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Catabasis

Gradual Descent

Catabasis is the figure in which a writing or description descends step by step, each successive expression carrying a decrease or a deeper degradation. The steps lead not to a summit but to a depth. Catabasis is the opposite figure of Anabasis (ascent) and is used by the Holy Spirit to emphasise humiliation, dishonour, sorrow, or increasing distress. The two figures must be read together so that the contrast — ascent set against descent — is felt in its full force.

Etymology

Greek κατάβασις (katábasis), from κατά (katá, “down”) and βάσις (básis, “a going”, “step”) — literally “a going down”, “descent”. The Latins rendered the figure as DECREMENTUM (“decrease”, “diminution”), the counterpart of Incrementum: an increase in the opposite direction, an increase of depreciation. Bullinger places the figure directly opposite Anabasis “in order that the contrast may be more clearly seen”.

Definition

The speaker descends step by step. Each successive member sinks lower than the one before, so that the burden, sorrow, or humiliation grows heavier with every tread. Catabasis is no loss of force but a growth in the opposite direction: an accumulation of diminution. The figure serves to express the depth of human humiliation, the increasing decline of kingdoms, the surprising growth of a believer into lowliness, or the complete self-emptying of the Lord Jesus in His humiliation.

Bible examples

Surprising Catabasis as growth in grace — Isa. 40:31:

“They that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.”

The believer first flies (the eager first conversion); as his experience increases, he runs; and at the end of his course he walks. No regress, but a descent that itself displays growth. Bullinger points to Paul’s self-witness in the same three steps: “I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles” (2 Cor. 11:5; 12:11); “less than the least of all saints” (Eph. 3:8); “the chief of sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). The nearer to God, the lower Paul’s estimate of himself fell.

Catabasis in prophetic mourning:

• Jer. 9:1 — “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” A threefold descent: from the head to the eye, and from the eye to weeping day and night.
• Lam. 4:1-2 — “How is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!”

Catabasis in metals and kingdoms:

• Ezek. 22:18 — “Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross: all they are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are even the dross of silver.” Descent in the worth of metals.
• Dan. 2:1-49 — The four successive world-powers in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream image: gold → silver → brass → iron → clay. The deterioration is not only in worth, but in specific gravity: gold 19.3; silver 10.51; brass 8.5; iron 7.6; clay 1.9. A Catabasis from 19.3 to 1.9 — the world’s history descending.

Catabasis declaring God’s inescapable judgment:

• Amos 9:2-3 — “Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down: and though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them.” Catabasis driven to the uttermost to picture the impossibility of escape from God’s judgment.

Catabasis in the humiliation of Christ — Phil. 2:6-8:

The seven downward steps of the Lord Jesus:

1. “Who, being in the form of God,”
2. “thought it not robbery to be equal with God:”
3. “but made himself of no reputation,”
4. “and took upon him the form of a servant,”
5. “and was made in the likeness of men:”
6. “and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself,”
7. “and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

These seven descending steps are answered in vv. 9-11 by seven ascending steps in His glorification — Catabasis and Anabasis as two sides of the perfect work of the second Man. Bullinger notes the word “robbery” — Greek ἁρπαγμός (harpagmós) — which denotes not the thing seized but the act of seizing. The first Adam and his wife grasped at equality with God under the serpent’s temptation; the second Man, in whom equality with God was essential, never once grasped at it (the Aorist ἡγήσατο: He never admitted the thought even for an instant), but descended to the death of the cross.

Related figures

• anabasis — the opposite figure: gradual ascent; to be studied together, as Catabasis and Anabasis display their full force only in mutual contrast (cf. Phil. 2:6-11)
• tapeinosis — kindred figure of demeaning; Tapeinosis diminishes within a single statement, Catabasis descends across several parallel members
• meiosis — also a figure of diminution, but Meiosis lessens once where Catabasis lessens by stairs
• hyperbole — Hyperbole and Catabasis may work together: a descent driven into an impossibly-deep depth (cf. Amos 9:2-3)

Source

E.W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (1898), pp. 429-434.