In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.
My beloved, welcome now to what is the third part of the first lecture in our deep dive of St. Cyril's understanding of the Holy Eucharist. The first two parts, we spoke about the primordial man and we've also spoken about how God's intention for us was to be created with the intention of union and to be in a state of incorruption, state of incorruptibility. Today... in today's lecture, we will hopefully take a look at what it means to be created with the intention of having life and potential of immortality. Let's go ahead and take a look together.
Now, it doesn't stop there. Another early Church Father who lived at the same time of St. Athanasius in the 4 th century is St. Basil the Great, St. Basil who wrote the liturgy that we pray in the Coptic Orthodox Church so often. Now St. Basil, he speaks about how it is that the human being was almost like God's greatest artistic piece. He says that we are the masterpiece of God. He says this in his book On the Origin of Humanity. In his first discourse, he says the following, he says:
''Learn well your own dignity [he's speaking to you and me]. He did not cast forth your origin by a commandment, but there was [a] counsel in God to consider how to bring the dignified living creature into life.'' (St. Basil the Great, On the Origin of Humanity, Discourse 1)
He says: I want you to notice how; When God created humanity, he created you differently. He didn't just create humanity by commanding and saying let there be human beings, let there be man, let there be woman. No! The author of Scripture, the Holy Spirit through the author who at this time was Moses, he says no, show them how important they are. And this is why in Genesis, chapter 1 verse 26, 27 and 28, it says then God deliberated. God did what? Let us create man in our image and likeness: he stops; he ponders; he discusses. And this is not because God is confused or he doesn't know what to do. The Fathers tell us no, that we shouldn't think this way. God forbid that we should think that God didn't know what to do with us. No, not that kind of deliberation, but rather, what God is doing here is showing you and me just how precious we are. Listen to what St. Basil says, he says:
''''Let us make''. The wise one deliberates, the Craftsman ponders. So did he lose his skill, and did he deliberate in anxiety as he created his masterpiece completion and perfection and exactitude? Or rather did he intend to show you that you are perfect before God?'' (St. Basil the Great, On the Origin of Humanity, Discourse 1)
St. Basil is asking: do you think he asked this question or he stopped to say ''let us make'' because he was anxious or he was worried or he didn't know what to do? No! He has done this so he can show you and me our perfection, that we are truly God's masterpiece. The human being truly was and is intended to still be God's masterpiece, that we can still bear the divine image within us. And so the human being before the fall truly is created as God's perfect creation. This is why He places in us the greatest gift: His very own life-giving Spirit. Now when we speak of the life-giving Spirit, we have to speak of life. And if we speak of life, it has to be life unending: immortality. So St. Cyril, he says in his commentary on the Gospel of Luke, in the second part of the commentary, he says very simply:
''The God of all therefore created all things for immortality,...'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Luke, Part 2)
He created us so that we can choose to life forever and don't ever forget this. When we read Scripture in the book, in the first chapters of the book of Genesis, it says that God placed many trees in the garden but there's only two trees that are named: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of which God said: of this tree alone do not eat. He said: the day that you will eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die. But there's another tree that we receive its name and that's the tree of life, the tree of life which was given to us so we can have access to life eternal.
So we can choose life rather than choosing what? What were the two options? The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But I want you to pay attention to what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil really offers. He says: and the day you will eat of it, you will surely die. In the original text, it's: the day you will eat of it, you will die the death; you will suffer a death; you will inherit death or death will overtake you; you will die the death, it says. That's in the original Hebrew.
And so what were really the two options? Choose the tree of life or choose the tree that leads to death? So the real options that were placed in front of humanity were what? Choose life or choose death. God created us to choose life. God created us free so we can freely choose life.
Now some people might ask and say: but why did he place the tree of the knowledge of good and evil if he didn't want us to eat of it? Now it's interesting because the early Church Fathers actually tell us that eventually, at the right time, when humanity had grown in relationship with God, when we had matured in our likeness, when we had properly carried the image of God within us, that there would have been a time where we would have eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But because it was done prematurely, before the relationship, because it was done before choosing life, then everything led us to disobedience. And so God places the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because if he doesn't, then there's no free choice. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil exists and is placed in the garden as
the single option that takes us away from God. Everything else, he says, of all the trees in the garden you may freely eat; do what you want.
The Lord even brings, in chapter 2 of Genesis, He brings all the animals into the presence of Adam and He tells Adam: you name the animals; they are yours to name. And what does it mean to allow the human being to name the animals? Think of it today. Who gets to place a name on your child? Only you! The neighbours don't name your child; the priest doesn't name your child; only you name your child. Why is that? Because it is yours, or the child is yours ─ forgive me: not ''it'' ─ he or she is yours. And only the author of, or the parent of, or the one who gave life to this being can name him.
But the Lord God says: Adam, all of this was for you. All of it's for you, so you go ahead and name it. So Adam named all of the animals in Genesis, chapter 2. And so God is telling him: everything is for you, but there is one thing that I must place for you to have free choice, for you to have free will, because if I remove this, then you don't freely choose Me: you have no choice but to suffer the fact that I have created you like this. And so here, what's really happening is that God is saying: I place this, don't touch it, because if you do, then you will die the death; the day you will eat of it, you will surely die. But of everything else, God has created us so we can choose life, but we don't choose life, unfortunately. St. Cyril says here:
''The God of all therefore created all things for immortality, and the beginning of the worlds were life;...'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Luke, Part 2)
But he very quickly continues and says what?
''...but by the envy of the devil death entered into the world: for it was that rebel serpent who led the first man unto the transgression of the commandment, and to disobedience, by means of which he fell under the divine curse, and into the net of death...'' (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Luke, Part 2)
While we were created to be in union with God, to live in a state of incorruption, and to participate in God's life of eternity, of immortality, when we chose to separate ourselves from God, we separated ourselves from the source of life. When we separated ourselves from Him who is incorruptible, we fell into corruption. When we separated ourselves and alienated ourselves from Him who is the author of good, of compassion, of truth, of life, then He can no longer dwell within us, and so we were no longer united to Him. We were separated from Him and now we have even lost the Holy Spirit.
So my beloved, it seems like so far, what we have discussed is what the human being was intended to look like when God created us in His image and likeness in the very beginning before we fell away. God willing, in the next discussion that we're going to have, we are going to focus very much on what the effects of the fall were. We've seen how God intended for us to be before we fell away and what it meant to carry God's image and likeness, to live in
union, to live a state of incorruption, to live to have life; and now we will see how the fall actually steals away from us those three very important things. It leads us to a state of corruption, it introduces death into our beings and it alienates us from God.
And next time, God willing, we will discuss all of those things and we will also discuss the divine dilemma. The divine dilemma here is: What does God do? What Does God do now to solve this problem, that the human being who is created in His image and likeness suddenly finds himself in? All of this will be discussed in greater detail in the next lecture.
To God be all glory now and forever and unto the ages of all ages. Amen.
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