Section CXC

To this, then, it advanced, when at length the Only-begotten appeared visibly and omitted nothing of those things which he had received in command from the Father. “Of all these things,” Gregory continues¹, “κεφάλαιον ἕν, ἡ ἐμὴ τελείωσις καὶ ἀνάπλασις, καὶ πρὸς τὸν πρῶτον Ἀδὰμ ἐπάνοδος, this is the one head and this the single end: my perfection and restoration, and a return to the first Adam.” Christ therefore came as the new origin of the human race, as the new Adam, and saved all, not even one excepted. Gregory teaches this when², weighing the sense in which the future³ subjection of Christ ought to be understood, he says:

Just as for the sake of my salvation he was called a curse⁴, who loosed my curse; and sin⁵, who takes away the sin of the world; καὶ Ἀδὰμ ἀντὶ τοῦ παλαιοῦ γίνεται νέος, and in place of the old Adam⁶ he is made the new Adam: in the same manner he also takes my disobedience and rebellion upon himself, as the head of the whole body. Therefore, so long as I myself am disobedient and turbulent … so long also, so far as concerns me, Christ is said to be disobedient. But when all things have been subjected to him (and they will be subjected both through acknowledgment and through transformation), then he too will have completed the subjection, bringing me, now having obtained salvation.

He teaches the latter when, after recounting⁷ the prodigies which accompanied Christ’s death and resurrection, he adds:

Οὐδὲν δὲ οἷον τὸ θαῦμα τῆς ἐμῆς σωτηρίας· ῥανίδες αἵματος ὀλίγαι κόσμον ὅλον ἀναπλάττουσαι, καὶ γίνονται καθάπερ ἔπος γάλακτι πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις, εἰς ἓν ἡμᾶς συνδέουσαι καὶ συνάγουσαι. Yet nothing is comparable with the miracle of my salvation, in which a few drops of blood restored the whole world and performed for all men the same office as rennet for milk, binding and gathering us into one.

He writes things consonant with these⁸ where, after enumerating those things which within the limits of nature are common to all men, enlarging the enumeration, he adds:

To bring forward still greater things, I regard reason, the Law, the Prophets as common, αὐτὰ τὰ Χριστοῦ πάθη, δι᾽ ὧν ἀνεπλάσθημεν, οὐχ ὁ μὲν, ὁ δ᾽ οὐ⁹, πάντες δὲ οἱ τοῦ αὐτοῦ Ἀδὰμ μετασχόντες, καὶ ὑπὸ τοῦ ὄφεως παραλογισθέντες, καὶ τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ θανατωθέντες, καὶ διὰ τοῦ ἐπουρανίου Ἀδὰμ ἀνασωθέντες, καὶ πρὸς τὸ ξύλον τῆς ζωῆς ἐπαναχθέντες, διὰ τοῦ ξύλου¹⁰ τῆς ἀτιμίας ὅθεν ἀποπεπτώκαμεν, the very sufferings of Christ, through which we all, without any exception, have been restored—we who participated in the same Adam, were led into deception by the serpent, were put to death through sin, were restored to salvation through the heavenly Adam, and were recalled to the tree of life, from which we had fallen, through the tree of ignominy.

Whence he calls absolutely all men¹¹ τοὺς τῆς αὐτῆς ζωῆς κληρονόμους, ὑπὲρ ὧν Χριστὸς ὁμοίως ἀπέθανεν, heirs of the same life, and those for whom Christ equally died. Concerning the same persons he also sings¹²:

Εἷς νόμος, εἷς δὲ Θεός· κλῆσις μία· πάντας ὁμοίως
Σωθῆναι Χριστὸς σαρκ᾽ ἀποδυσαμένους
Βούλεται.

“One law, one God, the same calling; Christ wills all alike to be saved when they have put off the flesh.”

And again¹³:

Θεὸς βροτὸν οὐκ ἀθερίζει,
ᾯ θάνεν, ὃν συνέγειρε, καὶ ᾧ Θεὸς ἵξεται αὖτις.

“God does not despise the mortal for whom he died, whom he raised together with himself, and to whom God will come again.”

By all these things the universality of reparation is proved with such perspicuity that it must be deemed like a prodigy if anyone should attempt to distort them and wrench them into foreign senses.

Lest anyone should take this upon himself, Gregory further prevents it by those testimonies in which, by a distributive form of discourse, he proclaims that the individuals also were redeemed and restored.

For, according to him, a) each sex, man and woman, obtained equal mercy from Christ. “Ἀμφοτέρους,” he says¹⁴, “σώζει Χριστὸς τοῖς πάθεσιν· ὑπὲρ ἀνδρὸς σὰρξ ἐγένετο; τοῦτο καὶ ὑπὲρ γυναικός· ὑπὲρ ἀνδρὸς ἀπέθανε; καὶ ἡ γυνὴ τῷ θανάτῳ σώζεται· Christ saved both through his suffering. Was he made flesh for man? Likewise for woman. Did he undergo death for man? By his death salvation was likewise obtained for woman.”

According to him, b) Christ redeemed heretics¹⁵, τὰ ἀχάριστα κτίσματα, ungrateful creatures, and those ὑπὲρ ὧν δωρεὰν ἀπέθανε, for whom he died in vain.

He redeemed c) even the most flagitious; whence Gregory does not so much address Julian in these words as most bitterly rebuke him¹⁶: “You against Christ’s sacrifice with your expiatory victims? Σὺ κατὰ τοῦ τὸν κόσμον καθήραντος αἵματος, τοῖς σοῖς αἵμασι; You against that blood by which the world was purified, with your own bloodshed? You, war against peace? Σὺ χεῖρα κατὰ τῆς ὑπὲρ σοῦ ἡλωθείσης τε καὶ διὰ σέ; You, a hand against that hand which was pierced with nails both for you and because of you?”

Indeed, d) he did not pass over even those by whom he was afflicted with the ultimate punishment. For¹⁷ καὶ ὑπὲρ τῶν σταυρούντων αὐτὸν, even for those crucifying him, he most benignly poured out tears.