Gregory the Dialogist

But Dionysius the Areopagite, that ancient and venerable Father, is said to declare that from the lesser hosts of angels some are sent forth to fulfill their ministry either visibly or invisibly, namely because angels or archangels come for human consolation. For those higher hosts never withdraw from the inner places, since those who are preeminent have no function of external ministry. This seems to be contradicted by what Isaiah says: "And one of the Seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a coal which he had taken with tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth." But in this statement of the prophet, he wants it understood that the spirits who are sent receive the name of those whose office they perform. For the angel who carries a coal from the altar to burn up the sins of speech is called a Seraphim, which means burning. This interpretation is also believed to be supported not unsuitably by what is said through Daniel: "Thousands of thousands ministered to him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before him." For ministering is one thing, and standing before is another, because those minister to God who also go out to us announcing; but those stand before who so enjoy inward contemplation that they are not at all sent forth to accomplish external works.

Because the prophet recognized that the Jewish people would perish from the faith and because he foresaw that there would arise within the church holy apostles, through whom many of the Gentiles would be established in the strength of faith and life, he spoke with great encouragement, saying, “The stones have fallen, but we will build with square stones.” Having foreseen the rise of the apostles, martyrs and doctors of the holy church, he was less troubled by the fall of the stones, which represents the judgment of the Jews, because he also saw the work of Almighty God, which is the holy church built from square stones.Four tables were built from the square stones, therefore, inasmuch as faith, life, patience and kindness were given from the lives of the saints as an example for the people to follow, that they might already have a foretaste of the table. That is, the people might know the virtues through which they can offer a sacrifice of prayer to Almighty God on the altars of their hearts.
Whatever good the faithful people of the holy church have done or continue to do, then, they first received from the exemplary lives of their preachers. For how could they have acquired this foretaste of the table if they had not found the square stones?
Let’s look briefly at each of them, dearest brothers. Do you want to see an instance of faith? “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Would you like to know what life is like? “The world is crucified to me and I to the world.” Do you want to hear what patience sounds like? “To the present hour we hunger, we are buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our hands. We are cursed and we bless, we are persecuted and we endure, we are slandered and we implore.”

Against them the prophet complains to the Lord, saying, “You have bruised them, and they have refused to receive correction.” … Hence again the Lord says, “The people are not returned to him who has struck them.” … Hence the Lord reproaches the people of Israel, captive yet not converted from their iniquity, saying, “The house of Israel is become dross to me; all these are brass, and tin, and iron and lead, in the midst of the furnace.” This is as though he said unmistakably, “I wished to purify them in the fire of tribulation, and I wanted them to become silver or gold. But they have turned from me in the furnace into brass, and tin, and iron and lead, because even in tribulation they have rushed forward not to virtue but to vices.” When brass is struck, it gives off a greater sound than do other metals. He … who when chastised breaks forth into sounds of murmuring has turned to brass in the midst of the furnace. Tin, however, when skillfully treated, presents the deceptive appearance of silver. He therefore who is not free from the vice of pretence in the midst of tribulation has become tin in the furnace. But he uses iron who plots against the life of the neighbor, and he is iron in the furnace when he does not put away in his tribulations the wickedness of doing harm to neighbors. Lead, again, is heavier than the other metals. He then is found to be lead in the furnace who is so weighed down by the burden of his sin that even in tribulation he is not raised above earthly desires.

Where the head and the tail are said through the prophet to be destroyed, it is clear that priests are designated by the head and prophets by the tail. The crown, therefore, is removed from the head when those who are seen to preside over the body of the church abandon the rewards of heavenly compensation. Once its leaders fall, normally, the army that follows them also succumbs. Hence, soon after the condemnation of the leaders, Job comments on the manifold afflictions of the church: “He destroyed me on every side, and I perish; and he has removed my hope like uprooting a tree.” For the church is destroyed on every side and perishes in the persons of its sick members when those who seem to be its strength are corrupted, that is, when the crown is removed from the head because its leaders have abandoned their pursuit of eternal rewards. It is in reference to the sick who have fallen that Job then adds, fittingly: “and he removed my hope like uprooting a tree.” A tree is felled by a gust of wind. And what is more similar to a person who falls into unrighteousness as a result of being terrorized with threats than a tree that loses its straightness because of the wind?

There are seven steps to the gate because the way to heavenly life is opened to us through the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit. Isaiah locates this sevenfold grace in our Head himself, or in his body which we are: “The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and piety, and the Spirit of the fear of the Lord will fill him.” He is speaking here from the perspective of heaven, clearly numbering the steps in descending rather than ascending order: wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge, piety and fear. Because it is written, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” the way consists beyond doubt in ascending from fear to wisdom, not in regressing from wisdom to fear, for wisdom surely has perfect charity. It is also written: “Perfect charity casts out fear.” The prophet, therefore, because he reasoned from heavenly realities to the lower things, began with wisdom and descended toward fear.We, however, who strive from the earthly toward the heavenly, enumerate the same steps in the ascending order to enable us to make progress from fear to wisdom. In our minds, then, the first step on the way to heaven is the fear of the Lord, the second godliness, the third knowledge, the fourth strength, the fifth counsel, the sixth understanding, and the seventh wisdom. For the fear of the Lord is in the mind. But what kind of fear is it if it is not accompanied by godliness?

For behold, we who appear clothed in a religious habit have come together from various states of life in the world for the sake of faith in the omnipotent Lord and for hearing his word. We were gathered from many kinds of iniquity into the concord of holy church to make it seen clearly that what was said through the prophet Isaiah about the promise of the church has been accomplished: “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid.” For it is through the organs of holy charity that the wolf will dwell with the lamb, since those who were plunderers in the world now rest in peace with the meek and the tame. And the leopard will lie down with the kid because the person who was stained with the multitude of his sins now agrees to be humbled with the person who despises himself and confesses himself to be a sinner. Isaiah also adds, “and the calf and the lion and the sheep will remain together.” One who prepares himself as a daily sacrifice to God through a contrite heart, and another who once raged with cruelty like a lion, and yet another who remains in the simplicity of his innocence like a lamb have all come together in the folds of holy church. Behold the kind of charity that enkindles, consumes, melds and reforms such a diversity of minds as though into one species of gold.

Paul testifies to our Redeemer when he says, “He was made a curse for us.” The wood of the cross is also announced through the prophet, who said, “The Lord reigned from a tree,” and again, “Let us put wood in his bread.” But the wood of the cross is explicitly revealed through the gospel, where the prophesied passion of the Lord is described.This very same cross is also maintained in words and works through the apostles, as when Paul writes, “The world is crucified to me and I to the world,” and again, “May I glory in nothing except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” For us who strive to reach the eternal homeland, therefore, sacred Scripture is the sea in its four aspects. It announces the cross because it bears us on a tree to the land of the living. Had the prophet not found a likeness between sacred Scripture and the sea, he never would have said, “The earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord, like the waters covering the sea.” It follows, then: “The four had one likeness and their appearance and work was like a wheel within a wheel.” The four had one likeness because what the law proclaimed, so also did the prophets; and what the prophets announced, the gospel set forth; and what the gospel set forth, the apostles proclaimed throughout the world. The likeness of the four is one, therefore, because even though the divine words are distinct with regard to time, they are nevertheless unified to those who hear them.
“And their appearance and work was like a wheel within a wheel.” The wheel within a wheel is the New Testament within the Old, as we have already said, for what the Old Testament signifies, this the New Testament displays. Let me speak succinctly of complex matters. What does it mean that Eve is produced from a sleeping Adam if not that the church is formed from the dying Christ? What does it mean that Isaac bore wood as he was led to be sacrificed and that he continued to live after he had been laid on the altar, if not that our Redeemer himself bore the wood of the cross as he was led along and that he died in sacrifice for us according to his humanity but nevertheless remained immortal in his divinity?

It is said, as Paul witnesses, “And from sin he condemned sin.” He bound his tongue with a cord, because by means of the likeness of sinful flesh he swept away all his deceitful arguments from the hearts of his elect. For behold, when the Lord appears in the flesh, the tongue of Leviathan is bound, because, when his truth had become known, those doctrines of falsehood were silenced.For where is now the error of the academicians, who endeavor to establish on sure grounds that nothing is sure, who with shameless brow demand from their hearers belief in their assertions, when they declare that nothing is true? Where is the superstition of the mathematicians, who, looking up at the courses of the constellations, make the lives of men to depend on the motions of the stars? Though the birth of twins often scatters their doctrine to the winds; for though born at one and the same moment, they do not remain in the same kind of life. Where are those many false teachings, which we abstain from enumerating, for fear of digressing far from the course of our commentary? But every false doctrine has now been silenced, because the Lord has bound the tongue of Leviathan by the cord of his incarnation. Whence it is also well said by the prophet: “And the Lord shall lay waste the tongue of the Egyptian sea.” For the “tongue of the sea” is the knowledge of secular learning. But it is well called “the Egyptian sea,” because it is darkened with the gloom of sin. The Lord, therefore, laid waste the tongue of the Egyptian sea, because by manifesting himself in the flesh, he destroyed the false wisdom of this world. The tongue of Leviathan is, therefore, bound with a cord, because the preaching of the old sinner was bound by the likeness of sinful flesh.