The souls death sentence, brought into effect by mans transgression, was in accord with the Creators justice; for when our forefathers forsook God and chose to do their own will, He abandoned them, not subjecting them to constraint. God in His compassion had already forewarned them of this sentence (cf. Gen. 2:17). But in the abyss of His wisdom and the superabundance of His compassion he forbore and delayed in executing the sentence of death upon the body; and when He did pronounce it He relegated its execution to the future. He did not say to Adam, Return whence you were taken, but You are earth, and to earth you will return (Gen. 3:19). Those who listen to these words with intelligence can gather from them that God did not make death (cf. Wisd. 1:13), neither that of the soul nor that of the body. He did not originally give the command, Die on the day you eat of it; on the contrary, He said simply, You will die on the day you eat of it (Gen. 2:17). Nor did He say, Return now to earth, but You will return (Gen. 3:19). This He said as a forewarning, but He then delayed its just execution, without prejudicing the eventual outcome. St Gregory Palamas Topics of Natural and Theological Science and on the Moral and Ascetic Life: One Hundred and Fifty Texts
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 11:56:15 +0000
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