By The European Times | Created at 2026-06-18 06:27:19 | Updated at 2026-06-18 10:08:25
3 hours ago
By St. Gregory of Nyssa
Indeed, this great and priceless good, man, did not yet exist in the world of created things. It would not, of course, be natural for the ruler to appear before his subjects appeared; but once the foundation is prepared, then the king must also rise.
And so, the Creator of the universe prepared in advance a kind of royal palace for the one who was to reign: these were the earth, the islands, and the sea, and above them the sky, curved like a roof. And in these palaces was placed a diverse wealth—the whole of creation: plants and greenery, everything that feels, breathes, and has a soul; and, if we must say everything, this wealth also includes the substances that, because of their variegation and brilliance, the human eye considers valuable—gold, silver, and those stones that people love.
The Creator hid all this abundance as in royal treasuries, and only then brought man into the world, to be a spectator of some of the wonders, and a master of others. Thus, through delight, he might know the reason of the Giver, and through the beauty and greatness of the visible, to attain the ineffable and beyond all reason power of the Creator. For this reason, man was brought into being last, after the rest of creation – not as rejected or cast off, but because it was fitting for him from his very birth to be king over those lower than himself. The kind-hearted host does not invite a guest to the table before he has prepared the dishes; but once he has decorated the house with appropriate decorations, arranged the seats and the table, then he brings in the fellow diners, when everything for the meal is already ready.
In the same way, the generous, rich in goods, Master of nature, after decorating the dwelling with all possible beauties and preparing this great and varied feast, then introduced man, but not to seek what he lacked, but to enjoy what was before him. And he gave him a double pledge, mixing the divine and the earthly; so, with these two principles, he would be related and close to each of the two joys – enjoying God through his divine nature, and earthly goods through their related senses.
Source in Greek: Περὶ κατασκευῆς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, 2. Άπαντα τα Έργα. 5. Ερμηνευτικά Α΄. Thessaloniki 1987.
