St Gregory of Nyssa On the Early Deaths of Infants, Complete

Translated by W. Moore and H. A. Wilson

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14 Pages

Page 14

I will bring forward to meet this question of yours a reason which transcends all human arguments. Somewhere in his utterances the great David declares that some portion of the blessedness of the virtuous will consist in this; in contemplating side by side with their own felicity the perdition of the reprobate. He says, "The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance; he shall wash his hands in the blood of the ungodly [1578] "; not indeed as rejoicing over the torments of those sufferers, but as then most completely realizing the extent of the well-earned rewards of virtue. He signifies by those words that it will be an addition to the felicity of the virtuous and an intensification of it, to have its contrary set against it. In saying that "he washes his hands in the blood of the ungodly" he would convey the thought that "the cleanness of his own acting in life is plainly declared in the perdition of the ungodly." For the expression "wash" represents the idea of cleanness; but no one is washed, but is rather defiled, in blood; whereby it is clear that it is a comparison with the harsher forms of punishment that puts in a clearer light the blessedness of virtue. We must now summarize our argument, in order that the thoughts which we have expanded may be more easily retained in the memory. The premature deaths of infants have nothing in them to suggest the thought that one who so terminates his life is subject to some grievous misfortune, any more than they are to be put on a level with the deaths of those who have purified themselves in this life by every kind of virtue; the more far-seeing Providence of God curtails the immensity of sins in the case of those whose lives are going to be so evil. That some of the wicked have lived on [1579] does not upset this reason which we have rendered; for the evil was in their case hindered in kindness to their parents; whereas, in the case of those whose parents have never imparted to them any power of calling upon God, such a form of the Divine kindness [1580] , which accompanies such a power, is not transmitted to their own children; otherwise the infant now prevented by death from growing up wicked would have exhibited a far more desperate wickedness than the most notorious sinners, seeing that it would have been unhindered. Even granting that some have climbed to the topmost pinnacle of crime, the Apostolic view supplies a comforting answer to the question; for He Who does everything with Wisdom knows how to effect by means of evil some good. Still further, if some occupy a pre-eminence in crime, and yet for all that have never been a metal, to use our former illustration, that God's skill has used for any good, this is a case which constitutes an addition to the happiness of the good, as the Prophet's words suggest; it may be reckoned as not a slight element in that happiness, nor, on the other hand, as one unworthy of God's providing.

[1578] Ps. lviii. 10.

[1579] epibionai tinas ton kakon: or, "That some have lived on in their sins."

[1580] i.e.as letting them live, and mitigating the evil of their lives.



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