lO PROLEGOMENA. So the Devil fell : and the proclivity to evil was introduced into the spiritual world. Man, however, still looked to God and was filled with blessings (this is the ' ideal man ' of Gregory). But as when the flame has got hold of a wick one cannot dim its light by means of the flame itself, but only by mixing water with the oil in the wick, so the Enemy eff'ected the weakening of God's blessings in man by cunningly mixing wickedness in his will^ as he had mixed it in his own. From first to last, then, evil lies in the npoaipeais and in nothing else. God knew what would happen and sufl"ered it, that He might not destroy our freedom, the inahenable heritage of reason and therefore a portion of His image in us. ^ He 'gave scope to evil for a nobler end.' Gregory calls it a piece of '* little mindedness " to argue from evil either the weakness or the wickedness of God. II. His remarks on the relation between the ideal and the actual Man are very interesting. It is usual with the other Fathers, in speaking of man's original perfection, to take the moment of the first man's residence in Paradise, and to regard the 7vhole ofhuman nature as there repre- sented by the first two human beings. Gregory is far removed from this way of looking at the matter. With him human perfection is the ' idea ' of humanity : he sees already in the bodily- created Adam the fallen man. The present man is not to be distinguished from that bodily Adam ; both fall below the ideal type. Gregory seems to put the Fall beyond and before the beginning of history. * Under the form of narrative Moses places before us mere doctrine ^' The loacs classicus about the idea and the reality ofhuman nature is On the Maki?tg ofMan, I. p. 88 f. He sketches both in a masterly way. He speaks of the division of the human race into male and female as a ' device ' (eTnTexvrjais), implying that it was not the first ' organization ' (KaraaKevrj). He hints that the irrational element was actually provided by the Creator, Who fore- saw the Fall and the Redemption, for man to sin in ; as if man immediately upon the creation of the perfect humanity became a mixed nature (spirit and flesh), and his fall was not a mere accident, but a necessary consequence ofthis mixed nature. Adam must have fallen : there was no perfect humanity in Paradise. In man's mixed nature of spirit and flesh nutrition is the basis of his sensation, and sensation is the basis of his thought ; and so it was inevitable that sin through this lower yet vital side of man should enter in. So ingrained is the spirit with the flesh in the whole history of actual humanity that all the varieties of all the souls that ever have lived or ever shall, arise from this very mixture ; i.e. from the varying degrees of either factor in each. But as Gregory's view here touches, though in striking contrast, on Origen's, more will be said about it in the next chapter. It follows from this that Gregory, as Clement and Basil before him, did not look upon Original Sin as the accidental or extraordinary thing which it was afterwards regarded. 'From a man who is a sinner and subject to passion of course is engendered a man who is a sinner and subject to passion : sin being in a manner born with him, and growing with his growth, and not dying with it' And yet he says elsewhere, "An infant who is just born is not culpable, nor does it merit punishment ; just as he who has been baptized has no account to give of his past sins, since they are forgiven ; " and he calls infants cLTTov-qpoi^ 'not having in the least admitted the disease into their soul.' But these two views can of course be reconciled ; the infant at the moment of its physical birth starts with sins fo/'-gotten, just as at the moment of its spiritual birth it starts with sins forgiven. No actual sin has been committed. But then its nature has lost the dnaOeia-j the inevitable weakness of its ancestry is in it. III. ' Spirit.' Speaking of the soul, Gregory asks, 'How can that which is incomposite be dissolved?' i.e. the soul is spirit, and spirit is incomposite and therefore indestructible. But care must be taken not to infer too much from this his favourite expression ' spirit ' in connexion with the soul. ' God is spirit ' too ; and we are incUned to forget that this I On Infants' early Deaths, III. p. 336. 2 Qr. Cat. c. viii. D.