fallen angels. Yet this true aim of gehenna is hidden from those who are chastised in it, and will be revealed only after gehenna is abolished.
Isaac then returns to his earlier statement that requital does not correspond to God’s goodness. In doing so he advances the following logical considerations that oppose this idea:
One speaks of requital when he who is the requiter is gradually instructed about the requital needed as a result of, and corresponding to, the good and bad actions that take place: along with actions which differ from day to day, he acquires a different knowledge, and his consequent thoughts are subject to outside causes and take their origin from temporal circumstances. If the kingdom and gehenna had not been foreseen in the purpose of our good God … then God’s thoughts concerning them would not be eternal. But righteousness and sin were known by him before they revealed themselves. Accordingly the kingdom and gehenna are matters belonging to mercy; they were conceived of in their essence by God as a result of his eternal goodness. It was not a matter of requiting, even though he gave them the name of requital. That we should further say or think that the matter is not full of love and mingled with compassion would be an opinion laden with blasphemy and an insult to our Lord God. By saying that he will even hand us over to burning for the sake of sufferings, torment, and all sorts of ills, we are attributing to the Divine Nature an enmity towards the very rational beings which he created through grace; the same is true if we say that he acts or thinks with spite and with a vengeful purpose, as though he were avenging himself.53
As we have seen, Isaac used every possible source to support his teaching on the incompatibility of an eternal gehenna with God’s love and goodness: Scripture, patristic writings, and finally logical considerations. As we saw in Chapter I, the conviction that God is love was the driving force behind Isaac’s whole theological system. Now we observe the seal this conviction placed on his eschatology.
4. DIVINE LOVE WHICH REVEALS ITSELF IN THE FINAL DESTINY OF THE WORLD
The theme of God’s boundless love, begun in Chapter XXXIX of Part II, continues to be developed in Chapter XL, which is dedicated to ‘the constancy, harmony and love of the divine nature at both the beginning and at the end of creation’. Here Isaac claims that the love God has for his creatures does not change because of changes that happen with them.54 From very eternity, God is one and the same in what belongs to him by nature: ‘there exists with him a single love and compassion which is spread out over all creation, a love which is without alteration, timeless and everlasting’.55
The state of having turned away from God is unnatural, according to Isaac, and God will not permit those who withdrew from him to remain in this state for ever: he will bring to salvation all those who have fallen away. But this salvation will not be forced upon anyone: each person will turn to God of his own free will when he reaches the state of maturity. The purpose for which God brought creatures into the world remains the same whatever way they have chosen for themselves; sooner or later they will be brought to salvation. For Isaac, the final salvation of those who have fallen, including all sinners and demons, is a necessity:
It is clear that [God] does not abandon them the moment they fall, and that demons will not remain in their demonic state, and sinners will not remain in their sins; rather, he is going to bring them to a single equal state of perfection in relationship to his own Being—to a state in which the holy angels now are, in perfection of love and a passionless mind. He is going to bring them into that excellency of will where it will be not as though they were curbed and not free or having stirrings from the Opponent then; rather, they will be in a state of excelling knowledge, with a mind made mature in the stirrings which partake of the divine outpouring which the blessed Creator is preparing in his grace; they will be perfected in love for him, with a perfect mind which is above any aberration in all its stirrings.56
All those who have fallen away from God will eventually return to him because of temporary, short torment in gehenna that has been prepared for them so that they may purify themselves through the fire of suffering and repentance. Having passed through this purification by fire, they will attain to the angelic state.
Maybe they will be raised to a perfection even greater than that in which the angels now exist; for all are going to exist in a single love, a single purpose, a single will, and a single perfect state of knowledge; they will gaze towards God with the desire of insatiable love, even if some divine dispensation [i.e. gehenna] may in the meantime be effected for reasons known to God alone, lasting for a fixed period, decreed by him in accordance with the will of his wisdom.57
God does not forget any of his creatures. Every human being has a place reserved for him in the kingdom of heaven. For those who are unable to enter immediately into the kingdom, the transitory period of gehenna has been established:
No part belonging to any single one of all rational beings will be lost, so far as God is concerned, in the preparation of that supernal kingdom which is prepared for all worlds. Because of the goodness of his nature by which he brought the universe into being and then bears, guides, and provides for the worlds and all created things in his immeasurable compassion, he has devised the establishment of the kingdom of heaven for the entire community of rational beings—even though an intervening time is reserved for the general raising of all beings to the same level. And we say this so that we too may concur with the magisterial teaching of Scripture. Nevertheless gehenna is grievous, even if it is thus limited in its extent: who can possibly bear it? For this reason the angels in heaven rejoice at a single sinner who repents.58
If a genuine righteousness were required of human beings, then only one in ten thousand would be able to enter the kingdom of heaven, continues Isaac. This is why God gave people repentance as a remedy, for it can heal a person from sin in a short time. Not wishing human beings to perish, God forgives everyone who repents with his whole heart. God is good by nature, and he ‘wishes to save everyone by all sorts of means’.59
Isaac resented the widespread opinion that the majority of human beings will be punished in hell, while only a small group of the chosen will delight in paradise. He was convinced that, quite the contrary, the majority of people will find themselves in the kingdom of heaven, and only a few sinners will go to gehenna, and even they only for the period of time necessary for their repentance and remission of sins:
By the device of grace the majority of humankind will enter the kingdom of heaven without the experience of gehenna. But this is apart from those who, because of their hardness of heart and utter abandonment to wickedness and the lusts, fail to show remorse in suffering for their faults and their sins, and because these people have not been disciplined at all. For God’s holy nature is so good and so compassionate that it is always seeking to find some small means of putting us in the right: how he can forgive human beings their sins—like the case of the tax collector who was put in the right by the intensity of his prayer60 or like the case of a woman with two small coins61 or the man who received forgiveness on the cross.62 For God wishes our salvation, and not reasons to torment us.63
Earthly life is given to everyone as a time of repentance. It is enough for a person to turn to God to ask forgiveness for his sins immediately to be forgiven.64 The token of this forgiveness is the Incarnation of the Word of God, who, when all creation had abandoned and forgotten God, came down to earth in order to redeem humankind and the whole universe by his death on the cross.
Isaac the Syrian’s explicit teaching on universal salvation elicits an inevitable question: what is the sense of the whole drama of human history, if both good and evil are ultimately to be found on an equal footing in the face of God’s mercy? What is the sense of suffering, ascetic labour, and prayer, if sooner or later sinners will be equated with the righteous? In how far, moreover, do Isaac’s opinions correspond to the general christian tradition and to the teaching of the Gospel, in particular, to the Parable of the Last Judgment and its separation of the ‘sheep’ from the ‘goats’?
First, when Isaac speaks about the absence of a middle realm between gehenna and the kingdom of heaven, he does not deny the reality of the separation of sheep from goats, and he even explicitly refers to it. But his attention is directed far beyond this separation, which he does not regard as final or irreversible. The Last Judgment is something which Isaac recommends people ponder on every day, and the separation of a sinner from his fellow human beings is an experience clearly depicted by Isaac when he speaks of the Judgment. His main point, however, is that the present life is the time when the separation takes place, and the Last Judgment will only reveal what spiritual state a person reached during his lifetime. Thus the Parable should not be understood as a dogmatic statement on the final destiny of the righteous and sinners, but as a prophetic warning against not having and manifesting love for one’s fellows during this earthly life.
Secondly, Isaac warns that the torment of gehenna, even though limited in duration, is terrible and unbearable. He never denies the awful reality of gehenna. Yet he understands it within the context of the Gospel’s message of God’s unspeakable love and boundless mercy. God, in Isaac’s teaching, is primarily the householder who rewards equally those who worked only one hour and those who have borne the burden and heat of the whole day.65 A place in the kingdom of heaven is given to a person, not on the basis of his worthiness or unworthiness, but on the basis of God’s mercy and love for humankind. The kingdom of heaven is not a reward, and gehenna is not a requital: both are gifts of the merciful God ‘who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth’.66
Thirdly, Isaac’s eschatological opinions stand in the line of the teachings of such ancient Fathers as Theodore of Mopsuestia, Diodore of Tarsus, and Gregory of Nyssa.67 It would not be just to say, however, that he simply borrowed the ideas of his predecessors and inserted them into his own writings. Isaac’s eschatological optimism and his belief in universal salvation are ultimately the result of his personal theological vision, the central conviction of which is that God is love. Around this idea his whole theological system is shaped.
Finally, the theological system of Isaac the Syrian is based on his direct experience of the mystical union with the love of God. This experience precludes any possibility of envy of other human beings, even those who have reached a higher spiritual state and thus have a chance of receiving a higher place in the kingdom of heaven. The experience of union with God as love is in itself so filled with delight that it is not for the sake of any future reward that a person prays, suffers, and toils in ascetical labours: in this very suffering, in this very prayer and ascetical labour, is concealed the experience of encounter with God. The reason for praying, bearing afflictions, and keeping the commandments is not to leave other persons behind by one’s strivings or to obtain in the age to come a place that is higher than theirs. The sole reason for all ascetic toil is to experience the grace of God which is acquired through them. An encounter with God, a direct mystical experience of the divine love which one receives during one’s lifetime is, for Isaac, the only justification for all struggles and efforts.
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1. Apophthegmata, Evagrius 4 [English translation, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, CS 59:64—ed].
2. Homily I.
3. Cf his Letter to Publius. There are also many eschatological texts attributed to Ephrem which are preserved only in Greek.
4. I/62 (301) = PR 62 (437). The text seems to be from a lost work by Ephrem.
5. I/49 (238) = PR 47 (335–336).
6. I/64 (314–315) = PR 65 (459).
7. Cf Basil, Letter 2.
8. I/51 (248) = PR 50 (352–353).
9. I/74 (360) = PR 79 (538).
10. II/20,2.
11. I/1 (3) = PR 1 (1).
12. I/37 (180–181) = PR 35 (256–257).
13. II/10,19.
14. II/8,16.
15. I/29 (142) = PR 28 (202–204).
16. II/8,10.
17. I/9 (73) = PR 9 (114).
18. II/18,3.
19. II/8,2.
20. I/43 (214) = PR 40 (304).
21. I/28 (140) = PR 27 (201).
22. II/10,20.
23. I/12 (80) = PR 12 (123).
24. Jn 14:2.
25. I/6 (56) = PR 6 (86–87).
26. Mt 25:31–33.
27. Namely, Mt 13:43; 25:41; 8:11–12.
28. I/6 (56–57) = PR 6 (88).
29. 1 Cor 2:9.
30. Cf Jn 6:50.
31. I/46 (223–224) = PR 43 (316–317).
32. I/28 (141) = PR 27 (201–202).
33. This is the syriac etymology given to the word ‘Satan’ (from sta, ‘to turn aside’).
34. I/27 (133) = PR 26 (189).
35. 1 Cor 15:54.
36. 1 Cor 15:28.
37. Cf 1 Cor 15:53–55.
38. I/51 (251–252) = PR 50 (358–359).
39. II/39, 2–3. See Chapter I above.
40. II/39,2.
41. II/39,2.
42. II/39,3.
43. II/39,4.
44. Fragments on Genesis (637).
45. II/39,5.
46. II/39,6.
47. II/39,8. The quotation is from Theodore’s Against Those Who Say that Sin is Ingrained by Nature. See reference in Clavis IV, 3860.
48. II/39,11–13. The quotations are from Diodore’s book On Providence (Peri pronoias) V-VI. See reference in Clavis IV, 3820 (b).
49. II/39,14.
50. II/39,–-16.
51. II/39,17.
52. II/39,20.
53. II/39,–-22.
54. See the full quotation in Chapter I above.
55. II/40,1.
56. II/40,4.
57. II/40,5.
58. II/40,7. Cf Lk 15:7; 10.
59. II/40,8–11.
60. Cf Lk 18:14.
61. Cf Mk 12:42–4–3; Lk 21:2–3.
62. Cf Lk 23:40–43.
63. II/40,12.
64. II/40,13–14.
65. Cf Mt 20:1–15.
66. 1 Tim 2:4.
67. Isaac’s idea of universal salvation is not to be equated with Origen’s teaching on the apokatastasis ton panton (restoration of all). In Origen, universal restoration comes not as the end of the world, but is a passing phase from one created world to another which will come into existence after the present world has come to its end. This idea is alien to christian tradition and unknown to Isaac.